A Statue for Jacob

by Peter Murphy

  Arlene was shaking her head.

  ‘The way I see it,’ she said, ‘every which way you look at this, the trail ends in Washington DC. That’s what we heard at the reunion, and I think that’s what we’re hearing now, y’all. The paperwork ended up in Washington because that’s where it needed to be if anyone was going to pay any attention to it. The problem is, the trail’s gone cold. Maybe the Brits burned the papers, and maybe the government did, or maybe they mislaid them somewhere and forgot about them. But it happened 200 years ago, and I never saw a bloodhound that could follow a trail that went dead 200 years ago. Now that would be a dawg I could sell at the Texas State Fair and make me a dollar or two.’

  ‘Well,’ Aunt Meg said, ‘Kiah, didn’t you tell us that the judge ordered the government to make a search in Washington?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes. They were ordered to make a search of the Treasury and the National Archives and report back to Judge Morrow in six weeks, the same time our report is due. But we can’t just sit back and rely on the government to do everything for us. They can tell us what they find in Washington, but if they come up with nothing, we have to be able to tell the judge that we’ve ruled out any other possibilities before we have any hope of persuading him to widen the search. So yes, Powalski, I want you to go back over Samuel’s part of the genealogy, but we don’t have time for a road trip. Get on the phone and see what information might still be out there.’

  ‘Is that what it’s coming down to,’ Sam asked quietly, ‘proving that we have a good reason for failing to find any evidence?’

  ‘I’m not giving up yet,’ I replied. ‘But Arlene may be right. Put yourself in Samuel’s position. He had to figure that he couldn’t do anything with the loan certificates without confronting someone in the Treasury. He couldn’t get it done in Pennsylvania. Jacob had tried that with the sixteen documents he took to the loan office, and those papers ended up in Washington. The only difference was, Jacob lost control of them. Isabel would have told Samuel about that, and I can’t see him making the same mistake. He had to go to Washington. He had to wave Jacob’s name in front of their faces in the Treasury, maybe wave George Washington’s name in front of their faces, but he couldn’t do any of that without going to Washington and taking the paperwork with him. There had to be a record of that, and we need to find it.’

  ‘Plus,’ Arlene added, ‘like Aunt Meg said, the family’s been at this for two hundred years. If there was paper to be found in some attic in Sorryass, Iowa, someone would have found it by now.’

  ‘Why don’t I get a shot of this on my phone?’ Powalski suggested, leaning over Isabel’s document.

  ‘Good idea,’ I replied, ‘and before we leave I want everyone to make a handwritten copy.’

  ‘Why do you need us to do that?’ Sam asked.

  ‘It’s just a precaution,’ I replied. ‘We’re taking custody of it now, and we’ll take good care of it, but I want to make sure I can prove its contents in court if something should happen to the original. The more of us that read and copy it, the better.’

  We took a fond leave of Aunt Meg. She and Sam spoke quietly together for a long time before we parted, and there were tears on both sides. We all knew that it was coming down to the wire now. By the time we met again, we would know the fate of our lawsuit. Time was running out, and there would probably be no more clues, no magical interventions. Arlene took me aside as Aunt Meg and Sam were talking. I was feeling much better now, but there was still a coldness deep in the pit of my stomach. I had somehow had contact with these people, with these events, through my dreams, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something I was supposed to be seeing. But I wasn’t seeing it.

  ‘What’s your take on Petrosian?’ Arlene asked.

  ‘Dave? He’s OK. Why?’

  ‘Is he straight, is what I’m asking? I mean, if he finds something in Washington, is he really going to turn it over to us? Call me crazy, hun, but if he does, it would have to be a hell of a temptation to feed it to the shredder while nobody’s looking and tell us they didn’t find anything.’

  ‘I don’t think Dave Petrosian would do that.’

  ‘How sure are you of that?’

  I shrugged. ‘I think I know him pretty well, Arlene. I trust him.’

  ‘How about the guys who arranged to have you audited? Do you trust them?’

  I nodded. ‘They may be another story. But Dave’s lead trial counsel, and I don’t think he would be party to destroying evidence.’

  ‘Maybe they wouldn’t tell him,’ Arlene said.

  I smiled. ‘So you don’t think the government’s going to give us the helping hand we need?’

  ‘Give us a helping hand? Sure. You want to know when that will happen?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When Quinn the Eskimo gets here, hun; that’s when. And until he shows, even with what we got today, it looks to me like we’re just whistling Dixie.’

  44

  The IRS auditors were called Mike and Todd and were unfailingly polite, and as Reg sat by my side at my conference table, they congratulated me on keeping such good records and assured me that my affairs were in order. They just had a few questions, just to clear up one or two things that weren’t one hundred per cent clear, nothing to worry about, just so that they could close the books. It was only our third day back from Pennsylvania, and I had better things to do than waste my time answering questions from them when my affairs had already been determined to be in order. I was in a mood to give them their marching orders. Fortunately, Reg kept me under control. It took an hour for us to explain to their satisfaction a number of expense receipts a ten-year-old could have told you were related exclusively to business matters, and for them to make careful notes of what we said. Eventually, they politely pronounced themselves to be satisfied, and left with a polite handshake. They left the office door open, and I heard Arlene wishing them well on the way out.

  ‘Y’all make sure to say “hi” to your friends in the Department of Justice for us,’ she said.

  ‘The Department of Justice? I don’t understand the reference there, ma’am,’ Todd replied politely. ‘We work for the IRS.’

  ‘Get out of here,’ Arlene said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. You have a good day, now.’

  I heard the door slam behind them. I thanked Reg profusely, and he left. At last, I could get on with something useful. I took a deep breath, sat down at the table, and began to read through my copy of Isabel’s document. I still wasn’t seeing whatever it was I was supposed to see. Behind her careful narrative, or concealed in it, there was something more and whatever it was, I somehow had to see it and make use of it within four weeks and counting.

  I’m not sure how long I had been absorbed in my reading before I heard the voices outside. At first, I thought that Mike and Todd must have returned with more questions. But it didn’t sound like Mike or Todd. I heard a male voice – and there was nothing polite about it – and then I heard Arlene’s voice raised in protest.

  ‘You can’t just barge in there,’ she was saying.

  ‘I’m not barging in. I need to talk to Kiah about a case, and it’s urgent,’ the male voice was replying.

  They were closer to the door of my office now, close enough for me to recognise the voice, and recognise it I did. The conversation continued. She was telling him I couldn’t see him, and he was saying that he had to see me. For a moment or two I froze, as memories of the Week began to flood back into my mind, memories I had thought I had put behind me. At first I felt overwhelmed, but to my relief, my feelings were not the feelings that had haunted me during the Week. There was no punch to the gut, no nausea, and no tears. I was able to bring my thoughts under control and stay in the moment. I wasn’t about to cave in. I raised myself out of my chair, and took a number of deep breaths before the inevitable knock on the door came. Arlene opened the door an
d looked in.

  ‘I’m sorry, hun. He won’t leave. Y’all want me to call security?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Let him come in.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  Arlene nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Well, all right then. But I’m right here if y’all need me, and if he causes any trouble I’ll have security here in a New York minute.’

  ‘I’m OK, Arlene.’

  She let him in and closed the door behind him. As she closed the door, she made a brief but unambiguously rude sexual hand gesture in his direction behind his back. I couldn’t resist a grin. He stood just inside the door for some seconds.

  ‘That’s some attack dog you have there, Kiah. I guess that means you don’t have to bark yourself.’

  It was said with the smarmy fake good humor I remembered all too well. It was false and shallow, and as cheap as his latest suit, the pinstripes too wide for his height, the sleeves a little too short – to make sure no one missed the massive gold cuff links – the hair slicked back with too much lotion. To my relief, I found that I was able to stand back and take it all in with a detached amusement. The only question going through my mind was: how had I ever wasted three years of my life on this man? I couldn’t answer the question, but at least I could be grateful it hadn’t been any longer.

  ‘What do you want, Jordan?’

  ‘I need to talk to you about a case. May I sit down?’

  I waved him into a chair opposite me, and removed Isabel’s document out of sight in among a pile of other papers.

  ‘No, I won’t have coffee; I just had some, but thanks for asking.’

  ‘Jordan, I have a busy day. Either get to the point or leave.’

  He nodded. ‘Your wish is my command.’

  He opened his briefcase and took out some papers, which he placed on the table.

  ‘As of yesterday, my firm represents a lady by the name of Mary Jane Perrins and three other residents of Boston, Massachusetts, who intend to file in the Claims Court to become the lead plaintiffs in the van Eyck family litigation. This is a copy of their Complaint against the United States and their motion to take over the position of lead plaintiffs.’

  I took the Complaint, which, to put it diplomatically, seemed to be closely modeled on the one I had filed on behalf of Sam, and turned to the last page. The pleading was signed on behalf of the law firm of Schumer Berthold & Morris, by Jordan K. Leslie Esq., counsel for Mary Jane Perrins and three others whose names registered vaguely from the reunion. I closed my eyes and held my head in my hands for some time.

  ‘Jordan, is this your idea of a joke?’ I asked, raising my head. It wasn’t that an intervention by Mary Jane Perrins was entirely unexpected. Maisie had tipped us off that she had made inquiries of the court about what she had to do to worm her way into the case. But that she was represented by Jordan was unexpected, and unwelcome. Jordan knew that all too well, obviously. He had that self-satisfied grin on his face, the one he wore when he thought he’d done something clever, the one that had always made me want to punch him in the face.

  ‘It’s no joke, Kiah. You want to see my letter of retainer?’

  ‘How did you come to contact Mary Jane Perrins?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t contact her. That would come perilously close to ambulance-chasing in the circumstances. We don’t chase ambulances. Mary Jane contacted the firm, and asked specifically that I represent her.’

  While I was generally disinclined to give Jordan much credence, in this instance I believed him. There was no reason for him to lie about this. My mind wandered back to the conference room at the Intercontinental Hotel. I heard Mary Jane asking her loaded questions. My instinct had been right. For whatever reason, that woman didn’t like me, and didn’t like Sam. But not liking me was one thing. Doing her homework thoroughly enough to retain my ex-live-in boyfriend to go up against me was something else again. This woman had it in for me, and for Sam, in spades.

  ‘I’m asking the judge to hold a hearing to decide on the lead plaintiff motion next week. I’m aware of the discovery orders, and so I know there isn’t much time.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘For God’s sake, Jordan,’ I replied. ‘If you know about the discovery orders, you’ll know that it’s completely irresponsible to waste our time with this bullshit. We have less than four weeks to gather evidence, and I don’t need to be spending that time on crap like this.’

  ‘On the contrary, we believe it’s vital that our firm should get involved immediately,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, really? And why would that be? Your firm knows nothing about the case. You don’t have a prayer of getting up to speed with the facts in the next four weeks, let alone handling the discovery, and you’re not prepared for the legal argument we have coming at the end of the discovery period. All you’re doing is playing into the government’s hands, pretty much guaranteeing that the plaintiffs will fall flat on their faces.’

  ‘I disagree,’ he replied. ‘Our firm can throw resources at this, resources you just don’t have. I know you’re working with your attack dog and one part-time investigator. You’re calling me irresponsible, but how irresponsible is that? I would be working on the case myself full-time, and I can have two associates and three paralegals assigned.’

  ‘Including the bimbo?’ I asked. I shouldn’t have, I know, but he was pushing a lot of buttons, so I pushed one of his in retaliation.

  ‘Kimberley is not a bimbo,’ he raised his voice, pointing a finger. ‘She’s my wife and she’s not a paralegal, she’s a secretary, so…’

  He stopped himself before he could give me any further satisfaction.

  ‘Look, Kiah, either you’re going to agree to us taking the case over, or we’ll ask the judge to make an order.’

  ‘Ask the judge whatever you want,’ I replied. ‘It’s a free country. Do you need directions to find the Claims Court? It’s not your usual hunting ground, is it? Do you have a copy of their rules of procedure?’

  He gave a sigh of fake exasperation, another gesture I was all too familiar with.

  ‘Fine. Take that attitude. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t just about who’s better equipped to run the class action.’

  ‘Well, what is it about?’ I asked. ‘I know Mary Jane Perrins hates my guts and my client’s guts, for some reason neither of us understands, but that’s not going to impress the judge. It’s all about who should run the class action.’

  ‘It’s also about whether your client is fit to represent the van Eyck family in this litigation.’

  ‘Fit? What the hell are you talking about?’

  Jordan reached into his briefcase and pushed a small brown envelope across the table to me.

  ‘My clients don’t think it’s appropriate for the family to be represented by a porn star.’

  ‘What?’

  Slowly, I opened the envelope. It contained a DVD with a gaudy cover, featuring three scantily clad and heavily made-up young women with very large teeth, wild hair, and a lot of lipstick. The movie was entitled Revenge of the Zombie Cheerleaders. I looked at him.

  ‘What is this?’ I asked.

  ‘Ask your client,’ he suggested. ‘Or better still, watch it yourself. That’s what we’re asking the judge to do before the hearing.’ He smiled. ‘She gives quite a performance. Oscar material, if they give Oscars for stuff like this. I assume they have some kind of porn version of the Oscars, don’t they?’

  He closed his briefcase and stood, pushing back his chair.

  ‘I know you have a busy day, so I’ll get out of your hair. Oh, and I should warn you, there’s been some interest in this from the National Inquirer. Your client may be getting a request for a comment.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Well, now we really have reached rock bottom, Jordan, haven’t we?’ I
replied quietly. ‘You leaked this to the National Inquirer?’

  ‘Leaked it? There was no need to leak anything. This material is publicly available online and in stores, if you know where to look. The Inquirer was quite capable of finding it without our help. It didn’t take Woodward and Bernstein.’

  After he had gone, I stood, hands on hips, looking at the closed door of my office. Arlene came in.

  ‘What an asshole,’ she said. ‘Are you OK, hun? Aren’t you glad you gave him the bum’s rush?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes and yes.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

  ‘I’m fine. Where’s Sam?’

  ‘She’s over at Powalski’s office, helping with the phone calls.’

  ‘Tell her I need to see her this afternoon.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And let’s order in some beer and pizza when she’s here.’

  She raised her eyebrows quizzically.

  ‘We havin’ ourselves a party, hun? It’s a bit early to be celebrating, ain’t it? Or is it just because you’re so glad to see the back of your ex?’

  ‘We’re going to watch a movie,’ I replied.

  She nodded. ‘Well, all right, then. Do you want Powalski here?’

  ‘No, and send Jenny home for the day.’

  45

  When Sam saw the movie lying on the table, she collapsed into a chair with her head in her hands. I stood behind her and put my arms around her. Arlene ruffled her hair as she walked past the chair.

  ‘It’s OK, hun,’ she whispered.

  ‘I told you when we first met that I’d made one movie,’ Sam said quietly. ‘I didn’t go into detail because it’s not a part of my career I’m proud of. I didn’t mean to…’

  ‘Sam, this is bullshit,’ I said as comfortingly as I could. ‘It’s pure harassment. Either that, or Jordan has no idea what goes on in the Claims Court. They’re not interested in this kind of crap over there. If that’s all he’s got, there’s no way Judge Morrow is going to let Mary Jane Perrins take over as lead plaintiff.’