Say Nothing

by Brad Parks

  Then it ended.

  All told, the counter on the bottom of the screen told me the video lasted for thirty-eight seconds.

  It aged me a hundred years.

  * * *

  The next several hours disappeared into a haze of despair. I couldn’t even pretend my thoughts had any logical order to them. I didn’t watch the video again—I’m quite sure it would have short-circuited what little connection to sanity I had left. Yet portions of it kept replaying in my mind.

  Around two A.M., I went into my office and opened my laptop. Desperate to plant different images in my head, I started scrolling through old family photos: Emma at Halloween, dressed up as (what else?) a Disney princess; Emma on our beach, covered in river mud; Emma baking muffins with her mother; Emma in her Easter dress, waiting to go to church, making funny faces at the camera; Emma in front of the US Capitol during a recent family trip to D.C.

  Eventually, I settled on a video from the previous winter. As the action began, Emma was bundled up with so many layers under her jacket her arms stuck out from her sides. There was a knit hat that looked like a kitty cat, pulled low over her forehead. She was lying faceup in a thin dusting of snow that hadn’t quite covered the grass tops.

  “What are you doing, Ems?” I heard my own voice ask.

  In response, she began flailing her arms and legs, flattening the snow.

  “I’m an angel, Daddy! I’m an angel!” she sang out, her voice high and clear and innocent.

  “You’re my angel, all right,” I said.

  This stopped her. “Am I really, Daddy?”

  “Emma Grace Sampson, you will always be my angel,” I assured her, which prompted her to happily continue her scissoring motion, a blissful smile on her face.

  I played it again, then a third time, watching through tears. When I returned to the guest room, I hoped I’d be able to keep that happy picture in the forefront of my thoughts. But it didn’t work. A vision of her on that bathroom floor kept coming back, like some relentless invading army.

  What came in behind it was what I recognized as the full range of my new emotional spectrum. The despair was followed by feelings of supreme impotence, soon to be replaced by rage, then heartache, then hatred, then anxiety, then rage again, then . . . Well, I’m not sure there’s been a word invented that adequately captures what it is to be a parent whose child is being put through a pain that you can observe—and even feel yourself—but are powerless to stop.

  I lay in the darkness and watched the window as an inky, starless sky gave way to a blue-gray dawn. Soon, an orange sunrise told me it was time to rise and start pretending some part of my soul wasn’t on fire.

  FORTY

  Alison seemed to be giving me extra space as I lugged myself through a prework routine that eschewed breakfast but included an extra cup of coffee.

  At some point during the evening, I had considered whether that horrifying footage ruled out any possibility of Alison’s being connected to what was happening to Emma. It was beyond unconscionable to think she would sanction Emma’s torture.

  But I also had to concede there was a possibility the video had been doctored in some way. I never did see the car battery, or whatever it was they used to administer what I presumed was a series of shocks to her body. Maybe what I had seen and heard was nothing more than high-tech fakery. Maybe that was just what I prayed for. And it left me in the same place I seemed to be stuck in regarding my wife’s potential duplicity: I just couldn’t be sure.

  Either way, I already knew I wasn’t going to tell her anything about the video. It was bad enough one of us had to see it.

  I soon shoved myself out the door and, after facing some extra traffic in the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, trudged through the entrance of my chambers, slightly later than usual.

  Mrs. Smith was sitting there, as prim as ever. I thought of Herb Thrift and his telephoto lens, wondering if perhaps he had already captured her having a secret rendezvous with Roland Hemans.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Smith,” I said.

  “Good morning, Judge. How are you feeling?”

  Could she tell I hadn’t slept that night? Was it that obvious? Then I remembered: I had called in sick the previous afternoon.

  “Much better, thank you,” I said, aware I probably didn’t look it. “Everything go okay yesterday?”

  “Just fine. Back to normal, really. Only a few calls from the media.”

  “I guess they’re finally getting that no comment means no comment.”

  “You did get one call this morning, though,” she said. “From that man who keeps calling. Steve Politi at HedgeofReason.”

  “You can give him the same no comment.”

  “I did. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  And then she uttered a sentence that woke me up:

  “There’s been a filing in Palgraff.”

  “Oh,” I said, even though I wanted to ask, What now?

  “I printed it out for you,” she said. “It’s on your desk.”

  “Thank you,” I said again.

  I walked slowly to my door and then, as soon it was closed behind me, sped across the room and went straight for the document that was sitting squarely in the middle of my desk. It had been filed by Roland Hemans on behalf of Denny Palgraff. And I nearly choked on my own spit when I read the words “Motion to Recuse.”

  Roland Hemans wanted me off the case.

  The core of his complaint was that I had a conflict of interest because ApotheGen Pharmaceuticals was a major financial supporter of Senator Blake Franklin. And Franklin was not just my “former employer and close associate”—as he asserted in one of his numbered chapters—but also “the godfather to one of Sampson’s children.”

  How did Roland Hemans know about that? It was far from common knowledge and had not been reported in the press after The Incident. It hadn’t even come up in my confirmation hearing, and those things dig up everything.

  I kept reading. ApotheGen had, according to Hemans, given “in excess of $2.1 million to efforts aimed at electing Blake Franklin, both in direct contributions to the Committee to Reelect Blake Franklin and indirectly, through activities of Forward Health America, a Political Action Committee controlled by ApotheGen CEO Barnaby Roberts.”

  Barnaby Roberts had also made “more than $150,000 in personal contributions to the campaigns of Blake Franklin, the maximum allowable under the law.”

  To put the allegation in more plain language: Blake Franklin was bought and paid for by ApotheGen—and, therefore, it owned me too.

  One of the exhibits was a scanned newspaper clipping of that clubby photo taken of us at his fund-raiser, the one of me holding that ridiculous champagne flute. His arm was wrapped around me. I looked, for all the world, like his lickspittle.

  But it was one of the other exhibits that really caught my eye. It was a photo of Blake and Barnaby Roberts sharing a meal together. Even more curious was the caption that ran with it on the Associated Press wire. The picture was three weeks old. It had been taken three Fridays earlier.

  The Palgraff case had already been filed at that point. It had already been assigned to my courtroom, even if I hadn’t been aware of it yet. Jeremy Freeland and my staff had been working on it. It had almost certainly come to Roberts’ attention. I wondered if Roberts knew about my connection to Blake at that point.

  Had they discussed the case? Had Blake promised to try to subtly (or not-so-subtly) lobby for a certain outcome on ApotheGen’s behalf? Say what you will about the influence of money on the political process and you probably can’t understate it. I just knew two-point-whatever million dollars bought a lot of it.

  So they had broken bread. And a week and a half later, my children were snatched.

  I couldn’t make Blake out as a kidnapper. He loved my kids. He was Emm
a’s godfather. He would never knowingly harm her.

  But had he told Barnaby Roberts certain things about me and our family—where we lived, where the kids went to school, what our patterns were? Had my mentor, in essence, sold me out?

  That was one of the reasons I could feel my jaw tightening. The other was the realization that was sinking in: Roland Hemans had nothing to do with Emma. He wouldn’t want a judge he controlled booted off the case.

  Likewise, Palgraff wasn’t a suspect. Hemans would never file a motion to recuse without his client’s knowledge and permission.

  So if it wasn’t Hemans or Palgraff, it had to be someone at ApotheGen. Like Barnaby Roberts. Or Paul Dresser.

  The only problem was—and this accounted for the renewed sense of helplessness now settling over me—I didn’t have an inkling of what to do about it.

  * * *

  The central paradox of a motion to recuse is that it must first be filed with the very judge you are looking to boot off the case—a judge who has, theoretically, already reviewed the matter and determined himself to be an acceptable arbiter. In order to avoid any appearance of impropriety, the judge will sometimes ask another judge to rule on the motion.

  With that in mind, I asked myself: If this was one of my colleagues being described in this motion, how would I rule?

  It wouldn’t even be a close call. I’d order the judge to recuse himself.

  Which was not an option here.

  I still had to file a response, of course. The many lawyers copied on this document would be waiting for it—probably with bated breath, since they were desperate to slow down the breakneck pace at which I had insisted discovery would proceed. I picked up the phone, tapped in Jeremy’s extension, and, when he picked up, said, “Will you come in here, please?”

  Two minutes later, he was sitting before me. I didn’t need to ask if he had read the motion. He was already biting his lip.

  “I’d like us to file a ruling on the motion to recuse today,” I said.

  “Absolutely. Might as well get this case off our plate.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “We’re going to deny the motion.”

  And then Jeremy Freeland, the steadfastly loyal career clerk who had never questioned a single one of my rulings in the four years we had worked together, said, “Judge, really?”

  “Yes, Jeremy.”

  “Judge, with all due respect, I just don’t see where you have a choice. You have to recuse yourself. It’s the only proper course of action. With this on top of the accusations from Congressman Jacobs? It’s too much. I mean, think about what Judge Byers—”

  “What about Judge Byers?”

  Jeremy had stopped biting his lip.

  “Listen, clerks talk,” he said softly. “I heard that Judge Byers suggested you stop hearing cases until the impeachment thing worked its way through. You know he could force your hand. The Judicial Council would fall in line with him. This is the time to show him how reasonable you are. And what a reasonable judge does with a motion like this is step aside. I’m not saying it’s true, what Hemans is alleging here. I’m just saying you need to think about how it looks.”

  I just stared at him, with his neatly tailored suit and his crisply knotted tie, feeling resentful of—or maybe just angry at—him and his heedless insouciance. This was all so theoretical to him. Just another neat, bloodless decision whose only ramification was what chatter it would create among the other clerks.

  And I hated him for it. He didn’t understand even one-one-hundredth of a percent of what was on the line here.

  “Judge, please,” he continued. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, sleep on it over the weekend or something? Or ask some other judges what they think?”

  “Why?” I snapped. “Because you asked me to recuse myself from this case last week and I wouldn’t do it? Because you still have a bug up your ass you won’t explain?”

  His mouth hung open.

  “Jeremy, for whatever you or Roland Hemans or anyone else thinks, I don’t have a problem with this case. ApotheGen gave my ex-boss some money. So what? It’s totally immaterial to my ability to make a fair decision. And I’ll happily explain that to Judge Byers if I have to. Now, I’m asking you to write a ruling denying this motion. Will you do it or not?”

  “Judge, I just—”

  “Get the hell out of my office.”

  He was too stunned to move.

  “Go. Now,” I barked. “I’ve got work to do.”

  Without another word, he rose from his seat and departed my office, clicking the door shut softly behind him.

  FORTY-ONE

  I could feel the rage radiating from my face. Before I even knew what I was doing, I pulled out my phone and punched the shortcut for Blake Franklin.

  “Hello, Judge. I was actually gonna call you today, see how you and your new girlfriend, Congressman Jacobs, were getting along.”

  “This isn’t about Jacobs,” I said tersely. “I am right now looking at a complaint filed by the plaintiff in the ApotheGen case. It says that ApotheGen and Barnaby Roberts have been major contributors to your campaigns over the years. Is that true?”

  “Well, yeah, probably,” he said.

  “Probably?”

  “Okay, definitely. Why do you sound surprised? I get money from ApotheGen and probably every other major pharmaceutical company. I’m on HELP, for goodness’ sake. You know the H stands for ‘Health,’ right? Didn’t you ever look at my donor list?”

  “That wasn’t my area.”

  “Okay, well, yeah, I’m sure I’ve taken money from ApotheGen.”

  “Several million dollars’ worth,” I said.

  “I don’t know if it’s that much, but it’s all public record, son. You can look it up if you want. Why do you have a bee in your bonnet?”

  “Blake, for the love of God, they’re the defendant in the most public lawsuit to ever hit my courtroom. Don’t you think you could have, I don’t know, mentioned at some point that they’re one of your biggest contributors, if not your biggest?”

  He stayed quiet for a moment. Then he said: “I don’t mean to be dense, but why?”

  “Why? Don’t you think that looks like a little bit of a conflict of interest?”

  “But you don’t work for me anymore. You haven’t for, what, four, five years now? What’s the statute of limitations on how long you have to keep lugging around my baggage?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Blake. You appointed me. You still invite me to your fund-raisers. You’re Emma’s godfather. We’re friends. Everyone knows it. You’ve been in Washington long enough. The appearance of a conflict is just as bad as an actual conflict.”

  “Aw, hell, son. You’re starting to sound like The Washington Post.”

  “Stop it, Blake. You’ve been calling me, asking me questions about the case. As soon as I granted that injunction, you were on the phone to me, trying to pry stuff out of me. Did you call Barnaby Roberts as soon as you hung up or did you wait two minutes to let the smell clear?”

  “Now, what are you suggesting? I don’t like—”

  “I’m not suggesting it. I’m saying it: You’ve been in Barnaby Roberts’ pocket for a long time, and now you’re doing his bidding.”

  “Hang on just a second here. You’re out of line right now. I take money from Barnaby Roberts and ApotheGen because I have to. That’s politics. Do I really have to explain that to you? But if I even thought for a moment that money came with strings, I’d tell them to shove it right back up their asses. You know that. Did you really work for me that long, thinking money could bend me?”

  “I’m not sure who I worked for anymore.”

  “Well, then let me put your mind at ease: I’m not in his pocket or anybody else’s and I resent—”

  “Did you or did you not have a meal with Barnaby Roberts three weeks a
go?”

  He took a moment. I heard his breathing coming through faintly.

  Then, at a lower volume than the one he had just been using, he said, “Yeah. Three weeks ago. A month ago. Something like that. How . . . how did you know about that?”

  “Someone from the Associated Press snapped a picture of the two of you. It was one of the exhibits in the plaintiff’s filing.”

  There was more silence on his end. I filled it with: “I asked you about Roberts last week, and you said you didn’t know him well.”

  “I don’t. Jesus, Scott, we had breakfast, not sex.”

  “Did you discuss the case?” I asked.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Did you discuss me?” I asked.

  Still no immediate answer.

  Then he said, “It’s none of your damn business, what we talked about. But I’ll tell you anyway. The subject of the lawsuit never came up, and neither did you. We were talking about some regulatory issues and it was a very proper, aboveboard conversation that I would have in front of The Washington Post or the damn Federal Election Commission. You may or may not be aware of this, Judge, but the First Amendment guarantees citizens the right to petition their government.”

  “Some more than others,” I said.

  “Aw, listen to you. Look, are we done here? I have better things to do than be accused of . . . whatever the hell it is you’re accusing me of.”

  “Yeah, we’re done.”

  “Good,” he said, then hung up.

  FORTY-TWO

  By the end of the day—which was itself at the end of a hellishly long week—my anger had given way to simple exhaustion.

  As I departed the courthouse, I retrieved a voice mail from Alison saying Karen had invited us over to their house for dinner and that she would see me there.

  “Or you can skip it if you want. We’ll just see you at home whenever,” she concluded.

  There was a gentle tone to her voice. Underneath, I could practically hear the eggshells she was walking on around me. I was tempted to accept her offer, if only because it would spare me an evening of doing calculus: What role was her family playing in the cover-up? Did a glance from Karen or a gesture from Mark have something else behind it?