Degree of Guilt (29 page)

‘I’m
good
with him,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why, but I am. The rest will come.’

She gazed at him. ‘Are you so desperate,’ she asked, ‘to be good with someone? If so, maybe you should start closer to home. How
is
your marriage, I’m forced to wonder. Given that you propose to sandwich my son in the middle of it.’

It’s fine, Paget wanted to say. And then, because she was Carlo’s mother, he told Mary something closer to the truth. ‘Andrea,’ he said slowly, ‘has more emotional requirements than some. It’s all right as long as I’m available.’

‘Don’t you think you should talk to her a little more before bothering
me
with all this?’

‘I have.’ Paget paused. ‘The best way to describe her reaction is “distant.”’

Mary frowned. ‘Then I suggest you withdraw your application and resume your former life.’

Paget shook his head. ‘I’ve seen too much of Carlo,’ he said. ‘It may sound cold, but this is
not
a decision Andrea can make for me. Because if she did, and Carlo suffered for that, it would end our marriage. And
that
is what I’ve told her.’

Mary watched his face. Around them, as the afternoon moved toward evening, men and women in business suits had changed the mix of the crowd, and the waiter seemed to wish that Mary and he would drink their wine or leave. Paget ignored him.

‘No,’ Mary said finally.

Paget tensed. ‘Why not?’

‘Because if Carlo does come, you’ll have as good as ended your marriage. Which would make you a busy single father with a young son bearing the weight of a divorce. Carlo would feel guilty, and you might well resent him.’ Mary’s gaze hardened. ‘What makes that a better life than the one I’ll give him in two years?’

‘Honestly?’

‘Of course.’

‘Because he’s in deep trouble, for all the reasons I described to you on the phone, which I know you understand too well.’ Paget’s voice slowed. ‘And because I’m the right parent for that boy. If I didn’t know that, I wouldn’t be here.’

Mary shook her head. ‘Go home, Chris. Save your marriage. In two years, I’ll rescue Carlo from my parents. As I told you when Carlo was born, you’ve already done enough.’

Paget looked into her eyes, as coolly and directly as he could. ‘Which gets us,’ he said, ‘to the bottom line of this discussion.’

Silent, Mary watched his face. ‘What, precisely, are you referring to?’

‘To the papers I’ve had prepared, awarding me legal and physical custody. And, of course, to the reason that you’ll sign them. For the sake of politeness, we’ll call it “career considerations.”’

Her eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. ‘You’re joking.’

‘No. Like many women, you’ve come to value your work. After an honest self-appraisal, you’ve seen the tension between career and motherhood, and recognized the expanded role a father can play. In this case, me.’

She smiled coldly. ‘You seem to forget, Chris, that the same “career considerations” affect us both.’

‘They don’t, though. Because we’re nothing alike. For one thing, as you once were fond of pointing out to me, I’m rich.’ Paget leaned forward. ‘Seven years ago, I just stopped caring. I don’t give a damn what happens to me now. So I’m content to sit here until you tell me that same thing – that
you
don’t care what happens to
you
.’ He finished quietly: ‘Perhaps, while I wait, we can have a bottle of wine.’

It was odd, Paget thought, that her smile lingered, becoming a smile of appraisal. Even as she said, ‘You really
are
a bastard.’

Paget felt tired. ‘I’m not, though,’ he said slowly. ‘I hate doing this. Just as I hate you for making me do it.’

Mary shook her head. ‘That you hate
me
– that’s no surprise to me. That you hate doing this the
way
you’re doing it
would
be a surprise, if I believed it.’ She stared at her wineglass. ‘No, the real surprise is that you
are
doing it. Never, seven years ago, did I see this day coming. Never did I imagine you wanting to raise him.’

She was pale, Paget saw.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I truly am. But if you don’t do this, we’ll be in court, with me waving Carlo’s birth certificate and asserting my paternal rights by any means I can. Any at all. And that will do you no good at all. Nor Carlo, either.’

For an instant, her eyes shut. ‘No doubt.’

‘No doubt,’ he softly echoed her. ‘And don’t ever doubt I’ll do it.’

‘Oh, I believe you.’ Her voice was thin, remote. ‘You have the papers with you, I imagine.’

Nodding, Paget reached into the briefcase, placed the papers on the table. Mary read them carefully, like the lawyer she once had been.

‘What do you intend to call him?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think “Carlo” should change.’

‘“Carlo Paget,” I thought.’

She looked at him. ‘Carlo
Carelli
Paget.’

Paget nodded. ‘All right.’

Quickly, almost carelessly, she scrawled her name wherever it was needed.

‘Did you know,’ she asked, ‘that Carlo likes blueberry waffles?’

Paget shook his head; it was surprising, he thought, how painful this felt, and how enormous.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m sure he’ll tell you.’

Abruptly, Mary stood. Paget saw a change come over her face, a shocked, wounded look – pain, anger, disbelief at what he had done. She seized her untouched wineglass, staring down at him; for an instant, Paget was sure that she would throw the wine in his face.

Turning, she drank until the glass was empty, and placed it down before him.

‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘You’re Carlo’s father now.’

She turned, never looking back, and walked quickly away.

When Paget appeared in Brooks’s office, there was a tape recorder on the desk, and Marnie Sharpe was with him. No one shook hands.

‘You’ll want to hear this,’ Brooks said.

The drizzle streaking the windows seemed to pervade the room. The D.A. did not smile; there were none of the usual graces. To Paget, Sharpe had the gaunt, angry look of a bitter saint.

‘Where did you find it?’ Paget asked.

Sharpe leaned forward. ‘At Ransom’s home in Key West,’ she snapped. ‘Just how stupid do you think we are?’

‘Not stupid, Marnie. Paranoid, perhaps.’

Her mouth compressed. ‘It’s hard to believe that you didn’t know about this. And once they hear what’s on the tape, no judge will believe it, either.’

Paget tried to control his temper, and his nerves. ‘Why on earth would I conceal something so easy for you to find?’

‘That’s simple. You knew Carelli was Steinhardt’s patient. You just weren’t sure that Ransom had the tape. So you tried to shut us down, quick, before we figured things out.’ Sharpe paused. ‘The only other possibility is that your client lied to
you
. As to that, I
do
believe that Mary Carelli is a congenital liar. But it now appears that you’re the perfect couple.’

Paget stared at her. ‘Grow up,’ he snapped. ‘No one asked if Mary was a patient, so no one lied about it. This isn’t kindergarten – the job of a defense lawyer isn’t to tattle to the principal. Nor is this case a personal thing between you and me.’

Brooks raised his hand for silence. Quietly, he said, ‘We should play the tape.’

Paget nodded. ‘I thought that was why you asked me here. Because if your purpose was to permit your staff to instruct me on my character, or that of Mary Carelli, you should know that the only person I answer to is me.’

‘Consider us instructed.’ Brooks placed his finger on a button. ‘I’ve fast-forwarded over the preliminaries, like who she is and what she does, so you can get right to the meat.’

Brooks pressed the button.

There was a moment’s silence, and then Paget heard the voice of a man, emotionless and disembodied in the gloomy room.

‘Was there something in particular,’ he asked, ‘that made you come here?’

More silence.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Three years later, I still can’t leave it behind. I keep having this dream.’ There was a pause. ‘It’s as if I shut it off by day, but at night I lose control.’

Paget could identify the speaker – not the woman he had first known, but the more polished woman he had met in Paris. But without her face and gestures, there was something naked, almost haunting, in her voice. Some part of him, much deeper than the lawyer, did not wish to hear more.

‘Can you describe the dream?’ Steinhardt asked.

‘Of course.’ Mary’s voice sounded parched. ‘It’s the same every time.’

Paget became aware of Sharpe’s stare, angry and intent.

‘Tell me about it,’ Steinhardt prodded.

‘I’m in Paris,’ she said, ‘at the church of St Germain-des-Prés. In life, I’ve never seen it, except from across the street. But in my imagination, the inside is as gloomy as I remember the outside being on the one day I was there – dark and vast, so that the inner walls as they rise above me disappear in shadows. Behind the altar is a sculpture of Jesus, crucified and suffering, like the one my parents had.’ The voice became sardonic. ‘Except, of course, much larger.’

‘In the dream, why are you there?’

Paget became aware of Sharpe and Brooks, gazing fixedly at the tape. As it turned, Paget could imagine Mary in the white room Terri Peralta had described to him, staring at a blank ceiling, with Steinhardt sitting behind her, an unseen voice.

Mary answered softly. ‘To ask forgiveness for my sins.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘I’ve left my son, Carlo, across the street, sitting at an outdoor café. Even in the dream, I feel guilty about leaving Carlo by himself. But there is something I must do, and I never want Carlo to know my sins.’

‘Are they forgiven?’

Mary’s voice became muted, subdued. ‘At first, I have no sign. There is no one else there. I hear nothing, feel nothing. For a moment, it’s as if the dream is telling me what I always told myself when I was young: that the Church is as empty as the Latin Mass became when I first heard it in English. That God either has left it or was never there.’ Her voice grew lower. ‘Then I go outside and receive His answer.

‘Carlo is gone.’

Voice thickening, Mary paused. Paget folded his arms, staring at the floor. He no longer knew, or cared, whether Brooks or Sharpe was watching.

‘In his place are two empty glasses.’ She paused. ‘One for me, and one for Chris. And then I know.’

‘What do you know?’

‘That Chris has taken Carlo, and that I must let him.’ Her voice became ashen. ‘That my sins are past redemption.’

There was silence. ‘Who is Chris?’ Steinhardt asked. ‘And what are your sins – in the dream, that is?’

More silence. ‘Do you know Christopher Paget?’

‘I know
of
him. The young man who testified at the Lasko hearings.’

‘Yes.’ Mary paused. ‘Chris has Carlo now.’

Paget could imagine Steinhardt making choices, deciding whether to pursue reality or dream. His hands clenched.

‘And your sins?’ Steinhardt asked.

‘In the dream, or in real life?’ Her voice became cooler, almost defiant. ‘Because in real life, sin has little meaning to me.’

‘The dream, then.’

‘You can’t understand them,’ she said, ‘without some background. Did you actually watch the hearings?’

Paget realized that his posture was as it had been in the witness room, as he watched Mary fifteen years before: taut, leaning forward, living from word to word.

‘Yes,’ Steinhardt said. ‘Like millions of others, I was fascinated.’

Mary’s voice was bloodless now, that of a lawyer describing someone else’s case. ‘And did you watch my testimony?’

‘With great interest.’

‘Then we need to start with one essential fact.’

‘What is it?’

Mary paused. Then, in a cold, flat voice, she said, ‘I lied.’

There was a long silence. Brooks stared fixedly at the tape; Sharpe at Paget. ‘Concerning what?’ Steinhardt asked.

‘Several things.’ Mary paused again; Paget could only wait. ‘I’m sorry,’ Mary said, ‘but that tape makes me nervous.’

Abruptly, Paget, reoriented, became aware that Brooks and Sharpe were watching him.

‘Why is that?’ Steinhardt asked.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Mary sounded impatient. ‘If it got out, what I’m telling you could ruin me. Really, I don’t know if I should be here at all.’

Paget touched the bridge of his nose; somehow, the reflexive gesture helped him shut out everything but Mary’s voice.

‘But you felt you needed to come,’ Steinhardt said.

‘Yes.’

‘Why, precisely?’

‘The dream.’ Mary’s voice was flat. ‘As I said, I don’t like losing control.’

‘Then let me reassure you. The tapes are for my use only, and only to assist me in your therapy. By state law, they are subject to the doctor-patient privilege, which I would ardently insist on even were there no such law. So whatever you tell me is as confidential as if there
were
no tapes.’

There was a quiet vehemence to Steinhardt’s words that Paget found disturbing. Perhaps, he thought, what troubled him was Jeanne Steinhardt’s comment about ‘specimens’; more likely, it was listening to Steinhardt’s assurances to Mary, five years later, in the office of the district attorney. He looked first at Brooks, then at Sharpe, making the point without words.

‘All right,’ Mary told Steinhardt.

There was more silence, and then Steinhardt spoke again. ‘You mentioned lying to the committee, as you put it. Perhaps you could tell me what you meant.’

Paget leaned forward. Then Mary said quietly, ‘Some of what I told Senator Talmadge was true – the parts about Jack Woods. The chairman. My boss.’ She paused, and then her voice became clipped and systematic, as if reciting a litany.