Page 58 of The Wife

“Is it bad?” Corrine asked.

“I have no idea. I just wasted an hour educating myself on private water companies that serve developing countries. Getting clean water into those areas of the world can literally save lives, but it also involves doing business with some sketchy regimes.”

“Sketchy regimes? Is that an official State Department designation?”

“What am I, the Council on Foreign Relations? This stuff’s way over my head. Apparently a bunch of companies have stopped doing business in parts of the world that are most in need of water. Oasis, on the other hand, continues to land privatization contracts, making them darlings among Jason Powell’s crowd.”

“But maybe raising questions about how they’re able to venture where others won’t?”

“Well, that’s what Olivia Randall says, and it doesn’t help that Kerry had an affair with the CEO. And meanwhile, Kerry won’t talk to me about it. I called Oasis’s in-house counsel with some general questions, and they basically told me to piss up a rope. This trial’s going to be a shit show—if it even goes.”

King had already been nervous about the complicated arguments Olivia Randall was promising to raise at trial, and that was before Kerry surprised them yesterday by filing a civil suit in the highest-profile manner imaginable. Corrine respected Janice Martinez’s work on behalf of crime victims, but she also knew that the woman’s priority was not obtaining a criminal conviction and sentence. She believed in punishment through the pocketbook. Now she was insisting that all communications with Kerry go through her, and was refusing to let Kerry answer any questions about her employer or her affair with Tom Fisher, insisting that those topics were irrelevant.

“I also read up on Powell himself.”

“Sounds like you did a lot of reading today.”

“I found an article he wrote forHuffington Posta year ago about the kinds of good works private companies are doing around the world—water purification systems like Oasis, low-cost solar lighting for third-world regions, a nutritional supplement that could cut infant mortality rates by a third in mothers without proper nutrition. The jury’s going to want to give him a medal.”

“Except they know by now that a man can be solid on his politics and a predator behind closed doors.”

Corrine considered once again whether she should tell King what she had learned about Angela Powell’s past. If he was worried about the jury seeing Jason Powell as a saint, it certainly wouldn’t help matters if they learned that he had married the woman who survived Charles Franklin’s horrific abuse and raised the son she had borne as a result. Corrine was actually surprised that Powell’s own lawyer hadn’t lobbed the information into the public yet. But if she had to guess, Angela was the one blocking that move. That detective in East Hampton had made it clear how hard the family had worked to keep the past in the past.

Having now spoken to the woman face-to-face, Corrine had no doubt that Powell’s wife had spent years developing a carefully crafted persona. She hadn’t flinched when Corrine told her about the prostitute. Standing quietly by her husband was one thing, but Corrine couldn’t imagine Angela jumping into a spotlight for him.

Corrine decided to keep the information to herself for now.

“Unless he’s not a predator,” King was saying. “If he was having an affair with Kerry and had suspicions about Oasis, it would make sense that he’d go to her to see what she knew. But maybe he made a mistake trusting her.”

She quickly ran through the logic of Powell’s defense. If Kerry believed that Powell was going to bring down Oasis, her own livelihood was on the line, too. She could have told her bosses—including the one she once had an affair with—that Jason was a problem, and then used their relationship to fabricate a sexual assault claim on the heels of Rachel’s initial complaint against him.

“You should have gone to law school, Duncan. That was a magna cum laude summary right there.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I make more money than you with OT, and can retire in five years with a pension. You can keep your JD.”

“You sure you won’t go out with me?”

“Stop asking. It’s getting sad. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re starting to believe Powell.”

“Don’t quote me on this, but I don’t know what to think at this point. It bothers me that Powell knew so much about Kerry’s relationship with her boss. It makes me think he’s telling the truth about the affair.”

“You do know a woman can be raped by someone she’s had consensual sex with before, don’t you?”

“You don’t need to fem-splain sex offenses to me.”

“Please don’t try to make that a word.”

“Look, I get it: I’ve prosecuted plenty of date rapes. Marital cases, too. But Kerry’s denying any kind of relationship with Powell. It comes down to her credibility.”

“If she had come in saying she’d had an on-and-off affair with some consultant at work, and one night he forced himself on her, what would you have done when she reported it weeks later?”

He didn’t respond.

“I mean, hypothetically, if she did have something going with Powell, does that really matter?”

“I take it back. You shouldn’t have just gone to law school. You should have taught it, Socratic method and all.”

“The point is, Kerry might have lied about some things, but not the ones that matter. Maybe she thought we wouldn’t believe her unless it looked less like date rape and more like ‘rape-rape.’” She used her free hand to make air quotes.

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