Ground Truth (3 page)

Chapter 6

June 2

5 p.m.

THE FORMER Stanford Law School building had been converted into a warren of small rooms for study and research. As Jack walked inside, he encountered four of his students lugging book bags and daypacks. As soon as they saw him, conversation stopped.

“Professor Strider,” said a dark-haired young woman, “we’re really sorry about your loss.” She looked at her friends. “Listen, we’re heading for beer at The Oasis. Want to come?”

It was the kind of invitation he accepted from time to time, mostly because he liked fielding the thorny legal questions they cooked up to try to stump him. He sharpened their wits and made them laugh when they got stressed out. Because he was so accessible, they thought they had him pegged, but none of them knew what he really wanted in life or how badly he wanted it. They saw only what he wanted them to see.

“Thanks . . . another time.” He turned right and climbed the wide, worn stairs.

His destination was a spacious second-floor office with a sweeping view of the palm-lined drive that connected Palo Alto with the Stanford campus. After Samuel Butler announced years ago that the law school would be moving to new quarters near the center of campus, he’d retired as dean of the school, taken emeritus status, and claimed possession of his cherished office in the old building.

Once in a while during the eight years he’d taught at Stanford Law, Jack had asked Butler to be his sounding board concerning some issue or another. But this time it was Butler who’d left a message inviting him to come to his office. Since the topic was likely to be Peck’s death, he wasn’t looking forward to the meeting.

Through the opaque glass in the door, Jack heard the erratic tapping of the manual Olivetti on which Butler wrote a stream of essays for legal journals. Jack rapped and opened the door.

Butler sat at his roll top desk, spidery hands scrabbling around among handwritten notes and heaps of legal references.

“Good afternoon, Sam.”

“And to you, Jack. I’m looking for one last citation for a law review piece I’m writing.”

The man’s eyesight was dim and his voice a scratchy remnant of the smooth baritone that had held the attention of justices of the Supreme Court on several occasions, but he still loved to shower legal insights on an unruly public.

“No hurry.” Jack let his gaze wander around the room, especially to the paintings that took up most of two walls. Butler loved Paul Gauguin’s work and had admired the artist’s courage in tossing aside a career in a London bank to seek happiness in the South Pacific.

Butler had started with prints, slowly replacing them with expertly painted reproductions. To Jack’s eye, they looked like originals even though he knew there was no chance of that, not on a professor’s salary. Butler did consulting work for a couple of foreign governments and played the market. That would provide enough money for the reproductions.

A painting of two women carrying mangos radiated quality. Since he hadn’t seen it before, it must be a recently acquired reproduction.

Butler stood up, buttoned his vest, returned the knot in his tie to its proper place and reached out to shake hands. “My condolences, Jack. I saw the article in the Sunday
Chronicle
yesterday. Very complimentary about Peck’s career.” Butler eased into the venerable leather chair that had supported him through more than forty years of scholarship. “Take that chair across from me. Comfortable? Now, would you like to tell me what happened?”

Hell no, he didn’t want to talk about it.
After two days, he was no closer to processing what had happened in his father’s study, but Butler deserved some response.

“It started at the yacht club when I got a call from Peck’s lady friend.” He filled in the details about watching the report on the seven o’clock news and his father’s cryptic comments. “Suddenly, Peck—” He swallowed hard as the horrendous scene washed over him. “—pulled a gun, put the muzzle into his mouth, looked straight at me, and squeezed the trigger.”

Butler frowned. “That was cruel.”

Jack shrugged. “Typical Peck. He had a plan, and my showing up didn’t change it at all.”

“What happened . . . afterwards?”

“Anita started screaming that I could have gotten the gun away from him.”

“Could you have?”

“He was too fast.” He’d thought through those moments often. It was the truth.

“This is a hard time for you,” Butler said.

“It’ll get worse. There’s about to be some very bad publicity about Peck. Not about how he died, but how he lived. He wasn’t the man we thought he was.”

“True for many of us, Jack.” Butler nodded solemnly.

“Maybe, but because Peck was such a prominent alum of this law school, and a big donor, it could make the school look bad.”

Butler’s eyebrows lifted. “What haven’t you told me?” he asked, his tone sharp.

Jack took a deep breath. The conversation was about to get heavy. “Earlier this afternoon, I met with District Attorney Rick Calder in his office.”

Butler closed his eyes as he listened to the revelations at that meeting, including Peck’s ownership of
Pacific Dawn
and his importation of illegal aliens. When Jack finished, Butler exhaled with a puff, as if he’d been holding his breath. He looked over the tops of his glasses.

“That’s very bad, indeed. And Calder thinks you may be involved?”

“He was damned insulting. He thinks I was making money from what Peck was doing. His people are hunting for bank accounts and safe deposit boxes, trying to connect me to Peck’s business. He said he’d indict me if he got evidence.”

“Calder has a lot of power, and DAs often indict people as a fishing expedition, especially if they get a political lift from it.”

“I told him if he even hints publicly that I was involved, I’d sue him.”

“You’d be right to do so. I just regret that your father won’t get a traditional burial service. And, unfortunately, some people will gossip.”

“I don’t give a damn if they gossip, but—” He stopped, surprised. How could Butler know about the restriction Calder had imposed on Peck’s burial?

As if reading his mind, Butler cleared his throat and said, “When I heard on the news about the deaths on
Pacific Dawn,
I didn’t think much about it. Then the next morning, I learned about Peck’s suicide and read a follow-up story about the ship. I had an odd intuition there might be a connection.”

“Why would you think that?”

“At a Friday night happy hour at the yacht club last summer, Peck was tipsy and smoking hot about an insurance company that had refused to pay for damage to a cargo ship he owned. We had two rums worth of discussion about legal remedies, but when I asked him how he came to own a cargo ship, he changed the subject. That left me wondering. Anyway, this morning, out of curiosity I phoned someone who could answer my questions.” Butler looked down at his interlaced fingers, then up at him. “I’ve known Rick Calder for years.”

Butler, his mentor, his friend, had sandbagged him. What a bastard.
“So you already knew everything I just told you?”

“I wanted to hear it from you,” he said in a voice that held no hint of apology. “However, my conversation with Calder isn’t why I asked you to come here. Dean Thomson is nearly hysterical about this scandal tying dead illegal aliens to a very prominent alum whose son is on the faculty. He kept shouting about ‘human trafficking.’ He’s afraid the notoriety will kill fundraising, grants, even recruiting. Never underestimate how fear can motivate a gutless administrator. And, I’m sorry to say, I have some more bad news for you.”

Jack stared at him, his stomach knotting. His father was newly dead and disgraced. The DA was investigating him. What was left?

Butler continued. “Dean Thompson has rescinded your pending appointment to the chairmanship of your department.”

Anger surged through Jack. He jumped to his feet, but got control of himself before blurting, “That’s bull. There was nothing ‘pending’ about that appointment. It was locked in before any of this happened. Thompson made an offer, and I accepted. He can’t rescind it now.”

“Technically,” he said, looking Jack in the eyes, “he can. The contract hasn’t been approved by the Board.”

“I won’t let him get away with this. Let’s go see him. Both of us. Right now.” He could reason with Thompson, he assured himself, get him to back down.

“There’s no point.” Butler said softly, corners of his mouth turned down. “He sees you as being a threat to his job someday. Fact is, he really wants to fire you, but doesn’t dare go that far. All I could get from him was to let me tell you his decision myself.”

So Thompson’s insecurities were behind his decision to yank the Chairmanship away. Well, he was in for a fight. “I have tenure. I’ll get an injunction.”

“You don’t have to worry about that at this point. Thompson can’t fire you unless Calder proves you were involved in that nasty business. What he can and will do is assign you to teach civil procedure to first year students until you run screaming down Palm Drive. He’ll make sure you get no promotions, no grants, no perks. You’re the most gifted professor on the faculty, but let’s face reality . . . your career here is over.”

Butler pinched his glasses off, cleaned the lenses with a special cloth he pulled from his jacket pocket, and took his time restoring the glasses to his nose. “Jack, this is a sea change in your life. I recommend you get out of academia. Get into the arena. Go into private practice.”

What in the hell was going on?
Suicide, scandal, loss of the promotion—and now it sounded like Butler was conning him into accepting being kicked out the door.

“Not a chance. If I’d wanted to go into private practice, I would have done it years ago.” He didn’t add that building a national reputation as a law professor was a better step on the path to the Supreme Court.

Butler leaned toward Jack. “I understand,” he said, nodding his head, “but that was then. Now, some experience in the rough-and-tumble side of the profession will make you a better lawyer—and I can help you. Sinclair & Simms is the hottest law firm in California. Several offices overseas. Big money. Justin Sinclair and I are longtime friends. We actually served together in the, uh, intelligence business inside the old Soviet Union.”

“Intelligence? Soviet Union? You never told me about that.” Somehow, given the way Butler was behaving, he wasn’t completely surprised.

Butler waved the subject away. “Long time ago. What matters now is your career. Justin Sinclair doesn’t worry about fundraising, grants, or any of that crap. In you, he’d get a potential leader for his firm. You’d join at partner level, of course, but to move up you’ll have to climb over the bodies of some very tough people. As it happens, I spoke with Justin an hour ago. He’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse. So, shall we give him a call?”

Butler was rushing ahead like an express train. To slow it down, Jack said, “The Chairman of the Board of the Sierra Club has been after me for a couple of years to be its general counsel. That might be a better fit.”

Butler shook his head. “A terrible mistake. It’s a dead end job, no upside. Remember, the government will confiscate every penny of Peck’s estate, so you need a good income. And if Calder can find anything to tie you to
Pacific Dawn,
no matter how flimsy, he’ll go public, and all your options will go up in smoke. The Sierra Club can’t protect you, but maybe Justin Sinclair can.”

Was Butler implying that Sinclair had some leverage he would use on Calder? Well, that didn’t matter because Calder could never get him on substance. There wasn’t any. But Calder might concoct something that would look suspicious. Jack had to make a decision before that happened.

“Sam, there’s something else that will affect my decision, something I’ve discussed only with Peck. My goal is to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Until a few minutes ago, he would have added that an aide to the governor had called him recently. One of the justices on the California Supreme Court would probably resign within a couple of years for health reasons. The aide had asked whether Jack might be interested in being appointed to the vacancy. Not a firm offer, but a strong feeler. Now, because of mixed messages from Butler, he held that information back.

Butler looked pensive for a few moments. “You were Editor-in-Chief of law review and clerked for a respected judge. And Stanford has been like a freeway leading to the Supreme Court for past and present justices. Yes, you had a good shot, but now . . .” His slow head shake said it all.

A slight movement in the corner of the room caught Jack’s attention. It was the pendulum of a stately Benjamin clock. He felt it measuring and discarding seconds of his life, one after another.

“Jack, you’re like a son to me,” Butler said, breaking into his thoughts, “so I’ll give you some advice. Bury your father. Chart a new course.”

Given his experience with Peck, the phrase “you’re like a son to me” didn’t sound appealing. But that didn’t matter. He had a decision to make. “I’ll call you in a few days and let you know what I’m thinking.”

“In a few days you’ll be lucky to find a job with an insurance company in Omaha. Call me by nine o’clock tonight, or I can’t help you.”

The sound of the pendulum ticking seemed louder, filling the room.

JACK PARKED HIS BMW in the driveway of his two-story, gray shingle home in Atherton. Once inside, his muscles relaxed a little. He clicked on a Dave Brubeck jazz CD and dropped into his big chair in front of the fireplace. The books—in shelves and in toppled piles around him—and the memorabilia on the walls always relaxed him. After a few minutes, he pulled on track shorts and a Stanford Crew T-shirt. As he tied the lace on his running shoe, it snapped. It was that kind of day. He found a new lace, not a match, and tried to slow down the clamor in his brain.