The Secret Hour

For Irwyn Applebaum and Bruce Springsteen

 
This novel took shape in stages, beginning in my childhood with the story of a murdered girl. Although I didn’t know her, I have spent my life captivated by the small details I have learned along the way. I have thought of her always, and I think of her still.

 
I wish to thank Georgetown University Law Center for allowing me to sit in on classes in 1980. A writer can easily be taken for a law student, so I would find an empty chair and listen to the lectures and consider the ways in which law and fiction intersect. I especially loved evidence classes, where law was often stranger than fiction, but I thank all the professors for that wonderful opportunity to learn.

 
My gratitude to TGF, for making that experience possible.

 
My cousins, William J. Keenan Jr. and John T. Scully, both wonderful lawyers, have always been generous with their time—willing to discuss legal issues, baseball, and so much more with me—love and thanks to both (and to their wives and children and to all my other cousins).

 
Much gratitude to Charles J. Irving, for all his support, for sharing his knowledge and trial experience, and for reviewing the documents.

 
Thanks to Mia Onorato for her seriously amazing manga. She is a great animator and storyteller.

 
Love and thanks to everyone at the Jane Rotrosen Agency and Bantam Books.

 
Epic gratitude to Karen Covert, Tim Donnelly, Jim Weikart, Jill Rick, Phyllis Mandel, and Trooper Robert J. Derry Jr.

 
Finally, to Dev Waldron and his house band, for coming over one summer night and putting on a concert to end all concerts, just when I needed it most. Thank you all for the laughter, love, and bar chords, not necessarily in that order.

 
Luanne Rice is the author of
Dance With Me, The Secret Hour, The Perfect Summer, True Blue, Safe Harbor, Summer Light, Firefly Beach, Dream Country, Follow the Stars Home
—a recent Hallmark Hall of Fame release—
Cloud Nine, Home Fires, Secrets of Paris, Stone Heart, Angels All Over Town, Crazy in Love
(made into a TNT Network feature film), and
Blue Moon
(made into a CBS television film). She lives in New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut.

 
The kitchen was quiet. The kids were trying so hard to help. Sitting at the breakfast table, his back to the cove, John O’Rourke tried to concentrate on the legal brief he’d stayed up last night finishing. Maggie buttered a piece of toast and slid it across the table. He accepted it, nodding thanks. Teddy hunched over the sports section, scowling at the scores, as if all his teams had lost. Brainer, the dog, lay under the table, growling happily as he gnawed an old tennis ball.

 
“Dad,” Maggie said.

 
“What?”

 
“Are you finished reading yet?”

 
“Not quite, Mags.”

 
“Is it about Merrill?”

 
John didn’t respond at first, but his stomach twisted in a knot. He thought about his eleven-year-old daughter knowing about Greg Merrill, his all-time most time-consuming client, the Breakwater Killer, the star of Connecticut’s death row and, as such, the talk of barrooms and courtrooms everywhere. John wanted people talking; it was part of his strategy. But he didn’t want his daughter knowing.

 
“It is, honey,” he said, lowering the brief.

 
“Are they going to kill him, Dad?”

 
“I don’t know, Maggie. I’m trying to make it so they don’t.”

 
“But he deserves it,” Teddy said. “For killing those girls.”

 
“Everyone’s innocent till proven guilty,” Maggie intoned.

 
“He admits he’s guilty,” Teddy said, lowering the sports section. “He confessed.” At fourteen, he was tall and strong. His eyes were too serious, his smile a shadow of the grin he used to flash before his mother’s death. Sitting across the wide oak table, John reflected that Teddy would make a fine prosecutor.

 
“He did,” John said.

 
“Because he did those things—murdered girls, ruined families. He deserves what’s coming to him. Everyone says he does, Dad.”

 
Outside, the wind blew, and a shower of autumn leaves fell from the trees.

 
John stared at his brief. He thought about the confession, the sentencing—to death by lethal injection—the months Greg Merrill had already spent on death row; and he thought of his current strategy—to argue before the Connecticut State Supreme Court that Merrill deserved a new sentencing hearing.

 
“Ruined families?” Maggie asked.

 
“Yes,” Teddy said, glancing at his sister. “But don’t worry, Maggie. He’s in jail now. He can’t hurt anyone anymore. People want to make sure it stays that way, which is why our phone rang ten times in the middle of the night—even though we have an unlisted number. You should hear what people say when we go by. They want you to stop what you’re doing, Dad.”

 
“Okay, Teddy,” John said softly.

 
“But it’s his job,” Maggie said, her eyes filling. “Why is it his fault, our fault, that he’s just doing his job?”

 
“It’s not your fault, Mags,” John said, staring into her deep eyes. “Everyone in this country has rights.”

 
She didn’t reply, but nodded.

 
John took a slow breath in and out. This was his hometown, yet he felt the outrage of his friends and neighbors and strangers alike. Most of all he hated that his children were being made to suffer.

 
The critical issue in Merrill’s case had always been his mental condition at the time of the crimes; John intended to argue that Greg Merrill suffered from a mental illness that made him physically unable to control his actions. His first act upon becoming Merrill’s attorney was to engage a top psychiatrist—to examine his client and aid in his defense. John’s unpopular work would, he hoped, result in Merrill’s being resentenced to multiple life sentences without the possibility of release.

 
Teddy stared at his father, green eyes dark with gravity and sorrow. Maggie blinked, her blue eyes—the same shade, exactly, as Theresa’s—framed by the raggedy bangs John had trimmed the night before. His daughter’s bad haircut filled him with shame, and his son’s solemn gaze seemed an admonishment of the worst, truest, most deserved kind. Since his mother’s sudden death, Teddy had become the self-appointed protector of women everywhere.

 
“It’s your job, right, Dad?” Maggie asked, squinting. “Protecting everyone’s rights?”

 
“You’d better get ready for school,” John said.

 
“I am ready,” Maggie said, suddenly stricken.

 
John surveyed her outfit: green leggings, a blue skirt, one of Teddy’s old soccer shirts. “Ah,” John said, inwardly cursing the last baby-sitter for quitting, but—even more—himself for being so hard to work for. He’d called the employment agency, and they were supposed to send some new prospects out to interview, but with his track record and late hours, John would probably just work her ragged and blow the whole thing by Halloween. Maybe he should just move the whole family over to his father’s house, let Maeve take care of them all.

 
“Don’t I look good?” Maggie asked, frowning, looking down and surveying her ensemble.

 
“You look great,” Teddy said, catching John’s eye with a warning. “You’ll be the prettiest girl in your class.”

 
“Are you sure? Dad didn’t even think I was ready for school—”

 
“Maggie, you look beautiful,” John said, pushing the papers away and tugging her onto his lap.

 
She melted into his arms, still ready to cuddle at a moment’s notice. John closed his eyes, needing the comfort himself. She smelled of milk and sweat, and he felt a pang, knowing he had forgotten to remind her to take a bath after the haircut.

 
“I’m not beautiful,” she whispered into his neck. “Mommy was. I’m a tomboy. Tomboys can’t be beautiful. They—”

 
The peace was shattered by breaking glass. Something flew through the kitchen window, skidding across the table, knocking milk and bowls and cereal all over, smashing into the opposite wall. John covered Maggie’s body with his own as squares and triangles and splinters of glass rained down. His daughter squealed in terror, and he heard himself yelling for Teddy to get under the table.

 
When the glass stopped falling, the first sound was Brainer barking, running from the broken picture window to the front door and back. A big wave crashed on the rocks outside, down by the beach; the sound, unmuffled by window glass, was startlingly loud. Maggie began to sob—whimpering at first, then with growing hysteria. Teddy crawled out from under the table, kicked glass away, and scuttled across the room.

 
“It was a brick, Dad,” he called.

 
“Don’t touch it,” John said, still holding Maggie.

 
“I know. Fingerprints,” Teddy said.

 
John nodded, realizing there wouldn’t be any. People, even noncriminals, had gotten sophisticated about evidence. Even the local hotheads—whose prior worst crime might have been overzealous letters to the editor or loud protests outside court—had absorbed plenty of information about fingerprints and hair and fiber from the cop shows they watched and the legal thrillers they read.

 
Drops of blood splashed on the floor. Focused, John examined his daughter to make sure she hadn’t gotten cut. When she looked up into his face, her eyes widened with horror and she shrieked in his ear.

 
“Dad, you’re cut!” she cried. Touching the side of his head, he felt a spot of warm liquid; grabbing a green-and-blue napkin, he held it against the gash. Teddy ran over, pushed Maggie aside, looked at his father’s head. John rose and, holding his kids’ hands, walked into the bathroom.

 
“It’s not too bad,” he said, peering at his reflection in the mirror. “Just superficial—looks a lot worse than it is.”

 
“Oh, Mommy,” Maggie cried spontaneously.

 
John hugged his daughter. His heart ached horribly for her. She missed her mother all the time, but something as traumatic as this was bound to bring thoughts of the accident back. He had brought this on himself. Wanting to salve his own wounds, he had taken on the busiest case in his career—not even two years after his children had lost their mother. He was a selfish jerk, and his kids were hurting for it.

 
As if Teddy felt the same way, he edged John aside and took his sister’s hand. Two spots of blood had stained her soccer jersey, and Teddy grabbed a washcloth and began to clean them off.