Gone Girl(112)

‘Okay, thirty seconds. Did you enjoy it?’ He paused to see if I’d say anything – the pointed silence a teacher allows after asking the disruptive student: Are you done talking? ‘Now we need to talk. We are in a place where excellent timing is absolutely key.’

‘I agree.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ He arched an eyebrow at me. ‘I want to go to the police very, very soon with the contents of the woodshed. While the hoi polloi is—’

Just hoi polloi, I thought, not the hoi polloi. It was something Amy had taught me.

‘—all loving on you again. Or, excuse me, not again. Finally. The reporters have found Go’s house, and I don’t feel secure leaving that woodshed, its contents, undisclosed much longer. The Elliotts are …?’

‘We can’t count on the Elliotts’ support anymore,’ I said. ‘Not at all.’ Another pause. Tanner decided not to lecture me, or even ask what happened.

‘So we need offense,’ I said, feeling untouchable, angry, ready.

‘Nick, don’t let one good turn make you feel indestructible,’ Go said. She pressed some extra-strengths from her purse into my hand. ‘Get rid of your hangover. You need to be on today.’ ‘It’s going to be okay,’ I told her. I popped the pills, turned to Tanner. ‘What do we do? Let’s make a plan.’

‘Great, here’s the deal,’ Tanner said. ‘This is incredibly unorthodox, but that’s me. Tomorrow we are doing an interview with Sharon Schieber.’

‘Wow, that’s … for sure?’ Sharon Schieber was as good as I could ask for: the top-rated (ages 30–55) network (broader reach than cable) newswoman (to prove I could have respectful relations with people who have vaginas) working today. She was known for dabbling very occasionally in the impure waters of true-crime journalism, but when she did, she got freakin’ righteous. Two years ago, she took under her silken wing a young mother who had been imprisoned for shaking her infant to death. Sharon Schieber presented a whole legal – and very emotional – defense case over a series of nights. The woman is now back home in Nebraska, remarried and expecting a child.

‘That’s for sure. She got in touch after the video went viral.’

‘So the video did help.’ I couldn’t resist.

‘It gave you an interesting wrinkle: Before the video, it was clear you did it. Now there’s a slight chance you didn’t. I don’t know how it is you finally seemed genuine—’

‘Because last night it served an actual purpose: Get Amy back,’ Go said. ‘It was an offensive maneuver. Where before it would just be indulgent, undeserved, disingenuous emotion.’

I gave her a thank-you smile.

‘Well, keep remembering that it is serving a purpose,’ Tanner said. ‘Nick, I’m not f*cking around here: This is beyond unorthodox. Most lawyers would be shutting you up. But it’s something I’ve been wanting to try. The media has saturated the legal environment. With the Internet, Facebook, YouTube, there’s no such thing as an unbiased jury anymore. No clean slate. Eighty, ninety percent of a case is decided before you get in the courtroom. So why not use it – control the story. But it’s a risk. I want every word, every gesture, every bit of information planned out ahead of time. But you have to be natural, likable, or this will all backfire.’

‘Oh, that sounds simple,’ I said. ‘One hundred percent canned yet totally genuine.’

‘You have to be extremely careful with your wording, and we will tell Sharon that you won’t answer certain questions. She’ll ask you anyway, but we’ll teach you how to say, Because of certain prejudicial actions by the police involved in this case, I really, unfortunately, can’t answer that right now, as much as I’d like to – and say it convincingly.’

‘Like a talking dog.’

‘Sure, like a talking dog who doesn’t want to go to prison. We get Sharon Schieber to take you on as a cause, Nick, and we are golden. This is all incredibly unorthodox, but that’s me,’ Tanner said again. He liked the line; it was his theme music. He paused and furrowed his brow, doing his pretend-thinking gesture. He was going to add something I wouldn’t like.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘You need to tell Sharon Schieber about Andie – because it’s going to come out, the affair, it just will.’

‘Right when people are finally starting to like me. You want me to undo that?’

‘I swear to you, Nick – how many cases have I handled? It always – somehow, some way, always comes out. This way we have control. You tell her about Andie and you apologize. Apologize literally as if your life depends on it. You had an affair, you are a man, a weak, stupid man. But you love your wife, and you will make it up to her. You do the interview, it’ll air the next night. All content is embargoed – so they can’t tease the Andie affair in their ads. They can just use the word bombshell.’

‘So you already told them about Andie?’

‘Good God, no,’ he said. ‘I told them: We have a nice bombshell for you. So you do the interview, and we have about twenty-four hours. Just before it hits TV, we tell Boney and Gilpin about Andie and about our discovery in the woodshed. Oh my gosh, we’ve put it all together for you: Amy is alive and she’s framing Nick! She’s crazy, jealous, and she is framing Nick! Oh, the humanity!’