Thursday afternoon, Nashville
The bubble that had been slowly growing somewhere deep in Taylor’s subconscious had suddenly burst through to the surface. It was no longer something she could hide from or run away from. It was, she knew, inescapable. The defense lawyers would throw up every argument imaginable to convince the jury that the police had framed Michael, had set him up to vindicate their own incompetence.
Taylor knew better, though. He had done it.
Michael Schiftmann was a murderer.
How she knew this, beyond the evidence she’d seen earlier in the courtroom, she wasn’t sure. But over the past eight or nine months, ever since the first rumors of the indictment had leaked out of the DA’s office, she had begun to look at him in a different way. There had always been something in Michael’s makeup of artifice, or if not exactly artifice, at least masking. She had known him for years, had slipped into being in love with him almost without knowing it, had been swept along by her own loneliness and the passion within her that he had tapped into and found in a way no one else ever had.
But all along, Taylor realized that she never really knew him. Never really knew him deep inside, in his core.
In his heart.
And now she knew why.
Judge Forsythe had recessed court for the evening after the TBI crime lab agent had testified for more than two hours. Tomorrow morning, Wes Talmadge would go after her, tooth and nail. Taylor felt sorry for the young woman.
Michael looked ashen, almost gray as they all waded out of the courthouse through the crowd, past the cameras, and to Talmadge’s car. For the first time, Taylor saw what almost looked like fear on his face. The shouted questions from the reporters echoed in her ears like the background noise in a riot.
As they walked out of the courthouse and down the steps in the fading twilight, the January wind sharp and bitter around them, Taylor tried to keep her head down, to avoid eye contact with any of them. But someone jammed a microphone out of the mass of bodies directly in front of her, almost hitting her in the face. She jerked her head up, dodged to her right, and through a break in the crowd, saw him.
The FBI agent … Powell, that was his name. He was staring right through her. She had seen him several times before at the trial, had noticed him sitting in the back of the courtroom spectator gallery, but she had avoided really seeing him.
Now she couldn’t help it. They stared directly at each other for what seemed like several moments, then the crowd shifted and Taylor was shoved forward.
Everyone was silent in the car as they maneuvered through the thick, nearly impenetrable Nashville rush-hour traffic.
Carey Talmadge, grim-faced and tired, drove, with Taylor in the front seat next to her. Talmadge and Michael sat in the back. Finally, Talmadge spoke up.
“Don’t worry,” he said out of nowhere, “we knew this was coming. We get our turn tomorrow.”
Taylor turned, suddenly angry. “I didn’t know it was coming! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told you that they’d be throwing some things at us that looked bad,” Michael said defensively. “We can counter everything they’ve got.”
Taylor shifted back in her seat and stared out the front of the car. She clenched her jaw, regretting her outburst.
“Look, folks,” Talmadge said. “We’ve got to stay calm and keep cool here. This ain’t over by a long shot. Not by a helluva long shot.”
“Great,” Michael mumbled, “I’ve got an attorney that says
‘ain’t.’ “
Talmadge turned and glared at Michael, his eyes narrowing. “You’ve got an attorney that speaks the same language as your jury, hotshot. If I were you, I’d try not to forget that.”
At the hotel, Taylor and Michael got out of the car quickly and slipped into the hotel, unnoticed, through a side door.
They walked quickly across the cavernous lobby, their footsteps silent on the thick carpet. They hurried to the bank of elevators and were lucky enough to get one alone.
“Can we have dinner together?” Michael asked quietly as the elevator door slid shut.
Taylor stared at the front of the elevator, her hands at her side. “Michael, I’m not hungry. I don’t think I could eat a thing.”
“Well,” he said, as the floor buttons above them lighted one after the other. “Would you spend the night in my room tonight? We could really use some time alone together. It’s been a while.”
Taylor felt her stomach convulse, then tensed, trying to hide it. “I’m exhausted. It’s been an awful day. I think I’ll just take a bath and read for a while, then go to bed early.”
Michael turned and faced the front of the elevator next to her. “This isn’t working very well, is it?”
“I’m just tired, Michael. Having your fiance on trial for murder tends to take a lot out of you.”
The buttons above them clicked from 9 to 10.
“You’re not starting to believe them, are you?” Michael asked.
“Can we not do this now?” Taylor whispered.
The elevator door opened on their floor and they stepped out into the hallway. Michael’s room was two doors down from hers. They stopped as he pulled out his key card. “I’ll just get room service, I guess. I can’t exactly go walking around downtown, seeing the sights. I’ll just watch a movie and go to bed, I guess.”
Taylor nodded. “I hope you get some sleep.”
Michael pushed the door open. “Listen, you change your mind, all you’ve got to do is knock on the door.”
Taylor nodded. “Good night,” she said.
Then he was gone.
Taylor walked down to her room and ran her credit card-size electronic room key through the reader, then walked in. The room was cold, the air dry and stale. She tossed her bag down on a chair, took off her overcoat and hung it in the closet, then sat on the edge of the bed and took off her shoes.
Her feet hurt; her head pounded.
She still couldn’t believe it.
But she had to believe it.
The pounding in her head quickened. She realized she was hungry, that the headache was probably the result of a blood-sugar crash. She needed to eat, but she couldn’t imagine putting food in her mouth.
She wandered into the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. Deep dark purple pockets nestled under her eyes, visible even through the makeup. Her eyes were bloodshot.
They’d never been this bloodshot this often before. This had only been happening in the last couple of months.
Her neck ached. She rolled her head around on her shoulders, trying to loosen it. She was exhausted, so tired and sleepy she couldn’t think straight. But, she knew, there was no way she would sleep tonight. Even the Ambien and the Paxil didn’t work anymore. Even with the sleeping pills and the antianxiety medication, she rarely slept more than a couple of hours at a time.
She took off her watch and looked at it-seven-fifteen. It was going to be a long night. She couldn’t concentrate on her reading. Television and movies held no interest for her. She was too tired to think of anything.
Then she stood there a moment, glaring at her own image in the mirror. Funny thing about having your world crash down around you, she thought. Now at least you know what you’re up against and what you have to deal with.
Taylor set her jaw and walked quickly back out of the bathroom and over to the bed. She opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out the telephone directory. She opened to the blue pages, the government listings, and flipped to the heading labeled “U.S. Government.” She squinted to bring the tiny type into focus and scanned down the listings until she found what she was looking for. She picked up the hotel phone, punched 9 to get an outside line, then dialed.
“You’ve reached the Nashville office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” a recorded voice said. “There’s no one available to take your call. At the tone, please leave a message.”
The phone beeped. “Yes, my name is Taylor Robinson.
You have an FBI agent named Henry Powell in town sitting in on the Michael Schiftmann murder trial. It’s vitally important that I speak to him as soon as possible. Can you please get in touch with him and have him call me on my cell phone at 212-555-5645. It’s urgent that I speak to him as quickly as possible. Please have him call me.”
Taylor hung up the phone and sat there in the cold silence of her room. She pulled the covers back from the oversize bed and lay out flat on her back, her head sinking into the pillow. She turned the ringer up all the way on her mobile phone and set it on the nightstand next to her. She tried to will herself to relax, to concentrate on the hissing of the heating-unit fan as it moved the musty air around.
In time, she began to drift off. Not sleep really, just a gentle sliding under the radar screen of consciousness that was barely enough for her body to let go of the worst of it.
Then, what seemed like seconds later, the electronic chim-ing of the cell phone blasted her into consciousness. She shot upright, unsure of where she was, the bright yellow numbers of the alarm clock shimmering in the darkened room.
It was nine-thirty, she noticed out of the corner of her eye.
She’d been out almost two hours. She picked up the phone and hit the talk button.
“Hello,” she said, trying to sound awake.
“Ms. Robinson?”
“Yes, this is Taylor Robinson.”
“This is Agent Powell, returning your call. How may I help you?”
Taylor rubbed her eyes. “Oh, thank you for calling. I-
Could you hold on for a second?” She shook her head. Why had she called him?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had drifted off, Agent Powell, and I guess I was-”
“I didn’t mean to wake you up, Ms. Robinson,” Powell said. “Should I call back later?”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, not at all. I’m okay. I just, well … Agent Powell, I need to see you.”
“What?” the voice answered.
“I need to see you. Tonight. Is there somewhere where we can meet?”
“Well, I don’t know. This is a little unusual.”
“I need to see you, Agent Powell. Please. Where are you staying? I’ll come to your hotel.”
“Well,” Powell said, hesitating. “All right. I’m staying at the Doubletree Hotel, over on Fourth Avenue a few blocks down from the courthouse. There’s a small bar in the lobby.
It’s usually not very crowded. We can get a table and talk.”
“Fine,” Taylor said, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Taylor climbed out of the taxi, handed the driver a twenty, and walked quickly into the Doubletree Hotel. She stood there, scanning the lobby, and spotted a small, open-air lounge. At a table for two in the farthest corner, she recognized Powell sitting alone, in a pair of khakis and a white, button-down collar Oxford cloth shirt. He looked more relaxed than in the courtroom, she thought, almost preppie.
She walked past the half dozen or so others in the bar and over to his table. He stood up as she approached.
“Good evening,” he said. “How are you, Ms. Robinson?”
Taylor pulled her coat off and folded it over the back of the chair at the empty table next to them, then rearranged a chair so her back would be to the lobby and sat down.
“I’m terrible, Agent Powell, if you must know. I’m terrible.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if it ought to be obvious to him.
“I understand,” Powell said. “I think anyone would be.”
Taylor shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She found herself avoiding eye contact with him, looking around the room, at the heavy red draperies, the red carpet, all the usual upscale hotel decor.
A cocktail waitress in a short skirt and a blouse with puffy sleeves approached. “May I get you something?” she asked.
Taylor looked over at Powell. “It’s been a long day,” he said. “I’m having a vodka martini.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Taylor said. “Sign me up.”
Powell held up two fingers. “Make it two.”
The waitress walked away. Taylor watched her for a few seconds, then turned to Powell. “Now that I’m here,” she said, “I don’t exactly know what to say.”
Powell eyed her coolly. “Does he know you’re here?”
Taylor shook her head. “We’re in separate rooms.”
Powell lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Have been for months. The stress, I think. Neither of us are sleeping well, or very much.”
Powell nodded, understanding. “But he’s still living in your co-op?”
Taylor looked at him. “For the time being.”
The waitress brought their drinks over and set them on the small table. As soon as she walked away, Taylor picked hers up and took a long sip. Powell watched as she gulped.
“You did need that,” he commented.
She set the drink down, her eyes watering. She lowered her head, almost hiding her face from him. A single tear ran along her cheek, and she brushed it away.
“Goddamn it,” she muttered. Then she raised her head and looked Powell directly in the eye. “He did it, didn’t he?”
she said, her voice low, intense.
Powell studied her for a moment. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“He did it.”
She put her left elbow on the table, her arm bent, and buried her face in her open palm. Her whole body seemed to shake for a second.
“I slept with him,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“I had sex with him. My God, what he did to those poor girls.”
“You didn’t know,” Powell said. “You didn’t know.”
“How can anybody do that?” she asked, raising her head.
“How can anyone be two so completely different people?”
“That’s the nature of what he is,” Powell said. “I’m sure that when he was with you, he was completely normal and charming, in every way. That’s the way this always works.
They aren’t raving lunatics running through a crowded theater swinging a hatchet at people.”
“No,” she said, her voice sharp. “They’re much worse!”
“You’re right,” Powell said. “That’s it. You’re exactly right.
I’ve spent most of my career trying to figure out what makes this kind of-person-work, and the truth is we can quan-tify some things. We can analyze some things and make some observations and draw some conclusions. But can we say definitely what makes Michael Schiftmann become the Alphabet Man?
“No, we can’t.”
Taylor Robinson’s face clouded over, almost as if she had gone into a kind of shock. “What am I going to do?” she asked blankly.
Powell lifted his drink and took a small sip. The icy vodka felt good on his tongue, in his mouth, and when it hit the back of his throat, he felt a gentle burn radiate out from his center.
“I want you to know,” he said, “that I don’t believe, never believed, that you were any part of this. You were his victim, too. Maybe not in the same way as the other women, but you’ve been hurt by this. And the important thing for you to consider is how not to get hurt any worse.”
“I’m leaving him,” she said. “I’m going back to New York tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if I would do that,” he said.
“I can’t stay here,” she hissed. “I can’t have people thinking that I’m still-that I’m still, with him. “
Powell raised his hands to his face and rubbed his jaw, the dry skin of his palm scraping across his now-past-five o’clock shadow. “You can’t go,” he said. “If you do, that may drive him over the edge.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“This is a sensitive, delicate time in all this,” Powell said.
“For one thing, the jury has seen you with him. They know who you are. If you disappear, especially after hearing the testimony that came out today, it could be construed as prejudicial.”
Taylor glared at Powell for a second, then, almost angrily, picked up her drink and tossed back another gulp.
“And there are other things at play as well,” Powell said.
“What? What else is going on?”
Powell hesitated. “I can’t go into a lot of detail,” he said slowly. “But as a result of what the police here have managed to put together, I think it’s safe to say that this trial will not be the only one.”
Taylor’s jaw dropped, literally. “You mean, other … ?”
“Michael’s DNA is currently being cross-typed with forensic evidence found at a number of other crime scenes.
They’re checking rental cars, hotel rooms, the evidence gathered at the scenes themselves.”
Powell shook his head slowly, almost sadly. “This won’t be the only trial. He’s history, Taylor. He’s finished. And if you leave now, and word gets out about the other places, then that’s going to push him over the edge.”
“What will he do?” she asked.
“He’ll run. He’ll run, and he knows he has nothing to lose.
And he’s not the type to let anything get in his way.”
“Can’t they lock him up?” she whispered again.
“No, he’s out on bail. He’s technically a free man. We’re watching him, all the time. But he’s smart. Real smart.”
Her eyes wandered back and forth. “My God,” she muttered.
Powell reached across the table and touched her hand.
“Listen,” he said, “I know you’re a good person, a good person who’s been hurt by this, and I know as a good person you want to see justice done. And you want to see that no one else ever gets hurt this way again, right? He’s got to be stopped.”
Taylor looked down at the table, to where his fingertips had just brushed the back of her hand. She looked back up at him. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay close to him,” Powell said. “Stay in his confidence.
If it looks to you like he’s about to run, or anything else drastic for that matter, you call me. Here’s my cell phone number. I’ve got it with me 24/7.”
He pulled a card out of his pocket and slid it across the table to her.
“Can you do that for me, Taylor?” he asked softly. “Can you help me make sure that he’s stopped?”
Taylor picked up the card and looked at it. It was glossy, shiny, with the FBI seal on it and embossed lettering. It was impressive, slick.
She looked up at Powell again, as weary as she’d ever been in her life.
“Yes,” she said. “I can do that.”