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And there is, of course, one other possible reason why she’s not returning my calls: she has the phone on, sees who keeps calling, and is simply ignoring me.
She’s always graded high on that, too, when she’s in the mood. Or in a mood.
But we really do need to talk, whether she’s in the mood forthator not. She and Rob Jacobson have already provided me with enough surprises in the past few days. I can’t afford to have any more once I get her back in the court.
If she’s going to lie and say that she and Rob Jacobson hadn’t been having an affair, I’m going to stand right there and let her. Why? Because I have no choice—that’s why. I’ll take what I’ve already gotten from her. She was with him that night, whether she can pinpoint when he left her or not. I knew from the time I decided to call Brigid as a witness the inherent risks of doing that, whether or not Ahearn would try to get her to admit in open court that she was sleeping with Rob Jacobson. But I’ve felt all along that there ultimately might be more reward than risk unless my sister says something really stupid, even though she hardly ever does that.
I just want her to talk, in a personal way, a little more about Rob Jacobson’s state of mind on the night of the murders. If he ever mentioned any problem with any member of the Gates family. Was he angry when he left? Did he seem agitated? Any indication that he was a man on the brink. Like that.
And I know the jury will believe her. She’s still Brigid. Everybody likes Brigid. In the end, even if the jury believes something more than friendship was going on between her and Rob Jacobson, they’ll accept her version of things before they’ll trust my SOB of a client on this one. They’ll do that even knowing he called her out as a liar, right before lying his own ass off with that fake heart attack.
In the end, they’ll take her side.
Mom and Dad always did, before Mom passed.
I’m confident that in the end I can handle Kevin Ahearn, who will have to be careful about going at her too hard, or risk losing the jury himself. If Brigid can handle me, I tell myself, she can handle him. And then once he’s finished his cross, she can get up out of that chair and walk away from this trial for good.
While we were waiting in front of the courthouse for the ambulance, she said, “I never should have done this.”
I didn’t want to get into it with her but said, “Brigid, youchoseto do this.”
“You should have stopped me,” she said.
There is something else I need to discuss with her this morning, even though I hate myself—acquired skill—for even considering it. As a way of making her even more credible than she already is, even more sympathetic than she already is, I want to ask her if I can put her cancer into play.
It’s something we haven’t yet discussed as it relates to the trial, and her testimony. I frankly didn’t think I’d need it until my own client called his alibi witness a liar.
So am I willing to go there now?
Am I willing to out my own sister as a cancer patient the way I stepped in it with Otis Miller and outed him as gay?
I already know the answer to that one.
I call and leave one more message:
“Brigid, we need to have a talk.”
But then she’s always told me that when I put it to her like that, it means I talk and she listens. Which, she likes to point out, makes her like everyone else in my world, including two ex-husbands. Pointing out further, when we really get into it, that she believes it’s one of the big reasonswhythey’re ex-husbands.
Jimmy texts me now that he’s leaving the hospital, and says we should meet later at Bobby Van’s for lunch—there’re things we need to talk about.
I text him back.why are u at hospital?
Of course he doesn’t text me back. Jimmy Cunniff, for as long as I’ve known him, has never been one to believe that if you don’t return texts immediately someone will come take your iPhone away. And maybe your driver’s license along with it.
I decide to drive over to Brigid’s house and make her talk to me if she’s there. Or wait for her to come back if she’s not there. She needs to know, from me, that the stakes of her testimony have been raised, exponentially, because of what happened before they carted Rob Jacobson off to the hospital.
She and her husband live at the east end of Amagansett, in a wooded area north of the highway, have been living a quiet life there, really, until I called my sister as a witness. And what had been a happy life there until she got sick.
Brigid’s black Range Rover is in the driveway.
As I pull up behind the Range Rover, I see the front door open. But it’s not Brigid who comes out, it’s her next-door neighbor Maureen, keys in hand, locking the door behind her before she even notices me.
I get out of my car and ask her where Brigid is.
“The town car from East Wind picked her up a few hours ago,” Maureen says. “She called me before it did, asking me to look after the house. Said she was going to be away for a while.”
“Where’s Chris?”
