Chapter 58
I DECIDED TO WALK back to work. It was one of those bright, iconic New York spring days that make you forget about things like triple-digit parking tickets and transit strikes and construction crane accidents.
But for some strange reason, I wasn’t in the mood for thinking about April showers or stopping to smell the Park Avenue tulips.
Back inside my small office on the forty-fourth floor of my Lexington Avenue office building, I closed the door and just stood at the window, staring down at the people scurrying in and out of Grand Central Station. Beyond the Empire State Building to the south, downtown Manhattan sprawled and glinted under the midday sun, intricate and magical, like Monopoly pieces placed on a giant Oriental carpet.
Gazing on it, I thought about the Eighth Avenue pimps and potholes that formed my first vista on my first night in New York and how much I’d accomplished since then.
I continued to stand at the window, hugging myself. At first, I felt sad, then suddenly furious. For all this to get dredged up now, so close to home, just when my life was starting to take off, felt beyond coincidence. It felt intentional.
A media case? I thought. Hadn’t I suffered enough? I thought about the life I’d struggled to put together. All the comments and lewd offers I’d received from asshole restaurant managers and customers. The eyebrow raises I’d had to endure from my co-op board for the crime of being a young single mom. All the packed buses and subway cars and work, housework and homework, that never seemed to give me a moment’s peace.
Most of all, I thought about all the abject terror that I’d gone through in the middle of the night with Emma those first few months when she was colicky. Night after night, I would rock my swaddled baby, weeping along with her, convinced that I was a day away from failing, losing Emma, being fired, being found out.
That wasn’t enough, huh? I thought, staring up at the blue sky. Sacrificing for my daughter, constantly having to look over my shoulder as I worked my fingers to the bone? I haven’t paid enough?
Besides, it wasn’t like I’d done nothing to try to set things straight. After about a year, when I’d scored a decent studio rental and a solidly paying waitressing job at a SoHo supper club, I saw an article in the Post about the Jump Killer. As guilt started to eat away at me one night after I picked up Emma from day care, I took the PATH train out to Hoboken. From an I-95 highway pay phone, I called the New York office of the FBI and gave an answering machine a description of the Jump Killer and his dog and his car.
Over the years, from time to time, I’d think about doing the same thing about Peter, but in the end, I feared that he—with all his law enforcement contacts—might somehow find out. The call would be traced. Peter would know that I wasn’t dead and come looking for me and Emma.
I let out a breath as I finally sat at my desk. My brow beaded up with cold sweat as I remembered the Jump Killer’s face. The office seemed to fade, and there I was again, homeless and pregnant, running for my life in a pair of secondhand Doc Martens.
After a while, I tried to console myself. Things could be worse. At least I hadn’t actually been assigned the Jump Killer case. I’d definitely dodged a bullet there.
What was I getting so upset over? I’d just have to concentrate on my own case, I decided. Keep my head down and my fingers crossed that Mary Ann wouldn’t recognize me. This whole thing would blow over like a freak storm.
I lifted Randall King’s heavy case file and dropped it on my desk.
I even opened it.
Then I stopped kidding myself.
I shoved the file aside and turned on my computer. I clicked open Internet Explorer and typed “Justin Harris” into the Google search box.
A fraction of a second later, I pushed the hair out of my shocked eyes.
Harris’s ten-year-old arrest really was a big media case. There were dozens of newspaper articles. There was even an ongoing segment on the Today show about Harris’s impending execution.
I didn’t really watch the news, but the Today show! How the hell had I missed it?
I didn’t want to know, was how, I realized. I hadn’t checked up on the Jump Killer in seventeen years. I never even once tried to find out what happened to Peter. I knew it was a childish notion, but I thought that if I stopped thinking about all of it, there would be some sort of karmic reciprocity, and everyone I had known would, in turn, stop thinking about me. Subconsciously, I’d made the decision that if I didn’t dwell on it, it would be like it never happened.
But it had happened, I thought as I stared sourly at the computer screen. And wouldn’t ever stop.
I opened a taped 2006 Fox News story about Harris on YouTube. I was hovering my finger over the mouse’s left-click button to play it when my secretary, Gloria “Go-To” Walsh, came in. I immediately minimized the article with a guilty click.
“I thought you had that ProGen prospectus meeting,” she said.
“Tom put me on a pro bono case,” I told her. “No more ProGen for me.”
“Yes!” Gloria said. “Maybe I’ll get home before seven this week. Anything interesting?”
No, more like life-threatening, I thought.
“Sort of, Gloria. I’m kind of in the middle of something. I’ll let you know, OK?”
I turned up the volume on my computer as she closed the door behind her. Shepard Smith was finishing up an intro about the Jump Killer murders. I took a breath, steeling myself to come face-to-face again with the man who tried to kill me that night.
When a picture of Justin Harris filled the screen, I hit the Pause button, puzzled.
Because the man on the screen wasn’t the Jump Killer who’d given me a ride all those years ago on the Overseas Highway.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit above the “Justin Harris” caption was a very sad-looking, very African American man.
Chapter 59
I SAT THERE very confused. Breathing slowly, trying to calm myself, I looked everywhere on my desk except the screen. I perused the snazzy gold embossing on a leather-bound copy of McKinney’s New York Civil Practice Law and Rules, smiled at the framed picture of Emma and me on our Vermont ski trip last January. For a little while, I even watched the minute hand of my gag lawyer’s desk clock that broke every hour down into ten six-minute increments, the same way we fun-loving corporate party animals billed our clients.
Then I looked back at the computer screen and winced.
Justin Harris was still there. Nothing had changed in the slightest. He was still black.
Which didn’t compute. Harris was definitely not the man who’d tried to kill me the night I hightailed it out of Key West. The terrifying, muscled wacko who’d put a gun up my nose was definitely Caucasian, or a mixture of Asian American and white.
Staring at the goateed black man, I came up with the most probable scenario. The one that the Mission Exonerate people kept on harping about: The Florida authorities had convicted and were about to execute an innocent man.
With a queasy feeling in my stomach, I clicked on the link for the most recent Miami Herald article. After I read its first paragraph, I kicked back my rolling office chair and clicked my forehead onto the varnished edge of my desk.
The execution was going to take place on April 29? Which was next Friday! Justin Harris was going to die in nine days.
Unless I did something about it.
I spent some time staring down at the industrial Berber carpet between my pumps as I took it in. Then I began to moan.
I was the only person who could.
I would have to come forward. It wasn’t fair. I’d spent so many hard years keeping the lid shut on the can of worms I called my life. Coming forward would mean exposing every one of my dirty little secrets once and for all, up to and including my part in Ramón Peña’s death.
I’d lose my job, everything I’d struggled and scraped for.
And what about Emma? Her life would be flattened. Good-bye, dream MOMA internship. Good-bye, Brown. Not to me
ntion: Good-bye, her trust in me. How was that going to work?
That’s when I made the mistake of peeking back up at the screen. Justin Harris’s sad, deer-in-the-headlights gaze seemed to look directly into my soul.
It wasn’t a choice. A man’s life was at stake. I would have to come clean.
Chapter 60
THEY SAY that a lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client.
That described me to a tee.
For the next hour, I used my astute legal mind to go over my current situation. I started off by compiling a detailed damage assessment on a legal pad. I began scratching down notes under happy headings like “Friends I’d Lose” (pretty much all of them). “Likely Legal Ramifications” (firm would fire me and I’d lose my license to practice law). Then I wrote, “Statute of Limitations for Manslaughter”(?) and “Emma” (in family services?).
I had my reading glasses on the edge of my nose and was flipping through my trusty McKinney’s when I suddenly pushed the glasses up on my forehead and slammed the law book shut.
Because there was actually another option.
It was nuts. Absolutely insane. Not to mention an outrageously long shot. Of course it was. Insanity and long shots went together in my life like Ben and Jerry.
What if I did switch cases with my friend Mary Ann? I thought. What if I took Harris’s case?
I could stay on top of it. Maybe I could even figure out a way to free Harris without dismantling my life and especially Emma’s. Harris didn’t do it, right? I knew that. Therefore, there had to be something in his case, some overlooked detail, that proved it. It was just a matter of finding it and bringing it before the court.
“Down in Key West” came a tiny dissenting voice.
Right. I knew there was a rub. I’d have to consult with Harris’s lawyer, who lived in the last place I wanted to go.
Just the thought of setting foot in that beautiful, dangerous place again made me want to swallow a handful of Xanax.
I sat there for a little while on the horns of my dilemma.
Choice A: finally face up to my buried past.
Choice B: lie my ass off and try to continue the con that was my life.
It was no choice at all.
I’d have to figure it out, I decided. Key West was a big town. Sort of. I could just lie low. Maybe Peter wasn’t even living in the area after seventeen years.
I lifted my cell phone. It felt like it suddenly weighed twenty pounds. I spun down to Mary Ann’s number before I could change my mind.
“What?” Mary Ann said sharply.
“I’ve been thinking. Let’s trade cases,” I said.
“For real?” she said ecstatically now. “Are you sure?”
I wasn’t sure of anything, but I had to do it anyway.
“Say yes before I change my mind,” I said.
“Yes,” Mary Ann said. “See? I knew you were a good friend. I’ll help Emma with her SAT, whatever you need, I promise. Just remember, no backsies.”
“No backsies,” I agreed, biting the inside of my cheek.
Chapter 61
AS I DID WITH each of my long-shot plans, I arranged my newest one with gusto.
By the next morning, I’d managed to nail down everything. The flight to Key West, the hotel, the car to the airport. Emma was happily surprised to find out she’d be spending the next week at her best friend Gabby’s town house in Brooklyn. The only thing left to do was swing by my office on the way to Kennedy to pick up Harris’s case file, which Mary Ann had messengered over.
Then all I had left to do was try not to get killed by Peter as I saved a man from execution.
In a week’s time.
“Piece of cake,” I mumbled as I rolled my bag into the kitchen.
Em was listening to her iPod and drumming a pencil against her open trig book in front of a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. I stole a spoonful as I e-mailed Harris’s lawyer, a man named Charles Baylor, to tell him I was coming down.
I winced when I turned on the kitchen laptop and opened Internet Explorer. In “History,” I found searches for “Bloom Family” and even “County Wicklow,” the place I’d said Emma’s fictional dad was from.
Great! Another headache. What timing. As if my in-box weren’t currently full of disaster. The tape I’d made before Emma’s party had only whetted her appetite for more, I realized. More juggling. I was getting it from all sides at once. Leave my secret identity alone! I felt like yelling.
“Mom, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Emma said, taking back the spoon. “Why don’t I look more like my dad?”
That was one of my biggest worries. That Emma might notice that Aidan Beck was fair instead of black Irish like Peter.
“I have no idea,” I said cheerfully, making it up as I went along. “I do know you have his good nature and his laugh.”
Emma, no dummy, frowned at my utter bullshit. “Why do I get the feeling that you don’t want me to find out about him?” she said.
I had to struggle to keep from pulling my hair out. “Do I give you that impression?” I said.
“Whatev,” Emma mumbled, fat tears suddenly springing into her big blue eyes.
I knew that Em was just being a sixteen-year-old girl, a ball of hormone-charged emotion. But I couldn’t let her do this. I couldn’t afford it, and neither could she. What the heck was I supposed to say? Sorry to have to tell you this, kid, but your dad’s a psychopathic killer, and I’m a pathological liar?
Instead, I used my secret weapon.
I dropped my keys loudly on the countertop, collapsed onto the island stool, and started crying myself. “I wish I could make your life make more sense, but I can’t,” I said, sobbing.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Em finally said, coming around to embrace me. “You don’t think I know what you’ve done for me, but I really do. I’ll stop freaking you out with all this stuff.”
“No, I’m sorry. You could look up your Irish roots, just not right now, OK? You have college prep and so many other things on your plate. When I get back, we’ll rent The Quiet Man. And eat Lucky Charms for breakfast. I hear they’re magically delicious.”
My iPhone rang as Emma hugged me again. It was a number I didn’t recognize. Terrific. What now?
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Carl Fouhy from Exonerate NYC. Is this Nina Bloom?”
“Yes, Carl. What’s up?”
“Since you’ve got the Justin Harris case now, I thought it would be a good idea for you to meet Harris’s mother.” Mary Ann must have called him, I surmised. No backsies indeed. “What’s your schedule looking like?”
“Real tight, Carl. I’m actually on the ten o’clock flight to Florida,” I said.
“Could you come by Rockefeller Center before you leave? Justin’s case is making big news now. The Today show is doing a piece on it this morning, and we’re actually out here right now, protesting. Trying to get some national publicity.”
The Today show? Publicity? That would really help my fly-below-the-radar strategy.
A fist-sized ball of fear suddenly clenched in my stomach. I knew I shouldn’t have done this. Taking this case on had been a mistake.
“Nina? You still there? I know it’s a crunch, but I feel it’s really imperative that you meet.”
I couldn’t think of an excuse. I’d have to figure it out. If I was asked to get anywhere near a camera, I’d just refuse and walk away. Run away, if it came to that.
“Um, OK, I guess,” I said, checking my watch. “But only for a minute. Give me half an hour.”
Chapter 62
“AND FOUR, THREE, TWO,” said some wimpy bald guy all in black and wearing a headset. He pointed at the massive high-tech television studio camera beside him as its red light came on.
“And we’re back,” Al Roker said, reading off the teleprompter screen mounted beneath the saucer-sized bluish lens of the camera. “We’re concluding our three-part series today on Florida’s Jump Killer execution by talking to a
family member of one of the alleged victims.”
Sitting on the couch across from America’s weatherman, wearing jeans and a light blue cashmere sweater, Peter Fournier smiled. Behind him outside the Rockefeller Plaza studio window, a crowd of people were waving signs. This was the reason Peter had traveled up from Key West to New York for the weekend.
“Peter Fournier’s wife was only twenty-three years old,” Roker continued, “when she was believed to have crossed paths with Justin Harris. Mr. Fournier, a Key West, Florida, police officer, is the head of the victims’ rights group for the Jump Killer’s victims. Good morning, Mr. Fournier. Has Harris actually admitted to murdering your young wife, Jeanine?”
“No,” Peter said sadly. “He has not, Al. He maintains his innocence not only in the case of my wife’s death, but even of the Foster girl, for which he was convicted.”
Peter took a breath as the glossy eye of the camera stayed on him.
“That’s why I, and all the other families, are gratified that the execution is finally going to take place next week. This man needs to pay for his crimes, and on Friday night, God willing, that’s exactly what he’ll do.”
Al nodded. “I can’t imagine your pain, but it’s long been debated whether capital punishment actually helps the victim’s family. What’s your take on that?”
“Seventeen years ago, this person abducted my wife and killed her, and he doesn’t even have the semblance of humanity to tell me where he dumped her body so I can have a proper funeral,” Peter said calmly. “What do I do with that, Al? Forgive and forget? My pain and the pain of all of the victims’ families will never go away. Dante said that hell is the place where all forgotten things go. That’s exactly where I want to put Harris. I just want him to be forgotten by me, by the other families, and by every other human being on this planet.”
“What are your plans now?” Al wanted to know.
“I, and the other family members in our organization, have learned that death penalty opponents are scheduling protests, so we will be front-row center to make sure that our voice, and the voices of the people that Harris truly disenfranchised, are heard.”