Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction (31 page)

Chet punches the button to take us to the third floor.

Six months ago he would have taken the steps two at a time.

“She’s bound to show up sometime. Did St. vrain make it in?”

I nod as the elevator opens.

“She’s a little weird.”

Chet grins.

“That’s what you keep telling me. Maybe we won’t need her.” As we ride up and walk around the corner to the prosecutor’s office, it sinks in how much Chet wants to avoid this trial. His zest for trial work is such that he almost hates to cut a deal and browbeats the prosecutors until they are practically begging him to take probation. These stories are surely exaggerated, but they prove a point: Chet isn’t afraid to go for an outright acquittal. Yet, why shouldn’t he want to plead out this case? He isn’t prepared, he is sick, and his loyalties are clearly divided.

“Jill must be having some problems,” I whisper as we enter the suite of offices that house Blackwell County’s chief legal officer. Chet winks, as if this turn of events is too good to risk commenting on.

Jill Marymount has proved to be a decent prosecutor in her tenure in office. She can grab headlines with the best of them, but underneath all the hype is a solid record. Unlike some prosecutors after their election, she tries cases regularly instead of relying on assistants. I had thought she had political ambitions, but the rumors have died down that she wants to run for attorney general They will be revived if she knocks off Chet Bracken. Jill sweeps through the door to the reception area, reminding me of the actress Loretta Young. She is wearing a dress instead of the suit she will don tomorrow, and she shows a mouthful of perfect teeth as if we were fans waiting for autographs. Chet, who is used to being courted in these situations, is unusually gracious, betraying his own eagerness.

Temporarily old pals instead of old enemies, we come close to slapping each other’s backs as she escorts us to her office. Once there, she offers us coffee and serves it herself. It seems a miracle that she hasn’t heard that Leigh has disappeared, which is a tribute to the tightness of Christian Lifers in Blackwell County. From be hind her desk she says lightly, “Two against one, no fair, guys.”

I steal a look at Chet, who is slouched in his chair. To be prattling on like this, Jill must have a hole in her case we can drive a truck through. But where is it? I can’t see it. Chet might know, but I have no idea.

Maybe it is simply her fear of the religious fundamentalists who will be on the jury and who will surely be manipulated by someone as skilled as Chet. Jill could wind up with a goose egg and have a killer on the loose in the swankiest part of Blackwell County. Chet acknowledges the truth of her remark by saying, “When Gideon and I were growing up in the Delta, we used to say, quite innocently, “Two against one, nigger fun.” ” Jill swallows hard as if she were a child forced to swallow a tablespoon of milk of magnesia. I don’t recall the innocence of that remark, but it was a common schoolboy lament. She says, “I didn’t know you were from the same town.”

Our solidarity established, I clarify.

“Chet’s from Helena in Phillips County; I’m from Bear Creek in Lee.

There’s not a lot of difference.”

Jill forces a smile at us. Good old boys riding up and down Main Street, looking for someone to gang bang

She has changed her office again since I was in here last. During the Andy Chapman trial, she had dozens of pictures of children on the walls. Now, painted a fresh eggshell blue to cover up the holes, I assume, the room seems empty and sterile. Jill says abruptly, “I’m offering you ten years and a plea to manslaughter.”

Just a little over three years with good time. Jill’s eyes are on Chet. There is not even the slightest pre tense that we are co-equals on this case. Licking his lips, he doesn’t so much as look at me before saying, “I’ll talk to Leigh and get back to you.”

I feel my insides bind. Chet barely let her get her words out. Is he selling Leigh down the river, or does he think she is guilty? I no longer have any idea. Now all we have to do is find her. Jill runs a hand through her thick, glossy hair. I don’t know which of them looks more relieved.

“I’ll talk to Judge Grider and see if he has time to take a plea this afternoon.”

Chet shakes his head.

“Let me get hold of her first,” he says, his voice sounding hollow against the bare walls.

“If she won’t take it, I don’t want Grider dunking she changed her mind.”

Jill begins to write on the pad in front of her. Instead of conventional legal paper, she is writing on ledger sheets. The logic of chet’s statement is unassailable, but she frowns.

“You’ll get back to me immediately?” she asks.

Chet stands up.

“Just as soon as I can,” he says, trying to sound like the Bracken of old. He is not known for giving anything away. Too bad for Jill, she doesn’t know we have nothing to give. She must wonder what I’m doing on this case. So am I. Like a slave attending his master, I pop to my feet but have nothing to say. To avoid potted-plant status entirely I remark, “What happened to your pictures? You must have had dozens the last time I was in here.”

Jill’s gaze goes proudly to her empty walls as she comes from around her desk to walk us out.

“They’re on loan to a museum in Fort Smith.”

To add to the slightly unrealistic atmosphere that has surrounded this meeting, we beam at each other as if we were busy philanthropists and patrons of the arts.

“That’s great!” I say, enthusiastically. Jill must wonder if Chet owes me something. She probably has heard he has cancer, but he has put the word out he is in remission so often maybe she believes it.

As soon as we are in the sunshine on the sidewalk, Chet asks irritably, “Where in the hell can she be?”

A lot of places, I think, watching an attractive woman cross the street. Like a spoiled child who isn’t receiving enough attention to suit him, I feel left out.

“You want me to go over and pick up Ms. St. vrain and bring her to your office?” I say in response, having learned to answer rhetorical questions at my peril.

Chet nods glumly.

“It’ll give us something to do.”

In the next three hours Jessie St. vrain watches as Chet and I go nuts. At one point we get a call from Shane saying Leigh has been sighted in Lonoke County in a convenience store. Shades of Elvis. We get two calls from Jill. who is plainly becoming suspicious.

“Client disappeared?” she jokes the second time, but there is little humor in her voice.

“Halfway to Brazil,” I say, not certain it isn’t true.

“What’s going on, Gideon?” Jill asks.

“This isn’t an essay question.”

More like multiple choice. Texas? New Jersey? Hong Kong? None of the above? I put my feet up on Chet’s library table.

“You should try the defense side someday.

You’d appreciate us more.”

Jill cuts me off.

“If we have to go to the trouble and expense of impaneling a jury and then take a plea, Judge Grider won’t like it.”

I almost laugh. She’s worried about the costs to the county and keeping a pit bull happy.

“We’ll pay the jury off,” I say, trying to sound relaxed.

“Grider will find something to do tune in a cockfight on TV or some thing.”

Jill giggles. She knows how much Grider likes to watch lawyers tear into each other.

“Just get back to me okay? if and when you find out Chet’s not going to plead her out.”

Relegated to flunky status again, I oblige.

“You’ll be the first to know.” I hang up and stare at the hundreds of books in Chet’s library, a personal luxury few lawyers can afford. I’m pissed that I am such a nonentity on this case. During the conversation with Jill, I was tempted to blurt out that the great Chet Bracken had no idea what his opening statement was going to be just a little over half a day before the trial. She has lost her nerve for nothing.

By six o’clock Chet is so worn out he decides to call it a day, saying he will call me after dinner, but I doubt it. He is so white around the gills it sets my teeth on edge. Thank God the prosecution has the burden of proof. As little as we seem to have accomplished this afternoon, I wouldn’t give even money that we will be able to prove our middle names. We have propped Jessie’s testimony and sent her back to her hotel, and that’s about all.

“I know it’s a hell of a time to ask,” I blurt, “but where is the cancer?”

The lock snaps on chet’s door. In a voice so soft I barely pick it up, he says, “At this point, it’s more a question of where it isn’t.”

What is there to say? Go home and take some aspirin and get a good night’s sleep? On this cheerful note we leave each other. I race home, hoping Woogie hasn’t taken revenge on the carpet. With Sarah not there to let him out in the afternoons, he can only restrain himself so long.

Woogie races past me into the yard and cocks his left hind leg in the direction of a holly bush. Usually, he concentrates his irrigation project on my neighbors’ shrubs and plants, but from the look he gives me, this is out of the question.

“Sorry, boy,” I apologize. At my age, I’m glad no one has asked me to make the same sacrifice. He still has one more act to perform, but this is done in a more leisurely manner on the playground of the elementary school at the end of the street As we stroll back to the house, accompanied by howls of outrage from more law-abiding members of the canine population who are confined behind their masters’ fences, I wonder in vain where Leigh has hidden herself.

All afternoon long, Chet and I took message after message that she is nowhere to be found.

At home I have a message on the answering machine from Leigh’s sister Mary Patricia, who has returned my call. I wonder for a moment if Leigh could have taken off looking for a safe harbor at one of their houses, but those were the first numbers Shane called. I am still surprised that the sisters are not coming for the trial. At this rate, they would be by themselves. No telling, though, what it was like growing up in the Norman household. I should have been in touch long before now. I get her on the second ring. I am expecting a Yankee accent, but she sounds so much like her sister Leigh, I am startled. There is a softness to an Arkansas accent without the deep-fried quality that marks the speech of our neighbors in Mississippi.

“Ms. Norman, I appreciate you calling back,” I say, wondering how to interest this woman in talking to me.

“I should have called you a lot sooner than the day before the trial.”

“Do you represent my father or Leigh?” Mary Patricia asks, without preliminaries, her voice politely suspicious.

“Mr. Bracken and I represent only Leigh,” I assure her. If she knew how this case was going, she wouldn’t be assured, no matter what I said.

In the background I hear classical music and wonder if this woman is as lovely as her sister. All I know about her is that she escaped the clutches of her father.

“Leigh is still missing.”

“I’ve tried to think where she might go,” Mary Patricia says, “but it’s been too long. Leigh and I aren’t as close as we once were.”

I watch Woogie lick his empty food dish. I hope Mary Patricia proves to be equally unsubtle.

“Frankly, I’m surprised that neither you nor your sister are down here for the trial. Surely you know Leigh could be going to prison for life.”

There is silence on the other end, and I fear I have pushed too hard. Yet, as estranged as I am from my own sister, I know she would be there for me if I were on trial for murder. Finally, her voice tentative as if she can’t decide how much she should be revealing, Mary Patricia says, “I’m sure you don’t understand the dynamics in our family. My other sister and I aren’t close to our parents at all. In fact, my father thinks we are atheists. For my part, I think he and others like him would like nothing better than to run people like us out of the United States. Leigh would defend him to the death. I know. I was just down there a few months ago.

Leigh hadn’t changed a bit. We had an enormous fight, and she told me she never wanted to see me again. Naturally I called her after I found out she was charged with murder; but she said it was all a big mistake and that Daddy would have it dismissed.”

I can hear the guilt in her voice, and I try to think how I can exploit it. It will take violating a client’s confidence but over the years I’ve gotten better at rationalization For the next fifteen minutes I tell her everything I know about the case, including Leigh’s belief that her father may have killed her husband.

Mary Patricia listens almost without interruption and responds simply, “Daddy would never do something like that himself. He might give the idea to somebody else, but his concept of himself as a personal representative of God is too strong to allow him to kill anyone.

He can preach a sermon that galvanizes a thousand people to go lie down in front of an abortion clinic, but he would cut off his arm before he would take part him self.”

Finally, something clicks in my mind about who may have killed Art Wallace. I ask her, “Tell me something about your godfather, please.”

Leigh’s sister obviously sees this guess as something of a stretch. Her voice grows faint with obvious disbelief.

“Do you think Hector could have actually done it?”

“Why not?” I plunge ahead, remembering his still keen eyesight and the trophy for marksmanship.

“He was there; he was a friend of your father’s; it’s not as if he is a feeble shut-in.”

She protests, “But he’s an old man.”

I remind her about his fitness and the trophies.

“He seems in remarkable shape.”

“You probably could say that of a high percentage of those who live on my sister’s street,” she responds, clearly skeptical of my hypothesis.

“Hector’s not a violent man.”

Stubbornly, I pursue the possibility.

“But he’s still extremely competitive, and he could have acted as your father’s surrogate. Wasn’t he upset when you left the church?”

In the background now, I can hear Glen Campbell singing. I must have made her homesick.

“He was horrified,” she admits, “but he didn’t kill anybody.”