"Relax."
"Relax, my ass. How can we relax when you're stealing clients?"
"I didn't steal Mrs. Jackman. She called me. I didn't call her."
"We know the game you're playing, Hark. We're not stupid." Wally said this while looking at his fellow lawyers. They certainly didn't consider themselves to be stupid, but they weren't so sure about Wally. Truth was, no one could trust anyone. There was simply too much money at stake to assume that the lawyer next to you would not pull out a knife.
They led Snead in, and this changed the focus of the discussion. Hark introduced him to the group. Poor Snead looked like a man facing a firing squad. He sat at the end of the table, with two video cameras aimed at him. "This is just a rehearsal," Hark assured him. "Relax." The lawyers pulled out legal pads covered with questions, and they inched closer to Snead.
Hark walked behind him, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Now, when you give your deposition, Mr. Snead, the lawyers for the other side will be allowed to interrogate you first. So for the next hour or so, you are to assume that we are the enemy. Okay?"
It certainly wasn't okay with Snead, but he'd taken their money. He had to play along.
Hark picked up his legal pad and began asking questions, simple things about his birth, background, family, school, easy stuff that Snead handled well and relaxed with. Then the early years with Mr. Phelan, and a thousand questions that seemed completely irrelevant.
After a bathroom break, Madam Langhorne took the baton and grilled Snead about the Phelan families, the wives, the kids, the divorces, and mistresses. Snead thought it was a lot of unnecessary dirt, but the lawyers seemed to enjoy it.
"Did you know about Rachel Lane?" Langhorne asked.
Snead pondered this for a moment, then said, "I haven't thought about that." In other words, help me with the answer. "What would you guess?" he asked Mr. Gettys.
Hark was quick with the fiction. "I would guess that you knew everything about Mr. Phelan, especially his women and their offspring. Nothing escaped you. The old man confided everything in you, including the existence of his illegitimate daughter. She was ten or eleven when you went to work for Mr. Phelan. He tried to reach out to her over the years but she would have nothing to do with him. I would guess that this hurt him deeply, that he was a man who got whatever he wanted, and when Rachel spurned him his pain turned to anger. I would guess that he disliked her immensely. Thus, for him to leave her everything was an act of sheer insanity."
Once again, Snead marveled at Hark's ability to spin tales so quickly. The other lawyers were impressed too. "What do you think?" Hark asked them.
They nodded their approvals. "Better get him all the background on Rachel Lane," Bright said.
Snead then repeated for the cameras the same story Hark had just told, and in doing so showed a passable skill at expanding on a theme. When he finished, the lawyers couldn't suppress their pleasure. The worm would say anything. And there was no one to contradict it.
When Snead was asked a question that needed assistance, he responded by saying, "Well, I haven't thought about that." The lawyers would then reach out to help. Hark, who seemed to anticipate Snead's weaknesses, usually had a quick narrative at hand. Often, though, the other lawyers chimed in with their little plots, all anxious to display their skills at lying.
Layer upon layer was fabricated, and fine-tuned, carefully molded to ensure that Air. Phelan was out of his mind the morning he scrawled his last testament. Snead was coached by the lawyers, and he proved quite easy to lead. In fact, he was so coachable the lawyers worried that he might say too much. His credibility could not be damaged. There could be no holes in his testimony.
For three hours they built his story, then for two hours they tried to tear it down with relentless cross-examination. They didn't feed him lunch. They sneered at him and called him a liar. At one point Langhorne had him near tears. When he was exhausted and ready to collapse, they sent him home with the pack of videos and instructions to study them over and over.
He wasn't ready to testify, they told him. His stories weren't airtight. Poor Snead drove home in his new Range Rover, tired and bewildered, but also determined to practice his lies until the lawyers applauded him.
JUDGE WYCLIFF enjoyed the quiet little lunches in his office. As usual, Josh picked up sandwiches from a Greek deli near Dupont Circle. He unpacked them, along with iced tea and pickles, on the small table in a corner. They huddled over their food, at first talking about how busy they were, then quickly getting around to the Phelan estate. Something was up, or Josh wouldn't have called.
"We found Rachel Lane," he said.
"Wonderful. Where?" The relief in Wycliffs face was obvious.
"She made us promise not to tell. At least not now."
"Is she in the country?" The Judge forgot about his corned beef on kaiser.
"No. She's in a very remote spot in the world, and quite content to stay there."
"How did you find her?"
"Her lawyer found her."
"Who's her lawyer?"
"A guy who used to work in my firm. Name's Nate O'Riley, a former partner. Left us back in August."
Wycliff narrowed his eyes and considered this. "What a coincidence. She hires a former partner of the law firm her father used."
"There's no coincidence. As the attorney for the estate, I had to find her. I sent Nate O'Riley. He found her, she hired him. It's really pretty simple."
"When does she make her appearance?"
"I doubt if she'll do it in person."
"What about the acknowledgment and waiver?"
"They're coming. She's very deliberate, and, frankly, I'm not sure what her plans are."
"We have a will contest, Josh. The war has already erupted. Things can't wait. This court must have jurisdiction over her."
"Judge, she has legal representation. Her interests will be protected. Let's fight. We'll start discovery, and see what the other side has."
"Can I talk to her?"
"It's impossible."
"Come on, Josh."
"I swear. Look, she's a missionary in a very remote place, in a different hemisphere. That's all I can tell you."
"I want to see Mr. O'Riley."
"When?"
Wycliff walked to his desk and grabbed the nearest appointment book. He was so busy. Life was regulated by a docket calendar, a trial calendar, a motion calendar. His secretary kept an office calendar. "How about this Wednesday?"
"Fine. For lunch? Just the three of us, off the record."
"Sure."
LAWYER O'RILEY had planned to read and write throughout the morning. His plans were diverted, though, with a phone call from the Rector. "Are you busy?" Father Phil asked, his strong voice resonating over the phone.
"Well, no, not really," Nate said. He was sitting in a deep leather chair, under a quilt, beside the fire, sipping coffee and reading Mark Twain.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure."
"Well, I'm at the church, working in the basement, doing some remodeling, and I need a hand. I thought you might be bored, you know, since there's not much to do here in St. Michaels, at least not in the winter. It's supposed to snow again today."
The lamb stew crossed Mate's mind. There was plenty of it leftover. "I'll be there in ten minutes."
The basement was directly under the sanctuary. Nate heard hammering as he carefully descended the shaky steps. It was an open room, long and wide with a low ceiling. A remodeling project had been under way for a long time, with no end in sight. The general plan appeared to be a series of small rooms against the outer walls, with an open space in the center. Phil stood between two sawhorses, tape measure in hand, sawdust on his shoulders. He wore a flannel shirt, jeans, boots, and would've easily passed for a carpenter.