by Brad Parks
“And I told you I was already planning on going to the same party, which was a lie.”
“Well, I know. I probably knew it then too. But I showed up, and there you were. A friend later told me you had been there for an hour and a half already.”
I smiled at the memory.
“And the thing was, you didn’t just show up for that thing,” she continued. “You showed up for the next thing. And the next thing. Anything you promised, anything you said you’d do, you followed through on. I had never met a guy like that. Not Paul Dresser. Not anyone. Maybe that doesn’t sound very romantic—I fell in love with you because you were reliable—but you have to remember with my dad, nothing in my life had been rooted. It always seemed like just as soon as I made one or two attachments to a person or a place, it was, oops, Dad got promoted, time to go somewhere else. There had never been anything I could depend on, and then along you came. And you were this rock.
“So now you want to know what you can do for me? Just be yourself. Be that rock. You being you has always been enough for me.”
She squeezed my hand again. We just sat there, holding hands, until a nurse approached. They were ready for her.
“All right,” Alison said, dropping my hands and standing. “I’ll see you at home later?”
“No, no. I’m staying right here. I’ve missed enough of this. You know you’ve already cost me my chance at a perfect attendance award, right?”
She bent down and kissed me. “I’ll be back,” she said.
“I’ll be here for you,” I assured her. “Right here.”
SIXTY-ONE
I woke the next morning with what could only be described as an emotional hangover. The world was putting out too much sensory input for my tender circuitry. Even the colors outside the window seemed off, having been subtly redefined overnight by the knowledge of my wife’s illness.
There probably should have been some relief in knowing Alison was not, in fact, scheming behind my back; and that Paul Dresser wasn’t waiting to take her away; and that however bad things were, at least we were in this together. But those consolations were nullified by the intense ache of what had replaced them.
The greatest health crisis we had ever faced before this was when I got shot. It was noisy, gory, and shocking, yes. But, really, it was just physics. And simple, straightforward Newtonian physics, at that: A bullet carrying a certain amount of momentum had struck me, transferring its energy into my flesh, creating all kinds of musculoskeletal havoc before making its hasty exit. By the time I even realized I’d been hit, the damage had already been done. The recovery was, likewise, mechanical. There was no great mystery about what was going on, and, as much as it might have hurt, there was a certain comfort in knowing the worst was over.
This was far scarier. Cancer is like a bullet that hits you slowly, over months and years. And the moment of impact is really just the beginning. We had no idea how big the wound was going to become.
What’s more, the answers to all the toughest questions were expressed in the baffling terms of quantum physics. There were no certainties. There were just varying probabilities of outcomes that ranged all the way from the barely tolerable to the utterly unthinkable. I defy anyone to find comfort in studying charts of five- and ten-year survival rates.
The only thing that stopped me from shutting down altogether that morning was a stern lecture from Alison, reminding me that I had promised to stay focused on Emma.
The hearing was now two days away. My staff was fully ensconced in preparations, such that when I arrived at my normal time, I was actually the last one to get there.
I went through the motions of joining them. When I got buzzed by Mrs. Smith midmorning, I thought it would be another question from the defendant’s lawyers about the use of visual aids or another petty squabble about courtroom seating.
Instead, she said, “Judge, Congressman Neal Keesee is calling for you. Would you like to speak with him?”
Neal Keesee. Hearing the name brought an instant spike to my blood pressure. It had been two weeks since the Michael Jacobs press conference, and I had—in the way that desperation breeds naïveté—thought the issue had been laid to rest.
“Of course,” I said. “Put him through.”
During my years in Blake’s office, I had never dealt with Keesee, but I knew him by reputation. He was one of the most wonkish of our nation’s 435 legislators, an incisive and detail-oriented technocrat who quoted Congressional Budget Office reports from memory. A feature in The Washington Post I now recalled revealed him to be an unabashed nerd—he was obsessed with model trains and was such a Star Trek aficionado he spoke Klingon. But those who dismissed him as nebbishy or ineffectual did so at their own peril.
I became aware I was holding my breath as I waited for the call to come through. I let it out slowly. The next sound I heard was Keesee’s clipped voice.
“Good morning, Judge Sampson.”
“Good morning, Congressman Keesee. How can I help you?”
“I know you’re busy and I am too, so I’ll get right to it: I’m having some continued issues with your ruling in US versus Skavron and I wanted to get it dealt with before Friday. I know you’re hearing a very important matter that day.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Given the time constraints, it seemed most expedient to reach out to you directly. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” I said, as if sweat hadn’t just popped on my brow.
“Excellent. As you are aware, my colleague Congressman Jacobs has been rather loudly questioning your ruling with regards to Mr. Skavron. I recognized that at least some of his enthusiasm was driven less by the underlying issues of justice and more by the amount of attention he could garner for himself on Fox News. So before I brought the Judiciary Committee into this, I reached out to your chief judge, Mr. Byers, to better understand why he decided not to pursue this matter. He told me a story about a young man named Keith Bloom.”
He was waiting for me to say something. So I threw in an “I see.”
“Judge Byers apparently found your story very compelling, but I was interested in learning some more specifics, which he, of course, could not provide. So I asked a member of my staff to find a little more information about the Bloom case. And do you know what he found out?”
“No,” I said, feeling the trap starting to close around me.
“Nothing. There was no record of a Keith Bloom having ever appeared anywhere in the District of Columbia court system. There was no recording of a plea deal, no sentencing, not a single mention of any Keith Blooms during the time when you worked for Senator Franklin. We knew the case wasn’t sealed because you told Judge Byers that Mr. Bloom was no longer a juvenile. So my staffer took the extra step of contacting the US Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia. They didn’t have any record of a Keith Bloom either.”
“Huh,” I offered, as if this puzzled me. My palm had been resting on the top of my desk. When I brought it away, there was a sweat mark in the shape of my hand.
“So now I’m reaching out to you. Do you have a phone number or an e-mail address for Mr. Bloom?”
“Uh, no. We’re . . . not really in touch anymore. I think I told Judge Byers that.”
“I understand. But I’m sure you can provide some helpful information. Perhaps where he went to college? Or the name of the high school where he works and coaches? Or the name of a family member who might know where to find him? I assure you this is not for public consumption. I’m not interested in cable news face time. I’d just like to confirm Mr. Bloom’s existence and the basic facts of his situation as you’ve related them to Judge Byers.”
I sat there holding the phone, trying to come up with anything that wouldn’t get me in more trouble than I was already in. And I couldn’t. Any lie I might concoct could easily be uncovered. Keesee had his
teeth sunk in deep. And, in any event, my mind was too blank to come up with the first thread of a fabrication.
“You can’t say anything right now because Keith Bloom doesn’t really exist, does he?” Keesee said.
I didn’t reply. If I told him the truth, there was no chance I’d hang on to Palgraff. It would be reassigned before the day was done. That made this a choice between my job and my daughter, which wasn’t really any kind of choice at all.
There was a silence that I was not going to fill. At this point, words could only further damage my position.
“Judge Sampson, as I see it I have two choices here,” he said finally. “One, you can offer me your resignation, and perhaps this will all just quietly go away. Or, two, I can begin impeachment proceedings against you.”
“I . . . Can I think about it for a few days? Give me through the weekend.”
“I’m sorry, Judge, but I cannot allow you to hear the ApotheGen matter under these circumstances. I have the public faith in the federal judiciary to consider. If you’d like to resign, which is what I’d recommend, you’ll have to do it before the ApotheGen hearing.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Very well. You should know I will be contacting Judge Byers and relating this conversation to him. I will be asking him to convene the circuit’s Judicial Council immediately. It will be up to him to decide whether to do so, of course. But I’m going to recommend he do everything in his power to have your cases removed from you immediately.”
My plea came out low and fast. “Please don’t do that.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said please don’t do that to me. Please don’t have Judge Byers take away my cases.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’m not sure I can explain it to you. But I need to keep hearing cases, Congressman. It’s a matter of . . . of great importance to me.”
I heard my own voice trembling. I’m sure it sounded the same to Keesee’s ears as it did to mine:
Pitiful.
But apparently not worthy of pity.
“I’m sorry, Judge,” he said at last. “You’ve given me no choice.”
* * *
I hung up on him. There was nothing more to discuss and I had clearly reached the point where anything else I said could and would be used against me.
It didn’t take much imagination to picture what would happen next. Neal Keesee would tell Jeb Byers I had lied to him—that I had made a fool out of him, really. And Judge Byers, understandably furious, would act swiftly.
The Judicial Council for the Fourth Circuit was comprised of an equal number of judges from the district courts and the court of appeals. It would take at least a few hours to find a time when all of them could get on a conference call. But Byers could get it done by the end of Thursday without much trouble.
The fact was, the walls were closing in on me. If I stayed quiet, the case was going to be stripped from me, which would be a disaster. But if I told Byers or Keesee the truth, it would put Emma’s fate in the hands of FBI agents who wouldn’t have an inkling of where to start looking for her—and who would need a miracle to find her in time, before the kidnappers figured out I was off the case.
The situation was hopeless. Truly hopeless.
I wanted to quit. Quit being a judge who had to hear cases of consequence. Quit being the husband of a wife who had cancer. Quit being the father of a daughter who wasn’t there.
And I would have. If I felt like I had any choice in the matter. The reality was, for whatever Keesee had just said, nobody was really giving me that option. Not in any meaningful way. When you become a parent, you forfeit the right to quit.
So I stared at the clock on the far wall of my office, watching the second hand make sweeps around the dial until I returned to my senses and realized every tick was putting my family that much closer to tragedy. And I had to do something about it.
Before I really knew what my plan was, or what I was going to say to him, my fingers were dialing a phone number for the one man who might have the power, contacts, and wherewithal to get me out of this mess.
Blake Franklin might not take my call—given that our last conversation had involved me accusing him of living in Barnaby Roberts’ pocket—but I was out of options.
After four rings, just when I thought I was heading for voice mail, Blake answered.
“Hello,” he said. He sounded out of breath.
“Hey, Blake. It’s Scott.”
“Yeah, I know. Hang on.”
I hung on. He had muffled the phone against his chest. Still, I heard some strange sounds coming through the earpiece. It was this high-pitched whining that may or may not have been human.
Then it—whatever it was—went away.
“Sorry about that,” Blake said. “I’m at a goddamn animal shelter right now. My campaign manager thinks this’ll make good visuals. I told him if I end up getting fleas he’s gonna be looking for a new job. Anyhow, what’s up? You calling to ask if I’m necking with Barnaby Roberts in the backseat? Because I can assure you he’s not my type.”
“No, look, about that. I’m sorry I—”
“Forget about it. You were under stress with the case and with that Jacobs moron. I’m under stress with the election. You were making some valid points and instead of taking a deep breath and talking you off the ledge I got defensive. It looks like the plaintiff’s attorney backed off anyway, so it’s all much ado about nothing. I’m willing to forget about it if you are.”
It was a classic Blake Franklin compromise, the kind of levelheaded concession making that is increasingly rare in our nation’s capital. And I was all too happy to accept it.
“Absolutely,” I said. “And thanks for—”
“Don’t mention it. And we definitely need to catch up soon. But if you don’t mind, there are some puppies back inside who are just dying to have their picture taken with a US senator.”
“Actually, there’s something else. And it’s really important.”
“Oh yeah? What’s up?”
As succinctly as I could, I told him about my phone call from Neal Keesee, finishing by impressing on him the urgency of the situation.
“Damn, son,” he said when I was through. “First you kick a bees’ nest; then you poke the bear that was there to eat the honey.”
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”
“But catch me up on something here. If you didn’t let that Skavron fellow go free because of that football player, why did you cut him loose?”
I took a measured breath. “Blake, I know this sounds strange, but I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t. All I can say is that it’s a very unusual, very dire situation.”
“How dire?”
“Life-and-death dire.”
All I heard on the other end was his breathing. So I added, “And when I say life-and-death, I’m not exaggerating. It’s something involving my family. But I really can’t say more. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
Even though we were talking on the phone, I could picture exactly what Blake looked like as he considered this. He was probably running his hand through that thick gray hair of his—something he did only when he was lost in thought—and looking far off into the distance.
“Okay,” he said. “What are you thinking I can do, exactly?”
“Intercede with Neal Keesee,” I said. “You know him, right?”
“A little. I think we first met during your confirmation proceeding, if that’s not ironic enough for you.”
“As I see it, he’s the linchpin of all of this. All you need to do is stall him a little. Just get him off my tail until next week sometime. Then I’ll be able to explain everything to you. And to him. And then I think this will . . . Well, I can’t say i
t’ll go away. But it’ll at least make sense to everyone.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. And then, cryptically, he added, “I probably owe you that much.”
SIXTY-TWO
Even with Blake on the job, working his backroom magic, my adrenal glands went into overdrive every time the phone rang throughout the remainder of the day on Wednesday and into Thursday.
It made for a lot of anxiety. My phone was ringing constantly. The rest of the world—heedless of my personal drama—was charging full speed ahead toward the Markman hearing. The Wall Street Journal wrote an advance about it in Thursday’s newspaper, calling it “the hearing of the decade for the pharmaceutical industry and the hearing of the century for ApotheGen.” It also spoke about the “complication” that the presiding judge was “embroiled in a controversy that has cast an eerie shadow over the proceeding.”
Steve Politi posted a piece on HedgeofReason, touting his vaunted “source,” who reiterated my bullishness on the merits of the plaintiff’s claim. Which meant the source, while knowing enough to give Politi my cell phone number, was otherwise dishing out information from a fantasized realm.
The UPDATE! confirmed that ApotheGen stock had dropped another two dollars and seventy-four cents. It was now down more than thirty dollars from its fifty-two-week high, having sunk to a level not seen since the Crash of 2008.
Meanwhile, my staff and seemingly everyone else in the building were preparing the Walter E. Hoffman United States Courthouse for an onslaught. The clerks set up a second courtroom, where an anticipated overflow of spectators could watch on closed-circuit television. The court security officers had spent half an hour with us, reviewing crowd-control protocols.
There was talk of moving the hearing to one of the larger courtrooms downstairs, but I nixed that immediately. I wanted whatever was going to transpire to take place in the most familiar setting possible. I had insisted on that, and also on scheduling the hearing for one day—and one day only. Expedience was now more important to me than ever.