Protect and Defend (27 page)

“Yes. But, for a judge, the rights of the defendant to a fair trial should take precedence. If the defense had objected, that would have been different.”

Palmer smiled again. “Then you would never have appeared on national television, Judge Masters. And might not be sitting on the Ninth Circuit—or here.”

“At the time,” Caroline conceded, “it occurred to me that the exposure might be helpful. I’m sure it’s occurred to Judge Leary, whom I know quite well.”

“What do you make of him?”

“That he’s a man of tremendous confidence, completely
unjustified by intellect or ability. If I were him, I’d avoid exposure like Dracula avoids garlic.”

This made Palmer laugh aloud. “That’s
my
opinion. And I
have
been watching. But I still don’t know why TV was right in your Carelli case, and wrong here.”

Caroline paused, pondering her answer; with Palmer, it seemed that only candor would do. “After the Carelli trial,” she told him, “I searched my soul a bit. A good deal of my decision about television was really about me—about ego, and self-interest …”

“But you’d still do it again.”

“Probably. I am, as you point out, sitting here.” Her tone grew crisp. “But I wouldn’t televise
this
case if you promised me the presidency.”

“Why not?”

They were edging closer to the subject of Brett. “As I understand it,” Caroline answered, “all the parties object. The subject matter—religion, abortion, and family relations—is deeply private. To me, that outweighs Patrick Leary’s self-interest. Or even our First Amendment interest in learning about the Protection of Life Act.”

Palmer considered her. “Do you think the act is constitutional?” he asked. “Or good public policy?”

“I know
you
think so,” she replied, “and I respect that. In my job, I try not to judge an act of Congress until it comes before me.” She paused, then added quietly, “The one thing I’ve concluded about
this
case is that the privacy of the family involved should have been protected …”

“Does the right to privacy,” Palmer interrupted, “include abortion?”

The directness of his inquiry surprised her. But she had no choice except to answer. “According to
Roe v. Wade
, it does. The Supreme Court says so. As a lower-court judge, it’s not appropriate for me to revisit its wisdom, or lack thereof—or prejudge whether it applies to the situations covered by the Protection of Life Act.” Pausing, Caroline looked at him directly. “My point’s a different one. Whatever rights this girl or her parents have under the law, their personal lives belong to them—not us.”

Slowly, Palmer nodded. “That’s a fair answer, Judge Masters. Thank you.”

Palmer, she realized, did not intend to raise the matter of Brett directly. That decision was hers.

Finding the words, she discovered, was not easy. “The President told me,” she said at last, “what you’ve talked about. Whether or not you vote for me, I owe you a great deal.”

Perhaps surprised, Palmer gazed at her, quiet for a moment. “You did the right thing,” he answered. “At least by my standards. I don’t think you, or she, should suffer for it.”

This was palpably sincere. But Caroline could not help but wonder what other calculations, both private and political, informed the civility of this very ambitious man.

“I appreciate that, Senator. Without your understanding, I wouldn’t have this opportunity.”

Palmer frowned, looking at her keenly. “That may be no favor,” he admonished. “There are other senators on my committee—as well as staffers—who’ll be turning over every rock, or birth certificate. So will the FBI, the media, and all the interest groups who don’t like Kerry Kilcannon or anyone
he
likes. I can try to shape the process, but no one can control it.” Leaning forward, he said quietly, “I respect the line you’ve drawn, Judge Masters. So does my friend the President. But this is not a forgiving town, and these aren’t forgiving times. There are a thousand people who could leak this, with a thousand different motives.
If
they ever find out.”

Palmer’s gaze seemed to turn inward; though Caroline did not know him, she had the intuition that this warning, while delivered to Caroline, was part of a conversation with himself.

Which was all the more reason to heed it. “I know that,” she answered. “But I needed to thank you. Both for my sake, and for my niece’s.”

The word “niece” induced in Palmer a faint smile. “Oh, that’s all right,” he answered, “I have a daughter, too.”

Briefly, Caroline looked down. “In any event,” Palmer told her, “
I
wouldn’t want to go through this process. So I’ll try to move it along, and make it as humane as possible.

“You can help me, Judge Masters. Some of my colleagues beg to be taken seriously; others deserve to be. Give them what they need to make a judgment.”

Caroline nodded. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“One thing.” Leaning forward, Palmer assumed an air of gravity. “By far the most important. You could be testifying
before my committee for several days. So whenever you need to go to the bathroom, touch your left ear. I’ll recess the hearing.”

Caroline smiled. “That has more value than you know.”

“So Allie tells me.” Standing, Palmer said, “There’ll be reporters waiting. Shall we go feed them?”

By now, Caroline knew Chad Palmer’s reputation as a cheerfully self-confessed “media harlot.” “You can,” she replied. “I intend to imitate Lot’s wife.”

“A wise policy—for judges. But not for politicians.” More seriously, Chad said, “It’s truly been a pleasure to meet you, and I wish you luck. If there’s anything I can do to help, except shamelessly capitulate, don’t hesitate to ask.”

He seemed sincere, Caroline thought, and to be as the President described him—an honorable man in a hard profession. “Thank you,” she answered. “I will.”

Outside, as the Senator predicted, a cluster of reporters and Minicams were waiting. Bob Franken of CNN stepped forward with a microphone. “Can you tell us,” he asked, “what the two of you discussed?”

Demurely, Caroline turned to Palmer. “Families,” he said with a smile. “And baseball.”

Alone in his office, Chad reflected on their meeting.

Caroline Masters was impressive, her concern for Brett Allen affecting. But the image that surfaced now did not involve
her
daughter, but his—a Friday night four years ago, when Allie and Kyle still lived in Cleveland, and he had canceled two appearances in order to fly home unexpectedly.

The decision was driven by worries about Kyle, and the flight from Washington was filled with concern for Allie. Their daughter had taught them a great deal that they had never wished to know—her highs were a frightening mix of giddiness, recklessness, and grandiosity, and her lows left her so lethargic and depressed as to seem autistic. The psychiatrists they consulted disagreed as to the cause: one thought her behavior a form of manic-depression, rare in adolescents; another blamed Chad’s absence for an increased need for attention in an already moody girl. Whatever the cause, Kyle had learned to lie without remorse, and to conceal pills or dope or alcohol with the cleverness of a thief.

Therapists, prescription drugs, and counseling for substance abuse did not seem to help. She was draining the life, Chad thought, from her mother, and from his marriage. A child at risk made trust a luxury, each day uncertain, the mere sound of a telephone ringing a reason to flinch.

Would this be the call?
Chad could see Allie thinking— fearful of an overdose, or of a car wreck after binge drinking with some ill-chosen friend, or that Kyle had run away from home. Their daughter had become the enemy; with merciless self-appraisal, the habit of two years of solitude, Chad acknowledged that he had come to resent Kyle more than he loved her.

All this had crowded Washington from his thoughts until, on impulse, Chad had driven to Reagan National—less for Kyle’s sake than Allie’s. A cabbie had dropped him, still preoccupied, in front of their Tudor home in Shaker Heights. “Goodnight, Senator,” the man said. “It’s an honor. Folks will never forget what you did.”

Chad was used to this; as always, his reflex was to deflect it. “I appreciate that,” he said with a smile. “But if getting kidnapped were voluntary, I’d have passed it up.”

And then he was alone, a man with a suit bag, gazing at the darkened house. Only the porch light was on: Kyle must not be home, and Allie would still be at the symphony. That she did not expect him lent Chad the anticipatory pleasure of surprising her.

He turned the key, stepping softly inside, then stopped.

He had an instinct in darkness, a sixth sense—in his cell, blindfolded or in pitch blackness, he had learned to know when his captors were there. It was a feeling on his skin, at the nape of his neck.

Taut, Chad switched on the hall light.

Kyle lay naked on the Persian rug, staring up at him in startled defiance. On top of her was a boy with lavender hair and a snake tattooed on his back.

Chad could not speak. In a dark fury, he wrenched the naked boy upright by his hair.

“
No
,” Kyle screamed at him.

Chad barely heard her cries. As the boy yelped in primal terror, Chad smashed him against the wall. The boy’s eyes bulged, and his lips quivered. “If I ever see you again,” Chad
said in a tight voice, “your life won’t be worth living. I’ve learned all about that, from experts …”

From behind him, Kyle pulled at his suit coat. “
Don’t …
” Chad jerked himself away; throwing the door open, he propelled the boy tumbling down the front steps, crying in pain as he sprawled on the cold cement. “On the way home,” Chad told him, “buy yourself some clothes.”

Closing the door, he faced his daughter, and suddenly wondered what he had done, and what would happen to his family. But by then it was too late.

“B
EFORE YOUR
daughter became pregnant,” Sarah asked Abby Smythe, “were you familiar with Ohio’s parental consent law?”

A woman of forty with brown hair, snub features, and a quiet voice, Smythe looked like what she was: a housewife from a small town in southern Ohio, imbued with communal values—family, church, volunteerism—which put concern for others before self.

“Yes,” she answered. “I’d discussed it with others in my church. Frank—my husband—and I believed that parents, not strangers or the schools, should be responsible for educating our children about sex, and for monitoring their behavior. We thought there were too many degrading outside influences in children’s lives, from movies to music, and that a law which reinforced the value and authority of parents was good.”

Judging from his expression, Martin Tierney knew about the Smythes and their daughter. He studied her with a self-protective remoteness, as though determined to place distance between them. But Mary Ann, who also knew, leaned anxiously toward the witness.

“Did you,” Sarah asked, “have any particular concerns about Carrie?”

“None.” The word was emphatic and, Sarah thought, defensive. “She was a cheerleader, an honor student, and worked with our church’s community service program, bringing meals to shut-ins. There was never a problem with alcohol, or rule-breaking.

“Other mothers would tell me about what trials their girls were, and I’d say to Frank“—abruptly, Smythe’s voice became chastened—“that God had given us the all-American girl.”

Beneath Smythe’s quiet manner was the echo of endless re-examination, of memory tarnished by hindsight. “What,” Sarah asked her, “did you tell Carrie about sex?”

Smythe was fixed on Sarah now, as though to block out how public her confession had become. “That God intended it for marriage. And that sexual relations outside marriage were wrong.”

“How did she respond?”

Smythe raised her chin slightly. “That she wanted to be a virgin until she married. I remember telling Frank that Carrie would be a more powerful role model for her sisters than an adult would ever be.” She paused, inhaling. “It also reassured me. Carrie had started dating a boy on the football team— Tommy. We felt like she was telling us her values were still in place.”

None of this testimony surprised Sarah; she had prepared Smythe with care, and Smythe repeated the same answers with a weary self-condemnation which seemed to have become ritual. But they were edging toward the precipice, where Abby Smythe’s life had changed forever, and the part of Sarah not conditioned by the courtroom disliked the need to take her there.

“Did you ever think that Carrie was changing?” she asked. “Or that a distance had opened up between you?”

“No.” Smythe shook her head in wonderment. “What did I ever do, I ask myself, that Carrie felt the need to protect me, when I thought I was protecting her?”

The answer haunted Sarah. It was her theory that a teenager’s acts of defiance—however vexing or ill-chosen—were steps in the creation of an autonomous adult, and that parents
who flattered themselves that this separation was unnecessary did their children harm. But Abby Smythe still seemed not to comprehend fully the tragedy of her daughter’s feigned perfection: when they had looked at Carrie’s yearbook picture, blond and smiling, Abby had said, “That’s how she really was.”

“When,” Sarah asked her, “did you first discover that Carrie was in trouble?”

At this question, Martin Tierney leaned forward, and Barry Saunders scowled. But Abby Smythe fixed her gaze on Sarah.

“On Friday,” she answered, “Carrie asked to stay over with her best friend since first grade, after their double date. Beth was like another daughter, at our house all the time, and her father worked with Frank at the Carver County Bank.

“I said fine, of course. When she left that night I never thought a thing, except to say it was cold out and please to wear a muffler.”

Smythe paused, as though clinging to this homely detail, the evidence of her love. “I was in the kitchen,” she went on. “I heard them start out the door, and then Carrie hurried back inside, gave me a hug, and said she always felt lucky I cared about her so much …” Smythe touched her eyes, then continued in an affectless voice. “I remember thinking if she said that, with all the things I heard from other parents, I must be a pretty good mom.”