Marcie purses her lips, repositions herself a little farther down the sofa. Then she laughs. “Mick, you can’t be serious!” She’s covering herself, backtracking now that I’ve rebuffed her. “I expect that you’ve seen couples driven apart by what David and I are going through. But I’d have thought that you could see by now that David and I are working together on this thing. That we’re a team.”
“You certainly seemed to be on the same page when you pulled that stunt with the New York geisha house.”
Marcie takes a last drag on her cigarette, long and slow. Then she leans forward, stubs it out in the ashtray. “The last time you were here, I told you that David and I have had some long talks since his arrest. And we have. Long and difficult. David has told me many things. Things I’d rather not have learned. One thing David didn’t tell me was that he killed Jennifer Yamura, and I can assure you, I asked him point-blank. He swears he didn’t, and I believe him.”
I let this hang in the air for a moment, then ask something I wish was unnecessary. “In these talks you had, did David happen to let you in on his alibi? Where he was when Jennifer was being killed? Not that BS about walking a marathon up and down the sunny banks of the Schuylkill River, but where he really was?”
Marcie hesitates, looks away, and I realize instantly that David has told her. And I also know why Marcie made a play for me.
“Tell me,” I say, “was it a team decision that David had to be somewhere else tonight?”
Now it’s Marcie’s turn to stare at me. “David didn’t kill that girl, Mick. And he can’t go to prison.”
“Whatever it takes?” I ask.
Marcie picks up her glass, takes a sip, and looks away.
“You tell me David insists he didn’t kill Jennifer Yamura. What if he’d told you he did kill her?”
Marcie doesn’t miss a beat. “I’d lie through my teeth and say otherwise. But that’s not the case.”
“I believe you,” I say.
“That David’s innocent?”
“That you’d lie through your teeth.”
Ten uncomfortable minutes later, I’m back in my car. The exchange with Marcie Hanson has left me nonplussed. The whole thing was a setup. The plan was for Marcie to seduce me. Maybe go through with it, or maybe stop it just in time. Either way, Marcie and David would have something on me, something they could hang over my head. A secondary goal was to convince me, once and for all, of David’s innocence. Looking back on the whole weird scene, I know Marcie was honest about one thing: she and David continue to work as a team.
22
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12
“Daddy, I think we should play hockey again,” Gabby says. “I want to go back and see the tigers.”
Gabrielle, Piper, and I are sitting around the island in our kitchen, finishing breakfast.
Piper rolls her eyes. “I think we’ve created a monster.”
Gabby means hooky. The day I took off from work, Piper called Gabby’s school and told them our daughter wasn’t feeling well and was staying home. I’d told Gabby, “We’re all playing hooky today, and we’re going to the zoo.” You’d have thought I’d just told Gabrielle that it was Christmas.
Gabby loved the zoo, running from one set of animals to another, eager to drink them all in. Watching our daughter so happy filled me with joy, and I promised both Piper and Gabby that there would be lots more trips like that from then on.
That night, after dinner, we watched a Disney flick and cozied up together on the sofa. When the movie was over, I carried Gabrielle up to her bed, dressed her in her pajamas, and tucked her in. While Piper got ready for bed herself, I came back downstairs, ran the dishwasher, let Franklin out one last time, and turned off all the lights. When I climbed into bed next to Piper, I thought she was asleep. I turned onto my side, spooned her, and to my surprise, Piper backed into me. And things took a course they hadn’t taken in a long, long time.
“It’s not ‘hockey,’ peanut,” I tell Gabby. “It’s ‘hooky.’ And if you do it more than once, the principal gets wise and makes you stay after school.” Gabby slumps in her seat, turns away as I try to kiss her good-bye. A quick tickle changes her mood, and she gives me a full-on hug around the neck as I bend over her. “I’m on my way,” I tell Piper, kissing her as I pick my car keys off the counter. “I won’t be home late tonight. Maybe 7:30.”
Plodding along with the heavy traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway, I’m nervous as hell. My trunk has two suitcases stuffed with money, and I’m petrified of getting into an accident. I envision a fender bender sending a cloud of green paper exploding out the back of my car, the highway jam-packed by a mile-long pile up of cars, trucks, and thousands of people streaming through it to pick up the money and run.
I reach town and park the car on the north side of Pine Street, across from Anna Groszek’s house. I look up and down the street as I lift the suitcases out of the trunk. I roll the bags across the street and lift them up the white marble steps and onto the small marble stoop by the front door. My heart pounding, I ring the bell. I hear footsteps on the other side of the heavy door. When the door opens, it isn’t Anna Groszek, but an enormous young man in black pants and a red golf shirt stretched across his broad chest. He’s six three, at least, and must weigh 250 pounds. The man’s eyes are ice blue like Anna’s, his jaw chiseled like the rest of his rock-solid physique. He looks to be in his midtwenties. Without a word, he leans down and grabs both of the suitcases and turns around. I follow him inside.
We take a few steps down the center hallway, then turn left through sliding pocket doors and into a large sitting room. In the center of the room, across from the doors are two antique couches facing each other across a coffee table. Anna Groszek, sitting forward in one of the couches, motions for me to sit in the other. Her friend remains standing and takes a position behind Anna.
Anna sees me looking at her friend and says, “My nephew, Boris.” I nod and glance up again at him. His eyes narrow as he returns the look.
Anna pours coffee from a white porcelain pot into a pair of dainty porcelain cups. She asks me if I would like cream or milk. I start to say neither, that I’ve had my morning ration of coffee, but Boris stiffens. I tell her milk will be fine. Anna pours the milk, then lifts my cup and hands it to me across the coffee table. I thank Anna, take a sip of the coffee. It’s very good, and I say so.
Anna nods, and we sit quietly and, from my end, uncomfortably. All I want to do is get the video and tell Anna to get away before the Hansons come after her. But the old woman is stretching this out deliberately. She knows I’m ill at ease, and she’s having fun watching me squirm. Finally, Anna decides it’s time to move things along.
“It’s all there? The amount we agreed to? Yes?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve counted it myself.”
Anna looks back at Boris, who walks to the suitcases, lays them on their sides, and opens them. His eyes widen when he sees the money. Anna remains impassive. “Very good,” she says. “Of course, we will count it ourselves, once you’ve left.”