“If either of you insists on trying this case,” Teresa Mason, the guardian ad litem appointed to represent my client’s child, says, her eyes-flashing, “I’m going to recommend foster care. Wayne, your client beat this child black-and-blue, and, Gideon, your client let him, and I’ve got the records from Cook County Social Services to prove it.”
I want to lean over and kiss Teresa. She has done her homework. I was prepared to win this case and have nightmares the rest of my life. Wayne Oglesby, glancing over at our clients seated with their witnesses on opposite sides of the courtroom, blusters, “They’re not admissible It’s all hearsay.”
Teresa, who must be a third of Wayne’s size, scoffs, “Give it up, Wayne. I’ll just ask for a continuance and get them certified. You know the judge will grant it if I ask him. I just got them in the mail this morning.”
Wayne, an ex-tight end for the Arkansas State Indians swells up like a toad, somehow reminding me of Jabba the Hutt in one of the Star Wars movies. I know he is thinking that Teresa is a meddling little bitch, but thank God for lawyers who take this role seriously.
Both Wayne and I have known that neither of our clients was fit to have custody, but we were prepared to tear little Bobby McNair apart this morning in the name of representing them.
“What do you want?” I ask Teresa, knowing I can shove down my client’s throat whatever she recommends.
Salina McNair can no more resist the male species than Dan can stay on a diet. Away from dominant, brutish men, whom she attracts like flies on fresh roadkill, Salina is a marginally decent mother; however, she won’t or can’t protect her son from the hideous guys who seem to line up at her door. In my bones I’ve known this for the last month, but pretended she only needed one more fresh start, despite watching the dynamics between her and the asshole who insisted on coming to my office with her each time I interviewed her. Over Teresa’s shoulder I get a glimpse of him now, all draped around Salina. He would have locked Bobby down in the cellar after a week, and she would have told herself, “Gee, all of a sudden, Bobby likes to play where it’s nice and dark.”
“Salina’s sister will take him,” Teresa says firmly.
“The home study’s not bad, but each of your clients will have to kick in for support. She can’t do it by herself.”
“No fucking way,” Wayne grunts under his breath.
“He’ll never go for it.”
“That’s okay with me,” Teresa shoots back. “Tell him the social worker in Chicago has promised me she will file criminal charges for assault if he gets custody.”
Wayne picks at a herpes cold sore as big as a dime on his lip. He knows this may be a bluff, but it is something his client will have to think about. His distaste for Teresa is obvious, but she couldn’t have him more firmly by the balls if she were holding on with a set of pliers. Rick Crawford, the chancery judge who appointed Teresa to represent the kid, would believe her over Wayne or me even if we had the entire United States Supreme Court as character witnesses for our clients.
“Let me go talk to him,” Wayne mutters as he gets up.
I can’t resist winking at Teresa as soon as Wayne’s back is turned. Teresa is one of the better-looking female attorneys in Blackwell County, and is happily married with four kids. She glares at me.
“How can you represent a woman like that, Gideon?” she hisses at me as I start to push up from my chair to go talk to Salina.
“She should have her cunt sewn shut and you know it!”
The fierceness of her words shocks me as much as her profanity. Teresa and her husband, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital with a national reputation, appear regularly in the society pages of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. I shrug.
“Women who want custody of their kids don’t seem at first blush public enemy number one.”
From a manila folder Teresa throws out on the table pictures of Bobby that turn my stomach. His buttocks look like hamburger meat.
“I haven’t seen these,” I say, feeling my face turn warm.
Teresa shakes her finger at me.
“Your client doesn’t have any business even trying to raise a hamster.”
I finger the pictures, trying not to wince.
“She’s had a hell of a life herself,” I say weakly. Actually, I do not know this, but only suspect it from some of my client’s comments.
“That doesn’t give her the right to let her child suffer like this,” she says harshly.
“I’m not kidding. She should be sterilized.”
So should about half the population of this country, I think, having had enough of Teresa’s righteous indignation It must be nice to be on the side of justice all the time.
“I’ll go talk to my client,” I say, and scoot away before I shoot off my mouth.
Ten minutes later, we announce to a relieved Rick Crawford that we have a settlement. He tells our clients to make sure they pay Teresa’s fees within thirty days, and I walk back to my office, relieved I have lost another case and telling myself for the tenth time since I have been in private practice to turn down all but childless divorce cases with ironclad prenuptial agreements.
“Why, Mr. Page,” Leigh says, displaying only mild surprise, “I didn’t know we had a meeting set up.”
Though it is after two in the afternoon, she looks fresh and crisp, and, as usual, is dressed as if she is ready to go out on a moment’s notice. What is different is her hair. When I had seen her before it was up. Today it is down past her shoulders and more gorgeous than ever.
She is wearing a pure silk emerald green shell with padded shoulders over a tan skirt. Even her belt looks expensive.
Maybe Art laundered a lot more money than we know.
“You didn’t call me back,” I remind her. In the background I can hear her mother’s voice on the telephone.
“Why don’t we go for a ride? I need to talk to you, and I don’t think you want your mother present.”
She gives me a quizzical look. She has seen the deferential version of the faithful sidekick and probably likes him better, but she nods.
“Just a moment.”
I try to look into the house, but my eyes don’t have the time to adjust to the dimness before she is back striding past me out the door. It is a brilliant spring afternoon, the kind of day that makes me wish I had a job out of doors. After this morning’s travesty, I ought to try to get one. The best thing about Arkansas is that even its most populated areas are within fifteen minutes of the country in any direction. Since we’re out in the western part of the county anyway, I head for Pinnacle Mountain, only a short drive west. No one will mistake us for an illicit couple looking for a place to neck. No McDonald’s employees I know have girlfriends who look this classy.
“Why didn’t you call?” I ask, trying not to sound like a rejected suitor. I realize as soon as I ask that my feelings are slightly hurt. I pride myself on being able to get clients to talk to me. I didn’t expect her to fall in love with me, but I assumed she would keep her word. Just like a man, Rainey would say.
“I’ve been talking to Mr. Bracken,” she says carefully.
“I’m sure you know that.” I glance over at her, but she keeps her eyes on the road.
I decide to wait to respond until we are at the park.
I want to see her face when she is speaking. I tell her where we are headed, but she has no comment. Surely Chet has told her that I have been to San Francisco. It is all I can do to keep my mouth shut.
I turn off the engine in one of the parking spaces near the picnic tables, remembering one Saturday long ago with Rosa and Sarah. Sarah was about nine years old, and it was her first ascent to the top. We treated it as if we had climbed Mount Everest. An ache comes into my heart as I remember the exhilaration we all felt as we came down. I turn off the motor and ask, “You ever climb Pinnacle?”
“Sure,” she says, her face softening for the first time.
“My dad used to bring me out here lots of times. The best thing about being a preacher’s kid is getting to see your father. His days off were in the middle of the week.”
The park is virtually deserted, with only a couple of cars in it. Too late for picnickers, too early (I hope) for the teenagers who come out here to smoke and hang out. We get out and both wander around, each of us locked for a moment inside our own memories. Eastern Arkansas, with its rich Delta soil nourished by the Mississippi, for the most part, is flat as a table top, and it does not take much of a climb to impress me. Leigh, in four-inch heels, is hardly dressed for an assault on a peak I’ve seen five-year-olds conquer, but such is the mystique of heights that we both search the brush for the trail that leads to the top. She could easily be taken for my daughter, I realize. Not for the first time I wonder if I have smothered Sarah as much as Norman has smothered Leigh. Sarah is still angry at me. Though she pretended to have gotten over our fight the night before I left for San Francisco, she said barely two words after she picked me up from the airport. How much am I really like Norman? Probably more than I care to admit.
He got Leigh a job in the church to keep her close; secretly, I’ve dreamed for the last year that Sarah would attend law school at UALR and come into practice with me. Norman and I both use guilt in the same quantities the Nazis used gas. I think Leigh is protecting her father.
As disgusted with me as she is right now, I’m not sure Sarah would be so charitable.
I sit on one side of a picnic table and watch Leigh staring at a squirrel that is eyeing her with an equal amount of curiosity. Could she really have murdered her husband? At the moment, nothing seems more unlikely.
Bending down and clucking at the bemused animal, she seems about ten. Finally, it scampers away and she comes to the table, smiling as if she had tamed it. I say, hoping to catch her off guard, “I didn’t learn anything in San Francisco that will convince a jury you were at risk.”
She does not respond but places her hands over her mouth as if she is becoming nauseated.
“Art wasn’t a lot different from your father, was he?” I say, and tell her my belief that they must have hated each other.
“It must have seemed like Art was fighting for your body and Shane was fighting for your soul.”
Parting her hands, Leigh gives me a fierce look.
“My father didn’t kill my husband, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
The bench is hard. There is no getting comfortable on it. I follow up quickly.
“But you’re worried that he might have, aren’t you?”
When she doesn’t say anything, I plunge ahead.
“He was furious that morning at Art because you hadn’t come to church. He knew you were home, and when you went up there to pretend to check in, he went to the house and killed Art.”
Her beautiful face is flushed.
“That’s ridiculous!” she shouts at me.
“My father is incapable of killing anyone.”
She is breathing too hard for me to believe she is convinced of that.
“You know how jealous he was of Art,” I say.
“He thought he was the very personification of evil, and that’s what you now think, too. What was it you stayed home to do with Art that morning? Was it sex? Is that what you’re ashamed to tell?”
She begins to cry. Somehow she has to open up to me. I tell her, “My own daughter and I have become incredibly close since her mother died. I feel so helpless right now, because it seems like I’m about to lose her-ironically, to your father’s church. Could I kill somebody?
I think I could, but if I couldn’t, I suspect the reason is that I don’t know anybody at the moment who I can say is evil. If somebody abused her, hurt her, I doubt it would take me long to work up some uncontrollable anger. Did your father know about Art’s porno skimming plan? Is that what tipped him over the edge?”
Leigh reaches into her purse for a tissue. Her hands are shaking. Most women look terrible when they cry.
Instead, her eyes have become more enormous and beautiful.
“I don’t see how he could,” she gets out.
With the trial next week, it is now or never. I fear that someone will drive up, but it is quiet and peaceful, beyond words. In the distance I can see a park ranger’s truck stop down by the entrance. I say, “I know how attached your father is to you. He lost your sisters, and he was about to lose you. He probably loves you more than he loves your mother, Leigh. And Art stood for everything he hated. Your dad knew how the world seduces people, and he spent his life building a fortress so you could be safe from it. He didn’t want you to marry Art, did he?”
Leigh’s breasts rise and fall under the silk. She shakes her head.
“He wanted me to delay the wedding, but he couldn’t find anything specifically wrong with Art. He did say that if Art really loved me, he wouldn’t mind waiting until we got to know each other better.”
Men in their forties don’t have much patience. We see too many heart attacks in our age bracket. I stand up, unwilling to inflict the bench on my butt any longer.
“Shane hired an investigator to try to turn something up, didn’t he?” This is pure speculation, but not out of the realm of possibility. Shane, like Chet, doesn’t seem the type to leave much to chance if he can avoid it.
Leigh brushes her hair away from her neck. Though it is gloriously mild, doubtless she has begun to feel warmer since this conversation began.
“Art told me after we married that he thought Daddy had done something,” she confesses.
“He said somebody was looking into his business. Naturally, he assumed it was Daddy, but he was never able to confirm it.”
I glance up at the mountain, fearful that someone is suddenly going to come walking out of it. Turning back to Leigh I say, “A pretty logical assumption, don’t you think? After your sisters left the church and the state, I imagine he was paranoid about his favorite daughter.
And after you married Art, his worst suspicions were confirmed.” She looks down at the ground. There is something she hasn’t told me, but it may be too difficult. All her life she has been dominated by middleaged men. She may have had her fill of us.
“What about Art?” I ask.
“Was he worried about your father?”
Leigh wipes her eyes.
“Not physically,” she said.
“Three months after we were married, he told me I had been brainwashed by Daddy. He said Christian Life was fine for people afraid to live in the real world. He said our family groups were essentially spies, part of the thought police that Daddy used to control our behavior.”
I watch the park ranger’s truck drive slowly toward us. If he sees Leigh crying, he may stop.
“He never took Christian Life seriously, did he?” I ask.
“He said he did,” Leigh says, her voice bitter, “but I didn’t believe him.” She turns to watch as the ranger creeps slowly past us. He waves. I wave back. It is too lovely a day to go looking for trouble. I don’t know what the pay is, but I wouldn’t mind the job, cruising around the parks in perfect weather, hoping to catch couples making it in the backseat.
Leigh, I see, has some of her father in her. There is an unrevealed vein of anger at Art I haven’t tapped into yet.
“You wanted to believe him,” I say, encouraging her.
“That’s pretty obvious.”
She wets her lips, and her voice becomes high with indignation.
“My husband was a con artist of the first order. He could make you think black was white before you knew it. Of course I wanted him to believe in Jesus Christ. What was wrong with that?”
Am I the one being conned? She sounds so convincing my reaction is to doubt her. Still, I ask, “Did he make you doubt your faith?”
Leigh’s voice takes on an accusing tone.
“He could ridicule something without you even realizing that’s what he was doing. Before I knew it, I had begun to question the book of Genesis.”
Her look of astonished anger seems genuine. I try to put myself in her place. Despite her exquisite beauty, she has never lived in the world like a normal woman.
My supposition until now has been that anyone who looks like this can’t be naive. I realize I have been applying the same standards to Leigh that I apply to Sarah and to Rainey, but their situation is not even remotely similar. If Sarah and Rainey did not want to take the Bible literally, there is no one on earth who could talk them into it.
“You had to realize at some point Art was calling into question everything you and your father had lived for,” I say, not quite asking a question. What better motive for murder? If her actions weren’t a crime, they would be easy to justify. A jury made up of Christian Life members would probably acquit her in five minutes or at least would keep her out of jail.
Leigh looks pained as she admits, “It wasn’t as easy to see that as you think. For the first time in my life, I guess, thanks to my husband, I began to rebel against my father. Art was subtle about it at first. It was only right before he died that he really began to criticize Christian Life.”
I watch as the ranger drives back by. He waves again.
What a tough job.
“Was Art open about it?” I ask, wondering how much of it was getting back to Shane.
“No,” Leigh explains.
“You’d have to have known Art. In public he was charming and would give a million excuses for us not being up there more. In private, he made fun of my father.”
The prosecutor’s office would have a field day with this information. It is as damaging to Leigh as it is to her father. It hits me that it is not out of the realm of possibility that Leigh and her father could have planned this murder together. They certainly had a motive. Perhaps at the last moment someone is going to step forward to support Leigh’s alibi that she was at the church the entire time.
“Where has your mother been in all of this?” I ask, struck by how little Pearl Norman figures in her account.
Leigh shrugs as if the answer is obvious.
“Mother’s been out of the loop for as long as I can remember.”
I’m put off by her apparent callousness, but I think I can understand. She’s been looped for years, is what she means. You learn to maneuver around a parent like that and pretend things are normal. Two cars come roaring toward us. I know there is more that she needs to tell me, but it will have to wait, as an ancient Volkswagen and an equally old Dodge Dart swing in next to the Blazer. Six teenagers equally divided between boys and girls spill out and come toward us. They look like punks to me, though Sarah is constantly telling me I judge kids too harshly. The guys instantly begin to give Leigh the eye. Their girls, dressed in jeans, pale in comparison.
Though the age differences are clearly obvious (Leigh looks older than twenty-three), one of the guys can’t resist saying to her, “Hey, why don’t you drop this old fart and come with us?”
My manhood is threatened, but I can’t very well fight a kid, especially not one this big. Though I am an inch under six feet, this boy goes at least six feet two inches and looks in a lot better shape. My first and last fight in the last thirty years (less than a year ago) cost me a tooth. I am too young for a full set of dentures, so I mutter, “She doesn’t want to spend the afternoon changing your diapers.”
Naturally, this gets everyone’s attention, and I’m quickly surrounded by three kids whose ages barely add up to my own. Wonderful. In the course of twenty seconds I’ve gone from being a lawyer who has finally conducted a decent interview to becoming a hopeless jerk.
“I think pops wants his ass kicked,” the smallest kid says, clenching his fists.
I could probably whip him if I got lucky. Leigh looks frightened, though it seems extremely unlikely that she is in any danger of being harmed or raped. The three girls who came with the boys are plainly unhappy with the turn of events, even though they are silent. Their expressions range from disgust to jealousy. I wish one of them would announce that she will be organizing a sexual boycott if there is trouble, but the silence grows as I rack my brain for a suitable reply. Finally, I come to my senses and allow us all to save face.
“I’m not looking for trouble,” I say.
“All I’m trying to do is take this woman back to Christian Life, where I picked her up an hour ago.”
I have said the magic words. The least attractive of the girls, a dumpy blonde in denim overalls with hair the texture of straw, says, apropos of nothing, to her surprisingly sexy neighbor on her left, “I got an aunt who goes there. She says the minister’s really cool.”
Without missing a beat, Leigh says, her voice strong and confident, “He’s my father.” She doesn’t add that she suspects he is a murderer or that she is believed to have shot her husband through the heart. Nor does she add that one of her lawyers thinks the other one may somehow be involved. I would be willing to bet my false tooth that none of these kids has ever heard of Leigh. My bias against this motley crew is so strong it is next to impossible for me to concede they know much beyond each other’s names. Most information among the young, unless it is gossip, is baggage whose weight they consider excessive. The group parts like the Red Sea, and my client leads me to the safety of the Blazer.
Whatever closeness Leigh and I achieved (and I have at least the illusion that she has confided in me) vanishes We return to her parents’ house like a couple on their first real date, which didn’t quite work out. I feel I was near some information that would explain her to me. My remaining questions go ignored as she insists upon returning to the Christian Life compound. Instead, she protests mildly, “Why’d you say something smart to that boy? They could have hurt us.”
I look over at her to see if she is serious. I am so frustrated I’m about to burst. The last hour has convinced me she is covering up for her father in some manner, but I don’t know how to get it out of her. I can’t remember the last time I felt this irritated with a client.
“Was I supposed to kiss his ass?” I say crudely.
“I suppose I should have told him to be my guest.”
Shocked by my reaction, she seems to cower against the door.
“Men are such bullies,” she complains.
“You don’t sound any different than those boys.”
“You’re forgetting I backed down,” I remind her.
Bullies, are we? Is she talking about her father or Art or both? As we hit the traffic near town, I try again.
“What did Art bully you into doing?”
I look away from the road to see her reaction. For an instant I see anguish in her eyes, but she says nothing.
What was it? I know there is something she wants to tell me but can’t. I blurt out, “I think you know your father killed Art but you won’t admit it.”
In her eyes is the dumb fear you see in an animal’s face when it realizes it is trapped.
“Daddy didn’t kill Art!” she says shrilly.
I don’t believe her. I stop the Blazer in front of her parents’ house and get right in her face.
“You’re going to have to choose, Leigh. I know you think Chet can get you off. But with the way the evidence is stacking up now, that isn’t going to happen. I know how much you admire your father, and except for one horrible moment, he may be the most wonderful man in the world. But you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison for a crime you didn’t commit. Unless his alibi is rock solid, we’re going to have to go after your father.”
Leigh shakes her head and pushes her way out of the Blazer. As she runs around the front of the vehicle, I see her mother coming toward me down the walk. As before, she has the florid complexion of someone who has been drinking. Seeing the look on her daughter’s face, she pleads, “Where have you been? What’s wrong?”
Leigh stops on the grass between the curb and the sidewalk.
“Nothing, Mother,” she says stubbornly.
“Just go back in the house.”
mrs. Norman looks at her daughter and then at me.
“What happened?”
There is no doubt in my mind whose side Pearl Nor man will come down on. From the beginning, she has struck me as the kind of woman who would call her child a liar before she would believe an allegation of sexual abuse by her husband. Afraid Leigh will recite our conversation to her word for word, I say, “You understand my relationship with your daughter is confidential, mrs. Norman.”
Pearl Norman blinks away the technicality.
“Leigh is my daughter, Mr. Page.”
“And she is my client,” I say firmly, watching her face flush. Where was she during the murder? I’ll find that out, too, but the truth is, I can’t imagine Pearl Nor man firing a gun any more than I can imagine my own mother doing it. She seems too helpless, too dependent on men to be able to kill one of us.
“If you want to help Leigh’s case, you won’t pry.”
It is as if Barney life had cussed out Aunt Bee. Her lips quiver, and ninety-proof tears begin to gush as if a dam had burst. She turns and rushes back into the house with Leigh following closely behind. She is as protective of her mother as she is of her father. Damn. An other conversation like this one, and I’ll be watching this case from the back of the courtroom. I drive off as frustrated as a teenager who didn’t even get a goodnight kiss. With this weather I can’t bring myself to return to the office just yet and decide to make the afternoon a total waste by looking for Jason’s spiritual development center.
If I can get mrs. Chestnut’s money back for her, maybe she will adopt me and I can forget all this non sense about making a living. I have not been able to bring myself to return her call, but while I was in San Francisco, Julia said she had called with the address of Jason’s school: 10000 Damell Road. Since it is the only address in the last five years I’ve been able to remember without having to look it up, I consider it a good omen and head west again. In five minutes I see the sign, but instead of spiritual development, it promises Personality Enhancement in freshly painted letters.
Maybe Jason has begun to doubt his own abilities and has begun to settle for more modest goals.
I can hear dogs barking as soon as I get out of the car. I enter a rectangular wooden building and am met by a smiling young man behind a desk who asks if I am here to pick up Clarence.
I clear my throat and look around the room. It has the hosed-down look of a vet’s office, but I can hear opera music in the background. I am hardly a fan (the golden oldies on Cool [KOLL] 95 are my speed); nevertheless, I hear the familiar Toreador song and realize I’m hum ming along with it. Maybe this is the key to my own spiritual development. I am tempted to confess to being Clarence’s master if it will give me the opportunity to escape. Somehow, I am having difficulty asking for Jason. All of a sudden I feel as if I am here to get my hair done.
“No,” I stammer, “I’m just here to talk to, uh, Jason for a minute. Is he free?”
The young man, who has the smile of someone enjoying a drug high, looks at his watch.
“You’re in luck,” he says, beaming at me.
“He’s just finishing a class right now.”
Three p.m. right on the money. School’s out. I hear excited howls over the music. Why should this class be any different? Time to boogie.
“Great,” I say.
“Can I go on back?”
“I better take you,” he says, standing up and extending a hand.
“I’m Harvey,” he says. He, too, is dressed like a McDonald’s manager. We look as if we each work a different shift, but otherwise we could be father and son.
“I like your tie,” he says.
Target’s,” I admit.
“I have four or five almost just like this,” I say, shaking his hand which, like mine, is small for his size. I glance down at his tie. It is striped like my own. No flower jobs for me and Harvey. We’re from the old school and proud of it.
The fact that we are dressed almost identically must be reassuring to Harvey, for without another word, he leads me back through a kennel where there must be fifteen dogs in small cages. I get claustrophobic just looking at them. Every time I have had to board Woogie, he loses weight. I might get a little depressed myself. No table scraps here. Harvey yells over the din, “You interested in a class?”
I am captivated by a toy collie in the corner. He looks so friendly I want to take him home, but another dog would break Woogie’s heart. A man might as well bring a mistress home to live alongside his wife. For an instant, I think Harvey means for myself.
“Sort of,” I say ambiguously.
“How often do they have them?”
Harvey leads me through a back door into an area that has several empty pens.
“It depends on the interest.
Jason will have a class with as many as five. But fewer students than three, and there’s not much interaction.”
I smile and get a sinking feeling. As I have feared, this is for real. The music, which has been so loud I can barely hear, ceases, and I respond, too loudly, not believing I’m having this conversation, “We learn best from each other all right.” Actually, there are not a lot of role models for Woogie in our neighborhood. My law-abiding neighbors keep their dogs penned and don’t let them outside except on leashes. When I take Woogie for a walk after work, he gets a free shot at all the flower beds, hydrants, and trees he wants. My hometown of Bear Creek in eastern Arkansas had no animal control law (or if it did, it was unenforceable), and I can’t bring myself to accept the notion that central Arkansas insists upon such trappings of big-city life. However, the first time I have to bail Woogie out of the pound I suspect I will be convinced.
We exit the building, and I look to my left and see a man about my age squatting down in the dirt, talking seriously to a cocker spaniel. Jason, I presume. I strain to hear what he says, and catch the words, “… having too many negative thoughts. Clay.”
Clay, a buff-colored fatty with wet, friendly eyes, wags his tail at the mention of his name. He looks pretty happy to me. Negative thoughts have a way of energizing me, too. Some of us in the animal kingdom may not be educable.
“Jason, this man would like a word with you,” Harvey announces, not particularly loath to interrupt work in progress.
Jason looks up and gives me a glance that makes me glad I am not Clay’s owner.
“There are no bad dogs,” he says.
“Only bad owners.”
I am not quite so optimistic about four-footed creatures, but I hold my tongue, figuring this conversation will be difficult enough. I introduce myself: “I’m Gideon Page.” I look around, since Jason does not rise to shake hands. I notice I am standing in an enclosed yard that actually is quite pleasant. Three large elm trees provide shade over half the area. Even in midsummer it would be possible to survive out here if one were of the canine persuasion.
“I need to get back up front,” Harvey announces cheerfully, apparently oblivious to the lack of communication rapidly settling in between his boss and his boss’s visitor.
He walks back into the kennel, while Jason scratches Clay behind the ear. At least the man seems to like his pupils, which is more than I can say for a lot of teachers
“I know who you are. Giddy Page!” Jason suddenly hisses, still squatting on his heels like some Eastern mystic.
“I’d swap every lawyer in this country for one of these,” he says, stroking Clay’s back like a lover.
“Who have you lawyers ever made smile except criminals and greedy corporate thugs? You’d scrape the paint off your mother’s toes before she’d been dead an hour if you thought you could sell it. Why, this lovely creature,” he said, looking soulfully into Clay’s eyes, “brings more pleasure to people in five minutes than your profession has brought throughout the entire existence of its long, depraved history.”
How does he know I hate to be called Giddy?
“Mrs. Chestnut wants her five hundred bucks back,” I say, deciding that Jason is one of those people who plays defense as little as possible.
“She isn’t at all satisfied with the work you did on Bernard Junior.”
Jason leans backward to look up at me, and I realize the man is terribly deformed. I thought he was squatting on his heels, but, in fact, he is standing as upright as he will ever be. He is a dwarf, as humpbacked as anyone I’ve ever seen. As vitriolic as his personality is, it’s impossible to feel sympathy for him (as if he gives a damn), but I do understand his attitude a little better. No lawyer has ever loved him. The canine population (if Clay is any example) would elect him president by acclamation if they could vote. I’m not sure the country would be worse off if a couple of million lawyers suddenly decided to emigrate.
“Bernard Junior was a rare jewel,” Jason says, glaring at me. Clay emits a low growl as he senses his teacher’s distaste for his visitor.
“Bernard Junior had the soul of an angel. He was all heart. Mrs. Chestnut is an old prude. Just because he liked to lick himself didn’t mean he wasn’t advancing metaphysically. Pit bulls are so full of life and vigor that it would be a crime to expect to curb habits that have been programmed genetically. You think we humans wouldn’t do the same if we were physically able? Jealousy. Pure jealousy. Mrs.
Chestnut was green with envy, and you can take that to the bank.”
I think of mrs. Chestnut’s delicate, sweet old face, and realize I have some doubts about Jason’s sanity.
“I don’t think a judge would come to the same conclusion.”
“Of course not! Judges are lawyers! Talk about a conflict of interest, Mr. Giddy Page. I’ve never heard of one so brazen.” No longer growling. Clay rolls over on his back to let his teacher work on his stomach. His eyes seem to roll back in his head in pure ecstasy.
I feel uncomfortable looking down at Jason and squat down on my heels to get at eye level with him. He is wearing green swimming trunks over black tights, sandals, and a T-shirt with a picture of Lassie.
“Okay,” I sigh.
“What did you teach Bernard Junior?”
Jason drums his fingers on Clay’s midsection and Clay’s lips recede from his teeth. I could swear he is grinning.
“Acceptance of his lot in life,” Jason says without hesitation.
“Imagine having his physique and jaws and never once being allowed to rip off the head of a cat. He’s as bored as a lion in a zoo. He kept nodding off, but I understand that. If I had to live with Mrs.
Chestnut, I couldn’t stay awake either. How do I teach a class? Lectures, music therapy, lots of individual attention I know what you’re thinking. Giddy Page. They don’t understand. How naive of you! Do your muscles understand a back rub? Does your mind understand Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony? Of course not! But even as coarse and self-absorbed as the mind of a lawyer is, you surely and without a doubt get the message. As Marsh McLuhan preached decades ago, ‘the medium is the message,” and I, Jason Von Jason, am the medium.”
Jason Von Jason? Why not? I look enviously at Clay, whose teeth are twice as white as my own. I concede I’ve never looked so happy. If Jason could get on TV and pitch Slim Whitman records, he probably would make a fortune. No judge will have the patience to listen to this case for more than thirty seconds. Besides, Jason is the type to counterclaim for a million dollars.
And win. I stand up.
“If mrs. Chestnut hasn’t gotten a Ben Franklin from you in three days,” I bluster, “she won’t have any recourse but to sue.”
Jason looks up at me and says scornfully, “Sue.
Betty. Jane. Martha. You lawyers are the least imaginative species on the planet. Go bore a cockroach to death, Giddy Page. What kind of dog are you torturing?” I think of how bored Woogie must get during the day. He seems as if he accepts himself though. I don’t dare answer Jason. He’d crucify me.
“Some kind of poor mutt,” he guesses, “who looks like a giraffe.”
A chill runs down my back. Considering Woogie’s legs, Jason isn’t far off. Maybe I ought to ask Jason if Leigh killed Art. As I leave through the front of the building, Harvey, smiling beatifically, says, “Bring your dog for a visit. I’m sure Jason would love to enroll him.”
I wave but keep silent. I’ve learned my lesson.
“Chet bracken’s waiting for you in your office,” Julia says in hushed tones as I come up to her desk from the outside door. Uncharacteristically, she is speaking as if someone had died.
“What have you been doing? You smell like a puppy farm.”
I look at my watch. It is just after four. Leigh didn’t waste any time calling him. My stomach begins to bubble with anxiety. He is going to be furious that I went out to see Leigh on my own. Last night, when I got in from San Francisco, I left a message on his answering machine that I would call him as soon as my custody trial was over. Now my plan to see Leigh and then confront him doesn’t seem like such a good idea.
“How long has he been here?” I ask, looking at my shoes, I might have stepped in something in the schoolyard.
“About ten minutes,” she says, now a little nervous.
“I took him on back. After the money he gave you, I kind of felt it was okay. He asked.”
Julia obviously is a graduate of the take-no-prisoners secretarial school and makes it a point of honor never to apologize. This is as close as she will come, and so I accept.
“No problem. How did he seem?”
Julia squints at me as if she is trying to understand something.
“A little hostile. Is he well?”
I wave her off and try to keep from running to my office. What all did Leigh tell him? Shit, this is as good a time as any to lay my cards on the table. He is sitting at my desk with the light off, his head resting against his arms on top of the desk-top calendar. The expression on his face when I hit the switch does not reassure me.
“Are you trying to blow this case?” he demands as I take a seat across from my desk like some scared client.
Pulpy, plum-colored circles under his eyes make him look as if he were in his fifties, but his voice rushes toward me like a freight train.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
All the frustration I have been feeling on this case finally boils over. I smack my desk with the palm of my right hand.
“As far as I’m concerned, the odds are at least even that Shane Norman is involved in this murder, and if he’s not, he sure as hell looks like it. Though she won’t admit it, Leigh suspects it herself. She told me that Art believed that Shane had him investigated before they got married and tried to persuade her to wait.”
Chet shakes his head and gets up to shut my door. I am practically yelling at him. Chet’s neck is swallowed by a pink Oxford shirt and a green tie with penguins on it. If he weren’t dying, I’d laugh. Julia sneers that he dresses worse than I do. He leans back heavily in my chair and says, “That doesn’t prove shit!”
I rest my elbows against the corner of the desk, realizing how utterly passive I’ve been in this case.
“Norman hated the man. Don’t you get it? Wallace was stealing his last daughter from him and turning her into an atheist who would make fun of him. Leigh had been Shane’s favorite since she was five years old. Art was a bastard, and nobody knew it better than Norman. For all we know, he may have even found out about the child porno deal.”
“None of this makes him a murderer!” Chet thunders.
“Look, I know this man. There is absolutely no way he killed Art Wallace. Do you hear me?”
I hear him all right, but his words ring with all the authority of a carnival barker. His curiously blank expression and outraged tone don’t match. I wonder if he may be concentrating on controlling the pain he may be feeling.
“All you know is that Shane Norman saved your soul, and that has blinded you to the fact that the man was, is, and shall remain until the day he dies a human being who had areal reason to want his son-in-law dead. Damn it, will you at least check his alibi?”
Chet stares at me as if he is seeing me for the first time. I think I am about to get fired. So much for inheriting his cases and being known as his heir apparent.
“That won’t satisfy you,” he says, his voice cold and mechanical.
“If he can prove he was at the church, next you’ll claim he hired somebody to kill Art.”
I seize the tiny opening he gives me.
“No, I won’t.
There’s no evidence to support it. If it had been a hit man. Art wouldn’t have been sitting behind his desk.
Like you’ve already said, it wouldn’t have been a twenty-two pistol. At least check it out,” I beg.
“Nor man told me himself that he thought Leigh would have left the state with Art in another six months. In the same conversation he admitted he could be thought of as Art’s enemy.”
Chet slumps in his chair. He says morosely, “Shane would think the cancer has gone to my brain once he got over being insulted.”
I can’t believe my ears.
“When have you ever worried about insulting anyone? Leigh is our client, not Norman. Let me check it out,” I insist.
“I’ll just pretend I’m trying to nail down Leigh’s story.”
Chet loosens his tie, a needless act if there ever was one.
“You’re not dealing with an idiot. He’ll know what you’re up to as soon as you start poking around.” He hesitates but promises, “I’ll handle this.”
I don’t believe him. Norman has become like a god to him.
“You’re going to have to,” I say firmly, “or I’m quitting the case. We have no business representing Leigh if we can’t give her our undivided loyalty. It’s a clear conflict of interest.”
Chet flinches as if he is in pain. Probably no one has ever talked to him this way. Most likely no one has ever needed to.
“You’re right,” he says finally.
“I’ll do it.”
“The sooner the better.” I feel a sense of relief. For the first time I realize he probably has asked for help on the case because he sensed the dilemma he was in but couldn’t bring himself to face it squarely. From now on, I need to be more aggressive, not less. He’s been looking for somebody to stand up to him, and until now I’ve been entirely too deferential. For the next fifteen minutes I tell him about my trip to San Francisco, concluding, “For what it’s worth, and it doesn’t seem much, the investigator is willing to come testify.”
Chet, who has listened intently, nods, saying, “We can do a lot with this. A local jury would love to believe some thug from California killed Wallace.”
Damn it, he still is looking for a way out of having to check out Shane. Unaccustomed to sitting in the chair I provide clients, I shift around trying to find a comfortable spot. No wonder they are always squirming My conversation with Harold Broadnax comes racing back to me. Bracken points so many fingers during a trial you’d think he was a freak in a carnival.
“It’s better than nothing,” I admit.
Chet grunts noncommittally and pushes himself out of his chair. He looks like a scarecrow. He says wryly, “Thanks for the conversation. I’ve got to run by the pharmacy. I know the way out. I’ll call you.”
I am afraid to press him further. The son of a bitch.
He knows I’m right. Shane Norman is like some sacred cow that roams the streets while people starve. I stew in my office for a minute and then go try to find Dan to run this latest development by him. Maybe I am overreacting.
I don’t think so, but if anyone will tell me, Dan will. He is not in his office, and I buzz Julia.
“Where’s Dan?” I ask, realizing how rare it is to see her on the defensive. It is good for her.
“He was headed for the crapper,” she says, snickering, “but he wouldn’t admit it. He’s been gone fifteen minutes. Maybe you better check on him. You know how the King died.”
“I doubt if Dan is on as many drugs,” I say dryly. I’m sure Julia is referring to a magazine account that Elvis was on the commode when he bought it.
“You never know,” Julia chirps, her voice malicious, “people fool ya all the time. By the way, Chet Bracken is starting to get on my nerves good. He looked like he was about to puke his guts out when he came by here on his way to the elevators. You’re making the guy sick to his stomach.”
Out of the mouths of babes, I think. I concede, “I’ve been known to have that effect.”
“Tell me about it,” Julia agrees.
“Most of your clients look a lot more worried coming out of your office than when they went in. Here’s Humpty Dumpty now. Hey, Dan, you the one been stinking up the joint? The cleaning people are having fits, according to Uncle Roy.
They’re wanting to charge extra to do the crappers on this floor. It’s like there’s mass food poisoning every day up here. If you guys would get paying clients who could afford their own toilets, we wouldn’t be having this problem.”
I try to imagine Dan’s expression as Julia interrogates him. Julia’s main qualification for her position is her bloodline. Her uncle, Roy Rogers (not the cowboy, she was quick to assure me), owns the building.
“Up yours, too. By the way, Zorro is panting for you, as usual.” I wore an old black suit I found in my closet one day last week, and I’ve been Zorro ever since.
“I hope there aren’t too many people in the waiting room, Julia,” I say, fascinated as usual by the horror show. Julia will be working here until she is ninety.
What a joy she will be then.
“As of this moment,” Julia yelps into my ear, “I’m off duty, Zorro, so button it up.”
I look down at my watch. It is exactly five o’clock.
Asking Julia to stay five minutes late is like asking one of the lawyers on the floor to add more paper to the copier. Don’t waste your breath. Dan wobbles into my office, patting his stomach.
“I think I swallowed a hand grenade at lunch,” he moans.
“What’s up?”
An upset stomach doesn’t prohibit him from wandering over to the window to check to see if any of our female neighbors from the Adcock Building are about.
“Shit,” he mutters, disappointed. He turns and plops down in the chair across from me.
“Why do they leave so early?” he says.
“No wonder this country is going down the tubes. I didn’t expect to see any of them standing there naked. I just wanted a memory to tide me over till I return to this hellhole. Is that asking too much of life?”
I am too wired to bullshit and tell him about the last two days. Dan has been the main advocate for a conspiracy between Shane and Chet.
“He’s scared shitless what he’ll find. What in the hell do I do?”
Dan shifts in his seat as if he is trying to ease out a fart.
“You really talked to Bracken that way?” he asks admiringly.
“I didn’t think you had it in you.”
I prop my feet up on my desk.
“I didn’t have any choice.”
Dan shakes his head.
“While you were in San Francisco, I thought a lot about this case. You’re reacting the way you are because you’d like to see Shane take a direct hit. Why? Your kid. You resent the hell out of Norman because he’s stolen Sarah away from you. It’s natural, and I don’t blame you, but let’s face it: murder is not how the guy makes his living.”
To say I’m perplexed is an understatement. It was Dan who first hatched this theory. I pick up a paper clip from my drawer and begin to straighten it. Is he right?
Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean Shane couldn’t have done it. Preachers aren’t immune to violence. Hell, when I was in the Peace Corps, one of the most famous Colombian revolutionaries was a Catholic priest.
“So I’m biased,” I ask, trying not to sound irritated, “what’s your excuse?”
Dan chokes off a belch. He seems about to explode. I wonder if he’s been talking to Brenda about the case.
Probably. She throws a wet blanket over everything. Dan grins.
“You know how I am about conspiracies. Hell, I think Jackie had Jack bumped off because she was sick of him screwing around.”
“Supposedly, I was hired,” I say sarcastically, “in this case to help get Leigh off. I’m getting the distinct impression that while I was out of town the rules changed.
Maybe even before I left.”
Dan places his right hand over his stomach as if it were a seismograph attempting to measure an earthquake.
“You gotta admit you’re dealing with a club you’re not a member of.”
I smile for the first time all day. If nothing else, Dan is good at pointing out the obvious. “Tell me something I don’t know. The judge probably knows more about this case than I do.”
“Who you got?” Dan wants to know. I can see his stomach jumping from the other side of my desk.
“Grider,” I say.
“It’ll be a circus.” George Grider is the kind of judge who lets lawyers in his courtroom savage each other like wild animals. He is intelligent and comes from an old Blackwell County family but seems to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of the hostility that is generated in the courtroom. Twenty years ago he was a prosecutor, and he generally comes down in the middle with his rulings on evidence and procedure. The trick is getting him to come down at all.
My guess is that he likes the publicity that his hands-off approach spawns.
“A mud bath all right,” Dan acknowledges.
“Maybe you ought to tell Chet adios on this one. It looks like he wants to stick you with his first loss so he can go out a winner.”
“If he would let me, I could win this damn thing!” I practically shout.
Dan stands up and leans against the wall. Apparently, he feels better if his stomach is pointed downhill.
“Maybe that’s bullshit, too. He might not be sick at all.”
There Dan goes again.
“He’s sick all right,” I say.
Still, I’m in the dark about that as much as I am on everything else.
“But he could live another two years, as far as I know.”
“Hell, Leigh probably did it,” Dan says.
“Women have a million reasons to put us out of our misery. The surprising thing is that you don’t see it more often.” He grins at me.
“You know, I forget what an ambitious fucker you are. You pretend to be a sap like the rest of us on this floor, and yet behind all that eastern Arkansas corn pone you’re eaten up with this stuff.”
I have to bite my tongue. The bottom line is that you’re a talker, not a doer, my friend, I think.
“Not like Chet Bracken used to be.”
“You’re working on it,” Dan pushes himself to a vertical position.
“I’m out of here. I think I’ll go have my stomach pumped.”
Dan’s wrinkled shirt bulges out over his pants like a plastic garbage bag.
“Rosa used to say that’s not a lot of fun.”
Dan winks at me.
“Hey, I’m stupid, but I’m not crazy. I’ll just go home and eat until I pop open.”
I grab my coat. I might as well leave, too. On the freeway, I realize just how much Bracken has got my number. He knows how much I want to stay in and do this case. Shit, if he knows that, he also knows whether Norman has an alibi. But maybe not. I don’t trust anyone on this case, including myself.
In the waiting room a guy as bald as an egg stands up and says, “Mr. Page, I just got out yesterday from St.
Thomas. I found the papers you wanted.”
Rich Blessing? I stammer, “Good to see you. Let’s go on back to my office, and I’ll take a look.” He falls in step alongside of me, and I steal another glance at him.
Without his toupee, he didn’t have much hair, but now he looks like a retired caretaker for a nuclear power plant.
“How’re you feeling?” I ask, turning on the light in my office.
“Better,” he says, handing me an envelope.
“I was having a nervous breakdown because of my toupee. I began dreaming I kept having to chase it. My doctor got me admitted to the psychiatric wing at St. Thomas, but now that I’m out, I’ve decided to make a clean sweep of it,” he says, pointing to his head.
Given permission, I take a good look. Sweep, hell.
His skull looks like one of Woogie’s dog bones.
“Whatever helps you make it through the night,” I mutter, before I realize how bad I sound. I open the envelope and find, among more testimonials, a warranty. In the third paragraph, in big block letters, it says: DO NOT WEAR
IN WATER OR OUTSIDE ON DAYS WHEN WIND IS EXPECTED TO EXCEED TWENTY MILES AN HOUR.
“How windy was it that day when it came off?”
I ask, handing him the document containing the warranty.
“Practically a hurricane,” he says cheerfully as he begins to read.
I let him read in silence and watch his face fall.
“I never saw this.”
“We could try to argue the salesman misrepresented it to you,” I say, my heart not really in it.
Blessing stands up and shrugs.
“He didn’t. Actually, I don’t think I want to sue now. After a week of being on the funny farm with some really sick people I realize how inconsequential hair is.”
“Good,” I say, and hand him all his papers. I’ll get rich next time. I’ve got a more important case to worry about. I just hope Blessing can make a living.
At home I have trouble concealing my rotten mood.
It is Sarah’s night to cook, but when I look in the refrigerator to take out a beer all I see are food stains and a quart of milk three days past the date on the carton. As Sarah comes into the kitchen, I complain, “Why aren’t you putting stuff on the list?”
Sarah pushes up the sleeves on her wind suit and washes her hands in the sink.
“I don’t see your handwriting up there either,” she says mildly.
“Bad day, Daddy?”
I stare at her back. That kind of remark would have been considered impudent when I was her age. It seems as if I have no control over anything. Beginning with the custody deal this morning, followed by my meeting with Leigh this afternoon, and then just now with Chet, I have no power to affect events. I say candidly, “I think I’m upset because the more work I do on Leigh’s case, the more I’m convinced she’s covering up for her father, and yet there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.”
Drying her hands on a dish towel, my daughter turns and admonishes me, “If there’s no evidence of his involvement you can’t do anything.”
I pour myself a glass of water instead of the beer I want. I shouldn’t be talking to her about the case, but I can’t seem to resist rubbing her nose in it.
“You’ve got to promise to keep quiet about what I’m going to tell you, but I’ve found out this afternoon your pastor had every reason to want his son-in-law dead.” I launch into an abbreviated version of my conversation with Leigh and add the highlights of my talk with Shane before I went to San Francisco.
“Shane Norman is a lot more likely suspect than his daughter,” I conclude, knowing I’ve exaggerated a few things, but not by much.
“You’re going to argue in court that he’s the murderer!” Sarah guesses, her voice high enough to shatter the glass in my hand.
“That’s so wrong. You’d destroy an innocent man’s reputation to win a case. You’re horrible, Daddy!”
Without thinking, I slap Sarah across the face. Instantly I regret it. I haven’t spanked her since she was five years old and ran out into the street. Still, I am sick of her high-and-mighty attitude.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Stunned, for an instant she stands watching me, un able to comprehend I have hit her, then bursts into tears and runs from the kitchen into her room.
“Sarah!” I yell, but she shuts her door. I can’t believe I have raised a hand to her. Yet she has no business talking to me like that. I go to her door and open it. She has thrown her self face down across her bed. I look around her room.
Clothes are strewn on the floor; Coke cans are every where; even the collage of her friends on the wall by her bed is askew. She is still such a child.
“I’m not the lead counsel in this case. Chet has no intention of making the argument that Shane Norman is implicated.”
“But you would!” she says in a choked, muffled voice.
“If I thought he might have done it, of course I would!” I say firmly.
“That’s my job.” She is silent, and I see her shoulders shaking as she sobs against her pillow.
She doesn’t move. I want to hug her, but I know she is too angry to let me. She will forgive me. She always does. I say, “I’m so sorry I slapped you, babe! That was terrible. Listen, I’m going to the store. We’ll eat when I get back.” I leave the room and shut her door. To hell with a list. We always get more than the items we put on it.
At Harvest Foods, filled with remorse, I wander the aisles almost aimlessly, unable to decide even between one or two percent fat milk. Sarah is by far the best part of my life, and I have hit her like all those parents I used to see when I worked child abuse and neglect cases as a social worker for the Division of Children and Family Services. What has she done except defend a man she respects? But what Sarah will never understand is that a defense attorney doesn’t have a lot of choices. If your client is going to have a chance, you better be prepared to show the jury some smoke and mirrors. Shane Norman, I am convinced, can take care of himself. If he’s innocent, this trial won’t hurt him much. Waiting in line while the manager breaks in a new checker, I realize how much rationalization I am doing. Unless Chet pulls off a miracle, one way or an other, Norman is going to be devastated by this trial.
At home I am greeted by Woogie but not by my daughter. Woogie jumps up against me as if I have been gone for a year instead of an hour. He needs his toenails cupped. The last time I tried to do it myself I made him bleed, but I am loath to spend the money. Sarah and I need to spend some quality time together and not mention Christian Life or the trial. Since I have been back from San Francisco, until tonight I’ve hardly talked to her. She has either been out (at Christian Life) or I have. Maybe we should just put up the groceries and go out for a steak. Food is still a bond between us.
She doesn’t mind spending time with the old man if he comes across with the right bribe.
After I put the groceries down on the table in the kitchen, I go to her room to tell her we’re going out, but she isn’t there.
“Sarah?” I call, knowing as I do that she isn’t in the house. Where could she have gone? She doesn’t have a car. The phone rings, and I pick up the receiver by her bed.
“Sarah?” I guess.
“It’s me. Daddy,” Sarah says in a voice so low I can barely hear her.
“Hey, babe, where are you?” I say, enormously relieved.
“Do you want to go out and get a steak tonight?
We don’t need to cook.”
“I’m not coming back home tonight. I’m staying with a friend from Christian Life.”
She is punishing me for slapping her.
“This is a school night, Sarah. You’ve been gone enough as it is.”
I try to lighten my voice. I don’t want to argue with her.
“I thought we’d go out and get a steak.”
“Listen,” she says, her voice high with emotion.
“I’m almost eighteen. I’m not a child anymore. I don’t have to do what you say.”
I nearly drop the phone. Never has she talked to me like this. No child has ever been more obedient. I have never had a moment’s trouble out of her. In fact, Rainey has remarked that Sarah has been almost too perfect.
“Legally, you’re wrong,” I tell her crossly.
“Until your birthday, you’re still a minor.” Though this is technically true, it’s meaningless.
“I’m very sorry I slapped you, but this isn’t going to help matters any if you begin acting like this.”
Sarah’s voice becomes firm.
“I’m not being kidnapped, so don’t start acting like a lawyer, please.”
What am I supposed to act like? Who does she think she is? I’ve put food on the table, bought her clothes, been a taxi service, not to mention raised her singlehandedly since her mother died. I make an enormous effort to control my voice.
“Do you think your mother would approve of how you’re acting? The least you can do is tell me who you’re staying with so I won’t worry about you.”
Sarah gives a little cry of frustration.
“Don’t try to guilt me like you usually do, all right? It won’t work.
And I’m not telling you where I am, because I don’t trust you not to come get me. I’m staying with a friend, okay?”
Guilt. I’ve always used it. For the last year she has sniffed it out every time. For God’s sake, why shouldn’t she feel guilty? This is inexcusable. It’s that damn church.
“At least let me talk to one of the parents, so I know it’s okay.”
There is silence for a moment. In the background I think I can hear a radio or maybe a tape. It sounds like that stuff they played the Sunday I went.
“It’s just a couple of friends who have an apartment. They don’t live with their parents.”
“At least one of them is a boy,” I suggest.
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
I can see Sarah rolling her eyes.
“I knew that’s what you’d think! You just don’t understand anything about me. That’s why I left. You don’t want to understand.
You think all these people are deluded sheep who can’t think for themselves, and that’s just not true. You think it’s just about belief. You don’t get it that faith and love are inseparable. We don’t use each other at Christian Life. That’s practically all you do. You don’t care about people; you just care about winning. That’s become your Bible. I don’t want to be like that.”
Left? Does this mean she won’t be coming back?
“What time,” I ask carefully, “will I see you tomorrow?”
She stammers, “I-I-I don’t know. I’m okay though.”
The phone clicks in my ear, and I tear back into her room to see what she has taken. I throw open her closet door and see there is nothing left except a couple of dresses she never wears. I go through her drawers and find almost nothing. Practically the only thing left in her room is a poster of Tom Cruise from the movie Top Gun and the collage of her friends, none of whom she has mentioned since she started this Christian Life business. She must have called someone immediately. My heart begins to race. I can call Shane Norman and ask him to track her down. Somebody in her so-called “family” surely can find out where she is. Yet, as I am looking up his number, I realize that Christian Life has thousands of members, and he won’t know off the top of his head who to call either. And what do I say? I slapped my daughter because she defended you and she ran off, and I want you to bring her back? Instead, I dial Rainey’s number, thinking Sarah may have mentioned somebody to her.
Rainey answers on the first ring, and I yell, “Sarah’s gone. Do you know any of her friends from that church?”
“What are you talking about?” Rainey asks, sounding alarmed.
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
I lower my voice and quickly run through the last hour and a half.
“Gideon, have you lost your mind?” Rainey says, when I am finished.
“I don’t blame her for leaving. It makes me sick to my stomach that you would even consider trying to implicate Shane without any more evidence than this. You’re slandering one of the most decent human beings I’ve ever known. And I can’t believe you slapped Sarah. What is wrong with you? Were you drunk?”
I eye the six-pack on the counter and think I’m going to be soon if I have to listen to any more of this self righteous crap.
“It didn’t leave a mark,” I defend my self; but I feel terrible.
“I guess I shouldn’t expect you to understand. You’ve been such a perfect parent. And, no, I wasn’t drunk.”
I wait in silence while Rainey takes in my snide comment Her daughter, Bern, went through a rebellious period of her own as a college student. She is now a contented first-grade teacher in Mississippi, again close to her mother, but at one time they were barely speaking I know what Rainey is thinking. She never hit her daughter in the face. I can’t believe I slapped Sarah either. She’s right. I must be losing my mind.
“I know this is killing you,” Rainey says.
“But if you try to drag Sarah back home tonight, you’ll regret it the rest of your life. I know you think she’s being brain washed, but it’s not like that at all. As sincere as I think Sarah is about Christian Life, this is directed at least as much against you as toward something else. Believe me, I know.”
I lean back against the wall in the kitchen and think what else I can say to hurt the people I care about the most. Bern, I recall, thought Christianity was a con game run by, I believe the phrase was, “mostly male prostitutes in the service of Mammon.” I rub my eyes, exhausted.
“What have I done?” I wail.
Rainey says quietly, “Right now, Sarah sees you as the antithesis of everything good. I know this will hurt your feelings, but right now she sees you as tainted, even corrupt. You personify for her the compromises human beings make with the Devil.”
My heart begins to race. I can’t stand any more of this. That’s ridiculous! Sarah wasn’t like this before she started going to that church. Granted, she didn’t think I was perfect, but I sure didn’t have horns and a tail.
What in the hell do I do that every attorney in Blackwell County doesn’t?
“This is ludicrous. I can’t begin to touch the stories about Chet Bracken. What makes him such a saint and me such a sinner?” .
Rainey’s voice grows softer as mine becomes louder.
“He’s accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.”
I want to smash the phone against the wall. If I hear that phrase one more time, I’m going to get some dynamite and blow Christian Life to kingdom come. She is so blind! Shane Norman is probably a murderer, and the man he hired to represent his daughter is letting him get away with it. I stop myself. I don’t trust Rainey any longer. How incredible! This is a woman with whom I have entrusted every doubt I’ve had for the last two years.
“chet’s a candidate for one of the apostles, all right,” I say sarcastically.
“Give Sarah some time,” Rainey advises me, ignoring my last remark.
“She’ll come home. I’ll try to find out tomorrow where she is and make sure she’s okay.”
Her voice is a little too soothing. I think Rainey already knows, but Sarah has sworn her to secrecy. Yet I don’t have the slightest proof. Like Dan, I see conspiracies everywhere.
“I’d appreciate that,” I say dryly.
“What about starting tonight?”
“If I can,” Rainey says after a pause.
“I’ve got a meeting up there in a few minutes, so I’ll ask around a little.”
For a moment I want to tell her not to bother. I am embarrassed. I have never had a moment’s trouble from Sarah. She is my greatest success. I feel I have failed Rosa. If she were alive, Sarah would be home now.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Rainey promises, “unless I run across some information. It’s possible she may call me.”
I hang up, feeling more depressed than I have since my wife died. I take out a beer and walk out in the backyard to let Woogie do his business. I should take him for a walk, but I don’t feel like it. When I come back in, I put away the groceries but realize I don’t feel like eating and decide to go out. The house is driving me crazy. I’d like areal drink. I put food in Woogie’s bowl and check his water. He gives me a sad look as if to say. Is this all the attention I get? I reach down and pet him, but I can’t stay here a moment longer.
I decide on Kings amp; Queens, a club on the south side that, despite its name, is definitely not a hangout for homosexuals Like a dog returning to his old haunts, I set the Blazer on a familiar course down College Avenue while I brood on my daughter’s actions. I shouldn’t have slapped her, but she shouldn’t have run off. Have I kept too tight a rein on her? I don’t think so. She dates whomever she wants, has a 1 a.m. curfew on weekends, spends her money from her part-time job on the week end at a video store however she pleases. Spoiled like most kids (we pretend to divide the chores but neither of us really cleans the house), she nevertheless makes do without a car and doesn’t demand money for clothes.
The fact is, I don’t have a thing to complain about. She knows that we’re at the lower end of middle class and I am still paying loans off from my belated law school debt. She wants to go out-of-state to college, but it will depend on scholarship money. Why am I worried about college? At the rate she’s going, she will end up as a janitor at Christian Life. Surely Rainey is exaggerating.
The antithesis of everything good! Since when does trying to find out the truth make a person corrupt? Give me a break, Sarah. Yet is that what I am really doing?
Or is it the way she says am I just trying to win?
What Sarah won’t realize is that our system of justice is set up that way. It’s supposed to be adversarial. From the battle in court with all its lawyers and procedural rules the truth is supposed to emerge. Do I want the truth or do I merely want Shane Norman to lose his luster in my daughter’s eyes? The truth is, it wouldn’t break my heart at all to find out Norman killed his sonin-law. I feel a hardness somewhere inside me from all of this I can’t seem to break down.
Kings amp; Queens does not cater to your yuppie lawyer and “bond daddies,” but over the years has attracted a loyal, albeit eclectic, clientele because of its total commitment to a delicate mix of crossover country music and golden oldies that range from Willie Nelson to Vicki Can. Throw in the cheapest hard-liquor prices in the county, a modest cover to discourage a crowd that is too young and rowdy, and you have a nice environment in which to pick up a woman something I have done on occasion in the not-too-distant past. Granted, it has been a couple of years, but Kings amp; Queens is like the drinking water: unless something busts loose, you can count on it.
Inside, I am not disappointed. Some things never change. The smoke and noise level I would recognize anywhere. The crowd looks a little younger, probably because I am a couple of years older. Over the din of conversation I can make out an old Dave and Sugar hit.
I make my way to the bar, which is dotted with a few empty spots, and grab a stool next to a couple of women who look like schoolteachers who have vowed never to teach junior high kids again. The decor of Kings amp; Queens, unchanged since I started coming here after Rosa died, won’t win awards for originality, but still commands my attention. Royalty and their families are everywhere. What we don’t have, we love. Unhappy or not, they (Diana, Charles, Fergie, Andrew, Elizabeth, and Philip) stare down from every wall at their Arkansas admirers in what I decide is perpetual amazement that their most un royal deeds attract such ardent attention from the most republican of their former subjects.
I order a bourbon and Coke, not caring it will be the house brand. For some reason, cheaper bourbon mixes the best or maybe just seems the sweetest, which apparently is all I require in the way of taste.
“Why get fancy?” the older of the two presumptive teachers asks when she hears my order. She gives me a smile that says she isn’t saving the seat for anybody.
Why indeed, I think, giving her the once-over. No ring (this could be girls’ night out), frosted short hair;
she is wearing a long-sleeved green turtleneck and dress jeans. Either she went home to change or is the play ground supervisor. Yet maybe teachers dress more casually these days.
“No sense trying to fool anybody, is there?” I respond, pleased I don’t have to think of something clever to break the ice. Her younger partner is prettier, but given her lock jawed expression, she won’t be running for president of my fan club any time soon.
For the next thirty minutes I compete head to head with Lockjaw for her friend’s attention (Jennifer spelled with a “J,” she says with a practiced smirk, no doubt having used that line more than once but still getting a grin out of me she has no idea how easy-to-please I am tonight). Finally Lockjaw gives up and calls it a night, pissed, but obviously not for the first time. Men spoil everything, her parting glance says. If I had known, I would have brought a friend. Preferably some body with rabies.
Jennifer, who turns out to be an accountant for a wholesale food club, and I seat ourselves at a table and share some nachos and cheese dip while we trade selected poignant vignettes from our pasts. She donated one of her kidneys to a twin sister who died from cancer anyway; I tell her about Rosa. Realizing she has topped me (I would have been glad to donate a breast), she lets me talk, which is progressively easier to do as the bourbon slides down. I tell her about a former divorce client who served her husband rat muffins for breakfast; on the dance floor I regale her with the continuing saga of Jason and his spiritual development classes. Steadily drinking dos Equis (our table is beginning to resemble a missile silo with multiple warheads), she laughs appreciatively.
In my arms, slow-dancing to “Bridge over Troubled Water,” Jennifer feels nice, her body warm and as user friendly as buttered toast. I used to be pretty good at this once. I am almost six feet tall, with only a slight paunch, and most days I can look myself in the mirror without wincing until I put in my contacts. Then I can see the warts. True, the bald spot on the back of my head looks, according to Dan, like spreading tree blight (what are friends for?), but Jennifer, with her slightly pug nose and weak chin, doesn’t appear on the verge of launching a campaign for mrs. America. Actually, compared to what else is out on the dance floor we stack up fairly well. The hard-body competition is agreeably thin, if you throw out a couple of women who could be hookers judging by their makeup and out-of-season sundresses that reveal more than repair work. Jennifer’s body, pressed against mine, is, if not overly firm, not of the Jell-0 variety either. Up close and personal, she looks around my age. Staying away, for once, from the subject of Sarah (usually, by this time I have whipped out my wallet and showed off her senior class picture), I work into the conversation that I have never been through a divorce, a fact that surely must be alluring to a single female patron of Kings amp; Queens.
“I’ve never been married,” Jennifer says, as we leave the dance floor hand in hand to return to our drinks.
I look down at her, amazed by this disclosure, feeling in some vague way she has again topped me.
“Imagine,” I say, bumping her slightly, “two middleaged adults without a single child-support check to show for it.” We sit down and drink.
“How come?” I ask, drunk enough to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. We’re not exactly at the point where we exchange life stories.
“Doubtless, you’ve had plenty of chances.”
She smiles a little more brightly than necessary.
“It’s not that I don’t enjoy men, but I guess I’ve never liked the odds.”
Enjoy. I smile, too, pleased at my good fortune. I want to go to bed with this woman, but I’m not in the mood to listen to any bitter stories. Around nine, after we’ve danced again, I ask, “Would you like to come to my place?”
Obviously considering, she waits until we are back at our table to speak. She reaches down and finishes off the last of her beer. I should have ordered a six-pack and a bucket of ice.
“Thank you, but you seem a little too sad, Gideon. I appreciate the offer though.” After picking up her purse, she reaches up and lightly kisses me on the cheek and then slips away, leaving me to find our waiter to pay the bill.
Me, sad? I thought I had been witty and charming. I drive home in an alcoholic daze, on the lookout for cops. All I need to cap this perfect day is a ticket.
Damn.
At home the only thing on the machine is an incomprehensible message from Pearl Norman. Skunked worse than I am, she is saying something about “trying ever since Leigh was ten …” to do something. Most of it is her crying into the phone. I run the tape twice, and then erase it to get away from the sound of her voice.
Her self-pitying whine reminds me of my father’s voice when he was on the sauce. Jesus Christ. An alcoholic and a schizophrenic. No wonder my mother shipped him off to the state hospital. I felt terrible I never went to see him, but I was glad he was gone. Embarrassed the shit out of us sometimes. The asshole!
“Drunk and crazy, drunk and crazy,” Marty would hiss under her breath at him at the dinner table. I’d sit there scared to death he’d understand, while mother tried to act as if nothing was wrong. Glad those times are past. In the den on the sofa I sit as still as I can to make the room stop spinning. Woogie hops up beside me to wait for Sarah. Good boy. No wonder Leigh and Shane try to hide Pearl. I would, too.