Conclusive Evidence

by Al Macy

  “Horace, good to see you again.” I shook his hand, having trouble reading his mood. He wore the same maroon suit jacket as before.

  Ursula said, “Why don’t you get things started, Garrett?”

  “Okay.” I sat. “Ursula and I have gone over things, and I hope we’ve found a solution that you can all be happy with. First, let me tell you what I’ve discovered. I learned that although the chances are slight, there is a chance that …” I had to choose language that would pass over Hortense’s head. “… that the paternity doesn’t belong to Horace. It’s unlikely, but possible, that Keith is the, uh, padre. Are you all understanding?”

  Molly tensed, and Ursula put her hand on Molly’s arm.

  “I’ve found that it would be possible to determine paternity through a DNA test. Even though Keith and Horace were identical twins, it turns out that there would be differences in their DNA. Differences that would be few and far between. The process for finding them is something like working out the entire genome or something. I don’t really understand the details, but it’s a big deal. A regular paternity test costs a few hundred dollars. I couldn’t pin down the full cost from the geneticist I spoke with, but I got the impression it could be quite high. I can’t imagine that you’d want to pay for the full DNA sequencing, Horace, which is unlikely to give you the result you want.”

  While I was talking, Hortense climbed down from her mom’s lap. But instead of going over to the toys, she went around the table and climbed into the lap of the man who was probably her father. Seeing the surprise on Molly’s face, I concluded that she hadn’t coached the child to do that. Ursula gave me a discreet wink.

  I kept blabbing away about the DNA test, while from the corner of my eye I watched the delicate scene being played out on Horace’s side of the table. Hortense pulled herself up and whispered in her dad’s ear then pointed to one of the bows in her hair. She had brown, captivating eyes that reminded me of the kids in those black-velvet paintings.

  I finished my lecture and said, “Ursula, why don’t you talk about Molly’s finances?”

  “Right.” She consulted her notes. “Molly is currently in debt to the tune of twelve thousand dollars, and she’s behind on her—”

  Horace sat up straighter. “If she hadn’t spent—”

  It was my turn to put a restraining hand on my client’s arm. Hortense shifted on his lap then relaxed again.

  Ursula continued, “She’s behind on her rent. Keith and Molly had a good nest egg going, by today’s standards, but the surgery on her leg wasn’t covered by her health insurance due to a technical issue. That ate up their savings—her savings—and she was forced to take out a loan. We’re going after the health insurance company, but that will take time.”

  “You didn’t have life insurance?” Horace asked. It was the first interaction he’d had with his sister-in-law. He now had his arm around Hortense, and she seemed to be asleep, her thumb in her mouth.

  Molly shook her head. “Keith and I had talked about it. I thought he’d bought it. He handled all the financial stuff. After he was gone, I found that he hadn’t. He had all the paperwork ready to go, but he hadn’t sent it in.” She took a breath with a little catch in it. “Horace, I never would have come to you, but I’m really stuck here.”

  I let the revelations sink in, then I brought up the settlement Ursula and I had devised.

  “Horace, I understand how you hate recurring expenses, so we’ve structured a one-time lump-sum payment that will let Molly escape the financial hole she’s in. Through no fault of her own, I’d like to stress. I can assure you, Horace, that the courts won’t look favorably on your unconventional, or maybe I should say conventional, insemination technique.”

  Both Horace and Molly blushed so intensely that the heat from their faces might have raised the temperature in the room.

  “If you recall,” I continued, “Molly had a dental hygienist license. That expired, but I’ve learned that she should have no trouble getting recertified, and my dentist tells me the job opportunities are good around here. Hortense will be in kindergarten next year, making Molly able to work without having to pay for full-time daycare. If Molly’s suit against the health insurance carrier is successful—any idea of the chances, Ursula?”

  “I’m hopeful, but it’s too soon to say. We’ve retained a good lawyer who specializes in those issues.”

  “Okay, so we can’t count on that, Horace, but if it’s successful, Molly would use that settlement to pay you back. We’ve put strong language in there that makes it clear you’ve fulfilled any responsibility and that Molly agrees to not come after you for more money in the future. As I’ve explained, the courts will usually look to the best interests of the child in these situations, but we’ve done the best we can.”

  I put two copies of the agreement on the table, circled the lump-sum total, and slid one to each of the parents. Horace stiffened when he saw the total, but my chief negotiator, the one on his lap, was working her magic. Molly and Horace agreed to think about it and left.

  Ursula stayed behind. “You are one sneaky guy. That was pretty risky, wasn’t it? If the girl had had a temper tantrum, it would have backfired.”

  I smiled. “Yes. But you told me how cute and well-behaved Hortense was. I sure didn’t expect her to go over and sit in his lap. That was a bonus.”

  We both laughed.

  “Would you like a drink to celebrate?” I asked.

  “It’s not settled yet.”

  “Oh, I think Horace’s iceberg of a heart has undergone some global warming.”

  I pulled a bottle and two tumblers from a cabinet and poured a little Green Spot Whiskey into each. We clinked glasses, and I put another log on the fire. We talked about old times, and I told her about what was happening with Carly. Before she left, she gave me a hug and another warm kiss on the cheek.

  After she was gone, Nicole said, “You know she has the hots for you, right, Dad?”

  “Who, Ursula? Oh, no, she’s just a good friend.”

  “You are so clueless sometimes. And I would have been happy to watch the little girl while you guys were in there.”

  I savored the warmth of the whiskey. “She was sweet, wasn’t she?”

  * * *

  Patricia’s death had thrown me into a spiral of grief. An explosive device filled with heartache and anguish had gone off in the center of Patricia’s extended family, leaving no one standing. As expected, Carly was hit the hardest. When the surgeon gave her the news that Patricia had died on the table, she went catatonic. He admitted her to the hospital, shooting her full of industrial-strength sedatives.

  The saddest words in the English language are “if only.” In my brain, I knew I didn’t bear the blame for my niece’s death, but I couldn’t convince my heart of that. If only I hadn’t used my professionally tuned persuasive skills to push Carly over to the family’s way of thinking, our beautiful and extraordinary angel would still be alive. Patricia didn’t need that damned device in her head to be happy. She would have thrived in the deaf community, spreading her special talent for joy throughout Redwood Point. Sure, my reasoning was faulty, but I couldn’t force myself to view things objectively.

  After six months, I found myself stalled in the third stage of grief: depression. In fact, I suspected that I was dealing with something more than grief. It seemed to me that the shock of Patricia’s death had awakened an underlying condition, like arousing a sleeping dragon. I’d been able to survive those six months only by devoting myself to the negligence lawsuit against the hospital and the anesthesiologist.

  The procedure was a safe one, but the doctor in charge of keeping my niece alive and free from pain had dozed off. When the machine feeding Patricia oxygen malfunctioned, the sleeping doctor, who had partied hard the night before and who still had alcohol in his bloodstream, failed to notice. I negotiated a nine-million-dollar settlement, but Carly refused to touch the funds. “Blood money” she called it, donating every penny to
Bizet University. Angelo was too traumatized to object. I refused my cut of the settlement, of course.

  My depression grew worse once the negotiations were completed. The distraction had held the demons at bay, and once released, they attacked my sanity, dragging me down into a black hole of despair. My work no longer seemed worthwhile—most of my clients were guilty as hell and deserved to be locked up. Jen took over my active cases, and I refused all new clients.

  The things I’d enjoyed in the past—surfing, reading, chess, even eating—gave me no pleasure. Everyday activities, such as taking a shower, seemed like dreary chores. I was bored. I abandoned every book I started, even favorites that I’d enjoyed in the past. My computer gave me nothing but problems, the car had annoying rattles, people tailgated, dogs barked at night, and nothing worked the way it should.

  Some days I tried to be productive. I remember one morning in the office, sitting hunched over with my forehead resting on the edge of the desk.

  Jen burst in. “Hey, boss, did you sign the—hey, what’s wrong?”

  I did a convincing job of pretending I’d dropped something under the desk. I pinched away my tears and managed a little laugh. “Nothing’s wrong. I just dropped something.”

  Whenever the local news reported that someone had been killed in an accident, my immediate thought was, Lucky guy. Sure, I was aware that my thought processes were out of whack, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

  My dead wife appeared to me in my dreams. She never said anything, but I saw it in her look: Snap out of it, Garrett!

  Insomnia wormed its way into my life, cutting off the relief that unconsciousness might have given me. I followed all the advice on the internet trying to shake it. No luck. I would fall asleep fine but wake after only a few hours and spend the rest of my night fending off toxic thoughts. It was the insomnia that led me to seek help from my doctor, a woman who looked too young to be practicing medicine yet made up for her inexperience with an encyclopedic knowledge of physiology and an exceptional mind. Despite a busy schedule, she always gave me her full attention and never made me feel rushed.

  I sat on the edge of the exam table in a room filled with the scent of rubbing alcohol and described my problem with sleeping.

  When I was done, she asked the question I was dreading: “Are you depressed?”

  I looked her in the eye. “No.”

  It hurt me to lie, but I had to deny it. An essential skill for a lawyer, as for a chess player, is the ability to think through a chain of events that would follow any move or response. If I move my pawn here, she’ll move her knight there, and so on. In my mind, I predicted that the entire conversation would go in a direction I didn’t want:

  Doctor: Are you depressed?

  Me: Yes.

  Doctor: Do you have thoughts of harming yourself?

  Me: Almost every day. I get great comfort from imagining killing myself. Lying in bed at night, I go over the different ways to do it.

  Doctor: Does that scare you?

  Me: Not at all. Death would be a wonderful escape from the pain.

  Doctor: What about your children?

  Me: They’re grown. They’d get over it. I’m not even sure they love me. In this state I’m probably a burden to them.

  Doctor: You don’t really believe that, do you?

  Me: Shrug.

  Doctor: Garrett, I know I can help you. Return you to a life that includes joy and contentment. Until then, can you promise me something?

  Me: I know what you’re going to say.

  Doctor: Can you promise me you won’t do anything drastic? You won’t harm yourself?

  Me: What value would a promise like that hold? I mean, once I’m dead … and besides, I could never give up my one means of escape.

  At that point, the doctor would press a button under her desk, and two burly men in white coats would come and take me to the loony ward for a seventy-two-hour hold. Worse, I would be subjected to years of therapy sessions, which, to an introvert like me, would be a fate worse than death. So I lied to my doctor, and based on my incomplete information, she prescribed some remedies that failed to make a dent in my insomnia. For example, Ambien knocked me out quickly but only for only two hours at a time.

  A few weeks later, I decided to come clean. I returned to my doctor’s office. When she came in, I took a deep breath and made the plunge.

  “I lied to you,” I said.

  “About the depression?”

  “Yes. You knew?”

  “I suspected it.”

  The surprise was that we didn’t go down the dreaded conversational path I’d imagined. I don’t know if it was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy or something else, but instead of inquiring about the depth of my despair, she prescribed an antidepressant that had a useful side effect: sedation.

  It didn’t keep me asleep all night, but with some experimentation I found a system that worked for me. When I woke around two a.m., as I invariably did, I took the pill the doc prescribed. That always sent me back to la la land and kept me there until it was time to get up.

  I wasn’t magically returned to psychic health, but one morning, when I woke refreshed and rebooted, I knew I’d reached a turning point. It’s hard to overstate the value of being unconscious for eight or even nine hours. No matter what happened during the day, I could always escape into oblivion at night and rise in the morning to a clean slate.

  * * *

  My text alert broke through the cobwebs of my sleeping-pill-influenced brain. Five after six in the morning.

  Carly had texted, They want to search my house. Can they do that?

  I massaged my face and replied, Don’t interfere. Don’t answer ANY questions. I’m coming.

  I dragged myself to the guest room door and banged on it. “Nicole, I need your help. Can you get dressed quickly, please?”

  I’d taken the sleeping pill only a few hours earlier. Getting stopped for driving under the influence wouldn’t help things. No time for coffee, I downed a caffeine pill and ran the shaver over my face. My wonderful daughter appeared wearing jeans, t-shirt, and a questioning look.

  “I have to go to Aunt Patricia’s right away. I’m too sleepy to drive. Can you take me there?”

  She squinted and cocked her head. “You said, ‘Aunt Patricia’!”

  “Aunt Carly’s. Sorry.”

  On the way over, Nicole asked, “The police don’t have to wait until you get there?”

  “No. You should know that.”

  “Hey, it’s pretty early in the morning.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I just want to make sure they don’t try to ask Carly anything.”

  Nicole took the Westhaven exit. “She knows, Dad.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Crawford to try to trick her into saying something.”

  Carly’s house sat on Scenic Drive, only a little north of Tepona Point. Years ago, she’d had a spectacular view of the ocean, but the trees had grown and blocked much of it. It was still a wonderful place to live. The entrance had a small portico with benches on each side of the front door. As we came up the driveway, Carly was sitting on one of those benches. Next to her was my twenty-year-old son, Toby.

  “What’s he doing here?” I said to Nicole.

  “Don’t ask me.”

  There was one squad car and an unmarked in the driveway. Nicole parked where she wouldn’t block them in. On the porch I gave Toby a hug. “How you doing, buddy?”

  He responded with a shrug.

  “I have to talk confidentially with your aunt Carly now. I want to visit with you later, okay?”

  He wandered off, giving us privacy.

  I asked Carly, “All good?”

  She nodded, looking unreasonably calm.

  “Show me the search warrant.”

  It was standard and correct, stating “… that there is probable cause to believe that the property and/or person described herein may be found at the locations set forth herein and is lawfully seizable p
ursuant to Penal Code Section 1524 as indicated below by ‘x’ …” The “x” was next to “it tends to show that a felony has been committed.” The list included any and all of Carly’s computers and smartphones. In other words, this was a fishing expedition. More worrisome was the item, “Any and all clothing with the Bizet University logo.”

  “Anything I should know about on your computers?”

  “Nothing.”

  I took a breath, relaxing for the first time since the phone woke me. I looked at my two kids talking.

  Carly tapped me on the shoulder. “Except …”

  Oh, crap.

  “There are some searches that could be problematic,” she explained.

  I made the sign for “fuck.” It looks like two bunnies bumping uglies.

  After thinking for a while, I said, “I think we can deal with that. Do you have cloud backup?”

  “Yes.” She took my pad again and wrote down TrueImageBackup.com and the password for it. She gave me the information I needed to access her password manager also.

  “Excellent. I’ll get it all restored to another Mac, and we’ll be able to see what they can see.”

  A middle-aged woman with a badge on her belt but no uniform came over and squatted down in front of Carly. “I’m going to bring your MacBook Pro and your iPhone over and ask that you unlock them with your fingerprint.” The ASL interpreter translated.

  “Do I have to do that?” Carly asked me.

  “Yes, you do.” Passwords are protected under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. They are things that you know, and the amendment states that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Fingerprints are not things that you know; they are physical things. They aren’t covered. In the same way, the police can force you to hand over a key to a locked safe but can’t make you tell them the combination. Laws don’t always make sense.

  I called a tech guy I’d had on retainer in the past—someone I’d trust with my life. He answered on the third ring. Yes! I stepped away from prying ears and told him what I wanted. With the rush-demand pricing, he said he could reproduce her MacBook by early afternoon. I gave him the passwords.