by Scott Turow
He picks up his overcoat. He wants to offer a word or two of comfort, but he still has said nothing when he goes out her door.
36. Don Juan in Hell
That evening at home, Stern tells Pinky a bit about his visit with Olga and the fact that she was in Center City when he was struck on the highway.
“So who hit you?”
“Olga seems to think on balance that it was an accident.”
“Bullshit,” answers Pinky. Stern laments again that Pinky messed up with the police force, because she has a cop’s instincts through and through, seeing the world as the site of wrongdoing until proven otherwise. Of course, in this case, she is almost certainly correct. But Stern has no idea yet how he prefers to proceed. For that reason, he will not be sharing his conclusions with Pinky, who is likely to go off half-cocked.
On Monday morning, twelve days past the insertion of the small defibrillator, Stern calls Al and asks how his doctor would feel if Stern went to Florida to visit Silvia, his sister.
“Get out of this mess and relax?” Al asks. “I’m all for it. There’s supposed to be a blizzard on Friday. But remember the rules. Nothing heavy. Limited arm movements. No carrying your luggage. No swimming.”
Given Al’s reaction, Marta can interpose limited objections and on Thursday, Ardent drops Stern at the airport. He carries nothing but the newspaper and his tablet, since he always keeps a few items of clothing at his sister’s. His itinerary is precisely the same as when he went down during the trial. His plane lands at Fort Myers, and the same young man, Cesar, is there to greet Stern in his gleaming black SUV, the shape of a toad. They lunch together at the same crab shack, before speeding down the highway to Naples. Looking at the lines of malls, Stern wonders if the play he was thinking of last time is called Don Juan in Hell.
Cesar parks in Innis’s drive, right in front of the steps where she displayed herself so fetchingly against the lights. Stern rings. Inside there is stirring, and eventually he hears knocking on the long window beside the beautiful tooled door. Plump and dark in her gray maid’s uniform, Maria, the housekeeper, shakes her head, repeating several times, “No home.”
Stern answers at volume, “Muchas gracias. Esperaré.” He has told her he will wait. Knowing the way, he opens the gate and circles to the rear. He removes his suit coat and loosens his tie, then nudges a chair out of the sun on Innis’s bluestone patio. In a second, there is a rustling at the curtain and he sees Maria peering out, scowling. He smiles and lifts a hand cheerfully, and the woman disappears. With luck, she will call her boss and not the police.
It is a tranquil day on the water and the sound of the waves is even. Here on the shore, the breeze makes the air a bit cool and Stern once more dons his jacket. He has brought his tablet, and he works his way through texts and e-mails that have come from several ex-clients. Most are pure business, but several sound like letters from camp, including two from men nearing the end of their time in confinement in the same federal prison camp. One characterizes it as ‘punishment by boredom.’
He stops after a while to throw his face back in the sun. There is health and excitement in the bright breeze. Thus, he is badly embarrassed when he wakes up with Innis standing over him. He must have looked like a very old man, his head cast over the back of the wicker chair, exposing his bridgework and his fillings, looking very much like another one of those Floridians who is no longer quite in touch with the present and who has come south to wait in the anteroom to death. Taking in the expression of surprise and then alarm on Innis’s face, he has the immediate impression that she had hoped it was a different man who was adamantly insisting he would not depart.
“Well, isn’t this special,” she says. “What the hell are you doing here, Sandy?”
Innis is in her tennis attire, a short pleated skirt and a white placket shirt. Her racket case is slung over her shoulder, and the forelocks of her hair are still glued to her forehead by sweat. She obviously ran over directly after the end of her match.
He straightens slowly. His back is getting worse and worse.
“I was hoping to have a frank conversation with you.”
“Oh, I doubt that’s about to happen, Sandy. I have no more to say to you. Do you realize I may end up in the penitentiary?”
“I am sorry about that, Innis, but generally speaking when you commit a federal felony, that is one of the risks.”
Her mouth pinches in bitterly.
“Screw you, Sandy. Are you leaving or am I calling the police?”
He nods, although his body does not feel disposed yet toward motion.
“And who is your lawyer now?” he asks.
“I don’t have one yet. Rex says it shouldn’t be him.” She is referring to Rex Halsey, who negotiated the nonprosecution agreement with the US Attorney’s Office that Innis wantonly violated. Rex’s thought, clearly, is that Moses and Feld will never believe he has any control over his client. “Feld gave me until the end of the year to find another attorney. Happy holidays!” says Innis. “All I want for Christmas is a plea bargain. I’m going to New York next week to interview a few lawyers whose names I’ve gotten.”
Stern finds himself instinctively shaking his head.
“A poor idea,” he says, “if you don’t mind me saying so.”
She flicks her fingers forward, urging him to speak.
“Since Moses and Feld neither like you nor believe you at this stage, you would be much better served by one of their former colleagues in the US Attorney’s Office, whose integrity they trust. I could give you a few names, if you like.”
She considers that. “Come inside for a second so I can write this down.”
She knocks and Maria opens the back door, allowing them to enter the lanai. Innis beckons Stern toward the living room, where she slams through the drawers in an antique breakfront looking for paper and a pen. In the interval, Stern admires the precise furnishings, each piece exquisite as jewelry. The walls are clad in dark metallic wallpaper, and the intense beam of tiny spotlights shows off gorgeous little trinkets on the sideboards and console tables. Two tall Chinese vases stand like guards beside the sofa.
“I suppose your friends the Neucrisses may have some ideas about lawyers for you, too,” Stern says.
Her look in response is purely vengeful. As was Stern’s sarcasm.
“They don’t seem to be answering their phones,” Innis says.
“So surprising,” says Stern in a tone far from kindly. “You do realize, don’t you, Innis, that they will be telling the prosecutors and the FBI that they had absolutely no idea about the content of your prospective testimony?”
“Oh sure,” she says. “I’ve already seen the view from under the bus. Do you realize that in the last two weeks I’ve been named as an additional defendant in two of the class actions where I actually gave those assholes the information that helped their buddies file suit in the first place?”
“Now you are beginning to understand why the Neucrisses have always been such favorites among their colleagues in Kindle County.” At the annual bar association Christmas show, there are reliably at least half a dozen Neucriss jokes sprinkled among the skits, none of them remotely flattering. Stern keeps to himself a thought about Innis’s taste in male companions. If he knew Neucriss was Innis’s old beau, Sandy might have realized that he isn’t a big enough jerk—or at least the right kind of jerk—to be of interest to her.
“You are aware, Innis, that our mutual friend Kiril has run for the hills?”
“I read the papers.”
“We were required to withdraw as counsel. So it dawns on me that you do not have a lawyer and I do not have a client. Perhaps we could have a conversation for the purpose of legal advice. It would be privileged.”
“Would that hold up in court?”
He thinks about it. “Almost certainly, yes.” His license to practice is good for a few more weeks.
“Except you hate my guts,” she says.
“That’s a bi
t of an overstatement. I certainly understand why you were so eager to get even with Kiril.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”
“All right,” says Stern. “This will be the bargain: You will tell me the truth, and I will give you my best advice on how you should proceed, once you have found your new lawyer.”
Innis lifts her face to think, then gives a little hiccup of a laugh.
“About six people have said to me, ‘It’s too bad you can’t go to Sandy Stern.’”
Innis motions him to the sofa and calls to Maria for something to drink. She asks for white wine, while Stern requests club soda. The couch where Stern takes a seat is red brocade, and the glass-topped coffee table is again Chinese, black lacquer with a dragon breathing flame. For Florida, the room is surprisingly dark, probably to preserve the expensive artwork on the walls.
“How did you know I was even in town, by the way?” Innis asks. “Am I being followed?”
“Nothing quite so intrepid. The pairings for the Southwest Florida Tennis Association’s year-end singles tournament are posted online. You seem to be advancing just as you expected in the seventy-pluses.”
“I’m kicking ass,” she says. “The trophy will be a nice touch in my cell, don’t you think?”
Stern smiles. In extremis, we all come more clearly into view, and this afternoon he is getting a much better idea of who Innis is, with her anger and self-pity and, as of yet, no sign of shame. Much quicker, he thinks suddenly, than finding all that out after years of dating. That notion brings him close to a snicker.
“‘Hate’ puts it much too strongly. I admit that I do feel a bit humiliated by how easily you manipulated me. Especially your flirting. You did everything but bat your eyes.”
She smiles at the description. Innis knows the lesson that seems to be on the news a few times every week: A man is never too old to be led astray by his penis. Consider Kiril with Olga. Stern can’t recall the name at the moment, but he had an acquaintance, a lawyer who was older than he is now, who died after falling out of bed in a physical-rehab facility while trying to pinch a nurse’s behind.
“But what was the point, Innis? You surely do not require an elderly cancer patient with a cane to convince you that you are still attractive.”
“You don’t really need me to explain that, do you? I wanted to turn the tables on Kiril. I wanted to disappoint him, which would be a small repayment for the way he disappointed me. I wanted him to believe I would show him some mercy—and then give him none. I know him, Sandy. He would be eager to believe that I still loved him. And I don’t.”
Stern could challenge her assertion, but there’s no gain in that.
“So I was collateral damage?” he asks.
“If I was going to take him by surprise, Sandy, I had to take you by surprise. Neucriss always said those are the hardest cross-examinations, when the witness goes off in a direction you’re entirely unprepared for.”
He understands her logic. But she also must have taken some pleasure by seeing how easily he was led along.
“So what really occurred, Innis? In September of 2016? Did you and Kiril plot together to alter the dataset?”
She gives Stern a triumphant smile. “I knew he was too proud to tell you the truth.”
Stern considers this idea, a variation on Marta’s original theme. He was the wrong lawyer for Kiril, not because Pafko wanted to lie to him, but because Kiril would be reluctant to damage Stern’s high opinion of him.
“Believe me, Sandy, he deserved everything that happened to him. Everything.”
“Perhaps I should start by telling you what I have surmised, Innis?”
He’d been willing to waste a day of what life he had left on the bet that Innis would talk in the end. And she now looks eager to hear what he has pieced together.
“I believe, Innis, you were part of whatever happened in September 2016.”
“How do you get to that?” she asks.
“It’s a rather clear deduction. We learned in court that you knew about the problems with the medication. How soon? Certainly before you left, because you alone were hellbent to sell all your stock as soon as you could, rather than riding the market. And it is doubtful that whoever altered the dataset would have shared such a dangerous secret casually with anyone. Logic says that if you knew, you were part of it from the start.”
“Go on,” she answers.
“But you could not have altered the dataset on your own,” Stern says. “Not that you lack the technical acumen. But the initial information about fatalities came up through the research staff. So you required the aid of someone who had the authority to reassure Dr. Tanakawa. Lep. Or Kiril. Or both.”
“Okay.” She drinks half her glass of wine in a gulp. “And this is all privileged, right? Whatever I say. Wild horses can’t drag it out of you.”
“It is privileged,” Stern answers. “Barring a court order, it goes with me to the grave.”
From her seat on the sofa, she considers Stern. There is a lot going on inside her, clearly—anxiety now, and a lot of the anger that drove her in the first place.
“Have you had one of these tête-à-têtes with Lep?”
“Regrettably, not. His lawyers still do not want him speaking to me.”
“And Olga?”
Stern is surprised to hear Olga’s name in this part of the conversation.
“I have. Are you saying she had a role in altering the dataset?”
“I told you last month, Sandy. Everything begins and ends with Olga. If she had an ounce of shame—or could keep her knees crossed—none of this would have happened. You know, everyone liked to laugh at Kiril behind his back for falling for her stuff, but nobody ever seemed to see the obvious. Including you.”
“And what is that?”
“If the girl is going to sleep her way to the top, do you think she would have started with Kiril? Is he the most attractive alternative? Lep is handsome. Kind. A genius. And about to become very rich. I give Olga credit. As a schemer. She can play a long game. Do you think Lep ever really aimed to become CEO? He wants to do research. He’d be only too happy to have someone he trusted run the company, once Kiril finally let go.”
“So that was Olga’s long-term objective? Becoming CEO?”
“It was always apparent to me. I just didn’t realize how low she would go, once Lep turned his back on her.”
“Is it Lep who told you about his relationship with Olga?”
“Lep told me nothing. I was Olga’s boss. I began to notice Lep and she were always on business trips at the same time. You know, in a small company, no matter how discreet people are, folks pick up on things. I remember years ago in the lab at Easton, one of my colleagues told me she knew I was seeing Kiril, because I’d stopped talking to him at work.” She smiles. To Innis, it’s still a bittersweet memory. “You have to feel sorry for Lep. I’m sure he never had a chance with Olga. You know, Sandy, it amazes me how easily taken in by all of that men are. A woman who other women see as a tramp, wearing her clothes a size too tight? And you idiots stand there panting. She is not a subtle person, Olga. I’m sure her come-on wasn’t subtle either. But she could see how much Lep needed something at that moment to boost his self-esteem.”
“And why was that? I’m still not following.”
“I’ve told you this much before: g-Livia is Lep’s work. An egotist like Kiril, he could explain to you how consequential his contributions were, but I was there, Sandy. Lep Pafko is the principal creator of g-Livia. The breakthrough in understanding RAS’s positioning and how to reverse it? That was all computer modeling. Once Lep publishes more about how he did this, it will change the way pharmaceuticals are discovered.”
“And Lep did not resent that Kiril took credit?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He was incensed. Naturally. But he suffered in silence.” For an instant, Stern takes note of Innis, bent emphatically across the cocktail table, carried away by the volcano
of emotion still boiling up in her. “There is probably nothing in life that Lep Pafko prizes more than his father’s adulation. And he never gets it. I’m sure that as all the attention on g-Livia mounted, Lep was hoping his father would allow him to hear some of the applause. But that’s not Kiril. So there sits Lep in September 2016. His father has claimed his discovery—and then his girlfriend.”
“Lep made no protest about that either?”
“I have no idea. I never spoke to Lep about Olga. That’s in the vault with him. But I told Kiril, when he started catting around with her, ‘Ask your girlfriend about her relationship with your son.’ He gave it the back of his hand. ‘Then she has found a better man.’ Can you imagine? Some father.”
When Stern had decided to travel down here, he was gambling that this is what would move Innis to speak: She would want Stern to know what a complete shit his friend Kiril Pafko is. No matter how tortured the logic, or how deep her anger and embarrassment, she had a need to demonstrate to Stern that she wasn’t the only one who’d failed to realize how base Kiril is.
“So that night, when all of this went down—” Innis says.
“September 15?”
“Right. I saw Lep sitting in his father’s office.”
“What time was this?”
“Seven?”
“I thought he was on his way to the airport.”
“He had his stuff with him. It’s fifteen minutes to the airport on the light rail.”
The prosecutors had never wondered why Lep would go home, half an hour in the wrong direction. But then again, neither had Stern nor Marta.
“He was a wreck,” Innis says. “I mean, that guy never looks happy—maybe Olga made him smile, which he deserves, frankly—but I mean, it was like his dog died. Three dogs. And I asked, and he said, ‘We’re screwed on Livia.’”
“And why was he in Kiril’s office?”
“Apparently, he’d come in there with the unblinding codes to tell Kiril what Global was reporting about the trial. He wanted to give his father the courtesy of examining the dataset with him. And instead he found out that Kiril had skulked off without telling anybody where he was going and wasn’t answering his phone. Meaning he was humping Olga somewhere. Nice moment for Lep, right?”
