Part 35 (1/2)
”What?”
”If Arthur gets what he wants, he won't ask why. Maybe, if we're lucky, Jackson will let us hear Collins's story in private first.”
”You can't give him immunity. The guy was running around with the murder weapon.”
”I have no choice, Larry. You gave me no choice. I can't fight this. I can't say Collins may be the murderer and proceed to execute Gandolph. It's one or the other. h.e.l.l, Larry, with Erno's fingerprints on that trigger, we're back to square one. And Collins may be the best chance we have. Harlow is right. Collins could put Rommy in once and for all.”
”No,” Larry said. It was a general protest. He was furious about everything. ”It's the election, right? You'd decided to give Collins immunity anyway. Ned already had you turned around. I'm just the excuse. You don't want to fade the heat with Harlow.”
”Oh, f.u.c.k you, Larry!” She picked a pencil off her desk and threw it at the window. ”G.o.dd.a.m.n it, don't you understand this? The election is the least of it. There's still the law. There are rules. And fairness. Christ, Larry, it's ten years later and listening to you right now, I wonder myself about what actually happened. Do you get that?” Leaning across her desk, she looked like she was ready to come over and throttle him.
”Oh, I get it.” He went to the door. He said, ”I'm just a cop.”
Early in the summer evening, Gillian stood at the curb in front of Morton's downtown store, awaiting Arthur. The late office workers were largely dispersed and traffic had eased. A few feet away, two weary women sat slumped beside their large shopping bags inside a gla.s.s bus shelter.
By now, Gillian could mark the duration of her relations.h.i.+p with Arthur by the light, which was fading earlier these days. The sun, which they'd seen rise this morning, was now diving into the river, its hot glow spread like a hawk's tail across the light clouds on the horizon. In the s.h.i.+fting winds, there was the faintest omen of fall. Although she'd been told repeatedly that it was the sign of a depressive character, she'd never fully abandoned the inclination to treat natural phenomena”the onset of darkness, or the dwindling of summer”with superst.i.tious concern. Life was good. It would not last.
Arthur was late, but it was clear once the sedan arrived, he was excited.
”Another Muriel-gram,” he said as Gillian slid in. He'd brought her copies of two short motions the P.A.'s Office had filed this afternoon in both the U.S. District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals. Acknowledging receipt of ”new and material information concerning the nature and circ.u.mstance of the crime,” Muriel asked that all proceedings be stayed for fourteen days to enable the state to investigate.
”What in the world?” Gillian asked. ”Did you call her?”
”Naturally. I demanded the new information and she wouldn't budge an inch. We fenced around for a while, but we finally agreed that if I give her the two weeks, she'll acquiesce in a motion to set aside the Court of Appeals' order and reopen the case. Essentially, she's taking the points off the scoreboard.”
”My G.o.d!” Although Arthur was driving, she slid closer to embrace him. ”But what could this be? Is she going to immunize Collins?”
”I can't believe that she'd concede in advance that he's credible enough to merit reopening the case. If she doesn't like what Collins says, she'll just call him a liar. It has to be more than that. It's got to be big.”
For months now, Arthur had cleaved to an improbable vision of Muriel suddenly seeing the light about Rommy. Gillian held Muriel in much lower esteem, but Arthur refused to view anyone he had worked beside years ago in anything but a kindly light. In any event, she shared his suspicion that there had been a dramatic development.
”So you've had a wonderful day,” she said.
”Okay,” he answered.
”Some negative development?”
”Nothing on the case. And not really negative. Muriel pa.s.sed a comment about us. They know.”
”I see. And how did that make you feel?”
He shrugged. ”Uncomfortable?”
Gillian's harpy of a mother would have uttered a withering I told you so. All of Gillian's cultivated reserve was a means to recycle and restrain that voice which she would never really get out of her head. But poor Arthur always wanted people to like him. Being belittled and mocked for his choice of companion was affecting him, much as she'd always known it would. At 6 a.m., she'd found him lost in thought, staring out at the sunrise.
”Are you trying not to say you warned me?” he asked her.
”Am I so plain?”
”We're going to make it,” he said.
She smiled and reached over for his hand.
”Seriously,” he said. ”What I was thinking this morning was that we should run away.”
”Oh, really?”
”I mean it. Just pack up and find another spot. Start from scratch. Both of us. I've made some calls, Gil. There are states where a few years from now, a.s.suming everything stays stable, you'd have a good chance if you applied for readmission.”
”To the bar?”
He dared to look at her, nodding stoically before returning to the traffic. The notion was breathtaking. She had never even considered that she might be eligible to return from exile.
”And your practice, Arthur?”
”So what?”
”After all those years to make partner?”
”That's all about fear of rejection. I wanted to make it because I wouldn't have been able to stand myself if I didn't. Besides, if this is what I think it is with Rommy, I'm going to be rich. If we clear him, Rommy's going to have an amazing civil suit. I can leave the firm and take his case. He'll get millions. And I'll get my share. I've thought about it.”
”Apparently.”
”No, not like it sounds. I've just never been really good in private practice. I'm a worker bee. I'm not smooth enough to attract big clients. I just want to find a good case and work like h.e.l.l on it. Preferably something I believe in.”
Years ago, from a distance, Gillian had thought of Arthur as middle-aged from birth. But that was a function of his looks and the fatalistic air he'd acquired from his father. With Rommy's case, he had come to terms with himself as someone who was happiest striving toward ideals, even if they were unattainable.
”And what of your sister?” asked Gillian.
This, too, ran true to form. In his face, the workings of Arthur's internal life were now as clear to her as if they were being broadcast on a screen, and she watched as his heart was pierced by reality and buzzed back to earth inside his chest.
”Maybe we stay in the Middle West. I couldn't go too far, anyway, if I was handling Rommy's civil case, because I'd have to be able to get back here a couple of times a week. How about I tell my mother she's on? She's been AWOL for thirty years. I've been the parent, she's been the child. What if I just say to her, Time to grow up?”
Gillian smiled, while Arthur actually seemed to reflect on the prospect. She'd never had Arthur's unbounded capacity to surrender to improbable hopes, which was one more reason she'd found refuge in drugs. But she loved watching him fly free. And now and then, recently, she'd found herself airborne with him. It endured no longer than one of those unstable isotopes created in a reactor whose existence was mostly in theory, but she laughed in the dark and closed her eyes and for that fragment of time believed with Arthur in a perfect future.
Chapter 38.
August 12, 2001 Another Story JACKSON AIRES took no small pleasure in being a pain in the a.s.s. Initially, he agreed that Collins could be interviewed before his testimony, so long as the meeting took place in Atlanta and the P.A.'s Office paid Jackson's plane fare down there. Then it turned out that Collins had returned to town to deal with Erno's estate. But, Jackson said, his client had now decided that he would speak only after having first been sworn to G.o.d to tell the truth. Muriel had the option of reconvening a grand jury to continue investigating the Fourth of July Ma.s.sacre, because there was no statute of limitations on murder, and she preferred that to a deposition. That way she could examine Collins without Arthur looking over her shoulder or leaking the parts of the testimony he liked, and she'd also avoid violating her office's policy against granting immunity in a civil case. Even Jackson favored the grand jury, since by law, Collins's testimony would remain secret.
On August 22, Collins arrived in the anteroom outside the grand jury chamber. He was in the same dark, stylish suit he'd worn to his uncle's funeral. In his hand was a Bible, encircled by a chain of wooden beads holding a large cross. The book had been thumbed so often it had softened up like a paperback. Along with Aires, Collins's big blond-haired wife was beside him.
Muriel presented the form immunity order, which Jackson read word for word, as if he hadn't seen it dozens of times before, then Muriel opened the door to the grand jury room. Jackson tried to enter with them, knowing full well that his presence was prohibited. Only the witness, the prosecutor, the court reporter, and the grand jurors were allowed inside.
”Got to be present,” said Aires. ”No choice about that.”
After another half hour of negotiation, they agreed Collins would be sworn and his testimony then suspended. A recorded interview would take place at Jackson's law office this afternoon, with the tape supplied to the grand jury later. Muriel was just as happy to get out of the courthouse, where a reporter might get wind of something.