The Company You Keep (47 page)

By way of response I turned back to the hole I was digging. For a moment I worked, until my shovel hit something hard. Then I leaned down into the grass for a time, then rose again, holding a thin tin box.

“Remember this?”

Wonderingly, she reached out for the box I was proffering, and opened it to reveal, wrapped in cellophane, five carefully rolled joints and a pack of matches from the West End Bar, in New York.

“Jesus, Jasey. I thought you were burying the raccoon.”

I was smiling. “Twenty-three years. Think this’ll still get us off?”

“I don’t know.”

“Um-hmm. I sealed it tight.” I reached across the distance between us, not looking at her, and took the box back. “Did you bring any soap?”

“Yeah. In my pack. By the pond.”

“So, I’m going to take a bath in the pond. If you’ll lend me some soap. Then I’m going to go clean up the cabin, no matter what you say. See, I have nowhere else to go.”

“And me?” She spoke to my back as I began to walk to the water.

“You, if you’ll hang out, I’ll make you some dinner.” I spoke without looking back. “Believe it or not, I packed in a bottle of wine. Then we can find out if that dope’s any good.”

I stood, watching him walk away.

Thinking, so that’s how you meet Jason, is it?

Clean up in a lake, cook dinner, drink a bottle of wine, and blow a joint?

As if nothing has changed, and nothing has happened, and you can take up the conversation just where you left it, twenty-two years before.

Moving slowly, now, I followed him over the uncut meadows to the edge of the lake.

Sharon Solarz, in person, was a handsome woman with thick black hair and a face that had aged hard, bringing out a certain pugnacity that would not, in my opinion, sit well with a jury.

In the Traverse City courthouse, she stood while Gillian Morrealle entered a not guilty plea to the judge and the judge remanded her without bail to await a trial date some six weeks forward. Afterward, Sharon was escorted out, handcuffed, and Gillian went out to face the reporters on the courthouse steps. I, alone among the reporters, made my way over to Rebeccah’s dad.

It was, when you think about it, a pretty comical situation. But of course, I wasn’t feeling very funny. To the contrary, of course, I was pissed. The time when Osborne had a choice about talking to me was long past, and I had been planning to make that clear to him. In the event, he seemed to know it already, because he watched me approach with an impassive face, then shook my hand without surprise and, as if we had an appointment, walked with me out of the courthouse, away from the press, and down the street to his car.

In town, the day was hot. The weather forecast had called for a storm, and although there was no sign of it in the endless sky of blue, perhaps the heat did have an ominous quality. We didn’t talk about much of anything: what was happening between his daughter and me made it impossible, of course, to venture outside of our most impersonal business. For his part, while he clearly knew that his daughter’s
affective life was not within his control, I felt that he still wasn’t able entirely to conceal his dislike of me.

I didn’t take it personally. In fact, I didn’t think about it at all. All I wanted to do was to stand there and look at him. To look at him and try to understand what in the world he could conceivably be up to. Of course, since we were walking side by side, and the guy was huge, and my neck therefore wasn’t capable of the angle required to look up at his face, that was impossible. So instead I subjected the region about the level of his underarm to my interrogation, and waited for later to stare at him.

I got my chance, finally, to meet his eye when we reached his car and he stopped by the driver’s door, clearly showing that this was as good as it was going to get for me. So I took a breath and, speaking very carefully, pronounced the following words into the space between us.

“Mr. Osborne, I need to ask you some questions. They’re on the record, and they have consequences. I think you have to answer them.”

As soon as I’d spoken, I panicked briefly. Why was I the only journalist here? But he nodded, as serious as I, and I went on confessing my confusion, really, rather than accusing.

“It doesn’t make sense that Sinai abandoned his daughter to save himself, and you knew that when we first met.”

I saw calculation, but no surprise, behind his eyes as he considered that. Then he answered quietly:

“Yes. It doesn’t make sense. And I knew that.”

“The only thing that makes sense is that Jason Sinai has been searching for something or someone that could exculpate him.”

Again, he considered that. “Granted.”

Now I thought for a time, looking away, trying to choose my words.

“Could…could Mimi Lurie exculpate Jason Sinai?”

This time he answered readily, with a nod, as if I’d just settled something for him.

“I want to go off the record.”

That surprised me quite seriously. But I nodded, and he went on, this time in a surprisingly gentle voice. As if, suddenly, trying to help me.

“Sure she could. Exculpate him. But think it out, Mr. Schulberg.
First he’d have to find her and convince her to testify. And second, she’d have to surrender herself.”

I was totally lost. And because we were off the record, I told him so. “How does that work?”

He licked his lips. When he spoke, he lowered his voice. “Think it out. Think it out. Only one was in the bank with Dellesandro. That was Sharon. We know that because we know Sharon had gone through a training program and gotten a job as a teller. She could only do that under her own name, to get through the bank’s vetting process, right? Background check and such like. So where were Jason and Mimi?”

Watching up at him, thinking, I repeated the question to myself, utterly at sea. “In the car, of course. That’s the charge against them.”

“Exactly. In the car, the famous getaway car. So, Sharon left the bank, carrying one bag of money, and left Dellesandro inside the bank. He kept guard for two, three minutes until the car pulled up. Then he left. It was in that time that the shooting occurred.”

I nodded. “The shooting occurred while Dellesandro was alone. So what? They’re all still accessories.”

He answered in a flat voice, then watched my reaction. “Why did Sharon leave Dellesandro alone?”

What my reaction was, was to stare at him for a long time, trying to hide the mental effort I was making from showing in my eyes. “You tell me.”

“Mr. Schulberg, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But I do know that if there were two people out in that car, it shouldn’t have been necessary for Sharon Solarz to walk outside to call the driver. Do you follow me? One of the two should have been at the wheel of the car. The other should have been either in the bank, or keeping watch outside, ready to signal the driver to bring the car out. Instead, what happens? Sharon Solarz walks out of the bank, leaving Dellesandro alone. Why? Why did she do that?”

“Is there doubt? About who was in the car?”

Now, for the first time, Beck’s father let annoyance into his voice. “It’s not that there’s doubt. It’s that there’s no
witness
, Mr. Schulberg. You should know this.”

I nodded, my stomach plummeting. “I should know it.”

He stared at me for a moment, now, as if my ready admission had impressed him. Then he went on in a softer voice. “No one else noticed it either, if it’s any comfort. But think it out now. If Mimi was in the car alone, then she could testify to that. She could testify that Jason wasn’t there. And Sharon, if she wanted to, could corroborate.”

I absorbed that. And when I talked again, my voice rose slightly, like a child. “But what’s that mean? It’s a participant criminal’s testimony. So what?”

“Aha.” He paused, looking strangely, and incongruously, satisfied. “See, that’s why you’re not a lawyer. That’s
exactly
the point. If Mimi came out of twenty-two years’ hiding and surrendered herself to the police, without a negotiation, without a lawyer, expressly to testify that Jason wasn’t at the Bank of Michigan robbery, it would be what lawyers call a declaration against interest. In other words, she’d be giving testimony against her own self-interest, testimony that destroys her own possibilities of defense. For example, she couldn’t claim that Jason was the ringleader and forced her to do it under duress, which would have been a very convincing argument in her defense. She also couldn’t claim that Jason was there and she wasn’t. A declaration against interest is very strong piece of evidence, Mr. Schulberg—it even mitigates the rule against hearsay evidence, which is huge. Then, if Sharon concurred, Sinai would be effectively exculpated. You see what I’m saying? He’d be found innocent—with his brother and sister-in-law attending to this case, he’d be reunited with his daughter in days.”

My jaw may well have been hanging open. “So she would have to surrender…and Sinai is right now convincing her to give herself up to a jail term to save him?”

Again, the blandness of his tone seemed to be implying that he was telling me more than he was saying. “No. Not to save himself. That’s the point. To save his daughter.”

“But…” I was thinking hard, now, staring into this man’s sky-blue eyes. “If Sinai’s not guilty, why’s he been in hiding for the past twenty-two years?”

He smiled, again, softly and without humor.

“You tell me.”

Finally, I said: “To protect Mimi?”

“To protect
someone.
” He was speaking very softly now. “To protect someone, Mr. Schulberg. Maybe not Mimi. The point, I think, is that this is a guy who has been hiding someone’s secret for twenty-two years. Now, a bigger threat has presented itself. The threat of letting his daughter go to her mother. Think it out, Mr. Schulberg: if he thought that his daughter had any chance of being okay with her mother, would he be going through all this? Let me answer that for you, because you aren’t a father. If he thought Julia was going to take good care of his daughter, he’d let her go. There are few things worse than what Sinai’s doing to his daughter now. No. Jason Sinai’s had to weigh his daughter’s interest against the interest of the person he’s been protecting all these years. And this is the way he’s come out.”

I licked my lips. “If Mimi exculpates Sinai, will it be true? I mean, these guys have been lying their whole lives. Is this just another trick?”

Now he smiled a rueful smile. “Tell me something, Mr. Schulberg? Which is it? Are you a really good reporter, or incredibly lucky?”

That one was easy, and I answered it honestly. “Both.”

He nodded. “I hear you’re staying at my house in Point Betsie.”

“Yes, sir.” I repeated my question. “Is Sinai innocent?”

“I’ll call Rebeccah there with my answer this afternoon.”

This was the first answer he’d given me that wasn’t good enough, which disappointed me. I thought we understood each other. And so I spoke as follows.

“Mr. Osborne, what would the actual charge be against an FBI agent who failed to follow credible information about the whereabouts of a fugitive?”

It didn’t work. He answered agreeably. “I think there’d be a variety, actually. Mr. Schulberg?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re about to do a lot of damage to a lot of people. You have no idea how much.”

That wasn’t fair. I said: “That’s not fair. What choice do I have?”

“Just one. Give me five, six hours. The only thing that’ll change by
then will be that some innocent folk’ll have an easier time in the storm you’re unleashing. Trust me.”

And watching him, I found that I did.

I didn’t go back to Point Betsie, though.

What I did was, I filed my coverage of the Solarz arraignment by plugging my computer into my cell phone and writing it in the car.

Then I found a phone booth with a yellow pages.

I needed to find a camping store, and a car rental.

The camping store for some good topo maps.

The car rental to change the one I had for a four-wheel drive.

Your father and I made love that night. We bathed, ate. We drank the bottle of wine and smoked one of the joints. Then we made love. There was nothing awkward about it. Not to would have been awkward. What I wanted afterward was just to lie still on him with all my body weight. He must have understood that, because soon he stilled too.

There was no way to tell him: This is how you are to me. There was no way for him to know that it had always been like this with him, and although I had slept with strong and sensitive people, people whom I had loved or admired, it had always been true, it would always be true. There on the floor of the dark Linder cabin, a perfect continuity was established between the girl of eighteen who first slept with this man and the woman, now forty-five, whose skin lay next to his again.

He? For him, it was entirely different. He had not meant this to happen. I knew that as surely as if I were sharing his thoughts, as if the barely suppressed energy of his muscles were talking to me. I knew that if I looked, his eyes would be open, staring away at the moonlight in the window. This, it meant something other to him; he was doing it more
for
me than
with
me. I knew it with the surety of a prophecy.