“But they just searched that reporter’s house again.”
Jesus. She knows not only about Tommy’s involvement in the drug ring, but about his affair with Jennifer Yamura as well. The anger rises again, and this time I don’t try to stop it. “What the hell, Piper? I’m just finding out all this shit about Tommy, and you’ve known all along?”
She shrugs, maddeningly calm. “You’re not his counselor.”
“I’m his brother! And I’m your husband! He should confide in me. And so should you. How can I help if I don’t know what’s going on?”
Piper laughs. She actually laughs. “How can you help?”
Now I’m really stewing. I don’t deserve this. But I hold my peace while Piper finishes cooking the eggs and puts them and the bacon onto my plate, lays it on the table without looking at me. Then she turns away and begins eating at the counter.
Still with her back to me, she says, “I got a second estimate on the roof. It’s five thousand less than the first one.”
The roof? I thought this had been settled. “It could be ten thousand less, but we still can’t afford it right now.”
Piper whips around. “We can’t afford to have our roof blow off, either. The whole house will be destroyed.”
“There’s nothing wrong with our roof. It’s only eight years old.”
“The last windstorm tore off half the Shabses’ shingles. And their roof was no older than ours.”
“The Shabs? Who are they?”
“You don’t pay attention to anything. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t know a single one of our neighbors!” With that, she grabs her plate and juice and leaves the kitchen.
As far as I can tell, and I’ve thought about this a million times, the crack in my marriage first opened five years ago, when I left the DA’s office. Piper and I had first met during the infamous neurologist murder case and the flush of victory that came with the conviction. In quick succession, I won guilty verdicts in two other high-profile murder cases and was becoming one of the city’s better-known crime fighters. The DA himself invited me to his home in Chestnut Hill for dinner. The mayor requested that I stand next to him on a dais and offer some remarks at a turn-in-your-handguns rally in North Philadelphia.
Those were intoxicating days, for Piper and me both. And for someone else: Piper’s father, who was watching my ascent closely. Several times, Thatcher Gray referred to me in company as “our future district attorney.” I laughed it off at the time. But it quickly became clear to me that my father-in-law wasn’t joking. He fully expected me one day to become Philadelphia’s DA. I tried to explain to him that I was one of a hundred, a small cog in a big machine. That there were many fantastic and committed prosecutors in the district attorney’s office, and that, in any event, I had no political aspirations and even less political skill. Thatcher downplayed my protests, waving his hand as if shooing away so many pesky flies.
“Don’t you worry about political skill,” he said. “That’s why campaigns hire consultants. And don’t worry about the money to pay for them,” he added. “I have powerful friends with deep pockets.”
My father-in-law’s encouragement had the opposite effect on me, cementing a decision I was already leaning toward—hanging up my prosecutor’s spurs and going into private practice.
Before I made the leap, though, I tested the waters with Piper. I asked her to sit with me at our kitchen table and ran it by her.
“You mean you want to start representing the criminals?” she asked me.
“They’re not all criminals,” I answered. “Innocent people are charged, too.” It was a weak argument, and I knew it. But I let the words hang in the air for a minute, then said, “The money will be a lot better. We could move to a bigger house, on the Main Line, near your parents. Your mother could help you with Gabby,” I added. Our daughter was a year old and giving Piper, by then a stay-at-home mom, a real run for her money.
Piper sat for a long minute, staring at the floor. Then she looked up at me and asked, “Is this about Tommy?”
The month before, toward the end of my time off with Piper and the new baby, I had received a call from the prison that Tommy had been beaten up pretty badly. I drove up to the prison in Frackville to see him. Lying in the infirmary, Tommy could barely talk because his jaw was wired. His nose was broken. His left eye was swollen shut. Both of his hands were wrapped in bandages. When he saw me looking at his injured hands, he said between his teeth, “That’s from what I did to the other guys.”
I returned home shaken, more scared for my brother than I’d ever been.
“That’s part of it,” I answered. “The other part is . . . well . . .”
“My father. How he’s pressuring you about becoming district attorney.”
I nodded.
Piper looked past me, out the kitchen windows. Then she put her hand over mine, looked me in the eyes, and said, “You do what you think is right.” And she meant it. Of that I’m certain, even looking back on it now. Of course, at that point, neither Piper nor I had been subjected to her father’s wrath.
I broke the news to Thatcher that I was leaving the district attorney’s office for a private criminal-defense practice just after I gave my notice. The four of us were having dinner one night at the Capital Grille on Broad Street. We were halfway through our first course when I announced my plans.
Thatcher dropped his spoon into his lobster bisque and turned his head toward me so deliberately that it looked like he was moving in slow motion. After a long minute, he looked to Piper and asked through his clenched jaw, “How could you let him do this?”
It was all Piper could do to maintain her composure. She always obeyed her father. I don’t think I’d ever seen them exchange a cross word. I could feel her own anger rising inside her. She held her tongue at dinner, but railed to me about her father once we got home. Soon enough, though, she focused her anger on me instead.
I think about all this on Saturday night as I drive Piper and Gabby to the Grays’ house for dinner. The trip from Wayne to Villanova takes only about ten minutes, but the tension between Piper and me makes the drive seem interminable.