A Conflict of Interest (2 page)

Right before my parents moved, my mother offered all of their accumulated possessions to Elizabeth and me. We declined—already having too much furniture for our small apartment—with one exception. I asked for a framed Picasso poster. It’s more of a sketch than anything else, with assorted primary colors running in jagged lines from the middle of the subject’s forehead down to the base of her nose.

When I was a child, the Picasso poster was the only thing I could see from my bedroom when the door was opened the usual crack to let some light in when I went to sleep. Truth be told, it frightened me then, so much so that I used to call it the Scary Lady.

My father bought the poster for four dollars the year my parents were married because he thought the woman depicted looked like my mother. I’m not sure my mother was ever flattered by the comparison, and she would have easily parted with it, but my father overruled her, claiming a sentimental attachment. The Scary Lady now hangs in their entry hall, the first thing you see upon entering, still surrounded by its original silver frame and bright blue matte, which is completely at odds with the color scheme of the rest of the house.

“Your father thought the world of you,” my aunt Joan says to me while she’s spreading what looks like vegetable cream cheese on a sesame bagel. “He was just so proud of everything you had
accomplished.” She offers a somewhat pained smile. “How is your mother handling all of this?”

“Okay, I guess. I’m not sure the enormity of it has kicked in for her yet.”

Joan nods and looks to the floor. “When Sam died, it took a long time for me to feel like myself again. But, as they say, it gets easier. Not better, just easier.”

It’s my turn to nod and look away. Sam was my father’s older brother, and his only sibling. He died twenty years ago, maybe more.

“And you?” Joan asks. “How are you dealing with everything?”

“Good,” I say with a wan smile that by now I’ve perfected as the response to this query.

“Elizabeth looks great,” Joan adds, nodding across the room in the direction of my wife, who is busy with her own bagel and another group of family friends. “And how’s that little girl of yours?”

“Great.” This I say with a real smile, my involuntarily reflex whenever my daughter is the topic of discussion. “Charlotte’s just wonderful.”

“How old is she now?”

“She turned five last month. We didn’t bring her down because we didn’t think a funeral was something she’d understand.”

Joan doesn’t offer any insight into the fragility of the psyche of a five-year-old girl, but her face takes on a mask that suggests she’s thinking about something even more frightening than a funeral would be to Charlotte. “Alex, there’s actually something I wanted to—”

“Alex,” my mother interrupts. “I’m sorry, Joan,” she says, “I need to borrow my son for a moment.”

Joan curls her lip. There’s never been any love lost between her and my mother, on either side of the equation. Still, Joan knows enough not to challenge her sister-in-law with regard to my time, and so she says only, “We’ll talk later.”

My mother is almost twelve years my father’s junior, and because of this disparity, I long suspected that she would not only survive him, but that when he died she’d still be young enough to have a second act, an opportunity to live a different life. When I tried to imagine
what that other life would look like, I always believed it would be built around another man—someone very different from my father.

All of this is not to say that I ever doubted my mother’s love for my father, but my parents certainly made an unlikely pair. Part of that was physical—she towered over him by a good three inches, and when she wore heels, which was not infrequently, she could be a head taller. But it was also because she was at least three points higher on the looks meter, and that spread was increasing as they aged.

On what my parents always referred to as a “baker’s rack” is one of the last pictures they took together. It’s a photo I shot at Charlotte’s birthday party, which was a little more than a month ago. They’re both smiling broadly, but people who don’t know them would likely assume they are father and daughter, except for the fact that it would be hard to imagine my father having such a beautiful daughter.

My mother drags me by the arm over to the living room sofa. “Alex, this is Michael Ohlig,” she says when we’ve arrived.

Ohlig stands and extends his arm. I can’t help but look down at his hand, recalling how firmly he grasped the shovel at the cemetery. Peeking out from his sleeve is a very expensive watch. It isn’t flashy, not one of those clunky platinum time pieces crusted in diamonds that seemingly every one of my investment banker clients sports. It has a simple black leather band and a white chronograph face. I might not have thought it cost more than a few hundred dollars if I hadn’t recently read an article in the
New York Times
about complications, the term used by aficionados to describe watches of this type, which combine several functions within a single casing. This watch, or at least one very similar, was pictured in the article, and so I know it’s more expensive than a sports car.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” I say. “I’ve heard a lot about you over the years.”

“I bet it’s not half as much as I’ve heard about you,” he says.

Ohlig’s voice fits the man perfectly. Strong, without any sense of doubt or fear, but also conveying breeziness, as if Michael Ohlig is a man who doesn’t sweat the small stuff.

The woman sitting beside him doesn’t get up to take part in the
introductions, but Ohlig gestures toward the couch and says, “This is my wife, Pamela.”

Pamela Ohlig is the kind of woman a rich, well-preserved silver-haired man in his sixties would marry later in life, which is to say that she’s my age, or at most a few years older, certainly under forty, very attractive and a little cheap looking. There’s a lot that seems just a quarter too much—the blondeness of her hair, the tightness of her clothes, the size of the jewels she wears.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” my mother says. “Pamela, thank you so much for coming today.”

“My pleasure,” she says, and then looks as if she thought better of being pleased to be at my father’s funeral.

My mother doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, she turns back toward Ohlig and says, “Michael, Alex is a criminal defense attorney at Cromwell Altman in New York City.”

“So your father told me. Many times, in fact. If I remember what he said, it’s the best law firm in the world, and you are the youngest partner in its ten-thousand-year history.”

I smile a bit sheepishly at the joke. My father did have a tendency to brag about my accomplishments.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Ohlig says. “It’s one of the many things I loved about your dad, the way he loved you so. So tell me, how do you like it at Cromwell Altman?”

Like most people, I suppose, I’ve answered the question—how do you like work?—so many times that my response sounds like a prepared speech. “The cases are always pretty interesting,” I say, reciting my lines; “very high stakes, and the people at the firm are some of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered anywhere. Of course, if you asked my wife, she might give you a different answer. I think her usual quote is that the place is sucking out my soul.”

My quip elicits the polite laughter of people who don’t know me well enough to determine how much truth it contains. We go on to talk a few more minutes about nothing of substance—the astronomical price of real estate in New York City, the Florida humidity in August. At a conversational pause, my mother excuses herself to meet a
new arrival, and when she’s out of earshot, Ohlig turns to his wife and says, “Would you mind, dear, if I take a few moments to discuss something with Alex privately?”

“Of course,” she says. “It was very nice meeting you, Alex,” she adds as her husband leads me away.

“Do you mind if we go outside for a moment?” Ohlig asks, stretching his arm toward the front door as if to lead me.

My mother’s postage-size front lawn has a view of a man-made canal that is narrower than a New York City side street. Without irony, she called this a “water view” when she first described the property to me.

I wait for Ohlig to tell me what I imagine is going to be some anecdote about my father that might not be suitable to be shared in front of his wife. Instead, what he says is completely unexpected.

“I’m afraid I find myself in a bit of legal trouble and need the help of a first-rate criminal defense lawyer.”

He says this without the slightest trace of guilt. I’m not surprised he doesn’t admit any wrongdoing; virtually none of my clients do, at least not before I learn of the evidence that leaves little room for doubt. But Ohlig doesn’t proclaim his innocence either, and that is surprising.

The first credo of Cromwell Altman is never to pass up a paying client. The lesson is reinforced daily when the firm sends around the origination scorecard, showing the top rainmakers. So I overlook the circumstances—my father’s funeral—to pitch for the business.

“How can I help you, Mr. Ohlig?”

“Please, Alex, if we’re going to be working together, and even if we’re not, you have to call me Michael.”

“Okay. How can I help you, Michael?”

“Thank you,” he says in something of a non sequitur. “It’s not appropriate to your father’s memory to talk about it today. I’ll come to New York next week and meet with you in your office.”

“It’s okay to talk about it now. I really don’t mind and it will let me think about something else.”

“No. It just isn’t right,” he says, making it clear he will not change his mind. “But, if you’ll permit me one more indulgence. I don’t want your mother to know about any of this. Attorney-client privilege and
all that good stuff. She’s got enough on her mind now without my problems adding to it.”

“I understand. All representations are kept in the strictest confidence. Even from my mother.”

He laughs, as if we had been talking about something other than the fact that he finds himself in criminal jeopardy. This much I’ve already surmised: Michael Ohlig is one cool customer. Most clients are like my daughter before a doctor’s visit, requiring constant assurance that everything is going to be all right and a painstakingly precise description of each step to follow, but not Michael Ohlig. He’s heard enough.

There are really only two possibilities for Ohlig’s demeanor. Either he has deluded himself into believing there’s nothing to worry about, or he knows the peril he’s in and sees no reason to request false promises. Even though I’ve only just met him, it is already apparent that Ohlig isn’t the self-deluded type.

O
hlig arrives at my office at nine o’clock on the dot the following Monday. He’s wearing a dark suit, a white shirt, and an expensive-looking tie. But for the fact his hair is a few inches longer than a white-shoe lawyer would find appropriate, someone passing by my office would assume I was meeting with the firm’s senior partner.

“Thank you again for making time for me, Alex.”

“My pleasure, Michael.”

“How’s your mom doing?”

“She’s okay. Thanks for asking. I spoke with her yesterday. She’s trying to sound upbeat, talking about the future. But it must be so hard. My father was everything to her.”

He smiles softly. “She’s a strong woman, your mother. She’ll be okay, of that I’m sure. And you, how are you holding up?”

“Good. Again, thanks for asking.”

“Good. Thanks for asking,” he repeats as a gentle mock. “Have you always been so reserved in your emotions?”

The truth is that I always have been. It’s something that Elizabeth finds difficult to comprehend, wondering how I can argue with people for a living and yet remain so even-tempered in my own life. “That’s why,” is what I normally tell her.

My father’s death is my first experience with grief. I cried when my mother called me with the news, but since then I’ve been able to hold my emotions in check, even while eulogizing him. It was Charlotte, ironically enough, who first called me on it. Noticing how Elizabeth was crying as I told our daughter the news that Papa had died, Charlotte seemed confused.

“Papa was your daddy, right, Daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Then why aren’t you crying too?”

“I cried for Papa earlier, when Grandma told me the news. And I may cry for him later too. Everyone feels sad in their own way.”

I told Ohlig a variant of the same thing. Like Charlotte, I don’t think he bought it.

“Alex, even though I’m up here seeking your sage counsel,” he says, “I may be able to offer you some advice too. I know what it’s like to lose a father, and I know what a great guy your father was, which I can only assume makes it a hundred times tougher for you than it was for me when my father died because my old man was one mean SOB. I guess what I’m trying to say is that even though we don’t know each other very well, other than your mother, no one knew your father better than me. So, if you ever want to talk about anything, I’m here for you.”

“Thank you. I really do appreciate it,” I say, meaning it.

He looks around my office. “Okay, so before we get started, you gotta tell me what’s up with the Batman stuff.”

It’s a fair question, and one that others have posed. For the most part, my office, like much of my life, is little more than a façade with which I try to project what I think the world expects from me. In this case, that includes a sleek Le Corbusier glass table and matching guest chairs, a high-backed black leather desk chair that looks as expensive as it was, a sofa I don’t believe anyone has ever sat on, pictures on my desk of Charlotte and Elizabeth that face me, and artwork I stare at for twelve to sixteen hours a day, but would be hard-pressed to identify if it were stolen.

The exception to all this high-end seriousness is assorted Batman paraphernalia. Some of it is of the expensive toy variety, like a Cobblepot for Mayor poster that was an actual prop in the 1992 Batman movie and cost nearly $2,000 on eBay, but most of it is what you might expect to see in an eight-year-old’s bedroom—a Batman mug that holds my pens, Pez figures on my bookshelf, and a toy bat signal. They stand out in these surroundings much the same way I would at a partners’ meeting if I dyed my hair purple.