The Man From Primrose Lane Part 25

A tap on the window. It was Sackett. David rolled it down.

"Mr. Neff, we've got someone here who can take your son. This is Pamela Swanson, she's from the Department of Job and Family Services." He motioned to a young woman with a pleasant face. She smiled at Tanner warmly.

"Tanner? My name's Pam. We're going to take a little ride and let your father talk with these men."

"No, Dad," he whispered.

"It's okay."

Tanner gripped him tightly around the neck. He kissed his son and somehow managed to pull him off his body and hand him to the social worker through the window. He knew there wasn't much time in situations like this before the police grew impatient. Tanner just hung his head and cried. The woman jogged back with him to one of the civilian cars and placed Tanner in the back seat with her.

No one said anything for several long seconds.

Finally, David said, "I am a man who doesn't care about money. I am also a man who has a lot of it. And now I am a very angry man with a lot of money who doesn't care about spending it. I will use every penny making your lives miserable for as long as I can."

Larkey smiled. "There he is," he said. "There's my killer."

"Mr. Neff, step out of the car," said Sackett, his voice cool as an Arctic breeze.

David got out.

"Turn around."

As he did, there were flashes of light. Two photographers crouched at the back of his car, snapping pictures for tomorrow's papers.

"Why?" David asked.

"That other print?" said Larkey. "The one from the dead guy's toilet? We figured it could only have been left by a plumber or the Man from Primrose Lane himself. When we found a match on the barrel of your gun, we knew it wasn't left by the plumber."

"Mr. Neff," continued Sackett, "you are under arrest for the murder-"

"Murder?"

Handcuffs slapped around his wrists. More flashes went off.

"I didn't kill the Man from Primrose Lane," he said.

"You tried," said Sackett. "So we're charging you with attempted murder, too."

"What are you talking about? Is this a joke? You can't charge me for murdering and trying to murder the same man!"

"You f.u.c.ker," said Larkey. "Stop playing mind games. We're charging you for the attempted murder of the John Doe. You're being charged with murder because you strangled your wife and staged her suicide. Or did you forget about that, too?"

EPISODE TWELVE.

CONFESSIONS.

"Why do you love me?"

They were in Tanner's room, pasting big foam letters on the wall above his crib. A mobile of brightly colored hot-air balloons spun slowly above them. They'd purchased it at FAO Schwarz on a trip into New York to meet with a foreign rights agent who was selling David's book overseas (twelve countries, and counting). The toy had cost more than David had made in a week working at the movie theater in college. The big house still smelled of fresh paint and Elizabeth's belly was enormous under her sweats.

"What are you talking about?"

"Why do you love me? Have you thought about it in a while?"

David laughed. "I love the way you whistle when you're nervous. I love the way your toes play with your sandals when you're sitting in a restaurant. I love the way you sit on couches. I love your big fat belly."

She smiled. "Those are things you notice about me. Writer things. Incidental."

"I don't think they're incidental."

"I was thinking about the way we met," she said, pretending to straighten the letter T on the wall, without looking at him. "You didn't know anything about me. Other than what you observed about me."

"Yeah?"

"I think you fell in love with what you didn't know about me. I think you made up a story in your mind about me. You wanted to know why I was odd. Why I was so mean."

David turned her around gently, tugging at her shoulders. "What does it matter? I love you, stupid. I love you."

Elizabeth kissed him lightly on his lips. "I was in Atlantic City once, before I met you. I was at this roulette table. Counting the reds and blacks. I saw a run of reds. Fifteen in a row. A couple other people saw it happen. They got real excited. Thought it was some sign. Some streak of luck. But it's just probability. Eventually it had to balance out. I started betting on black. Let my money ride. It took a while. But I was patient. I went home with three grand."

"You know I get lost with all this math mumbo jumbo," he said.

"Sometimes I think this terrible thing that happened to me-to Elaine-I think maybe you were the thing that came into my life to balance that out. That you were the good the universe sent to me to get me back to equilibrium."

"Sounds good to me."

She nodded. She smiled again, but her eyes remained sad. "And I think about Brune. And how it all ended in court with Trimble. And it was so good what you did, David. It was so oddly good, what some would call lucky, that I wonder what the universe might do to balance that out."

"It doesn't work that way," he said.

"Doesn't it? Sometimes I think of the odds of anyone making it all the way through life and it seems so impossible."

"Whatever happens," he began ...

... "I'll be here with you," said Elizabeth. Judge Siegel entered the courtroom. Everyone stood.

Following David's testimony, which had ended shortly after identifying the frames of film to the jury, Russo had rested the state's case against Riley Trimble for the murders of Sarah Creston, Jennifer Poole, and Donna Doyle. They had made a strong argument, a compelling argument, but their case remained entirely circ.u.mstantial. Nothing linked Trimble to the murders directly. But when you looked at everything that implicated him, you came to see that it was mathematically impossible for him not to have done it-there was just too much circ.u.mstantial evidence to explain away. Brune himself had been convicted and sent to the death house for less. Still, the prosecutor had his doubts. "Sometimes justice is just getting the guy in the courtroom," Russo had told him.

"Be seated," barked Siegel, taking his place behind the bench. "Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?"

The jury foreperson, the teacher from Parma, stood. "We have, Your Honor," she said.

Elizabeth leaned to David's ear. "Whatever happens, everything is going to work out," she whispered.

He squeezed her hand.

"What is your verdict?"

"On the charge of murder in the first degree, in the death of Sarah Creston, we, the jury, find the defendant not guilty."

David's ears rang loudly. He felt the tension of the trial collapsing around him, threatening to bury him. Hopefully, he thought, the Rivertin would do its job. I don't want to feel this.

"On the charge of murder in the first degree in the death of Jennifer Poole, we the jury find the defendant not guilty."

Wordlessly, Russo stood up and left the courtroom.

The jury foreperson read through the remainder of the forty-seven charges. Trimble was acquitted on each count.

Russo stood before a pool of reporters camped out in the hallway. He denounced the verdict and insinuated that the jury's instructions had been too complicated for them to understand.

When the reporters saw David, several of them broke from the pack and reached toward him with large microphones.

"Mr. Neff, Tim Pohlman, Channel Five. Can you tell us how you feel about today's verdict?"

"I think the jury is a bunch of idiots," he said. Elizabeth tugged at his arm, urging him toward the elevators.

"Mr. Neff, are you afraid Riley Trimble will use today's verdict to support civil charges against you?"

"I'm not afraid of Riley Trimble," he said. "He's a serial killer. He's a coward. Let him come after me."

"We can't air that!" said a reporter from Channel Three.

David shrugged.

Pohlman pulled him aside a few steps from the elevator. Elizabeth and his father waited a few feet away. The other reporters, catching a glimpse of Trimble walking out of the courtroom still in his orange jumpsuit, but free, left them. "Hey, I believe you, kiddo," said Pohlman, a fortyish investigator who reminded David of a childhood friend. "Just give me a little sound bite. Everyone else is going to paint it black. We'll make you look good. No worries. I thought the evidence was overwhelming."

David looked back at Elizabeth and gave her a one-minute sign.

"Put this on," said Pohlman, twisting a wireless microphone around David's lapel. His cameraman was setting up the tripod. "I'm just going to ask you a few basic questions. Let you tell your side. But watch out for the defamatory stuff. Blog that or something. We can't air it. Stick to the facts. I'll make it look good."

David nodded. "Is the mic working?" he asked.

The cameraman gave a thumbs-up. He saw the red record light click on.

David was suddenly struck by a dangerous idea.

"I have to use the men's room," he said, and before Pohlman had time to protest he walked into the lavatory behind them. No one else was inside. He stepped to the sink and waited.

"h.e.l.lo, Dave," said Trimble.

"h.e.l.lo, Riley," said David.

They stared at each other.

"I thought you might want to apologize," said Trimble.

"Why would I do that?"

Trimble chuckled.

"What's funny?" asked David.

"Nothing."

"No, really. I want to know. What's funny?"

"This," he said, waving at the walls, in the general direction of the courtroom.

David smiled. "Yeah."

"I can never be tried again, you know," he said.

"That's the way it works."

"Double jeopardy."

"Double jeopardy," David agreed.

"I could even tell you how I did it," said Trimble. "And ain't nothing you could do about it."

"That's true."

"Does that bother you?"

"No."

"It does."

"You don't scare me, Riley. You know that, right?"

Trimble looked cross for a moment. Then he smiled and wagged his finger at the writer. "You. You're scared. I can tell."

"Why would anyone be scared of you, Riley? You just proved to everyone that you're just a white-trash air-conditioner installer who never hurt anyone."

"I don't care about them," he said, stepping closer to David. "Just you. You know what I done. You're smart enough to be scared."

"Which part am I supposed to be scared of, Riley? The part where you couldn't man up and face the music so you let your scoutmaster take the rap for Sarah? The part where you couldn't get a hard-on for grown women so you gave up and went after easier prey? The part where you were too scared to touch the dead bodies so you had to roll them out of the trunk?"

Trimble stepped to David and grabbed the writer by the throat, pushing him back against the mirror. He leaned in toward David's ear. "How about the part where I stuck a screwdriver up Sarah's p.u.s.s.y and carved out her insides? How about the part where I taught Ronil how to kidnap his holes and not get caught? How about the part where I pierced Jennifer's t.i.ts with copper wire and plugged her into the wall? How about now? Are you a little afraid now, you sarcastic little s.h.i.t?" He shoved David backward, hard enough that David saw stars dance in his periphery for a few minutes.

"No," David said. "But if I were you, I'd be afraid of what happens next."

"What do you mean? I'm free, you dumb f.u.c.k."