expressionless. He wasn’t going to give Peterson the satisfaction.
“When will you indict him?”
“As soon as we can roll him into court. From what I hear he’s making good progress.” Peterson paused. Gage saw in his eyes that, at least for a moment, he grasped what this meant to Gage. But the moment passed. “Sorry, man, you can’t win ’em all.”
Gage returned to his office after escorting Peterson and Zink to the lobby, each step accompanied by the anguish that Faith had been right: Burch’s rage against Courtney’s cancer had indeed expressed itself as greed.
But then two poem fragments spoke to him as he settled into his chair and gazed out toward the bay: I was much too far out all my life…not waving but drowning. And he wondered whether that had been Jack Burch from the beginning. Maybe that was why the memory of their first meeting came to him in the emergency room hallway the morning Burch was shot.
Maybe it wasn’t greed after all, but simply self-destructive recklessness.
Gage took in a breath, feeling the same unease that had troubled him along the Smith River twenty-five years earlier. He remembered watching a young fisherman walk past him into a cliffside cafe overlooking the river, his gait and earnest face announcing that his mind was too much on the water, his arms and back already feeling the tension of the fly line tight in the guides of a bowed rod.
“Watch out for the Oregon Hole,” Gage had warned him and pointed at three off-kilter crosses jammed into lava rocks atop the canyon wall. “Those rapids will beat you to death.”
Burch had glanced back over his shoulder, grinned, and answered without breaking stride, “Thanks, mate. I’ll take care.”
At midday, another moment of unease. Gage looking down from the cliff, catching sight of a slight shifting of Burch’s shoulders and hips as he dug his wading boots into the sandy river bottom. Then again, at sunset, with long shadows falling across the river. Gage slowing as he drove across the suspension bridge and glanced down into the gorge, wondering where was the fisherman whose mind had been too much on the river-and catching sight of flailing arms and a fly rod whipping the air.
Maybe that was it all along, Gage thought, turning away from the window and sitting up in his chair. Maybe that had always been Burch: not waving, but drowning.
Gage folded his hands on his desk, his duty-to Jack, to Courtney, and to himself-now framed both by memory and by the fear that instead of asking what and who and how, he should’ve been asking why.
CHAPTER 35
T he middle-aged foreperson seated at a semicircular raised judge’s bench looked over her reading glasses at a phalanx of occupied student-style Formica desks filling the grand jury room. A clerk sat to her left and the court reporter sat one level below her. The witness box to her right was empty. The foreperson first directed the secretary to take the roll, then invited Assistant United States Attorney William Peterson to address the grand jurors.
Peterson rose from his seat at the prosecutor’s table front and center in the grand jury room, picked up his SatTek notes, and then stepped to the podium.
“Today, the government will begin presenting testimonial evidence that it expects to show conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and money laundering by SatTek Incorporated of San Jose and by its officers, agents, lawyers, and consultants.”
Peterson looked down the far left row of jurors and counted to six. From others in the office he knew that Grand Juror Number Six, a wild-haired, middle-aged former middle manager, was a runaway. Number Six thought he had a mind of his own. Even worse, he thought the grand jury was supposed to possess a collective mind of its own. He was big trouble.
Number Six didn’t take an interest in every case, just a few, and he telegraphed his move by taking notes right from day one. No one in the office knew how he chose a case to go rabid on. He just did and wasted an enormous amount of time asking questions ad nauseam in a nasally whine that made everyone in the room cringe and their palms sweat. One prosecutor had told Peterson that after one of these episodes, the foreperson had whispered to him in the hallway that because of Number Six, the eighteen-month grand jury term felt like a life sentence.
Everyone in the U.S. Attorney’s Office figured that someday they’d spot Number Six on a park bench or in the public library with the other loonies scribbling stream-of-consciousness notes in a weathered spiral notebook. But the scuttlebutt was that you could beat him down if you worked at it and he’d vote with the rest of the sheep when the time came-it was just that nobody in the office liked playing sheepdog.
“You’ll recall that a month ago the grand jury approved the issuance of subpoenas for stock and bank records relating to SatTek. At that time I outlined our suspicions and also described the roles of the SatTek officers, advisers such as Edward Granger, attorneys such as Jack Burch, and offshore agents such as Morely Alden Fitzhugh. Beginning today you will see the fruits of the subpoenas and learn the details of our investigative labors.”
Peterson checked off the first item on his outline.
“I should point out at this juncture that Mr. Fitzhugh, who I mentioned to you a few weeks ago, is no longer a target, as he’s deceased.” Peterson quickly pushed on, not wanting to answer questions about the circumstances of Fitzhugh’s murder. “My summary witness will be FBI Special Agent Lyle Zink. Beginning tomorrow he’ll outline the structure of the conspiracy, the coconspirators, the bank accounts, and the offshore companies.”
Peterson checked off two more items.
“Stuart Matson has become a cooperating defendant and we expect there will be others. He signed a plea agreement that requires him to disgorge his profits but makes no promises regarding sentencing. Assuming that Mr. Matson is entirely truthful, pursuant to 5K of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will move the district court to grant a downward departure from the mandatory minimum in this matter which is approximately twenty years. He could receive a sentence as low as probation, depending on his performance.
“There will be additional witnesses, including employees of SatTek, bank officers, representatives of the SEC, and others. I expect that presenting all of this testimony will require that we meet about twice a week for the next few weeks.”
Peterson set aside his outline, rested his hands on the top edges of the podium, then paused. He let his eyes scan the grand jurors just a moment longer than any of them found comfortable.
“In accordance with rule six of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, I must remind each and every one of the grand jurors that the proceedings of the grand jury are secret. Secrecy protects you from intimidation, it prevents the escape of grand jury targets, and it prevents the tampering with or the intimidation of witnesses. Please bear this in mind.”
Peterson reached for a binder labeled “SatTek Syllabus” lying on a table next to him.
“Now, let me outline the elements of the crimes of conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering.”
Peterson looked up at Grand Juror Number Six. He was already taking notes. Damn.
CHAPTER 36
E dward Granger arrived at the driving range of his country club at sunrise. He purchased two baskets of balls, then selected the driving station farthest from the other golfers. The grass never smelled sweeter, the fall air never felt more crisp and expansive. He paused to watch the caged cart sweeping up spent balls, wondering whether prisons had grass anymore, or whether anything at all grew in them except men growing older. He also wondered how many rounds he would have time to play before he joined the other inmates wasting their days, replacing golf with chess or checkers or bridge or just unrelenting boredom.
