by D. W. Buffa
“That’s a lie!” cried Connally, shooting straight up from the chair. “You can’t accuse me of… !”
“Accuse you? You accused yourself! What do you think you’ve done here, claiming you never heard of Lincoln Edwards when, as these documents plainly show, Lincoln Edwards is you! But there’s more to it than that, Mr. Connally. We’re not quite through.
There’s one thing I haven’t yet asked you about.”
There was one more document left. I pulled it from the file and while everyone watched folded it carefully in half. I held the bottom half in front of Connally’s eyes.
“What does it say, Mr. Connally? Read it out loud, so the jury can hear.”
When Connally saw what it said, he refused. “What does this have to do with me?”
“Here,” I said as I gave him the document. “Read the whole thing; read it from the very beginning; read out loud to the jury this message that Lincoln Edwards— that you—sent to the president of the United States.”
Unfolding it, he started to read. “To POTUS, from Lincoln Edwards. We used this in South Carolina. It worked then, it will work even better now…”
The hand that held it dropped into his lap. He looked at me with a puzzled expression, as if he could not understand how anyone had found out.
I had worked on it so hard, pulling it all together in my mind, that now when I finished what he had started it was like a finger drawing each letter on a steam-covered mirror.
I read more from the e-mail. “‘It worked then, it will work even better now. We have a witness to say that the girl was pushed out the window and that Browning covered it up. This woman was at the hotel when it happened. Her statement will come out as a written confession found among her papers after her death.’”
I looked at Connally. “Isn’t that what it says? Did I leave anything out? Isn’t that exactly what you said to the president? And isn’t that exactly what you did?”
Trembling with rage, he glared at me and did not say a word.
“There is one other thing, though, isn’t there? The date you sent this to the president. It’s three weeks before Mrs. Morgan’s lawyer discovered her ‘posthumous confession’ in a sealed envelope that had been found in a desk drawer in her home.”
I waved my hand in a gesture of disgust. “That’s all.
No more questions. No more lies!”
Caminetti was already on his feet, protesting.
“Do you have any questions you wish to ask this witness, Mr. Caminetti?” asked Scarborough with a stern glance. “If not, counsel in chambers. Now, if you please!” he cried as he stalked off the bench.
He was furious, pacing up and down that opulent room as if he wanted to beat his fists against the wall.
The moment Caminetti and I came through the door, he began to jab his finger in the air.
“Tell me you didn’t know anything about this! Tell me this is all a great shock and surprise! Tell me you haven’t used your office to aid and abet a scheme of perjured testimony and forged evidence. Tell me that you didn’t know anything about this. Tell me—or I swear to you that if it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll have your job, your license, and your freedom. Oh, yes, make no mistake, Mr. Caminetti—I’ll make certain you’re prosecuted for everything the law can invent. I’ll make sure you go to prison for so long that by the time you get out no one will remember why you went.”
Caminetti’s face was ash white, but whether it was from anger or fear I could not tell.
“I don’t know anything about any of this. I’ve never seen any of what Antonelli just produced in court. I don’t know where it came from, and I don’t know how he got it.”
With his legs spread wide apart, Scarborough held his hands behind his back. A grim, determined look on his face, he searched Caminetti’s eyes.
“Is there any reason to doubt the authenticity of the documents? The witness authenticated them himself, did he not, when he acknowledged the identification numbers and described the system that produced them?”
Under pressure, Caminetti was forced to agree.
“Then there is no question what we have to do, is there? All right, then, back to court. But don’t think for a moment that the matter ends here. There will be an investigation into the conduct of your office. There should be no question about that. Are we clear?”
“We took the case and the evidence we got. We had no reason to think anyone lied. How could we have known about something that apparently was only known inside the White House itself?”
“Antonelli found out,” replied Scarborough, unmoved.
“You’re not supposed to take the evidence as it comes; you’re supposed to see if it’s true.” A look of bitter disappointment blazed in his eyes. “Doesn’t anyone care about anything anymore except whatever it takes to win?” he ordered us back to court. As I followed Caminetti down the narrow corridor I began to feel a sense of relief. It was almost over. There was nothing more I had to do, no more witnesses to question, no more arguments about the law. Caminetti was just about to open the door when he turned around and looked me straight in the eye.
“I didn’t know anything about this.”
That was all, a simple statement of fact, given without apology or any suggestion that one was required. That was all he owed me, and that was all he gave. He did not wait for my reaction; he was not interested in anything I might have to say. He opened the door and walked quickly across the front of the courtroom to his chair.
The silence inside the courtroom was uneasy, the tension electric, as everyone waited to see what would happen next. Minutes passed, and it seemed like hours.
Nothing could happen without Scarborough, and the wait went on. It was so deathly quiet I was afraid to whisper anything to Haviland for fear that no matter how softly I spoke it would be overheard. All I could do was look at him once and nod, a gesture that had no more meaning to him than that things were under control. I glanced over my shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gisela’s face. I knew she was there, probably in the back, but I could not find her; and so I sat back and fiddled with my tie and wondered how much longer it would be.
The door flew open and Scarborough, all business, marched to the bench. His lips pressed tightly together, he glanced at the jurors in a way that seemed to acknowledge not just the part they played, but the paramount importance of what they did. He did not look at Caminetti and he did not look at me.
“There are some cases—not many, but a few—in which something happens that removes any doubt about what the outcome should be. When that happens it becomes the obligation of the court to make certain that justice is done and that the proceedings come to a stop.”
Scarborough paused and for a moment gazed out at the courtroom packed with reporters holding their collective breath as they waited for what now seemed inevitable but had yet to be said.
“It is the opinion of the court that after the testimony of Mr. Arthur Connally the evidence against the defendant, Jamison Scott Haviland, is not sufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty. Therefore, acting on its own motion, the court directs that a verdict of not guilty be entered on the record. The defendant is free to go. The jury is thanked for its service in this case.” Scarborough rose from the bench. “Court will be adjourned.”
The courtroom was bedlam. The jury quickly filed out of the jury box. Carrying her machine, the court reporter followed right behind. Caminetti shook my hand, and then, without hesitation, shook hands with Haviland, wished him good luck, and then vanished into the crowd, giving short, efficient answers each time a question came booming over all the noise.
Gisela was standing on her tiptoes at the back of the courtroom, following Caminetti with her eyes. She held a cell phone to her ear, covering her other ear to keep out the noise. She began to talk rapidly, intent on each word, no longer interested in Caminetti or anyone else.
Hoping to catch her eye, I waited for a moment, but she stared straight ahead, too caught up in what
she was saying to look around. When she put away the phone, I called out to her, telling her to wait, but she did not hear me and I lost her in the crowd.
I grabbed my briefcase from beside the table and, with Haviland close behind me, managed to find our way out the back.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked as we stood on the street outside.
“Annie’s mother is here. You were going to call her as a witness,” he reminded me. “I think I’ll take her to dinner. I haven’t seen her in years. Why don’t you come along?”
“No,” I said, “but give her my best.” Jimmy turned to go. “She never had any doubt,” I called after him. “She never believed for a minute that you had anything to do with Annie’s death.” he turned and smiled and for just a moment in that dazzling shiny New York sun he looked exactly like the Jimmy Haviland I used to know, years ago, when we were both still young.
CHAPTER 25
A snowstorm had turned Central Park white. The sun had broken through in the early afternoon, but the air was still crystal cold.
Wearing an ankle-length fur coat, a long cashmere scarf wrapped around her head, and dark glasses to protect her eyes against the glare, Joanna passed unrecognized as she crossed Fifth Avenue and came toward the bench where I sat waiting at the edge of the park.
“You must be freezing.” She touched the lapel of my sports jacket with her gloved hand. “Not even a sweater!”
“I’m all right. It feels good; besides, the sun is out, so how cold can it get?”
We began to walk, neither one of us speaking a word.
After a block or so, she looked up at me and smiled.
“Let’s go through the park. We have time.” she took my arm, and we followed a path that did not take us too far from the street.
“I won’t ask if you were surprised to hear from me.
You must have known I’d call.”
“I didn’t know that at all. To tell you the truth, I didn’t think I would see you again after that day we had lunch in Georgetown.” her hand tightened around my arm. She walked slowly, more slowly with each step she took, hanging on to me as if we were two old friends who had all the time in the world and could do anything we liked.
“I made a reservation for lunch—Is that all right?” she swung around so she could see my face. A strange, lonely smile crossed over her mouth. I could not see her eyes—the dark glasses she wore were impenetrable— but the mood was unmistakable.
“It’s all right,” I said quietly. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“Fine? No, I don’t think so; never fine, never that.”
The smile took on the aspect of a brave front, a refusal to yield another inch to what she felt inside.
“You’re going to keep the apartment, aren’t you?” she asked as she let go of my arm and we again began to walk.
“Jimmy Haviland couldn’t afford to pay me anything.
I didn’t take the case to make money.”
“You never did anything for money; that’s why you’re so good at what you do.”
That was the way she remembered me; but then, she had not known me in years.
“I made a lot of money doing what I do.”
“But even if Jimmy Haviland had been able to pay you something, you would not have taken money from him.” she shook her head emphatically and began to walk a little faster. “But you weren’t just defending him, were you? You were defending the famous Thomas Browning.”
Joanna stopped and searched my eyes. “That is what the case was about. If there was any doubt about that before, there certainly isn’t now. You were defending Thomas Browning, and besides that, you saved his life. There isn’t any amount of money that can ever pay what you deserve. He wants you to have the apartment. It was his idea. He owes you that much, and more.”
I laughed at how insistent she seemed. “Do you know how much that apartment must be worth?”
“I don’t know what anything is worth. But it isn’t enough, not for what you’ve done.” she looked at me a moment longer, a strange quizzical expression on her mouth; then, for no apparent reason, she tossed her head and laughed. She skipped ahead a few steps, knelt down and scooped up a handful of snow, packed it tight and with the awkward stiff-armed motion of a girl who had never been athletic, let it fly, pink and silver under the glimmering sky.
“You need a place to live in New York!” she cried in a vibrant, full-throated voice. She scooped another handful of snow and threw it as far as she could.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve reached that age.” She took off the dark glasses and looked at me, something sad and nostalgic in her eyes. “Don’t you remember? That summer, here in New York, when we’d go for walks here in the park, and you would see someone the age you are now with a young woman the age I was then. Remember what you used to say? You used to tease me with it. You’d say that you were going to come back to New York when you were that old, because it was the only place you could be with a girl that young and not be arrested!”
The memory of it enlivened her, made her forget everything that had happened since. “And so now here you are, just as you said,” she went on, her eyes sparkling with a mischief of their own, “with an apartment on the park, and—what shall we say?—a woman considerably younger than yourself.”
“Gisela?” I blurted out, embarrassed without quite knowing why.
Joanna seemed delighted. “Gisela Hoffman, yes.
Don’t look like that! Did you think it was some kind of secret, that no one knew? Half the men in Washington envy you, a man your age with a beautiful young woman like her.”
Joanna took my arm and gave it a gentle tug. “You never thought about it, did you?—the difference in your age. I think that’s charming,” she said, walking now with a more carefree step. “And so like you. You were always like that, so caught up in what you were doing that you didn’t always notice what was going on around you. But do you think that’s any different than those other men, the ones you used to tease me about, the ones we used to see here, in the park? Do you think they thought very much about the differences in age? Or do you think they just did what they wanted to because they could?”
We were getting near the end of the park. There were more people on the pathway. A few of them looked at Joanna and then looked again. She put on the dark glasses and held my arm tight.
“Is it serious—you and the girl?” Before I could answer, she added in a solemn-sounding voice, “I hope it is. It would be nice to think of you happy and content.
It would help make some sense out of all this.”
I started to explain that I did not know what it was, how serious it could be, or if it could be serious at all. We had planned to go away somewhere after the trial, somewhere we could spend time alone, but the trial had unleashed a firestorm which, as Joanna knew better than I, had only just begun.
“It’s been almost three weeks. She’s been here two weekends, and I’ve been down there once. She had to report on the trial; then, after Arthur Connally had to resign… Well, you know everything that’s happened after that: one major story right after the other. And now these rumors about whether the man who shot Agent Powell had links to forces overseas. So, is it serious? We’ll see.”
“But you’re going to stay here, in New York?”
“You mean now that I have a decent place to live?”
“It’s a little like the place my parents had.
Remember?”
I put my arm around her shoulder and hugged her.
“I think about your father a lot.”
“He was almost as sad you left as…” She shook her head. “No, I promised myself I wouldn’t do that. Not today.”
We reached the sidewalk outside the park, across the street from the Plaza Hotel. Grinning at the way my breath blew cloud-like into the blue frigid air, I took her hand as we dashed through the traffic to the other side.
“Connally resigned in disgrace; Wal
ker is trailing badly in the polls. Do you think he’ll pull out or try to fight it to the end? He doesn’t have a chance of winning, though—does he?” I asked, chattering away as the doorman held open the door and we went inside.
“Browning is going to be president. No one can stop him now.”
“Thanks to you,” said Joanna in an odd, distant voice.
“It’s what he’s always wanted. I think he’ll be a great president. No, I’m sure he will. And he owes it all to you.
How strange that is, that it should have worked out like this.”
At the entrance to the grill where she had made reservations, she pulled me off to the side. “Do you mind if we don’t have lunch? I’m not hungry, but I could use a drink.”
At a table in the far corner, Joanna sat with her back to the room. She slid her arms out of her coat and let it drop over the chair. She untied the scarf and with a furtive glance over her shoulder removed the dark glasses from her eyes.
“We had lunch here a couple of times that summer.
Remember that?”
There was more than nostalgia in her eyes, more than quiet desperation; there was something close to fear.
Puzzled, and a little worried, I was about to ask her what was wrong, when the waiter brought our drinks and Joanna’s mood abruptly changed. She began to talk about that summer in New York, and she could not stop.
“Remember I had that job at J. Walter Thompson, the big advertising agency?”
Joanna’s eyes had a sheen to them, a kind of glaze, as if the light inside them was shining on something old, something lost.
“Do you remember the man I worked for? Mr.
Everett? We were so formal in those days, I must have known his first name, but I’ve quite forgotten what it was.” she took another drink, put it down and, watching her reflection, smiled into the glass.
“I imagined he must have wanted to be a writer. He graduated from Yale in English Literature. But he got married instead and took a job in advertising.” she finished off the drink, but she did not want another. “I have to go.”