Chapter 27: The Plea

Federal courtrooms are smaller than television makes them.

The one on the twenty-first floor held ten wooden benches and a flag.

The judge had not smiled since law school.

Sixty people in dark green jackets filled the benches on the left.

They had come on the train together.

Nadine sat on my right with her hoops tucked under a scarf, and Winslow sat on my left with his hands on his knees.

The CFO sat behind us, alone, and every so often I heard him breathe in and out again.

Darrell stood at the defense table in a gray suit that was a size too large.

There was a black band at his ankle, under the trouser leg, that showed when he shifted his weight.

His hair was not gelled at all.

He had brought no one.

"Mr. Gaines," the judge said, "you have signed a plea agreement to three counts. Do you understand that you waive your right to trial?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Has anyone promised you anything outside this paper?"

"No."

"Then I will ask you to tell the court, in your own words, what you did."

His lawyer, a tired public defender with a thin file, half rose.

"Your Honor, we've prepared a statement."

"I'd like his own."

Darrell stood a long time with his hands at his sides.

Then he reached into his jacket and took out a single sheet, folded in quarters, and unfolded it.

His hands were shaking so hard that the page whispered.

"Between August of last year and this October," he read, "I took money out of Gaines Hospitality that was never mine to take."

He swallowed.

"It went into an account in my name alone."

He stopped.

He lowered the page.

"I used it for a flat, for jewelry, for hotels, and to keep a woman who wasn't my wife."

His voice thinned.

"I told my board the company was profitable. It wasn't. My wife paid for everything, and I told her I was working late."

A sound moved through the benches.

"On the Tuesday before the gala I fired sixty people by email."

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