Piper turns to cast me a harsh look, then looks back at the blender and jams a banana into it. She closes the lid and turns on the mixer, drowning me out.
I leave Piper and walk into my home office, sit behind the desk. One of the photographs on my desk is of Piper on our wedding day. She is standing on the lawn after our ceremony, radiant in her white gown, a broad smile on her face. I remember the picture being taken, and I remember exactly what I was thinking: I can’t believe I just married this beautiful woman.
Piper and I were married in May, fifteen months after we met. We had discussed having a small ceremony and were thinking about Washington Chapel in Valley Forge Park. Thatcher Gray had other ideas. His only daughter, he insisted, was going to have an appropriately sized wedding at a proper venue. So Piper and I ended up getting married at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square in a ceremony that included seven groomsmen, seven bridesmaids, the bishop, and three hundred guests including key partners at Thatcher Gray’s law firm, some industry executives, and local politicians. On our wedding night, I joked to Piper that I’d had to spend most of the reception being introduced to my own guests. Paid for almost entirely by Thatcher Gray, the reception itself was an ostentatious affair at the Rittenhouse Hotel.
The first year and a half of our marriage was the happiest time in my life. I sold my tiny condo downtown, and Piper and I used the money to buy a small twin in Chestnut Hill. I continued to work hard, riding herd on the city’s bad guys while Piper stayed on at the art museum. When I wasn’t on trial, I made it home around eight, about the same time as Piper, and the two of us would prepare dinner together as we talked and laughed about our days. On the weekends, we went out with other young couples—assistant DAs and their spouses, Piper’s friends from work, and some law-school classmates of mine who’d decided to practice in Philly—including David Hanson and Marcie. Piper and I saw ourselves as young and hip and happy, on the fast track to fantastic lives.
The only fly in the ointment was Tommy. Piper admitted to me early on that she, to some extent, and her parents were uncomfortable with the fact that my brother was doing hard time for a violent crime. I tried to explain to Piper and her parents that despite his criminal record, Tommy was not a bad guy, that he’d had a tough time of it growing up because of what had happened with our parents. Thatcher answered with the old chestnut that I, too, had suffered the deaths of my parents and I’d turned out fine. I replied that Tommy had been much closer to what happened with my father because he was still living at home while I was away at school. Piper and her mother, Helen, tried to understand, but Thatcher Gray was having none of it. To him, the line between Tommy and me was as clear as the demarcation between good and evil.
About four months after we were married, I decided it was time for Piper to meet my brother. I drove her to the state prison outside Harrisburg, where he was locked up. At that point, he wasn’t scheduled to be released for a couple of more years, but I wanted to begin breaking the ice between him and Piper sooner rather than later. I even dreamed that they might eventually strike up a true friendship, that Piper would welcome Tommy into our family once he was released.
Piper fidgeted the whole way. Her father had clearly terrorized her with overblown notions about the danger of prisons and convicts. The security procedures necessary to gain entry only added to Piper’s anxiety. And when Tommy finally entered the visiting room and I saw Piper’s eyes, I knew I’d made a mistake. He strode into the room like a bull. He must have weighed 220 pounds, all of it muscle. His head was shaved. His neck revealed a fresh—and infected—blue-green prison tattoo. The knuckles on his hands were black and swollen. His eyes were flat, his lips tightly pursed. Halfway through his prison term, my little brother had successfully erased all outward appearances of humanity.
Tommy reluctantly allowed me to give him a brotherly side-hug. Then Piper stepped around him and tried to put her arms around him, too, which didn’t go well at all.
The next hour was an exercise in awkwardness. I tried to start up a dialogue, but Tommy limited himself to clipped answers to my questions. For her part, Piper prattled on and on and on—about the weather, the war, politics, the ride up, her parents. Everything but the three of us. In the end, no one reached anyone.
The drive home was interminable. Piper regretted having let me bring her to see Tommy, and she was angry at herself for “botching it.” She fell silent for a long time. Then she looked over at me and said, “Those poor men. Forced to live like animals in that awful place.”
I glanced over and saw a tear running down the left side of her face. I remember wondering at that moment whether she had changed her views about what I did for a living.
The TV in my office grabs my attention when it flashes the photographs of three police officers. The big story on the six o’clock news—based on the reporting of the late Jennifer Yamura—is the disclosure of the names of three of the cops who allegedly participated in the drug ring and were given immunity to testify before the grand jury. I’m surprised that Yamura was able to obtain such confidential information. Everyone involved in the grand-jury process is made to swear an oath of secrecy. The penalties for violating that oath are severe and include imprisonment. Why would anyone take the enormous risk of telling her?
In the wake of Yamura’s death, the station and its lawyers supposedly struggled over whether to make the information public. “In the end,” says Anchorman Jim, “Channel Six had to attach paramount importance to the public’s right to know.” With that, Jim reads off the names of the policemen: “Officers Terrance Johnson and Stanley Lipinski, and Lieutenant Lawrence Washington.”
The last name shocks me. I had worked with Lawrence on a dozen cases while I was with the DA. He was a good cop, hardworking and honest. Lawrence was never the type to plant evidence or press for inflated charges against a defendant. He wasn’t rough with the perps, either. He treated everyone with respect. He was a gentleman.
I stare at Lawrence Washington’s police photograph. He looks older than when I last saw him five years ago. He’s lost some hair. His jowls are looser. And there’s something in the eyes that I haven’t seen before. What is it? A guilty conscience? Sorrow? Or was he simply tired the day they took the picture? I shake my head.
“Lawrence.”