‘I’ll just say this,’ said Alexandra. ‘Sofia thinks she’s smart. Smarter than me. She’s wrong. We don’t talk – we haven’t in years. Not since Mom died. She hates me. She didn’t hate him, but she would do anything to hurt me. She’s sick. Do you understand? She wants to win. She thinks it’s a competition between us. You have to believe that I didn’t do this.’
‘Last question. Where were you before you got to your father’s house? And what time did you arrive?’
‘Oh God, I can’t remember the time. I was jogging in the park, and then I ran to Dad’s. I had to pick up some fruit smoothies for him from a place on 2nd Avenue. I don’t know what time I got back.’
Kate just got everything down on paper, and then looked up to see Soames and Tyler in hushed conversation.
‘Mr. Levy, we are going to charge your client with first-degree murder. She’ll be charged alongside her sister. Frank Avellino has forty-nine million dollars in property, cash and assets in his estate, according to his attorney. He made a will five years ago, dividing it equally between his two daughters. Before we charge your client, we have one final question. Miss Avellino, when did you discover your father had talked to his attorney about changing his will?’
PART TWO
THE GAME BEGINS
SIX
EDDIE
For a lawyer, every case is a game.
In criminal law, it begins with an arrest and it ends with a verdict. At the start of the game you have no control over what happens, then you develop a strategy and you make some moves. At the end you get to stand in front of the jury, alone. The prosecutor doesn’t matter – you have to ignore them. It’s just you and twelve people. Once the final word is spoken it’s all over. The verdict shouldn’t matter. You did your job as counsel.
Except it does matter.
The verdict is everything. It doesn’t mean shit how well you played, it’s all down to that decision. The lawyers who make the big bucks, who drive a Mercedes home to their families in their nine-bedroom houses don’t care what the verdict will mean for the accused, for the victim’s family, for society and everyone in it. They can’t care.
My biggest problem as a lawyer is I want the guilty to get punished and the innocent to go free. And the law doesn’t work that way. Never has. Never will.
Sometimes I can tip the balance, one way or the other. Sometimes not. It matters that I try. The day I stop giving a shit is the day I quit. Sofia Avellino needed my help. It was too early to say if I believed her sister carried out the murder. Neither of the Avellino sisters looked like they could harm anyone, much less tear their own father to pieces. For now, I was involved in the case but I needed to be sure Sofia was telling the truth. In that cell, I had felt for her. I thought I had a connection. That she was open and honest with me. That was my instinct. I needed to know that I could trust that first impression.
After biting through her wrist in the precinct, Sofia had spent a night in the hospital under NYPD guard. While her wrist didn’t look pretty, she hadn’t lost that much blood – it always looks worse than it is. She didn’t need a transfusion, but the docs made sure there was no chance of hypovolemic shock. They pumped her full of isotonic fluids and antibiotics. Her wound stitched, stats level, she was deemed fit for discharge. I couldn’t speak to Sofia at the hospital, but I did get talking to the doc – a short, blonde woman called Dietrich. She had spoken to Sofia, and as far as she could tell this wasn’t a suicide attempt – this was an extreme reaction to the loss of her father and her arrest.
She was charged with murder and brought to court for arraignment at noon. Bail wasn’t going to be a problem. Levy had done the work for me by getting Alexandra bail an hour before. The prosecutor, Wesley Dreyer, objected to bail on the same grounds, but knew the judge would give them the same bail terms – a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bond. Why make a new decision when you could follow another? When the judge set bail for the same bond, Dreyer looked despondent. The prosecutor was a young man with an earnest look on his face. He was slim, small, and neat. He chose his words carefully, took time to annunciate and project his voice. A diligent prosecutor is always to be feared.
Sofia posted bail.
She was out, but she wasn’t talking. She hadn’t said a word to me in the consultation before the bail hearing, just nodding her head. She had pleaded not guilty. When the hearing was over she disappeared back into the cells so she could be taken to the court office to wait until the bond was deposited and then she could sign bail for release.
I had waited for Sofia in the winter sun on Center Street, in the shadow of the Central Criminal Court building, and ate lunch at Mori’s hotdog stand, which bore a faded sign with my name and number on it. Behind me, the ragged stars and stripes flapped in a light breeze.
I thought I heard a raven’s call, and then turned to see Sofia.
Sofia left the court building via the loading dock at the rear, avoiding the bank of photographers outside. She wore a black sweater, black jeans and cheap shoes, which I’d bought for her and left with the corrections department. The cops had taken her blood-soaked clothes from last night for forensics. I asked if she was alright. She nodded and we walked in silence to my car. I’d driven her to her apartment without her saying a word. I pulled up outside, killed the engine and leaned back in the driver’s seat.
‘Let’s make a deal, Sofia. I’ll defend you, but I need you to try and keep things together. I don’t know how the trial is going to pan out. Not yet. We have to wait until we get all the prosecution’s evidence. I don’t want you to think about that yet. Just go home and rest for now. You’ll have a million questions for me in a day or two. Let’s meet then. For now, I have a friend who’s going to get you settled in, make sure you’re okay. Her name is Harper. Don’t worry, she’s not a lawyer. She helps me with cases, looks after witnesses, that kind of thing.’
Sitting on the steps outside the building with a brown paper sack beside her, Harper took her eyes away from her cell phone and nodded in my direction.
Sofia turned her head toward me and I saw the tears on her face. She wiped them away, drawing a pale hand over her shocking white skin. I thought of her sister, Alexandra: tall, tanned, and healthy. It was as if Alexandra had caught every drop of sun, and Sofia had lived all her life pale and hungry in the long, cold shadow of her sister.
‘I wasn’t trying to kill myself last night,’ she said.
I said nothing. It was the most I’d gotten out of her in hours. If she was going to talk, I wanted to listen.
‘I told that to the doctor at Saint Vincent’s last night. Sometimes pressure builds up – in my head. I have to let it out some way. I’m not suicidal.’
By way of explanation she yanked up her sleeves and let me see her arms.
The inside of her forearms were covered in thin scars. Some remained pink and slightly raised – still in their keloid state – while others were older and an even starker shade of white. The marks were lateral, across the arm, from just below the elbow to the wrist. Both arms. Hundreds of cuts. A few looked as though they had been deeper than others. The bandage on her wrist obscured some of the scarring.