Beach Road

Encouraged by the hint of a smile in Rothstein’s eyes, I barge ahead.

“So the only charge that matters is that I had someone take the Law Boards for me, and that’s absolutely false. Here’s a copy of X-rays of my left wrist, taken the night before I took the boards, and here’s a record of my visit to Saint Vincent ’s emergency room April 5, 1997.

“I was playing a pickup game at the Cage in the Village that night and took a hard fall. I could have gotten a medical extension, but I’d spent months preparing and, frankly, at that point, wasn’t sure I wanted to be a lawyer. I decided to take them right-handed and let the scores decide for me.”

“You telling me you passed the bar writing with your wrong hand, Dunleavy?”

“I don’t have a wrong hand. I’m ambidextrous.”

“The multiple choice maybe, but the essay?”

“It’s the truth,” I say, looking straight into his eyes. “Take it or leave it.”

“We’ll see,” says Rothstein, and slides a legal pad across the table. Then he reaches behind him and blindly grabs a book off the shelf.

“You’re in luck, Dunleavy-Joyce’s Ulysses. I’ll dictate the first line, you jot it down right-handed as fast as you can. Ready?”

“It’s been seven years since I’ve had to do this.”

“What do you care? You don’t have a wrong hand. Ready?”

“Yup.”

“‘Stately, plump Buck Mulligan,’” reads Rothstein with pleasure, “‘came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.’”

I scribble furiously and slide the pad back.

“Now I know why you went to your right so well, Dunleavy,” says Rothstein, the smile in his eyes moving down to his thin lips. “Your handwriting’s better than mine. By the way, I made a couple phone calls this afternoon, and it turns out this rumor came out of the offices of Ro

“But, Your Honor,” says Ioli.

“I’ll see you too, Dominic.”

Chapter 87. Kate

DRAINED BY THE test in Rothstein’s chambers, Tom slowly drives my car through Riverhead toward the Sunrise Highway. Neither of us says a word.

The full moon lights up the road, and some of that light spills onto the front seat where Tom’s right hand lies on the armrest between us.

To be honest, I’ve always loved Tom’s strong hands, with their thick, raised veins ru

Without really thinking about it, I lay my hand on his.

Tom’s hand jumps, and he looks at me, stu

But I don’t regret it-and to let Tom know it was no accident but an intentional piece of insanity, I wrap my fingers around his.

For the next half hour, the car is filled with a very different kind of quiet. “I’ll pick you up at seven thirty” is the only thing Tom says the whole way, but by the time he pulls up in front of Mack’s house, I feel as if we’ve been talking for hours.

“Get a good night’s sleep,” I say, and hop out of the car. “You did good, Tom. I’m proud of you.”

And that makes Tom smile in a way that I haven’t seen since we were both kids.

Part Four. Cold Play

Chapter 88. Kate

AT 8:15 A.M. the sprawling parking lot in front of the Arthur M. Cromarty Court Complex is overrun with media. TV news trucks occupy the half-dozen rows closest to the courthouse; thick black cable stretches over the cement in every possible direction.

Network and cable reporters, comfortably rumpled from the waist down and impeccably dressed and groomed above it, their faces caked with makeup, stand inside circles of white-hot light and file their first remotes.

Tom and I weave our way through the chaos and park. Then we walk briskly toward the entrance of the complex, hurrying to get safely inside before getting grabbed by the journalistic mob.

Our timing is good, because at that moment every TV camera in the lot is aimed at an elegant black man standing dramatically on the courthouse steps. As we hustle past, I see that it’s none other than T. Smitty Wilson. I guess he’s finally come to pay his respects.

Inside, three hundred or more spectators pack forty rows, and they are split straight down the middle of the courtroom. Dante’s supporters, who have arrived from as far away as California, fill the left half of the room. On the right are those who have traveled a much shorter distance to support the families of the victims. I’ve known most of them my entire life.

Surrounding the divided crowd are at least fifty cops, and in this instance, it doesn’t seem unwarranted. Officers from the Sheriff’s Department stand shoulder to shoulder along the front and back walls, behind the jury box, and on both sides of the judge’s podium.

Except for the journalists in the front two rows, there are few exceptions to the racial seating pattern. One is Macklin, the octogenarian exception to most rules. He sits defiantly between Marie and Clarence, and woe to the man who tries to move him. Hanging just as tough one row back are Jeff and Sean.

Tom, rifling through a stack of file cards, barely looks up when the twelve jurors and two alternates solemnly take their positions.

But neither of us can ignore the loud gasp when Dante, escorted by a pair of county sheriffs, enters the courtroom. He wears an inexpensive blue blazer and dress pants, both a size too small-he’s grown an inch in prison. He stares at the ground until he is seated between us.

“You guys good?” Dante asks in the quietest voice I can imagine coming out of his large body.

“Not just good,” I tell him. “We’re the best. And we’re ready.”

Dante’s slight smile, when it comes, is priceless.

Twenty minutes behind schedule, the sharp nasal voice of the bailiff finally rings through the courtroom. “Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons having business before the Suffolk County Supreme Court and Honorable Judge Richard Rothstein will now rise!”

Chapter 89. Tom

SUFFOLK COUNTY DA Dominic Ioli pushes his chair back from the prosecution table and then carefully folds his reading glasses into a leather case. Only after they’re safely tucked away in the jacket pocket of his new gray suit coat does he stand and face the two rows of jurors.

“Ladies and gentlemen, over the next several weeks you’re going to hear about the cold-blooded murder of four young men last summer. Before this trial is over, the state will have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant seated on my left, Dante Halleyville, carefully and deliberately pla

“We will prove that in the first three murders, Mr. Halleyville acted with Michael Walker, and that eleven days later, he turned that same weapon on his best friend and accomplice.”

Ioli has logged his share of court time, and you can hear it in his measured delivery. As Ioli refers to “a gun and a hat and a body of evidence that places the defendant at both crime scenes,” I glance back at the divided sea of faces staring from opposite sides of the courtroom. I scan the expressions of Jeff, Sean, Clarence, and Mack, and linger on Marie.

“Murder is too gentle a word,” bellows Ioli, bringing me back to his speech. “The more accurate word, the only word that captures the horror of these crimes, is execution.”