But on the afternoon in early August when Jasper steered his car off Exit 48, at Stamford, onto I-91 to begin the long haul through Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, he was not conscious of scenery. He was thinking only about his impending meeting with Chloe. He had spent the previous weeks being investigated by government accountants who pawed through his tax returns and royalty statements; by social workers who quizzed his family, friends and neighbors; by psychologists who delved into his attitudes to family, adoption and teenaged girls. He was questioned by an FBI agent who checked his fingerprints against international crime databases. Chloe, meanwhile, had undergone a similar vetting in Vermont, with special emphasis on her psychosocial and emotional functioning. On a morning at the end of July, Murray Pollock called Jasper to say that the family court judge in Newport had read the dossiers on both parties and had ruled that Jasper would be awarded custody. Formal transfer would occur at a hearing in Judge Gerald Howard’s courtroom at noon on August 3—tomorrow.
