Keep No Secrets (25 page)

thing. "Seven or eight p.m. would have achieved that," he says in a droll voice.

"There was no need to wait till all parties were in bed."

Jack and Earl exchange a glance. They haven't even begun to discuss the issue at hand, and they've scored a few points with the judge.

"The officers did arrive before ten, Your Honor," Walker says, assuring him he followed the law, "but they were delayed because Mr. Hilliard's assistant wouldn't allow them to enter his private office until she'd called him. That's why I showed up, too." He adds, his voice falsely contrite, "I'm very sorry, Your Honor."

"Is that true, Ms. Foley?"

Monica starts as if she's surprised to be consulted. "Yes, Judge, that's correct."

"So what's this about?" asks the judge.

"Judge, this warrant is highly inappropriate. To search the DA's office on a tip, without anything else to suggest the tip is valid, is uncalled for. Moreover, I see nothing on the warrant that meets the threshold of specificity required by law. It's quite vague."

"Your Honor, Mr. Scanlon is being disingenuous." Walker plants his palms on the edge of the desk and leans closer to the phone. "The search isn't of the whole office, of course. Only Mr.

Hilliard's private office will be searched.

And the 'something else' he argues is required is obvious: Mr. Hilliard has already been charged with a crime. It's quite logical to believe his private office might contain the evidence the tip suggested."

"And what evidence does the tip—"

Earl begins.

"Excuse me, I wasn't finished."

Walker's fierce stare contrasts sharply with the politeness oozing from his voice.

"As you know from when I appeared to obtain the warrant," he again directs his words at the judge, "Ms. Del Toro told officers she believes Mr. Hilliard took—"

Like a dog hearing a high-pitched noise, Jack's attention is suddenly Thank you for downloading from dpgroup.org.

heightened, but the chime of his cell phone—Claire's ringtone—distracts him.

He moves away quickly so the ring won't disturb the other call and whispers

"What?" a little too harshly when he answers.

"Jack, the cops are here," Claire says breathlessly. She's on the verge of tears.

"What?" he asks again, but he needs no answer. He suddenly understands the trick they played on him. They executed the warrant for the DA's office first, knowing Jack would, if not outright fight it, at least insist upon being present during the search. But Jack knows they didn't expect to find anything useful. Not here. This search was a decoy to get him out of his house. Once they lured him to the courthouse, they swooped in to execute a second warrant at his home, where they suspected the evidence they wanted would be found.

"What should I do?" she cries.

Jack tries to listen to the other phone conversation as he tries to formulate a strategy for Claire. "Hold on," he says and presses Mute in the middle of her "Wait!"

"Don't fight it," he whispers to Earl.

"They're at my house, too. Buy time on that instead." He's no longer worried they'll discover Jenny's letters. The search of his office will be all for show, and therefore superficial.

The only outward sign of Earl's

surprise at this news is a sidewise turn of his eyes in Jack's direction. Without missing a beat, his argument to the judge transitions to the house warrant. Jack returns to Claire. "Tell them we're on the phone with the judge and they need to wait until it's resolved," he says to her.

As she repeats this to the cops, she struggles not to cry. "Are they giving you trouble?" he asks when she comes back on the line.

"No, they're waiting, but they won't let me out of their sight."

"Did they wake the boys?"

"Yes, but I told Michael to keep Jamie in his room. They're scared."

"What time did the cops get there?" he asks. They might have showed up at the courthouse before ten, but Jack knows the ones at his house didn't arrive until later. Technically, he could force them to come back tomorrow.

"Just a few minutes ago. Right before I called you."

"Can they hear you?"

"No." Despite her answer, she lowers her voice even more. "Jack, where did you put it?"

"Don't ask me that. We don't need two disbarred attorneys in the family."

"We don't need one convicted of sexual assault, either."

It's the closest she's come to telling him she believes him.

"You couldn't do anything, anyway.

Not with them watching you."

"Only because I'm letting them. They have no right to be in our house until the judge gives them the okay. I could make them stay outside."

Jack smiles. She's finally put on her attorney hat. "Hold on," he says when he sees Earl motioning him back over to the phone.

"What time did they show up at your house?" Earl asks Jack loudly so everyone, including Judge Lehman, hears.

"Claire says it was just a few minutes ago."

"Your Honor," Earl says, "there's no valid reason for a late night search. If Your Honor signed these warrants this afternoon, they should have executed them then, or they should have waited until tomorrow. Mr. Hilliard has two children, one of whom is quite young.

There's no excuse for knocking on his door late at night like this."

Elias is about to speak, but the judge beats him to it. "I tend to agree, Mr.

Walker."

"But Judge—"

"Here's what I'm going to do. Despite Mr. Scanlon's arguments, I believe that both warrants meet the requirements of the law with respect to specificity. Mr.

Walker has made it clear he's looking for a particular item, and the warrants state that."

"In a vague way, Your Honor," Earl inserts, and Jack just shakes his head. It's unlike Earl to persist when it's obvious the judge is issuing his decision.

Not surprisingly, the judge ignores him. "And since they arrived at Mr.

Hilliard's office before ten, and Ms. Foley confirms that, I'll let them go forward with that search. But I can't abide having officers show up after hours at the home of the city's District Attorney, I don't care what he's been charged with. Not without a valid reason for a late night search. And at no time, Mr. Walker, did you mention to me today that you intended or needed this to be a late night search. Had you done so, I would have required some evidence in support of that. Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?"

"Yes, Your Honor." Walker glares at Jack, but as always, his tone to the judge doesn't reflect it.

"So I'm leaving this up to Mr.

Hilliard."

Jack and Earl exchange a glance.

Neither expected this.

"Mr. Hilliard? If you'd rather, you can let the officers at your house finish their job now. However, if you prefer your family to be left in peace tonight, I will order Mr. Walker to have his men come back tomorrow, during the
day
." The emphasis on "day" is for Walker.

"Whatever is most convenient for you, sir."

"Thank you, Judge. I'd like to speak to my attorney before I decide, and Mrs.

Hilliard, if Your Honor will indulge me a few minutes."

"Of course."

Jack and Earl move into the same

conference room where Jack happened upon his entire legal staff watching the news. They leave the doors open so they see Walker and he sees them, but they're out of earshot.

"Sit tight, I'll call you back," he says to Claire, disconnecting before she argues.

"What's going on?" Earl asks.

"They're looking for something Celeste wrote. It's a description of . . ." He sighs.

"It's a description of a sexual encounter.

A less than loving sexual encounter by any standard, but in my opinion, a rape. It doesn't identify the man or his age, but it reads like the guy is older. I guess she's telling them she wrote it about what I supposedly did to her."

"You wanna tell me why you might have this, Jack?" His nostrils flare.

"What did they say when I was on the phone with Claire? Why do they think I have it?"

"She claimed you ripped it out of her notebook. She guessed you took it when you picked up Michael at school. She says her book bag was in the gym on the same day you were there. They confirmed with Mike's coach that you were, indeed, in the gym the day she claims."

The coach
. So he did see Jack up on the bleachers. He wonders if Celeste

suggested the investigators question the coach. He can't help but think she'll make a good lawyer, if indeed she was serious about her future aspirations.

"She's right. I was there, and I did rip it out of her notebook."

"Christ Almighty!" Earl scolds under his breath. "What the
hell
were you thinking?"

Jack pulls out a conference table chair and sinks into it. He hunches over, rests his forehead in one hand while he rubs his tired eyes with the other. "I don't know. I never thought she'd say anything to anyone. There was a lot of fucked up stuff in that notebook. I thought she'd be afraid of it all being exposed. It's obvious from what she wrote that someone has messed with her, but I knew if

investigators got a hold of it, they'd automatically assume it was me she was writing about. It's not dated."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing. So now you're destroying evidence?"

"I didn't destroy it, nor did I plan to. I almost called the hotline when I first found it, but I knew it would be the last nail in my coffin if I didn't have some proof that it wasn't me she'd written about. Mike wouldn't answer me when I asked him if someone had hurt her. He did assure me she wasn't in any

immediate danger, so I planned to turn it over after I'd searched Mike's computer.

"Mike knew about this?"

"No, I didn't tell him what I'd found. I just questioned him to see if he knew anything. I know he must, but he won't talk." He sighs. "Look, if it wasn't written about me, it's not evidence, right?"

"That's usually left to the judge or jury to decide, don't you think?"

"
She was assaulted
. Someone messed with her. A girl doesn't just write stuff like that."

"Why didn't you come to me first?"

"I didn't expect to find it. I was simply getting Michael from practice. I had to make a decision. Take it and risk her talking, or leave it and risk her showing it to someone." He shrugs. "I chose door number one and lost. She talked."

Earl finally takes a chair, too, and blows out a long stream of air while he thinks. "What do you want to do?"

Jack knows what Earl is asking.

Neither will ever say it out loud, but the unspoken is understood. The judge has offered Jack an unusual gift—if he did it intentionally, Jack would rather not know

—but nevertheless, he's left it up to Jack to decide whether to accept it or not.

Can the ends justify the means? Is there any outcome that justifies him destroying Celeste's writing before the cops find it? Because once that piece of paper is made public, he might as well plead guilty. It's the best evidence that someone molested her, but unless he proves she wrote it before the night he took her home, Elias will argue it's the best evidence against Jack. He will be convicted in the press if not in the courtroom.

Can the ends justify the means? He thought a lot about that question the first time he ran for office. He knew no city would elect a prosecutor who didn't support capital punishment, so he bowed to pressure from the political party bigwigs and let the voters believe he did.

He allowed himself to be convinced that the good achieved in office would outweigh the lie—because if he's honest with himself, failure to put a voice to his position on the issue
was
a lie. He let himself believe the ends
could
justify the means, only to learn the harsh lesson that, despite best intentions, lies will always come back to bite you in the ass.

But what if the means contribute to the conviction of an innocent man, a clearly unjust end? What then?

"I need to talk to Claire."

"You shouldn't have to think about this,"

she says when he calls back. Her voice is stronger now. She evidently took the few minutes to compose herself.

He knows what he wants to do, what he
should
do. He called Claire because he was certain she'd provide the courage to do it. He thought he knew where she'd stand, because this is Claire. Claire, who always knows right from wrong. Claire, who just a few hours ago tried to make him feel like a criminal for even taking the page out of the notebook.

He must misunderstand.

"Are you there?" she demands.

"Yeah, I just . . . I'm not sure what you're saying."

"You need to do what you need to do.

For yourself. For us."

Like the judge, like Earl, she won't say it out loud. But he now gets it. A fist forms in his stomach, and he feels like any minute the fist will punch its way up his throat. This isn't the same woman he's known since their first year of law school, when he spotted her across the Pit and fell hopelessly in love. Has he done this to her?

"Do you hear me?" she asks.

"Yeah, I hear you." He stares at the blank, flat screen television on the far wall, thinks about what they'll say tomorrow, all those cogs in the media machine who think they know him. Who think they know what's in his mind, his heart. "Can you let me talk to one of the cops?"

Earl, who until this point kept his back to Jack and pretended not to eavesdrop on the conversation, turns to him.
What
are you doing?
he mouths.

"Why?" Claire asks.

"Claire, please just put one of them on the phone, okay?"

She sighs a little too loudly and then calls one over. The small speaker at his ear transmits the fumblings of the phone being passed unexpectedly to another person.

"Mr. Hilliard?" an officer says tentatively.

Jack takes a deep breath. "It's in my briefcase, in our study. Mrs. Hilliard can show you."

"Uh, I . . . " he stutters. He didn't anticipate this.

"Just don't scare my kids anymore, okay? Whatever you do, please don't traumatize my kids."