Emerson scrutinized Poppy’s face without any doubt about what was coming. He shook his head and stepped away. “This isn’t about me and you, Poppy. It’s not personal. It’s about decisions that have consequences. For us. For the people we care about.”
Emerson turned and strode quickly away. He was out of reach before Poppy was sure that it was over, sure that he’d let it be over. The man was getting into his car when Poppy finally unclenched his fists, feeling the blood flow back into his fingers. His chest was still pounding and his ears buzzing with adrenaline as he looked around to get reoriented and remember where the truck was.
He’d just gotten into the cab when his phone went off. The sudden sound annoyed him; he didn’t want to talk to anybody just now. He had to think. Plus, the caller ID read unknown. Still, he punched the button to answer.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Is this Poppy Martin?”
“Yeah,” he answered uncertainly. The voice was faint. “Who’s this?”
“Beverly Cortez,” the voice came back. “You’ve been trying to call me. But I won’t talk to you on your phone.”
Lew’s girlfriend. His heart raced again. Before he could speak, the woman continued. “Maybe we can talk out at the Atomic Café.”
The line went dead. Poppy fumbled with his keys for a moment before getting them into the ignition and throwing the shift lever into gear.
On the drive to the Atomic Café, Poppy checked his mirrors so often he felt a kink growing in his neck. He saw nothing. But the renewed pounding in his chest still hadn’t stopped by the time he pulled into the café parking lot.
The lot was almost empty. Poppy parked near the door and went into the restaurant.
Only two elderly couples occupied tables this afternoon. Poppy checked his watch. Two forty-five. He found a bench and took a seat facing the door, next to a window overlooking the lot.
The waitress refilled his coffee twenty minutes later. In all that time, no one had even pulled into the parking lot. He was wondering how long he was supposed to wait when he heard, in the background, a telephone ringing. Not a cell ringtone. A real, old-fashioned phone.
The sound was coming from the small lobby area near the front door. Poppy glanced in that direction. No one was there. But a phone kept ringing.
He stood and walked to the entryway. A battered pay phone hung on the wall. Poppy’d hardly noticed this museum piece before; he’d walked right by it like most everyone probably did, with their cells resting in their pockets. He picked up the receiver.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Mr. Martin? Is that you?”
“Yeah. Beverly?”
“Um-hmm.”
“How’d you get this number?”
“I called the café and they gave it to me. I knew the phone was there. Lew and I used to go. I’ve only got a few minutes. I wanted to tell you that you’ve got to stop calling me.”
“Beverly, I’m just trying to find Lew. I was his partner. I haven’t heard from him for eight months.”
“I know who you are. Lew used to talk about you.”
“Do you know where he is?”
The line went silent. “I was told,” Poppy continued, “that Covington asked Darter Security to transfer him out to Covington’s operations in Savannah River out east. Is that true?”
“That’s what they told me, too. Please stop trying to reach me.”
He feared she was about to hang up. “Wait, wait. I have to find Lew. Covington’s trying to get me to change my statement about what happened that night, especially about Lew firing his rifle.”
Silence. “I don’t know anything about that.”
She didn’t sound convincing. Poppy’s mind raced. “Have you spoken with Lew since the explosion?”
“Just once.”
“When.”
Silence. “That night. From the hospital. They’d taken his cell, but he called from a nurse’s desk.”
“What did he tell you.”
More silence. “I can’t tell you.”
Now the tentacles of fear reached over the line and into Poppy. “Have you tried to reach him in Savannah River?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There’ve been messages, texts from his phone. He says I’ll hear from him when he’s ready and I shouldn’t try to reach him until then.”
That tone. “You don’t believe it, do you, Beverly.”
She didn’t respond for a moment, then answered, “No.”
“Please, Beverly. I’ve got to know. What did Lewis tell you that last time you talked?”
But for the soft breathing over the line, this time Poppy would have been sure the girl had hung up.
“He said he was okay,” she finally said in a near whisper. “He was worried about you at the hospital that night. But he told me they’d warned him not to say anything about the explosion, so I couldn’t repeat anything he told me. Lew never could keep a secret. I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid Lew could get in trouble for my telling you this.”
Poppy wracked his memory for something to keep her on the line.
“How long did you date, Beverly?” he asked.
There was a pause. “A year.”
“Did you know he named his rifle for you? Did you know that?”
It sounded stupid—but nothing else came to mind. “No,” she answered after a moment.
“He did. He must have thought a lot about you.”
A sob came across the line.
“Beverly,” Poppy kept on softly, “did Lew say whether he fired a shot that night?”
Quiet. “Yes.”
“Did he say what he was shooting at?”
“A man. A man in a white coat.”
“Did he hit him?”
Silence. “He thought so.”
“What else did he say?”
Her voice grew more strained with each breath. “The guy was coming out of an emergency exit where no one ought to have been. That’s all. He told me to keep it to myself, that maybe he could talk more after.”
“After what?”
“After his meeting.”
Poppy’s stomach tightened. “Meeting with who?”
“He didn’t say. Somebody from the Human Resources office.”
“And you haven’t heard from Lew since?”
There was a clicking sound over the line.
“It’s them,” Beverly moaned.
“How can I reach you again?” Poppy pleaded. “I couldn’t find an address for you. You’ve got to tell me how I can reach you again.”
The clicks fluttered in rapid succession.
“You can’t.”
“Be careful,” Poppy said. The line went dead.
Poppy dropped the phone back on the cradle. He looked out the door into the parking lot. No new cars had arrived at the restaurant. He looked around the corner into the dining room. The old folks were still the only occupants, nursing drinks while the waitress cleared the tables.
This was an old pay phone. He could hardly remember what it was like to use one. Maybe the clicks were a bad line, or because they’d run out of time on the call.
Poppy went back and handed the waitress a few dollars for his coffee, then he returned to his truck.
Suzy’d be at work now. He had to make sure she was safe and talk this through with her. It all was getting too crazy.
Chapter 30
THREE DAYS UNTIL TRIAL
It began while Emily was resting in her room: the faint thwat-a-thwat-a-thwat of her dad’s speed bag in the basement. She’d heard it every day since the pretrial hearing. When they’d gotten back from the courthouse that day, her father had gone to the sporting goods store and bought the bag, installing it in the Annex basement.
Emily rolled to a sitting position and reached for her shoes. She wondered how she’d feel if her father hadn’t stepped up for the trial. A part of her regretted making him take Kieran’s case—especially hearing the bag day afte
r day.
But then she hadn’t made her father this way; he’d always lived a life of intensity. She recalled her mother softly chiding him at times, soothing him when it got to be too much, when the grind of his pace was reflected in an icy mood or exhausted face. Her mother’s special touch almost certainly made his life better—and a gentler father when he was around. Did it make him a better lawyer?
Her experience these past weeks now made Emily aware that her father must have reciprocated her mother’s love in his own way. Though too young at the time to remember, she wondered if he had shouldered the worst of the litigation for her mother—taking on the Dr. Strongs and the Judge Renways of their world, just as he was beginning to do in this case. Perhaps in that way, he’d helped to preserve the best parts of her mother—the empathy and compassion she showered back on Emily and her father. Three months ago she would have rejected the notion. She couldn’t any longer. Because he was striving to do it for Emily right now.
The image of her father as that kind of protector had never occurred to her before this summer. She’d only begun to consider the possibility that his absence growing up might have been the price for her mother’s presence in Emily’s life.
The pounding of the speed bag continued unrelenting as Emily forced herself to her feet and headed downstairs to pick up the trial work once more.
Dr. Minh Trân had spent the afternoon and early evening of this Friday before trial completing errands in Sherman. Though Ryan Hart had told him which day of trial he’d likely testify, the lawyer had also asked him to be available to help with cross-examination of Covington’s experts. So he’d extended his reservation at the Holiday Inn Suites for two full weeks.
He pulled his rental car into the hotel parking lot and turned out the headlights. It was far past suppertime, and he felt a deep weariness. The report had been exhausting to prepare in such a short time frame, and he was still recovering from sleep deprivation. Tonight he prayed that room service was still available, and that he could get an early bedtime.
His cell phone rang. “Yes?” he answered.
“Dr. Trân, the package we told you about has finally arrived. It’s waiting at the front desk.”
The call was not unexpected, but the timing was miserable.
“Are you still alright with delivering it?” the voice asked when he failed to answer immediately.
“Yes. It’s fine.”
“Good. Please just leave it at the door. We’ll be in touch.” The line went dead.
Minh let out a sigh at another hour of tasks before supper and bed. He got out of the car and trudged into the hotel lobby.
The desk receptionist smiled when he asked if there was anything left for him. She crouched behind the counter and stood a moment later with a full-sized manila envelope. Minh took it and headed back out to the car.
Once more behind the wheel, Minh set the envelope on the passenger seat. He considered driving straightaway to deliver it, without looking at its contents. But he couldn’t do that. It wasn’t in his nature—as a scientist or a man—and despite his implicit trust in his sponsors, he would not deliver a package ignorant of its contents.
He smiled to see that the envelope was unsealed. Apparently his patrons knew him well. He opened it and withdrew a set of folded papers.
They looked official. He turned on the interior light and held them up.
All of the pages were photocopies. Promissory Note, the top document read. Loan Agreement was the title on the next clipped bunch of pages.
Minh contemplated why it was better that he take the risk of discovery for a task like this rather than his sponsors. He was a scientist, not a delivery boy. But he’d do it, of course. After all his years working with his sponsors, neither pride nor petulance would prevent him from this simple task.
He began to put the papers back in the envelope—then stopped. Out of an abundance of caution, he removed a handkerchief from his hip pocket and carefully wiped the pages wherever he had touched them. He did the same with the envelope.
Minh started the car and then pulled his smartphone from his pocket. He pressed the GPS app and activated the voice command. When the mechanical beep signaled the phone’s readiness, Minh held it close.
“Directions,” he began, “to Judge Howard Renway, 1965 Alvarado Boulevard . . .”
Chapter 31
FIRST DAY OF TRIAL
Emily looked up from the intensity of her work on the laptop, glancing around the kitchen to clear her head. She’d thought the preparation in the month and a half following their arrival at Sherman had been serious. The past ten days had proved her wrong. Never had she worked so hard. Not even for the bar exam.
Dressed in his suit, her father was perched at his usual spot on the couch, organizing his examination, cross-examination, and rebuttal testimony questions for witnesses on his own laptop. All prepared in just seven days.
Emily had slipped away for a quick breakfast with Kieran this morning. Going out the door, she’d heard the sound of her father pounding away again at the speed bag in the basement. This evening, she knew he’d likely go for a run after court—just as he did every evening.
She’d finally asked her father this weekend if the workouts were to relieve the pressure. He’d answered yes, but also for training. Trial was physically demanding, he’d said. “And better than the Atkins diet. I lose a pound a day usually.”
Then he’d changed the subject, for the first time offering her direct advice on trial preparation. He knew that she’d taken plenty of testimony before, but it was different in a complex trial where witnesses could be on the stand for hours or days.
“Remember, Emily, that when you’re taking a witness’s testimony, you’ve got to elicit the story with enough detail to explain and illustrate, but you can never risk putting a jury to sleep. Once they’re gone in a case of this length, they’re hard to wake up again.” And in the process, he’d cautioned, “Be prepared that some witnesses you thought would be helpful could turn hostile—resisting questions, changing stories from earlier deposition testimony. Think of it like conversing with someone with multiple personalities; be prepared for whoever emerges once the questioning starts.”
She’d tried not to chafe at advice she thought unnecessary after her time trying cases—forcing herself to acknowledge that the cases she’d tried at the Public Defender’s office the past two years were one to three day trials, with only a handful of witnesses and few scientific issues.
Emily glanced at her watch. Two hours until they left for the courthouse, where Kieran would meet them.
This past weekend she’d hardly seen Kieran; every minute was crammed with trial preparation. At her father’s suggestion, he was taking Kieran’s testimony. He’d hinted it was just a casual preference, but Emily knew that he had grown aware of her feelings for Kieran. She could guess what he was thinking: that all they needed was for the jury to suspect her personal attachment to the client. Who knew how they’d treat that revelation.
There was a metal clank of the mailbox hung by the front door. The only mail they were receiving here were court notices or letters from Covington’s counsel. Her father got up and walked to the door. He returned a moment later with only a slim envelope in his hands.
“It’s a hand delivery from the court,” Ryan said curiously. He tore it open and held it up to read.
“What is it, Dad?” Emily asked absently as her gaze stayed fixed on her laptop. When he didn’t respond, she glanced up. His face had a look of pure astonishment.
“Judge Renway just removed himself from the case,” he said.
Adam was stopped on the side of the road where he’d pulled over when King called, clutching his phone like he was strangling it.
“Explain to me again how this happened,” he demanded bitterly.
“I . . . I’m not sure,” Eric King was stammering now, his patented bravado gone. “I got a message from Judge Renway Sunday afternoon, asking me to stop by his chambers this
morning. I got there early. He ushered me in and told me he had to recuse himself from the case.”
“Why?”
“He said he owned orchards downwind from Hanford that had been in his family for generations. Apparently he refinanced a loan on that land a couple of years ago. One of the terms of the loan was that it could be accelerated if there was a ‘sudden release’ of radiation from Hanford. Since this Mullaney case is trying to prove a radiation release at LB5, and his orchards are near the building, the judge has a stake in the outcome of the case. It creates a hopeless conflict.”
Adam’s fingers were cramping around the cell. “And why did he just figure this out now.”
King was equal parts defensive and nervous. “He told me he hadn’t paid much attention to the acceleration clause before, with Hanford closed down. But somebody dropped a copy of his loan documents at his door Friday night with that clause circled. He thought about turning it over to the FBI—treat it as some kind of extortion. Except there’s no demand attached, of any kind. All it does is point out his ethical conflict. He decided he had to drop out before it got public.”
“Who dropped off the loan papers at Renway’s house,” Adam demanded.
“He doesn’t know. They were left at his door.”
It had to be Hart. Where had he come up with those papers?
“Can the judge be paid to stay on the case?” Adam asked.
“You mean a bribe?” King blurted out. “Bribe a federal judge? Renway isn’t that kind of asset. He’s just a judge with a soft spot for Hanford.”
Adam’s anger compounded at the lecturing tone. “So who replaces him?”
“It’s a new judge: Celeste Johnston. She started as a federal judge a year ago. Used to be a state court judge in Seattle, so she’s on the bench in King County. She’s African-American. Moderate. Smart.”
Adam’s head was swimming as the lawyer continued. “Listen, Adam, this doesn’t have to be that big of a setback. I contacted the calendar clerk’s office. Judge Johnston’s calendar is mostly free, so they have no intention of pushing back trial. That means we’ll still start in a couple of hours. With no time to prepare, it’ll be all Judge Johnston can do to get up to speed. I’d be amazed if she revisited any of Judge Renway’s decisions in the case. Given the evidence, we’ve still got this locked up.”
Critical Reaction Page 21
