Nothing Personal

Margaret stood, eyes closed, trembling in front of the massive fountain, hearing only the falling water and feeling its soft spray against her face. It wasn’t the brisk September air or the cool water that caused her quiver. She was afraid. Afraid that if she examined the dispersed population of the square, the man who’d promised to meet her wouldn’t be there. And more afraid, perhaps, that he would be.

She’d reached the square a few minutes early, having walked from the women’s shelter where she’d been staying. There was freedom in meandering city streets without the watchful eyes of prison guards. But with freedom came vulnerability.

She finally spotted him. alone, at an outdoor table apparently reading “War and Peace”. As he’d promised.

“Excuse me, Sir? Mr. Knowles?”

Smiling, he replied, “Edmund to you, Margaret. Have a seat,” indicating a chair next to him. “It’s been a long time.”

“You can still call me Maggie.”

“I’d expected to hear from you sooner.”

“I’m sorry. At first, I couldn’t talk to anyone. I thought everyone in the world believed I was guilty. Including you. In prison, I was under constant pressure to admit I did it. It was a nightmare. When I insisted I was innocent, I was called a liar. The conviction and sentencing were bad enough, but when each appeal failed, I wondered how you could possibly believe I wasn’t really guilty. You never even asked me if I’d done it.”

“Maggie,” he chuckled, “Why would I? You kept saying he wasn’t dead.”

He offered her coffee, indicating a box on the table. When she nodded, he opened his attaché case and withdrew two mugs.

“I hope you drink it black,” he said, pouring. “I do, so I always forget cream and sugar.”

“Black is fine,” she said, accepting a mug.

“Why don’t you tell me about seeing Jeremy with his new girlfriend?”

Sipping some coffee for courage, she collected her thoughts, then began describing in detail the incident she’d written about. He let her speak without interruption, offering an occasional nod or word of encouragement. She’d spotted her husband, the man she was convicted of killing 20 years before, walking into a bar in Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine district. He was meeting a younger woman there, and Maggie was able to overhear some of their conversation. He was pledging his love to his young companion, but said his wife would never agree to a divorce. He said there was an insurance policy on his life and he might be able to arrange to collect on it without actually having to die.

“Mr. Knowles, Jeremy is alive and well and planning to do what he did to me to another woman. He’s going to fake his death again, under a new name.”

Edmund Knowles pulled out his notebook and began to ask for details.

“So there actually was an insurance policy on Jeremy?”

He chided himself for not having asked about insurance years ago, but the couple had been so young, she’d never mentioned it, and there was so much other confusion surrounding her case. The prosecutor had arranged for almost daily surprises and distracting demonstrations.

“Yeah. And, I was the beneficiary. Of course, since I was convicted of killing him, I couldn’t collect on it.”

“Do you know if anyone did?”

“What?”

“Did that insurance policy pay out to anyone? A secondary or contingent beneficiary is what they call it. Someone who inherits if the primary beneficiary isn’t available.”

“Someone else?” she asked, stunned.

“Yeah,” he nodded encouragingly.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Can we find out?”

“Maybe. Do you remember the name of the insurance company?”

After several minutes searching her memory she had to admit she didn’t.

“That’s okay. Do you have any records of that sort of thing?”

“There were some records, old tax statements, financial papers. When things started going downhill, I asked a friend, a woman I worked with, to keep them for me.”

“I’ll need her name and address, Maggie.”

“We haven’t actually kept in touch. Her name’s Carolyn Kryzinski – we all called her Caro – she was another teacher at St. Tom’s.”

He concealed his disappointment, saying only, “That’s good. We can probably track her down. With any luck, she’ll still have your stuff. Teachers are often very good at keeping even an old trust.

“You said that everything you couldn’t take went to his parents,” he probed.

“Except for some personal things that I was allowed to keep. Once I was convicted, most of that was gone, too.”

“Gone to Jeremy’s family?”

“Caro might have some of it.”

“That’s fine. Now, just for the record, where and when were you and Jeremy married?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Maggie, if I’m going to prove that you’re still married to the man, I have to know where and when the marriage took place.”

“I’m still married to that son of a bitch? ”

“Maggie, if he’s still alive and you haven’t been divorced, you certainly are. And if he’s living with some other wife right now, he’s a bigamist. And, if he’s alive and has property, you’re entitled to at least half of it in a divorce, and probably a whole lot more when we get into the conspiracy and fraud that led to your conviction. I hope he’s alive and richer than Trump! If he is, we’re gonna clean his clock.”

She sat quietly for a few moments while he refilled their coffee mugs.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“I like coffee. I assume that whenever I want another cup, everyone else does, too.”

“Not the coffee.” She was smiling now.

He returned the smile, and shook his head slightly.

“Of course,” he continued. “Not the coffee. Well, I guess I’m a more complicated man than I was twenty years ago. I know I’m a better lawyer. I think you deserve to have some benefit of my experience. I feel some responsibility for what happened to you. To some extent, I was at fault. So I have a responsibility to try to set some of it right. Can’t ever make it entirely right, but maybe . . .”

“Edmund,” she interrupted, “there’s no way you could’ve foreseen what happened. I’ve had a long time to think about that, too. You can’t blame yourself.”

“That’s very kind. But the fact is that if I’d known then what I know now, I would have approached your case very differently.”

“What could you have done differently? You presented a clear, logical case. You systematically deflected every allegation they made. You exposed their case for nothing but ‘innuendo piled on conjecture’, to quote your closing statement.”

“Innuendo piled on conjecture? Hmnn. Truth is, I should have understood that yours was not going to be a case decided on the basis of evidence and logic. Sometimes, so much emotion is stirred up around a trial that evidence and logic don’t matter. If I’d done my homework I’d have known that Prosecutor Teasdale was planning a run for the U.S. Congress and that he hoped to launch it, literally, over your dead body. I’ve had to live with knowing that my inexperience nearly cost you your life. We shouldn’t have been caught off guard. He made every piece of your background that could have worked in your favor look like part of some diabolical scheme. Rather than having people point to your history as a caring teacher, respected by parents, loved by children, he had the press screaming about the horror that you’d been allowed to work with kids. Did you know the school principal lost her job over that?

“I was completely blind-sided. And you paid an awful price. You should realize that it was the judge, when he pronounced sentence, who saved your life. Not me. You deserved better.”

They sat quietly for a few moments. He seemed to have run out of words, and she had no response. Finally, he set his coffee mug on the table and looked at her, smiling mischievously as he pronounced, “Oh, did I mention that you could make a small fortune out of this!”

“If Jeremy’s now rich.”

“It’s true that in a divorce you should be entitled to at least half of whatever he’s worth now, plus a bonus for pain and suffering. And there’ll be a separate civil case based on his role in your conviction for a crime that never happened. We might be able to prove his part in arranging that. And there’s the matter of insurance fraud. I do believe that prison is in his future. Once we prove that he’s still alive, we can sue Summit County and Teasdale over your wrongful conviction. I’m inclined to leave the judge alone; he was really the good guy in this. Then there’s your book -- I smell a best-seller.

“So, are you in? Step One is finding Jeremy and proving he’s alive and well. Think you can help me find that place where you saw him?”

“You bet,” she answered. “I spent twenty years locked up for nothing, thanks to him. I’ll be honest, a big part of me just wants to see him dead. Wouldn’t double jeopardy apply? I’ve already been convicted of killing him. And I did the time.”

“Maggie,” he replied patiently, “you were convicted of killing Jeremy in Summit County in 1994. Killing him in Hamilton County in 2016 would be a completely different crime. Sorry, Dear. No free pass on murder.”

“But I’ve already paid for it!”

“It’s not like a purchase agreement, Maggie. No time back guarantee. No double jeopardy.”

“Okay,” she answered sullenly. “I was convicted when he wasn’t even dead, so how could I possibly avoid conviction if I actually did it now?”

“I’m glad you understand.”

“Temporary insanity?”

A tolerant smile curled his lips as he shook his head no.

He remembered that throughout the trial, although she’d been shocked, confused, and distraught much of the time, he’d seen no evidence of anger or vindictiveness. But twenty years in prison could change anyone. He’d be wise to remember that while he’d been out improving his skills and building a career, she’d been deprived of everything she valued. He needed to be careful.

“Maggie,” he said, “What I have to tell you next is going to be hard to accept. I’m not a cop and I’m not a prosecutor. I can’t guarantee that he’ll actually face any criminal charges. I can try to arrange for him to face charges, but I can’t guarantee it. You understand that while we might actually be able to prove that he planned all this and set it in motion, when it comes right down to it, Jeremy didn’t charge you with murder. The prosecutor did. Jeremy didn’t find you guilty. The jury did. And Jeremy didn’t send you to prison. The judge did. I’m sure we can get the divorce. But I don’t know if we’ll be able to get him sent to prison.

“We have some difficult investigating to complete before we can do much of anything. In the meantime, I want you to keep a low profile. No discussing this case with anyone else. Nobody but me and maybe a few people who work with me. We can’t let a whisper of what we’re doing get out. Too many people have a stake in seeing that you don’t succeed. Do you understand?”

“Who would want me to fail if I could prove he isn’t even dead?”

“Think about it, Maggie. There are a lot of folks who might not want you to prove that your conviction was a miscarriage of justice. For starters, there’s Jeremy. Who will present himself as a completely different person with a twenty year history that might just include some terrific community service. Then there’s Teasdale – he’s just announced that he’s running for the Senate and he won’t be happy to learn that the case that catapulted him into the House is about to fall apart. And there’s anyone else who might have known and helped Jeremy. Although there wasn’t any body, there was a lot of blood. If Jeremy wasn’t killed, someone must have helped him arrange that. I for one do not believe he could have done it himself. Do you have any idea who might have helped him?”

She was quiet for a few moments before silently shaking her head no.

She changed the subject, telling him she wanted to try to find Caro Kryzinski.

“No way,” he said. “Absolutely not. Let me take care of that. For all you know, Caro may have had a relationship with Jeremy.”

“Caro was my best friend,” she explained. “I gave her all my records, everything I had. She even collected my parents’ belongings for me after they died.”

“Maggie, you’re probably right about Caro. But it’s a risk we can’t afford to take. And it’s been twenty years; she might be hard to find. I have people who know how to find people. People who can do it without drawing attention to themselves. You have to trust me on this. Absolutely, do not even think about trying to find Caro yourself. Or anybody else for that matter. If you can’t agree to do absolutely no searching and no talking on your own, then I won’t work on this. Do you understand me?”

She chewed on that for several minutes before replying, “Caro taught math and science, sixth through eighth grade. She might be able to help figure out who could’ve helped Jeremy collect all that blood.”

“We should have looked at that twenty years ago,” he observed. “Another mistake of mine. I still want to actually hear you say you won’t speak to anyone else about this case.”

“That’s what the court reporter always said. ‘I need to hear you say it’.”

“Indeed,” he was smiling again. “So, you agree not to speak to anyone but me about anything involved in this case?”

“Yes.”

“Any questions for me?”

“I don’t have any money. How can I pay you?”

“Good question. For now, you can’t. I know that and I’m not bothered by it. For now, be assured there won’t be any charge to you if all I’m able to do is get your name cleared. The least I can do is pay for my own incompetence. When we have more information we can talk about a different arrangement. By then, you’ll have a better idea of whether you can still trust me. So, do we begin?”

She searched his face, looking for anything that might provide guidance. But he was a blank slate. Trying to reach for some elusive sign, she finally realized that she could barely recognize any trace of the young man who’d tried so hard to save her twenty years before. This man was like a complete stranger, and he was asking her to trust him with her life. But what choice did she have? Spend the rest of her life in shelters or on the streets, eking out a living by combining part-time minimum wage jobs? Trying to build a life using a fake identity because her own name was trashed? She swallowed her fear, smiled, and lied, “I trust you. What’s next?”

“Next we move you out of Over-The-Rhine. I don’t want you accidentally running into Jeremy again. I know someone you can stay with for the time being.”

He returned the mugs to his case and snapped it shut as he talked. She followed his lead and they moved across the square together.

“I’m parked in the garage,” he said, steering her toward the elevators.

As they stepped into one, she said quietly, “We were married in Akron on July 4, 1989.”

“See. That wasn’t so hard,” he smiled as he pressed the down button.