The Last Trial Page 9

  “Agreed,” says Kiril succinctly. The day last year when Kiril begged Sandy to take his case, Stern could have warned Kiril—and himself—that being someone’s criminal defense lawyer is rarely a way to improve your opinion of them. Over the years, there have been exceptions, of course, clients who exhibited impressive bravery, or honesty about themselves. But usually what you discover is disappointing. Stern was entirely unaware that Kiril has apparently long had a woman on the side. That is not unusual for men in power, of course. Nevertheless, as a husband who was rigorously faithful to two wives, Stern takes a dim view of Kiril’s behavior. And he is also much too fond of Donatella to accept Pafko’s actions as entirely harmless, although Sandy has no clue what she knows.

  But if the long relationship with Innis meant much to Kiril, he gives no sign of it today. He clearly prefers not to discuss her, and Stern soon lets Kiril go on his way. After seeing Kiril out, Stern returns to his office, taking up his outpost at the window and reflecting, not for the first time, about how enigmatic he finds his client, and even their relationship.

  That first day, when Kiril had hugged him and tearfully declared his innocence, Pafko had stopped on the way to the door to embrace Stern again.

  ‘Thank you, Sandy,’ he said, ‘thank you. Truly, I regard you as the closest friend I have.’

  The declaration was startling, because Stern would never say anything similar. For Kiril and Donatella, Stern holds real affection. The Pafkos, as Stern has viewed them over the decades, are people of depth and values. But Kiril’s polished manner is also a barrier; Stern knows little about Kiril at the core.

  Nor does that limitation much concern Stern. He would be hard-pressed to name a male—at least one alive—with whom he has profound bonds. Yes, there have been men with whom he feels deep professional affinities developed in the course of hard cases, and always there have been guys to play cards with, to sit beside at the Trappers games. Yet the truth, which he has come to accept in late age, is that his most intimate connections have always been to women—to his mother and his sister, to Helen and Marta, even to Clara during their marriage’s early years.

  Nevertheless, in the last decade, Kiril has become an important figure in Stern’s life and someone to whom Stern feels an instinctive attachment. Having reexperienced in the courtroom today the sense of doom that came with his diagnosis, and the darkness it cast over several years, Stern has a sudden moment of clarity about his deep gratitude to Kiril. Pafko was not simply a doctor who had arranged for Stern to receive a lifesaving medication. What Kiril had dispensed along with g-Livia might have been even more consequential.

  While Kiril was assessing Stern’s case in 2013, Sandy had met with him in a small examining room at Easton med school. Pafko was in his long white coat and thoroughly in his element. These days he saw few patients, but he was strikingly adept at the one-on-one. By then, Stern had met his share of oncologists. Some felt obliged to be cheerleaders, while others employed the Joe Friday method and limited themselves to blank recitation of the dismal facts. But in the role of treating physician, Kiril had an undeniable magic which exploited his natural charisma. As Stern sat on the edge of the examining table, Kiril had placed his hands on Stern’s shoulders and bent forward so they could see one another eye to eye.

  ‘Sandy, I believe in this medication. But I also believe in you. You know, we describe treatment response as a bell curve. At the far end, there are always patients who exceed expectations. Why? Will alone cannot subdue disease, Sandy. But wanting to live and having a reason to do so—every oncologist will tell you that it matters, even though no one can tell you why. You, Sandy, you are the kind of patient who lives, who wins the battle far, far longer than most.’

  Kiril peered at him, holding on to Stern almost as if he were Sandy’s parent, his grip notable in its strength and comfort. Months later, even before Stern began to see the results of the treatment, he looked back to that moment as the point in time when a fundamental transformation in his attitude had begun. He stopped preparing himself for death and resumed looking forward—to the pleasure of being home with a wife who loved him unreservedly, to watching his grandchildren unfold like blossoms, to absorbing the legacy of a life that, on balance, he felt had been well-lived. And he is deeply in Kiril’s debt for that, not just for the time that g-Livia has given Stern, but for the pleasure in living that Kiril somehow renewed.

  Now Pafko has asked Stern to return the favor somehow, to prevent Kiril’s few remaining good years from being seized from him. The truth, given the facts, is that probably no one on earth can manage the feat. Certainly, as Stern accepted today, the time seems to have passed when Sandy could deliver. But standing at his window in the wake of Kiril’s visit, Stern feels more completely than he has in all the months since, his motives for taking the case, and the emotional weight that comes with it.

  11. Innis

  From the narrow perspective of a criminal defense lawyer, US v. Pafko is an ideal case. The charges require a nuanced defense. The national media attention attracted by the combination of Kiril’s Nobel Prize and the extensive publicity and advertising Olga Fernandez organized for g-Livia have raised the excitement level by several powers. Last—and far from incidental—the case promises to be an excellent payday. Rather than the usual arm wrestling to get clients to pay for his services—even the well-heeled don’t have much use for their bills after being sentenced to prison—PT’s by-laws make Kiril’s legal fees the company’s responsibility for now.

  Furthermore, the wasp’s nest of civil actions against the company and Kiril have lessened some burdens on the Sterns. They have entered into joint defense agreements with the huge law firms handling the civil cases, allowing Marta and him to draw on those resources for legal research, e-discovery, consulting experts, even courtroom graphics like the animation of RAS Stern used in his opening. From PT’s point of view, it is all money well spent, since Kiril’s conviction will all but decide liability in most of the civil matters. In the courtroom, the Sterns prefer the humble appearance of only Marta and Pinky and an old man with a cane facing off against the vast governmental bureaucratic machine represented by the nine people seated at the prosecution table. But back at the Sterns’ office, four associates and two paralegals delegated by the Kindle County branch of a national firm can be called on for assistance at any hour—a godsend since, with the doors closing soon at Stern & Stern, many staff members have already moved on to new jobs.

  In one area, however, Stern has always preferred to do the work himself. Even in the days when Marta and he had two private investigators on retainer, he liked to see the witnesses face-to-face before confronting them in the courtroom. The decision to leave Stern in charge of interviewing potential witnesses had been arrived at when Marta’s children were young, in order to minimize her travel out of town and after-hours meetings.

  Even so, Marta initially opposed Stern’s trip to Florida to interview Dr. McVie, thinking air travel on top of the rigors of trial was too much. Stern calmed her by promising that after seeing Innis McVie, a limo would drive him two hours across the state so that Stern could rest up Friday night and Saturday at the palatial beachfront house of Stern’s sister, Silvia, in West Palm Beach. Marta trusts her aunt as a reliable steward of her father’s well-being.

  Stern lands in Fort Myers a little after one p.m. on Friday. Dr. McVie, still an avid tennis player, can’t see him until three thirty because she is in a tournament. The limo driver, a recent Cuban émigré named Cesar, drives Stern to a nearby crab shack, where Stern invites Cesar to share lunch. The sunshine is a relief after the emotional buffeting of the week, especially now that fall has closed off the skies of Kindle County, where for months it will be like living under a pot lid. After a conversation in halting Spanish about the huge vista of opportunities Cesar sees in this country, they speed down I-75 toward Naples, where Dr. McVie has transplanted herself after her sour departure from PT.

  In the last two decades, St
ern and Helen had their share of friends relocate to Florida to escape state income and inheritance taxes up north. As far as Stern is concerned, no amount of money is worth the change. With swamps and alligators inland, and the gated communities and shopping malls in the traffic-clotted towns along the coasts, the state seems to Stern like a giant penal colony for America’s elderly, where the residents—like characters in a famous play—have been blinded by the sun and do not realize they are actually in hell.

  He and Cesar are almost in Naples when both a text and e-mail arrive from Pinky. Stern looks first at the e-mail, for which he’s been waiting. A scan of Innis’s personnel file is attached. There are few surprises there, except that Kiril, whose generosity Stern has often heard praised, wisely sent Innis off with a bountiful severance package that added nicely to the thousands of stock options she’d earned.

  Pinky’s text, by contrast, provides Stern with a little jolt when he opens it. “Look what I saw at PT when I went to get Innis’s file!” Attached is a series of photographs Pinky snapped, first from an upstairs window, then on ground level, of a car in the parking lot at Pafko Therapeutics. It is a late-model white Chevrolet, a Malibu according to the stainless-steel nameplate on the vehicle’s trunk. Pinky even got a picture of the oval PT parking decal in the rear window. For Stern, the images spark an unearthly sensation, something like déjà vu.

  Is this a coincidence or something ominous? Stern wants more time to think this through. He texts Pinky, “Brava! But do no more until we talk.” Among other things, he needs to ponder how to address the subject of the white Malibu with Kiril.

  Innis McVie’s house is in a Naples neighborhood called Port Royal, a haven of the ultrarich. The baronial structures Cesar drives Stern past resemble European castles, fronted by a hundred yards of lawn, with the rear of the residences along the Gulf of Mexico and wide white beaches with sand like sugar. Dr. McVie’s orange stucco house, accented with white decorative details, including a balustrade over an interior courtyard, sits at the end of a cul-de-sac and is not as grand as the big mansions. Yet since the residence is positioned right on the water, Stern’s guess is that it is still worth more than $10 million, a purchase Innis McVie could easily afford when she cashed out at PT right after g-Livia came to market.

  Unlike Kiril’s son, Lep, with whom the Sterns have had two tense meetings in the company of his officious Chicago lawyers, Innis McVie largely cast aside her attorney, Rex Halsey, shortly after he’d negotiated her nonprosecution agreement with the government. She has returned Stern’s calls herself, saying she has nothing to hide and adding that as the daughter of frugal Scots, she regards legal fees generally as a waste of money. Nonetheless, until recently she has been elusive when Stern has asked to meet. Under the guidance of Rex, with whom she still consults on occasion, Innis at last agreed to see him, but only on the condition that Stern come unaccompanied, so there is no ‘prover’ to testify if there are disputes about what Innis said. Since witnesses with nonprosecution agreements are usually careful to do nothing to displease the government, including meet with defense lawyers, Stern accepted those terms without reluctance.

  Stern has called from the car to announce he is nearby, and Dr. McVie is on her step to greet him, smiling as she stands before a huge arched doorway of mahogany. The front wall of the house sports broad white decorative pilasters and stainless-steel shades half drawn over the huge windows. She calls him Sandy and takes his hand with the imposing grip he’d expect of someone still playing tennis at a competitive level.

  Once inside, Stern can see that the rear of the house has a wall of glass, windows that fold back like a fan so they entirely disappear. Outside there is a large pool and a covered patio, enclosed beneath something Floridians refer to as a ‘lanai,’ roofed and sided with screening that admits sunshine but no bugs or falling vegetation. Moving through, Stern lavishes compliments on the house, which Helen would have described privately as ‘overdecorated,’ a mix of bold prints and eighteenth-century French antiques. Clearly, there are no grandchildren who visit. In the living room every precious piece has its place. The dreadful pastels of most Florida decorating, including his sister’s house, do not dominate. There is a lot of red.

  As for Dr. McVie, on first impression she strikes Stern as lively, quick to laugh, and certainly not the embittered shrew Kiril portrayed. A few days short of seventy, she remains striking, with the tidy, small-featured Northern European looks that for at least a century have been accepted as the American ideal of beauty. It appears she took a dip in the ocean when she got home from her tennis match, since her hair is wet, and she wears a modest swim top, a flowered beach skirt, and cork shoes. Stern can see that she retains an athletic form. Her hair, gray and naturally curly, is cut short so she can do without regular styling. Against her tan, her blue eyes are distinct as a beacon.

  She points him to a table in the shade, where Stern thanks her for seeing him.

  “I don’t have a side in this mess, Sandy. And I was curious to meet you, frankly. You’re a famous guy.”

  “I doubt that,” he answers, “and whatever I was is largely in the past.” He was never attached to the great notoriety that once surrounded him—it was his clients who were famous really, not him. It is unsurprising, though, that Dr. McVie finds fame of interest. Kiril had already shaken the foundations of cancer research when she met him thirty-two years ago. He imagines that Kiril’s standing and reputation were part of his attraction.

  “When I was young, I thought tennis was going to make me famous,” she says. “Then I played Chris Evert. She was thirteen and I was nineteen, and I won three points. That’s when I switched to premed.” Stern laughs loudly, which pleases Innis.

  “Kiril talked about you a lot,” she says. “You’re a widower?”

  “For the second time,” he says.

  “Yes, Kiril was very fond of your second wife. He says she had a wonderful sense of humor.”

  “Clara was harder to know, but she had a close relationship with Donatella.” Stern wonders if mentioning Donatella might be an error, but Dr. McVie seems to take it in stride, just like her casual references to Kiril. Stern had felt some instinctive need to stick up for Clara. Even with both women gone, he does not compare his two wives. Friends often tell him how much lighter his mood was with Helen, which was inevitable given how deeply depressed Clara often was. But each woman defined a long period of his life that he looks back on with far more satisfaction than doubt; each had given him something that had felt essential at the time.

  Dr. McVie’s maid sets down a pitcher of lemonade and pours for both of them.

  “And you started getting g-Livia right after the dogs and rats, right?”

  When she asks how he is doing, Stern tells her that his metastatic disease remains at bay.

  “I have reached that blessed state when my doctor now predicts I will die of something else,” he says. “On the other hand, at this age, that might come at any moment.”

  “Oh, you look damn good,” says Innis. “I’ll bet you see ninety, Sandy. What is that? Another decade or so? You’re younger than Kiril, aren’t you?”

  “Far older,” he answers.

  It is preposterous to feel flattered to be mistaken for a mere octogenarian. Furthermore, having looked in the mirror, he knows these compliments approach comedy.

  “Proves my point,” offers Dr. McVie.

  Is she flirting? He heard just the faintest trill of that before, when she asked if he was a widower. Despite his many vows, Innis’s compliments provoke a little spark of interest. One of the discoveries of late age is that this aspect of being human is indelible. The instincts dim but never disappear. Sex matters. Ever and always. In the years of surgery and chemo, physical passion became rarer for Helen and him, and yet it was still there at the core of what bound them. Stern has never seen sex as the only motivating force in life. Greed, glory, the love of children or God matter as much or more to some. But it is the most secret of our deep d
esires, revealed only in utter privacy. There is good reason that the Bible refers to the sexual act as ‘knowing’ someone.

  Yet Innis probably means little by it. In Stern’s experience, there are attractive men and women who are, if not blind to their sexual power, indifferent to it. But the opposite is more common. Innis has probably been a harmless flirt since she was twelve. Nonetheless, he decides it is best to get down to business. He asks if Moses knows about their meeting.

  “I told him,” she says. “Mr. Appleton clearly preferred I not do it. He said the only result of this will be to give you a greater opportunity to embarrass me on the witness stand and attack my credibility. Is that true?”

  Stern lifts a hand to temporize.

  “My first loyalty must be to Kiril. The prosecutors are right about that. But a defense rarely succeeds by trying to make a liar out of every witness. In my mind, the purpose of an interview like this is to find out what you have to say that might benefit Kiril. Those are questions I would be reluctant to ask without knowing the answers, which is why the prosecutors would rather we not speak.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I have a lot to say about Kiril that’s beneficial to him. And I’ll say it, even though I am still angrier than hell with him. Enraged, frankly. I’m sure you know why.” She glances sidewise over her glass.

  “I do,” says Stern. Stern has anticipated that Innis’s long relationship with Kiril would be a tender area. Along with Lep, she became Kiril’s original partner in founding PT. Over the years, when they traveled to scientific meetings, they did not bother with the pretense of two hotel rooms. Indeed, several of the scientists Stern has interviewed in the last year have admitted being shocked when they learned that Kiril was married to someone else.

  “But we’re not getting into any of this in the courtroom, correct?”

  “We made a motion to the judge, which she granted. The parties may say only that you left PT after a disagreement with Kiril.”