Chapter 27

One of the things about Charleston is that it's something of a tourism mecca. That's especially true during the weeks of the annual Spoleto Festival, a music/theatre event spanning the cusp of May and June that attracts visitors from all over the country, even the world.

Among those it attracted that year was Lee's old college friend Janet.

"Jackie, I'm so sorry," Lee told me in tears when she got home from what had been planned as a normal lunch with a couple of female friends. "She recognized me right away, and what could I do, pretend I wasn't me? She was my best friend then, she knew. Wouldn't denying it have made it worse?"

As I comforted her I had to agree. But I needed to assess the damage. "What did you tell her?" I asked.

"The first thing she wanted to know was, was I still with you?" she said tearfully. "I told her no, I'd married somebody else, and she acted surprised, she said something about my e-mail, and all I could do was stammer that I'd changed my mind. So then she asked me about you, I mean my husband, and I tried to make it sound like you were different, but I don't think it came out real well."

"It's OK," I reassured her. "You said the important stuff."

"We're going to have to go, aren't we, Jackie?" she said. "At the end, the last thing she said was she'd have to let our friends, hers and mine, know, tell them she'd finally found me. And they'll pick it up sooner or later, Ashley and his people, won't they? Oh, God, I hate leaving here, we've made such a wonderful life for us, and little John is getting close and I wanted so much for him to have it, too, but I know we can't stay."

"We're not running any more, Lee," I said firmly. "We are going to stay. Sooner or later this was bound to happen, this or something like it, and I'm ready for it. We stay put and ride it out. Let me tell you what I have in mind." And I did.

The first step was to come out of the shell I'd built around us, and do it spectacularly. Million-dollar charitable contributions are big news anywhere, and are especially rare in smaller communities like Charleston. I liked Spoleto a lot, it was the number-one event on Charleston's cultural calendar, and it would guarantee maximum publicity right then.

So I called the administrative office, offered them the donation, and then made a couple of "anonymous" calls to the local media to make sure they'd cover it. They duly showed up at the presentation, and I made sure they got lots of pictures and videos of Lee and me when we presented the check.

Prominent local people don't just disappear right after they've proved their prominence by donating serious bucks to a popular local organization. I'd made sure that, whatever happened, it would be noticed publicly.

Next I contacted the most highly regarded of the local lawyers I'd come to know. I retained him to represent me "in any legal action in which [I] might become involved, both civil and criminal." Or, and this was key, my wife. And I paid him enough of a retainer that he'd be on our side when we needed him.

Then ... I waited. Indoors; I cloistered myself up like a monk. It wasn't hard. I was used to my own company, and Spook's, and was comfortable at home. But gone were the walks around the park with Brownie, our lab puppy who'd become a grown-up dog; Lee took her instead. Gone too were our casual strolls around town for shopping or lunch or whatever. Gone was any activity outside our doors; I wasn't stirring.

They'd have to come for me when they came. Here, where it'd be right out there in front of God and everybody; here, where they couldn't just snatch me up off the street quietly and bury me in some unknown cell somewhere to interrogate me at leisure while the rest of the world wondered idly where I'd gone.

And Spook and I talked a lot, and set up our plans for when they did come.