The Ex(40)

I made up some wishy-washy ethical reason for why I couldn’t make any guarantees, but promised to consider her wishes. “You know, you’ve said Malcolm was a bad person and a horrible father, but you haven’t mentioned how Max felt about him. Did the two of them get along?”

A worried look crossed her face. “You asked that because of what happened at Princeton.”

“I was only asking for your opinion.” She could construe my response however she liked.

“He was drunk and pissed off. It got totally blown out of proportion. Max loved his father, even though Malcolm didn’t deserve it.”

As soon as she left my office, I hit the Speaker button on my phone. Don answered immediately. “Turns out Max and his father had serious issues over money. We need to find out how much Max inherits now that his dad’s out of the way.” An alarm on my phone reminded me that it was time to go. “And can you ask Einer to see what he can find out about Max’s time at Princeton? It sounds like there was some kind of episode.”

I wouldn’t have time to look into it myself. Jack was coming home today.





Chapter 12


IT HAD TAKEN two days for the police to schedule a time to inspect Jack’s apartment to approve the conditions of his release. I wanted to be here to make sure everything went smoothly. Of course, Charlotte insisted on being with Buckley to “oversee the process” and had hired cleaners to make the apartment pristine after the police search.

While two men installed the boxes that would monitor the signal from Jack’s electronic monitoring anklet, Charlotte was monitoring the blogosphere’s coverage of Jack’s case on her iPad. Since Jack’s arrest, she and I had fallen into a comfortable rhythm, but we still had never spoken without Buckley in the room, which limited the scope of our conversations. “I got to hand it to you, Randall,” she said, “every paper’s got a quote from at least one person wondering if the cops rushed to judgment. The Daily News even mentioned the female victim’s drug arrest, like maybe she was the intended target or something. They got a little picture and everything.” She turned her tablet screen toward me. “She looks a bit like a young you, don’t you think? More strung out, mind you, but the resemblance is there.”

Buckley popped up from the sofa and grabbed for the iPad. “I want to see.”

We were both looking at what was apparently a booking photo of Tracy Frankel. Dark hair. Wide-set eyes. Heart-shaped face. But that was as far as the similarities went. “You’re crazy,” I said.

“And you’re blind,” Charlotte said, letting Buckley wander back to the sofa with her. “But you know what? You’re also a f*cking miracle worker. Malcolm’s son is trying to make him sound like a saint, but you totally turned the story around, and now Jack is coming home.”

I wanted to remind her not to get her hopes up, but for Buckley’s sake, let the optimism fill the air.

“Ma’am,” one of the deputies said, “to be clear, you’re taking that tablet with you when you leave? We’ll have to make sure of that.”

“Yes sirree.”

As a condition of his release, Jack could have no visitors to the apartment other than his daughter and lawyers. The court had also added a no-Internet provision, which was usually reserved for sex offenders or other people whose crimes could be facilitated on the Web, but I had decided to quit while we were ahead. The New York Observer had already asked if there was any chance of a black man being released pending trial on murder charges, and I had to admit there was not.

“And the girl here knows the condition applies to her, too, right? No iPhones, Google phones, Samsungs, blueberries, strawberries—nothing.” You could tell it was a joke the officer had used hundreds of times.

Buckley waved the brand-new basic flip phone Charlotte had purchased two hours ago. “The girl here has her vintage 1990 mo-bile ready to go.” She pronounced “mobile” as if it rhymed with “mile.”

The fact that Verizon wanted a full-day window three weeks from now to install a landline probably explained why I, like the Harris home, no longer had one.

“Stop staring at a picture of a dead girl,” Charlotte said, snatching her iPad back from Buckley. “It’s not healthy.”

“Sorry. It’s just—she’s so young there. Like, not much older than me.” She seemed shaken by the thought of someone her own age being killed. “Hey, by the way, how do they even know if we’re following all these rules?”

I looked around to make sure the officers were out of earshot. “Because they’re installing a camera at the door and have the right to conduct random inspections, so don’t even think about it. You can live without a smartphone for a while.”

Buckley jumped from the sofa at the sound of the doorbell and ran to the front hall.

Jack was wearing the clothes Einer had dropped off yesterday at the jail for him—khakis and a white polo shirt. They both seemed baggy. The officers had draped a jacket over his handcuffs. Buckley threw her arms around her father. When the officer looked at me and cleared his throat, I tapped her shoulder gently and explained that they needed to get Jack situated before she and her father could have a real reunion.

“You took the freight elevator?” I asked the oldest of the three officers, whom I assumed to be in charge.