Page 36 of Don’t Tell Me How to Die

THIRTY-FOUR

sixteen years before the funeral

Falling in love was different the second time around. I was sixteen when I willingly and happily gave my heart, my soul, and my virginity to Van. I spent hours scrawling his name and mine in countless notebooks, but I never once thought to ask him what his goals were after the Marines.

At twenty-four my perspective had changed. I had a life plan. There were boxes to be checked, and Alex checked off every one of them, including a few I didn’t even know I should have.

He was heart-stoppingly handsome, fun to be with, definitely up to my performance standards in the bedroom, had a promising future ahead of him, and maybe best of all, he was a lot like his father—a true partner, but content to let me steer the ship.

Falling in love with Van had been like getting hit by a Mack truck. With Alex it was like walking into a car showroom and shopping for the perfect ride. He was the Rolls-Royce of boyfriends. I wasn’t about to let him go.

We were married a month after he finished med school. Six years later we were the perfect doctor-lawyer couple living in a beautiful Tudor-style house in Heartstone, less than a mile away from my father and Beth. Alex was a thoracic surgeon at Heartstone Medical Center, and I was an assistant district attorney with the county.

Lizzie had been right. Not just about Alex but about me. The only reason everything works out exactly the way Maggie wants is because she’s an obsessively compulsive micromanaging control freak.

I got pregnant, as planned, a few months before my twenty-seventh birthday. I wanted two children—a boy and a girl—and even though some things are beyond my micromanaging skills, the gods were kind enough to put them both in my belly at the same time. They were due on New Year’s Eve, but their cribs, car seats, tandem stroller, and everything else on my extensive list had been ready since Halloween.

My career with the prosecutor’s office was going well, and not wanting to lose momentum, I decided to work right up until the holidays before taking my maternity leave.

It was the Saturday before Christmas, and I was the on-call prosecutor when Detective Nate Coniglio called me.

I liked Nate. He was the kid brother of a girl in my high school class. He was eleven, and I was seventeen, and I thought he was adorable. Then his sister told me he had a massive crush on me, which only made me think he was even more adorable.

“Maggie,” he said, “I’ve got a fatal accident on East Shore Road. Looks like the driver had a heart attack, hopped the embankment, and luckily for the passenger, the car hit an outcropping of rocks; otherwise, it would have wound up at the bottom of Greenwood Lake.”

“And you’re calling me because...?”

“We found half a kilo of cocaine in the trunk.”

“Did you have probable cause?”

“Didn’t need it. Trunk popped open on impact. It was right there in plain sight. We ID’d the driver as Sammy Womack—a skel from the city with a long narco history.”

“Never had the pleasure,” I said. “What’s the story on the passenger?”

“Him you know. Did a few bids in county. He’s under arrest. He had four eight balls in his pocket, but I think we can charge him with the weight in the trunk. Name’s Johnny Rollo. I was hoping to get a statement, but he lawyered up.”

“I’ll be right there,” I said.

I slammed the phone down and headed for the car fuming. I was pissed at Johnny Rollo. I hadn’t heard from him in years, and I was pretty sure I knew why. I’d come a long way since the two of us shotgunned weed and broke into houses. He hadn’t, and knowing him, he was embarrassed to run into me.

“Well, you’re going to run into me now, asshole,” I yelled at the windshield as I drove toward the lake. “Typical of you to wait till I’m eight-plus months pregnant before you need my help.”

Who was I kidding? He hadn’t asked for help. He knew I was an ADA, but he’d lawyered up, making it impossible for me to talk to him in private. “Asshole,” I repeated, just in case the windshield hadn’t heard me the first time.

Nate Coniglio met me at the scene. “Maggie, I need a little time before I can fill you in. I’ve got a four-hundred-pound dead drug dealer wedged behind the wheel of his Escalade. I’m working out the logistics of getting the fat bastard to the morgue.”

“Hey,” I said, patting my fifty-inch waistline. “On behalf of fat bastards everywhere, show a little respect.”

He laughed.

“I’m freezing, and the heater in my Volvo is blowing hot and cold,” I said. “You got a place where I can keep warm?”

He pointed to a cluster of vehicles, all with the engines running. “That’s mine over there—the black Ford. Give me about ten minutes,” he said and hurried off to deal with the late Sammy Womack.

I headed for Coniglio’s car until he was out of sight, then turned toward the blue and white SUV with the county PD shield on the side. I could make out a man in the back seat. A young, uniformed cop was standing outside the front door.

“Hey, Andy,” I said. “Did the EMTs finish patching up our perp?”

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Dunn,” the cop said. “Yeah, I think they’re getting ready to leave.”

“Do me a big favor. Grab them before they go and get a statement from them. Anything Rollo might have said while they were working on him is admissible in court. Can you handle that?”

Could he handle that ? I’d just asked him to take part in a drug bust investigation. His eyes went wide. “I’m all over it.”

He took off. I opened the driver’s-side door, slid behind the wheel, turned around, and looked at Johnny on the other side of the metal divider. There were butterfly bandages over his right eye and a contusion on his cheek.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he said.

“The question is: What are you doing here? You were a nickel-and-dime pot dealer. Now you’re holding half a key of coke. Why did you decide to go all Scarface on us? Can’t get enough jail time selling weed?”

“That coke’s not mine. It’s Sammy’s.”

“And you just happen to be going along for a ride with a guy who has twenty thousand dollars’ worth of uncut blow stashed in the trunk of his Cadillac? How did that unfortunate circumstance come about?”

“I fronted Sammy the money.”

“So it is your coke.”

“Technically, no. It’s Sammy’s. But it’s my investment.”

“Who are you—Warren Buffet? What do you know about investing?”

“Hey, it’s a good ROI,” he said, “unless your asshole business partner drops dead at the wheel, and the goddamn OnStar lady sends Five-Oh. I swear to God, Maggie—that shit was all Sammy’s.”

“What about the four bags they found in your pocket?”

“All right, so maybe I took a little off the top before Sammy started cutting it. One of my best customers has a bachelor party coming up. It was going to be a one-and-done deal.”

“You got the done part right. They nail you for this, and you’re looking at ten years upstate.”

“Thank you for your legal expertise, Counselor, but I already lawyered up, which means your ass is in trouble if you get caught talking to me.”

“And if I don’t talk to you, your state-appointed, overworked, underpaid lawyer will give you minutes of their precious time, then give you the good news—my office will let you plead out. And if you take it, I’ll see you in seven and a half years instead of ten.”

I looked out the window. Coniglio and the cop I’d recruited to talk to EMS were still busy. “We don’t have much time to work this out,” I said, “so listen to me, and listen good.”