Losing Faith (22 page)

Leeds lays out the instructions for tomorrow’s session, which are nearly word for word what Rachel tells the witnesses she preps:
Listen to the question, wait until it’s finished, make sure you understand it, think about your answer before saying anything, answer the question and
only
the question, and then stop. And above all else, don’t volunteer
anything.
He omits the most important one—to tell the truth—but perhaps that’s because he thinks it’s implied.

They spend the next four hours going through a mock interview. Leeds plays Donnelly’s part, asking the questions in a surly manner, and Alyssa acts as defender, the role Leeds will play when they do it for real. Rachel has done this playacting as inquisitor a hundred times herself and finds it easier being a witness than a questioner. She doesn’t have to strategize or plot, but simply respond to the questions as succinctly as she can.

“I think you’re ready,” Leeds declares after the question-and-answer game. “Just follow my rules, and you’ll do fine.”

Rachel smiles at him, suggesting agreement, but something tells her that it’s not going to be that easy.

32

A
s soon as he returns to Cromwell Altman, Sam Rosenthal enters Aaron’s office to run down the particulars of his almost-breakfast with Fitz.

“They know about the affair, and so we need to assume you’re at least a target, if not the main target, in all of this,” he says, even before taking a seat in Aaron’s guest chair.

Aaron greets the news with a heavy sigh. “If they already know about the affair, why can’t I go in and tell them my story about Garkov’s blackmail? Maybe that will get them to refocus their energies on him.”

“Among other things, because you can’t tell your story,” Rosenthal says. “The attorney-client privilege is going to block you from revealing anything Garkov said to you.”

“The threat Garkov made isn’t privileged. Crime-fraud exception.”

Rosenthal’s response is the slightest raise of his brow. It might be indiscernible to most people, but Aaron reads it as a strong rebuke. If it were translated into words, it would say,
Do you
really
need me to explain this to you?

“Even if that’s true,” Rosenthal says slowly, “and you know as well as I do that it’s a debatable issue, admitting that Garkov was blackmailing you, or that you were in a conspiracy with him to blackmail Judge Nichols, would be suicide. They may know about the affair, but God willing, they’ll never learn about the blackmail. And it’s the blackmail that gives you a motive. Besides, are you actually thinking you’re going to admit you saw her on the night of the murder? And
you know as well as anyone else, you can’t go in there half-pregnant. You tell the truth or you shut the hell up. I know it’s frustrating not to defend yourself, Aaron, but this is not the time or the place to put on your defense. If they want to indict, nothing you say is going to change that. All talking to them does is lock you into a story, which very likely will not be the best defense when all the evidence is known.”

Aaron feels appropriately chastened. He’s thinking like a client, not a lawyer.

Just like when a hurricane approaches, the safest course in a criminal investigation is to hunker down and pray that it passes you by. And if it doesn’t, then you pray that the damage can be contained. The one thing you
never
do is anything that makes you an easier target.

“Okay, you’re right. We stay away.”

Even though he knows inaction is the proper course, Aaron still can’t help but wonder just how complete the destruction is going to be once this particular storm passes.

RACHEL HAS THE DISTINCT
impression that Aaron is avoiding her. She can’t really blame him if he is. She’s said it to clients a thousand times herself: when the prosecutors ask,
Who did you speak to about the facts of the case?
you want the answer to be
My lawyer and no one else
, so as to not permit the claim that they were conspiring with anyone to get their stories straight.

But she can’t let the opportunity of Aaron alone at the Pierre go untapped. She needs him to know that she’s his for the asking.

“Hey, you,” she says after knocking on Aaron’s open office door.

When Aaron smiles at her, she realizes she was worrying about nothing. He’s just as happy to see her.

“Hey yourself,” he says.

“I was wondering if you wanted to get a drink after work today.”

Aaron’s smile recedes. She can actually see his face tighten.

“Is something wrong?” he asks.

“Oh, I’m sorry. No. I didn’t mean to worry you. I met with Rich Leeds this morning, and I’m meeting with the AUSA tomorrow, but all is good. I just hate the idea of you being all alone in a hotel room, ordering room service, that’s all.”

For the second time, Aaron looks concerned. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I should have told you sooner . . . but I’ve moved back home. It turned out to be just a minor kerfuffle after all.”

“Oh,” she says.

Just then, Sam Rosenthal enters Aaron’s office. Rachel wonders if it’s her imagination, but she senses that Rosenthal is looking at her like a protective parent who thinks that she’s not a good influence on his son.

“I need to . . . I’m late for something,” Rachel says, trying to come up with an excuse to leave before Rosenthal asks her to go.

As if he senses her nervousness, Aaron smiles to put her at ease. “If we don’t talk tomorrow because . . . of your other engagement down at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I’ll find you at the prom for sure. Just so you’ll recognize me, I’ll be the guy wearing a tuxedo.”

WHEN RACHEL’S OUT THE
door and not within earshot, Rosenthal says, “You know she’s a witness now, right?”

“I trust her, Sam. I daresay almost as much as I trust you.”

Aaron knows that he has not assuaged Rosenthal’s concerns. Part of that is because Rosenthal worries about everything. But on this score, Aaron knows there’s some cause for concern when a woman who knows him as well as Rachel is providing evidence to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

33

J
esus Christ Superstar.

That is the Brunswick Academy high school musical this year. There was some grumbling about whether it was appropriate because of its religious theme, which became louder when the school cast Lindsay as Judas and another girl as Jesus, with the explanation for the unusual casting being that none of the boys who auditioned could sing.

The Brunswick auditorium is the size of a small Broadway theater, with a capacity of more than a thousand. The Littmans have seats toward the middle, on the aisle. Samantha, who’s never been one for public performing, sits between her parents.

After the overture, Lindsay has the first song. Her singing voice has always been something of a marvel to Aaron. It’s a skill he does not possess, but one that is so present in his daughter that at times it seems like magic to him. Cynthia credits her side of the family for Lindsay’s soprano range, but to Aaron’s way of thinking, it is something unique to Lindsay, setting her apart from him and Cynthia both.

After the show, the four of them go to a Mexican restaurant a few blocks south of the school. It’s one of the girls’ favorite after-school haunts, the kind of place that only has tacos and burritos on the menu.

It is the first time since Aaron’s return that Cynthia seems happy. The girls, too, appear to be in excellent spirits. Lindsay is pleased with her performance, and Samantha, as always, is her number one fan.

“I thought Cameron was great too,” Lindsay says, referring to the
girl who played Jesus. “She was so freaked out that we had to kiss, though. You know, when Judas signals to the Roman guards to arrest Jesus with a kiss? I kept saying, it’s no big deal. It’s a kiss on the cheek. So, once, during rehearsal, she turns to allow me to do the kiss, and then I just planted one on her lips.”

“You didn’t!” Samantha squeals.

“Swear to God,” Lindsay says. “And, for whatever reason, after that, Cameron didn’t mind at all when I kissed her.”

Aaron is brought back to years of this dynamic. The way the girls talk to each other as if no one else is around. In the past, he and Cynthia would sit quietly by, the only communication between them expressions of parental pride.

Tonight, however, when he catches Cynthia’s eye, she looks away. It’s as if she is sharing the same memory but wraps it with an entirely different meaning. For her, perhaps, those times are forever behind them, whereas Aaron still clings to the hope that their past has been a prelude to an even happier future.

The moment they arrive back at the apartment, the girls rush to their respective bedrooms, leaving Aaron alone with his wife. “That was really nice,” Aaron says, trying his best to make it sound like a peace offering.

“I think the girls enjoyed all of us being together,” Cynthia says.

“I’d like to . . . I was going to say make amends, but what I really want is to be better, and for us to be happy. We have so little time before the girls go off to college, and I don’t want to waste it.”

Cynthia is not a cruel person, and so Aaron knows that her first instinct will not be to hurt him. But she’s also not a hopeless romantic. It’s the scientist in her, he thinks, that causes her to think about love and life through a more pragmatic lens.

“I know you do, Aaron. I just don’t know if it’s possible. We’ve been . . .
drifting
for so long . . . and all during that time I was hoping that we’d find some way to come back together. To what we once
had. I mean, if you’d come to this epiphany then . . . But what can I say—you didn’t.”

“All I can do is try to be a better person now, Cynthia. I wish I could undo the past, but I can’t.”

“I hope there’s a happy ending in store for us too, Aaron. But sometimes, I don’t know . . . things happen and they’re just too heavy for a relationship to support. I’m not saying that’s what’s happened between us, but I guess I am saying that I’m not sure it hasn’t. But the good news is that I’m trying too. And tonight was nice. So, I guess let’s keep trying and see where that takes us.”

Where it takes Aaron that evening is back to the guest room.

In the darkness, he contemplates the extent to which his love wreaks such havoc on its recipients. Faith. Cynthia. The twins. Maybe Rosenthal and the firm too.

The lawyer in him sets up the argument. He’s made mistakes, yes. And those mistakes caused suffering for others, it’s true. But he now repudiates that conduct and is willing to live a better life. What more can he do than that?

Aaron knows, however, that any judge hearing that plea would dismiss it out of hand. The entire criminal justice system is predicated on the principle that it’s the conduct—not the contrition after being caught—that determines the appropriate punishment.

Which means that in a fair world, he would not be entitled to another chance. Not after all he’s done. And that leads him to pray that the world is truly not fair.

34

R
achel sits beside Richard Leeds at a badly nicked wooden table as they wait for the prosecution team to arrive. On Rachel’s other flank is Alyssa Sanders.

Sanders’s role is one that Rachel knows all too well. She’s the record. She’ll attempt to transcribe every word that’s said, like a human Dictaphone. It would be far more efficient if someone actually recorded the proceeding, but if they did, the prosecutors would have to turn that recording over to the defendant in discovery, which they’re loath to do. So instead, Sanders takes notes for the defense, and a junior prosecutor does the same for the other side. Because these notes are not verbatim transcripts, they magically become shielded from discovery by the attorney work-product doctrine, on the theory that they have become infused with attorney thought process.

Victoria Donnelly is not at all the way Rachel imagined her. Rachel doesn’t know why, but she pictured something of a seductress. The first word that comes to mind upon seeing Victoria Donnelly, however, is
intense
.

After a hearty, “Good morning, everybody,” Donnelly introduces her entourage. “This is FBI special agent Kevin Lacey, whom I believe you’ve spoken to, Ms. London. And my colleague here at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Leonard Stanton, and Christopher Covello, the head of the Criminal Division.”

While everyone is still trading business cards, the U.S. attorney enters. “I hope I’m not late,” Fitz says.

Rachel’s immediate instinct is that Fitz’s presence is a harbinger of
very bad things to come. The U.S. attorney doesn’t sit in on meetings to hear the attorney-client privilege invoked. If Fitz is taking the time to be here, this meeting is most certainly about something other than Garkov.

After Donnelly gives the standard U.S. Attorneys’ spiel about the perils of lying, she begins the interview by asking Rachel to recite her educational background. Rachel tells the group that she received her undergraduate degree from Stanford (leaving out the part about how things ended there, of course) and thereafter graduated from Columbia Law School. She anticipates that the next question will be to go through her employment, and so she volunteers that she clerked for Judge Davis (again omitting the way her clerkship ended) and then joined Cromwell Altman.

Richard Leeds takes the opportunity to whisper in her ear. “Don’t volunteer. Not even on something like that.”

She nods, bracing herself for the fact that now that the preliminaries are over, Donnelly is going to get to the stuff that matters.

Donnelly says, “Ms. London, did Mr. Garkov ever say anything to you that suggested he might harm Judge Nichols?”

“Don’t answer that,” Leeds immediately says, looking at Rachel as if he’s a knight in shining armor. “Come on, it’s privileged, Victoria. You know that.”

“No, it isn’t, Rich. The violent-crime exception trumps the privilege.”

“Not
after
the crime,” Leeds counters.