“No, I’m too busy trying to rehabilitate him.”
“Wow. You’re an even bigger hypocrite than I realized.”
“Zach, ever since we discovered what was on that flash drive, I wanted to bring Hunter Alden to justice. Even after he was dead, I was still obsessed with making him pay for what he did. But to quote my recovering addict husband, ‘Justice doesn’t necessarily make the world a better place. Compassion always does.’”
I picked up the flash drive. “We may not be showing this to anyone, but we still have to hold on to it, just to make sure Tripp holds up his end of the bargain.”
“I know the perfect hiding place,” Kylie said. “No one will ever find it, and we can get to it anytime we want.”
A half hour later we were at the property clerk’s office. I filled out the paperwork, he tagged and bagged the crucifix–flash drive, and the only evidence of Hunter Alden’s crime against humanity left our hands and made the first step in a chain of custody that would transport it to its final resting place, a sprawling warehouse in Long Island City, where it would be stored for decades.
“Any regrets?” I asked Kylie.
“Not about this, but I wish you had never showed me that article in the Post about Hunter Alden. It pisses me off that the son of a bitch is going to get a hero’s funeral.”
“Just his body,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure his head will rot in a pauper’s grave in Haiti for all eternity.”
Epilogue
Funk
Chapter 81
They say police work is hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. The week after we wrapped up the Alden case was the most boring of my career.
And the most depressing.
I remember laughing at breakfast Monday morning when Kylie made the crack about sticking Spence with her salad fork, but it was now Friday afternoon, and I hadn’t cracked a smile since.
Nothing felt good. For starters, when the storm hit the city, the Department of Sanitation hooked up plows to all its trucks, and for the next five days snow removal trumped garbage collection.
Within hours, the fresh coat of pristine white flakes turned into gray grunge, and by the time the trucks went back to normal service, the sidewalks were thick with slush, and the curbs were lined with more than fifty thousand tons of ripe garbage. And because it was early January, there were also more than a hundred thousand dried-up Christmas trees waiting to be recycled.
New York is a tough town, but once again, Mother Nature had kicked our ass.
Wednesday was Hunter Alden’s funeral, and I slipped quietly into the back row of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. One by one, people of power and influence, all of whom I’m sure were in some way beholden to Hutch, took the podium to praise Hunter’s wisdom, his business acumen, and of course his greatest sacrifice: laying down his life to save his son.
At one point I wanted to jump up and shout, “Look at the timeline, people. Tripp was in police custody six hours before Hunter was executed for his sins.” But I figured if Tripp could sit there without saying a word, so could I.
I sat through five eulogies, but when Mayor Sykes got up to speak, I left. She was what she was, but I didn’t have to watch.
The string of nightly dinners I’d had with Kylie ended at three. There was a lot of paperwork to do, but nothing to keep us working late, and she was out the door every night before six.
On Thursday I overheard her on the phone with her friend Janet Longobardi, the woman who had set her up with the divorce lawyer.
I couldn’t pick up the entire conversation, but I caught enough to bum me out even more.
“He’s really responding well to this Better Choices program. No, he’s still living in Shelley’s apartment, but we’re talking about going away together for the weekend. The lawyer’s on hold for now, but trust me, I’m keeping all my options open.”
I wondered if that’s what I’d become. An option Kylie was keeping open.
I hadn’t expected to hear from Cheryl before Mildred’s funeral on Tuesday, and I didn’t. By Friday afternoon I still hadn’t heard from her, and she hadn’t come back to the office.
At 3:00 p.m. I was at my desk, staring at a half-eaten bagel that had been sitting there since breakfast, wondering how I was going to get through the weekend. And just when I was sure things couldn’t get any worse, they did. The text came in from Cheryl.
Short notice. Long drive. Dinner at NWHC? 8 pm.
These days it’s easy to end a relationship. You can text. You can email. You can even do it in 140 characters or less on Twitter. But Cheryl wasn’t the type to end things electronically. She’s old-school. When she breaks it off with a guy, she has to do it to his face.
That’s what the last-minute dinner invitation was. She wanted to meet me at a restaurant in Ulster County, and would I mind making the two-hundred-mile round-trip so she could dump me properly.
I texted her back.
Sure.
It seemed like a fitting way to end a miserable week.
Chapter 82
As long as I had to drive two hours for my farewell dinner with Cheryl, at least she picked a great restaurant. Her house in Woodstock was only five miles from New World Home Cooking, but having tasted chef Ric Orlando’s food before, I knew it was well worth the hundred-mile trip.
I pulled into the NWHC parking lot ten minutes early and went inside. It’s a big old rambling barn with art on the walls, music in the air, and a staff that never forgets a face. Liz Corrado, Ric’s wife and partner, greeted me with a hug.
“Cheryl’s not here yet, but you’re in luck,” she said, escorting me to the bar. “It’s Free Drinks for Heroes Night.”
“Just a club soda for now,” I said, knowing I had to stay sober for the ride back to New York.
A few minutes later, Cheryl arrived wearing a white parka and a matching ski cap that set off her dark brown eyes, jet-black hair, and glowing caramel skin. She looked spectacular.
Then she spotted me, and her face lit up. She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a lingering kiss. Not what I had expected.
Liz showed us to our table, and Cheryl ordered a bottle of champagne. Also not what I had expected.
“What are we celebrating?” I asked.
“It’s New Year’s Eve.”
“You should call the New York Times. Those idiots had January tenth plastered all over today’s paper.”
And then she said the last thing I ever expected. “I don’t care what day it is for the rest of the world. You and I are starting the year all over again. The first ten days are getting a mulligan—like they never happened.”
“No penalties?”
“I think we should analyze our game so we don’t make the same mistakes again, but no penalties.”
“I’ve already been analyzed by a woman who is as renowned for her psychological insight as she is for her flapjacks.”
“Ah yes. And what did Dr. Gerri say?”
“I don’t remember it verbatim, but something about me being a jealous asshole.”
“Spot-on. And what did she say about me?”
“I believe her exact diagnosis was ‘perfect in every way.’”
“I’m not. I’ve been holding out on you. I’m sorry.” Her eyes watered up, and she turned away.
“Hey, whatever it was, it’s over. You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “A few months ago Mildred called me. She knew Fred would be devastated when she died, and she asked if I could be there to help him get through it. I couldn’t say no.”
“Wow. I thought—”
“You thought I dropped everything for Fred,” she said, “but I stopped loving him a long time ago. What I did I did for Mildred. I’m sorry. I feel terrible.”
“Why? What you did was nothing short of noble.”
“I should have told you, but you were under the gun with the Alden case, and once I knew Mildred onl
y had a few days left, I couldn’t think straight. I was going to call you after the funeral, but…”
“Fred needed you.”
“He lost his mother and the baby he thought was his. I did the best I could, but now it’s over.” She let out a sigh. “I’m ready to move on. Are you?”
“Just tell me where we’re going.”
“I was thinking my house for the weekend.”
“I didn’t bring any clothes.”
She smiled and let her tongue brush her lip. “What makes you think you’ll be needing any?”
The waitress brought the champagne, opened it, and poured two glasses.
“I never congratulated you and Kylie on closing the Alden case,” Cheryl said, lifting her glass. “Here’s to two of the best cops on the force. What is she doing to celebrate this weekend?”
I reached across the table. “Damned if I know,” I said, touching my glass to hers.
Her eyes told me it was the perfect answer.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Undersheriff Frank Faluotico and Chief Civil Administrator John McGovern of the Ulster County NY Sheriff’s Office, NYPD Detective Sal Catapano, Art McFarland of WABC-TV, Jon Berg, Mike Winfield Danehy, Marie Fleurimond, Gerri Gomperts, Maureen Villante, Suzanne Lorenz, Dr. John Froude, Dan Fennessey, Bob Beatty, Mel Berger, and Jason Wood for their help in making this work of fiction ring true.
An inspiring story of hope, redemption, and trying to hit the ball straight
For an excerpt, turn the page.
FOR THE FIRST TIME since that U.S. Senior Open I keep bringing up, the name McKinley looks down from the top of the leader board. And it’s in excellent company. Sharing my lead at six under are two of the best players and biggest personalities on the tour—Lee Trevino and Hank “Stump” Peters. As the patron saint of golfing long shots, Trevino has long occupied a special place in my personal pantheon, and the thought of going off with him in the final group on Sunday is thrilling. But seeing that Hank Peters will be playing with us makes my stomach hurt.
You know how some competitors always bring out your worst? Peters has been providing that invaluable service for me since he beat me on the eighteenth hole of a college match when we were juniors, him at Georgia Tech, me at Northwestern. At the time, Northwestern was the kind of school a powerhouse like Georgia put on the schedule to pad their record, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to beat him so badly. Another was that Peters, an all-state quarterback in high school, exuded exactly the kind of big-guy swagger that has always stirred my darkest competitive instincts, probably because at 6′2″ and 137 pounds, I exuded something quite different.
In our first encounter, back in college, I was two up with three to play, yet Peters never for a second thought he would lose, and of course, he turned out to be right. After he knocked in his winning putt, which thirty-two years later I still recall as an uphill twelve-footer that broke two inches to the left, he shook my hand and said, “You got a nice little game, son. Stick with it.”
“Thanks, Hank.”
I guess there’s something about being condescending, patronizing, and better that leaves an indelible impression. Then again, I’ve always had a talent for nursing slights. I collect them like a wine snob collects Bordeaux. I never know when I might need to dust one off. Not that this one has been paying dividends. Since I got out here, I’ve been paired with Peters three times and gotten drubbed every time. Maybe it’s because I try too hard. More likely, it’s because Peters, who won eleven times on the regular tour, is better and always will be.
On Sunday afternoon, Trevino comes out sporting four shades of brown—beige cashmere sweater, light brown shirt, dark brown slacks, and darker brown shoes, and just watching him work his way through the crowd with his distinctive slightly bowlegged gait makes me smile. Peters arrives wearing a camouflage hunting cap and sweatshirt, with several pinches of chewing tobacco stuffed between his teeth and lower gum, but for some reason, I find his version of populist charm less endearing. My expression must give me away, because Johnny A promptly walks over and puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Now, listen,” he says, “we’re not going to let this cracker take us out of our game.”
EASIER SAID THAN DONE, when this particular cracker has been living in my head rent-free for three decades. Trevino plants his tee, doffs his cap, and busts his iconic open-stanced move. His flat, abrupt chop—somewhere between martial arts and grunt labor—produces the same low, hard fade it has a million times before and ends up smack in the middle of the fairway.
“I hit that sunnabitch quail high,” he says to his adoring gallery. “But I guess there aren’t a lot of quail on Oahu.”
After ejecting a brown stream of tobacco juice into a Styrofoam cup, Peters knocks it ten yards past Trevino, who at fifty-eight has lost some distance. Appropriately enough, I’m up last, and as I go through my routine, I can sense how anxious the gallery is for me to get it over with so they can hustle down the fairway and watch Trevino and Peters hit again.
Nevertheless, I catch it solid and roll it past them both. Having hit the longest drive, I’m last to hit again, and this time the gallery doesn’t even pretend to wait. Halfway through my backswing, the scenery shifts like the furniture between acts of a play. I yank an easy wedge ten yards left, and when I fail to get up and down, I walk off the first green with a bogey.
“Only the first hole,” says Johnny A. “Plenty of golf to be played.”
True enough. And on the par-three 2nd, I hit my 6-iron to fourteen feet. Knock it in, I’m back to where I started and it’s all good. Unfortunately, I’m so anxious to undo my opening bogey, I charge my birdie putt five feet past and miss the comeback for another bogey, and on three, I’m so pissed about one and two, I bogey that as well.
Bogey. Bogey. Bogey. Not exactly the start I had in mind, and while I’m barfing on my Footjoys, Peters and Trevino are keeping theirs nice and clean, carding two birdies each. The round is barely fifteen minutes old, and I’m five strokes behind and well on my way to another traumatic defeat at the hands of my outdoorsy, tobacco-juice-spittin’ nemesis.
At this point, I should summon my inner Lombardi and dig deep, but God knows what I’d dredge up. Instead, I relax and watch Trevino. For all I know, I’ll never get a chance to tee it up with Mex again, and if I can’t enjoy it, maybe I can learn a thing or two.
The first thing that stands out is the way Trevino parcels his concentration. Yesterday, Irwin and Morgan never peeked from behind their game faces. From the handshakes at the first till they signed the scorecards in the trailer, they never stopped grinding. Trevino has a different MO. For the thirty seconds it takes to plan and execute his shot, he and Herman are as focused as assassins, but once the ball stops rolling, they go right back to shooting the breeze, picking up the conversational thread—dogs, Vegas, barbecue—wherever they left it, as if trying to win a golf tournament is a minor distraction from an otherwise carefree afternoon.
And if the conversation lags, or we’re waiting for a green to clear, as happens on 5, Trevino walks to the edge of the nearest hazard and fishes out balls with his 7-iron. He reminds me of my cheap buddies back home, except that Trevino tosses his plunder to the kids in his gallery.
I’m so captivated by the rare opportunity to observe Trevino in his natural habitat, I barely notice my own birdies on 7 and 8, and when I’m looking over my eagle putt on 10, the prospect of sinking it is such a nonevent, I roll it dead center from forty-five feet. Now I’m back in the hunt—two behind Peters and one behind Trevino—and the prospect of evicting Peters from my brain is so tantalizing, I immediately start pressing again.
On the next seven holes, I give myself legitimate birdie looks on five and never scare the hole. Surprisingly, Peters and Trevino can’t make anything either. Over the same stretch, Peters misses three putts shorter than mine—I guess legends and assholes aren’t immune to pressure either—and we head to 18, exactly as we ste
pped off 10, with Peters one up on Trevino and two up on me.
THE PAR-5 FINISHING HOLE is a gauntlet of palm trees, mined by bunkers, which I avoid and Peters and Trevino don’t. That means they have to lay up, and I have a chance to reach in two.
Johnny A paces off the distance to the nearest sprinkler head and checks his yardage book. “Two fifteen to the center,” he says, “two twenty-nine to the flag.”
As soon as that first number falls out of his mouth, I smile involuntarily, because it’s a number close to my heart, the perfect distance for my new high draw that got me through the winter. Of course, as Earl was unkind enough to point out on the range, the high draw offers no tangible advantage, and since this isn’t figure skating and there are no points awarded for degree of difficulty or artistic expression, there is no sensible reason to pull it out now. Except one. If I go with the high draw, I just might be able to foster the illusion that rather than coming down the stretch with Peters and Trevino on Sunday afternoon at Waialae, I’m back at Big Oaks on a Tuesday morning with Esther Lee. And maybe, with a little luck, I can sustain the illusion long enough not to choke my brains out. Plus, as even Earl concedes, it’s the suavest shot in golf.
When Johnny A hands me my 5-wood and says, “Nice soft cut, center of the green,” I don’t bother to contradict him. Instead, I do what I did all winter…in reverse. Instead of savoring the reality of this Hawaiian paradise, I transport myself eight thousand miles away to a drafty, underheated warehouse in the midst of a brutal Chicago winter. The breeze rustling the palms? That’s traffic whooshing by on Route 38. The waves breaking on the shore? Trucks rattling over the potholes.
I do such a thorough job of conjuring those chilly practice sessions, my biggest fear is that Esther will shank another one in the middle of my backswing. It’s a feat of reverse double psychology that might not impress mental guru Bob Rotella, but when my ball drops softly on the green and settles fifteen from the hole, it impresses the shit out of Johnny A.