Scott Turow: The Burden of Proof

Kate seemed a bit puzzled. Her future, such as it was, was apparently beyond her. Within, Stern seemed to cringe. This child with a child!

By John, no less. Veyiz mir. Kate told Marta that they did not know yet how the money would work out or how she would feel about leaving the baby.

"Oh, it'll be your first," said Peter. "You'll want to give it lots of attention. It will always be special."

The doorbell rang. Through the front panes, Stern saw his brother-in-law. Dixon had returned to town last night. He had been in New York on pressing business and had delayed flying home. Stern had felt slighted-the usual with Dixon-and he was taken aback, therefore, at his relief at seeing Dixon on the threshold with his bags yesterday evening. His brother-in-law, a large, solid man, had thrown his arms about Stern and made a good show of great sorrow. One could seldom be certain how Dixon truly felt. That was part of his genius-he was like a forest, full of many colors. He could greet you at any instant with a salesman's blather or the gruffest truths.

This morning, however, Dixon's attention had returned more typically to himself. As Stern took his coat, Dixon lowered his voice discreetly.

"When you're back at the stand, Stern, I'd like to ask you a question or two."

Dixon always addressed him military fashion, last name only. They had met originally in the service, which had led, by turns, to Dixon's making Silvia's acquaintance and to his becoming in time her suitor, a development to which Stern was still not fully adjusted, three decades after the fact.

"Business questions?" he asked Dixon.

"That kind of item. I don't need to trouble you now. I want to hear about your trip to Chicago."

Ah yes, thought Stern, the paths of ego were deep and the living needed to go on.

"'I understand your concern, Dixon. The situation may be somewhat involved, however. It i's best that we discuss it another time."

A shadow Passed, predictably, over Dixon. Fifty-five years old, he. was tan, trim, and, even with this darkened look, the image of vitality. He was a powerful man; he worked out every day with weight equipment. Dixon worshipped at the same altar as so many others in America: the body and its uses. His dark brass-colored hair had grown paler and more brittle with age, but was cleverly barbered to give him a mannerly business-like look.

"You didn't like what you heard?" he asked Stern.

In fact, Stern had learned little of substance, The documents he had examined in Chicago account statements and trading records of the clients for an eight- or nine-month period, had been revealing. There was no telling what offense the government was investigating, or even who had suggested to them the prospect of a crime.

"There may be a problem, Dixon. It is too early to become greatly alarmed."

"Sure." Dixon drew a cigarette from an inside pocket. He was smoking heavily again, an old bad habit recently grown worse, which Stern took as a sign of concern. Three years ago the IRS set up a full-scale encampment in Dixon's conference room, with barely a riffle in his breezy style.

This time, however, Dixon was on edge. With word of the first subpoena, he had been on the phone to Stern, demanding that the government be stopped. For the present, however, Stern was loath to contact Ms.

Klonsky, the Assistant United States Attorney. At the U.S. Attorney's Office they seldom told you more than they wanted you to know. Moreover, Stern feared that a call from him might somehow focus the government's attention on Dixon, whose name as yet had gone unmentioned. Perhaps the grand jury was looking at a number of brokerage houses. Perhaps something besides MD connected the customers. For the present it was best to tiptoe about, observing the government from cover. "They're always looking for something," Dixon said bravely now, and went off to find Silvia.

In the sun room, Stern's children were still speaking about the baby.

"Will John help out?" Marta asked. "Change diapers and stuff?."

Kate reared back, astonished.

"Of course. He's in heaven. Why wouldn't he?" Marta shrugged. At moments like this, it concerned Stern that she seemed so dumbfounded by men. Her father's daughter, Marta, regrettably, was not a pretty woman.

She had Stern's broad nose and small dark eyes. Worse still, she shat his figure.

Stern and his daughter were short, with a tendency to gather weight in their lower parts. Marta submitted herself almost masochistically to the rigors of diet and exercise, but you could never escape what nature had provided. It was not, she was apt to say, the form favored by' fashion magazines. Notwithstanding, Marta had always attracted her admirers-but there seemed an inevitable doom in her' relations. In her conversation there were, by idle reference, a procession of men who carne and went. Older, younger. Things always foundered. Marta, in the meantime, now came to her own defense.

"Daddy didn't change diapers," she said.

"I did not?" asked Stern. Surprisingly, he could not recall precisely.

"How could you have changed diapers?" asked Peter, awakened somewhat by the opportunity to challenge his father. "You were never here. I remember I couldn't figure out what a trial was. I thought it was like a place you went. Another city."

Marta called out for John: "Are you going to change the baby's diapers?"

John, carrying a thirty-cup percolator, entered the sun room for a moment. He looked as bad as everyone else, baffled and grieved. He shrugged gently in response to Marta's question. John was a taciturn fellow. He had few opinions that he was willing to express.

In another room the telephone rang. It had been pealing incessantly for two days now. Stern seldom spoke. The children answered, responding tersely with the time and place of the funeral, promising to share the condolences with their father. Most of these conversations seemed to end the same way, with a labored pause before the instrument was cradled. 'Yes, it's true,' one of them would quickly answer. 'We have no idea why."

Silvia emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, beckoning to Stern. This call, apparently, he could not avoid. In passing, he touched his sister's hand. A woman with a staff of three at home, Silvia had been here toiling tirelessly for three days, running, organizing, taking care.

"Ah, Sandy. What a sad occasion. My deepest sympathy."

Stern had gone up to their bedroom, still dark and shuttered, to take the phone. He recognized the voice of Cal Hopkinson. Cal was a lawyer.

When Sandy's beloved friend Harry Fagel had died two years ago, Cal, Harry's partner, had become the Sterns' personal lawyer. He updated their wills and each year filed tax returns for the trusts left for Clara. Cal was a practical fellow, amiable if not particularly appealing, and he came rather quickly to the point. Since Marta was in town, he wondered if Stern might want to come down with the children in the next few days to discuss Clara's will.

"Is that necessary, Cal?"

Cal pondered in silence. Perhaps he was somewhat offended.

He was one of those attorneys who lived for details, mowing them down each day in the belief that if they went untended they would overgrow the world.

"It's not necessary, Sandy, but it sometimes helps to prevent questions later. Clara left a large estate,.you know."

Did he know? Yes, it came back to him that he did. If the truth were told, in these moments in which he was too harrowed and weak to avoid it, he could barely see Clara through the glimmer of gold when he had married her. Poor boy weds rich girl. It was a dream as thrilling and illicit as pornography. And in keeping, he had practiced the usual cruel repression. Early on, Stern stilled Henry Mittler's obvious suspicions with a vow to his father-in-law that Clam and he would live solely on his income. Thirty years passed in which Stern feigned not to care about Clara's fortune, in which he left the details of management to her and those he suggested she employ, and at the end, in the sorest irony, the lie was truth.