Chapter 4 - Camille’s Father
Everett Arden had been dead eleven months.
Heart failure.
Seventy-three.
He had been one of the best white-collar defense lawyers in New York during the years when my father’s generation treated subpoenas as seasonal weather.
Everett represented businessmen.
Politicians.
Union officials.
Occasionally people with our surname.
He never represented me.
By the time I took over our companies, I hired firms whose offices did not contain photographs of my father.
Camille had been Everett’s only child.
Her mother died when Camille was twenty-four.
After Everett’s death, Camille became executor of his estate.
That gave her access to:
His home.
Storage rooms.
Personal correspondence.
Some archived materials.
It did not make her the owner of every client confidence he had ever received.
Attorney-client privilege does not dissolve because the attorney dies.
Ethical confidentiality can survive as well.
But old lawyers sometimes keep things they should have returned to firms.
Personal notebooks.
Letters.
Copies.
Family files accumulated over decades.
Elena Park contacted Everett’s former law firm.
Their general counsel took the matter seriously immediately.
“We have no indication Ms. Arden accessed firm archives.”
“Could Everett have maintained client materials at home?”
“We’re reviewing.”
Helena had her own counsel now.
Naomi Feld.
Seventy.
Small office.
No drama.
She had taken over Helena’s private matters after Everett retired.
Naomi insisted I not attend their first call.
Again:
Helena’s lawyer.
Not mine.
That distinction irritated me until I recognized irritation as exactly why the distinction mattered.
Two days later Naomi joined us in my mother’s apartment.
She placed a yellow pad on the table.
“Camille appears to have found a sealed packet in Everett’s home office.”
“What packet?”
“Copies of letters between Everett and Helena, plus what looks like Everett’s personal chronology of a federal cooperation matter.”
My throat tightened.
“Cooperation.”
Naomi did not soften the word.
“Yes.”
My mother sat by the window.
No jewelry.
No makeup.
For the first time in years, she looked tired.
I asked:
“Did Camille copy it?”
“We believe so.”
“How?”
“Her lawyer contacted Everett’s former firm after the birthday incident and asked whether publication would expose her to civil claims.”
I almost laughed.
“She asked a law firm whether she could publish its dead partner’s confidential file?”
“Her lawyer did. Which suggests counsel is trying to stop her from doing something reckless.”
Good lawyers are often the last barrier between anger and a second mistake.
Naomi continued.
“The firm demanded return of any privileged material and preservation of all copies.”
“Will she comply?”
“Unknown.”
“Can we get an injunction?”
“Potentially, depending on what she possesses, whether privilege applies to each item, and whether publication is threatened imminently.”
“What does the file say?”
My mother answered before Naomi.
“That I spoke to federal prosecutors about your father.”
Silence.
I stared at her.
She held my gaze.
No apology.
Not yet.
May you like
Not until I knew what she had actually done.
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