Balance of Power

    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?"

    "Not on my part. My deepest regret is that I was so far away, in Washington or overseas . . ."

    "What about on Joan's part?"

    "Joan always knew I loved her. I'm only sorry that she's not here to reassure you of that herself."

    Nolan leaned forward. "For what reason, then, did you never discuss with her what must have been a nightmare of abuse?"

    Lara folded her hands in front of her. "Because it was a nightmare, and I knew she was ashamed. Kerry was also family, and a former domestic violence prosecutor—the best possible person for Joan to talk with. It seemed cruel to make her repeat the painful facts to me in person, just out of some warped sense I was entitled to that as her sister. Helping Joan was about what was best for her, not me."