M. Gessen

It had been almost a year since she'd spoken to me or my father.

Soon after Alan was arrested, she became furious with my father for inviting Priscilla and the kids to Cape Cod for Labor Day weekend and not inviting her.

She accused my father of siding with the FBI, which she thought had framed Alan.

In a huff, she left the family Facebook chat.

Weeks and months later, my father tried to reach out to her to offer help.

He'd heard that she was struggling financially, but she rebuffed him.

At the end of the first day of the trial, Lena wrote a long post on Facebook about how Alan had been framed, and even though I, a journalist, was in the courtroom, I wasn't doing anything to help him.

She was not wrong.

In a different case, I might have spent time wondering why Kiselyov hadn't shown up for this meeting with David, and why the undercover agent had seemed to think the meeting was organized to discuss Priscilla, while Alan thought they'd be talking about the bulletproof vest factory.

I might have focused on how manipulative the undercover agent had been.

How he kept fanning the flames of Alan's fury with his comments about women who ruin men's lives.

But Alan was just so happy to be let down this road.

He seemed to care about only four things.

Speed, permanence, the price of course, and not having the children witness their mom's murder.

Three weeks after the conversation in Boca Raton, Alan and David met again, this time at a kosher steakhouse in the Financial District of Manhattan.

The recording of that conversation was played in court, too.

They went over logistics.

David advised Alan to get out of state when the operation goes down.

Later, he told him to use his credit card to establish his alibi.

They discussed the price again.