A Conflict of Interest (21 page)

I feel myself exhale. Finally, I can relax.

“I was hoping I’d see you today,” she says. Her eyes are bright and her smile is ear-to-ear.

“I missed you,” I say, even though I know I shouldn’t be so … honest.

“I wish I could have come to the funeral.”

Abby looks down at the table. At first I think it’s to express further condolence, and then I realize she’s looking at my hand. I wonder if she’s going to put her hand on top of mine. I wait, but she doesn’t move.

“Look at this,” I say, and pull an envelope out of my briefcase. “I found it in my mother’s house. It was in my father’s night table. It’s him and Ohlig, when they were about my age, maybe a little younger.”

Abby studies the photograph. “I see you’re not a victim of male pattern baldness,” she says.

“My father was a cue ball well before thirty,” I reply, running my hand through my own full head of hair. “As I’ve told you, my mother always said I’m all her.”

Abby looks at me sympathetically. Her eyes are telling me it’s okay if I want to talk about my mother. I accept the invitation.

“I’m trying to figure out how she died. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

“What doesn’t?”

“She wouldn’t go in the ocean by herself. It just wasn’t like her. And on Thanksgiving morning? The police said they looked for a suicide note, but didn’t find one. Apparently that’s standard operating procedure in drowning cases.” I shake my head. “I never should have left her alone for the holiday.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself,” she says. “You couldn’t go to Florida for Thanksgiving. You had a professional obligation to keep your client out of jail, a man who was your family’s oldest friend. And you did the only thing you could—you asked your mother to come to New York for the holiday. It was her decision not to come. You didn’t keep her away.”

I feel my eyes becoming moist, and I look away from Abby. She moves from the far side of the table until she’s sitting next to me, and then gently places her hand on my shoulder.

“Alex, your mother did not commit suicide. There wasn’t a suicide note. Doesn’t that settle it?”

“Not necessarily. Apparently lots of people commit suicide without leaving notes.” I give her a shrug. “I googled it.”

Neither of us says anything for a moment. Finally I remark: “She died all alone. That’s the part I hate most. I keep imagining her in the water, alone and scared.”

Abby places her hand on mine without saying anything. When I caress her hand she caresses mine back, as if to say that I’m not alone and so I shouldn’t be scared.

We sit like that in silence, well past the time when one of us should have withdrawn, or said something. I’m focused solely on my thumb, which is massaging the top of her hand, the space between her thumb
and index finger. The moment hangs in the air, as if it’s not really of this time or place.

As if I’m awakened from a dream, I notice that the conference room door is open. Not completely, but enough that someone would enter without knocking. Abby seemingly can read my mind because she realizes that I’m suddenly concerned that someone will find us here, holding hands, and takes her hand off mine, but while doing so smiles at me to confirm that she wishes she didn’t have to.

“I should go home,” I say. “I was only allowed to come in because I promised Elizabeth I wouldn’t stay long.”

“You didn’t have to come in at all, Alex. You should be home with your family.”

“I really did miss you,” I say, and at that moment believed with all my heart that if the door was closed just a little more, I would have kissed her.

I am still thinking about the softness of Abby’s touch when I enter our apartment, and so I am immediately ashamed of myself when I see what can only be described as pure joy. Charlotte is sitting on Elizabeth’s lap, receiving a manicure. As if they are puppets on the same string, both of their heads move up in unison, and their faces adopt the same broad smile when they see I’m home.

“Daddy!” Charlotte screams. “Mommy is painting my nails. Guess what color?”

There is perhaps nothing in the entire world I can be as sure of as the color Charlotte has chosen to paint her fingernails, yet I consider it my paternal responsibility to allow her to surprise me. “Blue?” I say.

“No!” She says this with a squeal, the delight of having knowledge I lack. “Guess again.”

“It must be red.”

“No! It’s pink.”

“Pink?” I say, continuing to play my part. “You’re having your fingernails painted pink? What color were they before?”

Charlotte tilts her head slightly, as if she’s considering this question. “I don’t know. What color was it?” she asks her mother.

“It was a different shade of pink,” Elizabeth says, and then Charlotte repeats it for me, in case I didn’t get it the first time.

I put down my briefcase, hang up my coat, and make my way over to the couch to inspect Elizabeth’s handiwork. “It’s absolutely beautiful, Charlotte. I really love the color you picked.” I lean over to place a kiss on the top of my daughter’s head, and then do the same to Elizabeth’s.

“I thought you’d be at the office much later tonight,” Elizabeth says. It is about as sad a commentary on my life as I can imagine, but Elizabeth is more surprised when I come home before midnight than when I’m out past that time. She smiles at me and says, “I’m glad you’re home.”

“I’m sorry about going into the office. I was a little freaked out by the judge refusing us a reasonable extension. But everything seems under control, so I figured I should make sure all was good at home.”

“I’m not sure your priorities are properly sequenced,” Elizabeth says, “but all’s well here.”

I immediately become defensive. “I had to go in, Elizabeth.”

“I’m not criticizing,” Elizabeth says softly, highlighting that my tone was uncalled for. “I’m just stating a fact. I realize that you have this trial, and that it’s important. But after this one there’ll be another one. And another after that. Et cetera and so on. Remember when you joined the firm you had to establish yourself, and then you were up for partner, and then as a junior partner people were looking to see whether you’d ultimately take a leadership role in the firm, and now you’ve got this trial.”

“Elizabeth—my mother just died, can’t you cut me a little slack?”

“No, Alex, that’s precisely why I shouldn’t. Your mother’s death should be a wake-up call for you, and not another excuse to bury yourself in work. Life is just too short.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? You know what I’m saying.”

“I really don’t, Elizabeth,” I say, although the better answer is that I hope I don’t.

“The short version, Alex, is that this”—and she waves around the room—“is your life. Me, Charlotte. And it’s right now. Not
someday
or
later
. But now. Is this really the way you want it to be? Because it’s getting damn near the point where that decision is going to be irrevocably made.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No,” she says with a sigh, as if I’ve missed the point entirely. “It’s my greatest fear is what it is.”

T
he red light on my phone is blinking when I arrive at the office. I assume it’s Abby, and eagerly punch in my password, but when I access my messages, it’s a much different voice that I hear.

“This is Assistant United States Attorney Christopher Pavin calling about the United States v. Michael Ohlig matter,” his message begins, as if we’ve never met. “Mr. Miller, it is extremely important that you call me back as soon as possible. Thank you.”

When I call Pavin back, I get his voicemail. “This is private attorney Alexander Miller of the law firm Cromwell Altman Rosenthal and White. I received a voicemail message from Assistant United States Attorney Christopher Pavin to call him on a matter of extreme importance. By this phone message, I hereby return his phone call. The time of this call is nine-thirty five in the
A.M
. The date is Friday, the fifth of December.”

Pavin calls me back less than five minutes later. “I liked your message,” he says. “You’re a funny guy.”

“You’re the one who can’t just say, ‘Alex, it’s Chris, call me.’” I respond, trying my best to act unconcerned that the prosecutor has left a dire message on the eve of the trial.

“Alex, it’s Chris,” he deadpans back. “Before getting to the reason for my call, I wanted to express my sincere condolences about your mother.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that you didn’t take a hard line with Judge Sullivan on the extension. Not that it mattered very much.”

“She wants this trial to go. That’s for sure.”

Our small talk complete, I wait for the purpose of the call. He’s at least experienced enough not to make me wait very long.

“I’ve got something important to talk to you about.”

“Okay. Shoot,” I say, still trying to convey there is absolutely
nothing he could say that would shake my belief in Ohlig’s total innocence.

“We had considerable internal discussion on this issue and we ultimately concluded we needed to focus you on something, in case you didn’t realize its importance.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Although Pavin’s preface is condescending, I know better than to turn down free discovery.

“You need to listen to tape number 17 very carefully,” he says gravely. “I think it would be inappropriate for me to say more at this point, but if you have questions after you’ve listened to it, feel free to call me.”

“Well, you certainly have piqued my interest, Assistant United States Attorney Christopher Pavin. I’ll take a listen and get back to you. Thanks for the heads-up.”

He says nothing for a moment, then, “I’ve never encountered this type of situation before and, truth be told, no one else in my office has either. We really didn’t know what to do, so we decided to err on the side of caution.” If this were not tantalizing enough, Pavin adds, “Just so I’m clear, when I say you need to listen to it, I mean
you,
Alex. Don’t have Abby Sloane or anyone else do it. You have to be the one.”

“Okay,” I say, still trying to sound lighthearted, but now very much more concerned.

Abby’s in the war room, surrounded by three-inch black binders. We, or rather she (and I’m sure an army of others—temps, paralegals, secretaries, mailroom guys) have prepared about thirty of these witness binders. Each has the witness’s name written on the spine in large letters and inside is an outline of the points to be covered in the examination, followed by the exhibits we’ll need to introduce into evidence through the witness, each designated with a numbered side tab.

“Well, good morning to you,” Abby says, her face lighting up.

“You too,” I say. “I just had the strangest call with Pavin,” I say, a bit abruptly, I realize, because Abby’s smile recedes.

“Isn’t every call with him the strangest call?” she says, morphing into work mode.

“This one was in a special category. He said we need to focus on tape 17. What’s on that one?”

“Alex, I’m listening to the tapes, not memorizing them.” She says this with a nervous laugh suggesting she’s worried she missed something important. “Anyway, since when is Pavin doing us favors?”

“That’s one of the things that made the call so strange. And get this, he made a point to emphasize I had to be the one who listens—not you.”

“Well, that does wonders for my ego,” Abby laughs again, as she starts clicking through the electronic files on her laptop.

“Pavin must be worried Ohlig will have an appellate claim for ineffective assistance of counsel if we—I should say I—am not aware of what’s on tape 17.”

“I don’t have tape 17 on the system,” she says, now looking even more concerned. “I didn’t upload every tape, just the ones I thought had relevant information. I have an index of what’s on all of them, though.” She pulls out a yellow legal pad from a stack that is sitting beside her and begins furiously flipping the pages.

“Finally,” she says in an exasperated voice. “Tape 15, 16, okay, 17.” She stares at her paper, reading her notes silently before she’s going to say anything. “That one is just Ohlig talking to his wife.” She looks up at me. “According to my notes at least, there’s nothing about Salminol on that tape.”

“I thought that Ohlig’s phone wasn’t taped.”

“It wasn’t, but occasionally he took a call on a broker’s phone, and that was taped.”

“Do you have the tape here?” I ask.

“Somewhere,” she says, already walking over to the boxes on the far wall, which are stacked up behind me. I help her lift the ones on top until she begins to rummage through the contents of a box marked July. After some digging, she pulls out a disk. “Here it is. It’s dated July 10.” She pauses, staring at the disk. “I’m almost sure there wasn’t any business talk on it. I’m sorry if I missed something, but I really don’t know what Pavin is talking about.”

“Let’s find out,” I say, probably sounding impatient, because I am.

She walks back over to her seat at the table and places the disk in her laptop. “Do you want the headphones?” she asks.

I shake my head no, and then explain we should hear the tape together, which elicits a smile that thanks me for not having lost confidence in her. Then she presses the play button.

The tape begins with Agent McNiven sounding like Joe Friday on his most serious day. “This is Special Agent Gregory McNiven of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The date is 10 July. The conversations on this tape will be from the phone number, 561 area code, 555-7592. This tape recording is pursuant to warrant.” From there the tape trails off into the familiar static, until Ohlig’s voice is heard.

“Hello.”

A woman’s voice is next. “Hi there,” she says.

“See,” Abby says, “it’s a personal call between Michael and his wife.”

I’m not listening to Abby. Instead, all of my senses are directed to the laptop emitting these sounds.

Ohlig speaks next. “Is anything wrong?”

“No,” the woman says. “I know you’re busy, but I just wanted to thank you again for last night.” A slight pause. “For both times.”

Ohlig chuckles. “Glad to be of service.”