A change of gravity

"That doesn't mean we start the rumors. We don't. The minute some bank treasurer is subpoenaed as the Keeper of the Records, specifying whose records we want, he knows who we're after. The fat goes in the fire and the gossip's in the wind. We can't stop it, so we've done the next best thing: stopped worrying about it.

"So, everyone knows who we're after? Usually. But experienced criminal lawyers know we never publicly name any target 'til he's been indicted. We can't, we're not allowed to. Constitution states no citizen shall be held to answer for a capital offense or crime of infamy except upon presentment of grand jury. Remember, Geoff?

Black-letter law."

Cohen stared at him thoughtfully, picking at the edge of his lower right front tooth with the nail of his left ring-finger, saying nothing.

"Children, children," the judge said. "Get on with it, Arnie."

"The review of state and state sub-division contracts awarded to private companies and individuals in the Western District showed a striking correlation between people benefiting from them and people who'd been heavy financial supporters of Daniel Hilliard's political career major campaign contributors. Hilliard is the queen bee; his rich pals are his worker bees. Or ants, as you prefer."

"I object to this, your Honor," Cohen said. "There's no need for Mister Bissell's gratuitous and demeaning insults."

"I'm sorry," Bissell said. "You said John Doe offended you. I thought you wanted me to use the same vocabulary here we use among ourselves when we're discussing people like your client here today."

"I don't want any more of trash-talk out of either one of you," the judge said. "Do you want me to make it clearer than that? Get to work."

"We have a number of individuals under investigation for their dealings with Hilliard, your Honor," Bissell said. "I'm going to use Haskell Sanderson, Junior, for an example. He began doing business with the state several years before the opening date wed arbitrarily chosen for our investigation, but when we saw the pattern emerging in those years, we went back to his first state contracts. The pattern was clear from the start. Sanderson began contributing generously to Hilliard. Very soon he got his first state printing contract. He increased his contributions. He got more state printing contracts. Until the state campaign financing law took effect, he contributed between five and ten thousand dollars to the Hilliard Committee every two-year election cycle, equivalent to thirty or forty thousand today.

"When the statute prohibited corporate donations and limited individual contributions to two thousand dollars per individual per cycle, Sanderson complied. He reduced his contributions to the statutory amount. But his wife, when he had one, gave two thousand dollars, and his son, who claims to be a golf pro but spends half the year tending bar, gave two thousand a cycle. Four of Sanderson's employees gave a thousand each. Hilliard's total receipts from Sanderson were unaffected by the new law.

"In the past twenty-five years or so Sanderson's state printing contracts've totalled several million dollars. He holds three today, long-term agreements worth in excess of nine hundred thousand dollars over the next two years."

"Dan Hilliard hasn't been in the House since Nineteen-eighty-four,"

Cohen said, at the same time gripping Merrion's left forearm to prevent him from speaking.

"Sanderson met his pals in the Procurement branch while Hilliard was still in office," Bissell said wearily. "He bought what he needed while the store was open. By the time Hilliard left the legislature, Sanderson was entrenched. Hilliard did such a great job he doesn't need him anymore.

"His company isn't even in the district Hilliard represented. Sanderson never lived in it but he became a heavy Hilliard backer about thirty years ago. His friend Carl Kuiper told him it could be profitable. He introduced them. Kuiper discovered very early there was money to be made by people on good terms with Dan Hilliard. Before he retired and sold his electrical contracting company to GE, it was the largest such company privately owned in western Massachusetts, due in no small part to its robust relationship with the state Department of Procurement and Services.

"Same pattern. Kuiper didn't live in Hilliard's district. His business wasn't in it either. But he jumped on the Hilliard bandwagon right at the beginning, back in Nineteen-sixty-two, when Hilliard was making his big move from Holyoke alderman to state representative. Five thousand a cycle, regular as clockwork, 'til the limits took effect.

Then he went to the nominee-dodge too; his wife and his two kids suddenly developed an interest in state politics they'd never shown before: the new program was two thousand from him; a thousand from his wife; and a thousand more each from each of his kids including his daughter, nurturing her deep interest in the Massachusetts legislature from her home in Santa Barbara.