Reversible Errors

  They had reached the mall. Arthur circled his sleek car around the drive in front of Morton’s, but she hesitated to leave. It seemed more important than ever that she not cause him further distress, and that she utter some of the consolations she’d considered after their encounter in front of the Center City store yesterday.

  “Arthur, not to prolong a sore subject, but I have to say one more word. What made me unhappy when we parted yesterday was that you seemed to feel refused. And I assure you, it isn’t personal.”

  Arthur winced. “Of course it’s personal. It’s the most personal thing of all. What else could you possibly call it?”

  “Arthur, you’re not considering the realities.”

  “Look,” he said to her. “You’re entitled to say no. So don’t feel bad about it. The world is full of women who’ve preferred not to be seen with me.”

  “Arthur! That is surely not the issue.” She said this with more conviction that she might have predicted. No, Arthur was not Prince Charming, but she held to old-fashioned convictions that beauty was a female prerogative. Truth be told, his looks did not bother her so much as his height, four to five inches below hers, even in low heels. Yet she enjoyed his company. As she always recognized, he was entirely in the grasp of his own compulsions. He could no more cease steering his peas into a pile on his plate than breathing. But he knew it. It was his vision, even acceptance, of himself that rang the chimes of something appealing—that and his ability to soldier on doing what was right. In fact, his steadiness and his refusal to be rebuffed by his sister’s lunacy had added significantly to her impression of him. It was not Arthur but she who was the problem.

  “Arthur, frankly, you shouldn’t want to be seen with me.”

  “Because of your role in this case?”

  “Because it will taint you in an entire community whose respect is essential in your professional life.” She stared at him. “What would you envision, Arthur? Dinner and dancing? Why not a law firm cocktail party? I’m sure your partners will be impressed that you’re keeping company with an aging ex-convict who disgraced your profession.”

  “A movie?” he asked. “It’s dark. Nobody will see.” He was smiling, of course, but it was soon clear he had tired of the conversation. “Gillian, you’ve told me ten times that I’ve been kind to you, and you’re returning the favor. But look, we both know this is mostly a matter of instinct. And I can see very well what instinct is telling you.”

  “No, Arthur, for the last time, that is not the point. You are kind. And kindness is in rather short supply in my world. But I would be taking advantage of you, Arthur. You wouldn’t get what you deserve. No one ever has.”

  “I’ll take that as no. Without hard feelings. The subject never even came up. We’re friends.” He used a button beside him to unlock the car door and did his utmost to smile brightly. Once again, he offered his hand. She felt entirely infuriated and refused to take hold. He wouldn’t see this in any light but the most hurtful to him.

  “So dinner on Tuesday?” she asked. “What time? Where do we meet?”

  His soft mouth parted a bit.

  “That’s not necessary, Gillian. Susan will get by. Anyway, it’s bad to let her tantrums prevail. And I can’t impose that way.”

  “Nonsense,” she told him as she stepped to the curb. She leaned down into the darkness of the car, where Arthur looked out, befuddled. “We’re friends,” she said and took some pleasure in slamming the door.

  21

  JUNE 15—19, 2001

  Collins

  JACKSON AIRES, the lawyer Erno had hired for his nephew, Collins, was difficult. Privately, he was apt to refer to his clients as ‘thugs,’ but he thought even less of cops and prosecutors. The only thing he liked about them was the competition. For Aires, there really was a single issue in the law anyway—race. Everything in his world came down to white versus black. A few years ago, during a trial, he had referred to Muriel, in front of a jury, as ‘the slavemaster.’ She could not say the outburst had worsened their relationship. It had always been terrible.

  Jackson sat in Muriel’s office listening to her pitch, with his slender fingers steepled. Jackson was well past seventy now, but spry and lean and still at the top of his game. He had a sponge of white hair like Mandela’s, a resemblance that was probably not inadvertent. Like all defense lawyers, he was unaccustomed to holding an advantage, and when he had one, as he did now, he was completely insufferable. Tommy Molto, dark and disheveled, sat beside Jackson on the other side of Muriel’s huge desk, making no effort to hide his dyspeptic reactions as Aires carried on.

  “Im-munity,” Aires answered, when Muriel told him they wanted a word with Collins.

  “Immunity?” Muriel asked. “Why does he need immunity? The statute of limitations ran out a long time ago, even if he did lie to us in 1991.”

  “‘Why’ is between him and me, Muriel. No immunity, and he’ll assert his constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment.”

  “How about a proffer?” Muriel asked, meaning a prediction from Aires of what Collins would say.

  “Now why would I want to do that? That man is down there in Atlanta, Georgia, having a completely wonderful life. He has no need to talk to you, Muriel.”

  “Jackson, why do I have the feeling you’ve been chatting with Arthur? I just answered his motion, asking Judge Harlow to force me to give your guy immunity.” Both Arthur and Jackson knew that the power to bestow immunity was strictly the prosecutor’s, and that she would never do it without the assurance that it was required to make her case.

  “That’s what Arthur wants, Muriel. For my sake, you can just forget you ever heard Collins’s name. But my man’s not talking to Arthur or you without full protection under the law.”

  “He can take the nickel, Jackson,” Muriel said, “but I want it on the record, so the judge knows we made the effort to find out what he had to say. Will you accept service of the deposition subpoena?”

  “And what good would that be doing my client?”

  “Free trip home?”

  “Lady, he’s a travel agent. He gets a free trip home whenever he wants. Besides, habeas proceeding is civil discovery. You want to depose him, you gotta go to him. And I don’t think Mr. John Q. Public is gonna think much of you making two trips to Georgia at his expense, just so you can listen to this man say he’s not answering any of your damn questions.”

  “Two trips?” asked Molto. Muriel wouldn’t have given Jackson the satisfaction of asking, although she hadn’t understood, either. There was a rulebook at play here—the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure—that literally was not on her shelf.

  With the chance to gloat, Jackson did, smiling hugely. His teeth were smoke-stained and snaggled and seldom seen in court, where his only expression was a mask of indignation. In order to subpoena Collins, Aires said, they would have to go first to federal court in Atlanta to get a subpoena that could be enforced there.

  “Maybe we’ll do that,” said Muriel. “Maybe we can ride the same plane down for the deposition. I’ll send you a notice.”

  “You think I don’t know a damn bluff when I see one? Muriel, that license on my wall is so old that the sheep they made it from rode on the Ark with Noah. Did you know that? I’m too old to bluff, Muriel.”

  Molto walked Jackson out. She talked a moment with Tommy when he returned, then left a message for Larry. A little after five, he arrived on her threshold, rapping politely on the open door. She was impressed as always by Larry’s size as he stood there, the way he imposed himself on space. Big people had it all.

  “Busy?”

  “Never for you, Lar.”

  In the large reception area outside her door, the assistants were all gone for the day, and the phones, routed to voice mail, had fallen silent. Larry’s fingers still rested on the door frame. She’d stopped him cold with that little trick in her voice. She’d heard it herself. Someone listening in now, or in the witness room the other day, might say she was f
lirting. Force of habit, she supposed. Old self over the new. He was a paunchy middle-aged guy but the linings of the cells still recollected his appeal. It was fun, of course, to feel younger and more vital—the sap of youth rising. But it was stupid, too.

  She recounted her meeting with Jackson. Larry couldn’t understand why Collins would demand immunity.

  “Probably,” said Muriel, “because he knows I won’t give it to him. My guess is that Collins and his uncle aren’t on the same page. By taking five, he stays out of the middle. Which is why we’re making a trip to Atlanta.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes, we are. I’m going to get a subpoena and you’re going to serve Collins as soon as it’s issued.”

  “Can I talk to Collins if his lawyer says not to?”

  “I can’t speak to a represented party. But Jackson won’t accept service. So some law-enforcement officer has to pay Collins a visit, explain the subpoena and the nature of the case. If he chooses to speak to you against his attorney’s advice, that’s not our fault.” Muriel enjoyed the thought of Jackson’s reaction. He always screamed loudest over his own blunders.

  On Tuesday morning, Larry was at the gate at the Tri-Cities Airport, looking distraught when she dashed up. For Muriel, making planes, like so many other things in her life, was a contest. If the gate agent wasn’t swinging the door closed when she arrived, she felt she’d wasted irretrievable minutes.

  “How the hell can you stand that?” Larry wanted to know as they struggled to their seats. “Flying’s bad enough as it is.” They each had brought an overnight bag, but the baggage compartments were full. The Georgia Department of Law, which was assisting them, said it would take no more than an hour for the subpoena to be issued, but it would be late in the day by the time Larry caught up with Collins. With rush hour traffic, there was the prospect of having to stay over. Larry jammed his bag under the seat in front of him, complaining that he’d ride the entire way to Atlanta feeling as if he’d taken a chair in a dollhouse.

  “Sorry, Lar. I still hadn’t connected with Claire—Talmadge’s daughter? I was supposed to have our grandson tonight.”

  “Hope you take it as a compliment, but when I hear ‘Over the River and Through the Woods,’ it’s not your face in the picture.”

  “I’m good, Larry. This is the best chance I’ll get, and I’m taking it.” Even talking about that little boy, she felt some of the delirium and longing that often accompanied his presence and his absence. Her face apparently betrayed that.

  “Adopt?” asked Larry.

  “Huh?”

  “Did you think of that?”

  “Oh.” She paused to girdle her heart. “We nearly adopted a boy about three years ago. African-American. Crack mom. The whole deal. And it fell apart. It just about killed me. But you know the saying—maybe it’s for the best. Neither of Talmadge’s daughters give him better than a C as a father. Even so, every now and then I think about one more try.”

  “Talmadge is reluctant?”

  “There’s not a lot of enthusiasm. The way he travels—I’d pretty much be flying solo. It’s complicated.”

  “And does he do better with his daughters now that they’re grown?”

  “They accept him. Besides, they like me.” She pressed a finger into her own belly and they both laughed. Talmadge’s unavailability was, in fact, part of Muriel’s bond with the young women. They all understood that Talmadge belonged to the world, not merely to them. For her part, Muriel tolerated this, even respected it, not only out of admiration but because, at the end of the day, the terms of her own life were not all that different. That was where she and Talmadge. were at their best, rocketing along on each other’s jet stream, but the mundane intimacies other couples looked forward to—walks in the park, picking wallpaper, or even sex—were rarer for them. Nor did Muriel have a companion in those moments when her striving took her inward, instead of out into the world.

  These thoughts, not happy ones, were unwelcome, much like the entire conversation. The rush of the airplane gave them only minimal privacy. And she felt recalled to an ancient reaction that there was something fundamentally wrong in speaking with Larry about Talmadge. She went back to work.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll give it a rest.”

  Without looking up from her tray table, where she’d laid several draft indictments, she said, “I wish you would.”

  “It’s only—”

  “Yes?”

  “None of my business, I know,” he said.

  “Don’t let that stop you, Larry. It hasn’t so far.”

  She heard him let go of his breath. “Fine.”

  “Finish it, Larry. And then we’re done. Last shot. Fire away.”

  “Well, it’s just sometimes when you chat about old Talmadge, it reminds me of the way you used to talk about what’s-his-name.”

  “What’s-his-name?”

  “Your husband of blessed memory.”

  “Rod?” She actually laughed, loud enough that in spite of the engine’s thrum, she could see a passenger stir across the row. There was no comparison. Talmadge was a behemoth, a local institution. Rod was a sot.

  “Thank you for sharing, Larry,” she said, and opened another file. But the conversation wasn’t done for her, because she suddenly remembered how she’d seen Rod when she’d chased him—luminous and engaging, surely not a wreck crushed against the rocks in his cocktail glass. So, for a second, she followed Larry’s thought and colored in the numbers. Both older. Distracted. Both her teachers. Both stars in her firmament. And both with a grandness about themselves that instinct might have told her camouflaged cavernous self-doubts. A freezing draft blew over her heart. What did all that mean? Everything? Nothing? She was forty-four years old and had made her deal, made her life. The philosopher beside her had told her the fundamental truth weeks ago: life wasn’t perfect. She stretched against the confines of the airplane seat and, by habit, stashed these thoughts to again return to work.

  NOW AND THEN, Larry had to get on a plane to question a witness, and on big cases, he was willing to go grab a murderer for an extradition. But the truth was that after Nam, he didn’t much like leaving home. Before athletic schedules started to interfere, he took Nancy and the boys to Florida each summer, and every March he still traveled with a group of detectives to Vegas, where they behaved for four days as if they were twenty. They drank and gambled and called every escort service in town for prices, then went back to their lives, feeling a little like dogs that had escaped the backyard fence and were now only too happy to see that bowl of chow. But all in all, he’d rather not have come to Atlanta. The air was so thick you could swim in it. And he wasn’t comfortable at close quarters with Muriel.

  By 2:30, they were done at the tall, white federal courthouse. Afterwards, Muriel and Larry stood outside, planning the remainder of the afternoon with an Assistant Attorney General named Thane and an investigator from the Fulton County Solicitor’s Office who’d been delegated to assist them. The CNN Center and the Georgia Dome were visible across a canyon of roadway underpasses. Larry would be able to tell the boys he’d seen the sights.

  The four of them agreed that Larry and the investigator, Wilton Morley, would serve Collins, while Muriel waited at the office of the Department of Law with her cell phone. If Collins was suddenly moved to give an interview without his lawyer, Muriel wanted to be on hand to document it properly. In the event she didn’t hear from Larry, they’d meet at their gate at the airport for the flight home.

  Morley had an address for Collins in a suburb north of the city. On the phone, with the damn Southern accent, Larry had no clue about Morley’s race, and here he was, black as coal and easy to deal with. Black and white were different here than in the North. Larry had noticed that in the service decades ago and it still felt true. Blacks had won down here more concretely. They’d beaten back slavery first, then Jim Crow. It made everybody happier to have actual bodies to declare dead.

  In the car,
Morley showed Larry records he had gathered. A credit report listed Collins as the owner of Collins Travel, his own agency. As Erno had insisted, Collins’s rap sheets, both local and national, revealed no further arrests since his release from prison five years ago. Seventy-eight percent of the guys who did time went back. But now and then, Larry actually took heart from the other portion. With the worst cancers, oncologists would be ecstatic with a 22 percent cure rate. True, a lot of guys who went straight didn’t really reform—they just got more skilled at not getting caught, and Larry had no way to know if Collins was one of them. It was a little suspicious that a man only a few years out of the joint would have the wherewithal to open his own business, and a travel agency would be a perfect shell if you were laundering drug money. But Morley had heard good things about Collins.

  “One of my guys, he goes to church with this Collins,” Morley said, “and buys his airline tickets from him. Says he does a great job. Whatever that means.”

  Atlanta to Larry was like L.A. South, an appealing terrain—here hills and trees—surrendered to highways and shopping malls. Collins lived and worked thirty minutes northeast of downtown off Jimmy Carter Boulevard, in an old town, now engrossed by sprawl. In the mile or two from U.S. 85, they passed every chain restaurant Larry had ever heard of and several churches that looked like Kmarts.

  Morley circled by the agency once. It was on the end of a flatroofed commercial strip with a stressed concrete façade, next door to a dry cleaner and a pet shop. On reflection, Larry had decided it was better to approach Collins alone.

  “You’re in the South now, man,” said Morley when Larry suggested the investigator stay in the car. “Things may not be the same as where you come from.”