...And Never Let HerGo

helped build when he worked for Governor Castle. But now he would be only another inmate in a white uniform. He would spend his first night in the infirmary—standard for new prisoners.
    Tom would have to be in lockdown for his personal safety. Former cops, prosecutors, and public officials are never popular in prison. Alone in his cell, he would have fewer privileges than the inmates in the general population. But his jailers wondered if perhaps there were some among the seventeen hundred prisoners who remembered the billboards and the flyers with the picture of a pretty Irish girl—the young woman who the papers had said had wanted only to be free of the man who was now one of them.
    Charlie Oberly and Joe Hurley told reporters that, of course, Tom would plead not guilty. They managed to suggest that it was utterly ridiculous that he had been arrested. But for the moment, the man who loved luxury and fine dining was nobody special. The cuisine on his first long day of captivity was hardly Villa d’ Roma or Toscana fare: cereal and chipped beef for breakfast, Texas hash for lunch, and liver and onions for dinner.
    At O’Friel’s Irish Pub, there was a subdued gathering, marked more by tears than laughter. Someone asked Kevin Freel if he was going to take down the massive yellow ribbons tied there for Anne Marie, and he said slowly, “I haven’t even thought about that, yet.”
    Already there were rumors that Annie had been dumped in the sea and would never have a proper burial beside her mother and her father, close to Kate McGettigan. For a Catholic, that was a terrible thing. For anyone, that was a terrible thing.
    Kevin kept remembering the sight of her, snowflakes caught in her hair, beautiful Annie with her feet planted on the worn wooden floor, grinning mischievously at him as she roared “KEV-EEEE!”
    It was too hard to know that she would never come again.

PART FOUR
    And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
    E DGAR A LLAN P OE

Chapter Thirty-one
    W ITH HIS ARREST , Tom not only lost much of his own personal luster—he severely smudged the image that his father had fought so hard to maintain:
Louis Capano & Sons,
honest, hardworking, united. Now there were many in Wilmington who were glad that Lou had not lived to see what his family had come to. Some of the Capanos might rise again, but would they ever be rid of the shame, the innuendo, and the rumors? And it had all just begun. Tom’s murder trial lay ahead.
    Louie hadn’t lost his cool when he was questioned by the government investigators, but Gerry was a basket case, in tears much of the time because he had betrayed Tom. Louie’s attorneys prepared a press release that appeared in most area papers on November 12, 1997, hard on the heels of Tom’s arrest:
    Louis Capano, Jr. voluntarily contacted federal authorities and provided information and cooperation which has led, in part, to the arrest of his brother, Thomas Capano. . . . Louis Capano had no direct knowledge of his brother’s actions, but rather has provided information regarding events following the disappearance of Anne Marie Fahey. . . . Louis Capano did certain things during the course of the investigation which he now regrets. . . . Louis admits he misled the authorities but did so motivated by belief in hisbrother’s innocence. . . . The picture of Thomas Capano portrayed by these charges and evidence is completely foreign to the brother Louis thought he knew.
    Tom’s whole family would be caught by the ubiquitous cameras and by reporters who dragged their personal lives into the public domain. If Tom’s arrest did nothing else, it seemed to strengthen his brothers’ marriages. Joanne, Lauri, and Michelle stood solidly behind Joey, Louie, and Gerry. Marian and Lee had always presented a strong front to the world. But the family itself broke into pieces. Marguerite could not forgive Louie and Gerry for what they had done to Tommy. She did not understand how they could have betrayed their brother. In his mother’s eyes, Tommy had been through so much, and now his own flesh and blood had turned on him. Father Balducelli was concerned about Marguerite; she had a bad heart and other health problems, and seeing her favorite son in chains just might kill her.
    Although Marguerite had always looked askance at Debby MacIntyre, they were in accord now; neither woman would accept that Tom was guilty of murder. It was unthinkable. On vacation in Rome,