Julia was just a baby then, not even babbling yet. Billy had just celebrated his third birthday at a party only his father could have planned-twenty toddlers and their parents for a private afternoon concert at Joes Tavern featuring a live performance from Hootie and the Blowfish. She remembered standing in this same foyer, admiring the feel of the clean, smooth marble against her bare feet, foreseeing the life her happy family would enjoy in this spectacular home.
Shed felt so lucky back then. Bill Whitmire had lived an amazing life filled with talent, celebrity, travel, music, and beautiful women. Katherine was not his usual fare. Neither a model nor a singer ingenue, she was already in her early thirties when she met Bill. An architect with a modest career, shed landed her biggest contract yet with the remodel of a Tribeca loft for the lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins.
Shed been on her way out, blueprints in hand, when Bill showed up for a coffee. Coffee turned into cocktails. Cocktails evolved into dinner. And, much to her surprise, shed woken up in his bed the next morning.
She expected it to be a one-night stand, her first-and probably only-in a lifetime. But Bill called her three days later, and three days after that. Within two months, she started to wonder if they were actually in a relationship.
And then one day, to put her mind at ease because she was nearly two weeks late for her period, she peed on a stick. And then another, and another. With the trilogy of pink plus signs lined up on the top of her toilet tank, she saw the quick end of her exciting new romance. Bill was fifty years old and had never been married. This story could not have a happy ending.
She gave him the news, fully expecting him to ask when shed be getting it taken care of. But then, once again, Bill Whitmire surprised her. He smiled and hugged her, and then he cried and said, Thank you for this. He held her hair when the morning sickness started. He rubbed vitamin E lotion on her belly every night, promising to love her even if her entire abdomen ended up striped with stretch marks.
Six months into the pregnancy, he asked her to marry him, so they could be a real family. They exchanged vows on the beach at Montauk. Elvis Costello officiated with a ministers certificate from the Internet. Their wedding announcement was placed prominently in the New York Times Sunday Styles section. She changed her name.
When she became pregnant a second time, with Julia, it was Bill who proposed buying a townhouse with ample space for the children to play. The top floor could be an apartment for a live-in nanny to help Katherine juggle the additional chaos that would accompany another child.
Bill Whitmire had settled down. He was a good father. And hed chosen her to do it with. She remembered actually spinning around with glee on this marble floor that quiet day, staring up at the bright white molded ceiling so far above her, feeling like shed won the love-and-marriage lottery. She was living a fairy tale, and Bill was her Prince Charming.
Two months later, the house was no longer empty. Billy with his Toy Story bedspread. Julia with her moss-green, elephant-themed nursery. Katherines custom closet was bigger than the apartment shed last rented as a single woman.
Mira, the full-time nanny, had her own living space upstairs.
To this day, Katherine still wondered how long it had been going on-right beneath, or above, her nose-before she realized. Shed come home one afternoon to find the familiar sound of Bills music emanating from his study, but no Bill. The elevator parked on the top floor. No sign of Mira, either.
Shed taken the stairs so they wouldnt hear the elevator. If she was wrong, she could always tell Mira she was just slipping in some extra exercise.
But her suspicions had been right. Bill was the one slipping something in.
Now, more than sixteen years later, she had watched her daughters body being wheeled out of that same top-floor apartment. The detectives she had insisted upon were gone. Everyone was gone.
She walked to the bar cart in the sitting area and poured a crystal highball glass full of Bills vodka. She hated herself for thinking about his first (known) infidelity when she should be thinking about Julia.
But in many ways, that moment was inextricably entwined with this one. When she saw Bill-panting and sweaty behind the bent-over nanny, his unzipped, age-inappropriate designer jeans clumsily dangling-everything had changed. She should have left him then. She should have taken what the prenup had to offer and made a normal life with her two, still happy children.
But by then, being Mrs. Bill Whitmire had become the very core of her identity. For their marriage to fail would mean that she was nothing but a cliche, the glamorous carriage having turned back into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight. It would mean that Bill had never really chosen her. She would be just one in a long string of women-the one whod gotten knocked up.
And so watching and monitoring and controlling her husband became her full-time job. If Bill said he was meeting a reporter at Babbo, she would walk him there-and step inside to say a brief hello, supposedly on her way to some errand or another. If he had to fly to California for the Grammys, she accompanied him-even if the ceremonies coincided with Julias first piano recital. When he announced that he was more productive at the in-home studio out in Long Island, she chose to believe that Julia and Billy were mature enough to stay at the townhouse on their own.
She felt the vodka burn its way down her throat. She held in the sting, wanting it to burn, wanting to feel something. Shed seen the way those detectives looked at her. Judging her. Casting her squarely inside whatever stereotypes they held about superficial women who valued their looks, handbags, and silverware above the things that actually mattered.
She knew she deserved every last bit of their scorn. She should have been here with her baby girl. She should have been here to protect her. The least she could do now was to find out who did this to her daughter. The police might be gone, but no way was this over.
The silence was disrupted by the sound of keys in the front door. She knew who would be walking in, but part of her wished it would be her son instead. Shed called Billy at school with the awful news, but even if he made it onto the last flight to New York, he wouldnt make it to the city before nine tonight.
Kitty?
Bills eyes were red and damp. He rushed to her and wrapped his arms around her.
My God. Our Julia. Our baby- His voice broke.
How many times had she wanted him to run to her like this? To need her. To hunger for her love and loyalty like an addict jonesing for the next hit. She felt tiny and fragile against his smothering embrace.
Its going to be okay, Kitty. Were going to get through this. Together.
He grabbed her even tighter, palming the back of her head and pressing her face against his cashmere overcoat. She smelled the sweet floral scent of Cartier perfume on his collar and, for the first time in nineteen years, found that she did not care what became of this marriage.
Chapter Seven
Usually, Ellie enjoyed her time in the Criminal Court Building. Shed heard it described as hurry-up-and-wait time. She understood the term all too well.
Other people-usually the lawyers-ran up and down the hallways, struggling to herd witnesses like cattle. They negotiated last-minute deals, always in shorthand. ROR-release on recognizance. JOA-judgment of acquittal. SOR-sex offender registration. Stip facts bench trial-stipulate that the facts offered in a bench (no jury) trial establish the material elements of the offense. Meanwhile, she sat and chilled on a courthouse bench, usually with some lawyers discarded newspaper in hand, collecting her pay-overtime if she wasnt on shift.
But on this particular day, waiting in the hallway outside Judge Frederick Knights courtroom, her thoughts kept jumping back to Rogans look of helplessness as shed shut the car door on him mid-sentence. She could tell her partner was pissed. The last words he said to her before she walked away were: Should we place an over-under on how long it is before Tucker gets a phone call?
He was probably right. The Whitmires would call their lieutenant. Or have the commissioner call their lieutenants captain to call their lieutenant. Or have the mayor call the commissioner-however those kinds of people managed to pull the strings that were beyond reach of the rest of the population.
But Ellie was the last person on earth who was going to make it easy for them. Nothing about their celebrity or money could change the fact that theyd raised a sad, screwed-up kid who ended it all, drunk and naked and bloody in a bathtub.
Hey, you. I thought you said you had a callout.
She had texted Max Donovan, the assistant district attorney handling todays motion, on their way to the scene on Barrow Street. She wasnt on a texting basis with most prosecutors, but this particular ADA was her boyfriend.
Turned out to be a quickie.
Wasnt aware we had quickie murder investigations these days. Oh, there was that case on Wooster last year where a guy thought his neighbor was murdering a woman, but the woman turned out to be a girlfriend doll.
This one had a real body, but it was a clear-cut suicide. Well, clear-cut to everyone but the family.
The amusement fell from his face. And youre okay with that?
Any reason I shouldnt be?
This one had a real body, but it was a clear-cut suicide. Well, clear-cut to everyone but the family.
The amusement fell from his face. And youre okay with that?
Any reason I shouldnt be?
All right. Forget I said anything. Im glad you could make it. Maybe time for a quick lunch when were done here?
Thatd be good.
Owing to their work schedules, they hadnt seen each other for four days. Given the consistent routine theyd developed over the last year, four nights apart was practically a long-distance relationship.