Andrew Gross - The Blue Zone

“Your father may be dead-or not, I don’t know. But I am sure Iwill never see him again. Whatever he’s done, do not judge him too harshly. He loves you. He has always loved you. He’s loved all of you. He’s tried to protect you, all these years. Secrets are hard to keep. They burn a hole in the lining of your soul. It’s so much easier to forget.

“So let me tell you, Kate…now.”

Sharon wrote. She wrote it all out, all the things she felt compelled to say. The meaning of the pendant she had left with Kate. All the things Kate had to know. About her father.

She even told her where they were living.

How much she wanted to say, The hell with it-come, Kate, come. We miss you so much. We need to be together. I don’t care about the goddamned rules. Find us, honey. Come. You need to know the truth…

Everything came rushing out. “I’m sorry, Kate. For keeping things secret. That you have to feel afraid. For Tina. For keeping our family apart.”

She felt like a true mother again, for the first time in a year.

Suddenly a light flashed in the window. It always scared her. She glanced at the clock and knew it was time.

The government vehicle pulled up the long driveway. As it did every night. She heard the driver’s door open, the agent step out, utter a couple of unintelligible words to his colleague. The changing of the guard.

Sharon stared at the screen. She read over what she had written. A sadness began to tug at her heart.

“Yes, baby, you should know it all.” She read it over again. It was all there. She poised her finger over the “send” icon.

Then she hesitated.

“Live your life,” she’d told her daughter. And she meant it with all her heart. Live your life. You don’t have to know. There’s hope there.

Sharon shut her eyes, as she had a hundred times over the same message she had written out a hundred nights before. She knew that Kate would never get to read it. She knew she mustn’t get her involved.

“Live your life,” she whispered again, aloud.

And she pressed “delete.”

The letter disappeared. Sharon sat there facing a blank screen. She typed four more words, then let her forehead sink to the table as she wiped a tear off her cheek.

The same words she wrote every night before she went to sleep.

“I love you, Mom.”

It had never been entirely clear who had informed on Kate’s father to the FBI. With his own admission of guilt, his voice caught on tape, it never really seemed to matter. He pled guilty; he testified against his friend; he went to jail. The FBI had never divulged the informant’s identity-even during the trial.

The transcripts were all a matter of public record. Kate had never been to the courthouse or read over the records. She had never wanted to see him like that. But now she did. It was just a matter of finessing them from the judge’s clerk, being a little circumspect to everyone about why she wanted them.

A few days later, the message was left on her cell phone. From Alice, Mel Kipstein’s secretary. “Mr. Kipstein asked me to call, Kate. What you’re looking for is in.”

Kate went up to the lawyer’s office, in a tall glass building on Thirty-fifth and Park. His secretary took her into a large room where several heavy black folders sat on the sleek rosewood conference table.

“Make yourself at home, Kate,” Alice told her. “There’s some water. If you need anything else, just call. Mr. Kipstein’s in conference. Hopefully, he’ll be in soon.”

She closed the door.

Kate sank into a leather chair, pulling over the first bound volume. It was full of legal documents filed with the court: depositions, evidence forms, witness agreements. Kate didn’t even know what she was looking for. Suddenly this idea seemed a little foolish and overwhelming. She was just praying that something was here.

She started with the opening statements. It was disturbing to see the evidence mounted against her father, to read about him as a coconspirator and a felon. Admitting guilt, confessing his crimes, turning on his friend.

She moved ahead to the section in Folder Three where he took the stand. The prosecutor told the court how he had openly conspired to break the law. How he had taken kickbacks, payoffs. How he had passed them on to his friend Harold Kornreich. How all along he had known whom he was dealing with. On cross-examination the defense counsel tried his best to discredit him.

LAWYER: You’ve pretty much lied to everyone about your involvement. Haven’t you, Mr. Raab? RAAB: Yes. LAWYER: You lied to the FBI when you were arrested. You lied to the Justice Department. You lied to your employees. You even lied to your own wife and children, isn’t that right, Mr. Raab? RAAB: Yes. LAWYER: Speak up. RAAB: Yes.

Kate’s chest tightened. This whole charade… He’s lying to us even now!

It hurt to read it. To see him pretending to be repentant at the same time he was betraying his friend. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Kate leafed through the pages, reading over his testimony. She didn’t even know what the hell she was looking for.

Then something caught her eye.

One of the government’s follow-up witnesses. His name was withheld but both attorneys called him by a pseudonym: Smith. He said he worked for Beecham Trading. Beecham was the name of the street they used to live on.

That was her father’s firm.

Kate’s pulse started to quicken as she leaned over the black-bound folder with heightened interest. Next to speak was Nardozzi, the government prosecutor.

NARDOZZI: What was your job at Beecham, Mr. Smith? WITNESS: I handled the daily accounting. Cash disbursements, the resolution of trades. Kate’s eyes widened. Oh, my God. She realized who it was! NARDOZZI: In the course of your job, did you handle payments from Paz Enterprises? WITNESS: Yes I did, Mr. Nardozzi. They were one of our largest customers. NARDOZZI: What about receipts from Argot Manufacturing? WITNESS: [ Nods ] Yes, again, sir. Payments, too. NARDOZZI: And at any time did you happen to grow suspicious of those receipts from Argot? WITNESS: Yes I did, sir. Argot was a manufacturing company. Paz transshipped their product to them directly, so there was a lot of back-and-forth. I spoke to Mr. Raab about it at length. Several times. The invoices…they just didn’t seem kosher. NARDOZZI: By not kosher, you mean they were well beyond the normal commission rate. WITNESS: [ Softly ] Yes, Mr. Nardozzi. That-and that they were all for ordinary items, that were shipped offshore. NARDOZZI: Offshore? WITNESS: The Caymans, Trinidad, Mexico. But I knew they weren’t ending up there. I spoke with Ben about it. Several times over the years. He kept putting me off by saying that this was just an unusual account that billed in their own way. But I knew where they were going. I knew the people we were dealing with and the kind of money that was coming in. I may be an accountant, Mr. Nardozzi [ laugh ], but I’m not a fool. NARDOZZI: So what did you do, Mr. Smith, about the questions you had? After you say you spoke with your boss several times and he kept putting you off? Kate read the response. She pulled back from the transcript. A chill ran down her spine. WITNESS: [ Long pause ] I contacted the FBI.

Kate stepped forward, surprising the heavyset man as he stepped out of the office building on Thirty-third Street.

“Howard?”

Howard Kurtzman had worked for her father for twenty years. It wasn’t hard to find him. Her dad’s old secretary, Betsy, knew the toy company where he worked now. The accountant had always been a creature of habit. He always went out at twelve o’clock sharp for lunch.