15

JAKE ATE BREAKFAST alone and allowed his sweat from the run to dry. His phone chirped and he read the text message from his son, Sam. Sam wanted to know if he could go right from camp to visit with a friend in the Hamptons for a few days. Jake answered with a text of his own, giving him permission and resisting the temptation to ask Sam why in the world he couldn’t come home for a few days first, but didn’t because Sam had a tough time making friends. He also wanted to ask why Sam didn’t give him more notice, because he already knew the answer. Sam didn’t like to plan things and, he claimed, neither did his friends. Sam being away would allow Jake to return from his Rochester interview with Graham and take Casey up on dinner. He wasn’t sure, but he had the feeling-if he didn’t rush it-something might be there between them.

Jake changed into a suit and headed out. Robert Graham kept his Rochester offices outside the city in a nondescript two-story office building just down the main road from the big shopping mall in Palmyra. A savings bank occupied the ground floor of the white building surrounded by parking lots and locust trees. Jake parked in the shade next to the rented van belonging to Dora and her crew and bypassed the glass doors of the bank to enter a side door marked Graham Funding by a modest black-and-white sign. In the small entryway, as he waited for a private elevator, Jake spied the surveillance camera in the corner. He tried the fire door to the stairs, but it was locked, so he waited for the elevator. Inside the car, Jake stared into a second camera until the door rumbled open and he stepped into a small lobby. Behind a panel of glass sat a pretty young receptionist with bright red lipstick and short dark hair. When she got up, her black tailored pantsuit gave away her excellent shape.

She smiled at Jake, obviously expecting him. Jake heard a hum and the muffled clank of a heavy metal bolt before the receptionist swung open the door, greeting him with a sultry look and a thin cool hand.

“I’ve seen your show,” she said. “This is all very exciting. Can I get you something?”

Jake cleared his throat and said, “Just my crew. Thank you, though.”

“They’re in Mr. Graham’s office. Right this way,” she said, leading him around a corner and down a brightly lit hallway to a very large corner office looking out into the trees.

A big cherry desk sat in the corner facing the leather furniture, stained-glass lamps, and Oriental rugs. Books and Remington sculptures lined the shelves that framed the spaces taken up by richly painted seascapes blazing with three-masted battleships. Jake looked but saw not a single photograph of loved ones, their absence making the space feel sterile.

Dora smiled up at him from her monitor and motioned impatiently for him to come see.

“No water? Nothing at all?” the receptionist asked him, barely whispering and toying with her gold hoop earring.

Jake looked at her a moment, his eyes distracted by the red smudges across the face of her pearl-white teeth. “No, I’m good, but thanks.”

“Maybe something later,” she said.

Jake waited until she’d gone before he said hello to the crew, then looked at the shot before asking Dora directions to the bathroom.

“Get made up, too,” Dora said, directing him around the corner, down a hallway, then around another corner. “The makeup girl is AWOL, so it’s a good thing you’re multitalented. I’d like to start this thing.”

“Is he here?” Jake asked, looking around.

“Flew in from Philly at six this morning,” Dora said. “The legend lives on. He’s on some call in the conference room, supposedly until twelve-thirty, but let’s be ready in case it ends early.”

“It never does with these guys,” Jake said. “You can set your watch depending on how much money they have. They keep you waiting a half hour for every billion they’ve got.”

“Good,” Dora said, looking at her watch, “I should still make my flight back.”

Jake followed Dora’s directions to the bathroom, walking slowly through the hallways and wondering at the quiet and the well-heeled offices without a sign of workers past or present, no cups of coffee, no framed pictures of loved ones on either a desk or a wall anywhere. When he came to a short hallway ending in a broad mahogany door, Jake realized he must have misunderstood Dora. He turned to go but froze when he heard someone shouting from the other side of the heavy door. Jake looked around without seeing any security cameras in the corners of the ceiling and eased himself toward the door, placing his ear gently against its cool smooth grain so that he could smell the hint of varnish.

He heard voices talking and strained to decipher the words, his instincts telling him that, if he could, he’d quickly have something to turn the puff piece on Robert Graham into something juicy. But no matter how hard he listened, he couldn’t understand a single word. Jake moved away from the door, turned, and was startled by someone at the other end of the hall.

“What are you doing?” the man asked.

16

FLYNN, THE HOSPITAL’S lawyer, let his hands come to rest in his lap. His eyes glittered and his lips tugged ineffectively at his smile. The judge turned his attention to Casey.

She took a deep breath and said, “I agree with Mr. Flynn completely on his findings in regards to New York State law, Your Honor.”

Both men gave her affirmative nods, their faces grim.

“I’d like to ask the court to find some loophole here,” Casey said with a sigh, “to use its discretion and compassion to apply some common sense to the fact that the privacy we’re talking about is for a woman who’s been dead for twenty years.”

“I don’t think that’s for you to say,” Flynn said, clearly affronted and looking at her over the rims of his glasses. “There’s a family involved here, too.”

“I know,” Casey said, reaching into her briefcase, taking out the report Ralph had given her the night before, and holding it up to emphasize her point. “While her father is dead, the victim has a mother in a nursing home in Oregon suffering from advanced stages of Alzheimer’s. There’s a sister whose last known address, as of April 2006, was Sydney, Australia. That’s her family. Those are the people whose privacy we’re trying to protect. I know because I took the time to try to find them, hoping I could get their permission and save the court the trouble.”

The two men looked at each other, then at her.

“Given the mother’s state and the complexity of her own competence to sign a release and given the sister’s inaccessibility,” Casey said, “a waiver isn’t possible. But given the same circumstances, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that neither one would know or care about the privacy issue involved here.”

“The presumption-” Flynn began before Casey cut him off.

“I understand the presumption of privacy,” she said, “and I’m not going to ask for the court’s compassion or commonsense application. The judge said he’d make his decision based on the law, and that’s the only standard. I agree.”

“Good,” the judge said, placing a hand flat on his desk and starting to rise.

“Because I’m not going to ask you to apply state law,” Casey said.

The judge froze, then lowered himself into his chair, narrowing his eyes at Casey.

“Fortunately,” Casey said, angling her nose at the brief she’d given the judge, “if you look at the second, third, and fourth pages of my brief, you’ll see that I’m relying entirely on federal law to compel you to give me those samples.”

“This is a state court,” the judge said.

“But the court’s actions in this case-if you deny my request,” Casey said, trying not to sound too pleased with herself, “will give me standing in the federal system based on the minority status of my client and the racial composition of the jury that convicted him. If you take a look at Ashland v. Curtiss and maybe even more important, Knickerbocker v. Pennsylvania, you’ll see the authority is clear.”