The Burden of Proof (45 page)

The grand jurors, the prosecutors, the court reporter could not disclose what had occurred, unless there was a trial, When the government was required to reveal the prior testimony of witnesses. In this federal district, commendably, there were seldom leaks of grand jury matters and much went on here that was never heard about again, a comforting fact for those subjecfed to baseless or even unprovable allegations. But it was the same respectable principle of secrecy that was cited to bar the witness's lawyer from attending; Stern had only the right to walt at the door, in the fashion of a well-trained dog. The witness, under no bans of confidentiality, could leave if need be after every question to ask the lawyer's advice.

But intimidated by the setting, and eager to appease the interrogator, they seldom did so. His clients usually left Stern maintaining his vigil at the door, his case and hat in hand, his stomach grinfling.

Sometimes, particularly with male voices of a certain timbre, Stern found that the seat nearest to the grand jury room enabled him, if he moderated his breathing and others outside were not gabbing, to overhear the proceedings word for word. Today he was not as fortunate. Barney Hill, the deputy court clerk who slotted fame and filled out attendance forms for witnesses, chatted to Stern about the Trappers? and the women's voices did not seem to carry as well through the heavy door. He could hear Klonsky at a certain pitch and the confident tone of Margy's response.

After fifteen minutes, the door banged open and both women. emerged. They were finished. Predictably, Margy had oho sen not to visit with her lawyer.

"I'm still concerned about those documents," said Klon-sky from the threshold of the grand jury room, with a number of the grand jurors milYmg about behind her. "Ms. Allison's going to be looking for them again."

"Of course," said Stern.

"As far I'm concerned, we're beginning an investigation for an O. O. J,"

Obstruction of Justice.

Stern once more attempted to mollify her, but Klonsky, with half a smile at his familiar excuses, waved him off. She repeated again that she was going to talk to the U. S.

Attorney, and headed out, apparently to do just that.

Stern, left with Margy, pointed her to one of the narrow rooms immediately beside the grand jury chamber which were set aside for witnesses' consultations with their counsel.

The room, six by. ten, was bare; it contained a worn table and two chairs, and the gray walls were marred and filthy.

Stern's practice, invariable over the decades, was to debrief his clients right here, while their memories were fresh, question by question.

Stern closed the door and Margy sat, frosty with him but otherwise calm. He asked how it had been:

"Fine," she said serenely. "I lied."

Stern stood with his hand on the'knob of the door. This happened now and then, of course. Not as often as was commonly imagined. But now and then. A client chUCks up her chin and frankly admits to committing a felony.

Notwithstanding, he promptly felt feverish, weak.

He sat down, facing her. She remained bitter and. cross.

"May I ask," said Stern, "in what manner you provided incorrect information?"

She flipped her white hand, her bracelets and long nails.

"I don't know. She asked if I had any idea where the records went."

Realizing that he was somehow the target of all. this, he tried to avoid showing his relief. Barring further stupidity --an outright confession--the government would never make a case for perjury based on the fact that Margy had kept her opinions to herself.

"She asked if I knew anything about this Wunderkind account from any other source."

"You told her no?"

"Right."

"That was untrue?"

"Yep."

Stern had not been bright enough to ask that question in his office.

Perhaps Margy might have responded fully then.

Certainly she was not likely to expand now.

"Anything further?"

"She asked if I talked to Dixon about the ,documents.

I told her no to that, too."

"But you had?"

"Shore."

What made him think he was wily when he had neglected the obvious?

Naturally, she talked to Dixon about this. Who else would know where the records had gone? In all probability he had ventured a few suggestions concerning what she ought to say to the government--and to Stern. In truth, he had no desire to learn exactly what Dixon had told her.

It was sure to enrage him--and at any rate, the conflict of interests which the U. S. Attorney had so gratuitously predicted had now come to pass. Margy's lying, from a coarse perspective, almost certainly advanced Dixon's cause; Stern could no longer counsel both clients. He knew he had himself to blame for the predicament. In thirty years, his personal relationships had never interfered with his professional obligations, but one way or another, his widower's priapism had brought him here--if nowhere else, to the point that Margy was furious enough with him to admit what she had done. For the present, however, his humiliation was subordinate to his duties, which were clear.

"Margy, I would like to introduce you to another lawyer, who, I believe, will counsel you to return to the grand jury at once and recant."

"'Recant'?"

"Correct the record. If it is done immediately, no harm will come to you."

"I've been there and I'm gone." She had a terrible sour expression and got to her feet. Anger increased her substance--her hair, her frills, her bright nails, high heels, her smoothly glinting hosiery. Margy was a person of many pieces carefully assembled, but right now every layer was galvanized by her temper. "You don't have any goddamn idea what's goin on here, do you?" The way her eyes fixed on him, as she looked down, was frightening--not just the harshness, but the disrespect. She had made, apparently, certain assumptions that to her chagrin she now recognized were incorrect.

"I should like to know," he said hollowly. At the moment, he found himself gripped strongly by fear--for MargY'S predicament, and more, by the way she took him to task for his ignorance. So much was swimming beyond his knowledge' or control. John. Dixon. Margy herself. They were like bits of matter drifting off into space.

"Nab," she said. She shook her head, its many curls. "Not from here, Jackson. You know who you gotta talk to. I got a plane to catch." She hitched her bag to her shoulder and picked up her purse and her briefcase. "This here thing is a fool contest: who's the biggest fool.

You remember you got told that by Margaret Jane Allison of Polk's Cowl, Oklahoma." With bags in both hands, she. used a foot to prop open the door, and without a backward glance went through it.

SOME defense lawyers said the worst moments came after indictment, when you saw the evidence assembled by the state--the mountain you could never climb. But Stern always welcomed that challenge; once you knew the prosecutors' direction, every other angle became a line of escape.

It was the times in the midst of an investigation that could be the most unbearable for him. Usually, there were people to interview, records to look at, motions to make. But, on occasion, he was frozen by realization: the government knew something and he knew nothing at all.

Lawyer's terror, he called itand at the moment it was as bad as it had ever been. Blind and ignorant, you fear that any move will be wrong, the one to send you tumbling from the cliff. And so woeful, beleaguered--the right word, in all respects, was defenseless--you hang there, immobile, in darkness, awaiting the storm, hearing the winds build, feeling the air growing chill. He sat in the witness room, slumped, weary, aware of his weight, his age. He was'terrified for Dixon.

When he looked up, Klonsky was posed in the doorframe, leaning upon it and taking him im "Sonia."

"Sonny to my friends." She smiled; he must have looked pitiable to have softened her so quickly. But he welcomed her kindness. Sonny, then.

She sat down in the card chair where Margy had been. "Start wanted me to see if I could find you?"

"And you succeeded." He smiled cordially. "We may speak lawyer to lawyer, Sonny?"

"Of course."

"I was as dismayed as you to learn that those documents were not where they were expected to be."

"I assumed as much, Sandy. But it's a very serious situation for your client."

He smiled gently, in order to indicate that he did not need the pointer.

"That's what I was talking to Stan about," she said. "Ah, yes," said Stern. "The mighty United States Attorney." Just now, in his present mood, he found his feelings much harder to suppress: the thought of Sennett, tight-fisted, rancorous, was the flint against his stone. He cantioned himself to assume a more amiable tone in speaking of her boss.."What does he tell us?"

"He tells us," said Sonny, "that he believes you can find the documents."

"Does he?" said Stern. "Imagine having fifty-four Assistants to supervise and still taking the time to do my job as well."

She smiled in spite of herself. "He says he has a message."

"Very well."

"Find the safe."

Nothing moved; not a twitch was allowed; perhaps, for some infinitesimal time, the blood did not flow. This was the training of the courtroom:

Betray nothing.

"Do you understand this remark?" he asked her finally.

"Do I?" asked Sonny. "Do you think I should answer that?"

She did not have to; it was clear. Sennett was using her as no more than the messenger. Stern knew what that spelled. iAy, carajo! old words, a curse from childhood. Mr. Sennett and his informant. They seemed to know everything. Perhaps it was not an informant at all? Rather a wiretap. A mike in the wall. A hidden camera. Stern drew a breath. If anything, his fears for Dixon were greater. In company he smiled, a primitive reflex.

"What's funny?" she asked.

"Oh," he said, "I do not believe that I have handled a matter for some time that has frightened me more."

"Frightened?"

"The correct word." He nodded. "I have never been in an investigation where I have received less information."

"From the government?"

"Certainly from the government. You have never even formally confirmed who is being investigated or for what crime."

"Sandy, there's no "Rules are not the point. I speak of fairness. Of what is commonplace." Having given himself berth to speak, he could not contain his indignation. "Do you not believe that some basic accounting of the govemment's suspicions is .appropriate by now? Rather than engnging in these highly selective and minimal disclosures in the hope I can be sent scurrying in one direction, then another? Do you think I cannot recognize that these subpoenas are composed with the obvious intention of hiding any scrap of information about the prosecution's knowledge and interests?"

"Sandy-look, you know Fm not in charge."

"You sit here now. You have been an Assistant long enough to know what is customary--and what is not. Give me just a word or two."

"Sandy, Sennett is really hinky on this thing."

"'Please, I do not ask you to breach any rule of secrecy or standard of propriety. I shall settle for whatever information you can comfortably provide. If you would prefer, I shall tell you what I suspect about your investigation, and you need only state whether I am right or I am wrong. No more. There is no special harm in that, no confidences breached. You may do that, no?"

Could she? The uncertainty swam across her face. Sonny's strength would never lie in hiding her feelings.

"Sonny, please. You are a warm individual and I sense a friendship between us. Ido not mean to overreach that. But I have no idea any longer where to turn."

"Sandy, maybe I know less than you think."

"Certainly it is more than I."

They considered one another across the table.

"I have a million things to do," she said at last. "I'll think about what you've said."

"I would need ten minutes. Fifteen at the most."

"Look, Sandy, to tell yo.u the truth, I don't have a second to breathe.

I've got four cases going to trial in the next two months. Plus this thing. We've had plans since March to take Charlie's son up to his family's place in Dulin and stay there over the Fourth to pick strawberries. Now I have to come back here on Monday, and I had to move heaven and earth just to get the weekend free. So you'll have to forgive me if I tell you that I'm a little bit pressed."

"I see," said Stern, "you have no time to be fair?"

"Oh, come on, Sandy." She was frustrated by him, exasperated. He was plucking every chord. "If it's so important to you to spend fifteen minutes asking me a bunch of questions I'll never answer, you can drive a hundred miles up to Dulin on Saturday. That'i the best I can do."

When he asked her for the directions, she laughed out loud.

"You're.really going to come?"

"At this point, I must pursue any avenue. Saturday afternoon ?"

"God," Sonny said. It was on County D, six miles north of Route 60.