Scott Turow - The Burden of Proof

"This is not for pleasure, Sandy. I came to give you this."

She continued to extend the envelope. "I wanted to do it myself."

He stood there, mannequin-still. How had she put it?

After forty, she had learned no one was even normal.

"Here."

Eventually he took it. With any reflection, he would have known what it must be, but instead he opened the envelope, fumbling and mindless, and studied the document. It was a grand jury subpoena which she had drafted; her'initials were at the foot. Investigation 89-86. He read it over three or four times before the import came home. It was addressed to Stern himself; he had been subpoenaed to appear personally, commanded to attend on Thursday 10 a.m., and then and there produce "a safe transported on or about April 30 from the premises of MD Clearing Corp. and all items in your possession, custody, or control which were contained within said safe as of the time you received it."

She had checked both boxes'on the form-he was required to testify and to produce the object. As he read, there loomed up in him once more the familiar intimation of yet another disaster t "I have to tell you," Sonny sad, tha I'm really pissed off."

"Oh, Sonny," he said. "This is a misunderstanding.

Please. Come inside for a moment." He was already walking up the slate stairs to his home.

"Sandy, there's no point."

"A moment," he said again.

They came into the foyer, and around them the house was dark and cool….

"Sonny, I am constrained, of course, by privilege, he said, meaning that he could not repeat anything Dixon had told him, "but I believe you have a terrible misimpression about this."

"Sandy, I really wouldn't say too much if I were you.

don't know where this thing will end up, and I don't want to have to testify. I can't play the game as hard as you guys do. Any of you."

"Sonny, there are no games involved."

"Oh, please! How can you say that? After you sat there telling me you were going to search for those records, when you had them in your office all the time. And I fell for that routine. That's what I really can't believe. Do you know what I've been wondering all day-what was so important you had to drive a hundred miles to find out about it?

What would you have done with those documents if I told you the government's whole case depended on em.

His mouth parted vaguely as he realized what she was saying: he was being accused. He sat heavily on the milking chair, which was behind him.

"You misunderstand," he said again.

"I understand fine. I thought you were my fucking friend."

"I am your friend."

"Pardon me, but bullshit. Friends don't do this to each other. No matter who their clients are. Do you want to know how I found out?"

He nodded mildly, afraid that, if he showed greater interest, in her great anger she might refuse to say.

"I walked in this morning," she said, "feeling sort of cheerful, and there's Kyle Horn waiting for me. He had a nice weekend, too-he went through all the checks from MD what's-her-name brought into the grand jury last week. And guess what he found? A check written out of your client's Chicago office to a cartage company here, with a little note on the bottom: 'DH Personal." Think DH is trying to hide something, maybe?"

Margy again, thought Stern. Had Horn merely been exhaustive, or had someone provided him a clue about what he might find in those stacks of negotiated checks?

"So, naturally, he want a grand jury subpoena, and he's out to the cartage company before noon and comes back with the bill of lading and lays it on my desk. 'Your idol,' he says. 'Shit happens." I'm not nffive, Sandy. I understand you have a job to do. But you don't seem to care a bit about the position you put me in."

"Oh, Sonny, I care enormously." His tone-soulful, plaintive-took even her aback, and she stared at him a moment, weighing his sincerity.

Finally she winced and turned for the door.

"My client," he said to her, "will not return until late on Thursday."

She shook her head at once.

"Don't ask for an extension, because you won't get it from Sennett-or from me. You and the safe and everything in it are in the grand jury on Thursday morning."

"That is not possible without conferring with my client."

"Then you better get a lawyer, Sandy. I mean it. This isn't amusing or cute or anything else. Don't put yourself in a vulnerable position with Sennett." She stopped herself.

"Jesus, I'm doing it again. Look. You need a lawyer."

"A lawyer?" asked Stern.

Sonny seemed to hear the sounds first and bolted about facing the stairwell. It had not occurred to Stern that they were not alone, but he recognized the wind-sprung hairdo and the flowing gown, even before the face, so much like his own, appeared over the banister.

"Who needs a lawyer?" Marta asked.

THE ensuing scene it the bottom of the staircase was brief and confusing. Stern, at the height of emotional turmoil, found himself sorely annoyed with Marta ,1. for her grand entrance and her failure to announce herself earlier.

Never one to brook criticism casually, Marta defended herself stoutly, reminded him that she had written and that she had been letting herself into this house with the same set of keys for nearly twenty years.

"I called Kate. She said she left you a message last night.

Don't you even listen to that machine?"

Finally daunted, Stern made no reply. Instead, he noticed Sonny, who seemed awestruck by the unpredicted outbreak of spirited family emotions. He made the introductions, while Marta, in her familiar way, removed the paper from his hand.

"This is a grand jury subpoena," she said.

"Ms. Klonsky has served me this moment."

"Again!" exclaimed Marta. Clearly she recalled the day of the funeral.

"You people are too much. Haven't you ever heard of an office?" She took one step toward Sonny.

"Get out," Marta said.

"Oh Lord." Stern held his head. He reached despairingly after Sonny, but she was at the door long before him, and was gone with no further remark than "Thursday," as she pointed at Stern.

"My God, Marta. Your tongue!"

"You mean you're happy about this?"

"Marta, this is a most complicated circumstance."

His daughter tipped her head querulously and her face abruptly took on a new'light.

"Is that the girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" asked Stern. Flummoxed, he managed to ask who had spoken to her about his girlfriends. It was a serial connection, asit turned out. Maxine had called Kate last night, after hearing from her mother;

Marta had spoken with Kate this afternoon when she had not met Marta here, as planned. Kate said she was not well, but that Stern would be expecting Marta, since she had left a message last night.

The discussion of last night apparently brought out the rest. "Is she?"

Marta asked. "Your girlfriend?"

Deeply troubled by all thiswSonny, the subpoena, the image of a tom-tom network of females wailing over his shortcomings late into the night-Stern could not contain his irritation. Why did his children, in their twenties, extend to themselves an irrevocable privilege to be irreverent, even rude?

"Does she appear to be in any condition to be my girlfriend?"

Marta shrugged. Who knew? Who understood proprieties at the end of the century?

Stern, ready for another subject, asked about Kate.

"She says it's nothing physical. She's tired. But she sounds upset. Is something going on around here?"

"Ay, Marta," answered Stern, who finally took his daughter in his arms.

He asked about her flight, whether she was hungry. They decided to go out for dinner.

"What about this?" asked Marta of the subpoena.

"I should call someone now, I imagine."