Indefensible (23 page)

“Elizabeth,” Flora says.

Something is odd. Lizzy is rarely childish, and I've never seen her be like this toward Kenny, whom she usually tries to mother.

Lizzy and Homa get into a conversation of their own. I can't believe I brought Tina into this. It started with my feeling low and calling Flora that day last week. She asked me to dinner. I had to cancel. Reschedule. People got invited. Then it was a dinner party. I lean over and whisper to Tina, “It's like that rule of trial law, isn't it? If there's something that weakens your case, make sure the jury hears it early so they don't feel tricked.”

She smiles. “Don't be silly. This is
lovely
.”

“And Flora gets into a mood sometimes,” I whisper.

“She's your ex. Wait'll you meet mine.”

“Tina,” Kenny says, “I hear you got a hung jury this week.”

“Yeah, Tamika Curtis. Nick and I were talking about it when we got here. About whether we should retry her.”

“What'd she do?”

“She helped make some meth,” I say.

Tina says, “She's a user; she helped out in exchange for some product. She has three little girls.”

“Are you going to try her again, Daddy?” Lizzy asks.

I shrug, not wanting to get into it with this crowd.

“But Daddy!” Lizzy says. “Three little girls. And you want to put her in jail?”

“Elizabeth,” Flora says, “your father likes putting people in jail. He tried to put me in jail once, didn't you, dear?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake.”

Everyone, even Kenny, has sense enough not to go anywhere near this comment.

Now dessert.

Now tea.

•  •  •

Now Tina and I are in the car, and before we're even out of the driveway, she says, “Oh my God, what's the deal between Lizzy and Kenny? She seems to hate him.”

“No, she loves him like a brother. I don't know, maybe she's mad because he's boinking Amber.”

“So?”

“Apparently, Lizzy thinks he's taking advantage of Amber. Amber is slow.”

“I noticed. But they seem to like each other.”

“I guess you'd have to know Kenny better.”

“Is he a heartbreaker?”

“Wrong word.”

“Exploiter?”

“Maybe.”

Silence. Neither of us mentions Flora's comment that I tried to put her in jail. But I know Tina is sharp and inquisitive, and I'm dreading her question about it.

She doesn't ask.

When we're almost back to town, I say, “Okay, you want to hear it?”

“Yes,” she says, “tell me.”

•  •  •

Toby, my infant son, had learned to sit up on his own. He sat up, then he fell and bumped his head. No big deal for a normal kid, but for one with hemophilia A, it's life-threatening. We'd been to the hospital a lot with Toby. They knew us; they knew Toby. Dr. Wallis would meet us there. He was ancient—his eyebrows reminded me of weeds erupting through the cracks in a playground. He'd trained as a doctor in the thirties and developed his ethic (if you could call it that) in the post-industrial brave new world where, a continent away, plans were in the works for an untainted race.

“The hidden defect,” Dr. Wallis called it. I remember our first appointment after Toby was born. “Such a short and painful life he'll have,” the doctor said, and the eyebrows dipped, convincing us that his grief was almost as great as our own. This was his theme every time we sped those forty miles to the hospital. A short and painful life. “With any mercy, it won't draw out too long.”

There was no Internet then. We lived in the north woods, near a town where the public library was the size of a one-car garage. Dr. Wallis was beloved in town.
Trust Doc,
everybody said.

We brought Toby to the city.
Not so short, not so painful,
they said, but back home, under Doc's compassionate honesty, Flora was convinced that the urban doctors were too timid to deliver honest news.

Flora had always been a searcher. Intelligent but mistrusting of her own instincts, as some girls are raised to be. She was a disciple in search of her guru. In the early months of Toby's life, Flora lived in a state of fear and exhaustion and desperation. Increasingly, through Toby's short life Flora found her answers in the bottomless compassion of Dr. Wallis's sad eyes.

Toby fell over and bumped his head, as babies do, and Flora, giving the gift that Dr. Wallis had said only she could give, didn't
call an ambulance or rush him to the hospital. Instead, she sat him on her lap and rocked him on his way to a happier place.

As for me, I'd only recently taken over as district attorney and didn't even have an assistant yet. I worked ceaselessly. I'd entrusted Toby to Flora, who'd been trusting Dr. Wallis. It never occurred to me
not
to trust Flora. I should have seen it in her, though—her vulnerability. We thought the disease was the evil, but it turned out the real evil was Dr. Wallis, who beguiled Flora. You can be vigilant against foreign evils, but it is the evil under your own roof that escapes notice. Flora might as well have opened our door to an ax murderer, inviting him in to slay us all. With Toby dead, with grief amuck in my soul, I focused my fury on Flora. I did what I do best: I prosecuted.

Failing to provide a seriously ill child with medical care is a crime: I charged Flora with criminal neglect and involuntary manslaughter, but the case didn't last long. The state attorney general's office took over and quickly dismissed the charges. “We can't win this, Nick,” the AG told me on the phone. “Remember the religious exemption. If she was treating him with prayer, then the law doesn't require her to call a doctor.”

“She's never prayed a day in her life,” I answered.

“If she
says
she was praying . . .”

“Put her on the stand, she won't lie.”

“Think about it,” the AG said. “This isn't something you want to be involved in. Think about your future.”

“Fuck my future.”

“Then let me put it this way. It's not something I want the Department of Law involved in. We're not prosecuting.”

•  •  •

Maybe I could have forgiven Flora if it had been more clear-cut, if she'd been more clearly wrong, if she'd been more decisively coopted into Dr. Wallis's cruel view of humanity. But as the attorney general argued to me that day, nobody could say for sure
that Toby would have lived if he'd made it to the hospital. People remind me of this as if it's supposed to be a comfort, as if it vindicates Flora's decision, but I see it differently. The uncertainty has left an emotional labyrinth with no exit. I don't know whether I'm supposed to forgive her for essentially killing our son, or for failing to believe in miracles.

I
'm not wearing a tux. TMU pretends to be angered, but he doesn't care, because it's not that kind of city. The mayor is here (red bow tie, no tux), and the governor was invited, though he won't show. It's an invitation-only reception, but anybody who wanted an invite got one.

We're upstairs above the Rain Tree in what was recently the abandoned and cavernous production floor of Rokeby Mills. Now it's a convention center. The side facing the river is all windows, framed in the bright trim of local pines. The room is multilevel: You step down into the several wombish semicircles with built-in sofas for looking out at the river as you sip cocktails in a happy glow of economic upturn and architectural preservation. You go up a step to the bar and buffet areas. Standing here, I can see the North Woods brewery down on the floodplain where, just five years ago, four hundred golden Guernseys wallowed.

TMU insisted I come. He wants me out shaking hands and, with any luck, getting my smiling mug in the news. He has also brought along Pleasant Holly, my equivalent in the civil division of our office. Pleasant is pleasant. She has been on the job only about six months, but so far, we're all impressed. Tina is here, too. I invited her, but she's circulating in the crowd while I'm staying close to the bowl of shrimp.

Hollis Phippin is here. I catch sight of him standing in one of those lounges by the window. I'd like to pretend I don't see him, but he's already spotted me, so I walk over to say hi.

He grabs my hand and shakes robustly. “I have to admit, I'm kind of flattered, Nick,” he says.

“How so, Hollis?”

“That the FBI finds me a credible suspect in Scud Illman's murder. Did you know they came by for a conversation?”

“I heard something about that.” To change the subject, I say, “Are you connected to the Rokeby project, Hollis?”

“Oh, you know,” he says, “everyone's involved somehow; it's not that big a town.” The cheerfulness leaves his face in a flash. “Tell me what you think, Nick. Is the one who killed Zander still out there?”

“We believe so, Hollis.”

“And the Illman character, couldn't he have shot my son and a deer in the same night?”

I tell Hollis about my midnight drive to the reservoir.

There is a commotion: Two of the regulars from the vets' table down in the Rain Tree roll Steve in his wheelchair off the escalator. All three are laughing. Steve's helpers are in coat and tie. One looks respectable. The other has a face of busted capillaries and big blackhead-infested pores, and he beams his yellow-toothed smile at the watching crowd. “Damn near let him roll back down.” He laughs, then he and Steve do a quick high five, and Steve rolls over to the no-host bar.

“It's all in violation,” Hollis says. “The elevator won't get installed for at least six months. Maybe a year. The place shouldn't even be open. You could shut us down, you know, Nick. I think you should. Shit, Steve there, he could sue . . . HEY, STEVE!”

Steve doesn't hear him.

Apparently, Hollis downed a few more drinks than I realized. He turns back to me. “Tell me which is worse, Nick. Us putting millions—twenty-two-point-five million, to be exact—into this worthless pile of bricks, and leaving out the elevator so American heroes whose legs got blown off by Richard Nixon can't get in without their drinking buddies pushing them up the escalator. That or my son, Zander, selling a little pot. Which is worse?”

“Well, Hollis, I—”

“I'll tell you which. The pot. You know why? I'll tell you why. Because boys are supposed to come to their rich daddies for tuition.
Do you know why Zander didn't come to me for tuition, Nick? Do you?”

“No, Hollis.”

“Because I'm an asshole. So if you want to know who killed Zander, Nick, I'll tell you. I killed him. I didn't kill Scud Illman, though I appreciate the vote of confidence. Tell you what, though. When you do figure out who pulled the trigger, you let me know. I'll try to justify the confidence you guys have in me, okay? I'll go blow his fucking head off. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find Steve and tell him if he wants to sue me and all the other assholes involved in violating his rights, he can count on my support.”

Hollis walks away. His suit is conservative and distinguished, with perfect pant cuffs and just a touch of narrowing in the waist. From behind, he looks youthful except for the graying hair. He stumbles sideways, recovers, and disappears into the crowd.

I get another drink and go stand beside Tina. She tugs at my sleeve affectionately. “There you are.”

“Here I am.”

“You having fun?”

“I like shrimp, and I like beer. You?”

“I hate artichoke dip.”

“We could leave.”

“Soon.”

TMU finds us. “Excuse us, Tina, I need Nick for a minute,” and he steers me by the elbow to the coat alcove. I expect a strategy session about my prospects for making the short list. But when he turns toward me, his face has lost its clownish rumple. His eyes are fierce. He says, “I asked you if there were skeletons, Nick. You assured me there weren't.”

“There aren't.”

“There are,” he says, “because I'd call being sued for malicious prosecution a skeleton, wouldn't you?”

I don't answer. I stare into his wounded eyes—watery old-man's eyes, eyelids red and creased with the wear of his seven-plus decades, but still accusing, still sure. I have the pleasant notion of smashing
his self-righteous glare with murderous fists—letting his despicable smugness ooze out across the floor in rivulets of blood. Of course it isn't my beloved mentor Harold Schnair who stands before me, but Dr. Wallis himself. I see Doc's sad eyes, Doc's smugness, Doc's face that I would happily pound into unrecognizable pulp. How fitting that, having taken my wife and son, Dr. Wallis will take from me the seat on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Let's hear it,” Harold says. “Maybe we can do some spin.”

When I was a district attorney up north those many years ago, I was generally immune from being sued by anyone I prosecuted. Malicious prosecution is a lawsuit brought against a prosecutor by a defendant. Usually, such cases are dismissed outright. In fact, the disgruntled defendant usually can't find a lawyer willing to sue, because the cases are losers. You have to show that the prosecutor was not just wrong but that he was twisting the system to his own purposes. So long as any charge I filed was supported by a shred of evidence, then the people I prosecuted, guilty or innocent, couldn't touch me.

What happened was that after Toby's death, I charged Dr. Wallis with conspiracy to commit child abuse and manslaughter. Normally, to arrest a respectable geezer like the doctor, you'd approach him after-hours and ask that he accompany you to the station for booking and bail. It is discreet and respectful. But he deserved no respect. I brought in the troopers because the sheriff wouldn't do it. We took the doctor from his office in the middle of town, in handcuffs, at midday.