“It’s thin but it’s true. Skip had established a very successful business, mostly building quality homes, although recently he had expanded into shopping malls. Most of his time was spent in the office, taking care of the business end, but he loved to put on work clothes and spend the day with a crew. That’s what he’d done that day, before coming back to work at the office. The guy was tired.”

He opened the first volume. “I’ve flagged Smith’s testimony as well as Skip’s. The crux of the matter is that we are certain that there was someone else involved, and we have reason to believe it was another man. In fact, Skip was convinced that Suzanne was involved with another man, perhaps even with more than one. What precipitated the second quarrel, the one that occurred when he went home at six o’clock, was that he found her arranging a bunch of red roses-sweetheart roses, I think the press called them-that he had not sent her. The prosecution maintained that he went into a rage, strangled her, then threw the roses over her body. He, of course, swears that he didn’t, that when he left, Suzanne was still blithely puttering with the flowers.”

“Did anyone check the local florists to see if an order for the roses had been placed with one of them? If Skip didn’t carry them home, somebody delivered them.”

“Farrell did at least do that. There wasn’t a florist in Bergen County who wasn’t checked. Nothing turned up.”

“I see.”

Geoff stood up. “Kerry, I know it’s a lot to ask, but I want you to read this transcript carefully. I want you to pay particular attention to Dr. Smith’s testimony. Then I’d like you to consider letting me be with you when you talk to Dr. Smith about his practice of giving other women his daughter’s face.”

She walked with Geoff to the door. “I’ll call you in the next few days,” she promised.

At the door, he paused, then turned back to Kerry. “There’s one more thing I wish you’d do. Come down with me to Trenton State Prison. Talk to Skip yourself. On my grandmother’s grave, I swear you’ll hear the ring of truth when that poor guy tells you his story.”

In Trenton State Prison, Skip Reardon lay on the bunk of his cell, watching the six-thirty news. Dinnertime had come and gone with its dreary menu. As had become more and more the case, he was restless and irritable. After ten years in this place, he had managed for the most part to set himself on a middle course. In the beginning he had fluctuated between wild hope when an appeal was pending and crashing despair when it was rejected.

Now his usual state of mind was weary resignation. He knew that Geoff Dorso would never stop trying to find new grounds for an appeal, but the climate of the country was changing. On the news there were more and more reports criticizing the fact that repeated appeals from convicted criminals were tying up the courts, reports that inevitably concluded that there had to be a cutoff. If Geoff could not find grounds for an appeal, one that would actually win Skip his freedom, then that meant another twenty years in this place.

In his most despondent moments, Skip allowed himself to think back over the years before the murder, and to realize just how crazy he had been. He and Beth had practically been engaged. And then at Beth’s urging he had gone alone to a party her sister and her surgeon husband Were giving. At the last minute, Beth had come down with a bug, but she hadn’t wanted him to miss out on the fun.

Yeah, fun, Skip thought ironically, remembering that night. Suzanne and her father had been there. Even now he could not forget how she looked the first time he saw her. He knew immediately she meant trouble, but like a fool he fell for her anyway.

Impatiently, Skip got up from the bunk, switched off the television and looked at the trial transcript on the shelf over the toilet. He felt as though he could recite it by heart. That’s where it belongs, over the toilet, he thought bitterly. For all the good it’s ever going to do me, I should tear it up and flush it.

He stretched. He used to keep his body in shape through a combination of hard work on the job site and a regular gym regimen. Now he rigidly performed a series of push-ups and sit-ups every night. The small plastic mirror attached to the wall showed his red hair streaked with gray, his face, once ruddy from outdoor work, now a pasty prison pallor.

The daydream he allowed himself was that by some miracle he was free to go back to building houses. The oppressive confinement and constant noise in this place had given him visions of middle-class homes that would be sufficiently insulated to insure privacy, that would be filled with windows to let in the outdoors. He had loose-leaf books filled with designs.

Whenever Beth came to see him, something he had tried to discourage of late, he would show the latest ones to her, and they would talk about them as though he really would one day be able to go back to the job he had loved, building homes.

Only now he had to wonder, what would the world be like, and what would people be living in when he finally got out of this terrible place?

Kerry could tell it was going to be another late night. She had started reading the transcript immediately after Geoff left and resumed after Robin went to bed.

At nine-thirty, Grace Hoover phoned. “Jonathan’s out at a meeting. I’m propped up in bed and felt like chatting. Is this a good time for you?”

“It’s always a good time when it’s you, Grace.” Kerry meant it. In the fifteen years she had known Grace and Jonathan, she had watched Grace’s physical decline. She had gone from using a cane to crutches, finally to a wheelchair, and from being ardently involved in social activities to being almost totally housebound. She did keep up with friends and entertained with frequent catered dinner parties, but as she told Kerry, “It’s just gotten to be too much effort to go out.”

Kerry had never heard Grace complain. “You do what you have to,” she had said wryly when Kerry candidly told her how much she admired her courage.

But after a couple of minutes of familiar chatter, it became apparent that tonight there was a purpose to Grace’s call. “Kerry, you had lunch with Jonathan today, and I’m going to be honest. He’s worried.”

Kerry listened as Grace reiterated Jonathan’s concerns, concluding with, “Kerry, after twenty years in the state senate, Jonathan has a lot of power, but not enough to make the governor appoint you to a judgeship if you embarrass his chosen successor.

Incidentally,” she added, “Jonathan has no idea I’m calling yore”

He must have really vented to Grace, Kerry thought. I wonder what she would think if she could see what I’m doing now. Feeling evasive the entire time, Kerry did her best to assure Grace that she had no intention or desire to ruffle feathers. “But Grace, if it developed that Dr. Smith’s testimony was false, I think that Frank Green would be admired and respected if he recommended to the court that Reardon be given a new trial. I don’t think that the public would hold it against him that he had in good faith relied on the doctor’s testimony. He had no reason to doubt him.

“And don’t forget,” she added, “I’m far from being convinced that justice was denied in the Reardon case. It’s just that by coincidence I’ve stumbled on this one thing, and I can’t live with myself if I don’t follow through on it.”

When the conversation ended, Kerry returned to the transcript. By the time she finally laid it down, she had filled pages with notes and questions.

The sweetheart roses: Was Skip Reardon lying when he said he didn’t bring or send them? If he was telling the truth, if he didn’t send them, then who did?