Troubled Waters

by Carolyn Wheat

  “You do,” the lawyer answered. “At least I think you do. The problem is that none of this has been tested in court. My plan is to raise every possible argument relating to the right of the Salvadorans to political asylum. They’re fleeing political persecution and they should be entitled to protection as refugees. That’s our strongest argument, and it allows us to put the United States policy on trial.”

  “You mean we’ll be able to show what Miguel and Pilar were running away from?” Jan asked. Her fingers played with a strand of hair, curling it round and round.

  “Once a jury hears the whole story, they might not convict at all,” Harve replied. “If they do, I foresee a light sentence. First offense, for one thing,” he said. “And of course, there’s the other thing.” He looked at Ron, then shifted his glance.

  “The other thing being the fact that one of the defendants is a quadriplegic,” Ron said dryly. “I can’t say I like the idea of using—”

  Harve turned and stared straight into Ron’s eyes. “You want the truth?” He tapped a finger on his desk. “Walt Koeppler could have had your van. He could have filed forfeiture papers on it, claimed it was used in the commission of a federal crime. The only reason he didn’t is that he knows damned well I’d have every newspaper in the country screaming its head off about stealing a van from a disabled veteran. So if we have to use sympathy, we’ll use sympathy.”

  “How about some sympathy for Miguel?” Jan cut in. “And Pilar and Manuelito. Where are they, Harve? Did Walt have them shipped back to El Salvador already?”

  Harve gave a quick, sharp nod of his leonine head. “I filed every motion I could think of,” he said. “I begged the judge to give us at least a couple of days, let me comb the cases for just one that might help us out. I put Father Jerry here on the stand to tell the judge what would happen to them if they were sent back. Know what the judge said?”

  Jan shook her head. “He said that isolated incidents of torture against left-wing academics and their families didn’t mean that Pilar was in any real danger from the authorities. He said we had to prove actual use of torture against her and Miguel in order to qualify her for political asylum.”

  “Of course,” Ron finished, his tone bitter, “if they were Cuban, they’d be given asylum automatically. That’s what’s so unfair.”

  “So she’s—” Jan couldn’t finish the sentence. She groped in her purse for a tissue. “Where is she now?”

  “El Salvador, we think,” Father Jerry replied. “She’s in our prayers.”

  “Prayers! What the hell good are prayers, Father?” She turned on the priest. “If prayers did any good at all, Miguel would be alive and he and Pilar would be in Canada, where they’d be granted asylum. Where they’d be safe. So where was God, Father, when Walt Koeppler shot Miguel like a dog in the road?”

  Father Jerry’s ascetic face twisted with pain, but all he said was, “We have others to consider now. We’ll pray for those who are beyond our help, but we have to act on behalf of those we can still help.”

  Jan wadded up the tissue and shoved it in her pocket. That little Catholic schoolgirl was dead, buried under layers of sixties rebellion and drowned in an ocean of booze. She’d grown a hard shell, and she pulled it around her now.

  “Boats aren’t the only way,” the priest went on. “We’ve sent a group up to Sarnia in a truck and another is on its way to Windsor by way of Detroit. But there are still quite a few families left. And then there’s Joaquín Baltasar.”

  “Do we know where Joaquín is?” Ron asked. “And should we be talking like this in front of our lawyer?”

  Harve raised a hand. “I’m not one of those who saves his own skin at the expense of the client,” he said. “I’m in this because I believe in the cause, and I’m not running to the authorities with anything I learn from my clients.”

  “He’s due to arrive in Liberty Center sometime late tonight,” Father Jerry said. “We’ve got to get him out of the way as soon as possible. Given the publicity surrounding him, Koeppler’s got to want him pretty badly.”

  Jan pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now was the time to say what had to be said. “Walt Koeppler knew we’d be out there. So why didn’t he arrest Dana and Rap too? Why did he let them get away?” She looked closely at Harve’s face, trying to read what was going on behind the basset-hound jowls.

  Ron finished the thought. “We wondered whether there might be a reason the feds let them get away. We wondered whether one of them might have made a deal.”

  Harve sat still as a stone, then lifted a powerful fist and slammed the table. Once. “I warned her,” he said, shaking his head. “I told her not to trust that bastard. Told her he was a two-bit hustler.” He fixed Jan with an accusing look. “Know what she said to me?”

  Jan shook her head, although she was sure she could give a good guess. “She said, ‘Takes one to know one, Pop,’—and then she strapped on her backpack and followed the shit to Nepal.”

  Harve sighed. “Came back six months later broke and sick and pregnant.”

  “With Dylan,” Jan murmured.

  It was Ron who said quietly, “We don’t know it’s Rap. Truth is, the informant could have been Dana.”

  Harve shifted his attention to Ron. His booming voice was a hoarse whisper as he said, “You want me off this case, just say so.”

  Jan held her breath. If Ron said yes, who would defend them? Who could they trust? Hell, who could they afford? Harve was a pro bono lawyer, representing them for the cause.

  “No,” Ron said after an unsettling pause. “But I hope the attorney-client privilege means you don’t tell Dana what goes on between us in this office.”

  “Of course it does,” Harve replied. “And I haven’t said two words to Rap since he came back here. He may be the father of my grandson, but he’s nothing to me. Not after what he did to my little girl.”

  Jan wasn’t convinced. Oh, it was clear Harve was sincere in his defense of Dana and his hatred of Rap. But a doting father was the easiest person in the world to deceive. She was still going to find Dana and ask her point-blank what she and Rap were doing with their so-called factory.

  As she stood in the dimly lit hallway, waiting for the elevator, she had a quick vision of snow, piled high, sparkling in the sun. Cool and white and pure—a perfect refuge on a hot, humid summer day. She pictured herself diving into it like a child, picking up snowballs, making snow angels. Bringing a handful of sweet powder to her nose and—

  To her nose?

  It wasn’t snow, she realized with a shock. She’d been playing, dancing, laughing in mounds upon mounds of pure cocaine.

  “You were supposed to arrest them, Walt,” the crisp female voice said, “not start a bloodbath.”

  Walt Koeppler stayed silent, although his mind formed pictures, lovely pictures of Assistant United States Attorney Catherine Sawicki roasting on a spit, turning ever so slowly over glowing embers. He was damned if he would defend himself. The state troopers had done what they had to do; any real law enforcement professional, male or female, understood that, and if this overeducated bitch didn’t, then she had no business working the prosecution side of the courtroom.

  “So what now?” Sawicki fingered the manila folders on her desk. Her desk, her territory. Her perfume hanging in the air like stale cigarette smoke. Koeppler had an animal defensiveness about meeting anyone on alien turf; he would have preferred this meeting at his own office in the federal building, not the U.S. attorney’s lair in the courthouse.

  Sawicki leaned back in her forest-green leather chair, clearly aware of the home court advantage. “You’ve busted probably the two lowest people on this totem pole. Because of that stupid shootout you let the boat owner and his wife get away.”

  It wasn’t because of the shooting. The words stayed on the tip of his tongue, where they belonged. It wasn’t this woman’s business why Rapaport and Sobel hadn’t been arrested. It was orders, orders he wasn’t supposed to talk abo
ut, not even to the prosecutor.

  “And then there’s the little matter of probable cause,” Sawicki went on. Her unpainted but neatly manicured fingernail tapped the top of her rosewood desk. “I assume you acted on a tip from a reliable informant.” She emphasized ever so slightly the legal term. Just in case he was too stupid to pick up the implication.

  “Yes,” he replied. One-word answers. That was the best strategy. Let her pull it out of him like biting off a piece of Turkish taffy.

  “You wouldn’t care to name this informant, Mr. Koeppler?” It wasn’t the cool sarcasm, the raised eyebrow, that infuriated him. It was the fact that he was a mere “mister” in a world where titles counted.

  He shook his head. “Can’t.”

  “Orders, I suppose.”

  A nod. Just one nod.

  “You may have to disobey those orders,” the prosecutor said, fixing him with her deep brown eyes. Just a touch of mascara, a hint of blusher, was all the makeup she wore. And yet he was acutely aware that she was a woman, he a large, bumbling male.

  “I fully expect the judge to order disclosure of the informant’s identity to the defense if they ask for it. And with Harve Sobel on the case, we can be sure they will ask for it.”

  They can ask all they want; they won’t get it. But Koeppler took no pleasure in the thought. The reason galled him almost as much as the U.S. attorney’s superior attitude. The defense wouldn’t get the name because he didn’t have it. The tip had come from the FBI, but the fibbies would drop the cases before they’d give up their sources.

  “I repeat my earlier question,” Sawicki said. “What now?”

  Walt knew what he’d do now, but he wanted to see if this lawyer, with her smooth-as-a-polished-stone facade, had the brains to figure it out and the balls to do it.

  She stood up and took a few steps. He noted with interest that she had slipped off her high heels; she paced her carpeted den in stockinged feet, her thin hips swaying ever so slightly. “Your office,” she began, “is interested in stopping the sanctuary movement before they get any more publicity. And you want Joaquín Baltasar.”

  Walt stared. How had she known about Baltasar? It was supposed to be a top secret even within the INS that the Nicaraguan journalist marked for death by the contras had crossed the Mexican border into Texas and was on his way north.

  She turned and faced Walt. He noted for the first time that she wore no jewelry except tiny gold earrings in the form of hearts. No rings, wedding or otherwise. No pin on her suit lapel, no gold chain at her throat. “My office doesn’t give a good goddamn about refugees. We’ll prosecute anybody you arrest, but we’re more interested in a little matter of counterfeit airplane parts.”

  Walt nodded. “So that’s what Rapaport and Sobel are doing with those trailers of theirs. We heard about them, but every time we went hunting, they moved the damn things. I thought it had something to do with drugs, myself.”

  “No,” the attorney replied, giving Walt a superior smile. “They’re a little more imaginative than that. They’re using their illegal aliens to rebuild small plane components—and then selling them as new.”

  “I talked to Dale Krepke at the DEA,” Walt said. “He’d like to nail Rapaport’s butt for smuggling coke. That’s probably our easiest bust, and once we get Rapaport, we can scoop up the others.”

  “Not necessarily.” Sawicki stopped pacing. She gazed out the window of her office for a moment, then turned the full force of her blue eyes on him. “Drugs are everyday. Drugs are nothing. But these airplane parts can and will cause deaths if we don’t stop them.”

  Walt nodded, but a sour taste filled his mouth. “And an ambitious prosecutor doesn’t make a name on routine narcotics cases. But she just might if she can grab the headlines on using illegal aliens to make bogus airplane parts.”

  “We can all win here, Walt.” Sawicki’s smile reminded Walt of the way his wife looked when he gave her a particularly romantic anniversary gift. “You, me, the DEA. All we have to do is exercise a little patience.”

  Koeppler nodded. Patience he understood. Patience and giving Jan Gebhardt a long, long leash—and then yanking her chain.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  There was nothing to be gained by staying at the hospital.

  Ron wanted to be there for Jan when she woke up. If she woke up. It was with difficulty that I convinced him to go back to the hotel and get some sleep, then come back to keep vigil.

  We drove in silence. I fell into bed and dropped into a dreamless sleep that left me groggy. I got up and checked the clock: 11:32 a.m. I splashed water on my face and went next door.

  Ron was up and dressed, sitting in his wheelchair and gazing at his laptop computer. I leaned over and saw he was reading input from a newsgroup engaged in a passionate discussion of whether Jan should go to jail for the death of the DEA agent.

  I lay down on his bed and groaned. “I feel like death warmed over.”

  Then I realized there was something missing. “Where’s Zack?”

  “Out jogging.”

  “You’re not wearing the medallion.”

  “We’re in touch,” Ron explained. He inclined his head toward the desk. I followed his gaze and saw a white plastic speaker box. “It’s an intercom,” my brother said. “Zack has a receiver; he can hear everything. If I need him, all I have to do is call and he’ll come back.”

  “Which means I’d better watch my mouth,” I said lightly. But the thought of Ron’s always being monitored, having no sense of privacy, sent a chill through me. Even if it was absolutely necessary for his safety.

  “So what did you think of Ted after all these years?” Ron asked. “Any old sparks rekindled?”

  “Sparks. Ha. Ted Havlicek used to be the boy next door, and now he’s the guy next door. The guy who not only lends you his power mower but shows you how to use it and ends up mowing half your lawn.” It was an odd conversation, given that my brother’s wife lay near death, but he seemed to welcome light banter instead of heavy confidences.

  “Boy, what an indictment,” he replied with a smile. “I can see why you wouldn’t want a guy like that.”

  “I’m just not that fond of white bread.”

  “So that’s why you and he never really got off the ground.”

  “It was the accordion picture that did it,” I said. I gazed at the ceiling with the rapt attention usually reserved for star-spangled nights and cloud-picture afternoons.

  “Try that again,” my brother suggested.

  “I’m serious,” I said, but I ruined the effect by snorting a laugh in midword. “If it had been a guitar, it would have been cool,” I went on. “If it had been a piano, it would have been okay. A trombone, even. But an accordion…”

  “You dumped that poor guy because he once played the accordion?”

  “He didn’t just play it,” I retorted. “His mother had a picture of him on top of her television set. A big, glossy eight-by-ten. He stood there with a big smile on his face, holding the most expensive accordion since Lawrence Welk. It was obvious he loved the thing. I simply could not go out with a man who—”

  “And how old was he when that picture was taken?”

  “What is this, cross-examination?” I sat up on the bed. “Okay, he was about twelve. Had one of those butch haircuts all boys wore in the fifties.”

  “So because he once had a bad haircut and played an unfashionable musical instrument, you, Cassandra Jameson, decided you were way too cool to go out with Ted Havlicek. Is this a fair statement, Counselor?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” I shot back. “I plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court. I was young. Young women make mistakes. Unlike young men, who never try to impress the prom queen instead of asking out the perfectly nice girl who sits next to them in Advanced Algebra.”

  “You never took Advanced Algebra.”

  “Incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial,” I countered, borrowing Perry Mason’s most famous objection. “Besides,�
�� I went on, “it wasn’t just the accordion. He was kind of a mama’s boy, always sticking around home instead of doing things with us. He stood on the sidelines, taking it all down in that damned notebook of his instead of really getting involved.”

  “Ted looks pretty good,” Ron remarked, with a casual air that didn’t fool me one bit.

  “If you’re suggesting that we pick up where we left off in 1969, let me—”

  Ron’s voice overrode mine. “That would be an improvement on picking up where you left off with Wes Tannock.”

  “There’s nothing to pick up on,” I said. “Wes and I never had a relationship. It was just wishful thinking on my part.”

  “You might try looking me in the eyes if you want me to believe that.”

  I turned my eyes toward his. “It’s true,” I repeated. “I was a kid with a crush. That’s all.” And that was all. The fact that my crush had led me to one hot night of passion under the leaves of the weeping beech was not something I felt compelled to share with my brother. Especially since he hadn’t seen fit to share with me the fact that he’d been married for fourteen years.

  When Zack came back from his run, he showered and called the hospital. Jan had been operated on during the night for a blood clot. She’d jumped two whole points on the coma scale, but still hadn’t regained consciousness. Ron and Zack prepared to visit her. I decided to begin my inquiries into Jan’s attack by questioning Dana Sobel, on the theory that I could talk to her feminist-to-feminist. I rented a little red car at the hotel desk and asked directions to the garden apartment complex where Dana lived.

  Dana’s T-shirt proclaimed: “Life’s a bitch, and so am I.” She proceeded to prove it.

  “If you want me to feel sorry for that stupid woman, you’ve come to the wrong place,” she said. Her substantial body sat in a rattan peacock chair. If she’d worn a muumuu, she could have passed for a Polynesian queen about to throw someone into a volcano.

  “Why stupid?” I sat on a Navajo-print-patterned futon in Dana’s tiny living room. It was crowded with mismatched furniture, much of it the cheap, leave-behind stuff college kids use for their first apartment away from the parental eye. But Dana was fifty; how did she feel about still living like a student?