This Enemy Town (11 page)

“Amanda,” she said. “Amanda Crisp.” She nodded toward her colleague, who at one point or another had
joined us in the bedroom and now lounged tall against the door frame. “And that's Special Agent Elizabeth Taylor.”

Taylor was a solid, sour-faced woman whose muscular arms and broad shoulders seemed custom-designed for blocking any attempt on my part to escape. She wore her dark hair in a ponytail tied low at the nape of her neck and not a speck of jewelry. Somehow I didn't find the knowledge that she shared a name—and little else—with a famous movie star reassuring. If we got into a Good Cop/Bad Cop situation, I knew which one of them would be the first to aim a five-thousand-watt klieg light in my face.

I touched my ears, then pointed at the dresser where my jewelry box sat. “Earrings?”

Amanda Crisp shook her head. “We don't recommend you wear jewelry.”

I glanced at my engagement ring. The young Paul Ives had slaved all summer to earn the money for that ring, sweating from sunup to sundown in a South County tobacco field. It was only a third of a carat, but more precious to me than the Hope diamond.

Crisp noticed. “And you'd better leave that at home, too, Mrs. Ives. They're just going to take it away from you.”

“They?” I croaked. “Who's they?”

“The U.S. Marshals at the Federal Courthouse in Baltimore. That's where you'll be arraigned.”

I swayed on my feet, suddenly dizzy. “I need to sit down.”

Crisp held up a hand, palm out. “Just a minute.” While Agent Taylor kept her eagle eyes trained on me, Agent Crisp shook out the bedding and laid it aside. Using both hands, she tipped up the mattress and looked underneath, checking (I supposed) for any handguns I might have hidden in the box springs. Then she peered under the bed. “Okay. You can sit.”

I plopped down on the edge of the mattress, inhaled deeply, and held my breath, as if by not breathing, I could
stop time. It didn't work. I wrapped my right hand around my ring finger and considered what she'd just told me. “No,” I said after a few minutes. “I'm not going to take my ring off. And if anybody tries to take it from me, I'm going to fight them for it!” I waved my hand in the air. “How can I possibly hurt myself with this?”

Crisp shrugged. “Your choice, but I think you're going to find that the U.S. Marshals are not particularly good ‘people people,' if you know what I mean. They'll want to take it from you and put it in an envelope with your personal effects. Trust me. It'll be much safer with your husband.”

Personal effects
. They were talking about me as if I'd died.

Maybe I had, and instead of going to heaven, I'd ended up in hell. Maybe that's why my bladder was giving me fits all of a sudden. “Can I use the bathroom?” I asked.

Agent Crisp nodded. She gestured to Agent Taylor, who pushed herself away from the door frame and ambled into the bathroom. Taylor opened the medicine cabinet, ran her fingers over the items inside, removing a brown prescription bottle. I had no idea what it contained. She peered into the cabinet under the sink, lifted each towel. She peeked inside the toilet tank, too, checking for weapons there, also, I presumed.

Satisfied, she motioned me inside, then assumed a watchful position near the open bathroom door.

I stood by the toilet, waiting for her to leave, but she didn't move a single one of her oh-so-solid muscles. I needed to pee, but there was no way I could do it, not while Taylor was watching me. So I brushed my teeth. Made a production of washing and drying my face and my hands, anything to delay the inevitable.

Then I finished dressing and they escorted me downstairs.

“Where's your coat?” Crisp inquired when we reached the entrance hall.

Coat. I'd forgotten about a coat. It was February. It was cold outside. Why was I so hot?

Without any direction from me, Crisp located the closet, selected a black corduroy car coat with a fake leopard collar that used to belong to my daughter, and held it out. I was too exhausted to correct her.

Crisp patted down the pockets of Emily's coat before helping me into it. I was allowed to fasten the buttons, then we began what would become a ritual over the next several hours: coat on, handcuffs on, handcuffs off, coat off, handcuffs on. This time, though, the handcuffs went on in front.

While all this was going on, Paul stared at me forlornly from the chair in the entrance hall. “Hannah, Hannah,” he crooned as the cuffs tightened around my wrists.

With a firm hand on my back, Crisp guided me toward the front door.

“Call your lawyer! Call Murray Simon,” I yelled to Paul over my shoulder. “But please, don't tell Emily!”

Paul shot from the chair. “Don't worry, Hannah. Murray and I'll get you out of there. You'll be home for dinner. I promise.”

“I know you will. And Paul? Don't
you
worry. I beat cancer, and I can beat this, too.”

On the narrow one-way street outside our house an unmarked Ford Taurus idled, blocking traffic. Behind it, an irate motorist began backing up. I recognized the driver as one of my neighbors, Ray Flynt. As I watched Ray turn his car around near the William Paca House and drive the wrong way down Prince George Street, I prayed that he didn't recognize me, that none of my other neighbors were awake and peering out their windows.

Crisp opened the rear door on the passenger side of the Taurus and guided me inside with a gentle hand on my head, just like on TV. After I sat, she leaned inside the car and wove the seat belt through my handcuffs before inserting the buckle in the clip and clicking it shut. Then she
slammed the door, walked around the other side of the car and climbed in next to me. With Agent Taylor behind the wheel, we rolled quietly away.

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I twisted in my seat to look over my shoulder. Paul stood framed in our doorway, barefoot, his bathrobe flapping open in the wind. Light snow had started to fall, each flake a sparkling diamond in the light from our porch lamp. Mother would have grabbed my hand, squeezed and said “Look, Hannah, it's a Winter Wonderland!”

Some Wonderland.

My husband standing half naked in a February snow-storm. And even in the lamplight, I could see he was crying.

“What time is it?” I asked Amanda Crisp as
Agent Taylor steered the Taurus through Annapolis's narrow streets, avoided the ever-present construction on Rowe Boulevard, and eased into the commuter traffic heading west on Route 50.

Agent Crisp stared straight ahead. “Seven.”

Back in my cozy kitchen, the coffeepot would just be kicking into automatic, gurgling cheerfully, in the mistaken assumption that it was going to be just an ordinary day. At that moment I could have killed for a cup of coffee.

Except for the crackle of the police radio, it was quiet inside the car. I wanted to fill the silence with shouting:
I'm innocent! You're making a big mistake!
As if the FBI didn't hear those words twenty times every day.

Instead of heading north on I-97 to Baltimore, Taylor took the Riva Road exit, and I began to panic. “Where are you taking me?”

“The FBI Resident Agency.”

“Oh, right.” I remembered now. That's where they'd “process” me. Whatever the hell that meant.

“What happens there?” I asked.

“We have an automated booking process,” she explained. “JABS. Saves having to do it up in Baltimore.”

I remembered what Crisp had said earlier about the U.S. Marshals not being “people people” and began to relax.

We turned right on Truman Parkway. Just opposite the Farmers Market, Agent Taylor turned into the underground parking garage of an unremarkable brick office building I'd passed a hundred times before. My brain wasn't firing on all cylinders, especially without my usual shot of caffeine, but some questions were beginning to float to the surface.

“Why the FBI?” I asked as Crisp unbuckled my seat belt.

“Lieutenant Goodall was murdered on federal property,” she explained. “That's where we come in.”

“But it's a naval base,” I said. “I thought the NCIS had jurisdiction.”

Crisp stood outside the open car door, looking in. “They do, but we get involved, too, particularly whenever a civilian enters the equation.”

Civilian.
I thought for a moment.
That would be me.

They marched me to the elevator.

A few minutes later I was seated in an ordinary office with ordinary desks and ordinary chairs arranged in ordinary cubicles, just like at Whitworth and Sullivan in Washington, D.C., and every other office where I'd ever worked. Ringing phones and clacking keyboards surrounded me with a familiar and strangely comforting cacophony. There were no bars on the windows to remind me that I was, after all, a prisoner.

But it was false security, I knew. The pounding in my head continued relentlessly.

Agent Crisp removed my handcuffs. I massaged my wrists and stared thirstily at a cup of coffee steaming on an adjoining desk.

Crisp noticed. “Would you like something to eat or drink?”

“Coffee, please.”

“Special Agent Taylor?”

Agent Taylor grunted, and took off to fetch me a cup.

“Cream and sugar!” I called after her. “Please.”

Meanwhile, Amanda Crisp began tapping at her key
board. I couldn't see the monitor, but by the number of times she hit the Tab key, I figured she was filling out some sort of form.

“Okay,” I said when she lifted her fingers from the keyboard for a moment. “I understand that you're only doing your job, but what possible evidence can you have against me?”

“After your lawyer talks to the Assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to your case, he'll have more information for you, Mrs. Ives. You should be able to see your lawyer later today.”

“Aren't you going to ask me any questions?” I asked, gratefully sipping at the coffee Elizabeth Taylor had brought me.

“No, I'm not. You've asked for your attorney, and we're scrupulous about that.”

Agent Crisp finished typing, then took me off to be fingerprinted. I'd expected them to smear ink all over my fingers, but the JABS system was fully automated.

“What's JABS stand for?” I asked as the technician helped me roll each finger on a glass plate.

“Joint Automated Booking System,” he replied, his green eyes bright and serious behind his eyeglasses. “It eliminates the repetitive booking of offenders. All federal law enforcement agencies tap into it. We can collect up to seventy-five data elements about a case,” he said, smiling with pride, as if he'd invented the system himself. “Mug shots, crime scene descriptions, photos of evidence, like that.”

I watched as a bar of light panned across the glass plate like a miniature Xerox machine and he clicked on the button that would send digitized images of my fingertips off to AFIS. I knew what AFIS was: the FBI's automated fingerprint identification system. Then he scanned the four fingers of each of my hands together and sent those images off, too.

When the technician had finished, Amanda Crisp came
to collect me. By then my digestive system had processed the coffee and my bladder was sending out urgent messages. Privacy or no privacy, I knew I couldn't keep my legs crossed forever. “I need to pee,” I told her.

Crisp grinned. “I'm taking Mrs. Ives to the restroom,” she told Agent Taylor as we passed her desk. Together we walked down a long hall. “We don't have a private bathroom,” Crisp explained. “Give me a minute.” While I leaned against the wall, Crisp opened the door to the ladies' room and yelled, “I'm coming in with a prisoner!”

A chorus of toilets flushed in unison and Crisp stepped aside as three secretary types scurried out. I guess they didn't want to share the bathroom with a criminal.

Crisp checked the stalls, then nodded that it was okay for me to go in. She stood sideways holding the stall door open but not looking directly at me while I relieved myself.

My eyes filled with tears. Would I ever again be able to use the bathroom without an audience?

Of course you will,
I told myself.
Murray will move heaven and earth to get you out. Paul will call in all his IOUs. Dennis will pull strings
. They knew I had nothing to do with Jennifer's death.

“We better hurry.” Agent Taylor barged into the ladies' room. With a stubby finger she tapped her watch. “Shit, Amanda, we don't have time to get her up there for the ten o'clock arraignment.”

I stood at the sink, thoroughly soaping my hands.

“We'll have to sit around that freaking courthouse until three,” she complained.

I twisted the tap, adjusting the water temperature.

“Goes with the territory, Liz.”

With the two FBI agents looking on, I rinsed my hands, then dried them carefully on a paper towel. I crumpled the towel into a ball and tossed it into the trash.

Then I smiled. “I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”

“What?” Agent Taylor's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Amanda grinned. “Never mind, Liz.”

Baltimore, Maryland. My second hometown.
Druid Park Zoo, the National Aquarium, the Baltimore Museum of Art. The bliss of Friday nights in August, sitting on a folding chair in Little Italy watching
Casablanca
or
Life Is Beautiful
projected on the side of a building. Saturdays can be perfect, too. Strolling through Fells Point, grabbing the latest thriller from Mystery Loves Company and a cup of coffee from the Daily Grind. My sister Georgina lives in Baltimore, too, in Roland Park with her growing family.

But the feds? I wasn't sure where they hung out up Baltimore way, but when Agent Taylor made the left turn onto Pratt Street, I recognized the Garmatz Building and the statue of Thurgood Marshall, who'd been gazing out over the Inner Harbor for decades.

Regular citizens enter the building via a door behind Thurgood. Prisoners go around back, directly into an underground garage.

As I rode up in the freight elevator between the two agents, I felt strangely detached. Everything had taken on a surreal feeling, something I hadn't experienced since the last time I'd pulled back-to-back all-nighters at Oberlin or … well, since the last time I'd inhaled and enjoyed it. The Welcome to Baltimore sign where someone had
painted in “Hon,” Ravens Stadium, Camden Yards, even the battleship
Constellation
had looked strangely distorted, as if I were seeing them for the first time, or looking at them through the wrong end of a telescope.

Agent Crisp had called ahead. When the steel door slid open, two burly marshals were waiting, solid as trees. We were introduced, I feel sure, but if they had names, I've forgotten them. The big lug, I called Jesse. The shorter hunk, Arnold.

Arnold studied the paperwork Amanda Crisp handed him, raised one bushy eyebrow. “Her attorney's already here, raising hell. Demands to see her right away.”

Jesse scowled. “Tell him to cool his jets. We haven't even searched her yet.”

Her fingers still fastened to my upper arm, Crisp said, “We've already done that. She's clean.”

Jesse puffed up. “You know the rules.”

“We've already searched her, and she hasn't been out of custody.” Crisp's fingers dug more tightly into my arm. A territorial squabble was going on, I was smack dab in the middle of it, and if Amanda Crisp didn't win, I'd be the loser, big-time. I'd be strip-searched: the ultimate humiliation.

While Arnold and Jesse conferred, the second hand on the wall clock jerked from five to six to seven. I decided to create my own distraction. “I
demand
to see my lawyer.”

Jesse turned icy eyes on me, blinked, then looked at Arnold. “So what about her lawyer?”

“Some hot shot.” Arnold was unimpressed. “Tell him she's being processed. Let him wait.”

There was that word again: processed. I was being “processed” like meat or fish or plastic-wrapped squares of cheese food. But at least we'd moved on, and a strip search seemed to be off the agenda.

Crisp released my arm and said, “I'll see you later in
court, Mrs. Ives,” before disappearing through the door we'd just come through. As the door slid shut, I stared after her like a lost friend, feeling completely abandoned.

Arnold took charge. My photo was taken, front and sides like the Unibomber, then transmitted to Washington as data element who-knows-what in the profile being built up on me in JABS.

Afterward, Jesse escorted me to a holding cell painted the color of mucous, handed me a white cardboard box, and slid the door shut behind me.

“What's this?” I asked, indicating the box.

“Lunch,” he grunted.

I hadn't had anything to eat since dinner the previous night, but with acid gnawing at the lining of my stomach, just the thought of food made me want to barf.

I set the box unopened on the only furniture in the room—a bench molded into the wall—and paced out my temporary home—eight feet by eight feet. Was this miserable cell a preview of coming attractions? Would I spend the rest of my life pacing and pacing, staring at four blank walls? No, I corrected myself: three blank walls and a fourth wall with bars on it.

I slouched on the bench, with my back against the wall, my feet dangling, not even able to touch the floor.

I was finally, blessedly alone.

But instead of relaxing, I started to shake. My teeth chattered. I longed for my coat, but they'd taken that away. No scarves, no belts, no panty hose, either. If I wanted to end it all, my only hope was to roll off the bench and conk my head on the floor.

Breathe, Hannah, breathe!

I closed my eyes. Behind my eyelids a tropical island began to materialize: palm trees, frangipani, planter's punch on shaved ice with a tiny umbrella, waves gently licking a white sand beach.

Breathe! In through your nose, out through your mouth.

Warm breezes, sun sparkling on water clear as gin, snorkel and swim fins, a tropical reef with fishes darting in and out and …

Sharks!

My eyelids flew open. I'd have to tell Ruth that I tried, but visualized meditation simply didn't work in a jail cell. My shui was definitely all fenged up.

For lack of anything better to do, I opened the lunch box and sorted through the contents, laying each item out on the bench next to me. A ham sandwich. A packet of chips. A bottle of water. An apple that looked like it'd lost one too many rounds with a croquet mallet. Who had packed this mess? Prisoners? I leaned my head against the wall, fighting back tears. Would I spend the rest of my life eating crap like this? I had new respect for prisoners of war like Admirals Bill Lawrence and William Stockdale. I was going stir-crazy after only an hour; they'd been locked up and tortured by the North Vietnamese for more than six years.

“I want my lawyer!” I screamed to deaf walls. “I have a right to talk to my lawyer!”

It was probably only a coincidence, but several minutes later Arnold appeared. “Mrs. Ives? Your lawyer is here.”

I could have kissed his scruffy cheek.

Arnold escorted me to a nearby room, where Murray sat at a table on the opposite side of a glass window. I hadn't seen Murray Simon since the grandchildren were born and Paul and I had updated our wills. Murray had the same round face, a little less sandy hair, and had switched from aviator glasses to a pair of trendy, narrow European-style frames.

As usual, Murray zeroed in on what was bothering me most. Before I could even say “Hi,” Murray got right to the point. “Don't worry, Hannah, we'll get you out of here.”

I folded my arms on the table and rested my forehead on them. “Thank God!”

I took a deep breath and gazed up at my attorney. I'd opened my mouth to ask the next question, but once again Murray was ahead of me. “You're going to be arraigned sometime after three o'clock. There's nothing I can do about that. You'll plead not guilty, of course, and we'll get you home by dinnertime.”

“Not guilty to murder, you mean?” My mouth was dry, my throat so tight I could barely get the word out.
Murder
.

“No, you're being charged with manslaughter, Hannah.” Murray paused, waiting for that information to sink in.

“Manslaughter? But what evidence does the FBI have against me?”

“Doesn't look good. They found the murder weapon.”

I stared at him stupidly.

“It was a hammer, Hannah. They found it in the Dumpster behind Nimitz Library. And I'm afraid your fingerprints are all over it.”

I fell back against the chair. “Of course my fingerprints are all over it, Murray! I was building sets with the damn thing!”

“It gets worse,” Murray said.

“How could it
possibly
get any worse?”

“The hammer was wrapped in your sweatshirt.”

I shuddered, suddenly remembering the sweatshirt and hot glue gun I'd left lying on a chair in the Jabberwocky room that night I'd fled from Jennifer Goodall's loathe-some presence. “Oh, shit.”

“And of course there was the argument.”

I nodded. “Can't bother to deny that.”

Murray whipped off his glasses and laid them on the table in front of him. He leaned forward, his mouth close to the glass. “Hannah, I need you to think carefully. What were you doing the afternoon Jennifer was murdered?”

“I don't remember exactly, but I know I went downtown to do some shopping.”

“Were you hanging around Mahan auditorium at all, say between three and four in the afternoon?”

“Absolutely not.”

Murray leaned back in his chair. “Then this is a tough one. NCIS has a witness who saw you leaving the auditorium about the time Jennifer was attacked, walking in the direction of the library.”

“What witness?” My head reeled. I remembered the countless times I'd walked between Mahan and the set shop in Alumni Hall, waving to Nimitz staff as they lounged on the loading dock, smoking. I mentioned this to Murray. “Maybe the witness got the day wrong. I
know
I was shopping that afternoon. There must be credit card receipts somewhere!”

“Paul's looking into it, Hannah. He's checking your Amex and Visa card statements.”

“Good.” I relaxed just a fraction. “So, what can I expect?”

“The marshals will escort you into the courtroom. I'll be there, of course. You'll stand with me behind the defense table and listen quietly while they read the charges. You'll plead not guilty—that goes without saying—then the government will request bail.”

“How much bail?” I interrupted.

“About $250,000 is usual in cases like this.”

I gasped, seeing the door that had opened a crack slam shut behind me. “Where are we going to get that kind of money?”

“Don't worry. Paul and I are already making arrangements for a property bond.”

“Uh-huh,” I said dully, imagining our beautiful old house with a For Sale sign hanging in front of it.

“We'll counter with a reduced sum,” Murray continued, “because you're a model citizen with a spotless record, family ties to the community, not a flight risk etcetera etcetera etcetera.”

“Okay.”

“And you'll have to surrender your passport, I'm afraid.”

“My passport,” I repeated numbly. Did they think I'd head for some South American country with no extradition treaty with the United States? Spend my life drifting aimlessly from one third world town to another? Visit my grandchildren only by video conferencing, assuming said third world country had broad band Internet access? No, I'd simply be a prisoner of another kind.

“But what if they find me guilty, Murray? What then?”

“They won't.”

“But what if they do?”

“The federal sentencing guideline for manslaughter is ten years.”

“Ten years!” I threw back my head and closed my eyes. Chloe and Jake would be in their teens. Paul would be planning his retirement without me.

Murray pressed an open palm against his side of the glass, his small way of comforting me. Deeply touched, I raised my hand to his, matching it finger for finger, and began to sob.

“Murray, please. I want to go home.” The thought of clean towels, clean hair, and clean clothes made me ache with yearning.

“Hang in there, Hannah.”

“Damn it!” I said, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I didn't survive breast cancer just so I could spend the next ten years stamping out license plates!”

“Trust me, Hannah. You won't have to.”

“From your mouth to God's ears, Murray. To God's most merciful ears.”

 

It happened just the way Murray had described. Arnold led me into the courtroom with my hands cuffed in front of me, past the empty jury box, depositing me behind the table with Murray. Agent Crisp was also there, standing at the prosecution table next to a tall dark-haired guy in a navy blue suit.

Murray leaned over and whispered, “That's Richard Knowles, the Assistant U.S. Attorney trying your case.”

I took my time studying Knowles, sizing him up. He must have felt my gaze on him because he looked up, blinked twice, then went back to shuffling through the sheaf of papers he had laid out on the table in front of him. I caught Amanda Crisp's eye and smiled, but only her eyes smiled back.

After the judge read the charges and I'd looked him straight in the eye and said “Not guilty” in a strong, clear voice, bail was set at $200,000. Murray had said not to worry about bail. Hah! We were still playing catch-up with Emily's tuition payments to Bryn Mawr. Paul and I drove previously owned cars. The house needed painting. All that, apparently, was going to have to wait.

Finally the judge released me. The marshals removed my handcuffs and with Murray by my side, led us down a long hallway, where we checked in with pretrial services. On Murray's advice, I waived my right to a speedy trial so he'd have time to prepare my case.

I had every confidence in Murray Simon. The rape charges against a D.C. shock jock? Dismissed. The SEC bigwig charged with insider trading? Acquitted. And when a Naval Academy football player tested positive for cocaine, Murray'd gotten him off scot-free, too. Everybody knew
they'd
been guilty as hell.

Maybe there was a chance for me.

Paul was waiting for us in Murray's BMW out on Lombard Street. He grabbed me by the shoulders and folded me into his arms, crushing my nose against his chest. He kissed the top of my head, my forehead, my cheek.

Murray tossed his briefcase onto the backseat of the car. “Take Hannah away for the weekend, Paul.” He handed my husband a set of keys. “These keys go to a cabin on Deep Creek Lake. It belongs to a client of mine. He won't be using it this weekend.”

Paul curled his fingers around the keys and held his fist close to his chest, as if he were afraid they might disappear. “You sure?”

“Positive. He's doing three to five years for tax evasion at Allenwood.”