High Crimes

“Are you going to get Daddy out today?” Annie asked when she’d finally swallowed.

“I’m working on it. Might not be today, sweetie.”

“Can you and I play today?”

Claire hesitated. “I’m going to do my very, very best.” Then she said, “Yes, honey, we are, when I get home from work. We’ll play together. You, me, and Jackie — or just you and me, if you want.”

“Who’s taking my name in vain?” rasped Jackie as she dragged herself, dazed, into the kitchen. She leaned against the doorframe and massaged her forehead. “Morning, snookums.”

Claire took in Jackie’s long black Grateful Dead T-shirt and black sweatpants. She raised both hands and snapped her fingers in beatnik applause. “Dig those crazy threads, man.”

“It’s too early, Claire,” Jackie groaned, watching the coffee gurgle and hiss into the glass pot. “I need to mainline some of that caffeine.”

The phone rang.

“Not again,” Claire said. “Can you get it?”

“No,” Jackie said. “I can barely talk.”

It rang again. “Oh, God,” Claire said, and picked up the wall phone.

“Claire, it’s Winthrop.”

Winthrop Englander, the dean of Harvard Law School. Three guesses, she thought, what’s on his mind.

“Win, good morning,” she said.

“Claire, this is not a call I ever wanted to make,” he said.

“Win—”

“Is the report true?”

“Largely, yes.”

“This puts me in an extremely difficult position.”

“I understand. I’ll make only one excuse, which is to say that it happened a long time ago, and it was very bad judgment made at a time when my mother had just died.”

“I understand.”

“That doesn’t excuse it, Win, but—”

“It’s still going to be very difficult, Claire. You’ve been a valuable member of the faculty, an outstanding teacher, a real asset to the Law School.” She heard the verb tense; this was his version of the gold-watch retirement speech.

She wanted to ask him: If I told you about the incident, and no one else knew, would you still stick by your lofty principles? Or is it the Washington Post — and probably by now The New York Times and, by wire service, every other newspaper and broadcast medium in the country — that’s stiffening your sense of morality?

But she said, “I understand.”

“There will be all sorts of meetings and consultations. I’ll be in touch.”

She arrived at Quantico just in time to see the white van from the brig pull up to the building that housed the secure facility. From a distance she saw Tom step out, in full chains. He seemed small. She made a quick calculation: Did she want to catch his eye? To give him a hug? Increasingly she found it painful to make human contact with him before and after trial. Easier to treat him as just another client, one she rarely saw.

But he saw her first. “Claire,” he called out hoarsely.

She smiled, though smiling was the last thing she felt like doing this morning. Why burden him with her two hundred worries?

“Claire,” he said again, putting both cuffed arms out to her as if displaying them. An odd gesture.

She approached. His eyes glistened with tears. Puzzled, she hugged him. He couldn’t hug back, and it stabbed her heart. “It’s showtime,” she said with false good humor.

“Those bastards.” His voice was muffled.

She pulled away to see his face. He was crying now.

“Tom?”

“Goddamn them. I saw CNN this morning. They actually let me watch.”

“Oh,” she said.

“They want to go after me, that’s one thing. Now they’re trying to destroy you.” The guards stood by, eyeing them with hostility, though they knew enough by now not to interrupt.

“It’s true, Tom. I did it.”

“I don’t give a damn. It’s the past, it’s your private business...” Now he clenched both his hands into fists, and punched the air like a hobbled pugilist. His chains jingled. “Goddamn them, Claire. Come here, please. Will you hug me? These damned handcuffs.”

She hugged him, felt his face warm against hers.

“I want you to know something,” he said very quietly. “I know what you’ve been going through for me. What they’re trying to do to you. And I’m here for you, the way you’ve been here for me. I’m in these fucking chains, I’m locked up all day, but I’m your rock, too, okay? I think about you all the time. You’re suffering as much as me, maybe more. You don’t have time to be with Annie, you’re cut off from all your friends, you can’t tell anyone what you’re going through, except maybe Jackie, right? And now this. We’re going to get through all this shit. I promise you.”

38

“The government calls Frank La Pierre,” Waldron announced.

The prosecution was beginning its case with the Criminal Investigation Division agent who was in charge of the case against Ronald Kubik. Frank La Pierre was escorted by the bailiff into the courtroom. He walked with a slow shuffle, as if he’d been injured long ago. He wore a cheap-looking dark suit that flapped open; he’d clearly been unable to button it over his potbelly. He had owlish horn-rimmed glasses, a pinched nose, and a small downturned mouth. His receding hairline came down in a widow’s peak.