The Burden of Proof (6 page)

Stern, in his simple-minded way, thought little of this.

Only now could he see that she made herself a devoted audience to their sounds in their needs--as a distraction from that dismal bleat that must have always whistled away within her.

"Sender?" Silvia was standing beside him, concerned. His sister wore her hair in her usual upswept hairdo, a person of simple, graceful beauty her entire life, still smoothfaced and radiant at the age of fifty-one. She had always called him by his Yiddish name, as their mother had.

He smiled faintly to reassure her, then cast his eyes down.

The medical invoice, he noticed, was still in his hand and he passed it with little thought to Silvia, addressing her in a circumspect tone. He asked if Clara had ever spoken of this.

Once more, the doorbell rang. Down the long hall, Stern saw Marta admit two young men in sport coats. They waited inside the foyer, as Marta called out for Dixon. One of the two looked familiar. Henchmen or flunkies, Stern estimated.

Dixon had retainers around him like a Mafia don. His business never ceased and his need to learn what was occurring was constant. The one Stern thought he'd seen before was carrying an envelope and a blue vinyl briefcase. Papers to sign, perhaps? Dixon was going to do a deal on the casket.

Silvia, in the interval, had examined the bill and handed it back. Alone they communicated as they always had, few words.

"Dr. Cawley, Nate, next door would know, no?" she asked.

Of course. Trust Silvia. Nate Cawley, their next-door neighbor, a gynecologist, was Clara's principal physician.

He certainly should have the answer. Stern thought of phoning right now, then recollected that Fiona, Nate's wife, who had been among the visitors last evening, had mentioned, in her usual notable lament, that he was gone for a week on a medical conference. He reminded Silvia.

"Yes, yes." His sister, light-eyed and still striking, studied him earnestly. Apparently, she now shared some of the same thoughts Stern had had earlier.

Through the breakfast-room window, Stern saw the funeral parlor's limousine, dove-gray, swing smoothly into the circular drive before the house, parking behind the dark sedan of Dixon's visitors. Silvia headed off to summon the family. Girding himself, Stern stood.

But down the hall the commotion of angry voices suddenly rose. An alarming scene was taking place near the front door. Dixon was shouting. "What is this?" he yelled at the two men who had arrived only moments before. "What is this!" Above his head, he waved a sheet or two of paper.

Halfway there, Stern realized what had taken place. Now this! He could not manage the sudden ignition of anger; it had waited for days so near at hand, and now his heart felt as if it would fly out of his breast, like some NASA rocket trailing flame.

"You crummy so-andsos!" yelled Dixon. "You couldn't wait?"

Stern rushed to place himself between Dixon and the two men. He had realized where he'd seen the man he recognized-in the federal courthouse, not Dixon's offices. His name was Kyle Horn, and he was a special agent of the FBI.

Dixon was still carrying on. Stern by now had seized the paper from his hand and bulled Dixon a few steps farther back into the foyer. Then he briefly examined the grand jury subpoena. All as usual: a printed form embossed with the court seal. It was directed to Dixon Hartnell, Chairman MD Holdings, and commanded his appearance before a United States grand jury here, four days from now, at 2 P. M.

Investigation 89-86. Attached was a long list of documents Dixon was to have in hand. The initials of Sonia Klonsky, the Assistant United States Attorney, appeared at the bottom of the page.

"I refuse to allow this to take place," said Stern. Half a foot shorter than the agents, he maintained, in rage, the erect bearing of a martinet. "If you call my office next week, I shall accept service there. But not at this time." I require you to leave. Immediately. You may tell Assistant United States Attorney Klonsky that I deplore these tactics and shall not abide them." Stern opened the front door.

Horn was past forty. He looked like all the other FBI agents, with a cheap sport coat and a carefully trimmed haircut, but there was a weathered, leathery look to the skin about his eyes: too much sun, or alcohol: He had a bad reputation, the wrong type of agent, a petty tyrant full of resentments.

"No, sir," he said, He gestured toward the subpoena, which Stern had returned to its envelope and was now extending toward him. "That sucker is served."

"If you file a return of service with the court, I shall move to have you both held in contempt." It occurred to Stern vaguely that this threat was ludicrous, but he gave no ground. "Have you no idea of the nature of this occasion?"

Horn made no move. For a moment, none of the four men moved. Marta had crept to the edge of the living room and watched in grim amazement."

"We are preparing to depart for a funeral," Stern said at last. He pointed out the front windows to the mortuary limousine and the driver in his dead-black suit. "Of Mr. Hartnell's sister-in-law," said Stern.

"My wife."

The second agent, a younger man with blond hair, straightened up.

"I didn't know that," he said, then turned to Horn. "Did you know that?"

Horn stared at Stern.

"I know I can't seem to get a call back from Dixon Harmell.

That's what I know," Horn said. "I know I come by the front door and he's gone out the back."

"I'm .sorry," the younger agent said. He touched his chest.

"All I knew was they said this was where we could find him." The agents, thwarted, had undoubtedly employed their usual techniques. A pretext call, as they referred to it."This is the Bank of Boston. We have a problem with a million-dollar wire transfer for Mr. Hartnell. Where can we find him?" The courts for decades had allowed the use of this kind of adolescent cunning.

"Hey," said Horn to his colleague, "shit happens." He took the subpoena without looking at Stern. Then Horn tapped the envelope. "-This guy'll be in your office Monday morning, nine sharp."

Stern applied both hands to the front door to close it behind the agents. Peter had drawn Marta away, but Dixon remained in the foyer. He had lit a cigarette and was grinning. "Got you fired up, didn't they?"

"How long have they been trying to serve you, Dixon?"

Dixon meditatively watched a plume of smoke drift away. He was always disturbed when Stern saw through him.

"Elise says men have been calling for a week or two. I didn't know what it was about," said Dixon. "Honestly., His mouth shifted as Stern looked at him. "I really wasn't sure. That's one of the things I've been meaning to talk with you about."

"Ah, Dixon," said Stern. It was unbelievable. A man who earned $2 million last year, who called himself a business leader, creeping down the back halls and thinking he could hide from the FBI. Stern put one foot on the stairwell, trying to focus on the enormous task at hand. He needed his coat. It was time, he told himself. Time. He was dizzy and faint at heart.

Family, he thought, with despair.

FOUR days after the funeral, Stern returned to the office.

He wore no tie, a means to signify that he was not formally present. He would look at the mall, answer questions. What was the term? Touch base. He had occupied this space for nearly a decade and had cultivated it with almost the same attention as his home. Small as it might be, this was Stern's empire, and there was inevitably some tonic effect in the electronic chatter of the telephones and business machines, the energetic movements of the dozen people he employed. Not, of course, today. The office, like everything else, seemed flattened, depleted, less color, less music. Entering through the back door, he stood by the desk of Claudia, his secretary, as he considered his lost universe. He looked for something hopeful in the mail.

"Mr. Hartnell is here."

The agents-, as promised, had arrived with the subpoena yesterday. Over the phone, Stern had dictated a letter to prosecutor Klonsky, stating that he represented Dixon and his company, and directing the government to contact Stern if it wanted to speak with anyone who worked for MD--a request the government would inevitably not follow. Then Stern had summoned Dixon for this meeting. His brother-inlaw waited in Stern's office, his feet on the sofa, the Tribune open before him, while he smoked one of Stern's cigars. His sport coat--double-breasted, with its many glittering buttons--had been tossed aside, and his thick forearms, still dark from an island vacation, were revealed. He rose and welcomed Stern to his own office.

"I made myself at home."

"Of course." Stern apologized for being late, then, removing his sport coat, surveyed. Given his trip to Chicago, it had been more than a week' since he had been here, but it all looked the same. He was not sure if he was comforted or horrified by the constancy. Stern's office was decorated in cream-colored tones. Clara had insisted on hiring someone's favorite interior decorator, and the result, Stern often thought, would have been more appropriate to the bedroom of some sophisticated adolescent. There was a sofa with plush pillows, pull-up chairs in the same nubby .beige material, and drapes to match. Behind his desk was an English cabinet of dark walnut--a recent addition and more Stern's taste but his desk was not a desk at all, rather four chromed standards topped by an inch-thick slab of smoky glass. Stern, years later, was still not accustomed to looking down and seeing the soft expanse of his lap. Now he was at liberty to refurnish. The thought came to him plainly. and he closed his eyes and made a small sound. He reached for a pad.

"What is this about, Dixon? Have you any idea?" Dixon shook his large head. "I'm really not sure." Dixon did not say he did not know. Only that he was not certain. Using the intercom, Stern asked Claudia to get Assistant United States Attorney Klonsky on the phone. She had left a number of phone messages, and Stern wanted to arrange an extension of the date when they would have to comply with her subpoena.

"We must answer certain questions at the threshold, Dixon.

What are they investigating? Who is it they seek to prosecute? Is it, in particular, you?"

"Do you think this thing's about me?"

"Probably," said Stern evenly.

Dixon did not flinch, but he took his cigar from his mouth and very carefully removed the ash. He finally made a sound, quiet and mininative.

"This is a subpoena duces tecum, Dixon--a request for records.

Ordinarily, the government would not send two agents to serve it. The prosecutors were attempting to deliver a message."

"They want to scare the shit out of me."

"As you would have it." Stern nodded. "I imagine they felt you would soon hear of the investigation. No doubt, had I not intervened, the agents would have sought to interrogate you while you were carrying on."

Dixon mulled. He was so full of himself that one seldom gave full credit to Dixon's subtlety. He studied people largely for his own advantage, but that did not mean he was not observant. Certainly, he was familiar enough with Stern's nuances to realize he was being told again that he had been a fool.

"How bad will this be?" Dixon asked.

"I think that you should not compare this with your prior encounters with the IRS and the CFTC." The Commodities Futures Trading Commission was the federal agency that regulated the futures industry, the equivalent of the SEC.

"They are bureaucrats and their first love is their own rules. Their minds do not run automatically to prosecution.

Federal grand juries sit to indict. This is a serious business, Dixon."

Dixon mugged up. There was a handsome, weathered look to his eyes.

"Can I ask a dumb question?"

"As many as you like," said Stern.

"What's a grand jury? Really, Besides something that's supposed to make you wet your shorts."

Stern nodded, more or less pleased that Dixon was taking things seriously enough to ask. The grand jury, he explained, was convened by the court to investigate possible federal crimes. In this case, the jurors gathered, by the court's order, every other week, alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays, for eighteen months. They were directed by the United States Attorney's Office, which, in the name of the grand jury, subpoenaed documents and witnesses to be examined at each session. The proceedings were secret. Only the witnesses who testified could reveal what happened. If they chose to. Few individuals, of course, wished to trumpet the fact that they had been haled before a federal grand jury.

"And what kind of chance do I stand with them?" asked Dixon. "This grand jury."

"Very little. Not if the prosecutor decides to indict. It is the U. S.

Attorney's Office we must persuade. Inside the grand jury room, the burden of proof on the government is minimal--ey need merely convince a bare majority of the jurors that here is probable cause to believe a crime has taken place. The prosecutors may introduce hearsay, and the target and his lawyer. have no right to learn. what has taken place or to offer any refutation. It is not what you would describe as evenhanded."

"I'd say," answered Dixon. "Whose idea was this?".

"The framers of the Constitution of the United States," answered Stern.