I felt, rather than saw, Sam trying to suppress the impulse to react.
“The state will present four witnesses. They will be Michaela Doherty, the police officer who found Emil Gardener’s body in the snow; Karen White, the detective who interviewed Miss Wild and knew something was not adding up; a neighbor, Gray LeMay, who owns the condominium just below Felicity Wild’s and used to hear all manner of rather exotic noises coming from her neighbor’s place but right around New Year’s Eve, heard very distinct sounds of a vicious fight, and then a fall, as if something heavy was hitting the floor repeatedly; andthe Dane County medical examiner, Dr. Moira McDermott, who was responsible for ascertaining the cause of death in two very difficult cases.”
At last, he concluded with his regrets, of which he had many. Shaking his head more in sorrow than in anger, he pointed out that not only did two good men die, but a young woman with “the whole package, brains and beauty and chances,” had wasted her life. He said finally, “My esteemed colleague Sam Damiano, who is just about as gifted a lawyer as they come, will tell you that none of this is true. He’ll say there’s somebody out there in the shadows who is literally getting away with murder right now. But you already know the truth. Ugly as it seems, Felicity Wild killed Emil Gardener and Cary Church. She did it for money. As intelligent and decent people, you will sadly but rightfully reach the inescapable conclusion and find Felicity Wild guilty of murder in the first degree, for which she should rightfully go to prison for the rest of her life. I thank you for your patience and for your service.”
Israel Ronson sat down, slumping a little, spent, having spoken earnestly and without notes for nearly an hour. The judge called for a short recess as the jury, tight-lipped and wide-eyed, filed out. Felicity glanced at the strippers, acknowledging them, and then me, with a smile that got no further than her tired eyes.
I whispered, “Please...” and she turned her gaze to the floor.
I ran out to the hall and out the door, where I breathed in lungsful of air. Even city late-spring air with its dank savor of Lake Mendota was restorative after the funk of coffee breath and anxious sweat in the windowless courtroom.
On impulse, as a sort of sorbet for the darkness in my mind, I called my office. Ivy thankfully wasn’t in that day, but I left a greeting for her and then talked to Marcus, who caught meup. Things were heating up atFuchsia. There was an offer for a TV show that Ivy was ready to “ink,” as Marcus put it, which would go the celeb-model shows one better and do stories that dealt with real society as well as high society. There was, even more interestingly, a possible relocation to Florida. He described Mother Sabrina’s vision for the location of the next Purple Palace, in Vero Beach, Florida, a small sugar-sand city on a barrier island across the Indian River Lagoon. It would be a whole purple neighborhood, with restaurants,Fuchsia-linked stores, maybe eventually a convention center and hotel.
“Florida? What? The whole operation?” I asked. “A real cultural destination. The next Rodeo Drive.”
“It could happen,” Marcus said. “Florida is the new New York.”
“I couldn’t live in Florida. Could you live in Florida?”
“I could live anywhere. I’m adaptable.”
“Ivy didn’t even send me an email!”
“She didn’t want to bother you,” he said. “And right, she would normally call you at six in the morning and get mad if you didn’t pull over in traffic and take the call. This is Ivy trying to be respectful.”
Marcus was working on a story about how famous and beautiful people sometimes fell in love with ordinary and unbeautiful spouses. Just good investigative journalism. “Reeno, I miss you so much! We have no fun here without you. I don’t meet hot girls. You haven’t called in ages. Why did you call? Are you okay?”
“I don’t even know. This case and everything around it just keep getting nuttier.”
It felt so thoroughly blessed to natter away about approximately nothing. I promised Marcus a real talk with all the trimmings as soon as I got a break, then ran back up the stairs and whirled through the door, nearly running into Sam. I nodded,and he nodded. He was visibly thinner. I was grateful for that. I’d thought he might look robust and his new girlfriend would be there to observe. Would Nell still get her internship at Damiano, Chen, and Damiano? Of course she would. The two things were not related. Nell was a good lawyer. She was also a good sister, and I hadn’t told her that Sam and I were finished. I didn’t want to make it real. I almost leaned my forehead against the cold wall, then thought of the desperate sweat that must have soaked into every surface of that place.
When I went back into the courtroom, I saw that someone had taken my seat. I would sit next to my mom—after all, who was I kidding? Sally Zankow already seemed to have more respect for me because I was related to Miranda. As I made my way toward her, I felt a touch on my arm and there was Claire. I had all but forgotten our long journey together. In my continuing parade of things-in-real-life-that-you-thought-were-just-clichés-from-cheap-prose, her face literally was white, her makeup standing out garish as a Pierrot. “Reenie, do you think Felicity is dying?” she said.
“She had flu and she was in the hospital. She’s better now. I think it’s the food. She can’t keep it down.”
“Can I send her something?”
“You could give Sam money and he could bring her something?” I promised to help ferry her to the front of the room so that Felicity could at least get a glimpse of her aunt. Just before she turned away, Claire saw my mother. They had probably not set eyes on each other for years. They waved at each other weakly.
All the players in my life were lined up in ways I would not ever have believed.
Twelve
Peregrine Falcon
Falco peregrinus.Falcons were named from the Latin forsickle, referring to the shape of their claws, by the eighteenth-century Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus. Earth’s fastest creature, they have been observed flying at 240 miles per hour. A wild falcon in myth and sacred tradition represents vision and freedom, but also greed. This raptor can never be tamed but was trained to hunt other birds, with extraordinary eyesight nearly three times sharper than a human being’s. In the 1800s, Irish poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins praised the “dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon,” pointing to the majesty of God as “a billion times” lovelier and more dangerous. Supposedly inspired by a falcon’s deadly drop, Shakespeare’s Hamlet said he was only occasionally mad. “When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw,” said the melancholy prince.
As Sam rose to begin the defense, I let myself pretend, for a moment, that he was mine. I was his wife, curious and proud.
Then I pretended that I’d never met him, to see him as I first saw him.
Finally, I looked at him as he truly was, as I truly was. He was a young lawyer trying the biggest criminal case of his life without the support of his new love—because she was repulsive to him. I was the writer who’d rather be anywhere on earth than watching the man she had loved and admired and had driven away.
The sight of him made me physically sick with longing. I had to slip out to the washroom and lose my breakfast. How would I look at him every day for however many weeks this took? How would I bear it when he looked at me as though I were any other person in the room—or worse, let his gaze sweep past me as if I wasn’t even there?
Sam got up, clutching a sheaf of notes. Then, as if this had just occurred to him, he put them back down on the table. He would speak extempore. He had once told me this was a trick to make the jury presume both his competence and his knowledge of the case—in the way that old-time advocates, to prove that they were erudite and devout, once picked up a Bible to search for a verse, only to say,No matter, I can quote from memory.
“Good people, thank you for taking time from your families and your busy lives to do your duty as citizens, in a case where the facts are difficult and painful at the very least. I will tell you a story that I believe in my heart of hearts to be true. Most of what my colleague and friend Israel Ronson has told you is true. Two men died cruelly. Two families are bereft. A young woman stands accused. Only one thing that Israel said is a lie. He said that Felicity Wild is a murderer. She is not.
