“Would you be willing to testify?” Grimes asked.
“That I lied to the CID? What, are you crazy?”
“To clear the record. Clear your conscience,” Grimes said.
“I got no interest in visiting that nightmare again.”
“We’ll fly you out here first class,” Grimes said with a weak smile at Claire and a shrug.
“Hey, first-class trip to Quantico,” Fahey said. “What’s second prize? All-expenses-paid vacation in Leavenworth?”
“If you’d rather do it the hard way, we can subpoena you,” Claire said.
“Military courts can’t subpoena people,” Fahey said. “Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m not talking military courts,” she said. “I’m talking about issuing a subpoena through the U.S. attorney.”
A long silence. “Who says I’m going to cooperate once I get there?”
“The law,” Claire said. “You won’t have a choice.”
“Hey, you do what you gotta do,” Fahey said.
There was a click, and the line was dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
In the middle of the night, the phone rang again. Claire awoke with a hammering heart and pounding temples.
She let it ring. The answering machine would get it.
After five rings, the machine switched on, played her outgoing message, beeped. There was silence, then a click. She reached over, fumbled with the phone, and finally managed to turn off the ringer.
Her heartbeat slowing, she finally fell back asleep.
It didn’t ring again for three hours.
At five-fifty-six Monday morning, she awoke, glanced at the digital alarm clock, and knew she should get up and start preparing for court. Then she realized that the phone had been ringing, somewhere distant, somewhere in another room in the house. She remembered she’d turned off the ringer. She lay there in bed, her heart thumping again, and waited for the machine to get it.
This time a male voice came on over the answering machine. It was a youngish-sounding voice, crisp and authoritative. “Claire Heller,” he said.
She waited.
“Pick up the phone, it’s important.”
She reached over and picked it up. “Yes?”
“I have information for you,” the voice said.
“What kind of information?” She sat up slowly.
“For your trial.”
“Who’s this?”
“Information on Marks.”
“Who is this?”
Silence. Had he hung up?
“Lentini. You recognize the name?”
“Yes.”
“I need complete secrecy, and let me tell you right now, I won’t testify. I’m not testifying against him.”
“Can we meet?”
“Not at your house.”
“Where?”
“And with you only. Not with either of the other attorneys. Not your private eye either. I see anyone else, I take off.”
“How do you know I’m working with two attorneys?”
“I know people.”
“Is that how you got my number?”
“I can only meet at night. I have a job, and it’s not easy for me to get out of town.”
“I’ll meet you wherever it’s convenient for you.”
“Not near me. I won’t take that chance. Write this down.”
He gave her precise directions.
“Just you alone,” he said.
Annie was already at the breakfast table, wearing her feet pajamas and eating Cocoa Puffs. Claire, dressed in a handsome olive twill suit, kissed her and gave her a quick squeeze. “How’s my baby?”
“Goob,” Annie said through an immense mouthful.
“You going to paint with Jackie today?”
Annie nodded enthusiastically, eyes sparkling, and kept chewing. Claire made a large pot of coffee.
“Are you going to get Daddy out today?” Annie asked when she’d finally swallowed.
“I’m working on it. Might not be today, sweetie.”
“Can you and I play today?”
Claire hesitated. “I’m going to do my very, very best.” Then she said, “Yes, honey, we are, when I get home from work. We’ll play together. You, me, and Jackie-or just you and me, if you want.”
“Who’s taking my name in vain?” rasped Jackie as she dragged herself, dazed, into the kitchen. She leaned against the doorframe and massaged her forehead. “Morning, snookums.”
Claire took in Jackie’s long black Grateful Dead T-shirt and black sweatpants. She raised both hands and snapped her fingers in beatnik applause. “Dig those crazy threads, man.”
“It’s too early, Claire,” Jackie groaned, watching the coffee gurgle and hiss into the glass pot. “I need to mainline some of that caffeine.”
The phone rang.
“Not again,” Claire said. “Can you get it?”
“No,” Jackie said. “I can barely talk.”
It rang again. “Oh, God,” Claire said, and picked up the wall phone.
“Claire, it’s Winthrop.”
Winthrop Englander, the dean of Harvard Law School. Three guesses, she thought, what’s on his mind.
“Win, good morning,” she said.
“Claire, this is not a call I ever wanted to make,” he said.
“Win-”
“Is the report true?”
“Largely, yes.”
“This puts me in an extremely difficult position.”
“I understand. I’ll make only one excuse, which is to say that it happened a long time ago, and it was very bad judgment made at a time when my mother had just died.”
“I understand.”
“That doesn’t excuse it, Win, but-”
“It’s still going to be very difficult, Claire. You’ve been a valuable member of the faculty, an outstanding teacher, a real asset to the Law School.” She heard the verb tense; this was his version of the gold-watch retirement speech.
She wanted to ask him: If I told you about the incident, and no one else knew, would you still stick by your lofty principles? Or is it the Washington Post-and probably by now The New York Times and, by wire service, every other newspaper and broadcast medium in the country-that’s stiffening your sense of morality?
But she said, “I understand.”
“There will be all sorts of meetings and consultations. I’ll be in touch.”
She arrived at Quantico just in time to see the white van from the brig pull up to the building that housed the secure facility. From a distance she saw Tom step out, in full chains. He seemed small. She made a quick calculation: Did she want to catch his eye? To give him a hug? Increasingly she found it painful to make human contact with him before and after trial. Easier to treat him as just another client, one she rarely saw.
But he saw her first. “Claire,” he called out hoarsely.
She smiled, though smiling was the last thing she felt like doing this morning. Why burden him with her two hundred worries?
“Claire,” he said again, putting both cuffed arms out to her as if displaying them. An odd gesture.
She approached. His eyes glistened with tears. Puzzled, she hugged him. He couldn’t hug back, and it stabbed her heart. “It’s showtime,” she said with false good humor.
“Those bastards.” His voice was muffled.
She pulled away to see his face. He was crying now.
“Tom?”
“Goddamn them. I saw CNN this morning. They actually let me watch.”
“Oh,” she said.
“They want to go after me, that’s one thing. Now they’re trying to destroy you.” The guards stood by, eyeing them with hostility, though they knew enough by now not to interrupt.
“It’s true, Tom. I did it.”
“I don’t give a damn. It’s the past, it’s your private business…” Now he clenched both his hands into fists, and punched the air like a hobbled pugilist. His chains jingled. “Goddamn them, Claire. Come here, please. Will you hug me? These damned handcuffs.”
She hugged him, felt his face warm against hers.