Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Schaeffer examined the book and nodded. Pace thought he paled a bit.

“So you did,” he said. “How did he get it to you?”

She laughed that embarrassed little laugh again. “By Federal Express,” she said. “He took all those bills and put them in two of those cardboard FedEx envelopes and sent them by overnight delivery. Wouldn’t they have died if they’d known what they were shipping?”

“They wouldn’t have accepted it, I don’t think,” Pace said.

“No, probably not,” she agreed. “Daddy said the envelope contained personal papers valued at ten dollars or something like that.”

“Why didn’t he send you a check?” Schaeffer asked a bit gruffly.

“Because he didn’t want there to be any record of the transfer that could lead people to me. He wanted Jimmy and me to have complete privacy always.”

Pace was beginning to feel anguish bordering on pain. “Is that why he didn’t tell the truth to me or to the Senate Ethics Committee?” he asked.

She nodded. “He was afraid the media or the committee or both wouldn’t accept his story until they’d tracked Jimmy down and confirmed his existence and his condition. He was afraid that if anybody found Jimmy, they would ask him about his father and that it could trigger a whole new breakdown.”

Schaeffer leaned back in his chair. The look on his face was stern. “That’s a very touching story, Miss Marshall,” he said. “But where did your father come into the money to buy 50,000 shares of Converse stock in the first place?”

She nodded as though she’d been expecting the question. “It was part of the settlement of a malpractice suit against the doctor who’d agreed that Jimmy could go off his medicine the day of the hunting trip. We settled out of court for seven million dollars, and the settlement was sealed by mutual agreement so nobody would ever know. He bought the stock as a personal gesture of faith in Converse during the company’s relocation. He sold the stock right after the accident because he knew its value would fall, and he was paranoid about risking any part of the nest egg he’d created for Jimmy and me.” She paused and smiled. “He told the truth to the Ethics Committee except he left the impression he was worried about his own future. He wasn’t. He was worried about his children.”

She glanced up at Schaeffer, and then looked to Pace.

“You know,” she said, “except for buying his house on East-West Highway, he never spent a penny of the settlement on himself. He kept almost all of it for us. It was probably an overreaction on his part to sell all the Converse stock after the accident, but you have to understand Dad was carrying around such a huge burden of guilt that no amount of money was enough to assuage it, enough to make him feel secure about his children’s future. He didn’t have anything to feel guilty about, but he never accepted that. He always felt the whole thing was his fault. And he wouldn’t tell anybody the story of what happened because he wouldn’t jeopardize Jimmy’s privacy. He was willing to die to prevent that. And, I guess, he did.”

She paused for a second, then went on, tentatively. “I know Dad wasn’t the nicest man. A lot of people didn’t like him. He could be abrasive and mean-spirited. But he wasn’t always like that. He changed after Mom died, and he got worse after he had to send Jimmy away. I don’t know why he did the things he did for Mr. Greenwood, or why he used Mr. Davis like some sort of… of criminal slave. Maybe he was bent on self-destruction.” She shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know. But Dad wasn’t a bad man. He couldn’t have condoned or ordered murder. For God’s sake, it was the violent loss of a life he loved that twisted him emotionally in the first place. No, he couldn’t have been involved in anybody’s murder, and if he’d known murder was planned, he’d have tried to stop it. I know that. I know that, and I knew him better than anybody. He was a good man destroyed by a horrible, terrible set of circumstances. He had an abusive side, a spiteful side. But that wasn’t the man. That was the shell he built around himself so nobody could see his pain.”

Pace thought Schaeffer looked stricken. There was a heavy silence in the room.

“What do you want from us?” Schaeffer asked quietly.

“Nothing,” Sharon Marshall said. “I didn’t come here to make threats or cause problems. I wanted you to know the truth. You’re the ones who heaped on all the suspicion that Dad was guilty of something horrible. I thought you should know that he wasn’t.” She tossed a file of papers on Schaeffer’s desk. “Here are copies of my brother’s medical records so you know I’m telling the truth.”

She paused again, and when no one said anything, she spoke.

“I had a long talk with Dad’s doctor after Dad died. He’s pretty sure the stress of this Converse scandal led to the stroke. He’d never had high blood pressure before, not even in the worst time after Mother died. He developed it when everybody started writing stories about the bad things they thought he’d done. Maybe at that point he already had the aneurysm. And maybe he would have died from it eventually anyway. Or maybe not. We’ll never know. There’s nothing you can do to bring him back, but if you could find a way to help clear his name, I’d appreciate it. If you can’t, then let the story die. Carry his innocence in your hearts. You’ve given me what I asked for, a hearing.” She plucked her bankbook from Schaeffer’s desk, slipped it back into her purse, and got to her feet. “You’ll not see me or hear from me again. I appreciate your time.”

Then, without making an effort to shake hands, she walked out into the newsroom and disappeared from sight.

“Jesus,” Pace said, watching the door through which she’d left.

He looked at Schaeffer and saw that the editor was as pale as a blank sheet of paper.

“What did we do?” Pace asked quietly.

After a time, Schaeffer replied, “We executed an innocent man.”

“Clay, I’ve got to know. I’m sorry I have to ask, and I swear it’s not for publication, but I have to know what Chappy Davis told you about Harold Marshall.”

Clay Helm thought he’d never heard Steve Pace more agitated. Not even in the hospital after the phony mugging. Clearly, something had rocked him.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” Helm said. “The security of the grand-jury process and all.”

“I know that,” Pace said. “But this is important. Somebody told us Marshall couldn’t have been involved in the murders, somebody who seemed credible. Only Davis knows for sure. And I have to know. I think you should be able to understand that.”

Helm did. He could hear through the desperation in Pace’s voice that the reporter wasn’t asking him to justify suspicions of Marshall’s complicity; he was asking for the truth.

“Davis says he took those orders directly from Greenwood,” Helm said.

There was silence.

Helm knew the impact his words carried. He hadn’t wanted to be the one to break that news. He searched desperately for a way to soften the blow. “Steve, there wasn’t anything you could have done differently,” he said.

“Sure there was,” Pace replied glumly.

“Hey, I’m a cop. Criminal investigations are my business. I read your stuff every day. I don’t remember once thinking you’d gone farther than the evidence warranted.”

“It was the sum total of it. We kept beating up on Marshall day after day after day. We put him under enormous strain, and some people think that’s what caused his stroke.”

“What people?” Helm insisted.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”