The Burden of Proof (66 page)

"Doesn't she look wonderful!" Fiona declared, motion-ing to Marta, who was in e usual formless floor-length frock.

Fiona undoubtedly held the private belief that Marta was dressed like one of the women who had walked behind the wagon trains across the prairie. "I was just giving Marta the news," said Fiona.

"Oh, yes?" asked Stern, with some foreboding. "About Nate and me," said Fiona more definitely.

"Ah, yes. Nate mentioned that. I am sad to hear it, Fiona."

'We're probably both better off." Like many people on the other side of a dread event, Fiona appeared, as she said, better off--more resilient than one might have expected.

Marta was beginning to slip away toward the house. Stern made a remark about stumbling over her suitcase.

"I'm planning to stay for a while," she told him. "I quit my job."

"You did?" asked her father. "Just' like that'"

"A month's notice, but I have some vacation coming. I'll go back for a few days next month to clean up. But last time I was here, I was looking at Katy, how tired she was, and it just sort of dawned on me, she's having a baby and I'm going to be eight hundred miles away for no good eason. Why did I bother taking the bar exam in four states if I don't go where I want to? I'll find a job here. Do you mind?"

"I should say not.""

Fiona chimed in: Wonderful, wondeffulJhow nice for all of them. Stern found his head bobbing in agreement.

"I have to call Kate," Marta said. "I'm supposed to go see John and her later. Do you want to come?"

"Not tonight," said Stern promptly. "P/ease tell Kate, however, that I wish to have dinner with John and her later this week.?"

"God," said Marta, "you sound so serious.?

He supposed he did. Stern did not answer,. and Marta galloped into the house. BothFiona and he watched her go "Did you take it she is planning to live here?" asked Stern "It sounds like it.?

"Dear me." The thought of Marta and her vitamins and minerals in permanent residence provoked a moment of consternation. Fiona, in the meantime, had crept a bit closer to the hedge.

"I suppose that you're madder than hell at me," she said quietly.

"Hardly, Fiona. In truth, I received what I deserve&."

"I was trying to warn you that night. When Nate came home.

Honestly." She tested Stern with a glance. "Afte all, Sandy, I had to say something when he found that letter.

You put me in a helluva position. And I couldn't stand to tell the little bastard that I'd had some respect for our marriage, when he didn't have a bit. But do you lmow the wors part? When I told him that ridiculous story I could see he was actually happy. Do you believe that?" Fiona Shook hez head gravely. "Why am I always so dumb?" she askext Stern, and looked at him momentarily as if she expected ar answer. She stood in her garden, just over the property line, hopelessly lost to the misery of being herself, of making so. often, like everyone else, the same mistakes "He swears up and down, by the way, that those pills weren't his," Fiona said. "He kept saying they were for a patient. Finally, he told me if I didn't believe him I could call the other doctor who worked on the case. Guess who that was."

Stern lifted his hands: no idea. "Peter."

"Peter?"

,Your son. Isn't that a coincidence?"

The night was thick. The bugs were out now in mid-July, buzzing and biting, and Stern swung at something close to his ear while he thought of the look Nate had given him the other evening when they were parting.

It was obvious what Nate had held back. Stern realized he had been right all along. At the thought of yet ahother showdown, he nearly groaned. Perhaps with Peter it was unnecessary. "Anyway, I'm sorry," said Fiona.

"Fiona, the apologies are all mine. As you say, I put you in a difficult position:And you more than made up for it. I appreciate your discretion with Nate when you spoke again."

"Oh hell, I figm'ed what's the point. I couldn't give him any more satisfaction." She remained glum, an,d continued shaking her head, overwhelmed by divorce, herself, the varied but momentous concessions of defeat that life just now was requiring.

"Nonetheless," said Stern, "I am sorry to have made you the victim of my state of disruption."

"Oh, it wasn't so bad." She looked up then, shyly, teasingly, beneath her penciled brows, a pretty fi. ftyyear-old woman in her avocado gardening outfit, practicing the elusive, winsome look she used to give the boys. "Kind of gave me a boost." Disconcerted by her prior remarks about Peter, Stern nevertheless could not keep himself from laughing aloud.

"You have been very generous, Fiona."

"Oh, sure," she said once more. She considered him pensively, some deliberation evident in the striking yellowish eyes. But he could see they had made their ways.

His ship and Fiona's were each headed off for their own channels. His tact, for once of late, had not failed him-truly, he was more and more himself. Moved by all this, he reached out and took Fiona's dirty hand, which rested on the bushes, and kissed her palm.

"Here we go again," said Fiona. She rolled her eyes and walked away.

Stern called after her: let him know any way he might help. She waved bravely, then paused by the gray steps to her back porch. "Do you know that little son of a bitch has actually stopped drinking?" she asked Stern across the short distance and then, with the strength of challenge, resentment, her entire complicated persona, shook her head fiercely once more and pulled open the door.

In his kitchen, Marta was replacing the phone, "How is your sister?" asked Stern.

"Uneasy. There seems to be a lot of strain. She said John testified in the grand jury last week."

"So I understand. I spoke to Tooley today"

Marta asked for a description of John's testimony. She had been reluctant to ask Kate.

"My conversaflon was as one would expect with Mel. Very evasive. He made it a point to tell me that he had not been in the grand jury room--as if I thought he might have been.

It seems, though, that it went very much as we would have thought. John blamed your uncle: Dixon gave all the orders; John carried them out, with no appreciation of their significance."

"Ugh," said Marta.

"Yes, indeed."

"And what about the safe?"

"I do not have it," said Stern simply. "Have you heard from Uncle DixonT' "Not a word."

"Can you figure out what he's up toT'

"At moments I have an idea. Then, again, I am mysti, fled."

"You let him know you'd file that motion tomorrow, didn't you? To withdraw?"

Stern said he had.

"You better go through with it. You have to put some distance between yourself and him, That woman, Sonia, whatever her name is, she's going to be screaming for your scalp. And Judge Winchell may give it to her."

"Yes," said Stern. He had considered that too. "So?" asked Marta.

"So we shall see." Stern walked across the kitchen and took his daughter in his arms. "Go meet Kate. Tell her about your change of residence. I am sure she will be delighted."

"What about you? You real]y don't mind having your nutty daughter come back?"

Stern kissed her. He thought of Peter, of John and Kate. Of Dixon.

Clara.

"You will be at home,'; he said to her.

IT was not quite seven when Stern arrived at the office on Tuesday morning. He had left Marta a note suggesting she come downtown this afternoon to plan as , best they could for his grand jury appearance two days from now. He had heard her return late last night, but he had not risen to greet her. Another day could pass without heating the latest of Kate and John.

Inside the outer door, Stern waited. A sound? Some sense of disturbance. He paused at the door to his office, which was ordinarily locked but now stood barely ajar. From the threshold, he pushed it wider. Across the rooms on Stern's cream-colored sofa, Dixon was asleep. He had stunk up the space with his cigarettes and the effluvium of his slumbers.

Beside him, on the carpeting, stood the safe. 'Quietly, Stern slipped behind his desk. He worked there for about fifteen minutes, until a client called, the defendant in the waste-dump investigation, a heavy-bellied fellow named Alvin Blumberg. Alvin was one of those types guilty as sin and paralyzed with fear; he wanted what he would never hear--a promise he would go free. Stern listened as Alvin ventilated, complaining about the prosecutors, his business partners, the intolerance of his wife. AfterSsome time, he broke off the call. He would have to introduce Alvin to Sondra. When he replaced the phone, Dixon was just sitting up, stretching out, yawning, rubbing his eyes. He was wearing a simple cotton camp shirt and a pair of pleated trousers; a heavy gold chain was around his neck, and he immediately pounded at his shirt pockets looking for his cigarettes.

"What time is it?"

Stern told him..

"I have to call Silvia. You rind?"

Stern pushed the phone to the corner of the desk and watched as Dixon spoke with his wife: He had come down to Sandy's., there were papers.to look at, he had been hou will be at home,'; he said to her.

IT was not quite seven when Stern arrived at the office on Tuesday morning. He had left Marta a note suggesting she come downtown this afternoon to plan as , best they could for his grand jury appearance two days from now. He had heard her return late last night, but he had not risen to greet her. Another day could pass without heating the latest of Kate and John.

Inside the outer door, Stern waited. A sound? Some sense of disturbance. He paused at the door to his office, which was ordinarily locked but now stood barely ajar. From the threshold, he pushed it wider. Across the rooms on Stern's cream-colored sofa, Dixon was asleep. He had stunk up the space with his cigarettes and the effluvium of his slumbers.

Beside him, on the carpeting, stood the safe. 'Quietly, Stern slipped behind his desk. He worked there for about fifteen minutes, until a client called, the defendant in the waste-dump investigation, a heavy-bellied fellow named Alvin Blumberg. Alvin was one of those types guilty as sin and paralyzed with fear; he wanted what he would never hear--a promise he would go free. Stern listened as Alvin ventilated, complaining about the prosecutors, his business partners, the intolerance of his wife. AfterSsome time, he broke off the call. He would have to introduce Alvin to Sondra. When he replaced the phone, Dixon was just sitting up, stretching out, yawning, rubbing his eyes. He was wearing a simple cotton camp shirt and a pair of pleated trousers; a heavy gold chain was around his neck, and he immediately pounded at his shirt pockets looking for his cigarettes.

"What time is it?"

Stern told him..

"I have to call Silvia. You rind?"

Stern pushed the phone to the corner of the desk and watched as Dixon spoke with his wife: He had come down to Sandy's., there were papers.to look at, he had been here all night. "He"s sitting righthere. He found me asleep. Ask him. You found me asleep, right?" Dixon turned the phone around. Stern, reluctant to be Dixon's prop and his excuse for a night spent God knows where, murmured in the direction of the mouthpiece that Dixon had been asleep. "You see?" Dixon then ran through his schedule for the day with her, every meeting, each person he expected to see. "I love you," said Dixon near the end of the call. Stern watched him, tanned, whiskcry, the flesh beneath his jaw slackening, His wavy hair was beginning to thin. Age was overcoming him, but Dixon still brought to his conversation with Silvia all earthly interest. In their waning years, as they .slipped into dotage, Dixon and Silvia would maintain their happy fixation on one another, aided, no doubt, by some inevitabIe dwindling of Dixon's interest in other pursuits. The recognition, as usual, affected Stern: however thwarted or immature Dixon's emotional life, it was no lie when Dixon told Silvia he loved her. After his discoveries on Sunday Stern would have expected that witnessing this exchange,. as he had so often over the years, would have driven him to rage, but his immediate sensation was of absence, pining the sting of real envy-his own wife was gone,,.

"You want to go get some breakfast?" Dixon asked him. He had cradled the phone.

"What is it you have brought me, Dixon?"

"You wanted the fucking safe? There's the fucking safe. Am you happy now? Problems all solved?"

"The government also wishes an affidavit from me stating that the contents have not been disturbed." ',So give them the affidavit."

"How am I able to do that?"

"You want to see what's in there?"

"On the contrary. I am simply making a point."

"I want you to look." The safe was facing him and Dixon spun the dial.

After reaching in, he threw a single piece of paper down on the glass of the desk. It was Dixon's check, folded in four, the one he had written to cover the debit balance on the Wunderkind account. Stern found his glasses and made a considerable show of studying the document. ' 'No more?"

"You know what the fuck you're looking at?" Dixon had given up all sign of his civilized manners. He was his true self now, agitated and profane.

"I believe I understand the significance of the check to the government." If they turned over only this, Sonny Klonsky would accuse Stern of more bad faith, of conforming the contents of the safe to the contours of the govemment's knowledge. Of course, that would remain one more private grief between them--she would never be able to tell Sennett what she had revealed. "The prosecutors seem to believe that there are account documents somewhere."