to think she was buying into me, too.
“You’re not what I expected,” she said.
I had several clever responses in tow. That was my trademark, right? Everything’s a joke. But I wanted to give her a real answer. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to find out what made her wait until age twenty-seven to start college, what had happened to her. And what had made her restart her life, what kind of hope must be propelling her beneath her defensive facade.
But before I could say a word, she pushed the door open and got out.
Peter Ramini watched the whole thing from his car, parked on the cross street to the high-rise building. He didn’t need to bother tailing Kolarich tonight. He knew where the girl lived-her street address and her apartment number, 1806-and he figured Kolarich would end up here with her.
But Kolarich didn’t go in. She got out of the car alone and walked up the ramp into her building. Kolarich’s SUV drove away into the night.
Ramini coughed and cleared his throat. He wasn’t looking forward to what would come next. But his instructions from Paulie, via Donnie, had been clear enough.
How had this become so complicated?
42
Tom Stoller happily chowed down on turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and split-pea soup. Aunt Deidre spent little time on her food, deriving her own pleasure from Tom’s.
We were in the visitation room. Deidre had charmed the guards over the eleven months Tom had been here, and when she mentioned there would be plenty of her home cooking left over, and she sure didn’t want to haul it all the way back home, they were putty in her hands. Deidre, I thought, was pretty good at getting what she wanted.
It was paper plates and plastic cutlery, but to look at my client’s contentment, you’d think he was sitting around the family kitchen table. I knew very well that Tom had a low opinion of the cuisine at the Boyd Center, as it was about the only thing he was willing to freely discuss.
The levity was severely undercut by the circumstances, naturally. This was in many ways like a last meal for Tom. But for God’s sake, if they could manage to find some enjoyment for an hour or two, let them.
I wished I had my cell phone. I was coordinating with Tori, whom I was going to pick up in an hour. We had a field trip scheduled.
Deidre left Tom to his chomping and pulled me to the far end of the room. “Do you have someplace you have to be, Jason? It’s okay. It’s Thanksgiving, after all.”
“I’ll need to be running in a bit here, yeah.”
“Are you seeing your folks?”
I laughed out loud. “No, ma’am. My mother’s deceased and my father isn’t close by.”
She cocked her head. “You’re all alone on Thanksgiving?”
“Not at all. I’m with you and Tom. That’s enough for me. It’s nice to see Tom enjoying something.”
“It is, it is. You should have seen him when he was a boy. His mother couldn’t keep enough groceries in the house.”
Then Aunt Deidre looked at me. She just stared at me for a long time and didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to say any words. I knew what she wanted.
“Deidre, we have a rough road ahead. You understand that.”
She finally broke eye contact. Her brain knew this. Her heart was hoping against hope for something different.
“I’m throwing a lot of darts at the board and hoping something sticks,” I continued. “I haven’t given up hope. And if we get a bad result, I think we have a pretty good appeal issue already, out of the gate, with the judge striking our insanity defense and not giving me more time. Most judges aren’t nearly so strict with discovery deadlines as Judge Nash. I think a higher court will be sympathetic.”
She nodded, trying to make this less difficult for me. It didn’t. It made it worse.
“The state has a circumstantial case,” I said. “I can drill some holes. Don’t give up.”
She didn’t look at me, but she rested her hand on my arm. “Whatever happens, whatever we get, it will be better with you than anyone else. I’m sure of it, Jason.”
She was putting undue faith in me. She was expecting something I was pretty sure I couldn’t deliver. It was a weight beyond what I normally carried on a case. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle losing this trial.
I left on that note. I said good-bye to Tom, but he only looked up briefly, mashed potatoes and gravy on his chin, before he resumed his feast. I was going to remind him that I’d be back tomorrow, that we’d have to go over some things, but I didn’t want to ruin the small measure of enjoyment he was experiencing.
If things continued as they were, it would be the last home-cooked meal he’d ever eat.
43
The truck pulled up in the dirt at a red flag and stopped. “Number One at Rovner Street. Stand by for the five-minute.”
Randall Manning watched through binoculars and listened through his earpiece.
“Green light at Rovner, that’s the five-minute,” the voice crackled through the earpiece.
The truck started moving again. Manning followed along with his binoculars. Good so far. Wait for the green light.
“Number Two at Rovner Street.”
Good. Just about right. Manning’s pulse was steady. This wasn’t the first time they’d run through it. It was, in fact, the twentieth.
“Number One at Dodd Street, stand by for the two-minute.”
Manning moved his binoculars to the second red flag, four hundred yards to the south, coming toward him. It was an approximation in terms of timing. It wasn’t intended to be precise. It didn’t need to be precise. They weren’t in the city’s downtown, and they were nowhere near Rovner Street or Dodd Street. They were out in the country- the “boonies,” to most people. They were in unincorporated Fordham County, surrounded on all sides by farmland purchased by Summerset Farms following its acquisition by Global Harvest International.
“Green light at Dodd. That’s the two-minute.”
Manning had driven the real route dozens of times. Dodd Street was actually far less than two minutes from the target, but Manning had built in an extra time cushion to account for unpredictable traffic.
The truck continued south, coming toward Manning. He was inside a dome he’d constructed more than a year ago for this purpose. A few hours ago, this dome had housed all sorts of farm equipment-tractors and plows and backhoes-all of which had been emptied out for this exercise.
He watched out the window from his position on the second-level balcony as the truck drove through the open double doors into the vast dome. He turned to face inside the dome and watched as the truck picked up speed and drove toward the makeshift building, consisting of only a front facade and door.
“Red light at Dayton, doesn’t fucking mat-ter!”
The truck stayed at a speed of twenty miles an hour and pulled up just short of the front door of the building.
The rear door of the truck burst open, and Patrick Cahill jumped out. The driver, Ernie Dwyer, also jumped out. Each of them was wearing state-of-the-art body armor and a helmet with a face shield. They raised their black AKM assault rifles and backed away from the faux building.
“Pop the targets,” said Manning.
Standard tactical training, about which Manning knew absolutely nothing eighteen months ago. But he’d learned a thing or two since then.
