Monday morning, Manhattan
The offices of Steinberg, Tillman, Gordon, Jenkins amp; Associates took up the entire nineteenth floor of a twenty-six-story building with a clear view of the East River and beyond. Taylor and Michael stepped off the elevator in the middle of a crowd of busy, droning office workers and entered the main reception area through a pair of heavy glass doors. The receptionist looked up, recognized Michael immediately, and stared for a few seconds before rising and taking them directly into Abe Steinberg’s office.
Steinberg’s office alone was bigger than most Manhattan apartments. A long plate-glass window gave them a view eastward of the sprawling city. Steinberg’s desk was easily six feet wide, made of a deep, rich brown polished wood. As Michael and Taylor were led into the office, he rose to meet them. He was short, balding, almost nondescript, and had to be pushing seventy. He didn’t exactly present a fearsome image, Taylor thought.
He crossed the room from behind his desk and met them in the middle of the room. “You must be Mr. Schiftmann,”
he offered, extending his hand.
Michael nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Steinberg.”
Taylor thought he seemed quiet, subdued, even a little nervous. The two of them had left Taylor’s building through the basement and the boiler room, and out onto the sidewalk at the freight entrance. They’d dodged smelly garbage cans and pallets of flattened recyclable cardboard boxes to avoid the news trucks and vans parked out front. Michael had said less then five words during the long cab ride uptown.
“And you’re Taylor Robinson,” Steinberg said, turning to Taylor and smiling. “Joan Delaney’s told me so much about you. She sees you as the future of the agency, you know.”
“That may be stretching it a bit,” Taylor answered. “But thanks for the compliment.”
Steinberg turned and motioned toward a shiny leather sofa that occupied the center of the office. Next to it, a matching brown leather chair sat next to a long glass coffee table.
“Please, sit down. We’ve got a lot to do and not much time.
We’re going to be here awhile, so would you like some coffee, tea, a soda, perhaps?”
“No, thank you,” Taylor said. Michael shook his head.
Steinberg turned and dismissed his assistant with a wave of his hand. Michael and Taylor sat down on the sofa at opposite ends. Steinberg loosened his tie and settled himself into the chair.
“Well, Mr. Schiftmann, you must feel like a character in one of your own books.”
Michael reached up and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think I could ever write anything like this. No one would believe it.”
Steinberg laughed. “You’re not the first person I’ve ever met who was accused of something and couldn’t quite believe it.”
Michael scooted forward on the seat and put his elbows on his knees, his arms extended forward. “First of all, Mr.
Steinberg, I want you to know I’m absolutely inno-”
“Don’t,” Steinberg interrupted. “Don’t tell me that now.
For one thing, it doesn’t matter at this point. For another, we have too much else to do.”
Michael leaned back in the sofa, looking a bit, Taylor thought, like a scolded puppy. Steinberg crossed his legs in the chair and leaned his head back, relaxed and confident.
“The first thing we have to do here is make a couple of decisions. The first is how you’re going to choose to fight this. There are several ways to contend with it. First, you can lay low, keep quiet, and let the best lawyers in the country fight it out for you. On the other extreme is total war, total commitment. Take your case to the public. Hire the best public relations firm in the country. Work the talk-show circuit, the tabloids, the whole thing. Build a case for Michael Schiftmann as the victim of an overzealous prosecutor and an incompetent police department. We can hire private investigators, our own forensic researchers, experts, and take the offensive. We challenge every point, concede nothing, and make them pay with blood, sweat, and tears for every step they take.”
Michael and Taylor looked at each other briefly, then back to Steinberg.
“The advantage to the former course of action is that it’s less stress and cost on your part. Good lawyers with lots of resources can often make these things go away. The downside is that you’re putting your fate in someone else’s hands, and that requires considerable trust.”
“And what are the ramifications of taking the other course?” Michael asked.
“The advantage is that your own personal involvement in the case will often swing public sympathy to your side, and don’t negate the power of that. The downside is when it backfires and the public turns against you. And there’s one other downside.”
“Yes?” Michael asked.
“If you write a check to the lawyers and let them take it from there, it’s going to be expensive. But if you decide to commit to total war-and make no mistake, my friend, this is war-then it could cost you everything.”
“But if I beat this …”
“Then you become a kind of folk hero,” Steinberg said, smiling. “And there are many opportunities in our culture for heroes. You’re a writer. Use your imagination.”
“Yes,” Michael said, smiling. “And I think that I want to take this fight to them. I’m innocent-I know you told me not to say that, but I am-and I’m not going to let them run over me. I don’t want to go to war with them, but if I have to, I will. Total commitment.”
Michael turned to Taylor and held out his hand. She smiled and took it. Then she turned to Steinberg.
“Okay, Mr. Steinberg,” she said. “Total war. What’s the first step?”
“The first step,” Steinberg said, “is you write me a check for one hundred thousand dollars. That’s just to get started.
And when we get your attorney in Nashville on board, you should be prepared to write another one.”
There was a long moment of increasingly uncomfortable silence. Taylor looked over at Michael as he sat there with a shocked look on his face. Then he slowly extracted a leather-bound checkbook from his inside suit coat pocket.
“How should I make out the check?” he asked, his voice subdued.
“Steinberg, Tillman will be fine.”
Michael slipped his black Montblanc fountain pen out of his pocket and removed the cap. “I’m writing a one-hundred-thousand-dollar check with a fountain pen that five years ago, I couldn’t afford.”
Steinberg smiled. “Funny how things change over time.”
Michael signed the check, ripped it out of the book, and handed it across the table to Steinberg, who folded the check and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “Now, let’s move on to some other things.”
Then Steinberg began talking, nonstop. Taylor sat there, off to the side, as the old attorney went on and on, with Michael occasionally nodding his head or answering a question with one or two words. Taylor found herself drifting in and out of the conversation; she still couldn’t believe this was happening. There was something about it so far removed from reality, so surreal, that she kept thinking that sooner or later someone was going to burst into the room, shout, “Just kidding!” and then it would all be over. Steinberg would roar back laughing, stand up, and rip Michael’s check into shreds. Then they could all go have a big lunch and a few drinks and a good laugh over all this.
Only it wasn’t a joke.
Taylor looked down at her watch; they’d been in Steinberg’s office nearly an hour. Suddenly the door opened and a middle-aged woman wearing a stern blue pin-striped power dress, her hair pulled back tightly, walked into the room.
Steinberg, irritated, turned to her.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Steinberg,” the woman said, “but you’re going to want to see this.”
She walked over to a large, closed cabinet that dominated the middle of the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases. She opened the door, revealing a large flat-panel television. She picked up the remote off the top of the TV and pointed it at the screen. The television powered up in a few seconds. The woman raised the volume and pressed the buttons to go to Cable News Network.
The shot was a live one, from the steps of the Davidson County Courthouse in Nashville, Tennessee. A podium had been set up on the steps with a bank of microphones jammed on top. A crowd milled around, restlessly murmuring. It was a bright blue spring day in Nashville, Taylor noticed as she got up from the sofa and walked over to the television. A moment later, Michael was standing on one side of her, with Steinberg on the other.
As Steinberg’s assistant raised the volume, the screen split, with the courthouse scene in a frame to the right of the screen and the clean-cut, blow-dried, rubber-stamped CNN
anchor to the left.
“We take you now to Nashville, Tennessee, where the district attorney has scheduled a brief statement regarding the rumored indictments of best-selling novelist Michael Schiftmann on two counts of first-degree murder.”
“Jesus,” Taylor muttered. No one else spoke.
They all watched as a tall, gray-haired man in a nondescript gray suit approached the microphone. He carried in his right hand a sheaf of papers, which he jogged into a neat stack as he stood at the podium. He looked up into the cameras, cleared his throat, and began:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am T. Robert Collier, the District Attorney General for Davidson County and Metropolitan Nashville. As you all know, last February, on February fifth of this year, there was a double murder here in Nashville at a place of business on Church Street known as Exotica Tans. Two young women were killed in what the police have described as one of the most brutal and horrifying murder scenes in the history of our city. These two women were gainfully employed in a legal establishment, working their way through college, with families and friends who mourn their violent and premature passing, and who seek justice for them and their memory.”
Collier paused here, looking down at the papers in his hand. Taylor felt her heart thumping in her chest and cold sweat breaking out around her chest, under her breasts, in her armpits. She squeezed her arms into her ribs as a thin trickle of perspiration ran down her side.
“I am here today to announce to you,” Collier continued,
“that as of nine o’clock this morning, the Davidson County Grand Jury has issued a series of criminal indictments in connection with the events of that horrible February night.”
Collier paused again, clearing his throat. “A Mr. Michael Schiftmann, whom we believe is currently residing in New York City, has been indicted on the following charges relating to the murders of Sarah Denise Burnham of Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Allison May Matthews of Fairview, Tennessee.
“First, under Tennessee Code Annotated 39-13-305, Mr.
Schiftmann is charged with two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, a Class A felony. Second, Mr. Schiftmann is charged with two counts of violating Tennessee Code Annotated 39-13-540, aggravated sexual battery. Third, Mr.
Schiftmann is charged with two counts of violating Tennessee Code Annotated 39-13-502, aggravated rape.”
Collier paused for a moment and looked out over the crowd, letting them wait for a heartbeat or two. This guy, Taylor thought, has good dramatic timing.
“Finally, Mr. Schiftmann is charged with two counts of violating Tennessee Code Annotated 39-13-202, which is first-degree murder.”
Taylor gasped involuntarily. Michael reached over, took her hand, and squeezed it. She turned quickly to her left.
Michael was staring at the television, his body rigid, his jaw clenched.
“And because of the especially heinous and violent nature of these two senseless, brutal murders, my office wishes to announce that we will be seeking the death penalty in connection with the first-degree murder charges.”
Taylor went numb all over. She stared at the television as time seemed to stop for a moment. Michael’s hand in hers felt cold, stone-cold, and hard as a rock.
“These are the charges that the grand jury has issued today,” the voice on the television droned on. “Other charges may follow. An arrest warrant has been issued for Mr. Schiftmann, and my office is preparing extradition papers as we speak. I also want to say that I’m aware of the implications of bringing these serious charges against a suspect who is a high-profile celebrity, with a great many resources, including the court of public opinion. But my responsibility is to Allison and Sarah and the people of the state of Tennessee.
We have taken this course of action only after much thought, deliberation, even debate. We believe the evidence in this case will show that this was the only way we could bring justice to Allison and Sarah and closure to their families.”
Taylor looked over at Abe Steinberg, who was staring intently at the television and nodding his head imperceptibly.
“We have time for a few questions,” the voice said. Steinberg looked at his assistant and made a motion with his head. The assistant hit the power button on the remote, and the television instantly went dead.
Taylor turned to Michael, the color drained completely out of his face, as he stared at the dark television. “They’re serious,” he whispered after a few seconds.
Steinberg laughed out loud. “Oh yes, my friend, they’re serious. They’re very serious. And this guy is very good, very good indeed.”
Steinberg walked slowly back to his chair, with a slight limp to his gait, and sat down. “You notice how he managed to call the two girls by their first names not once, but twice.
He humanized them. And how he attempted to defuse the argument that they were after you for their own glory by saying that indicting you was almost a last resort.”
“He made it sound like they had no choice,” Taylor commented, almost matter-of-factly, as she crossed back over and sat down on the sofa. She reached up, touched her face, and realized she couldn’t feel it anymore.
“I’ll fight it!” Michael said, crossing around and standing in front of the two of them. “I’ll fight the extradition. I won’t even go down there!”
Steinberg waved his hand at him. “Don’t be silly. You can’t beat extradition. The only way you could get around it is if you can prove you’re not Michael Schiftmann, or at least not the Michael Schiftmann they’re looking for.”
“You mean I should just let them take me?” Michael yelled.
Steinberg looked up at him with a completely calm, blank look on his face. “My friend, you’re going to be extradited, you’re going to be arrested, you’re going to be booked, and then you’re going to be arraigned. You’re going to smile for the cameras, look professional and calm, and you’re going to behave yourself and control your temper. And you’re going to let me and Wesley Talmadge take it from there.”
“Wesley Talmadge?” Michael asked. “Who the hell is Wesley Talmadge?”
“The best criminal defense lawyer in the state of Tennessee and one of the best in the country. He was a student of mine at NYU thirty years ago. I spoke with him this morning and he’s agreed to take your case.”
“So what’s next?” Michael asked, deflated.
“You’re going to go home and pack. In addition to the usual underwear and toothbrush, you’re going to need to pack two other things.”
“What?” Michael asked.
“First, carry that fancy checkbook with you. You’re going to need it. Second, take your passport.”
“My passport? Why my passport?”
“Because,” Steinberg said, folding his hands in front of him, the fingers interlaced, “the judge is going to want you to surrender it if he grants you bail.”
Taylor looked up, and for the first time, saw real fear in Michael’s face.
“If?” he asked, his voice low.
Steinberg nodded. “If …”