Scott Turow - The Burden of Proof

Stern and his sister followed? he lumbered through the stone hailway.

Stern had all the papers from the safe cradled in his hands. Silvia held the screen for Remo, and at his request opened the rear door to the Mercury.

Squinting in the brilliant sunshine, Stern and his sister watched as Remo sank to his knees to lower the safe onto the dirty floor of his spring-shot Cougar. He stood up straight and dusted off his hands while he waited to catch his breath. A fill of sweat had run down his temple.

"On second thought," said Stern suddenly, "we shall leave it."

Remo's jaw fell open, revealing a mouth full of bad teeth.

"If you would, Remo, I shall ask you to replace the safe where we found it."

"No," he said, in disbelief.

"Please," said Stern. He had assumed, without thought, his most commanding manner, and Remo looked. at him uncertainly, reluctant to obey but unwilling to object further. Stern turned to Silvia. "It shall all be as it was. You need say nothing."

She, too, appeared confused, but, like Remo, did not-know how to respond to the change in his manner.

"Very good," said Stern to both of them. He walked back into the house, mining to ask Remo to bring the safe into the living room for a moment.

Stern had continued to hold all the items from the safe, and he sat again on the settee and laid them out on the raw-silk fabric so that he could arrange the papers as he had found them. The two copied pages were first, then the microfiche squares, then, at last, the two checks, one nested inside the other. He studied them again. The first was Dixon's canceled personal check for $252,646 made payable to MD Clearing Corp. The note in the memo section said "Debit A/c 06894412," which was surely the number of the Wunderkind account. This was the check which the government, according to what Sonny had told him in Dulin, had already obtained a microfilm copy of through the subpoena to Dixon's bank.

The other check, the one Stern examined at greater length, was printed on the long green bank stock of River National and was a certified draft drawn on Clara's investment account and made payable to Dixon Hartnell personally. The amount, inscribed correctly in numbers and figures, was $851,198. Stern held the check, full of the strong emotion that contact with Clara's possessions continued often to bring over him. Then he refolded both checks and wrapped them and the microfiche cards in the two printed pages, along the same creases on which they had been folded before. These sheets reproduced the first and last pages from the account agreement for Wunderkind Associates where identifying information for the account holder would appear-name, address, social-security number. On the last page, after dozens of paragraphs of warnings and dischireefs, the customer executed the agreement. Before replacing the papers in the safe, which Remo obediently had set at his feet, Stern peeked again at the final line where in her steady fluid hand Katherine Stern had signed her name.

CERTAINLY, he was no happier. Much of what had transpired in the 'last few days had left him more confused than ever.

But somehow an old ability to distract himself with work had revived.

Recently, Stern had resumed his habit of being the first person in the office, and in the last week, he had agreed to take on three major new matters-an insider trading ease already under indictment; a defense fraud investigation conducted out of Washington; and a county case in which the owner of a waste dump faced possible manslaughter charges.

Beleaguered, Sondra and Raphael pleaded that they were too shorthanded for more work. But Stern himself was ready. In the office, he felt an energy and relish that had been previously lacking. The toil of man in society! The rushing about, the telephone calls the small breaks of light in the tangle of egos and rules. Mr. Alejandro Stern adored the practice of law. His clients, his clients! No siren song was ever more compelling than a call to Stern from someone in dire straitsla tough in the precinct lockup in his early days, or a businessperson with an IRS agent at the door, as happened more commonly now.

Either way, it excited him to a kind of heat: 'Speak to no one. I shall be there momeaWhat was it? What was this mad devotion to peopIe whobalked at paying fees, who scorned him the moment a case was lost, lied to him routinely, withheld critical information, and ignored his instructions? They needed him.

Needed him! These weak, injured, even buffoonish characters required the assistance of Alejandro Stern to make their way. Disaster loomed.

Life destruction. They wept in his office and swore to murder their turncoat comrades. When sanity returned, they dried their eyes and waited, pathetically, for Stern to tell them what to do. He drew on his cigar. 'Now,' he would say quietly.

In the afternoon on Monday, he found a moment to call Cal.

"Just to let you know," said Stern, "that the matter of the elusive check has been resolved."

"Oh, really?" asked Cal. He waited.

"So, if you would be so kind, Cal, let our friends at River National know that all is well and thank them for their cooperation."

"I will," said Cal, "I will." He cleared his throat. "May I ask?"

"Quite a complicated matter," Stern said..

"The beneficiary, I meant. The payee,"

"It is difficult to say," said Stern, striving for a frank tone, "just at the moment. But the matter is well.in hand,.

Cal. Have no doubt. My deepest thanks to you,"

"I see," said Cal. He was hurt, of course. He expected greater veneration and confidence from Stern, as a matter of professional courtesy, if nothing else Returning home that evening, he found an enormous hanging case in the foyer. He bent to examine the luggage tag.

Marta was back. She usually traveled with a backpack and a briefcase, the baggage of her diversified life.

She was not in the house. Instead, after circling the first floor and calling, he spied her out the solarium windows, leaning across the hedge in animated conversation with Fiona. Marta was listening, with far more interest than she generally showed their neighbor. Stern ventured out. When Marta saw him, she broke off to embrace him, and Stern, by some peculiar logic, then reached over the hedge, took Fiona's tanned hand, and kissed her as well. She was in her gardening attire, a few leaves in her hair with stray vegetation, and she seemed to blush at Stern's enthusiasm.

"Doesn't she look wonderful!" Fiona declared, motion-ing to Marta, who was in e usual formless floor-length frock.

Fiona undoubtedly held the private belief that Marta was dressed like one of the women who had walked behind the wagon trains across the prairie. "I was just giving Marta the news," said Fiona.

"Oh, yes?" asked Stern, with some foreboding. "About Nate and me," said Fiona more definitely.

"Ah, yes. Nate mentioned that. I am sad to hear it, Fiona." 'We're probably both better off." Like many people on the other side of a dread event, Fiona appeared, as she said, better off-more resilient than one might have expected.

Marta was beginning to slip away toward the house. Stern made a remark about stumbling over her suitcase.

"I'm planning to stay for a while," she told him. "I quit my job."

"You did?" asked her father. "Just' like that'"

"A month's notice, but I have some vacation coming. I'll go back for a few days next month to clean up. But last time I was here, I was looking at Katy, how tired she was, and it just sort of dawned on me, she's having a baby and I'm going to be eight hundred miles away for no good eason. Why did I bother taking the bar exam in four states if I don't go where I want to? I'll find a job here. Do you mind?"

"I should say not."

Fiona chimed in: Wonderful, wondeffulJhow nice for all of them. Stern found his head bobbing in agreement.