Neal’s arrest leads the ten o’clock news.
Jay checks Channels 2, 11, and 13 on his bedroom TV, all while skimming through those court records for Ricardo Aguilar. His legal history is shockingly thin and seems to mostly revolve around a single client by the name of T. J. Cobb, who’s been in and out of lockup for years. On TV, each station is running the same written statement by Axel Hathorne, former police chief, about the arrest of his nephew and campaign manager: “It’s important to remember an indictment is not a conviction. The mistake that’s been made here, this rush to judgment in the middle of a heated campaign season, will be apparent in due time. My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Alicia Nowell, and I will redouble my efforts to find her killer.” The ABC affiliate, Channel 13, has an exclusive interview with the girl’s parents, standing in front of their wood-and-stucco apartment complex in Sunnyside, complete with the requisite neighborhood fools in the background, craning necks to get their nappy heads on television. Wolcott makes her second appearance at the parents’ side, along with Pastor Morehead. She reiterates her determination to recuse herself from any decisions regarding the Neal Hathorne case, stressing that the charges caught her off guard as well. When asked how she thinks this will affect the tenor of the campaign going forward, Wolcott says she doesn’t care a whit about the election right now. “My prayers are for justice for Alicia Nowell, and peace for her family.” Jay stares into Maxine Robicheaux’s red, watery eyes. The scene is painfully familiar. It takes him back to that last hospital room, Bernie staring at the television screen, day in and day out, waiting on a miracle that never came, feeling for the first time the limits of her maternal reach, the dark corners she couldn’t make safe. It’s for her, really, that he gets himself out of bed. It’s for Bernie that he grabs his pants, hanging off the end of the bed, sliding them on first and then his shoes. He leans into the hallway and tells the kids to put on some clothes, something warm. He glances back at the television–Channel 13 is now playing a thirty-second Wolcott campaign ad–and turns it off.
Neal Hathorne lives in a clapboard cottage on a narrow lot in West U., not that far from Jay’s house, actually. It’s a cozier choice than he would have thought for a bachelor, and it makes Jay wonder if there isn’t a woman in Neal’s life, a romantic past other than rumored dates with dead girls. Jay parks the Land Cruiser by the curb. From the backseat, Ben asks, “What are we doing here?”
“I need to talk to someone.”
“But why are we here?”
It’s after ten on a school night. It’s not ideal, he knows. But it was too late to call someone out to the house. “I could stay with Ben,” Ellie had said.
“Not anymore.”
He hasn’t told either of his kids about the break-ins, the one at his office, or the one much closer to home, in their garage. But part of keeping them safe is making them feel so in their own minds.
“It won’t take long, I promise,” he says, cutting the engine.
Neal is home alone, having been, for the time being, banished from the campaign. He answers the door in blue jeans and a T-shirt. He looks at Jay, then the two kids, Ben in long johns and a Cowboys T-shirt, shivering in the night air. Bernie bought the jersey as a joke a couple of years ago, just to get a rise out of Jay, not realizing, of course, that she would up and die one day, and her son would never take it off. He sleeps in it most nights.
“Can we come in?”
Neal holds open the door. Inside, the house looks more appropriately like that of a man who, until tonight, was rarely home. The few pieces of furniture are covered in stacks and stacks of papers and campaign paraphernalia: mailers and T-shirts and oversize posters with Axel’s face, plus county records and polling data. And there’s a sour smell coming from the kitchen, like milk left out on the countertop. “Is there somewhere we can talk?” Jay says. “Alone?” Neal shrugs and starts out of the room. Jay tells Ellie and Ben to hang tight. Then he follows Neal down a narrow hall into a small study, clogged with more papers. Jay shuts the door behind him. Neal leans against the edge of a cheap chipboard desk, the kind that comes in a dozen different pieces in a box. There’s no history in this place, this cheerless house miles from Pleasantville.
“What are you doing here, Jay?”
“Where were you Tuesday night?”
“Not your problem, remember?”
“I can’t help you if you won’t tell me.”
“Hiring you was my grandfather’s idea, not mine.”
“Where were you?”
“I didn’t touch that girl.”
“Where were you, Neal?”
Neal looks down at his feet, in white sneaker socks.
He chuckles darkly to himself. “This is so fucked up,” he says, his voice watery and weak. “If they go through with this, we’re going to lose everything.”
“You’re going to lose everything.”
Neal looks up, his dark, tea-colored eyes gone soft with emotion.
Man to man, it looks for all the world like he’s on the verge of tears.
“If you’re my lawyer, it’s confidential, right?”
“You graduated law school like me, you know as well as I do.”
“Anything I tell you stays in this room?”
“If you want it to.”
Neal looks down at the socks on his feet. When he looks up again, he gives Jay a wan, almost pleading smile. He holds out his right hand. Jay looks at it, then reaches out with his own. The two men shake on their agreement, hammered out in the simplest way. Neal leans back against the desk again, accidentally knocking papers onto the floor. “I went to see my father,” he says.
CHAPTER 14