I look at Daniel, who seems stunned even though I told him this was a very likely result. He stares at me, questioning, and I smile and nod. Only then does his face reflect his joy.
Calvin dismisses the charges and it’s over. Daniel hugs Kevin and me, and Tucker comes over to congratulate us all. It’s a surprisingly gracious gesture from a man who is sure to face some difficult media scrutiny.
Vince comes down to the defense table. He hugs Daniel, then Kevin and me, and I think he’s actually tearful. “Man, you did it,” he says to me. “You did it.”
It’s not true, of course, but I don’t bother to correct him. Someone else did it, last night, by strangling and mutilating Denise Banks.
• • • • •
OUR POST-TRIAL VICTORY celebration is at Charlie’s. It’s a tradition, and as always, we are given a private room in the back. In this case the privacy is more necessary than usual because the press and public somehow became aware of the location, and they’ve shown up en masse.
We limit the party to the core group: Kevin, Laurie, Vince, Daniel, and myself. We are more subdued than usual, possibly because there is no explosion after the tension of waiting for a jury verdict. Relief is etched on Daniel’s face; he claims never to have been so scared in his entire life.
He raises his glass in a toast. “To the best legal team and the best lead lawyer a man could ever have.”
There seems to be no dissent from that opinion, so I’m not about to quibble. I’ve gone from the worst lawyer on the face of the planet for putting Eddie on the stand, to America’s finest legal mind. All because a maniac committed a brutal murder.
The gathering breaks up fairly early, and Daniel gives us each a final hug as we leave. I tell him that we will need to get together to go over my final bill, and he smiles and says, “Anytime. No problem.”
Vince comes up to me and for a moment seems to be readying for a hug himself. At the last moment he veers off, and it becomes a handshake, which is fine with me. “I knew you could do it and you did,” he says. “You did.”
The fact is that I didn’t, but I don’t bother saying that to Vince. Laurie and I head home, and when we’re in bed, she asks, “You okay, Andy?”
“I’m fine. I’m glad it’s over.”
“Are you going to go away?” She’s referring to my traditional post-trial break, where I take Tara and get away for a couple of weeks to decompress.
“I’m not sure. I’m not sure I need to.”
“I thought maybe we could go together,” she says. “The three of us.”
“That sounds nice.”
My reaction sounds less enthusiastic than I actually feel about her suggestion, and she picks up on it. “Unless you don’t want to,” she says. “I know you like to be alone.”
“Laurie, getting away with you sounds wonderful. But not for too long. I was thinking under five years.”
She smiles and kisses me, but we wait until morning to tell Tara the good news.
Kevin is in the office in the morning when I arrive. We go over the hours we put in, and prepare a final bill for Daniel. It’s very substantial; Lassiter could have saved Daniel a lot of money by committing another murder a couple of months earlier.
When we’re finished, I call Daniel to set up a meeting to go over the charges. He’s not yet back working at the paper, so he asks if we can meet at his house at six P.M., which is fine with me.
Kevin and I haven’t really had a chance to discuss the sudden ending to the case, and I can tell he shares my rather disoriented feeling about it. He’s more of a legal purist than I am and is very uncomfortable with the fact that the determining event of the trial happened in a back alley in downtown Paterson.
No matter what angle we look at things from, the actions of Lassiter make no sense. He went to huge trouble to frame Daniel for the murders, only to save him when his efforts were about to be rewarded. Even more puzzling is Lassiter’s motive for the entire murder spree: Could someone be paying him to do this? And if so, why? Is it simply that he is insane?
Kevin thinks that Lassiter is a psychopath who gets off on making fools of the police and is unconcerned about how many people must die to make that happen. The fact is that the only way we are going to get any of these answers is if Lassiter gets caught, and hopefully, that will be accomplished before other women are killed.
I head home and take Tara for a long walk in the park. Laurie and I have decided to rent a house on Long Beach Island for a couple of weeks, and Tara seems fine with that. Tara and I have been there a number of times; it is beautiful and peaceful, especially outside the summer season.
I leave a note for Laurie, suggesting that we have dinner at Charlie’s after my meeting with Daniel. I then drive over to Daniel’s house, which is in a very expensive, heavily wooded section of Englewood Cliffs.
As I pull up to the house, I can see Daniel looking out at me through his front window and smiling. He is dressed casually and seems the picture of comfort, a far cry from the agony of confinement behind bars.
Moments later the front door opens, and he comes out on his porch to greet me. As I walk toward his house, I hear what seems like a small clap of thunder from behind me and to the right. I turn but don’t see anything, then look back toward the porch.
Daniel is still standing there, but he no longer has a face. It has been replaced by a bloody mask, and I watch, transfixed, as he slowly topples over onto a small table and then to the floor.
It takes my mind a split second to process what has happened, and I realize that a shot must have been fired from the wooded area behind me and across the street. I dive behind Daniel’s car, parked in his driveway, and try to peer into the trees. It’s getting dark, but I doubt that I would be able to see anyone even if it were broad daylight.
In my panic I briefly consider trying to make it to those woods, in the hope of at least getting a look at the shooter, but it seems futile. If he has taken off, he’s had plenty of time by now, and I won’t be able to catch him. If he’s still there, I’ll be a sitting duck and his next victim. My logical decision to stay put does not have to overcome any latent heroic streak residing inside me, so I stick with it.
It is unlikely anyone in this sparsely populated area saw or heard anything, so I am going to have to make the next move, whatever that move might be. Staying low and under cover as best I can, I make it to the porch to check on Daniel’s condition. It doesn’t take a physician to know that he is dead; it is one of the most horrible sights I have ever seen.
The door to the house remains open, and I decide to go inside to get out of the possible line of fire. I make a break for the door and half dive, half trip into the foyer, sprawling on my stomach. It’s not pretty, but unfortunately, no one around is alive to see it.
I find a portable phone and call 911, reporting the crime and making sure they alert Captain Millen. As I do this, I occasionally peek out the front window, though there is no sign of the shooter. Clearly, Daniel was the sole target; if the killer wanted to get two for the price of one, I was an open target as I approached the house.
The next thought to enter my stressed-out mind is that Vince must be told that his son is dead. I consider the possible ways to do this, and none seem right. I don’t want him to hear it from the media or from the police, and it doesn’t feel right to tell him over the phone, certainly not from here.
Instead, I call Laurie, and fortunately, she hasn’t gone to Charlie’s yet. “Laurie, it’s me. Something terrible has happened.”