By Blood Written (33 page)

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 …”

Thursday morning, Manhattan

Time seemed to accelerate after the Monday morning press conference. Taylor found herself withdrawing, still numb, the touch of her fingers on the skin of her cheek foreign and strange. It seemed as if in a matter of only a few short hours, she had looked around to discover that the world had gone into a spin.
So this
, she thought,
is what free fall feels like
.

In short order, Michael had a conference call with the lawyer in Nashville and overnighted a cashier’s check to him.

Then Abe Steinberg sent him to Macguire and Madison over on Fifth Avenue, which was the top public relations firm in Manhattan, which meant it was one of the top public relations firms in the country.

Taylor went back to work and tried to focus as—within a seventy-two-hour period—the man she loved and was going to marry and to whom her whole future was attached wrote checks totaling a quarter-million dollars just to begin his defense against the insane notion that he was a murderer.

She felt as if the world were falling apart. She sat at the cluttered desk in her office staring at the manuscripts in front of her, the pink telephone message slips she couldn’t bear to read, the growing roster of unread and unanswered e-mails.

Michael, she thought, had yet to really deal with this.

He had yet to confide in her what was going on inside him, what this felt like. He was, instead, totally immersed in what became a series of tasks that lay in front of him, many of them having nothing to do with the charges against him.

While Wesley Talmadge in Nashville negotiated the terms of Michael’s surrender to the police, Michael was faxing instructions to the solicitor in London about the closing on the flat. Taylor had asked him, practically begged him, not to go ahead with the sale, but he had stubbornly told her that he wasn’t going to let a bunch of ignorant fools stop him from moving ahead with his life.

He reviewed a series of foreign-rights contracts and signed them. He met with the PR firm by himself, a meeting that went on almost all afternoon Wednesday. For the time being, he avoided interviews, but he answered correspondence and returned calls. He stayed up until all hours of the night, unable to slow down, unable to relax, as Taylor, exhausted and drained, fell asleep upstairs, alone.

They ate meals together, but were mostly silent. They had even stopped touching each other. Michael seemed distracted, his mind on other things beside sex. And Taylor found herself not wanting to be touched, by Michael or anyone else.