Unsaid: A Novel (22 page)

“You what?” David stares at Jaycee in disbelief.

“I tried to free Cindy.”

“By breaking into a federal facility? That’s a federal crime. A felony.”

“I know that.”

“And of course you got caught.”

“On the way out, with Cindy in my arms.”

“Are they pressing charges? Maybe they don’t want the publicity, or—”

“They did and they are. Apparently, I’m to be made an example of the NIS ‘zero tolerance’ policy for criminal trespass. I was arrested at the facility and then booked and processed for, let’s see”—Jaycee counts on her fingers—“breaking and entering a federal facility, breaking and entering with the intent to steal federal property, theft of federal property, and criminal trespass. I went before a judge and now I’m out on bail.”

“What about the bribery? Did they charge you with conspiracy?”

“No. They don’t know about the custodian.”

“Good. Maybe you can give him up for a deal,” David says, thinking through the options. “Please tell me you didn’t enter a plea yet?”

“Not guilty, of course.”

“Damn. Why didn’t you call?” David answers his own question. “You tried, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes. You and several other lawyers.”

“Who’s the assistant US attorney assigned to the case?”

“I don’t know.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter. We know people in that office. I’ll make some calls and get you a deal to avoid a trial and any jail time… maybe probation and community service.”

“I’m not doing that. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not pleading guilty.”

“Reality check, Jaycee. You broke into a federal facility in an attempt to steal federal property. The fact that the property is alive
doesn’t matter. In the eyes of the law, what you did is no different than breaking into a post office to steal stamps.”

“But it is different. Cindy is different. I broke into a lab to save a sentient being from a life of torture.”

“We’ve been through this. It’s a great story for some mass mailing for one of the animal rights groups, but Cindy’s abilities are a complete irrelevancy under the law.”

“It shouldn’t be that way.”

“And Helena shouldn’t be dead. So what. ‘Shouldn’t be’ doesn’t change a damn thing.”

“You said the last time that there was no place to make the claim that Cindy is different from a chair. I’ve just given you a place—it will be at my trial; that Cindy is a being with the right to be free from torture will be my defense.”

“No judge is going to listen to that as a defense. No judge will let you present it to a jury.”

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t matter to the law you violated.”

“Necessity is a defense to unlawful entry,” Jaycee says with a law school professor’s assurance.

“What?”

“In New York, an action taken out of necessity to protect life is a defense to the crime of unlawful entry, including criminal trespass,” Jaycee recites confidently.

“How do you know that?”

She digs into her backpack, takes out a copy of
New York Criminal Law in a Nutshell,
and drops it onto the table between them.

I know from David’s law school days that the Nutshell books—an endless series covering virtually every law school subject—are a distillation of the so-called black letter law regarding the titled
subject. Law school students use the books to prepare for finals, which cover half a year, sometimes even a full year, of material in one grueling four-hour exam.

“Page one sixty-seven,” Jaycee says.

“You can’t plan an entire defense around one sentence in a Nutshell. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know. I need a lawyer. I’d like it to be you.”

“You still don’t get it. The defense of necessity to save life applies to human life only. End of story.”

“What about Matthew Hiasl Pan?”

“I’ve never heard of him. Is that going to be your expert witness?”

Jaycee takes out another paper from her backpack, a
Science News
article, and hands it to David. “He is a twenty-six-year-old chimpanzee in Austria. The Association Against Animal Factories brought suit in Austria to have him declared a non-human person. They took the case all the way to the Austrian Supreme Court. What if we make the same argument—Cindy is a non-human person?”

David glances at the article. “Yeah, I remember this. And how did that all work out for Matthew?” David asks, but from his tone it is clear he knows the answer.

“They lost.”

David shoves the article back to Jaycee. “Of course they lost.”

“But at least they tried. And Matthew couldn’t even sign. Let me show a jury what Cindy can do.”

“The judge won’t let you try. And even if I thought this would have a chance—and I don’t—I don’t do criminal defense work. You need someone who specializes in that.”

“I’m willing to take my chances with you.”

“But I’m not. You’re not even making sense. Why me?”

“Because Helena once said you were—”

“Don’t do that! Don’t use my wife in this.”

“I’m not. You asked me why—”

“Stop it.” David leans forward, his accusatory finger out and pointing. “Did you plan this whole thing? Break in, get caught, just to make your case that Cindy should be free? To argue that she’s a ‘non-human person’? Was this all just to further the cause?”

“I’m not here for a cause. They’re using my break-in to expedite the Department of Agriculture’s approval of Cindy’s transfer. I don’t really care about any other case or any other chimpanzee. This is about Cindy. I’ve raised her from a baby. I bottle-fed her. I taught her how to speak. She calls me by my name. Do you understand that? Even now she calls for me.” The raw emotion in Jaycee’s voice sends David back into his chair. “I’ve got the death of one chimpanzee on my hands. And now I’m going to have another.” Jaycee doesn’t even try to hold back her tears. “If I can get the jury to find my actions were justified, you know, get them to know Cindy as more than just a piece of property, then maybe I can make her too hot to transfer.”

David takes a deep breath in an effort to calm himself. “I’m sorry. I really am,” he says quietly. “There are excellent criminal defense lawyers and I will get—”

Jaycee waves David’s offer away before he even makes it. “Did Helena ever tell you what it was like to watch Charlie die?”

No, Jaycee, don’t do this.

“The chimpanzee you and Helena worked with? What’s that got—”

“Right. Worked with and then killed.”

No, no, no.

“C’mon now,” David says. “Isn’t it time to get over that? Helena beat herself up about that damn chimp for a long time. And for what? You guys didn’t even know what that professor was doing. You were deceived by an egotistical jerk, okay? It’s time to let that one go. Find another demon.”

David’s answer stops Jaycee dead in her tracks. I know what’s coming and I can’t do anything to prevent it.

“Is that what you think? That we didn’t know?”

“Of course you guys didn’t know. That’s what Helena said. She’d never purposefully destroy a healthy animal. Did you even really know my wife?”

“I did. Did you?” Jaycee asks. “We knew what was being done to Charlie every step of the way. It was a hep C study. Helena and I injected him—”

“—with some kind of super-nutrients to strengthen his liver.”

“Yes,” Jaycee says, almost in a whisper. “And we also injected him with the hepatitis virus to test the efficacy of the supplements. Make no mistake: We knew exactly what we were doing. We watched him die when the supplements did nothing to repair the damage we—me and your wife—had caused. That’s when I decided to learn all I could about chimpanzees, when I vowed that I’d never let another primate suffer the same fate if I could help it.”

“You’re lying. Helena would never have done that. And she certainly wouldn’t have lied to me about it.”

I know precisely what David is thinking because I feel exactly the same way: How could it have been a lie? How could it have been a lie when I confessed my story to you while warm in your arms after the accident that first night? How could it have been a lie when you comforted me afterward and then never left me? What kind of creature could maintain for so long a fable so fundamental
to the creation of us and to the myth of me? You looked at me our first night together and thought you saw grief—an emotion you know too well. But what you really observed was my guilt, and you were too innocent to know the difference.

“All I can tell you is that we thought we could save him. We thought—”

“How dare you!” David shouts. “You come into my house trying to manipulate me. And when that doesn’t work, you try to throw Helena under the bus so I’ll take your case?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Of course it is. You can get out now.”

“I’m sorry. I thought you knew. Helena was my friend and she learned from this mistake and so did I. We can’t correct that one, but we can save this life. I know we can.”

“You don’t care who you hurt, do you?”

“I didn’t come here to cause you more pain. I came because you understand what it’s like to lose someone you love.”

“Get the hell out of my house!” Even as David yells these words—his defense of me—I know that the seeds of doubt have been sown in his mind. He’s too good a lawyer not to consider Jaycee’s story a real possibility.

But Jaycee has no choice and nothing left to say. She grabs her coat and walks out.

I tried a hundred different times at the beginning to tell you the truth, David. I wanted you to know what I’d done, because I wanted your absolution. But each time my courage and then my words were lost to me. As time went on, it just became easier to hide the truth than to tell it. And then, when the end for me became visible, when I had to face the reality not only of my own mortality, but of my weaknesses as well, I was too scared. I just couldn’t do it.

Instead, I sought out Jaycee. That was not only a quest for understanding, but candidly also for the punishment I believed I deserved. Every interaction I observed between Jaycee and Cindy was another reminder of the life I’d taken and the debt that I still owed.

I can’t tell you, even at this late date, all the reasons I decided to take the job with Vartag knowing the true nature of my responsibilities in her study. Much of what I’d confessed to you during that first evening was true. It was an honor to be selected to work with her and she really made you believe in her work—that we could end human and non-human liver diseases within our generation. My name would forever be associated with the research for those cures. Charlie wouldn’t perish because I would be able to save him. I could defeat death.

I also was young and stupid and gullible and arrogant and Vartag was a supreme manipulator.

Even as I hear them now, all these excuses seem remarkably hollow and disingenuous.

These excuses are now my bequest. And instead of being able to offer you some type of motivation to take Jaycee’s case and perhaps save Cindy, my deception has only served to drive you light-years away from my last significant contribution to anything that really mattered.

How many times am I supposed to fail and be forced to witness the impact of my failures upon others? When will I have seen enough?

S
imon hasn’t aged well since I last saw him four years ago. The stroke and its aftermath—and perhaps something more—clearly have taken a toll on him. Simon had been a confident, energetic man with clear blue eyes that were a window to his mischievousness—“a real charmer,” as my grandmother used to say. The eyes were a little dulled now, the speech slightly slurred, and the animation dampened by the metal of his wheelchair.

Still, Simon is genuinely enthusiastic to see David. They sit next to each other at a long black marble table in a huge boardroom that has more fine furniture and even finer art than I ever owned.

The table is now loaded with several towering stacks of documents. Simon signs the final page of the final document with a gold fountain pen and then places the document on top of a stack of others with an
umph
of finality.

“Done?” Simon asks hopefully.

David nods. “Done.”

Simon wheels his chair away from the table to a shoulder-high
armoire set against the wall. He opens the doors to the armoire, revealing a modern refrigerated wine cabinet. A bottle of red wine has already been decanted and sits waiting for him. Simon carefully takes the bottle and decanter and wheels them both over to the table.

David examines the wine label, which is yellow with age and written in French by hand. The only thing David recognizes from the bottle is the date. “Am I reading this correctly? Nineteen thirty-five?”

“Yes. The year I was born. Two years before my family and I left this city and Europe just ahead of those Nazi pricks.”

“I didn’t know you were originally from Paris.”

“Yes. That’s why I’ve always been waiting to come back. I will die here. I’m home.” Simon closes his eyes and inhales, as if he’s trying to capture every last nuance of the city he clearly loves before it is too late. I know that feeling.

Finally, Simon opens his eyes. “Would you be kind enough to get the glasses from the cabinet?”

“Of course.” David retrieves the items and returns them to the table.

“Very few of these bottles left. It was my father’s last and greatest vintage.”

“I’m very fortunate then,” David says.

Simon waves him off. “It is only a bottle of wine. The only loyalty it knows is to the one who drinks it. But it’s the very least I could do to show you my appreciation for coming over here to take care of this. I know the timing is inconvenient.” Simon squeezes the sides of his wheelchair. “But it was not possible this time for me to come to you.”

“Well, it’s a lot of business.”

“Don’t fool yourself. Max will take most of that credit for himself. I can’t do anything about that. But I’ve impressed upon him and others on the executive committee the importance of your involvement.”

Simon swirls the maroon-colored wine in the decanter. “I also want you to know again how deeply sorry I am about Helena.”