The Burden of Proof (44 page)

"Shore,"

"And accidentaI erasures of computer information probably occur daily?"

"Maybe," said Margy "And if you have no microfiche in either city, perhaps you never had one in the first place?"

Margy.looked at Stern with outthrust chin and gimlet eye, as he made these efforts in the mode of piercing crossexamination. Her expression was easy to read: No sale.

Stern took a long swallow of his coffee and turned to the window. From here on the thirty-eighth floor of Morgan Towers, the fiver held a liquid gleam. Some days it was leaden and murky. In high winds, the current increased and the water spit and lashed at the brown standards used to moor barges and other slbw-mOving hauling craft that sometimes made their way upstream. Over time he'd come to know the meaning of its changing tones. Stern could tell from the density of color if the barometer was dropping, if the cloud cover was heavy or likely soon to lift. That was the value of experience, he supposed, to be able to read the meaning of signs, to know the large impact signaled by small things.

This would go badly with the government. Quite badly. He had been warning Dixon against this for months now, to no apparent avail. Dixon was shrewd enough to recognize that even if the prosecutors could not figure out what he had done with the money, they would have a case if they could prove he had stolen it--and proof that he controlled this Wunderkind account would suffice. But it was a desperate response to destroy the documents. The government could barely avoid proving Dixon was responsible. As Margy said, there was probably no other person in the company who could have gone into the files in two cities with the same impunity. As the government showed Dixon's access to each missing record, the circumstantial web would. take on a taut, sinister look.

And for that kind of action there was never an innocent explanation.

Stern was good. He could refer to error accounts and margin calls and limit drops and make a jury dizzy. But when the prosecutors wheeled the MD shredder into the courtroom, there would be no way to cross-examine the machine. Dixon might as well have jumped inside. You could never save clients from themselves, Stern thought. Never.

So begins the last act in the tableau of Dixon Hartnell, small-town boy made good, gone bad. For Stern, in every case which came to grief there was a moment when his knowledge of a gruesome future fact became firm and thoroughly delineated. Occasionally, it was not until the jury spoke; but more often there was some telling instant along the way when Stern, as the saying went, could see beyond the curve. In the matter of Don Hartnell, husband to his sister, client, compatriot, sporting and military companion, today was the day. Too much was accumulating here--knowledge, motive, opportunity; the error account, John's recollections, the documents gone. Today he knew the end of the story.

Dixon was going to the penitentiary.

He took a few minutes to coach Margy on the basics of dealing with Klonsky: Listen to the question. Answer it narrowly and precisely.

Volunteer nothing. Never say no when asked if particular events occurred; answer, rather, I do not recollect, Name, rank, serial number.

Hard facts. No opinions. If asked to speculate, decline to. And in the grand jury, remember that Stern literally would be at the door. She had an absolute right to consult with counsel at any time and should ask to speak to her lawyer if there was any question, no matter how trivial, for which she felt remotely unprepared.

He helped her pack the documents back into her briefcase and slipped into his suit coat by the door. He picked up her bag and asked if she was ready. Margy lingered in the chair.

"I was pretty tough on you," she said quietly. She looked at her coffee cup, against which she rested one bright nail.

"When we were talkin a few weeks ago?"

"Not without warrant."

"You know, Sandy, I got lots of callusess" She looked up briefly and smiled almost shyly. "The only thing a gal wants is for you to pretend a little bit."

Stern moved a step or two closer. As usual with Marg, the thought of bet boss was not far away. Dixon was probably very good at pretending, resorting to every corny gesture; he would throw his coat down in a puddle if need be, or croon outside the window. And here was Margy telling him that women liked that sort of thing. Stern waited, sum, moning himself. The best he could manage was diplomacy.

"Margy, this has been a time of extraordinary turmoik Many unexpected developments,"

"Shore." Margy smiled stiffly and tilted the cup, garishly rimmed with her lipstick, gazing down with great interest at her cold coffee.

"Shore," she said again, Well, thought Stern, here one could begin to understand her dilemma.

Margy wanted her gentlemen friends to. pretend--so that she could tell them coldly that she did not believe them. Stern Was certain that he had now arrived at an essential vision. He had heard the pitch, found the hat: monics of a perfect composition in the scale of personal pain.

Margy's creation was as clever as Chinese handcuffs.

Constrained, however you moved. His heart, as usual, went out to her:

And so, out of some impulse 'of tenderness, he told her what he took to be the truth. "I have lately been seeing a good deal of a woman who was a friend of ours for many years." Very brief. To the point. He was not quite certain. what he meant to accomplish by this eruption of candor; except the virtue of honesty itself. Indeed, after his bizarre interlude with Fiona, in which Helen had not been so much as a momentary thought, he had no idea whether this fact was any better than convention. But clarification was called for, and Margy, whatever his admiration, was not his destiny. The news had the predictable effect. Her pupils took on the contracted look they might have in strong light. He had cast her again in her inevitable role: once more, the loser; the flop-and-drop gal. She was not pleased. Margy, like everyone else, wanted a better life than the one she had.

"Nice for you," said Margy. She snatched her purse, Closed her case, smoothed her skirt as she msc, grazing him with a tight, penetrating smile. What was the poet's phrase? Zero at the bone. She had put on again her blank tough-guy look that she brought to business meet'mgs, once more Dixon Hartnell's hard-ass hired hand.

They walked the three blocks to the courthouse in virtual silence.

Stern's only remarks were directions: Just up there wc turn. They were escorted back to Klonsky's narrow office at once and Margy settled herself in the old oak armchair like a rider in the rodeo. She was ready.

"Margy," she said, when Klonsky asked what she liked to be called. "Hard g." Hard g, indeed, thought Stern. Like a diamond drill.

They had arrived late, and Klonsky cast an eye up at the clock. Time before the grand jury was assigned by a deputy court clerk in quarter-hour intervals and was zealously guarded by the Assistants, who were always pressed to get their business done in the period allotted.

Klonsky began questioning Margy, even while Stern was reviewing her nonsubject letter. It was signed by the U. S. Attorney himself and assured Margy that she was not suspected of any criminal involvement, assuming she told the truth before the grand jury. Stern put the letter iny this eruption of candor; except the virtue of honesty itself.

Indeed, after his bizarre interlude with Fiona, in which Helen had not been so much as a momentary thought, he had no idea whether this fact was any better than convention. But clarification was called for, and Margy, whatever his admiration, was not his destiny. The news had the predictable effect. Her pupils took on the contracted look they might have in strong light. He had cast her again in her inevitable role: once more, the loser; the flop-and-drop gal. She was not pleased.

Margy, like everyone else, wanted a better life than the one she had.

"Nice for you," said Margy. She snatched her purse, Closed her case, smoothed her skirt as she msc, grazing him with a tight, penetrating smile. What was the poet's phrase? Zero at the bone. She had put on again her blank tough-guy look that she brought to business meet'mgs, once more Dixon Hartnell's hard-ass hired hand.

They walked the three blocks to the courthouse in virtual silence.

Stern's only remarks were directions: Just up there wc turn. They were escorted back to Klonsky's narrow office at once and Margy settled herself in the old oak armchair like a rider in the rodeo. She was ready.

"Margy," she said, when Klonsky asked what she liked to be called. "Hard g." Hard g, indeed, thought Stern. Like a diamond drill.

They had arrived late, and Klonsky cast an eye up at the clock. Time before the grand jury was assigned by a deputy court clerk in quarter-hour intervals and was zealously guarded by the Assistants, who were always pressed to get their business done in the period allotted.

Klonsky began questioning Margy, even while Stern was reviewing her nonsubject letter. It was signed by the U. S. Attorney himself and assured Margy that she was not suspected of any criminal involvement, assuming she told the truth before the grand jury. Stern put the letter in his case and looked on as Klonsky worked. She asked Margy questions, all of them routine, and wrote down the answers on a yellow pad.

Wearing her prosecutor's hat, Sonia was like most of her colleagues, relentless, humorless, intense. Her pace was sufficiently methodical that Stern actually grew hopeful that the matter of the missing documents might not come up.

That would allow him to have a pointed conversation first with Mr.

Hartnell. But with only a few minutes remaining before they were scheduled to appear at the grand jury, Klonsky removed her tissue copy of the subpoena from the file and went through it, item by item. When Margy handed over the statements for the Wunderkind account, she added brightly, "That's it."

"That's it?" asked Klonsky, with an immediate look of apprehension. She glanced back to her papers.

Stern, for the first time, spoke up. Somewhere, he said, there was a misunderstanding. The various account-opening documents--signature forms, applications, et cetera--seemed to have been misplaced and could not presently be located.

A diligenf search had been conducted by Ms. A1-lison and would be continued, Stern stated, under his direction.

"They're gone?" asked Klonsky. "TrashedT'

Margy started to speak, butStern reached out to grab her wrist where a heavy bracelet lay. It was far too early, said Stern, to assume the documents could not be located.

The. subpoena had been served barely three weeks agO, and MD was a substantial company with hundreds of employees and more than one offic "I don't believe this," Klonsky said. She largely ignored Stern and put a series of questions to Margy, identifying the documents, the copies, the places they were stored. She extracted, in more precision than Stern had, the details. of Margy's search. Conducting this inquiry, Klonsky was rigid and intent behind her desk. WhateVer her occasional geniality, Ms. Klonsky, when provoked, was quick to anger, She looked at Stern. "I'm going to have to talk io Stan about this."

"Sonia," said Stern, "again, I think you are leaping unnecessarily-She cut him off with an ill-tempered wave of her hand, Clad in her familiar blue jumper, she bumped her belly a bit against her desk as she climbed out from behind her chair and led the way downstairs to the grand jury.

When the judges had deserted the new federal building, they left the grand jury behind. The defense lawyers protested this propinquity to the United States Attorney's Of-rice, but it was recognized as vain posturing. For all practical purposes, the grand jury belonged to the prosecutors. An unmarked door in the corridor a floor below led into what looked like a doctor's reception room; it held the same inexpensive furniture, with cigarette burns and splintered veneers, as in the U. S.

Attorney's Office upstairs. Behind two additional dOOrs lay the grand jury rooms themselves.

Stern had often peeked inside. It did not look like much: a tiny raised bench at the front of the room and rows of tiered seats, like a small classroom. The twenty-three grand jurors, who had been called out of the regular jury pool to help the prosecutors determine whether they had enough evidence to try someone for a crime, tended to be union workers of one kind or another who had no store to mind, or else the retired, women at home who could manage the time, or frequently those out of work who valued the $30 daily fee.

To Stern, the grand jury, purportedly intended to protect the innocent, remained one of the preeminent fictions of the criminal-justice scheme.

Occasionally, the defense bar was warmed by tales of a renegade grand jury that returned a no bill or two, or quarreled with the prosecutors about a case. But usually the jurors deferred, as one would expect, to the diligent young faces of the U. S. Attorney's Office.

By all reports, the grand jurors sat knitting, reading papers, picking at their nails, while a given individual, brought here by the might and majesty of the United States, was grilled at will by the Assistants.

"Remember I am here," he told Margy. She strolled inside, hauling her briefcase, and did not look back. She remained in poor humor with him.

Klonsky also was put out, and, perhaps without meaning to, slammed the door on Stern as she called the session to order.

The proceedings were secret. The room had no windows and a single door.