Seasons of the Fool (14 page)

Elsie’s face lit up. “Oh, my. That does sound encouraging.” She glanced at her weaving, and then bent to look at it more carefully. “We’re not in the clear yet, though.”

“I know,” said Thea. “I’ve seen the same signs. But we have reason to hope, dear. I’m sure of it.”

Elsie looked again at her weaving. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “What I’m seeing is a knot that may never be untangled.”

~

In the end, Julia chose not to reschedule her prep session with her lawyer. It didn’t seem fair to ask everyone in his office to rearrange their calendars just so she could avoid seeing Dave again.

She managed to dodge him for most of the weekend, relying on the excuse that she had a ton of work to do on her next novel. He was clearly disappointed, but he couldn’t very well confront her with the kids watching.

At some point, she knew, they would have to have it out. But not yet. She couldn’t do it yet.

Between the emotional upheaval over Dave and her trepidation about the upcoming trial, she slept badly all week. Thursday night was the worst – she slept only in fits and starts, and finally gave up when the sky began to lighten. As she was up so early, she decided to catch an earlier train to Chicago and kill time at a tea house near Andy’s office in the Loop.

She picked up a copy of the Tribune with her tea and scone, but lost her appetite when she saw the front page with a big article about Lance’s trial splashed across it. The Trib’s team of reporters had ferreted out most of the details of the scam he had run right under her nose. The report included quotes from some of his victims, who talked about how Lance had cheated them out of their life savings. He had hoodwinked so many people, including her. Although she doubted his victims would consider her a kindred spirit.

The article also said that due to the highly technical nature of the fraud that Lance had perpetrated on his victims, the trial might last into August.

That was the first thing she asked Andy when she saw him. “Is this true?” she asked, practically shoving the paper at him. “Is the trial liable to take all summer?”

“I’ve already seen it,” he said, handing the paper back to her. “And yes, that’s what we’re hearing.”

“So when will I be called to testify?”

“We don’t know,” Andy conceded. “I’ve got a call in to the staff at the S.E.C. to find out, but so far they haven’t returned my call.”

“And I don’t suppose Lance’s lawyer is talking, either,” she said.

“He’s been a little more forthcoming. But a lot of it hinges on how long the government takes to present its case. It’s possible you may have to testify on two separate days.”

“Terrific,” she said. “I was really hoping to be able to put all this behind me. I almost feel as if I’m still married to Lance, the way my name keeps coming up tied to his.” She flicked the newspaper with one finger. “And I feel like my hands are tied financially, too.”

“I understand,” Andy said, as an attractive Hispanic woman entered the room. “Ah, Gabby, you’re just in time. Julia, this is my associate Gabriela Reyes. She’ll be assisting us with the prep.”

Gabby Reyes took Julia’s hand with a wide smile. “It’s an honor to meet you. I loved your novel.”

“Thank you,” Julia said, feeling inordinately pleased.

“I meant to congratulate you on it,” Andy said. “Thanks for reminding me, Gabby. I hear it’s selling quite well.”

“Thank you,” she said again. “Yes, it is. I’ve been very lucky.”

“And I understand some of the characters in your book bear a resemblance to some of the characters in this case,” he said.

Julia looked back and forth between the attorneys. “I might have used people I know as a springboard for my imagination,” she said slowly. “But my book is a work of fiction. I didn’t write it to tell my side of the story, or anything like that.”

“Of course not,” Andy said. “I’m not suggesting you did. But I anticipate that the government will ask you a number of questions about it. So I’d like to spend some time today exploring that possible line of questioning, if it’s okay with you.”

“Sure,” said Julia. “Of course.”

The next two hours were among the most uncomfortable of Julia’s life – right up there with the night she and Lance had traded barbs about their respective affairs. Gabby had outlined every scene in her novel that bore even a passing resemblance to her marriage, and Andy questioned her relentlessly about what she was thinking when she wrote each one.

“I wasn’t necessarily thinking,” she told him, over and over.

Finally he said, “I’m not trying to be mean or difficult, Julia.”

“I realize that,” she said.

“So you need to work with me,” he went on. “The prosecutor is going to want to know your thought process when you chose to portray this scene in this particular way. And he’s going to ask you questions that are a lot tougher than the ones I’m asking you right now.”

She threw up her hands. “I don’t know how to answer the questions you’re asking me,” she said. “So much of what I do when I’m writing is subconscious.” She stared off into space for a moment, searching for an analogy. “Do either of you run?”

“I’m a runner,” Gabby said, looking up from her notes. “I finished a half marathon for the first time ever last fall.”

Julia smiled at her. “Congratulations. That’s great,” she said. “That’s perfect, in fact. So you’ve experienced a runner’s high.”

“Oh, yeah!” Gabby said. Her whole face lit up. “I love it when that happens. It’s the best thing ever.” She looked at Andy and explained, “It’s when you’re in the zone. When everything’s clicking and you feel like you can run for miles. Everything’s effortless – your form, your stride, everything. You don’t have to…” – she looked at Julia before faltering to a stop – “think about anything.”

Julia nodded as she finished. “That’s exactly it. When I’m writing and the work is going well, I get into the zone. The story comes to me effortlessly – like I’m just the pipeline for a narrative that’s coming from somewhere else, filtering through me, and finding its way out the tips of my fingers onto the page. Or, well, the computer screen.” She smiled. “I do some plotting, but the scenes take shape based on what comes out of this mysterious fount in my head. The process is subconscious.

“Now, I get that you’re seeing certain things in my book that seem to correspond to certain points in the narrative you’ve come up with – or the one the government has come up with – to explain how Lance did what he did. But I didn’t deliberately pattern my story after my own life. Anything in my narrative that reminds you of Lance’s scam is purely coincidental.” She sat back, folding her hands before her on the table.

As she spoke, Andy had sprawled back in his chair, regarding her narrowly. Now he straightened and said, “All right.” He picked up his pen and tapped it several times on the legal pad before him on the table. “Let’s try it this way. You keep referring to ‘my narrative’ and ‘the government’s narrative.’ Why don’t you explain to me
your
narrative about what Lance did? And then we can go from there.”

She stared at him. “I don’t really know how Lance did what he did,” she said. “The charges against him were news to me. Everything I know, I’ve learned from the news.”

Andy shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I want to know what
you
knew.”

“I….”

“When did you begin to notice that things didn’t add up?”

She thought back. “It was about seven years ago,” she said slowly. “We had bought the house in Evanston a few years before, and suddenly it wasn’t grand enough for Lance. It’s a five-bedroom house,” she explained. “Huge eat-in kitchen, formal dining room, sunroom, and a big backyard.”

“Just for the two of you?” Gabby asked.

“Yeah,” Julia said. “Lance didn’t want children. His own childhood wasn’t particularly happy, and he didn’t feel qualified to parent anyone else.”

“Did
you
want kids?” Gabby asked.

Julia looked at her folded hands. “I suppose I did,” she admitted, and looked up. “But I wasn’t like some women who feel like they need to bear a child in order to feel complete, or whatever. I was okay with whatever Lance wanted.” At Gabby’s look of disbelief, she said, “I’m sure that sounds kind of crazy. Look. When I met Lance, I had just lost my parents in a plane crash.”

“I’m sorry,” the lawyers each murmured.

She barely paused to acknowledge their sympathy. “I was a freshman in college. I was floundering, to be honest. And he just seemed to…shine. Has either of you ever met him?”

“I have,” Andy said. “He’s quite a charismatic fellow.”

“Exactly,” said Julia. “He’s got this aura about him.” Her hands described a globe in the air before her. “It’s more than just a salesman’s confidence. It’s like he’s an irresistible flame. And I was the moth.” Her mouth quirked up on one side. “Or if you’d rather get poetic about it, he was the light in my darkest hour.” She shook her head. “He loved it. He loved the fact that I was attracted to him. And I loved the fact that he lit up my life. So anything Lance wanted, he got. He didn’t want kids, so we didn’t have any. He didn’t want it to look like his wife needed to work in order to support his lifestyle, so I stayed home. He wanted to remodel our new house, so we did. He wanted the European vacations and the flashy cars and the Gold Coast condo, so we had all that stuff.” She shrugged. “I had no idea where the money was coming from. He handled all of it.”

“Did he ever tell you about his famous clients?” Andy asked. “Any stories about well-known people or particularly difficult clients?”

“Occasionally,” she said. “I knew he was managing investments for a couple of the Bears. There was some rock star he used to complain about. But I was under the impression that they were all clients of the legal side of the business. I had no inkling that he was running some supposedly amazing investment opportunity on the side.”

“In retrospect,” Andy asked, “when it all came down, did everything start to make sense to you?”

Julia shrugged. “Sure. But hindsight is always 20-20.”

“What did you do instead of working?” Gabby asked.

“Ran the household,” she said. “Worked out at the gym. Party planning – we entertained a fair amount. And I’m embarrassed to admit how much time I spent shopping. Toward the end, I was taking writing classes at StoryStudio.” She cut a sidelong look at them both. “And I was seeing someone.”

Neither attorney reacted to her admission. “Did Lance know him?” was all Andy said.

“No. I met him in a writing workshop.”

“And Lance was also seeing someone.”

“Several someones, actually. One after the other, for most of our marriage.” Her lip curled at the memory. “That’s why he wanted the condo. He told me when he bought it that it was to give his clients a place to stay when they were in town, but he admitted later that he’d wanted to set his girlfriends up in style.”

“And the man you had an affair with?” Andy asked. “Where was he living?”

“In a lousy efficiency near Logan Square,” she said. “I was supporting him with money I’d inherited from my grandparents. When that ran out, the relationship was over.” She tried not to sound bitter.

“What’s his name?” asked Gabby.

“Jesse Vaughn.”

“And where is he now?”

“No idea. And I have no desire to know.”

“Fair enough.” Andy made a note on his legal pad and sat back. “What about right now? Are you seeing anyone?”

Julia’s eyes widened. “Is that germane?”

Andy shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Just trying to make sure we don’t get surprised.”

Julia weighed her answer for a moment. Finally, she said, “No. I’m not seeing anyone right now.”

~

It got easier after lunch. Andy and Gabby counseled her on what to wear on the stand, how to behave, and what to say if she didn’t know the answer to a question. “It’s okay to say you don’t know,” Andy said, “and, in fact, it’s far preferable to making some off-the-cuff response that gives the other side an opening.”

“Okay.”

“It’s possible that we could get you in and out in one day,” Andy went on. “That’s certainly what I’ll be pushing for. But there’s a good possibility that you may be called to testify on separate days, and those days could be months apart. This case has a lot of technical aspects to it, as you know. The prosecution is going to have to explain to the jury its theory of how your ex-husband cooked his books. It’s a fairly convoluted setup, as I understand it, and it’s going to take some time for them to lay it all out for the jurors.”

“Right,” she said, and sighed. “Leave it to Lance to complicate everything.”

Andy gave her a sympathetic smile.

“How soon do you think I’ll be called?” she asked.

Andy glanced at Gabby, who sat up straighter. “We expect that jury selection will take about a week,” she said. “We’re anticipating that the prosecution will either call you within the first couple of days, or they’ll wait until just before they’re ready to rest their case.”

“So either a couple of weeks from now, or a month or more,” she said.

“Right. And we’ll be pushing for the later date. That’s our best strategy to avoid your having to show up on separate days.”