Two Women

Twenty-Nine

It was Jane Carver’s adamant insistence that they retrace the two blocks to the Northcote building, where symbolically she took over the office of her dead father over which officially she had no right or authority. There she spent almost an hour – refusing Hanlan’s repeated telephone calls and then the FBI man’s demand to see him upon his arrival with Detective Lieutenant Barbara Donnelly – while she talked through with Geoffrey Davis and Burt Elliott everything Alice Belling had warned her might be found in her husband’s personal security facilities.

‘We’re into damage limitation, if that’s possible,’ was Davis’s opinion.

Elliott said: ‘I agree. But I don’t know how. What I do know is that it’s out of my league. We need a major, big-time trial lawyer.’

‘Find one. The best,’ instructed Jane.

‘We can explore, though,’ suggested Elliott. ‘Find out what we might be up against.’

‘That’s what I want to do,’ said Jane. ‘What’s first?’

‘Establishing the awareness, if any, of each and every one of the senior partners,’ said Davis, at once. ‘God knows – I certainly don’t – if it’s possible to save the firm. It certainly won’t be if even just one other partner was involved. If so, we’ve got criminal conspiracy. And that’s before we know what’s in the deposit box. Which we need to find out right now.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen to it where it is,’ calmed Jane. ‘I want to work to an order of priority and that’s not my first priority.’

Jane much later reflected, as she much later reflected on many things, that there was inherited proof of her father’s total autocratic control in how, still without challenge, she was able to summon the senior partners, for which she had even less authority. There was no objection, either, to Burt Elliott accompanying Geoffrey Davis. Her kidnap, Jane insisted, was not the point or focus of her gathering them all together. It was, instead and inadequately – because she could not compromise them – to advise of a situation that could have serious repercussions upon the firm and therefore logically upon their careers.

The concentration upon Jane Carver was absolute and she liked it, totally in control and totally in charge, which she hadn’t been for far too long. Her only discomfort was looking like a bag lady without a cart but from her command of the meeting she didn’t think that was a disadvantage. She was going to recite the names of five companies, she told them. If any of them, before this moment, had any awareness of the firm’s involvement with those companies, they were to tell her. They would be asked again, very soon, the same question she was posing. And more. If any lied – to her questions, not to subsequent ones – they would be abandoned to legal process. Their professional integrity, their very future, depended upon their replies.

Spacing the presentation, allowing silently echoing gaps between each, Jane recounted the names of the incriminating companies – even spelling them out, letter by letter – and then let further space into the demand.

Finally she said: ‘I am going around this room, person by person, for your individual answers.’

Which she did, even more adamantly insisting upon a positive, verbal denial, not a head shake. Bewildered denials came from every one of them and when she received the final refusal Jane warned: ‘You are, in the coming days, going to be questioned by the FBI. I believe my father failed you. I believe he failed me…’ She had to stop, to recover from the admission. ‘… and he failed John,’ she managed to continue. ‘It won’t matter a damn to any of you, after what might happen in the next weeks and months, but I personally want to apologize.’ Jane looked nostalgically around the heavy room. ‘This can’t be a time for questions because at this precise moment I don’t have any answers. I hope to have, very soon…’ The emotion surged up again, blocking any more words, and Jane was angry at the breakdown, believing she had steeled herself against it.

‘No!’ refused a heavy-bodied, heavy-featured man directly in front of her. ‘This is ridiculous! Nothing you’ve said is acceptable. What the hell is this all about?’

She still didn’t properly know, Jane accepted. ‘A situation I never imagined myself ever being in. All I can ask you to do – hope you will do – is to trust me over the next few days.’ No one was culpable if no one had known! So they were personally, individually, safe even if the firm was not. She no longer had any feelings about her father’s reputation.

‘Where does that leave us?’ demanded another accountant, a designer-suited black man whom Jane remembered her father describing as brilliant and wished she could recall his name.

‘Uninvolved. Exonerated,’ responded Jane, looking invitingly at Geoffrey Davis.

‘I know this is bizarre,’ came in the firm’s lawyer, at once. ‘That’s exactly what it is, totally and utterly bizarre. You must believe me that all you can do – all any of us can do – is hang in there with Jane.’

Could she remain in charge, for – and of – everything she wanted to do? Had to do? She should feel drained, traumatized, from what she’d already gone through that day, but unaccountably she didn’t. Even more unaccountably she felt energized, sure she could go on and resolve everything. At last she was in a position, in a role, in which she knew how to perform. She was in charge. In charge of herself and her surroundings and of what was going to happen today. She wished she knew about tomorrow. And the day after that.

The full-featured man said: ‘What do we do?’

Jane said: ‘Wait! Say nothing, to anybody outside the office. Certainly not the media. But tell the FBI what you’ve told me. Open all your accounts to them. Co-operate in every way. You’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘Well?’ demanded Jane, when the door closed after the last departing partner.

‘I know them all,’ said Davis. ‘I believe them all.’

‘They sounded convincingly honest to me,’ endorsed Elliott.

‘They would, wouldn’t they?’ said Jane.

‘You gave them their chance,’ said Davis.

‘If one’s lying, they all go down,’ said Jane.

‘You can’t do any more than you’ve already done, on a personal level,’ encouraged Elliott.

She could, thought Jane. But not here and not yet with these two men. She said briskly: ‘Now let’s meet the FBI.’

Gene Hanlan was less able to hide his irritation at being kept waiting than Barbara Donnelly, visibly red-faced. He was cursory with the introductions to the two lawyers and said: ‘It’s good of you to see us at last!’

‘I told your people at the bank I wanted to talk to lawyers before I talked to you.’ Jane knew she was treading the slenderest of tightropes, not giving in to any bullying but at the same time not completely alienating the man or his organization. In the opinion of both Davis and Elliott, she was going to need the FBI as much – maybe even more – than they needed her.

There was a slight relaxation from the agent. He said to Jane: ‘You OK?’

Jane nodded. ‘Who were they, the people who had me?’

‘Big-time organized crime,’ predicted Barbara. ‘The man in the bank is refusing to talk without an attorney. The car that was outside the bank took off in too much of a hurry when the alarm sounded, right into the side of another car. The driver was still unconscious when our traffic guys got to him. The other one snapped an ankle and couldn’t run. There are witnesses to one guy running, though. The two we got are muscle: gofers. They’ll break.’

‘You with them against your will?’ asked Hanlan.

‘Damned right I was!’ Jane said, indignantly. ‘They threatened to cut off part of my tongue if I didn’t do what they wanted.’

‘Kidnap, prima facie,’ declared Hanlan, now totally relaxed, all irritation gone. He had a millionaire kidnap and a major Mafia investigation under wraps and life looked sweet, with the sun on his face.

‘And what did they want?’ asked the other woman.

‘I thought you knew,’ said Jane. She had to get more than she volunteered. Everything depended on it.

‘We need to hear it from you,’ said Hanlan.

‘This is not a formal deposition,’ broke in Burt Elliott. ‘Nothing said in this room, about anything, constitutes a basis of evidence. It’s all privileged.’

Hanlan sighed. ‘We’re asking for help, not for a formal deposition, not yet.’

‘What happened to Alice Belling?’ asked Jane. It was time.

‘We’re going to need a deposition on that, too,’ said Hanlan.

‘What happened to her?’ insisted Jane. ‘What has she told you?’

‘That you wouldn’t come in, without lawyers, when she decided to. So you took the car and she got a cab into Morristown from the truck stop and simply caught a train here. Some of it doesn’t square, though.’

‘Like what?’ They were telling her, which she’d feared they wouldn’t!

‘How you came to be in Morristown, where the Mafia picked you up, when she says you drove off in the opposite direction,’ said Barbara.

‘What more does she say?’ pressed Jane.

It was Hanlan who provided the summary and when he finished Jane said: ‘She told you all about the hacking?’

‘She acknowledges that it’s illegal but said it was the only way to get the proof she and…’ Barbara hesitated, then plunged on. ‘She and your husband needed.’

Jane smiled, humourlessly. ‘I know all about that.’

‘Yes,’ said Barbara, unembarrassed.

‘What does she say about me? Getting me from the apartment?’

‘She agrees that technically it was kidnap but that it was to save your life.’

‘Has she asked for the Witness Protection Programme?’

‘Several times,’ said Hanlan. He looked at the two attorneys. ‘Something else I guess we’re going to have to talk about. It’s all going to take time.’

‘Is Alice going to get it?’ demanded Jane.

‘She’s with her own lawyer now,’ said Hanlan. ‘It usually takes a while for our people to decide once we’ve made our recommendation. In your case, Mrs Carver, it’s a forgone conclusion…’ He allowed the gap. ‘We’re expecting your cooperation, of course.’

‘Not a foregone conclusion for Alice?’

‘I’m not sure what she’s really offering at the moment. What the recommendation will be.’

‘Do I definitely need to go into the programme?’ demanded Jane.

The two lawyers looked uncomfortably at each other. So did Hanlan and Barbara Donnelly.

Hanlan said: ‘Unquestionably, with the evidence you are going to be asked to give before a Grand Jury. And then in an open court.’

‘I want to see Alice,’ abruptly declared Jane. ‘See her alone.’

Everyone looked startled. Hanlan said: ‘Depending upon your deposition, you could be a prosecution witness against her!’

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, Jane,’ said Elliott. ‘Let’s get some trial advice.’

‘That’s the deal, the only deal,’ insisted Jane. ‘My cooperation, based on whatever legal advice I get, in return for my seeing Alice Belling.’

‘I don’t want us to fall out,’ warned Hanlan.

‘Neither do I,’ said Jane. ‘So let’s not.’

‘You’re going to be very dependent on the Bureau, in the future,’ continued Hanlan.

‘The Bureau’s going to be very dependent upon me, right now.’

‘Why don’t we see what Alice’s lawyer says?’ suggested Elliott, anxious to mediate.

‘Now!’ said Jane. ‘Let’s see right now.’

‘They’d given your Miranda! Why did you say all that?’ The public defence lawyer was a young, dark-featured, eager man named Joshua Dutton who saw his so far impressive success ending as ashes around his feet with this case and was already wondering how he could get out of it. He threw aside in theatrical disappointment the transcript of Alice Belling’s earlier recorded interview with Hanlan and Barbara Donnelly.

‘I didn’t do anything wrong: not with any intent to do wrong! Isn’t that a legal principle, committing a felony with intent?’ Thank God she hadn’t said anything about England.

‘Ms Belling! You think any court will accept that, if they offer half the charges available against you?’

‘If I am charged with anything, will I still be able to get into a protection programme?’ She had to be! She had to safeguard the baby!

Dutton shrugged, shaking his head at the same time. ‘At the moment I don’t have the slightest idea. It’ll depend what I can achieve with plea-bargaining.’

‘I’ll be killed if I’m not taken in!’

‘That’s my plea,’ said the lawyer. Everything was going to be an uphill battle. He turned at a knock at the door and opened it to Ginette Smallwood.

She said: ‘Mrs Carver’s lawyer wants to speak with you. Line three.’

Dutton depressed the blinking button, listened and then, to ensure he hadn’t misheard, he said: ‘Do I have any objection to Mrs Carver meeting Ms Belling?’

‘That’s what Mrs Carver wants,’ confirmed Burt Elliott.

Dutton at once saw the path open up before him. Covering the mouthpiece with his hand he said to Alice: ‘She wants to see you.’

‘What for?’

‘I don’t know. But I want you to agree. It’s important.’

‘Will it help me?’ asked Alice.

‘It could, a lot,’ promised Dutton.

‘All right then,’ agreed the woman.

Dutton took away his covering hand and said: ‘Right now is fine.’ The moment they met he had unarguable grounds for a mistrial. His unblemished record wasn’t in danger any more.