“What did Coach Marsh say?”
“Not much.”
“But what?”
“He said, next time to tell him if I’m not feeling good.”
Pam frowned. “Okay. But what would he have done differently?”
Ryan shrugged.
“He didn’t say?”
“No.”
“He would have played you, no matter what. You’ve never not started.”
Ryan said nothing.
“Did you talk to Dr. Dave?” Pam glanced sideways at Jake, who knew that she wanted to know if Dr. Dave had said anything about their argument.
Ryan didn’t reply.
The traffic light turned green, and Pam hit the gas. “Ryan, did you talk to Dr. Dave?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Ryan, he didn’t say nothing,” Pam shot back, her tone exasperated. “Can’t you fill me in? Do I have to pull teeth here?”
“Mom, watch your driving!”
Jake cringed. “Ryan, please don’t talk to your mother that way.”
Ryan gestured to the road. “Dad, she’s not looking where she’s going. She didn’t even see that Subaru, turning left.”
Pam frowned in annoyance. “I saw it, Ryan. It wasn’t anywhere near us.”
Jake didn’t know what Subaru he was talking about, but anxiety was plain in his son’s voice. “I’m sure she did, Ryan. Just watch your tone.”
Pam’s head snapped toward Jake. “Thanks, but I can talk to my son myself. I don’t need you to intervene.”
Jake let it go. He knew she was only blowing off steam and he wasn’t about to fight with her. Instead he looked out the window, and his gaze flitted restlessly over the strip mall with its CVS, Subway, and Rita’s Water Ice, a sight he found oddly comforting. He’d heard people complain that the country had become so homogeneous, with the same chain stores everywhere, but he didn’t have a problem with that. The chains were a part of his daily routine: he got his coffee at the Wawa, his turkey hoagies at the Subway near his office, and his chocolate-covered doughnut at Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru, right before he hit the on-ramp. The sameness of the stores and their food implicitly reassured him that everything would always be the same in his life, at least until recently.
I bet you drive a nice car, like an Audi.
Pam straightened up. “Ryan, I know you feel disappointed about the game, but you don’t have to sulk like Achilles in his tent. I’m trying to talk to you because I love you. It’s a good problem to have, that you have a parent who cares enough about you to ask you how you’re feeling, okay?”
Ryan groaned. “Mom. You’re not asking, you’re nagging.”
Jake kept his face turned to the window, feeling a pang. He knew that Pam would be hurt by that dig and that Ryan was hurting inside, too, which was why he’d made it. Jake didn’t say anything because he’d been warned off, so he kept his own counsel. Pam defaulted to silence, but she fed the SUV some gas. He felt the lurch of its angry acceleration and watched the scenery go by faster; the Acme, the Cold Stone Creamery, the Walgreens, and the Pottery Barn blurring into one neon streak of commercialism with convenient parking, open on Sundays and taking all major credit cards.
They traveled in silence, then crossed into Concord Chase, and Pam steered onto Concordia Boulevard. They passed another Wawa and a massive Wegman’s, then she put on her left blinker and moved into the left lane. Jake realized with dismay that she was going to take the shortcut home, via Pike Road. They’d go around the same curve on which they’d struck and killed Kathleen Lindstrom.
Jake had to do something. He couldn’t put Ryan through the pain or take the chance that the boy would throw up, cry, or react involuntarily, showing their hand.
Jake waved her off. “Honey, don’t take Pike. Why don’t you just go straight?”
“Why?” Pam glanced over, frowning. A truck was barreling down the oncoming lane toward them, and she stopped before she turned onto Pike to let it pass.
“This is where that girl was killed. Let’s not go this way.”
“Since when are you such a sensitive flower?”
“Pam, really.” Jake knew that she was punishing him for fighting with Dr. Dave, but she didn’t know she was punishing her son as well.
“Don’t be silly.”
Jake turned away. He didn’t have anything left to say that wouldn’t tip her off and he was suddenly tired of the bitterness between them, the back-and-forth. He missed the Pam of last night, the one who wasn’t keeping score. The truck rumbled past, its big muddy tires spraying gravel, and Pam took the left turn, driving onto Pike.
Jake kept his face to his window, to avoid looking down the road and reliving everything that happened before the curve. Ryan remained silent in the backseat. The car grew so quiet that Jake could hear the tinny beat of the music through Ryan’s earbuds and wondered how he could listen to such loud music, then realized the boy must’ve cranked up the volume. He prayed Ryan could keep it together when they reached the blind curve.
“It’s just that it’s so much faster to take Pike,” Pam said, her tone gentler. “Plus I want to get Ryan home. He’s not feeling well.”
Ryan said from the backseat, “I’m fine, Mom.”
“Well, good,” Pam said, lightly. “Glad to hear that, honey.”
Jake looked out his window. He wondered if Ryan was sending him a message, saying he was fine and telling him not to worry. The SUV cruised forward, and he started wondering about Lewis Deaner again when they approached the Concordia Corporate Center sign, with a sign that listed businesses in the B section: Marble Fabricators, Lee Security, Ltd., Tropical Technologies, Inc., Cryotechnics, and a few others.
Jake considered it. Lewis Deaner could have been employed by any one of those companies, in any capacity. The closest office building in section B wasn’t far from Pike Road, maybe a hundred feet to the left, due north, and someone could have been working late on Friday night, in any one of those buildings. Jake hadn’t seen any cars in the lots along Pike Road that night, but there was a large interior parking lot in the corporate center. Deaner could’ve parked there and all he would have had to do to see the accident was to look out the back window of one of the offices.
Jake felt his gut clench, trying to guess how much Deaner knew, if anything. Jake thought back to the accident; he had gotten out of the car first, and Ryan had come later, from the driver’s seat. They were both tall and they looked alike. It would be hard to tell who was driving, from a distance. Maybe Deaner didn’t know who had been driving, whether it was him or Ryan.
Dad … I killed … that lady … I killed … that lady.
The SUV traveled down Pike Road, and Jake remembered what Deaner had said about having an apartment near Pike. He surveyed the woods to the right, and to his surprise, he spotted some buildings through the trees, in the distance. There were a series of red brick low-rises of an older, boxy design, and they looked like an apartment complex, situated on the other side of the woods. Jake hadn’t known they were there, but he used Pike Road only as a conduit, and the apartments wouldn’t have been visible from Pike during most of the year, when the trees were in full leaf.
The SUV closed in on the blind curve, and Jake tried not to think about what had happened that night. Instead he eyeballed the distance from Pike to the apartment buildings and estimated it to be about the length of three basketball courts. That would be too far away for Deaner to see any details of the accident unless he had been using binoculars, which made no sense. But it wasn’t impossible that Deaner had seen the Audi or could identify it at that distance, because the car’s frowny headlights were a well-known design feature, recognizable to anyone who knew anything about cars and easily visible at night, even in the fog.
Pam slowed as they approached the blind curve, and Jake mulled over the possibility that Deaner could have seen the accident from his apartment and could identify the Audi. Stil
l, how could Deaner have identified Jake, much less found him? Had he seen the Audi’s license plate? How? Or if Deaner was an undercover cop, maybe someone else had seen it and called it in as a tip.
Pam reached the blind curve, and Jake reached for the door handle, reflexively bracing himself for a collision that had happened days ago. A forlorn memorial had been set up by the roadside—a motley clump of plush teddy bears, grocery-store flowers, thick Yankee candles, and sympathy cards, next to a maroon singlet from the track team and a handmade sign that read Chasers Pride! We miss you, Kathleen! Xoxoxo
Pam cleared her throat. “I guess this is where the hit-and-run was.”
Jake didn’t say anything, and neither did Ryan.
“It’s a dangerous curve, so I could see how it could happen. But how could he not stop?” Pam tsked-tsked.
Jake didn’t answer, and he prayed Ryan stayed quiet.
Pam steered around the curve, staying in her lane. “Sorry we came this way,” she said softly.
“S’okay.” Jake felt his anger ebb away, if not his shame. The SUV powered forward as Pam accelerated, and he scanned the dirt shoulder of the road, checking. There was no shard of glass, no piece of heavy plastic, not even a skidmark to incriminate them.
Dad … I killed … that lady … I killed … that lady.
Jake found himself sending up a silent prayer, asking forgiveness for himself and Ryan. And yet, at the same time, he watched the apartment buildings recede in the distance, wondering what Deaner really knew about the accident, who Deaner was, and what he wanted. If Deaner was a cop, then he wanted Jake and Ryan, truth and justice. But if he wasn’t, Jake had a good guess what he wanted. He’d find out tomorrow, for sure.
Chapter Twenty
Jake stood in the doorway to Pam’s home office, where she was at her desk on the cell phone. She motioned him inside, and he entered and sat down in the pink flowered chair opposite her. They had achieved an uneasy truce during dinnertime, then Ryan had gone to his bedroom to do homework and she had retreated to her home office to make calls to the powers-that-be about her judicial nomination. He’d come in to see her to find out any details about the FBI interviews, so he could prepare Ryan. Lewis Deaner had to settle for the backburner, for now.
Pam held up an index finger, flashing him the one minute sign, and Jake looked idly around her office. It was smaller than his, but it had a cozy feel, which was why she always called it her nest. The two windows on the wall had a sunny southern exposure, but they were dark now, and red oriental-type lamps gave off a soft, homey glow. He liked her office, but it was very feminine, with pink walls, a maroon, red, and pink Heriz rug, and pink-and-red curtains in a pattern that had colonial people standing in front of thatched huts.
Toile, Pam had said, of the curtain pattern. It’s called toile.
How do you spell that?
T-O-I-L-E.
Like toilet?
Pam had laughed. You’re useless, completely useless.
Jake tried to relax in the chair, but couldn’t. He was facing an entire wall of her framed diplomas, admission certificates to the Pennsylvania and New Jersey bars, and documents that admitted her to practice law in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. They stared him in the face, setting into stark relief the paradox of their different positions. His wife was sitting behind a cluttered desk, trying to become a federal judge, one of the highest positions in the country in which to make and to enforce civil and criminal law. He sat opposite her, as if diametrically opposed, having committed the worst crime imaginable and concealed it from her and the authorities, in a conspiracy with her own son.
“Sorry if I was testy today.” Pam hung up the phone, excited and happy.
“No worries. I’m sorry too. How’s it going? Anything new?”
“Actually, yes.” Pam leaned excitedly over the messy papers. “This is really happening fast. They’re going to make it public later I think. My name is definitely going up the ladder to the White House, to be nominated.”
“Honey, that’s amazing! Congratulations!”
“I know! Isn’t it so great?” Pam’s eyes lit up, then she seemed to check herself. “But I can’t count my chickens before they’re hatched. There’s a lot that has to happen between now and then, and you know these vacancies can be open for years.”
Jake liked the sound of that. Ryan needed a few years to get past the accident. “So then they’re not going to investigate you for a few years?”
“No, you misunderstand me. They do the investigation now and the nomination happens, then there’s the Senate hearings, but you have to wait to be confirmed. That’s the part that takes years.”
“Oh, too bad.” Jake hid his alarm.
“Patty Shwartz still hasn’t gotten on the Third Circuit and she was nominated over two years ago, for a seat that was vacated two years prior. She had her hearing and she still hasn’t been confirmed.” Pam shook her head. “It’s classic hurry-up-and-wait.”
“So when does the investigation start?”
“Right now.”
“But your nomination isn’t public yet—”
“No, to be precise, I haven’t been nominated yet. It’s the president who does the nominating.” Pam’s voice turned professorial. “There’s a questionnaire I have to answer and hand in next week, so if that goes smoothly, then it becomes public and starts officially.”
Jake tried not to panic. It was too short a time for Ryan to have any emotional distance from the hit-and-run.
“The way it works is first, I get nominated by the president, then I have to submit the answers to the questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee within five days from the date of the nomination.”
“Five days? Wow.”
“They make my answers public for three weeks and the hearing is scheduled anytime after that.”
“So this is all happening this month?” Jake masked his dread.
“They emailed me all the questionnaires and information, and I printed it out. I ran out of paper, you believe that?” Pam gestured happily to the stacks on her desk. “I have to answer all of it this week. I can’t believe how extensive it is.” Pam flipped through a thick packet of papers, bolted at the top with a heavy metal clip. “This is only one of the questionnaires. It’s sixty pages long!”
“Let me see.” Jake held out his hand, and Pam gave him the packet, which he began to flip through. He passed headings for Education, Employment, Bar and Court Admissions, Public Statements, and Published Writings. He didn’t see the part about the FBI. “It’s a lot of work here.”
“I know, right? And you see where it says I have to give the names of the counsel in these cases? They contact them, all of them. They interview them.”
“Who does? The FBI?”
“No, the FBI investigates me and you, personally. The Department of Justice, the ABA, and the Senate Judiciary Committee investigate my career and finances. But they do overlap, not surprisingly. It’s a bureaucracy. There’s multiple questions that basically cover my judicial career, with an emphasis on any personal wrongdoing.”
Jake shuddered. “Wrongdoing? You? How absurd.”
“Obviously, but they have to ask. There’s tons of questions that require disclosure of any violations of the law since I was eighteen years old. It even asks whether I’ve been accused of violating any county or even municipal regulations or ordinances.” Pam snorted. “The only criminal questions that aren’t covered are traffic violations for which a fine of fifty dollars or less was imposed.”
Jake managed a smile. “You don’t even have that.”
“I know. I’m such a good girl. They ask about tax liens, collection procedures, or any kind of civil-law violations or state-bar proceedings. It’s all public, except our financial records. The financial stuff will take forever.” Pam rolled her eyes. “Will you do that part for me?”
“Of course. Is that for the FBI, too?”
“No. Those questions
come from the Justice Department and the office of the Attorney General. They want to make sure there’s no financial conflicts of interests, and they want our tax returns, for God-knows-how-many years.”
“That’s okay, I can deal.” Jake wasn’t getting anywhere beating around the bush. “Tell me about the FBI. How does that work?”
“They assign a special agent, or sometimes two, to investigate us. I was on the phone with Michael Rizzo just now, and he told me that over a three-week period, he had twenty-four hours of face-to-face interviews with the FBI.”
“Really?” Jake’s mouth went dry. “That’s a lot longer than I thought.”
“You and me both.” Pam cringed. “Worst job interview ever.”
“How long did they question his family for, did he say?”
“He said they spent an entire day with his wife, because she had a lot of financial ups and downs they had to sort out. But we don’t have that. Anymore.”
Jake knew what she was referring to. “How about his kids?”
“They don’t have any. And they asked him for phone records, old passports, case files, and even some old school records.”
“Do you think they’ll ask for Ryan’s school records?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will they interview Ryan alone or with us?”
“I don’t know that either. He has nothing to worry about, but I bet they’ll spend a lot of time with you and ask questions about your finances. But we don’t have anything to worry about though. We do everything by the book.”
“How about Ryan? What could they possibly ask him?”
“I have no idea. We’re as clean as a whistle, really.” Pam shrugged. “And they really do talk to the neighbors. Rizzo told me that the FBI contacted twenty of his friends and classmates all over the country, even the world. He said they really do go up and knock on the neighbors’ doors. They asked his neighbors if he and his wife got along well with everyone, fought excessively, drank excessively, or were ever seen doing anything suspicious or unusual. Can you imagine that?”
“Sheesh.” Jake had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, praying that no one had seen him burn the parka the other day.