Dina Santorelli (5 page)

"Detective."
Katherine Grand, who remained seated, gave Nurberg a single nod of a greeting,
while taking another sip of tea.

"Have
you found anything yet?" the governor asked.

"Well,
our team did a preliminary sweep of the entire mansion and the grounds,
particularly in the nursery, but it showed nothing. I'd like to run down any
security cameras around the perimeter during the hours the alleged abduction
took place."

"Alleged?"
the governor asked.

"Well,
we have to consider all possible scenarios, Governor," Nurberg explained. "We
searched under the beds, in the closets and basements, just in case the child
crawled out of her crib and simply managed to get herself stuck somewhere or
was injured and couldn't cry for help."

"Interesting
how the housekeeper hadn't thought of that," Mrs. Grand said, to no one in
particular, while staring out the kitchen window.

"Katherine,
please," said the governor. "Go on, Detective."

Nurberg
continued. "Or sometimes, the child will just crawl away and fall asleep. Hours
later, she'll wake up happy and innocent and come out of the hiding spot,
without ever knowing all the havoc she caused."

"How
often does that happen, Detective?" asked the First Lady, whose attention
Nurberg finally seemed to have.

"Does
what happen, ma'am?"

"That
a reported kidnapping results in a happy child lost somewhere in the house."

Nurberg's
eyes met the First Lady's for the first time. They were a sharp and piercing
blue.

"Not
very often, ma'am. But it is a possibility."

"Indeed."
Mrs. Grand returned to her tea.

"What
can we do?" the governor asked Nurberg.

"I'm
assuming the first officers on the scene questioned you both along with
everyone else in the home."

"Yes,"
the governor said. "I don't know how much help I was. Katherine and I were at
the Kliger Nursing Home on the other side of town when all this happened." The
governor massaged his temples with his right hand. "I just can't believe this
... I've cleared my schedule for the next few days. I'm available for anything
you need."

"There
are some reporters skulking around outside, Detective," Mrs. Grand said,
motioning with her chin toward the kitchen window.

"They
may have followed the police cars here, ma'am." Nurberg walked over to the
window and gazed out.

"Can't
you control them?" the First Lady asked.

Nurberg
couldn't help but smirk. Mrs. Grand, a seasoned PR strategist before she
married the governor and began her life of charity events and proclamation
dinners, had a reputation for turning any event, no matter how small, into a
media frenzy. She had press conferences for each of her three trimesters; for
the decorating of the nursery; for the naming of the child, who was named after
the First Lady's paternal grandmother—a descendent, she claimed, of Mary
Boleyn, mistress to Henry VIII—and, of course, for the actual birth, baptism,
and first tooth of Charlotte Grand.

"We'll
do our best," Nurberg said. "In fact, it would be a good idea if we kept this
quiet for as long as possible. The last thing we want is a media circus, which
would just hinder our ability to conduct a thorough investigation." He paused.
"Do either of you have any ideas as to what could have happened here?"

The
First Lady placed her teacup down. "I'm not sure what you mean, Detective."

"Well,"
Nurburg said, "any thoughts on who might have taken the baby or why?"

"No,
not at all," the governor said. "Everyone loves Charlotte. She has brought so
much joy to everyone's life. Right, Katherine?"

Mrs.
Grand's nod was short and tight. If Nurberg hadn't been looking for it, he
would have missed it altogether.

"Any
enemies, Governor?" Nurberg asked.

Governor
Grand threw up his hands. "Take your pick, Detective. The political climate is
hostile these days, particularly for Republican government officials. Anyone
who is anti-gun, pro-abortion, or anti–death penalty seems to have, at one time
or another, picketed in front of my door, called me names, and made my
political life hell, as if my principles were of any less value or substance
than theirs."

"Recently,
though, sir, any threats or people with a particular ax to grind?" Nurberg
asked.

The
governor thought for a moment. "No," he said. "No one comes to mind."

"And
you, ma'am?" Nurberg turned toward the First Lady, who was staring out the
window. "Ma'am?"

Mrs.
Grand took her napkin and patted her lips, wiping off the last traces of
lipstick she was wearing. She placed the napkin down and shook her head. "Why
don't you ask me what you really want to ask me, detective?" she said.

"And
what is that, ma'am?" Nurberg kept a steady eye on Katherine.

"If
I had anything to do with the disappearance of my child."

"Now,
Katherine, please..." The governor walked toward the sink and poured a glass of
filtered water.

Nurberg
said nothing as the First Lady sat back in her chair, pushing her tongue
against her bottom front teeth. When she did, her eyes squinted.

"Sure,"
Mrs. Grand said. "I could see it the moment you looked at me; because I'm not
sitting here weeping and distraught means that I don't love my daughter, that
I'm to blame. Well, Detective, I'm disappointed. You think like a police-academy
graduate. Would you rather I be like those mothers who cry and scream and go on
television and beg for the return of their child? The ones for whom there is
public outcry, national AMBER Alerts. The ones sought after by the morning
network programs for exclusive interviews, and for whom the local press has a
field day, thrilled to have something else to cover besides ribbon cuttings and
teen graffiti." Mrs. Grand stood and put her teacup in the sink, her eyes now
wild and incredulous. "Neighborhood watches are formed. Law enforcement
canvasses the neighborhood, led by the grieving mother who is draped in
blankets crocheted by neighbors. Quiches are baked, lakes and ponds dredged,
manpower is doubled, supportive family and friends arrive in droves... Only,
in the end, to find out that it was that helpless, pitiful mother who..."

Mrs.
Grand caught herself. Then she continued in a calmer, more controlled tone. "So
you'll understand and forgive me, sir, if I don't feel the need to waste my
time and put on a dog and pony show to satisfy your delusions about what grief
actually looks like."

"You
still haven't answered my question, ma'am," Nurberg said. He knew he was
pushing it, risking both the governor's enmity and dismissal from the case, but
he also knew it was important for him to stand his ground early and often with
Mrs. Grand, who had a long and dubious history with the Albany PD. If she
wanted a pissing contest, then that was what he'd give her, as long as it would
help him, in the end, to find Charlotte Grand.

The
First Lady gave a flippant laugh. "Very good, detective. The answer is no. I
can't think of anyone who would want to see my daughter harmed." She paused.
"Including myself. And now if there's nothing else, may I go?"

"Just
doing my job," Nurberg said. It was true. Sort of. "I will contact you if I
need anything more."

"I'm
sure you will," spat Mrs. Grand, who grabbed her pocketbook and strode out of
the kitchen.

The
governor and Nurberg watched her leave. She left in such a huff that some idle
paperwork had flown off the nearby counter onto the floor. The governor bent
down to pick it up. "We're all on edge, Detective, as you can imagine," he
said.

"Yes,
sir, I understand."

The
governor neatly stacked the papers where they had been, and then the most
important political figure in the state of New York stood facing the corner
like a child sent into a time-out. "The house seems so quiet," he said finally,
when he turned around. "Don't you think?"

Nurberg,
of course, couldn't say, having never been to the mansion before. And although
the assorted murmurs of detectives and uniformed officers were creating an
undercurrent of noise, right now the governor was simply a man standing in his
home missing the sounds of his infant daughter.

The
words came out before Nurberg could stop them. "Governor Grand, I promise you,
we will find Charlotte and bring her home."

The lit ash of Gino Cataldi's
cigarette burned brightly in the small, dank cell of the Stanton Correctional
Facility. Early that morning, officers had removed all of his personal
belongings, allowing him only his underclothing and a pair of state-issued
sandals, made of paper. The morning edition of the
Daily Telegraph
was
strewn next to him on the threadbare mattress, and as he thumbed through the
pages, black smudges appeared on the pads of his wrinkled, yellow fingers. He
took a long drag of the cigarette that he had bummed off the night-duty guard
in exchange for a tip in the seventh race at Belmont, and as he did, deep
crevices formed around his mouth like concentric circles of a tree. A passing
guard made a discourteous comment about the gloriousness of the weather, and
although there were no windows in Gino's cell, he could smell the fresh air on
the guard's clothing.

In
two days, six hours, and twelve minutes, Gino Cataldi would be the sixth man
put to death in New York State in six years. And leading up to that moment,
there would be a guard stationed in front of his cell round the clock, watching
his every move.

New
York State, considered blue through and through, had surprised
all the political pundits—and Gino as well—six years ago with the election and
then reelection of Governor Phillip Grand, a junior state assemblyman and
staunchly conservative Republican. Capitalizing on the continued
illegal-immigration and terrorism fears after 9/11, Grand quietly had assembled
a coalition of hardworking, blue-collar constituents, the very same ones that
President Barack Obama had once claimed clung to their guns and religion, and
managed to eke out a victory against his popular Democratic rival.

This
was good news for the rural counties of upstate New York that crowded the
Canadian border and were known as
Little Siberia
because of their harsh
winters and because prisons were a big part of the local economies, viewed with
the same allegiance as the area's factories or farms. Prior to Governor Grand's
election, declining inmate populations threatened the livelihood of many
otherwise unskilled New Yorkers who had worked in those facilities for decades;
during that time, Gino had heard lots of talk among the guards of downsizing
and forced retirements, eliciting a general bad mood among prison staffers. As
promised during his campaign stumping, Grand, once elected, increased state
funding to local municipalities to beef up their law-enforcement agencies,
particularly in the northern and western sections of New York, and within six
years' time there was no more talk about closing prisons—inmate populations
tripled. Ever since, Gino noticed a few changes at the prison, including
vending machines in the west cafeteria, new computer terminals in the rec room,
and a hint of lavender on his prison uniform. For his part, Governor Grand
canvassed the state claiming that because of his efforts, the streets were
safer, crime syndicates had been dissolved, and drug warlords were dethroned.
He was hailed as the Rudy Giuliani of upstate New York.

Grand
also made reinstitution of the death penalty a central theme of his campaign,
and it was his first priority once sworn into office. Gino knew that with the
simultaneous increase in arrests and, therefore, inmate populations, the
governor conveniently had a pick of the litter in terms of the cases in which
to urge execution. The state of Texas, of course, puts to death more people
than any jurisdiction, but in less than ten years' time, New York, the former
political kingdom of Democratic softies like Governors Hugh Carey and Mario
Cuomo, was becoming a capital-punishment contender. Although Gino heard the dissenters
picketing in droves outside the correctional facility—armed with statistics
that showed only a small percentage of police chiefs believed that the death
penalty significantly reduced homicides and arguing that the death-row inmates'
cases had been compromised by unreliable evidence, as well as dubious defense
attorneys and psychiatric testimony—all five of the executions under Grand's
administration had gone off without a hitch.

Over
the years, Gino had kept a very close eye on the political comings and goings
of Phillip Grand. Every morning of his fifteen-year stay at Stanton, he scoured
the local newspapers and, later, googled Grand's name at the prison library to
view the national and international news coverage of the up-and-coming
statesman. After his failed appeal five years ago for the 1992 murders of three
witnesses in the trial of Bobby DeLuca—horrific deaths to which Gino never
conceded guilt—the governor leapt at the opportunity to pursue a
capital-punishment sentence when Gino bludgeoned a fellow inmate to death with
a pair of solid steel barbells in the prison weight room. After Gino's
well-paid lawyers exhausted all possible legal avenues, the date was finally
set for April 12, 2012.

Gino
lay back upon the flat mattress of his small cell and extinguished his
cigarette on the crumbling brick wall. His thoughts turned to the philosophers
and poli-sci students who, at that very moment, probably were arguing whether the
death penalty was an effective deterrent to crime or a violation of the US
Constitution. He remembered reading that Carol Rosenstern, witness number
fourteen in the case against Bobby DeLuca, had been the head of the SUNY
Cortland chapter of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He
would have gladly debated the moralities of capital punishment with her before
he cut out her tongue with a steak knife.