Let Me Call You Sweetheart

  Robin knew that Mom was mad at Daddy because he hadn’t talked to her after the accident, but he had left a message. And it was true, she didn’t get to see him much, but when they were together, he was great.

  At six-thirty they stopped at the restaurant. Over shrimp and scallops, they talked. He promised that this year for sure they would go skiing, just the two of them. “Sometime when Mom’s on a date.” He winked.

  “Oh, Mom doesn’t date much,” she told him. “I kind of liked someone who took her out a couple of times during the summer, but she said he was boring.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He was an engineer, I think.”

  “Well, when Mommy’s a judge, she’ll probably end up dating another judge. She’ll be surrounded by them.”

  “A lawyer came to the house the other night,” Robin said. “He was nice. But I think it was just business.”

  Bob Kinellen had been only partially involved in the conversation. Now he became attentive. “What was his name?”

  “Geoff Dorso. He brought over a big file for Mommy to read.”

  When her father suddenly became very quiet, Robin had the guilty feeling that maybe she had said too much, that maybe he was mad at her.

  When they got back in the car, she slept the rest of the way, and when her father dropped her off at nine-thirty, she was glad to be home.

  Mondays, October 30th

  30

  The senate and assembly of the State of New Jersey were having a busy fall. The twice-weekly sessions were almost one hundred percent attended, and for a good reason: The upcoming gubernatorial election, although still a year away, created a behind-the-scenes electricity that crackled through the atmosphere of both chambers.

  The fact that Governor Marshall seemed intent on backing Prosecutor Frank Green as his successor did not sit well with a number of his party’s other eager would-be candidates. Jonathan Hoover knew full well that any crack in Green’s potential ability to be elected would be welcomed by other contenders. They would seize on it and create as much of a distraction as possible. If it got loud enough, it could easily shake loose Green’s hold on the nomination. Right now it was far from a lock.

  As president of the senate, Hoover had enormous power in party politics. One of the reasons he had been elected five times to four-year terms was his ability to take the long-range view when making decisions or when casting votes. His constituents appreciated that.

  On days that the senate met, he sometimes stayed in Trenton and had dinner with friends. Tonight he would be dining with the governor.

  Following the afternoon session, Jonathan returned to his private office, asked his secretary to take messages and closed the door. For the next hour he sat at his desk, his hands folded under his chin. It was the posture Grace called “Jonathan at prayer.”

  When he finally got up, he walked over to the window to stare at the darkening sky. He had made an important decision. Kerry McGrath’s probing into the Reardon murder case had created a real problem. It was exactly the kind of thing the media would run with, trying to make it into something sensational. Even if in the end it came to nothing, which Jonathan fully expected, it would create a negative perception of Frank Green and would effectively derail his candidacy.

  Of course, Kerry might just drop the whole thing before it got that far—he certainly hoped she would, for everyone’s sake. Still, Jonathan knew it was his duty to warn the governor about her investigation so far and to suggest that, for the present, her name should not be submitted to the senate for approval of her judgeship. He knew it would be embarrassing to the governor to have one of his potential appointees effectively working against him.

  31

  On Monday morning Kerry found a package in her office, and inside was a Royal Doulton china figurine, the one called “Autumn Breezes.” There was a note with it:

  Dear Ms. McGrath,

  Mom’s house is sold and we’ve cleared out all our stuff. We’re moving to Pennsylvania to live with our aunt and uncle.

  Mom always kept this on her dresser. It had been her mother’s. She said it made her happy to see it.

  You’ve made us so happy by making sure that the guy who killed Mom pays for his crime that we want you to have it. It’s our way of saying thanks.

  The letter was signed by Chris and Ken, the teenage sons of the supervisor who had been murdered by her assistant.

  Kerry blinked back tears as she held the lovely object. She called in her secretary and dictated a brief letter:

  By law, I’m not allowed to accept any gifts, but, Chris and Ken, I promise you, if it were different, this would be one I’d cherish. Please keep it for me and for your mom.

  As she signed the letter she thought about the obvious bond between these brothers, and between them and their mother. What would become of Robin if something happened to me? she wondered. Then she shook her head. There’s nothing to be gained in being morbid, she thought. Besides, there was another, more pressing, parent/child situation to investigate.

  It was time to pay a visit to Dr. Charles Smith. When she called his office, the answering service picked up. “They won’t be in until eleven today. May I take a message?”

  Shortly before noon, Kerry received a return call from Mrs. Carpenter.

  “I’d like to have an appointment to speak with the doctor as soon as possible,” Kerry said. “It’s important.”

  “What is this in reference to, Ms. McGrath?”

  Kerry decided to gamble. “Tell the doctor it’s in reference to Suzanne.”

  She waited nearly five minutes, then heard Dr. Smith’s cold, precise voice. “What do you want, Ms. McGrath?” he asked.

  “I want to talk to you about your testimony at Skip Reardon’s trial, Doctor, and I’d appreciate doing it as soon as possible.”

  By the time she hung up, he had agreed to meet with her in his office at seven-thirty the next morning. She mused that it meant she would have to leave home by six-thirty. And that meant she would have to arrange for a neighbor to phone Robin to make sure she didn’t fall back asleep after Kerry had gone.

  Otherwise, Robin would be fine. She always walked to school with two of her girlfriends, and Kerry was sure that she was old enough to get herself a bowl of cereal.

  Next she phoned her friend Margaret at her office and got Stuart Grant’s home phone number. “I talked to Stuart about you and your questions about that plastic surgeon, and he said his wife will be home all morning,” Margaret told her.

  Susan Grant answered on the first ring. She repeated exactly what Margaret had reported. “I swear, Kerry, it was frightening. I just wanted to have a tuck around the eyes. But Dr. Smith was so intense. He kept calling me Suzanne, and I know that if I had let him have his way, I wouldn’t have looked like myself anymore.”

  Just before lunch, Kerry asked Joe Palumbo to stop by her office. “I have a little extracurricular situation I need your help with,” she told him when he slumped in a chair in front of her desk. “The Reardon case.”

  Joe’s quizzical expression demanded an answer. She told him about the Suzanne Reardon look-alikes and Dr. Charles Smith. Hesitantly she admitted that she had also visited Reardon in prison and that, while everything she was doing was strictly unofficial, she was beginning to have her doubts about the way the case was handled.

  Palumbo whistled.

  “And, Joe, I’d appreciate it if we could keep this just between us. Frank Green is not happy about my interest in the case.”

  “I wonder why,” Palumbo murmured.

  “The point is that Green himself told me the other day that Dr. Smith was an unemotional witness. Strange for a father of a murder victim, wouldn’t you say? On the stand, Dr. Smith testified that he and his wife had separated when Suzanne was a baby and that a few years later he allowed her to be adopted by her stepfather, a man named Wayne Stevens, and that she grew up in Oakland, California. I’d like you to locate Stevens. I’d be very interested in le
arning from him what kind of girl Suzanne was growing up, and especially I want to see a picture of her taken when she was a teenager.”

  She had pulled out several pages of the Reardon trial transcript. Now she shoved them across the desk to Palumbo. “Here’s the testimony of a baby-sitter who was across the street the night of the murder and who claims she saw a strange car in front of the Reardon house around nine o’clock that night. She lives—or lived—with her daughter and son-in-law in Alpine. Check her out for me, okay?”

  Palumbo’s eyes reflected keen interest. “It will be a pleasure, Kerry. You’re doing me a favor. I’d love to see Our Leader be the one on the hot seat for a change.”

  “Look, Joe, Frank Green’s a good guy,” Kerry protested. “I’m not interested in upsetting things for him. I just feel that there were some questions left open in the case, and frankly, meeting Dr. Smith and seeing his look-alike patients has spooked me. If there’s a chance that the wrong man is in jail, I feel it’s my duty to explore it. But I’ll do it only if I am convinced.”

  “I fully understand,” Palumbo said. “And don’t get me wrong. In most ways I agree with you that Green is an okay guy. It’s just that I prefer someone who doesn’t run for cover every time someone in this office is taking heat.”

  32

  When Dr. Charles Smith hung up the phone after talking to Kerry McGrath, he realized that the faint tremor that came and went in his right hand was beginning again. He closed his left hand over it, but even so, he could feel the vibrations in his fingertips.

  He knew that Mrs. Carpenter had looked at him curiously when she told him about the McGrath woman’s phone call. The mention of Suzanne had meant nothing to Carpenter, which no doubt had made her wonder what this mysterious call was all about.

  Now he opened Robin Kinellen’s file and studied it. He remembered that her parents were divorced, but he had not studied the personal data Kerry McGrath had submitted along with Robin’s medical history. It said that she was an assistant prosecutor, Bergen County. He paused for a moment. He didn’t remember ever having seen her at the trial . . .

  There was a tap at the door. Mrs. Carpenter stuck her head in the office to remind him that he had a patient waiting in examinating room 1.

  “I’m aware of that,” he said brusquely, waving her away. He turned back to Robin’s file. She had come in for checkups on the eleventh and the twenty-third. Barbara Tompkins had been in for a checkup on the eleventh and Pamela Worth on the twenty-third. Unfortunate timing, he thought. Kerry McGrath had probably seen both of them, and it had somehow triggered whatever memory she had of Suzanne.

  For long minutes he sat at the desk. What did her call really mean? What interest had she in the case? Nothing could have changed. The facts were still the same. Skip Reardon was still in prison, and that’s where he would remain. Smith knew that his testimony had helped to put him there. And I won’t change one word of it, he thought bitterly. Not one word.

  33

  Sandwiched between his two attorneys, Robert Kinellen and Anthony Bartlett, Jimmy Weeks sat in federal district court as the seemingly endless process of selecting a jury for his income tax evasion trial dragged on.

  After three weeks, only six jurors had been found acceptable to both prosecution and defense. The woman being questioned now was the kind he most dreaded. Prim and self-righteous, a pillar-of-the-community type. President of the Westdale Women’s Club, she had stated; her husband the CEO of an engineering firm; two sons at Yale.

  Jimmy studied her as the questioning went on and her attitude became more and more condescending. Sure she was satisfactory to the prosecution, no question about that. But he knew from the disdainful glance she swept in his direction that she considered him dirt.

  When the judge was finished questioning the woman, Jimmy Weeks leaned over to Kinellen and said, “Accept her.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Bob snapped incredulously.

  “Bobby, trust me.” Jimmy lowered his voice. “This will be a freebie.” Then Jimmy glanced angrily down the defense table to where an impassive Barney Haskell sat watching the proceedings with his lawyer. If Haskell cut a deal with the prosecution and became their witness, Kinellen claimed he could destroy Barney on the stand.

  Maybe. And maybe not. Jimmy Weeks wasn’t so sure, and he was a man who always liked a sure thing. He had at least one juror in his pocket. Now he probably had two.

  So far, there had only been the mention of Kinellen’s ex-wife looking into the Reardon murder case. Weeks mused, but if anything actually went forward with it, he knew it could prove awkward for him. Especially if Haskell got wind of it. It might occur to him that he had another way to sweeten any deal he was trying to make with the prosecution.

  34

  Late that afternoon, Geoff Dorso’s secretary buzzed him on the intercom. “Miss Taylor is here,” she said. “I told her I was sure you couldn’t see her without an appointment. She said it will only take a few minutes and that it’s important.”

  For Beth Taylor to just show up without calling first, it had to be important. “It’s okay,” Geoff said. “Send her in.”

  His pulse quickened as he waited. He prayed that she wasn’t there to tell him that something had happened to Skip Reardon’s mother. Mrs. Reardon had had a heart attack shortly after Skip’s conviction and another one five years ago. She had managed to bounce back from both, declaring that there was no way on earth that she was going to die while her son was still in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

  She wrote Skip every day—cheery, happy letters, full of plans for his future. On a recent visit to the prison, Geoff had listened as Skip read him an excerpt from one he had received that day: “At mass this morning, I reminded God that while all things come to him who waits, we’ve waited long enough. And you know, Skip, the most wonderful feeling came over me. It was almost as though I was hearing in my mind a voice saying, ‘not much longer.’ ”

  Skip had laughed wryly. “You know, Geoff, when I read this, I almost believed it.”

  When his secretary escorted Beth into his office, Geoff came around his desk and kissed her affectionately. Whenever he saw her, the same thought always flashed immediately into his mind: What a different life Skip would have had if he had married Beth Taylor and never met Suzanne.

  Beth was Skip’s age, almost forty now, about five feet six, a comfortable size 12, with short, wavy brown hair, lively brown eyes and a face that radiated intelligence and warmth. She had been a teacher when she and Skip were dating fifteen years ago. Since then she had earned her master’s degree and now worked as a guidance counselor in a nearby school.

  By her expression today it was obvious she was deeply troubled. Indicating a comfortable seating area at the end of the room, Geoff said, “I know they made a fresh pot of coffee half an hour ago. How about it?”

  Her smile came and went. “I’d like that.”

  He studied her expression as they made casual chatter and he poured them both some coffee. She looked worried rather than grief-stricken. He was now sure nothing had happened to Mrs. Reardon. Then another possibility occurred to him. Good God, has Beth met someone she’s interested in and doesn’t know how to tell Skip? He knew that such a thing might happen—perhaps even should happen—but he knew that it would be rough on Skip.

  As soon as they were settled, Beth came directly to the point. “Geoff, I talked to Skip on the phone last night. He sounds so terribly depressed. I’m really worried. You know how much talk there is about cutting off repeated appeals from convicted murderers. Skip has practically been kept alive on the hope that someday one of the appeals will be upheld. If he ever gives up that hope completely—I know him, he’ll want to die. He told me about that assistant prosecutor visiting him. He’s sure she doesn’t believe him.”

  “Do you think he’s becoming suicidal?” Geoff asked quickly. “If so, we have to do something about it. As a model prisoner, he’s getting more privileges. I should warn the
warden.”

  “No, no! Don’t even think about reporting that!” Beth cried. “I don’t mean he’d do anything to himself now. He knows he’d be killing his mother too. I just . . .” She threw out her hands in a helpless gesture. “Geoff,” she burst out, “is there any hope I can give him? Or maybe I’m asking if you realistically believe you’ll find grounds to file a new appeal.”

  If this were a week ago, Geoff thought, I’d have had to tell her that I’ve gone over every inch of this case and I can’t find even a suggestion of new grounds. Kerry McGrath’s call, however, had made the difference.

  Careful not to sound overly encouraging, he told Beth about the two women Kerry McGrath had seen in Dr. Smith’s office and of Kerry’s growing interest in the case. As he watched the radiant hope grow on Beth’s face, he prayed that he was not leading her and Skip down a path that would ultimately prove to be another dead end.

  Beth’s eyes were filling with tears. “Then Kerry McGrath still is looking into the case?”

  “Very definitely. She’s quite something, Beth.” As Geoff heard himself saying those words, he was visualizing Kerry; the way she tucked a lock of blond hair behind her ear as she was concentrating, the wistful look in her eyes when she talked about her father, her trim, slender body, her rueful, self-deprecating smile when Bob Kinellen’s name came up, the joyful pride that emanated from her when she talked about her daughter.

  He was hearing her slightly husky voice and seeing the almost shy smile she gave him when he had taken the key and opened the door for her. It was obvious to him that after her father’s death, no one had ever taken care of Kerry.

  “Geoff, if there are grounds for an appeal, do you think we made a mistake last time by not telling about me?”