"Not," Kit interrupted, "if you've given Leo Weller a hundred thousand or so."
As if on cue, Weller's face appeared. Now Senator Leo Weller, the young woman's voice continued, is sponsoring legislation to keep us from holding the company responsible.
With a jarring abruptness, Weller was replaced by a dying man breathing through a respirator. I'd like an apology from Leo Weller, he said in a labored wheeze. But he wouldn't even meet with us. I want to know before I die what makes an asbestos company's profits more important than my life . . .
"Seems fair enough," observed Kit. "Wonder what Weller would tell him."
The first woman reappeared, her words more piercing for the plainspoken flatness of her speech. The asbestos industry is spending millions of dollars pushing legislation they wrote, sponsored by Senator Weller, to protect them from the people they poisoned. They call it the Civil Justice Reform Act. We hope you'll call Senator Weller and ask him why he won't stand up for us.
Against a black background, the telephone number of Weller's Washington office appeared in white. Softly, the woman finished, Please help us, and then the screen went dark.
It was a moment before Kerry spoke. "Know what the media buy is?"
"Two million," Kit answered. "In Montana, that's enough to run it every night, on every station, for the next three weeks. Lenihan's people have already taken this to CNN and Nightline, and they're both looking at doing stories."
Kerry looked up at her. "A couple of weeks of this and Leo may be a tad more flexible on tort reform." He briefly shook his head. "It's exactly what I wanted them to do—put their money on the screen. It's also what Chad Palmer and I spent half our careers complaining about— except now the trial lawyers are almost as powerful as the corporations, and they're both at least as powerful as the parties they're trying to buy. All that's changed is that we've all become a little worse, and the system a little worse off."
Kit did not answer. Kerry realized that the plane had slowed; glancing out the window, he saw the mirage which was Las Vegas.
"Do you really want to do this?" Kit asked. "You've got no idea in the world what will happen."
Kerry smiled faintly. "Just stand back from me a little. With any luck, they'll miss you."
SIX
At two o'clock in the afternoon, Lara and Avram Gold entered the conference room of Nolan's firm.
Though it felt awkward, Lara greeted Sarah with polite formality. The others—Lenihan and the defense lawyers, Nolan, Fancher, and their associates—shook her hand with deference, a receiving line of litigators. This false decorum made her edgy. Despite all of her experience as a public person, the risks she had run as a war correspondent, she had not been able to eat since breakfast. There was a knot in the pit of her stomach.
She sat across from Nolan. Somewhat theatrically, Avram Gold looked about the room. "What," he inquired with a mocking edge, "no video camera?"
To Lara, a trace of cynicism showed beneath Nolan's mandarin air of calm. "For Mrs. Kilcannon," he answered smoothly, "we didn't feel it necessary."
Lara studied him. His face was broad and flat, his forehead high, and he wore a double-breasted blue pinstripe like an armor of wealth and privilege. Lara detested the fact that this stranger—the representative of so much she disliked—could make her relive the worst moments of her life, or account for her relationship to those whom she had lost. She determined to give him nothing—no emotion, no pretense of cordiality, only a cool façade. They would see who would be the first to crack.
"Please state your name for the record," Nolan said to Lara.
"Lara Costello Kilcannon," she replied, and the deposition began.
* * *
In the first few moments, Nolan established that she once had had a living mother, Inez; a sister, Joan; and a six-year-old niece, Marie. To Lara, the familiarity with which he spoke their names was an affront.
"When," Nolan inquired, "did you first realize that John was abusing your sister?"
"During a trip to San Francisco with my husband, shortly after the President was elected." She paused briefly. "When I went to see Joan she had bruises on her face."
"How long had this abuse been going on?"
"I don't know, exactly. But I gather for some time."
Nolan raised his eyebrows. "Why is it that you didn't know?"
It was starting, Lara knew—the implication, slowly planted, that Joan's negligent family, by failing to help or intervene, had sown the seeds of its own tragedy. Part of her tensed with anger; another part wished to cry out in grief and protest, pleading for exculpation. But this deposition was not a human process, and Nolan far from her confessor. "I'm afraid," she responded coolly, "that only Joan can answer that."
Though expressionless himself, Nolan paused. "Then why do you believe that it had been happening for some time?"
"Joan indicated that to my husband."
"In your presence?"
"No."
Facing Nolan, Gold leaned forward between Lara and her interrogator, palm raised to interrupt the questioning. "To the extent that the question asks the witness to divulge confidential conversations between husband and wife, that is covered by the marital privilege, which exists to protect the sanctity of that relationship. As to those, the witness will not answer."
Coldly, Nolan asked Lara, "Is it your position, Mrs. Kilcannon, that you will refuse to provide any information about your sister's abuse—or the circumstances leading to her murder—if you discussed them with your husband?"
Lara paused, gripped by disbelief that this obtrusive stranger could keep her in this stifling room, forcing her to parse his twistings of a tragedy which had seared her soul forever, and about which he cared nothing. "No," she answered. "Mr. Gold stated my position. Why don't you have the reporter read it back."
Lara felt the others watching, tense and quiet. Nolan seemed to gauge her, weighing his choices.
"Did you ever," he demanded of Lara, "discuss with Joan, your sister, her history of abuse?"
"Not my sister, Joan. Was there some other Joan you were curious about?"
Across the table, she saw Nolan assimilate the dimensions of their contest: Lara felt under no compunction to cater to him, and was determined not to indulge the human impulse to justify her actions or inac tions. She would reserve any display of her humanity—with its more elaborate answers—for the jury.
"Were there," Nolan persisted, "strains in your relationship with Joan?"