Brian Haig - The Kingmaker

Then Eddie would promise a long procession of evidence, from the phone and house taps to the fingerprinted documents taken from a Moscow vault.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Eddie was missing something. There was a hole-not a big hole, maybe only a tiny one, but a hole’s a hole. The case was compelling, but circumstantial. I couldn’t defend Morrison’s character, because, frankly, he was a selfishly philandering jerk and too many people knew it, would swear to it, and would explain why in endless detail. And the phone taps would wash away whatever doubts remained.

But the only tangible evidence to the act of betrayal was those documents stolen out of Moscow by the CIA’s mysterious source. And you had to ask yourself this: How does anybody know how those documents got there in the first place? Maybe some enterprising Russian agent stole them off Morrison’s desk. At least, that’s what I could claim. They weren’t willingly handed over; they were pilfered.

I rifled through the documents and realized how weak that argument sounded, since the range of dates on their upper corners went back over a period of eight years, including the time Morrison worked in State, and the time he worked in the White House. Any sane person would ask themself, Hey, how could some Russian have infiltrated both State and the White House-two of the most closely guarded places on earth-day after day, year after year, and stolen those papers off his desk?

But the beauty of America’s legal system is that the burden of proof rests on the prosecutor’s shoulders. Eddie could prove the Russians had reams of Top Secret documents with Morrison’s fingerprints on them, but he couldn’t prove how they got them.

At 3:00 P.M., Katrina walked coldly back into my office and threw a sheaf of papers on my desk. She leaned against a wall, crossed her arms, and stared at me like I was a pathetic cad.

I looked down at the papers. The cover sheet said it was a speech given by the President of the United States in the country of Russia in the fall of 1996. I saw the official document center stamp-evidently Katrina had gone through the archives to find it.

It began with all the normal opening drivel you see in any speech about how happy the President was to be there, the great honor and privilege, what great friends Americans and Russians were, blah, blah, blah. Then the meat: Neatly underlined in red pen was the section Alexi described, the President of the United States saying Chechnya was an understandable thing, much like America’s Civil War, a struggle to hold the nation together. He added a few admonishments about how the Russians should be civilized and try to hold down civilian casualties and all that… still, he was justifying, in fact sympathizing with, their monstrous war.

I finished the key sections and looked up. Katrina said, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Do you believe Alexi now?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. The President giving a particularly insipid speech doesn’t prove any damned thing.”

She waved an angry finger around at the wall safes in my office. “What other chance do you have of getting Morrison off?”

“I’m designing the defense right now. Golden’s case isn’t as foolproof as we thought. There’s no actual proof Morrison gave those documents to the Russians. And if he can’t prove the treachery, he can’t prove the murder charges. They’re linked.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding.”

“Have you seen his witness list?”

“Of course I haven’t.”

“No concerns about that, huh?”

“What are you implying?” I mean, the absence of a witness list while we were still preparing for the plea hearing was self-evident. Eddie and I wouldn’t have to exchange witness lists till we were staring at a full-blown trial.

“What if his wife testifies? What if Mary says, ‘Yes, my husband was a traitor? I lived with him, watched him, saw his disaffection, his suspicious activities, his unexplained absences when he met with his contacts’?”

“Wouldn’t happen.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. She’s protected from testifying against her own husband. I know her. She’d never participate in her own husband’s lynching. Her kids would never forgive her.”

“These are the same kids who don’t know their father’s in jail? Hello… anybody home?”

I was beginning to lose patience with this woman.

“Mary won’t testify,” I insisted again.

“Are you an expert on women now?”

“Perhaps not, but I know Mary.”

She continued. “You said she knew about his trysts in Moscow. Pull your head out of your ass. Any woman would want vengeance.”

“We discussed it last night. She accepted it. She was resigned to it.”

“Don’t be a fool. You’re ignoring your last chance to prove Morrison’s innocent.”

“Look, Katrina, the CIA’s been watching the region like a hawk and doesn’t even believe the cabal’s there. If I bring it up in court, Eddie will cut my nuts off. I’ve got one day before the deal expires. What exactly do you want me to do?”

Her face tightened even more. “Give Alexi the benefit of the doubt. Talk to the CIA and FBI. And stop putting Mary on a pedestal. Her husband cheated on her.”

My head was shaking long before she was done. She stared at me and I saw in her eyes what was coming. I had the merest fraction of an instant to divert it… but I decided not to.

“Then find yourself a new associate,” she said, her voice tentative, as though this was a bluff she didn’t want called.

“Accepted,” I replied.

Her head snapped back and she looked surprised, then confused and, ultimately, resigned. Without another word she spun around and left, closing the door quietly behind her, which wasn’t the way I would’ve done it, but then I have my flaws.

I didn’t like the way this ended, but I’d lost my appetite for arguing with her. In cases like this you run into all kinds of dead ends, and you need to recognize when the street doesn’t go anywhere or you’ll spend days lost in cul-de-sacs. And, for the record, I didn’t have days.

Anyway, I put that behind me and started going through the stacks of papers Eddie had left, searching for clues. I kept trying to focus on those papers, only it wasn’t working, and at five o’clock I called Mary and left.

The black Porsche wasn’t there when I pulled up twenty minutes later. I walked to the entrance and rang the bell. Mary opened it immediately, as though she’d been waiting by the entrance. She was dressed to the nines in a short skirt and a low-cut bodice. She stepped out and gave me a tight hug and a kiss.

“I’m glad you came,” she said. “I’m all alone. I could use some good company.”

“What, no kids?”

“I shipped them off this morning for a month at an outdoor ranch in Wyoming. They were going crazy being cooped up in this house. Nor was their grandpa handling it well, particularly after Jamie threw a football that broke a Ming vase.”

“A Ming vase? A real one?”

“Sixty thousand dollars’ worth of genuine Chinese porcelain.”

I chuckled. “I knew that boy had greatness in him. I wish I could’ve witnessed that.”

She chuckled and said, “No, you really don’t… I mean, you really don’t.”

I peeked around her. “And Homer? He’s not hiding behind the door with a knife, is he?”

“He’s at some Kennedy Center shindig and won’t be home until late. I’m sorry. I know how much you two enjoy each other.”

“My night is ruined.”

She grabbed my arm and tugged me inside. “Come on. I need a stiff drink and you look like you need one, too.”

I pulled backward and said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”