Law of the Heart—Alternate Ending

"I woke up the next morning alone in bed. I had the worst headache ever. The place reeked of sex. I was sore. It began to dawn on me what I had done...what I had done to you, to us. I cried and cried and cried. I became physically ill and got the dry heaves. About 10AM, I called room service and asked them to deliver clean sheets. I threw the ones that we used into the hallway. Then I took a long shower and tried to scrub myself clean. No matter how much I bathed, I did not feel clean. When the clean sheets arrived, I remade the bed and curled up with a pillow. I couldn't sleep. I felt so full of shame and guilt that I continued to cry.

About 1PM, Meredith came looking for me because she noticed that I wasn't outside enjoying the reunion. At first, I didn't want to let her in, but she detected that something was wrong and I finally opened the door. She hugged me and I cried in her arms. She asked what had happened and I told her everything.

"How will I ever face Jake? This will just kill him," I wailed.

"Meredith took control. 'This never happened, Jill,' she told me. 'I want you to start to put it out of your mind right now. This was a non-event.'

"I could never fool Jake," I responded.

"Meredith replied, 'I mean it, Jill. Put this event out of your mind. It did not happen. You have no reason to feel or act guilty. Jake will never know.'

Meredith continued to outline her plan, emphasizing that nothing ever happened. There was no incident to hide or cover up. She ordered coffee and food from room service. Physically, I started feeling better. Meredith told me that I had to continue the rest of the weekend as normally as possible. That would mean that I should attend the banquet and dance that evening--the last event of the reunion.

"I told her that I couldn't face my classmates and I certainly did not want to see Juan.

"'Remember, Jill, last night didn't happen. You are going to be your usual social self. Nobody but you and Juan know this happened. And not even Juan would want Jake to find out what he did to you.'

"In the mid-afternoon, Meredith had me go with her to the reunion hospitality room of the hotel to mix a little with the rest of the class. Several people asked where we had been that morning. Meredith told them that we had gone shopping. After an hour or so, everyone began retiring to their rooms to dress for the banquet.

"I followed Meredith's plan. I pushed the incident far to the back of my mind and concentrated mingling with my friends. One or two of them mentioned the dance that Juan and I had done together the previous night, but they didn't seem to infer that anything went further than that.

"Meredith picked me up in my room and I went with her and Steve to the cocktail hour preceding the banquet. Meredith stayed with me like a protecting angel. I was actually enjoying the evening--partly because I was able to dismiss the previous night's activities from my mind. Nothing happened.

"I sat next to Meredith and Steve at the banquet. I saw Juan and Hector at another table along with Maria, Bill and Sally. Juan frequently looked in my direction, but I purposely never made eye contact with him. I was afraid he was going to approach me or ask me to dance later in the evening. I told Meredith that I would come apart if he talked to me or touched me. Meredith told me not to worry. She had personally told Juan to stay away from me or there would be trouble.

"For the rest of the evening, I tried to enjoy my classmates. I had only one glass of wine the entire evening and I danced once with Steve. Meredith and Steve made certain I got to my room that evening. I rode with them the next morning in the hotel van to the airport and left on my flight home. I had shoved the incident so far to the back of my mind that I shed the guilt that I would have otherwise felt. I wanted everything from this point forward to appear as normal as possible--even to the point not making you suspicious with an extreme amount of guilt sex. Supposedly, I didn't have guilt."

Jill finished abruptly, "That's what happened. I will never forgive myself for what I've done. I don't think you can forgive me either. I don't expect you to. Just know that I'll always be sorry for hurting you so much. Also know that I will always love you."

At that point, Jill just stood up and left the room.

I waited for the required period of time to pass before the divorce was final. It was an anticlimactic day when I received notice that I was again a single man.

I continued to work hard at my job. Paul had been right about the benefits of my background and experience as a public defender. It was a definitive asset to our law firm. Not only did I know my way around a courtroom, my knowledge of the inner workings of the district attorney's office was invaluable. We switched from a philosophy of plea bargains to one of trial by jury--and we started to win. The reputation of our law firm was slowly enhanced as we took on more important cases and higher profile clients.

My usual destination after work was a local lounge/bar that Paul and I used either to relax or as a place to take clients when we wanted a more casual environment than the legal settings of our office.

On this particular day, it was only 2PM, and the lounge was, for the most part, empty. I took a seat in a secluded booth by myself and ordered a double shot of spiced rum. I started thinking. I probably would not have thought of anything extreme if it had not been for an e-mail I received from Sally the previous night.

Dear Jake:

I understand that you are divorced now. I am so sorry to hear about it. On the other hand, it frees you up to see other people. I'm an "other people". We dated briefly (one date) before you met my roommate, Jill. I was prettier then. In fact, I was very pretty. I can't tell you how much I was smitten with you at the time. You were all I could think of. It hurt me more than you ever knew to see you dating and falling in love with my roommate. I never felt that she was good enough for you. You couldn't see her faults. She was devious. I knew you had made a mistake when you married her and I always wanted to prove it to you. I did that at the reunion. I showed you that she was just a tramp. Although she had very little to do with Juan since she broke up with him while we were in law school, I knew she didn't dislike him like you did. It was easy to get Juan, Hector, Jill and myself to run together for the weekend. I knew, with a little help, that she would hang herself. Juan was at his charming best. He always wanted her and always hated you because he felt that you took Jill away from him.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the way things turned out but I wanted you to know that I am here for you. Please come down and visit me sometime. I will do anything to help you forget that bitch. I know that I am not as pretty as Jill is, but I could love you much more than she ever did.

XXOO, Sally

I figured that she must have been drunk when she wrote that letter. She would not have admitted to setting up Jill's fall if she had been sober.

I forwarded the email to Jill without comment.

The letter confirmed, without doubt, that Jill was set up by her good friend, Sally. It was also obvious that I was set up as well. That didn't excuse what Jill did. Marriages are supposed to be able to withstand temptation, and spouses are supposed to be able to avoid situations where they are vulnerable.

Ever since the incident between my wife and the Mendoza brothers; I had felt humiliated and enraged. Initially, I took all of my anger out on Jill, who I blamed for all of it. The intensity of those feelings subsided somewhat after I initiated divorce proceedings against her, but they were not gone. A heavy workload as a trial lawyer distracted me from those feelings, but they were still inside me. Since our separation and the initiation of divorce proceedings, the anger and resentment had not dissipated. I wanted to get even. No, it wasn't getting even that I wanted--I wanted revenge.

Among our clients was Girard Giadino, He was a wealthy real estate entrepreneur who dealt exclusively with commercial property. He had been arrested and accused of arson. Specifically, he was accused of burning down several warehouses on the dock in order to prepare the land for future development of a high-rise condominium. The warehouses were moderately insured.

Actually, the police had very little to go on. There was no evidence of arson: no fire bomb remnants, no accelerant, no timing devices...nothing. Most of the evidence was circumstantial. It was well known that Giadino wanted the land cleared. Also, the buildings were insured, although not excessively so. Mr. Giadino was not in town the night of the fire. He was with reputable business associates at a meeting held in Baltimore.

My gut feeling was that he was guilty. Nevertheless, I was certain that with so little concrete evidence against him I could easily get him acquitted. I might even have the charges dismissed.

I wanted to know more. I called my contact at the private investigation company our firm used, the Drake Detective Agency. The principal investigator was a friend and we used him exclusively when we needed to get the facts. I explained what I knew and what I suspected: Giadino had hired an arsonist, a good one, to set the warehouse fire.

Giadino owned a variety of businesses that supported his real estate endeavors. There were several real estate offices and a construction company. He owned several small office buildings. Plus, he had partial interests in various other enterprises.

The Drake detective agency looked into all of them. The investigator they assigned checked the backgrounds of every employee Giadino had in his organizations. There were about seventy of them, and they were all clean and above suspicion. However, the reason Paul and I used this particular investigative service was that they were so thorough. They even looked at employment applications of personnel that were not hired by Giadino, and they found one man of interest. His name was Henry Williams. He had applied for a part time position as a night watchman. What made his employment application stand out was the fact that he was a retired fireman.

The detective asked me if I wanted more information on Williams. I told him I did. In a few days, I had an up-to-date picture of Henry Williams' life.

Chief Williams had been retired for more than seven years. Five years previously, his wife became very ill with a strange disease that left her essentially housebound. The disease had progressed to the point that Mr. Williams' sister-in-law had moved from Florida to live with Williams and his wife and help in her care. Although Chief Williams had a fair retirement pension, the cost of dealing with his wife's illness was financially overwhelming. It was at that point that he applied for work as a night watchman for Giadino's warehouse facility. On paper, he was never hired. The detectives also told me that he paid most of his bills with money orders. In other words, he used cash--cash that did not go through his bank account.

Holding the employment application of Mr. Williams gave me a sense of anxiety, and I didn't know why. His work history was long and distinguished. It was replete with honors and awards. He had worked his way up from basic fireman in his mid-twenties to fire chief of a large urban fire station. He also served as a fire inspector and an arson investigator. I had the feeling I was holding the dossier of the man who started the warehouse fire for Giadino.

Rather than entering this latest information into our data files for the case. I withheld it completely. In fact, I buried the file and folded up Chief William's employment application and put it into my coat pocket. As I stepped out of the office, I told my secretary that I would be away for the rest of the day.

I drove to Williams' residence. I observed the home for a few minutes and noted it was a single-story middle-class house in a nice neighborhood. From the report I had, I knew that Williams and his wife had lived there for over twenty-five years.

Before I walked up to the door, I took off my coat and loosened my tie. I left my briefcase in the car. A minute or so after I rang the bell, a woman came to the door. I explained that I wanted to talk with Chief Williams on a private matter. I assumed this was the sister of Chief Williams' wife. She didn't invite me in, but told me to wait and closed the door. A few minutes later, Chief Williams appeared. He was a tall lean man with deep lines in his face and thinning gray hair. He appeared to be very distinguished, even though he was wearing only Dockers and a pullover sport shirt.

I introduced myself and gave him my card. He looked at the card and then asked me what I wanted.

"I'm a lawyer for Girard Giadino. I'm defending him in an arson case."

"What does that have to do with me?" he responded.

I felt uncomfortable standing on his porch and asked him to take a walk with me. The Chief pointed off in the direction of a park he said he often walked to for exercise.

"You do know Mr. Giadino, don't you, Chief Williams.

The Chief was slow to respond. In fact, he didn't answer any of my questions directly.

I concluded very quickly that I was going to have to be very pointed with him. As we reached the edge of the park, I stopped and untucked my shirt. "Chief, I want you to see that I'm not wearing any sort of recording device so whatever we say to each other is strictly between you and me."

The Chief continued walking and asked me again what I wanted with him.

"Chief Williams," I addressed him, "I have good reason to believe you were the arsonist who started the fire that burned down Giadino's warehouses on the dock. I can't prove it at this point, but if I were to take the evidence I have now to the police, I'm certain they could find the truth."

Still remaining stoic, the Chief said, "I'll ask you for the last time, Mr. Martin, what do you want with me? Blackmail? Good luck with that."

I came to the point of my visit. "I want you to burn and sink a boat for me."

Chief Willams was surprised. "And why would I do that for you, Mr. Martin? Do you think you could blackmail me into doing it?"

"Not at all," I countered. "I want to hire you. I will pay you fifty-thousand dollars to burn and sink a boat for me. It's a big boat located in a small marina outside of Miami."

"And just why would you want me to sink this boat, Mr. Martin?"

I will tell you exactly why, Chief, because I want you to know how committed I am to doing this. After I have done so, you can do one of three things. You can reject my offer and go to the police and turn me in, you can just forget I made this offer altogether and go on your merry way, or you can accept my offer."

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Martin," he said. "I have to go to Miami anyway to check on the home of my sister-in-law. Give me the particulars of the boat you are interested in and I will look the situation over.

"I'll be back in a week. Meet me here at the park. I walk here every day around two in the afternoon. Don't call me, text me or communicate with me in any electronic manner whatsoever. Never write anything down. I will be back here in the park next Wednesday."

I gave the Chief the information on The Seductress, owned by Juan and Hector and their family, and told him where he could find it. He didn't write anything down. Once he had the information on the target, he turned and walked back the way he came. I followed about five minutes later, went straight to my car and drove home.

I managed to get through the next week with great difficulty. It was hard to keep my mind on work matters, although I think my partner and I did a very good job of designing a defense for our client, Mr. Giadino. Essentially, the police had nothing that could suggest that the warehouse fire was anything other than accidental even though Mr. Giadino benefited substantially from the incident.

On Wednesday, I was sitting on a table in the park near Chief Williams' home. At 2PM, he walked into the park and sat on a park bench close enough to talk, but far away enough that nobody would think we were together.

"I can do what you ask," Chief Williams stated casually. "Give me some more details."

"I want the boat set on fire and sunk on the seventeenth of June in the estuary in front of the resort that is about a quarter of a mile downstream of the marina."

"You know that I'll have to do this in the middle of the night, don't you?" he said.

"Yes, that's what I want."

The chief went on, "You also realize that this is not going to look like an accident. It will look intentional."

"That's what I want it to look like," I rejoined. "It is less likely that insurance will pay off if the boat is intentionally scuttled."

Not wasting words, the chief added, "I want fifty percent of the fifty-thousand up front, along with ten-thousand in expense money. I want it in cash... used twenties and fifties."

I'll see you in another week, Chief, at this same time."

As the Chief started to leave, he said, "Meet me on the other side of the park next time, near the picnic area." Without another word he walked in the direction back to his home.

I had been working for several months on getting a large amount of cash together. I couldn't just pull thirty-five-thousand dollars out of my savings account without raising red flags if I was ever investigated. Instead, I took a little out at a time and I gambled with it--or, I appeared to gamble with it. I went to the racetrack quite often and made dozens of bets of from one-hundred to two-hundred dollars bets at a time. Surprisingly, I sometimes won but most of the time, I lost. I would always save my tickets even if I lost. I would also pick up tickets from the ground that were discarded by other gamblers that had lost. After several months of this, I had enough tickets to total more than fifty-thousand dollars. Although self-serving, the documented losses would support a story that would indicate that I had lost a lot of money gambling.

The following Wednesday, I was back at the park. Very little was said between the Chief and me. I simply handed him a grocery bag that I had brought with me and walked off. The one thing that we did arrange was to meet one last time in the park on the Wednesday after the sinking took place so that I could give him the balance of his payment.

As the time for the next class reunion approached, I received the invitation in my email. In the past, I had always enjoyed these reunions. This time, I wanted to go but I did not want to show my face down there. Too many people knew what Jill had done, and everyone knew that we were divorced because of it. At a school event for Jake that both Jill and I attended. I told her that I was not going. Not surprisingly, she said that she had no intention of going, either.

When we RSVPed that neither of us were planning to attend, Steve called me personally to encourage us to reconsider. I told him in no uncertain terms that neither of us wanted to go. Both he and Meredith were very disappointed.

On the night of the reunion, I had a date. Not only did I need one badly, but I wanted to establish an alibi for my whereabouts that evening. I had been on dates before, but usually when it was Jill's turn to care of Little Jake. On this night, I asked her to babysit Little Jake for the evening.

I dropped Little Jake off at Jill's condo after I had dressed for my date. Jill noticed that I was dressed up for the evening, and asked me if I was seeing anybody. I told her that I dated occasionally, but there was nobody with whom I was exclusive. She was obviously not happy knowing that I was taking another woman out and that I was likely to get laid that night, but, nevertheless, she straightened my tie and told me I looked very handsome. I asked her if she was seeing anybody. She said she wasn't interested in going out socially yet. For some reason, that made me feel both good and guilty. Good that she wasn't seeing someone, and guilty because I was.