Vanishing Acts (13 page)

I am running over to the other courthouse–the Central Courthouse–when I see Chris hurrying toward the building. This one has thirteen stories with five courtrooms. One look at the line for the elevators, and I'm following him up a staircase. We reach the fifth floor, gasping. “Not Guilty Arraignments,” he explains, and we burst into Courtroom 501 together like a comic book duo come to save the day.

I wish I could say am filled with confidence when I walk into that courtroom, but if I'm going to be honest, I don't have a very good track record with success. It took me two attempts to pass the Bar. I started AA three times and then proceeded to once again drink myself into oblivion. I have no reason to believe that this latest challenge will be any different.

The judge is the most imposing justice I have ever seen. He easily weighs three hundred pounds, has flyaway gray hair, and fists the size of Easter hams. A placard on the bench announces him as The Honorable Caesar T. Noble. “I can't believe you drew that judge,” Chris says under his breath. “We call him No Bull.” The inmate sitting alone at the defense bench gets to his feet, his ankle chains jingling. Standing, his profile is visible: It is Andrew.

“Mr. Hopkins, I see you don't have counsel present, so I'm going to ask you to enter a plea,” the judge says.

I start running down the center aisle. There is a saying sometimes chanted at AA meetings: Fake it until you make it. I've done it before. I can do it again. The judge–hell, everyone in the room–looks to me. “Excuse me,” Noble says, as I hurdle the bar and step up beside Andrew, squeezing his shoulder. “Would you please identify yourself?”

“Eric Talcott, Your Honor. I'm an attorney licensed to practice in the state of New Hampshire, but I've filed a motion to appear before you pro hac vice. My sponsor for the State of Arizona is Christopher Hamilton ... and, um, I'm certified to practice in this courtroom, provided the motion has been granted.” The judge glances down at his file, and then back up at me. “Sir, you are out of order. Not only don't I have this alleged pro hac vice motion, but I find it extremely disrespectful that you've come whooping into my courtroom and interfered with my proceedings.” He narrows his gaze until it nicks at my throat. “Maybe that's the way y'all do things in New Hampshire, but here in Arizona, we don't.”

“Your Honor,” Chris says, smoothly stepping over the bar to stand next to me. “If you please, I'm Chris Hamilton, and I'm responsible for that pro hac vice motion. We asked the clerk's office to bring the motion either to Your Honor or to another judge who might be in a position to sign it quickly . . . knowing as I do that Your Honor prefers, understandably, to have everything in order.” Chris couldn't come any closer to kissing this guy's considerable ass. Apparently, in Arizona, that actually works. The judge beckons to the clerk of the court. “Call over and see if there's any kind of motion that's been filed and granted.” The clerk picks up the phone and mouths words that don't carry any volume. I have never understood how they quite do that, but it's the same in every court. When he hangs up he turns to the judge. “Your Honor, Judge Umatallo just granted the motion.”

“Mr. Talcott, this is your lucky day,” Noble says, without a trace of hospitality.

“How does your client plead?”

I make sure not to look at Andrew when I speak. “Not guilty.” Andrew stiffens, whispering, “You told me–”

Under my breath, I cut him off. “Not now.”

The judge flips through some of the pages in the file. “I see that bail is set at million cash. I assume you want that continued, Ms. Wasserstein?” He glances toward the prosecutor, whom I haven't even considered until this moment. A woman with curly brown hair twisted into a severe knot at the back of her neck, she has a mouth that looks like it has no muscle memory of ever striking a smile.

“Yes, Your Honor,” she replies, and when she stands up I realize that she's pregnant. Not just pregnant, mind you, but in the full throes of really-any-day-now-l-could-drop-this-baby condition. Great. So the prosecutor I'm cursed with is an impending mother, one with natural sympathies toward a woman whose child was snatched.

“This is a kidnapping case of great importance to the State of Arizona,” she says,

“and given that the defendant is an extreme flight risk, we feel there shouldn't even be a question about whether or not bail should be continued.” I clear my throat and rise. “Your Honor, we'd really like you to rethink the bail question. My client has no criminal record whatsoever and–”

“I beg to differ, Your Honor.” The prosecutor lifts a computerized record on fanfold paper, then lets it unfold to the floor. From the length of the document, you'd think Andrew Hopkins was the criminal of the century.

“Would have been nice if you mentioned this,” I say through clenched teeth to Andrew. There is nothing worse for a defense attorney than having a prosecutor make a fool out of you. It makes your client look like a liar; it makes it seem as if you haven't done your job.

'The defendant has an assault conviction from December of 1976 ... when he was known as Charles Edward Matthews."

The judge bangs his gavel. “I've heard enough of this. If one million was enough to hold the defendant in New Hampshire, then two million is enough to hold him in Arizona. Cash.”

The bailiffs haul Andrew away from me, his chains jangling. “Where are you taking him?” I ask.

The judge purses his lips. “It's certainly not my job to tell you how to do yours, Mr. Talcott. Who do they have running those law schools in New Hampshire, anyway?”

“I went to law school in Vermont,” I correct.

The judge snorts. “Vermont's just like New Hampshire, except upside-down. Next case?”

I try to catch Andrew's eye as he's dragged off, but he doesn't turn around. Chris pats me on the shoulder; until this moment, I've forgotten he's even present. “That's about as good as it gets here,” he commiserates.

As we walk through the gate I notice the prosecutor speaking to an older couple.

“What do you know about the county attorney?”

“Emma Wasserstein? That she'll probably eat her young. She's one tough lady. I haven't been up against her lately, but I doubt that pregnancy's softened her at all.” I sigh. “I was kind of hoping it was just some enormous tumor.” Chris grins. “At least it can't get any worse.”

But at that moment, Emma Wasserstein turns around, guiding the couple she is speaking with out of the courtroom. They are well-dressed, nervous; they have the cloudy confusion about them of people unfamiliar with the legal system. The man is about fifty-five, dark-skinned, hesitant. He has his arm around the woman, who stumbles into the aisle and bumps into me. “Disculpeme,” she says. The raven hair, the freckles she cannot quite hide with powder, the very bones of her face: I step back to make way for the woman who could only be Delia's mother. Courthouses are full of sounds–the squeak of bailiff shoes, the quiet whisper of witnesses practicing testimony, the jangle of quarters, and the crank of the vending machines. But you rarely hear clapping, in spite of the fact that the best law is nothing more than a performance. So when I hear the applause, I find myself looking around to find its source. “Not your finest showing,” Fitz says, walking toward me. “But I'll give you an eight out of ten because you've got a jet-lag handicap.”

Just like that, I'm smiling from the inside out. “God, it's good to see a friendly face.”

“After the showdown with Medea in there, I'm not surprised. Where's Delia?”

“I don't know,” I admit. “She called me to say Sophie was sick, but I couldn't reach her.”

“You mean she doesn't know Andrew was arraigned?”

“I didn't even know until ten minutes ago,” I say. Fitz blinks at me. “She's going to murder you.”

I nod, and notice the memo pad sticking out of his pocket. Grabbing it, I flip through pages of notes from the arraignment. He's not here for the moral support; he's writing about this for the Gazette. “Only after she murders you,” I reply dryly.

“Well,” Fitz says, ducking his head. “Want to be my roommate in Hell?” We start walking down the corridor. I have no idea where I'm headed; for all I know, this could be the hallway that leads back to the jail. “You ought to go see her,” I suggest. “We're living in a trailer in Mesa that's smaller than Greta's cage at home.”

“It's got to be better than the motel the Gazette's springing for. It's conveniently located near Sky Harbor Airport. So near, in fact, that the toilet flushes every time a plane takes off.”

I take my pen from my breast pocket and reach for Fitz's hand, write the still-unfamiliar address down on his palm. “Tell her I'll be home as soon as I can. Tell her to call me so I know how Sophie's doing. And if you can work it into the conversation, feel free to break the news about the arraignment.” As I head down the hall, Fitz's laughter follows me. “Coward,” he calls out. I look over my shoulder and grin. “Sucker,” I answer. Thirty minutes later, I am right back where I started: in the visiting room of the Madison Street Jail. Again, I've had to argue with the same woman at the entrance about my Bar card. Again, I've been told to wait while my client is brought to me. This time, however, he actually shows up. Andrew lets the detention officer close the door to our tiny conference room before exploding. “Not guilty?” he accuses. The job of a defense attorney is to act in the best interests of your client. But what if you think your client doesn't have his best interests in mind? And what if, to complicate matters, your client wants something that will bring great pain to a woman for whom you would lay down your life? “For God's sake, Andrew. I'd think one night in jail would be enough to convince you that you don't want it as a permanent address.” His eyes flash, but he says nothing. “And how do you think Delia would handle that?” I add. “She was a mess after she saw you for just a half hour last night.”

Vanishing Acts

“Not for the reason you think, Eric. She hates me. She hates what I did to her.” Delia had been crying when she came home, but I hadn't asked her why. I'd assumed it was a normal reaction to seeing the father she loved in the confines of a jail. I hadn't asked; as her father's attorney, I wasn't supposed to ... just as I am not supposed to reveal her thoughts about this trial to Andrew. “She's the one who told me to plead you not guilty,” I confess. “She insisted upon it.” Andrew glances up at me. “Before or after she saw me last night?” I keep my eyes trained on his. “After,” I lie.

Is there no end to this?

He sinks down into the chair across from me, and I register for the first time the bruises on his forehead and jaw, the parallel scrape of nails along his neck. At the arraignment I was so busy looking at the judge I never really focused my attention on my client. He is quiet for a long moment, so that the only sound in the room comes from the lamp overhead, which is in its death throes. “There's a lot going on for her right now,” I say gently. “You've known this outcome was a possibility for twenty-eight years; Delia's just discovered it. She needs a little time. And she needs to know that you're willing to give it to her.” I hesitate. 'You went to so much trouble to be with her, Andrew. Why would you want to stop now?“ I can see him thinking twice; that's all the opening I need. ”If I do what you want,“ he says after a moment, ”what will happen to me?"

I shake my head. “I don't know, Andrew. But I'm entirely sure of what will happen if you don't. And I think ...” My attention is caught by an inmate walking past the conference room. Through the tiny window I make out his shoulder-length white hair, his stooped shoulders. This man must be seventy, eighty; this is what Andrew could become. “I think everyone deserves a second chance,” I finish. Andrew bows his head. “Will you tell Delia what I tell you?” He is asking me about the ethical tightrope beneath my feet. I can feel it, a cable of steel, something I'm used to balancing on as a lawyer. But then I look down, and remember that this man is more than just a client, that his daughter is more than just a material witness, and suddenly the ground moves a thousand miles farther away.

“What you say here, stays here,” I promise.

Andrew nods. “All right,” he says, and the transaction takes place: a softening of his shoulders, an opening of his fist, a silent transfer of trust. I clear my throat and impersonally extract a legal pad from my briefcase. “Well,” I begin, all business. “Tell me how you got her out.” This is usually the point at which a client tells me, I didn't do it Or, I swear, I was just putting the car in a garage for someone, I didn't know it was stolen. Or, I was wearing my boyfriend's pants, how was I supposed to know he had a bag of pot in the back pocket? But Andrew has already confessed, and there is a trail of evidence nearly thirty years long that proves he and his daughter lived under false names and pretenses.

His daughter. A woman who has three freckles on the base of her jaw that have always reminded me of Orion's belt, who knows all the words to the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” who held my hand firmly under hers and pushed down against the hard knob swelling under the skin of her abdomen and said, “I'm a hundred percent sure that's a foot. Unless it's a head.” Andrew takes a deep breath. “I had the whole weekend with her; it was part of the custody agreement. I told her we were going to take a trip. And you know how it is when you promise something like that to Sophie? You know how she starts–”

“Stop,” I interrupt. “I can't have you comparing this to me and Sophie, all right?” He starts again. “You know how when you promise a kid that you're going to go somewhere special? Well, it's like holding out a handful of candy. Beth was thrilled about the prospect of a vacation.”

“Beth.”

“That's who she was ... then.”

I nod, and write that name down on my legal pad. It doesn't suit her. I cross it off, heavy black lines.

“I stopped off at my apartment–I was living in a studio in Tempe after the divorce-and packed up as much stuff as I could into suitcases. The rest I left behind. We just started to drive.”

“You didn't have a plan?”

“I didn't even know I was going to go through with it, until I hit the highway,” Andrew says. “I was just so angry–”

“Stop.” If he took Delia out of revenge or spite, I don't want to hear it. If I do, then I can't spin a defense for him without perjuring myself. “So you got to the highway, and what did you do?”

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“Headed east. I wasn't really thinking, like I said. We stayed at motels where you could pay in cash, and I registered under a different name every night. At some point I realized I was heading to New York. I mean, there were millions of people in the city. Who'd notice two more?”

Delia and I went to New York City when we were in college. She couldn't wait to go, back then. She said she'd never been there before.

“We stayed in some little hotel-l don't remember what it was called; it was close to Penn Station. I registered there as Richard Worth, and the desk clerk asked me if Mrs. Worth would be joining me. It just popped out: I said no, that my wife had recently died.” Andrew looks up at me. “And then I realized Beth had heard every word.”

“What happened?”

“She started to cry. I had to get her out of the lobby before she went to pieces, so I told the desk clerk that my daughter was still very upset. I took her upstairs to the room and sat her down on the bed. I was going to tell her the truth, explain that it was all just a story I'd made up, but I couldn't. What if Beth blurted out to the same desk clerk that her father had been lying? Anyone in their right mind would have known there was something strange going on ... and I couldn't take that chance.” He shakes his head, grimacing. “I dug my own grave, by pretending Elise was dead in the first place. And if I'm going to be honest, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the safe thing to do. If Beth started talking about her mother out of the blue, or expected Elise to appear out of nowhere, or threw a tantrum, all I'd have to do is turn to whoever was watching or listening and explain that her mother had recently passed away. People would immediately give us the benefit of the doubt.”

Sympathy, as any defense attorney knows, can be bought with a good lie.

“What did you say to her, exactly?”

“She was four. She had no experience with death–my parents were both already gone when she was born, and Elise's mom and dad lived in Mexico. So I told Beth that something very bad had happened, that her mother had been in a car crash. I said that she'd been hurt, and that the doctors at the hospital tried to do everything they could to help her, but they couldn't, and so Mommy was up in heaven. I said that she'd never be able to see Elise again, but that I would take care of her forever.”

“How did she react?”

“She asked whether Elise would be better by the time we got home from our vacation.”

I look down at the legal pad, at my hands, at anything but Andrew.

“I tried to find things to do that would keep her busy. We went to the Empire State Building and the Museum of Natural History; we played on the Alice statue in Central Park. I bought her toys at FAO Schwarz. I took her on a Circle Line cruise. Then one night, I was in the bathroom at the hotel when Beth started screaming for her mother. I found her standing at the TV, her cheek right up against the screen. And sure enough, there was Elise on the six o'clock news, talking into a dozen microphones and holding up Beth's picture.”

Andrew gets up and starts pacing around the tiny room. “I knew I couldn't stay in a hotel forever,” he said. “But I didn't know what I was going to do. To buy a house, you need an ID and a bank account, and I had neither of those anymore. Then one afternoon we were walking down Forty-second Street and Beth saw some flashing pinball lights at this place called Playland. She pulled me in, and I gave her some quarters for the arcade games. There was a group of teenagers in there, huddled around one girl's brand-new phony ID. They sold them at the arcade–looked like fake driver's licenses–and it got me thinking. I went up to the counter and asked the kid who was working there where I might go to get an ID. The kid shrugged and pointed to this Polaroid booth, where you could pull the curtain and get your picture taken. I took a twenty out of my wallet, and asked him the question again. He said he used to know a guy in Harlem, and for forty more bucks he managed to remember the name. When I called the number he gave me, I was told to go to a Harlem address after midnight.”

“Harlem?” I say. “After midnight?”

“For twenty-five hundred dollars he gave me a driver's license, fake passports, and birth certificates for both of us. We got Social Security numbers, too. They were real identities, a father and a daughter who had died in a car accident. I almost backed out of the deal when I heard that, but then I saw the name he'd put on one of the passports: Cordelia Hopkins. Cordelia–that was the daughter in King Lear who stuck by her father, no matter what.” He looks up at me. “I thought it was a good omen.”

I tap my fingers on the table. “King Lear... Cordelia,” I say. “You went to college, I assume.”

“Majored in chemistry. I went to graduate school, too. I was a pharmacist in Arizona.” He shrugs. “I would have done it in New Hampshire, too, but I didn't have a license under my new name.”

“How did you wind up in Wexton?”

“Delia hated New York. We used to play a game ... I'd ask her if she could go anywhere, and see anything, what would it be?” Andrew looks up at me. “That day she said snow.”

When you grow up in New Hampshire, you take winter for granted. But for a kid from Phoenix, this would be a mystery.

“I drove north,” Andrew says. “The car ran out of gas a mile outside of Wexton, and we walked into town. I think I fell in love at first sight–the white church and the town green and even the benches with little brass plaques dedicated to old school principals. It all seemed like a movie set, like a place where there could be a happy ending. So Delia and I went into Wexton Savings and Loan and set up a bank account. We stayed at a bed and breakfast for a while, until I got a job as a janitor at the senior center–I'd worked with the elderly as a pharmacist, and thought it might be a good fit. They were so desperate they didn't even care about references. About a month later, a realtor found us a house we could afford.”

“The one next door to mine,” I murmur.

Andrew nods. “Your mother came over with a casserole.” Actually, I can remember her cooking it. She was sober, for once, and she made a vegetable lasagna that had won her first prize in a local recipe contest. It was her standard dish to offer congratulations on a birth, condolences on a death, or a neighborly welcome. She let me put the zucchini in one layer, in the shape of the letter E, which I had recently learned at preschool.

“Your mom introduced herself and then said, 'Hopkins? You're not related to Eldred Hopkins over in Enfield, are you?'”

Andrew does not have to explain. You can reinvent yourself a million times, but the rules don't allow you to start in the center. Every life has a beginning, a middle, and an end; dissect history and you'll see the word that defines it as a tale, a narrative.

“I lied to her,” Andrew says matter-of-factly. “And then to a thousand other people. I made it up as I went along. When I said we had come from Nashua, I had to create some job down there. I had to give a reason for my wife's death. I had to explain to the pediatrician why Delia didn't have any medical records. I thought I'd get caught, every single day. But eventually I told so many lies that I honestly started to believe them, because it was easier to play the game than to try to sort them all out in my head.” He turns to me, dry-eyed and resigned. “You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.”

I'd sat on the kitchen counter while my mother mixed together the spinach and the ricotta and dribbled red sauce that made me think of blood. I'd watched through the window as she went up to the new neighbor's house and smiled at him, pretending she was always making casseroles for the neighborhood, as if she were some perfect sitcom mom. I was young, but even then I'd wondered how long it would take the new family next door to figure out this was all a ruse. I meet Andrew's gaze. “Yes,” I say. “I know.” Fitz

I drive to Mesa in a rental car, a Mercury whose radio is stuck on a Spanish-speaking station and whose air-conditioning doesn't work. When I unroll the window, wind and dust blow into my face. The temperature here is one you can reach by crawling into an oven. This is the kind of heat that changes the frontal lobes of the brain, that makes men kill each other for the smallest of infractions, that might lead a father to kidnap a child.

Eric's directions tell me to turn off at University Drive, and when I do, there is a man standing at the top of the exit ramp. He has a long gray ponytail, and wears a flannel shirt, in spite of the heat. He reminds me of some of the hardscrabble New Englanders who haunt convenience stores for refills of chewing tobacco and worship the late Dale Earnhardt. “Hey, bro,” he says to me, and I remember with a start that my window is open. He lifts up a ragged piece of corrugated cardboard on which he's written: need help.