Piper asks me who my first witness is going to be.
“David,” I answer. “I have to get his alibi before the jury. I hate to have to put him on the stand because Devlin will eat him alive. But I just don’t see any other way.”
Piper looks away, looks through the window to the sky outside. For a second, I wonder whether, mentally, she’s flying through that window, leaving this sad scene behind, like I did the morning my mother fell dead on the floor.
“I’ll see you when you get home,” she says.
My meeting with David is brief. He expresses his distress over the day’s events, reserving special scorn for Brian Yamura. “Everything he said was a goddamned lie. I never told Jennifer that I was going to break up with her. And Jennifer never said she was going to Marcie. We never fought. It was a relationship of convenience, and we were both happy with it.”
I sit with my arms crossed, watch David pace his cell, whining as though he were the victim in all this. I don’t think I have ever hated someone as much as I hate David Hanson. I curtly take my leave of him and walk into the hall, where I spot Piper exiting the ladies’ room. In a few seconds, Marcie exits behind her. Both women seem taken aback when they see me but do their best to recover quickly. We ride the elevator down to the first floor, no one saying anything. Marcie bolts out ahead of Piper and me. I walk Piper to an entrance to the underground garage. Then I head back to the firm.
When I get to my office, I close the door, sink into my chair, put my elbows on the desk, and bury my face in my hands. I think of Jennifer Yamura and am suddenly overwhelmed by the picture painted by the prosecution of the young woman, her head already bloodied, crawling on the basement floor in a vain attempt to save her life. My thoughts then skip to Gabby and Piper. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my own little family. I shiver, and think again how weary I am. But, of course, I must press forward. The major battles lie ahead.
Everything will be won or lost in the next twenty-four hours.
I work late, ensuring that Gabby will be long in bed before I get home. Because if I’ve done my work as well as I think I have, I know what awaits me with Piper.
An hour later, I turn into my driveway, press the button that opens the garage door, and pull inside. The kitchen light is off. Piper’s car is here, so she must be, too, though I see no evidence of her presence. The house is soundless. The television is not on. There is no music coming from the Sonos sound system. “Hello?” I call out. “Piper? Gabby?” No one answers. Even Franklin seems to be gone. I make my way through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the living room, which is also dark. But once there, I see a dim light. I follow it from the living room and down the short hallway leading to my office.
And there sits Piper, in the shadows, on the leather couch. She’s wearing the same outfit she had on in court, except that her shoes are on the floor next to her. An open bottle of wine and an empty glass sit on the coffee table in front of the couch. The only light is provided by the green banker’s lamp sitting on my desk, across the room.
“Piper? Are you all right?”
For a long moment, Piper’s face remains hidden in shadow. Then she slowly looks up at me, her face contorted with pain. “It was me.”
33
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, CONTINUED
“I was with David. I’m his alibi.”
Piper returns her gaze to the floor as I lower myself into the chair facing her. I let Piper’s confession hang in the air between us.
This is it. Every step I’ve taken, every move I’ve made since Jennifer Yamura’s death, was designed to bring Piper and me to this moment. And I know as I cross the threshold that everything hangs in the balance. I have to keep focus, keep my emotions locked down, as I have for so long.
The grandfather clock’s pendulum slowly strokes the seconds. Piper gently rocks her body, almost to the beat of the clock. She’s weeping softly now.
“We didn’t plan it. It just happened.”
I’ve done my best to ready myself for this. But I still feel my body stiffen in my chair as she speaks.
“I was at the mall one day. David happened to be there, too. He came up to me, and we started talking. He suggested we walk to the Starbucks, have some coffee. We talked for a long time. He was funny. And sweet. And sad over what was happening to Marcie. The cancer. We finished our coffee, left the mall, and said good-bye. A couple weeks later, David called me, said he was out at the mall again, asked me if I wanted to join him for another coffee. It was close to five o’clock when I got there, so we decided to get a drink. You were in Pittsburgh, speaking at some legal conference.”
My stomach is churning, but I control my breathing, remain expressionless.
“Gabby was with my parents.” Here, Piper pauses, fills her glass, takes a sip of wine. “That was the first time.” She takes a bigger sip, then starts to fill in the blanks. The initial guilt over what she’d done. Followed quickly by a second time, then a third, until she and David had a standing date every other week at one luxury hotel or another, until . . .
My face burns with shame and anger, but I don’t interrupt.
“That day, the day . . . she died. David and I were going to meet at the Rittenhouse. I checked in to the hotel, ordered up some lunch. Then I left the hotel to shop a little.”
“That’s when I saw you on the street. You were carrying a Lululemon bag. It was stuffed.”
Piper nods. “I went to the Holt’s Cigar store. David told me they were getting in some special type of cigar, so I bought him a box.”
So he could have a smoke after you were done screwing? I want to shout the words, but I hold back.
“I put it in the big Lululemon bag, under the clothes I’d bought. I went back to the hotel, and David called me later, just before two o’clock. He was upset, said something awful had happened but that he’d be there soon.”
I put up a hand to stop her. “The police subpoenaed his cell-phone records. There was no record of any calls after he left the office that day.”
“Oh, God . . . this is so hard. We both had disposable cell phones. David insisted.”
And the camel’s back is broken. I leap to my feet.