Vanishing Acts Read online

  "I don't know," I admit. "We'll find out once we get to Arizona."

  "Arizona?"

  "After your father is arraigned on fugitive charges in New Hampshire, he'll be extradited to Arizona. That's where the ... crime allegedly occurred. If it goes to trial, you'll probably be called as a witness."

  She seems horrified by this. "What if I don't want to be one?"

  "You may not have that choice," I admit.

  She takes a step closer to me, and I fold my arms around her. "What if I wasn't meant to grow up here ... like this?" she says, her voice muffled against my shirt. "What if there was a different cosmic plan for Bethany Matthews?"

  "What if there was a different cosmic plan for Delia Hopkins, one that got ruined because of a car crash?" I search my mind frantically for the right thing to say. I try to think of Fitz, of what he would tell me to tell her. "You could have been Bethany Matthews, Delia Hopkins, Cleopatra--it wouldn't matter. And if you'd grown up with a thousand lemon trees in the middle of the desert, with a cactus instead of a Christmas tree and a pet armadillo ... well, then, I would have gone to law school at Arizona State, I guess. I would have defended illegal aliens crossing the border. But we still would have wound up together, Dee. No matter what kind of life I had, you'd be at the end of it."

  She smiles, just a little. "I'm pretty sure I was never Cleopatra."

  I drop a kiss on her forehead. "Well," I reply. "That's a start."

  We were fifteen and drunk and in the bell tower of Baker Library at Dartmouth, watching a meteor shower that, the newscasters said, would only be this vivid once in our lifetimes, although that was hard to believe, feeling as we did that we'd live forever.

  We played games to pass the time: I Spy, and Twenty Questions. Anyone who didn't get the answer had to chug. By the time our corner of the world turned to face the meteor shower, Fitz was snoring with his mouth open and Delia was having trouble zipping up her sweatshirt. "Here," I said, and I did it for her, just as a fireball chased the moon across the sky.

  Delia watched the midnight show, and I watched her. Sometimes she smiled, or laughed out loud; mostly her mouth just made a wondrous O as the night changed before her eyes. When some of the activity died down, I leaned forward until our lips touched.

  She drew back immediately, stared hard at me. Then she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back.

  I remember that we didn't really know what we were doing, that I felt two sizes too big for my skin, that my heart was beating so hard it moved the denim of my shirt. I remember that for one moment, I believed I was hitchhiking on one of those comets, falling so fast that I'd surely burn away before I ever hit the ground.

  At nine o'clock the next morning, Delia and I take a seat close to the defense table at the Wexton District Court. It is a rotating habitat for public defenders and hired guns like myself, a new one warming the chair each time the judge calls for a new case. Arraignments are a rubber-stamp process, the prosecutor riffling through a big box of files as defendant after defendant is brought in. We watch a woman get arraigned for stealing a toaster oven from Kmart, a man brought in for violating a restraining order. A third defendant, one I recognize as a hot dog stand vendor in town, has been arrested for the felonious sexual assault of a minor.

  It reminds me that there are people in this world who have done worse things than Andrew Hopkins.

  "Do you know the prosecutor?" Delia whispers.

  Ned Floritz was the leader of my AA meeting yesterday, but recovering alcoholics are always in the business of keeping one another's secrets. "I've seen him around," I say.

  When our case is called, Andrew is brought in wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that says GRAFTON COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS on the back. His hands and legs are shackled.

  Beside me, Delia gasps; her father's incarceration is, after all, still new to her. I stand up and button my jacket, carry my briefcase down to the defense table. Andrew's eyes roam the courtroom. "Delia!" he yells out, and she stands up.

  "Sir," the bailiff says, "please face front."

  I can feel sweat breaking out on my forehead. I have been in court before, but not for a case of this magnitude. Not for a case where I have a personal stake in the outcome.

  Beside me, Andrew touches my arm. "Make them take the chains off. I don't want her to see me like this."

  "It's inmate policy in the courtroom," I answer. "I can't do anything about it."

  The judge is a woman relatively new to the bench. She comes from a public defender's background, which is a plus for Andrew, but she is also the mother of three small children. "I have before me a complaint alleging that you are a fugitive from justice with kidnapping contrary to the laws of Arizona. I see that you have an attorney with you, so I'll address my remarks to him. You have two options today. One is to waive extradition and go to Arizona to meet the charge. The other option is to contest extradition and require the State to seek a Governor's Warrant."

  "My client chooses to waive extradition, Your Honor," I say. "He's looking forward to dealing with this charge quickly."

  The judge nods. "Then bail won't be an issue. I assume you're going to allow us to incarcerate Mr. Hopkins until he can be transferred to Arizona."

  "Actually, Judge, we'd like bail to be set," I say.

  The prosecutor is out of his seat like a shot. "Absolutely not, Your Honor!"

  The judge turns toward him. "Mr. Floritz? Is there something you'd like to add?"

  "Your Honor, the two primary considerations for bail are the safety of the community and risk of flight. The defendant is just about the biggest flight risk you could ask for--look at what already happened."

  "Allegedly happened," I interject. "Mr. Hopkins is a valuable member of the Wexton community. He has served for five years as a town councilman. He's almost single-handedly responsible for the creation of the current senior center, and he has been nothing less than an exemplary parent and grandparent. This isn't a man who's a menace to society, Your Honor. I urge the Court to consider the admirable citizen he has been before rushing to any hasty judgment."

  Too late, I realize what I've done wrong. You never, never, ever infer that a judge might be hasty in his or her decision-making; it is like pointing out to a wolf that it has bad breath while it is considering ripping out your carotid. The judge looks coolly at me. "I believe that I have more than adequate information to make a legitimate ruling here ... swift though it may be, Counselor. I'm setting a one-million-dollar cash-only bail." She bangs her gavel. "Next case?"

  The bailiffs haul Andrew out of the courtroom before he even has a chance to ask me what happens next. The seniors erupt in a slow-motion flurry of activity, crying foul and then being shuffled by another bailiff into the hallway. The prosecutor gets up from his seat and walks toward me. "Eric," he says, "you sure you're ready to get involved in something like this?"

  He isn't questioning my legal abilities but my tolerance for stress. Although he's been dry for twenty years, I'm a neophyte. I give him a tight smile. "I've got it under control," I lie. Recovering alcoholics are good at that, too.

  I relinquish my table to a public defender who is getting ready for the next arraignment. I'm not looking forward to Delia's disappointment, now that she knows Andrew will have to stay overnight in jail again, that I have already failed. Resigned, I turn to the spot where we were sitting, but she's disappeared.

  Six years ago I drove my car off the road while I was trying to open a bottle of Stoli and steer with my knees. By some miracle the only casualty was a sugar maple. I walked to a bar, where I had to consume a few drinks before I felt calm enough to call Delia and tell her what had happened. The next week, I found myself waking up in places I had no recollection of going to: the living room of a fraternity on the Dartmouth campus; the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant; the cement divider of the Wilder Dam. It was after one of these benders that I found myself in the backyard at Delia and Andrew's house, asleep in their hammock. What woke me