Chapter Twenty
Jake stood in the doorway to Pam’s home office, where she was at her desk on the cell phone. She motioned him inside, and he entered and sat down in the pink flowered chair opposite her. They had achieved an uneasy truce during dinnertime, then Ryan had gone to his bedroom to do homework and she had retreated to her home office to make calls to the powers-that-be about her judicial nomination. He’d come in to see her to find out any details about the FBI interviews, so he could prepare Ryan. Lewis Deaner had to settle for the backburner, for now.
Pam held up an index finger, flashing him the one minute sign, and Jake looked idly around her office. It was smaller than his, but it had a cozy feel, which was why she always called it her nest. The two windows on the wall had a sunny southern exposure, but they were dark now, and red oriental-type lamps gave off a soft, homey glow. He liked her office, but it was very feminine, with pink walls, a maroon, red, and pink Heriz rug, and pink-and-red curtains in a pattern that had colonial people standing in front of thatched huts.
Toile, Pam had said, of the curtain pattern. It’s called toile.
How do you spell that?
T-O-I-L-E.
Like toilet?
Pam had laughed. You’re useless, completely useless.
Jake tried to relax in the chair, but couldn’t. He was facing an entire wall of her framed diplomas, admission certificates to the Pennsylvania and New Jersey bars, and documents that admitted her to practice law in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. They stared him in the face, setting into stark relief the paradox of their different positions. His wife was sitting behind a cluttered desk, trying to become a federal judge, one of the highest positions in the country in which to make and to enforce civil and criminal law. He sat opposite her, as if diametrically opposed, having committed the worst crime imaginable and concealed it from her and the authorities, in a conspiracy with her own son.
“Sorry if I was testy today.” Pam hung up the phone, excited and happy.
“No worries. I’m sorry too. How’s it going? Anything new?”
“Actually, yes.” Pam leaned excitedly over the messy papers. “This is really happening fast. They’re going to make it public later I think. My name is definitely going up the ladder to the White House, to be nominated.”
“Honey, that’s amazing! Congratulations!”
“I know! Isn’t it so great?” Pam’s eyes lit up, then she seemed to check herself. “But I can’t count my chickens before they’re hatched. There’s a lot that has to happen between now and then, and you know these vacancies can be open for years.”
Jake liked the sound of that. Ryan needed a few years to get past the accident. “So then they’re not going to investigate you for a few years?”
“No, you misunderstand me. They do the investigation now and the nomination happens, then there’s the Senate hearings, but you have to wait to be confirmed. That’s the part that takes years.”
“Oh, too bad.” Jake hid his alarm.
“Patty Shwartz still hasn’t gotten on the Third Circuit and she was nominated over two years ago, for a seat that was vacated two years prior. She had her hearing and she still hasn’t been confirmed.” Pam shook her head. “It’s classic hurry-up-and-wait.”
“So when does the investigation start?”
“Right now.”
“But your nomination isn’t public yet—”
“No, to be precise, I haven’t been nominated yet. It’s the president who does the nominating.” Pam’s voice turned professorial. “There’s a questionnaire I have to answer and hand in next week, so if that goes smoothly, then it becomes public and starts officially.”
Jake tried not to panic. It was too short a time for Ryan to have any emotional distance from the hit-and-run.
“The way it works is first, I get nominated by the president, then I have to submit the answers to the questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee within five days from the date of the nomination.”
“Five days? Wow.”
“They make my answers public for three weeks and the hearing is scheduled anytime after that.”
“So this is all happening this month?” Jake masked his dread.
“They emailed me all the questionnaires and information, and I printed it out. I ran out of paper, you believe that?” Pam gestured happily to the stacks on her desk. “I have to answer all of it this week. I can’t believe how extensive it is.” Pam flipped through a thick packet of papers, bolted at the top with a heavy metal clip. “This is only one of the questionnaires. It’s sixty pages long!”
“Let me see.” Jake held out his hand, and Pam gave him the packet, which he began to flip through. He passed headings for Education, Employment, Bar and Court Admissions, Public Statements, and Published Writings. He didn’t see the part about the FBI. “It’s a lot of work here.”
“I know, right? And you see where it says I have to give the names of the counsel in these cases? They contact them, all of them. They interview them.”
“Who does? The FBI?”
“No, the FBI investigates me and you, personally. The Department of Justice, the ABA, and the Senate Judiciary Committee investigate my career and finances. But they do overlap, not surprisingly. It’s a bureaucracy. There’s multiple questions that basically cover my judicial career, with an emphasis on any personal wrongdoing.”
Jake shuddered. “Wrongdoing? You? How absurd.”
“Obviously, but they have to ask. There’s tons of questions that require disclosure of any violations of the law since I was eighteen years old. It even asks whether I’ve been accused of violating any county or even municipal regulations or ordinances.” Pam snorted. “The only criminal questions that aren’t covered are traffic violations for which a fine of fifty dollars or less was imposed.”
Jake managed a smile. “You don’t even have that.”
“I know. I’m such a good girl. They ask about tax liens, collection procedures, or any kind of civil-law violations or state-bar proceedings. It’s all public, except our financial records. The financial stuff will take forever.” Pam rolled her eyes. “Will you do that part for me?”
“Of course. Is that for the FBI, too?”
“No. Those questions come from the Justice Department and the office of the Attorney General. They want to make sure there’s no financial conflicts of interests, and they want our tax returns, for God-knows-how-many years.”
“That’s okay, I can deal.” Jake wasn’t getting anywhere beating around the bush. “Tell me about the FBI. How does that work?”
“They assign a special agent, or sometimes two, to investigate us. I was on the phone with Michael Rizzo just now, and he told me that over a three-week period, he had twenty-four hours of face-to-face interviews with the FBI.”
“Really?” Jake’s mouth went dry. “That’s a lot longer than I thought.”
“You and me both.” Pam cringed. “Worst job interview ever.”
“How long did they question his family for, did he say?”
“He said they spent an entire day with his wife, because she had a lot of financial ups and downs they had to sort out. But we don’t have that. Anymore.”
Jake knew what she was referring to. “How about his kids?”
“They don’t have any. And they asked him for phone records, old passports, case files, and even some old school records.”
“Do you think they’ll ask for Ryan’s school records?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will they interview Ryan alone or with us?”
“I don’t know that either. He has nothing to worry about, but I bet they’ll spend a lot of time with you and ask questions about your finances. But we don’t have anything to worry about though. We do everything by the book.”
“How about Ryan? What could they possibly ask him?”
“I have no idea. We’re as clean as a whistle, really.” Pam shrugged. “And they really do talk to the neighbors. Rizzo told me that the FBI contacted twenty of his friends and classmates all over the country, even the world. He said they really do go up and knock on the neighbors’ doors. They asked his neighbors if he and his wife got along well with everyone, fought excessively, drank excessively, or were ever seen doing anything suspicious or unusual. Can you imagine that?”
“Sheesh.” Jake had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, praying that no one had seen him burn the parka the other day.
Pam plucked some papers off the desk and handed them over. “Here, can you take a look at this? It’s the financial part. Go to page fifty-nine.”
“Sure.” Jake flipped to the page, which was headed Deferred Income/Future Benefits. He skimmed the question. List all the sources, amounts and dates of all anticipated receipts from deferred income payments, stock, options, uncompleted contracts and other future benefits … “Boy, they aren’t kidding.”
“No, they’re not. And go down to item number 22, which is source of income.”
Jake read down to the paragraph. List sources and amounts of all income received during the calendar year preceding your nomination and for the current calendar year, including all salaries, fees, dividends, interest, gifts, rents, royalties, licensee’s fees … “I get the idea.”
“It’s a nightmare.”
Jake didn’t bother to correct her. He knew exactly what a nightmare was and he was living it. “I can answer this for you. I’ll do it tomorrow at the office.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Pam picked up another set of papers and handed them over the desk. “They also need a complete and detailed statement of our net worth, which goes back before the nomination, and the worst part is, since there’s always a delay between the nomination and the hearing, sometimes three and four years, we have to keep updating the information, on a quarterly basis.” Pam threw up her hands. “It’s like doing your taxes every quarter for the next five years!”
Jake smiled. He wished he were living in Before, too, back when the only thing he had to worry about was paperwork. “Don’t worry, we’ll get through it.”
“I wonder if I’ll even make it.” Pam flopped back in her cushy chair. “They said one of the reasons my name came to the front was because I’m a registered Independent. I’m the most apolitical, but that’s not always the best thing.”
“Sure it is. You’re about the job, not about the politics.”
“Ha! Well, of course, it being the federal government, there is a document that actually gives you the precise qualifications for the job.” Pam searched around her desk, located some papers, and held them up. “Here we have a form. Presto!” She read aloud. “I’m paraphrasing, but the first requirement is, I have to be a citizen.”
“Check.”
“I have to have a reputation for integrity and good character.”
“Check,” Jake said, but that would disqualify her if anything about the accident came to light.
“I have to be fair and unbiased.”
“You are.”
“I have to be of sound mental and physical health.”
Jake smiled. “Mental health? You can’t win them all.”
“Very funny.” Pam grinned and returned to her document. “I have to be committed to equal justice under the law, have an outstanding legal ability, and competence and a willingness to manage trial proceedings.”
“You have all that. You’ll get it.”
“But the fact that I’m not political means that nobody really backs me from either party.”
“Or conversely, it means that neither party opposes you and your nomination sails through.”
“Thanks. I try to do the right thing, every case. I try to follow the law.” Pam raised her hand like the Statue of Liberty. “I stand for the law!”
“That’s my girl!” Jake masked his emotions, feeling like a total fraud.
“I’m also supposed to think about why I really want to be a federal judge.” Pam paused. “Let me remember how Rizzo put it. He told me I’m supposed to engage in ‘critical self-reflection.’ I told him don’t worry about that, I’m a woman. I wake up in critical self-reflection.”
Jake smiled. “You want it, right?”
“More than anything.”
Jake got up, walked around the desk, and gave her a big hug. “Then you shall have it, my love.”