The Accused (5 page)

“Linda—you have any plans tonight? I was hoping we could order in some Chinese food—go over some of these press releases that need to go out tomorrow.”

“Sure,” the young press secretary said, with a tinge of hesitation in her voice.

“Why don't you go order the food—I've got a call I need to make.”

She stood up dutifully and left his office, closing the door behind her.

Then Purdy grabbed his cell phone and punched the number for Howard John “Howley” Jubb.

Jubb picked up the cell phone in his black Hummer as he was nearing downtown Atlanta.

“Hey,” Purdy said. “Jason calling. I want you to be by your landline at ten o'clock tonight. I've got to talk to you about something.”

“Are you sure?” Jubb asked. “I was heading into the city to have some fun tonight.”

“Change of plans. Be by your landline. I need you to start thinking about contacts we might have down in Mexico. I've gotta have you do an investigation for me. I need some inside stuff on that Mexican shoot-up down there in the Yucatán involving the marines. Think about some of the banditos down there who are willing to give us some information.”

“Sure—I'll be by the phone. We'll work it out then. Say,” Jubb added, “are you all settled in in your new house up there in Chevy Chase?”

“Yeah—I sure am. I'll have you over some time. We'll bring you out here to DC.”

“Sure,” Jubb replied, sounding as if he didn't believe it. “I thought when you went east, I was going east with you.”

“We'll talk about it. See ya.”

Linda knocked on the door, and Purdy told her to open it.

She poked her head in and asked, “What kind of Chinese do you want?”

The senator smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Sweet and sour,” he said. “Just like me.”

6

W
ILL
C
HAMBERS SLOWLY WHEELED OFF
the country road and onto the long, winding driveway that led to his home. His house was perched atop a rise in the Virginia countryside that had, since the Civil War, been called Generals' Hill. The newly built structure was a huge, split-log house looking over to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Will had it built after his pre–Civil War mansion had burned to the ground a year-and-a-half after Audra's death.

As he slowly motored up the driveway, his tires crunching in the gravel, Will glanced up toward the front of the porch that wrapped around the house. He noticed Fiona's Saab convertible parked there.

Fiona's meeting with her business manager and agent must have ended earlier than they thought,
Will mused. In anticipation of her meeting running late, he had picked up some deli sandwiches and soup for a late-night dinner. But he wasn't hungry now. And he wasn't even sure what he was going to tell his wife about his meeting with the DC police department. Communication was key to their relationship…he knew that. At the same time, what he had to share seemed destined only to cast gloom and chaos into the middle of their marriage.

For a few moments Will sat in his car with the engine running, staring at the front door of the log house. Then something at the door caught his eye.

Fiona swung the front door open and stepped out onto the porch. She was still wearing a baseball cap with her hair tucked under it. She must have just arrived.

She waved with one hand, hesitantly, and then peered toward Will. Then she broke into a broad smile. Sweeping the baseball cap up off her head, she let her dark hair cascade down and motioned for her husband to come in.

Will grabbed the grocery bag of food and trudged up the varnished wood steps that led to the porch. Fiona was in the doorway and didn't wait for him to enter. She surrounded him with her arms and gave him a big, long kiss. Then she led him into the large open kitchen and sat him down, and then sat down across from him at the large oak table. The last light of day was now streaming through the skylights and, off in the distance, the sun was setting with a brilliant outpouring of red and pink.

Fiona urged her husband to tell her everything about his meeting with the police.

Will went through it all in cold, factual detail. The death of the inmate…his confession as one of the assailants involved in Audra's murder…the certainty of his involvement…and the existence of another perpetrator who, as of yet, had not been located. And, with crushing finality, he described the likely motivation for the murder—his successful lawsuit against the neo-Nazi organization in New York.

As he talked, Fiona held her peace. But he knew she wanted to speak—to respond to what he was telling her. He had learned to detect the signs—she would purse her lips together slightly and her eyes would begin dancing.

After he had finished he held his hands open but said nothing, as if to indicate he had said his piece—and there was nothing more to say.

“And?” Fiona said, her voice rising slightly in a question.

“And…” he answered, “that's it. That's all I know. That's all they told me.”

Another few seconds of silence went by, and then she spoke again.

“And?” she added, this time more emphatically.

“And what?” Will said, staring at the kitchen table.

“
And
—what is going on inside you as you're dealing with all of this?” she asked with a slight edge of irritation in her voice.

“I don't know,” he responded vaguely. “I have absolutely no idea how I'm feeling right now.”

A few seconds of silence went by, and then Fiona continued.

“I'm not your dentist—and I'm not going to pull teeth. You're my husband, I'm your wife. You need to open up and tell me what's really on your heart.”

“And how would I do that?” he said curtly. “Okay, here goes—I feel like somebody has just kicked me in the gut. I feel like somebody has taken a butcher knife and stuck it into my heart. That's how I feel. That's where I'm at. So—what good is it going to do to lay all that out in front of you? Let's just leave it alone.”

“It's called marriage,” she said with passion and a little catch in her voice. “I'm just…stupefied.”

“About what?”

“That you—an attorney whose profession requires him to argue the fine points of the law, a lawyer who has vindicated the downtrodden and has righted the injustices in cases around the nation, a man who has escaped death several times, a man who is apparently fearless about everything—has neither the desire, nor the courage, to look his wife in the face and tell her the truth about how he is really feeling about this news from the police.”

Will pushed himself back from the table with a wry chuckle.

“You know, we've got this mixed up…you're the one who ought to be the trial lawyer.”

“Please don't patronize me.” Fiona continued to probe. “I want to really hear what's going on in your heart.”

“You sure about that?” he asked with some hesitation.

“I'm absolutely sure, darling.” She laid her hand on his.

“Okay—how about this? I feel like I'm living in two dimensions. A parallel universe. I'm here in this house with you. I love you madly. But it was here, on top of this very hill, in that one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old mansion Audra and I were fixing up, where we were loving and trying to make a life for ourselves. Yes, she did leave me. But I was convinced—maybe I'm still convinced—that if the murder wouldn't have happened, she would have come back and we would have patched things up and stayed together. So I guess what I'm saying is…if it makes any sense…I feel like I'm living out multiple personalities—like I'm walking through a house of mirrors in some twisted carnival.”

His wife was silent and cocked her head. And then she spoke.

“Will…I love you. But you need to listen to me on this. No matter how large this big log house is, it's not big enough for the three of us. Audra doesn't fit in this house—or our lives. You're married to
me
. Whatever you need to do to come to grips with that…you're going
to have to do it. I will not share my house, or my marriage, or my bed with some phantom.”

Fiona stood up and turned to walk away, but then she looked back.

“Just let me know when you choose
our life together
as the life you want to live.”

7

C
OLONEL
C
ALEB
M
ARLOWE'S VOICE
at the other end of the telephone was direct and unemotional.

“Mr. Chambers, where do we stand—about your representing me?”

“Well, Colonel Marlowe, I may need time to think about it. I'm not really clear on why you called me. These are military charges, under the court-martial jurisdiction of the military.”

“Yes, that's correct. Mr. Chambers, how many military cases have you handled before?”

“Well, Colonel, just one,” Will replied.

“And what was that case about?”

“It was a long time ago. I represented a naval officer in San Diego. I think the charges were ‘conduct injurious to the good order of the military'—something like that.”

“Why was he charged?”

“Because he had made some statements critical of the military.”

“How did the case end up?”

“Well, we won. Beginner's luck, I guess.”

“How did you get the case?”

“That was back when I worked with the ACLU. Back when I was young and foolish.”

The other man didn't see the humor in that.

“But since then,” Will added, “I've experienced a major shift in my worldview—a spiritual realignment, you might say.”

Marlowe kept pressing. “I would like you to represent me as civilian counsel in these charges. All I need to do is meet you in person and size you up, eyeball-to-eyeball.”

“Like I said,” the lawyer replied, “I may need some time to think about this. These are serious charges. How many charges of murder, did you say?”

“Two charges—four specifications on each charge. Each specification represents one of the four victims.”

“Colonel, to put it to you straight—there are a number of lawyers inside the Beltway that do a lot more military criminal defense than I do. With charges as serious as these, you may want to consider that.”

“To repeat myself, Mr. Chambers, I want you to represent me as civilian counsel. I have military counsel already detailed to my defense. The two of you would work together. All I need to do is meet with you in person.”

“So you're asking for a snap decision from me?”

“With all due respect,” Marlowe replied, “in the marines we have a rule—it's called the seventy-percent rule. Have you ever heard of it?”

“Can't say I have.”

“Well, it goes something like this: If you have to make a critical decision, better to be seventy-percent correct at the right time than to be one-hundred-percent correct when it's too late.”

“Then let me ask you a question,” Will responded.

“Take a shot.”

“Why are you so insistent on retaining me as your legal counsel?”

“A couple of reasons. One in particular. But I'd rather discuss that with you in person.”

The lawyer paused. He flipped open his calendar and glanced at the next two months. His schedule was only moderately filled—he had tried to leave it as light as possible following his return from his honeymoon. The most time-consuming matter was the lawsuit against General Kurtzu Nuban, the despot and ruler of Sudan. Nuban had been responsible for the torture and death of several American missionaries, and Will was representing their families. He and the government of Sudan had hired two large Washington, DC, law firms to defend him. For the last year those two firms had been trying to bury Will in an avalanche of paperwork, technical objections, and jurisdictional arguments. He would have to gear up for a major hearing on the jurisdictional issue in a few weeks. But other than that, his calendar was relatively clear. He was convinced he could fit in Colonel Marlowe's case.

“All right—I'll tentatively agree to represent you. But when we meet in person and I get the facts of your case, if for any reason I do not feel comfortable taking on this matter, I reserve the right to bail out immediately.”

“That's affirmative,” Marlowe said. “They've got me in custody—confined to the grounds here at Quantico. You'll have to come up here. I'll arrange for a conference room and have military defense counsel at that meeting. I'll call you tomorrow to let you know which building we'll be meeting at.”

“I'll wait for your call.”

“One other thing,” the colonel added.

“What is it?”

“As far as my case…where it goes from here…and the possibility of plea-bargaining—I just want to let you know what my position is. Up front.”