Housebreaking (27 page)

On Monday morning, when he called Sampson to confirm their tennis date, he got voice mail. He walked down the hall at lunchtime and found Sampson's office door closed. His secretary told him that he'd called in sick that morning. Andrew left three or four messages, without getting a response. He was tired of talking to a recorded voice. He vowed to tell Sampson the next time he saw him: Answer my calls or don't expect to try any more cases.

On Tuesday morning, Sampson's secretary gave him the same news: “He called in sick.”

“What's wrong with him? Is he in the hospital or something?”

“That's all I know,” the woman said.

“He didn't say?”

She shook her head. “I didn't talk to him. He left a voice mail before I got in.”

All week he got the same response. On Friday morning, when he appeared at her desk, she simply shrugged and said, “Sorry.”

“Nothing?”

“Same message. ‘I won't be coming in.' ”

Andrew had dinner with Audrey and Emily every night that week and worked on his laptop in his home office, writing a brief that was due in appellate court the next month. The household was quiet, good for concentrating. His daughter rarely came out of her room, still “grounded.” Audrey went out every night after dinner, taking the dog on walks or running errands in town. The weekend came and went.

On Monday he found a message from Sampson's secretary on his office line. “He's still got the flu, Mr. Murray,” she said. “He says he'll need someone to cover for his deposition Tuesday.”

That was all.

* * *

THEY HAD
Thanksgiving at home—Andrew, Audrey, and Emily. Their second Thanksgiving without Daniel. No one mentioned this fact, but they did not have to. Audrey set a place for their absent son, and they bowed their heads before the meal. Andrew recited a prayer, over Emily's objections. An atheist, his daughter.

He'd invited his parents to come down from East Longmeadow, but his mother said that his father was “out of sorts.” His ulcer, apparently. The old man disliked going to doctors, like most men of his generation.

The next day Andrew wandered the house, unable to sit still for more than a few minutes. He called Johnny Sampson to see how he was feeling, but his voice-mail box was filled. In the afternoon the postman delivered some correspondence from a law firm, registered mail, but Andrew couldn't bring himself to open the envelope. For once he didn't feel like working; he'd finished his appellate brief already, two weeks before it was due, and needed a break from legal matters. All that long weekend his daughter locked herself in her room, disdaining family meals, instead coming out for the occasional snack—nothing more than cheese sticks, as far as Andrew could tell.

“This is getting worse,” he told Audrey after Sunday dinner.

Audrey occupied herself with her book and red wine, curled on the couch. “She won't talk to me. What do you expect me to do about it?”

“I expect you to discuss it.”

“Why are you obsessing about her diet? She eats. She just doesn't do it in front of us.”

“And you call that normal?”

“Her weight is fine, Andrew.”

“How can you tell?”

Audrey sighed. “They weigh her at school and at the doctor's office. She had a checkup this summer. And her weight has been the same, every time, for the past year, give or take a few pounds. Okay?”

“Why didn't you tell me that the last time we spoke?”

“Because you didn't ask.”

“She's been missing a lot of school lately,” he said.

“I know that, Andrew. I've got doctors' appointments scheduled next week. I'm worried it might be Lyme.”

“Lyme,” he murmured.

Audrey had gotten the disease herself in her thirties and was vigilant about ticks ever since.

Sheba appeared at his side. He rubbed her along her flank and the dog panted. “Aren't you going to take the dog out?” he asked. “You haven't left the house in three days.”

“You do it. I'm on a break.”

On Monday morning he went into the office early, anxious to get back to work. Thanksgiving, as always, had thrown him out of whack; it wasn't long enough for a real vacation, but too long for a weekend, and it just made him conscious of all the work waiting for him. The floor was nearly deserted so early, not yet 8:00
A.M.
Whenever the elevator dinged, he perked up, noticing the lawyers and secretaries as they marched by his office with their coffee cups and muffins. A few peered in, offered greetings. He realized he knew only about half of them by name. Fuck them, he decided. It wasn't his job to learn their names like some grade-school teacher.

By nine the place had filled up, but he hadn't seen Sampson go past. He went down the hall and knocked on Sampson's door, but it was locked. His secretary was not at her station. He posted a sticky note on the door:
Come see me.
For Christ's sake, was he still sick? Or playing possum? Andrew tried his cell phone again; there was no answer and his mailbox was full. Where was Sampson? And why the hell hadn't he gotten back to him, the prick?

Around noon Hannahan appeared in his doorway. “Got a minute?”

Hannahan, the last thing he needed. “Actually, Jack,” he said, trying to sound cheerful, “I'm playing catch-up today.”

“Just a word.” He gestured for Andrew to follow.

Andrew rose, annoyed. Couldn't Hannahan take a hint? And why not just sit down in Andrew's office? Because the scotch was in Hannahan's desk. Drinkers didn't like to drink alone; it would be an admission of sorts, to sit alone behind a closed door in the afternoon with a bottle, like a disgraced priest.

Hannahan shut the door behind him and pulled out the Glenfiddich from the bottom drawer. “Join me?”

Not a bad idea, Andrew decided. “Sure. What's on your mind, Jack?”

“A delicate matter.” Hannahan poured the booze and took a slow sip, letting the words hang in the air.

Andrew waited for him to continue. But the old man couldn't be rushed. Drunk or sober, in or out of the courtroom, Hannahan picked his words carefully, releasing them like pigeons. A good habit for a lawyer, of course. He never gave anything away, never offered his opponent an advantage. But today Andrew didn't have the patience for the act. He scratched behind his ear.

“I've just come from a meeting with the partners—” Hannahan offered at last.

“I didn't know one was scheduled.”

“An emergency session.”

A glaring sun splashed against the floor-to-ceiling window. Outside, he could see only blue air, a cloudless sky thirty stories high. “Well, fill me in.”

“There's been a complaint from within the firm. It involves you, I'm afraid.”

“Oh, Christ. Whose feelings have I hurt now?” Andrew had a gruff management style, he knew. Over the past fifteen years, three or four secretaries had complained about him, had asked for a new assignment. One of them had called him
a bully
—as if this were a school yard, not a place of business. Did he have to say
pretty please
every time he wanted a photocopy or a cup of coffee? Apparently so, or you risked putting someone's panties in a bunch. “Which secretary is it?”

“It's no secretary. It's John Sampson. He resigned from the firm last Friday and filed a sexual harassment complaint with the superior court the same day.”

Andrew felt a lurching sensation, like the earth falling away beneath him. His voice came out hollow-sounding. “Against whom?”

“Against you individually and the law firm as principal. I'm surprised you haven't received the complaint.”

Andrew recalled the registered letter he'd received over the weekend, unopened at home. “Let me see it.”

“I don't have the document in front of me,” said Hannahan.

“Well, ask your sec——”

“Let's take a minute, Andy, before we talk to the partnership. I wanted to have a word with you as a friend, first and foremost, to figure out the best way to address this thing.”

“The partnership.”

“We'll be meeting again at one-thirty.”

“Jack, this is absurd.”

“I have no doubt of that. But we have to treat it seriously. He's alleging sexual misconduct against the head of our employment litigation division. You can anticipate how that might attract attention.”

“Consider the source. You yourself said he'd been reprimanded for improprieties with coemployees in the past.”

Hannahan nodded. “And that's fully documented in his personnel file.”

I don't need a morality lesson from homophobic seventy-year-olds. I intend to make my displeasure known at some point.
Andrew said, “This is retaliatory. This is about him getting even with the firm.”

“We've considered that motive.” Hannahan leaned forward, bringing his hands together. “What I'm asking you now is to weigh our exposure. Does he possess anything that could compromise our position?”

“Of course not,” Andrew said.

“Think on it for a moment. Anything at all.”

“As I said, Jack, it's frivolous. He's after a quick buck. It's outrageous. After all I've done for him.”

Hannahan nodded slowly. “He purports to have photographic and video exhibits.”

“That's impossible.”

“It's alleged in his complaint. So, of course, we have the right to production of those exhibits.”

Andrew heard it in Hannahan's voice, what he didn't want to say aloud. And he realized with a shock, suddenly and irrevocably, that the whole thing had already been decided. The partners had met, deliberated, voted, adjourned for lunch. They'd wiped their hands of him. Now he and Hannahan were merely going through the motions. Hannahan was the messenger, delivering the grim news.

“What are you saying, Jack?”

“Look, Andy. You came to Hartford for a change of pace. But maybe you need more than that. Maybe this is a chance to take some time for yourself. After all you've been through, no one could think poorly of you for doing so.”

Did that mean he'd already
seen
the exhibits?
Photographic and video exhibits
. Andrew recalled all the times Sampson had pulled out his cell
phone. Jesus Christ. A camera phone, of course. He'd recorded everything. They hadn't even offered camera or video phones when Andrew bought his mobile a few years earlier. Leave it to a guy like Sampson to keep up with the latest technology.
You're the smart guy
, he had told him.
You figure it out.
How had he not realized until now?

“Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there were something. What then?”

“That would complicate the matter, of course,” said Hannahan.

Complicate.
Andrew grimaced. He saw fully how it would play out. There could be no halfway, no leave of absence. The firm would have to cut its ties, and quickly. That was what Hannahan was telling him now with his severe silences. There was no way they could let this suit go to trial. They couldn't risk it. They couldn't have the name of Carrington Farr on the news, his picture splashed in the newspaper, the sordid allegations of homosexual acts in the park, in a strip joint. It might take a year or longer to settle the suit, but the decision had been made. He was out. Andrew saw it all in an instant. His resigning, packing boxes, handing over his key card, taking the elevator down to the parking garage. And the aftermath too. What firm would take a chance on him with this indiscretion in his past? He'd have to seek out clients anew, at forty-six. All those years of accomplishment, falling away like pebbles down a mountainside.

“You're telling me the firm wants to settle. Avoid complications.”

“There was discussion toward that end.” Hannahan cleared his throat. “And your resignation as well.”

“I wouldn't disagree. I'd advise the same.”

“They'll want a covenant not to compete. A guarantee that you won't take clients with you.”

“The file will be sealed, I take it.”

Hannahan nodded. “That could be part of the settlement terms.”

Andrew got up. His legs felt unsteady.

“Wait a minute now. This is all hypothetical. I have some ideas we can present to the partnership. Buyout terms. You should keep a percentage—”

“Not now.” Andrew emptied the glass and set it on the desk.

Hannahan raised an eyebrow. “I'm sorry, Andy. I did everything I could.”

“You don't have to apologize. It's the only choice you had.”

“It's a damn shame.”

In the hallway Andrew was suddenly aware of gawkers, the heads looking up as he passed their offices and cubicles. The word had already spread. He'd been doing this walk of shame all day and hadn't even known it.

Worse, Sampson had played him from the start. He'd seen an opportunity and he'd taken it. Now he would move on to some other firm, maybe some other city, a hundred grand or more in his pocket. From the very beginning there had been only calculation and forethought. All of it, a ploy.

Odd, he didn't even know where Sampson lived. Before leaving that afternoon, he logged on the company network and looked up Sampson's home address.

* * *

HE SHOULD HAVE
gone home, destroyed the registered letter, figured out what he was going to tell Audrey, but instead he spent most of the day at the hotel bar in the lobby. Tequila, again. He nursed a slow rage at Sampson and at himself for his own stupidity. At 5:00
P.M.
, he got into his car and drove to a package store and bought a twelve-pack of Anchor Steam. He wheeled past Sampson's house, the fruit loop, the restaurants where they'd dined, but found no sign of Sampson or his convertible. He stopped at a few bars, drinking until he felt a numbness coming on.