After Anna(90)

Judge Gardner set the verdict slip down. ‘Dr Alderman, would you like to make a brief statement?’

Noah hadn’t discussed that with Thomas, so he was on his own. ‘Yes, Your Honor, I would,’ he answered, finding his voice.

‘Please do so, Dr Alderman.’

‘I didn’t kill Anna,’ Noah stated simply. He said it for Maggie. She wasn’t here, but she would read it in the newspapers. His beloved audience of one.

He would never know if she believed him, but it was the truth.





Chapter Sixty-two


Maggie, After

That very night, Maggie and Kathy left in stricken silence for the county morgue, after leaving a heartbroken Caleb with Kathy’s husband, Steve. Kathy did the driving, and Maggie kept all of the possibilities alive in her mind because she wouldn’t believe that Anna was dead until she had seen her body. There could have been some mistake, there must have been some mistake, a giant and colossal mistake, it happens in the world, it could be somebody else’s daughter, not my daughter, though it shouldn’t be anybody’s daughter, a life ended at seventeen.

The sight of Anna’s body reduced Maggie to her knees. Her only daughter was gone, her skin gray and cold, her eyes closed, and her body covered by a sheet. One of the morgue employees had said strangulation, and Maggie almost fainted on the spot, though she didn’t need to be told. Purplish bruises encircled Anna’s neck, a sight so grotesque that Maggie could barely look. An odd darkness covered the back of Anna’s neck and shoulders, which Maggie realized was her daughter’s lifeblood, pooling inside her very body.

Maggie felt an uncontrollable fury aflame inside her, a rising rage that Noah had done this to her baby girl, her only one. She covered her mouth not to cry out, but sobbed against Kathy, new tears of agony and grief. She couldn’t do anything to get Anna back. She couldn’t understand what had happened. She hadn’t dreamed Noah was capable of such violence, such cruelty.

Maggie let Kathy guide her from the morgue and back home, and after that, Kathy had practically moved in, taking care of Maggie and Caleb and fending off reporters. Noah was charged with murder the next day, and Caleb kept asking for his father and crying. Maggie tried to explain everything to him, then let him stay home from school. She didn’t want him bullied, now that their family was in the papers, LOCAL DOC CHARGED IN MURDER.

Kathy babysat while Maggie made Anna’s funeral arrangements, chose the casket, the flowers, and Anna’s boho dress for her to be buried in. They held a brief memorial service at the funeral home, and Maggie and Caleb sat in the front row next to Kathy and her family. Behind them were their circle of friends, who had just been at the barbecue, stunned and stricken by the unthinkable turn of events. A pastor gave a generic eulogy, but Maggie crawled into a mental shell to avoid feeling the worst pain of her life.

At the end of the service, a woman in a navy-blue dress approached her. ‘Excuse me, are you Maggie Alderman?’

‘Ippoliti,’ Maggie corrected her, though she never had before.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you,’ Maggie answered, guarded. She suspected the woman was a reporter. ‘And you are?’

‘You don’t know me, I’m Chris Silas, Samantha Silas’s mother. Our daughters were friends.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Maggie remembered Samantha, with the MINI Cooper and the tattoos.

‘This must be so difficult for you.’

Maggie couldn’t begin to respond, so she didn’t try. ‘How’s Samantha? It must be hard for her, too.’

‘She ran away.’ Chris’s face fell.

‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s gone. She’s run away before. This time I think it was because of Anna, you know, her death.’

Maggie felt a stab of sympathy. She hadn’t even thought of the ripple effects of Anna’s murder. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that. Samantha’s a very nice girl.’

‘You met her?’

‘Yes, when she dropped Anna off, and she came to our barbecue, too.’ Maggie couldn’t begin to remember that night. The powder room. Anna crying. Noah’s lies. The photo from Jordan’s hotel room.

‘Thanks. Appreciate it.’ Chris smiled, sadly.

‘Did you tell the police?’

‘Yes, but no luck. I’m hoping she’ll come back soon.’ Chris patted Maggie’s shoulder. ‘You take care. I have to get to work.’

‘Thanks,’ Maggie said, withdrawing to the comfort of her shell.





Chapter Sixty-three


Noah, After

Noah sat hunched over on the bus seat, shackled at the wrists and ankles, which rendered it impossible to sit up straight. His back ached after the long ride in that position, but he ignored it. The Department of Corrections bus was unheated, and a few windows were stuck open, letting in frigid air and smoky exhaust. It was dark by the time they’d left SCI Camp Hill, which served as the Classification and Evaluation Center for the Pennsylvania prison system. He’d been bused there from the courtroom, and now he’d been shaved, deloused, classified, processed with an inmate ID number, and given a wristband with a barcode and a GPS tracker. He’d been assigned to SCI Graterford, which was Pennsylvania’s largest maximum-security facility, housing four thousand convicted felons, like him.