The Kingmaker by Brian Haig Page A

believe that. I have to think of the children, though.”
    “It was my fault.”
    “It was not. Outsiders have no idea what it’s like to be hooked up to those detectors. I know one girl who literally begins shaking about a week before her annual sessions.” She laughed. “Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall at her confessions?”
    I appreciated that in her typically gracious way she was trying to take the sting out of my embarrassment. But the only thing that would help at that moment would be to get my hands around her husband’s throat.
    Mary smiled at my co-counsel and said, “Katrina, it was a real pleasure meeting you. I really wish it was under better circumstances.”
    “Likewise. Listen, sorry about your husband. How are the children handling it?”
    “They still don’t know. I’m trying to keep it that way. We’ve canceled my father’s newspaper subscriptions, and the cable TV hookups have been disconnected.”
    “They don’t know?”
    “I told them he’s on a trip. Maybe it’s a mistake . . . they’ve been yanked away from their school and home and friends in Moscow. They’re only kids. How much do you inflict on them at once?”
    Then I received a perfunctory peck on the cheek, and we were off.
    Once we were settled in the car, Katrina studied my face for a moment. “You think it was deliberate, don’t you?”
    “He had to know.”
    “Maybe he was using you to sound her out. Maybe it was a loyalty test. Or maybe he’s just desperate.”
    “Or maybe he’s just an asshole,” I opined, putting the car in drive and peeling out of the driveway. I didn’t think it was any of the three reasons she just suggested. I thought he was trying to make me look like an idiot in front of Mary. And I walked right into it. From a personal standpoint, it pissed me off. From a professional standpoint, I found it alarming. This case was difficult enough without my client arranging emotional ambushes to show he’s the better man.
    Back at my office, one of Imelda’s assistants was in the process of signing for a huge shipment of boxes. Three uniformed guards stood beside a delivery van, and a fellow in a gray suit blocked my doorway. Either FedEx was becoming very security conscious or I was looking at Eddie’s first evidentiary dump.
    I walked up and introduced myself to the guy in the gray suit, who flashed a badge I didn’t recognize, identified himself as Herbert Something-or-other, and then coldly demanded, “Where are these documents going to be secured?”
    I regarded the stacks in the back of the van and wondered myself. My office contained only two wall safes, and there were enough boxes to fill at least six. I told him I’d order more safes before we left that night.
    “That won’t be satisfactory,” he snarled. “I’m not permittedto leave until I’ve ensured all the proper precautions are in place.”
    Given that this guy was sent by the same fellas who’d broken into my office that very morning, this was two feet short of hilarious. I pointed at a chair and said, “Make yourself comfortable.”
    Katrina and I then walked in and started cracking open boxes. We yanked out folder after folder after folder. I knew this drill. When Eddie got the call from Johnson to start releasing evidence, he and his legions began stuffing boxes with as many papers as they could lay their hands on. The vast majority of this stuff was meaningless garbage intended to exhaust and frustrate us.
    Did I mention yet that Eddie’s a complete prick? Aware it was only me and Katrina on my team, the more of our time he could waste, the better.
    Unfortunately, I had no solution to that. Katrina and I therefore dutifully stayed till midnight, speed-reading through folders and struggling to sift the important from the trivial. It was a high-risk game. Eddie’s folks surely kept a log of everything, and the odds were we’d get to court and Eddie would unleash some critical piece of evidence, and we’d