speaks.
“Oh, oh, right.” I gather myself. “I know she hasn’t been formally nominated. But the background check comes first, right?”
“Background check?” asks McDermott.
“Concerning her nomination,” I explain, glancing quickly toward the foyer, and also wondering whether I am idiotic or they are. “Uh, her possible nomination.”
They look at each other again. It is Foreman’s turn.
“Mr. Garland, we are not here about your wife.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“We should have made things clear.” He crosses his long legs. “We know about what is going on with your wife, of course, but I’m afraid that’s not the reason for this visit. Believe me, we would not interrupt your bereavement for a background check.”
“Okay. Okay, then, why are you here?” But, even as I speak, I know what is coming, and my heart seems to slow down.
McDermott again: “Yesterday afternoon, in the cemetery, you spoke with one Jack Ziegler. True?”
I like that: One Jack Ziegler. Conveying suspicion, but not actually saying much.
“Well, yes…”
“We need to know what you talked about. That’s why we’re here.” Just like that. He has made his demands and he is finished.
“Why?”
“We can’t tell you that,” says McDermott quickly, as well as rudely.
“We would if we could,” adds Foreman, just as fast, which earns him a dirty look from his partner. “I can say that this is in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation, and please let me assure you that neither you nor any member of your family is in any way a subject of that investigation.”
Because I am my father’s son, I am tempted, for a silly moment, to correct his use of the alleged verb ongo. In the next instant, I am tempted to tell him precisely what Uncle Jack said to me. But discipline holds in the end; one of the terrible things about being a lawyer is that cautious precision is second nature.
Besides, I already mistrust them.
I say: “How do you happen to know that I spoke with Jack Ziegler yesterday?”
“We can’t tell you that,” says McDermott, the broken record, again too fast.
“I would like to think that my government does not spy on funerals.”
“We do what we have to do,” McDermott chirps.
“We don’t spy at all.” Foreman cuts in like a bully at a high-school dance. “In a criminal investigation, as you know, being a lawyer yourself, there are certain exigencies. The methodology is often complex, but, I assure you, we always proceed in accord with pertinent regulations.” He is saying precisely the same thing as McDermott, just using a lot more words to do it. He is probably a lawyer too.
I am running out of ideas. I ask: “Is Jack Ziegler the subject of the investigation? No, never mind,” I add, before McDermott can repeat his line.
“We need your help,” says Foreman. “We need it badly.”
I use one of my father’s most effective tools when he used to lecture: I make them wait. I think about my encounter with Uncle Jack, and try to understand what it is that I am guarding. I think that perhaps I should relate, word for word, what happened. I nearly do. And then, in his impatience, McDermott ruins it.
“We can make you tell us, you know.”
Foreman nearly groans. My head snaps around. I have been angry, on and off, for the last several days, and yesterday I was frightened. I have had enough.
“I beg your pardon.”
“You have to tell us what you know. It’s your legal obligation.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snap, my eyes blazing through suddenly red air into Agent McDermott’s unanticipated umbrage. “That isn’t the law, as I’m sure you know. You can’t coerce somebody into cooperating with your investigation. You can, maybe, punish me if I tell you something that isn’t true, but you can’t make me tell you what you want to know, no matter how badly you need to know it, not unless you convene a grand jury and issue a subpoena. Now, is that what you want to do?”
“We could do that,” says McDermott. I do not understand his fury or, for that matter, his tactics. “We don’t want to, but we could.”
I am not finished. “Federal prosecutors convene grand juries, not FBI agents. And, as I recall, there is a very specific regulation prohibiting you from making threats.”
“We’re not making threats,” Foreman tries, but McDermott will not stop.
“We don’t have time to play games,” McDermott snarls. His voice has taken on a faint accent, probably Southern. “Jack Ziegler is scum. He’s a murderer. He sells arms. He sells drugs. I don’t know what else he sells. I do know nobody’s been able to nail him. Well, this time we’re going to do it. We’re this close, Professor.” He holds up thumb and forefinger a centimeter or so apart. Then he leans toward me. “Now, your wife is up for a judgeship. Great, I hope she gets it. But it’s not going to look very good, is it, when it turns out that her husband refused to cooperate in a criminal investigation of a scumbag like good old Uncle Jack Ziegler. So-are you going to help us or not?”
I glance over at Foreman in disbelief, but his face is professionally blank. Full of fiery indignation, I am about to snap out an answer-goodness knows what I plan to say-when Sally’s stout voice drifts into the room from the foyer:
“I’m leaving, Tal. Gotta go to work. I guess I’ll have to talk to you later.” Judging from her tone, she is still offended at being excluded. But she also wants to talk to me now.
I jump to my feet and excuse myself for a moment, buying time to think. And, if I can, to calm down. I walk Sally to the door. On the front step, she pauses, turns to face me, and asks if I happened to get Agent McDermott’s first name. I confess that he does not seem to have mentioned it, then ask her why she wants to know.
“I just have the feeling I’ve seen him before,” Cousin Sally says, her bold brown eyes holding mine. Except on the subject of Addison, Sally lacks an outlandish imagination, so, if she says she has met him, I am required to take her seriously.
“Where?”
“I don’t know, Tal, but-did you see his hand?”
“The birthmark? Yes.”
“Yeah, and his lip.” I think about it for a few seconds, then nod. There is a small, pale spot on McDermott’s upper lip, a kind of scar, far more prominent when he is angry. “I’ve seen that mark before,” says my cousin, who, thanks to a bad marriage in her past, has a few scars of her own.
“Where?”
“I… I’m not sure.”
“On the Hill? In connection with your work?”
Sally shakes her head. “A long time ago.”
Before I can respond to this, Sally shrugs and smiles and says never mind, more than likely she is mistaken.
I wait a beat, then ask her if she is all right. “I’m fine,” she says, a sad, thoughtful look coming into her eyes. Sally squeezes my hand, and, when she lets go, my anger goes too, just like that, as though she has drawn it out of me.
“Thanks for your help,” I smile.
She smiles back, then turns and heads for her car, carrying one of the oversized totes that always remind Kimmer of a bag lady.
I return to the living room, far calmer than I was a few minutes ago. McDermott and Foreman are both on their feet, alert and impatient, but confident too. Well, why shouldn’t they be confident? They have played the good-cop, bad-cop routine perfectly, and they both know I am beaten. I know it too. I have no idea whether Sally really has seen McDermott before, but I have learned a lot over the years about cutting your losses; one of the things the Judge drummed into our heads was the old rhyme about living to fight another day. I look at the agents steadily and say: “I’m sorry if I seemed uncooperative. That wasn’t my intention. Now, what exactly do you want to
