“Then do what all good executors do. Store for two years, then give it to the Salvation Army and burn what they don’t want.”
“Yes or no. Is there a storage place in town?”
“Didn’t you go to school with that crazy Cantrell boy?”
“There were two of them.”
“No, there were three of them. One got hit by that Greyhound out near Tobytown.” A long pull of coffee, then more eggs.
“A storage place, Harry Rex.”
“Testy, aren’t we?”
“No, sleep-deprived.”
“I’ve offered my love nest.”
“No thanks. I’ll try my luck with the roofers.”
“Their uncle is Virgil Cantrell, I handled his first wife’s second divorce, and he’s converted the old depot into a storage warehouse.”
“Is that the only place in town?”
“No, Lundy Staggs put in some of those mini-storage units west of town, but they got flooded. I wouldn’t go there.”
“What’s the name of this depot?” Ray asked, tired of the Coffee Shop.
“The Depot.” Another bite of biscuit.
“By the railroad tracks?”
“That’s it.” He began shaking a bottle of Tabasco
sauce over the remaining pile of eggs. “He’s usually got some space, even put in a block room for fire protection. Don’t go in the basement, though.”
Ray hesitated, knowing he should ignore the bait. He glanced at his car parked in front of the courthouse and finally said, “Why not?”
“He keeps his boy down there.”
“His boy?”
“Yeah, he’s crazy too. Virgil couldn’t get him in Whitfield and couldn’t afford a private joint, so he figured he’d just lock him up in the basement.”
“You’re serious?”
“Hell yes, I’m serious. I told him it wasn’t against the law. Boy’s got everythang—bedroom, bathroom, television. Helluva lot cheaper than paying rent in a nuthouse.”
“What’s his name?” Ray asked, digging the hole deeper.
“Little Virgil.”
“Little Virgil?”
“Little Virgil.”
“How old is Little Virgil?”
“I don’t know, forty-five, fifty.”
To Ray’s great relief, no Virgil was present when he walked into the Depot. A stocky woman in overalls said Mr. Cantrell was out running errands and wouldn’t be back for two hours. Ray inquired about storage space, and she offered to show him around.
Years before, a remote uncle from Texas had come to visit. Ray’s mother scrubbed and polished him to the point of misery. With great anticipation they drove to
the depot to fetch the uncle. Forrest was an infant and they left him at home with the nanny. Ray clearly remembered waiting on the platform, hearing the train’s whistle, seeing it approach, feeling the excitement as the crowd waited. The depot back then was a busy place. When he was in high school they boarded it up, and the hoodlums used it as a hangout. It was almost razed before the town stepped in with an ill-advised renovation.
Now it was a collection of chopped-up rooms flung over two floors, with worthless junk piled to the ceiling. Lumber and wallboard were stacked throughout, evidence of endless repairs. Sawdust covered the floors. A quick walk-through convinced Ray that the place was more flammable than Maple Run.
“We got more space in the basement,” the woman said.
“No thanks.”
He stepped outside to leave, and flying by on Taylor Street was a brand-new black Cadillac, glistening in the early sun, not a speck of dirt anywhere, Claudia behind the wheel with Jackie O sunglasses.
Standing there in the early morning heat, watching the car race down the street, Ray felt the town of Clanton collapse on top of him. Claudia, the Virgils, Harry Rex and his wives and secretaries, the Atkins boys roofing and drinking and fighting.
Is everybody crazy, or is it just me?
He got in his car and left the Depot, slinging gravel behind. At the edge of town the road stopped. To the north was Forrest, to the south was the coast. Life would get no simpler by visiting his brother, but he had promised.
CHAPTER 28
Two days later, Ray arrived on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. There were friends from his law school days at Tulane he wanted to see, and he gave serious thought to spending time in his old haunts. He craved an oyster po’boy from Franky & Johnny’s by the levee, a muffaletta from Maspero’s on Decatur in the Quarter, a Dixie Beer at the Chart Room on Bourbon Street, and chicory coffee and beignets at Café du Monde, all of his old haunts from twenty years ago.
But crime was rampant in New Orleans, and his handsome little sports car could be a target. Lucky the thief who stole it and yanked open the trunk. Thieves would not catch him, nor would state troopers because he kept precisely at the posted limits. He was a perfect driver—obeying all the laws, closely eyeing every other car.
The traffic slowed him on Highway 90, and for an
hour he crept eastward through Long Beach, Gulfport, and Biloxi, hugging the beach, past the shiny new casinos sitting at the water, past new hotels and restaurants. Gambling had hit the coast as fast as it had arrived in the farmlands around Tunica.
He crossed the Bay of Biloxi and entered Jackson County. Near Pascagoula, he saw a flashing rented sign beckoning travelers to stop in for All-You-Can-Eat-Cajun, just $13.99. It was a dive but the parking lot was well lit. He cased it first and realized he could sit at a table in the window and keep an eye on his car. This had become his habit.
There were three counties along the Gulf. Jackson on the east and bordering Alabama, Harrison in the middle, and Hancock on the west next to Louisiana. A local politician had succeeded nicely in Washington and kept the pork flowing back to the shipyards in Jackson County. Gambling was paying the bills and building the schools in Harrison County. And it was Hancock, the least developed and populated, that Judge Atlee had visited in January 1999 for a case that no one back home knew about.
After a slow dinner of crawfish étouffée and shrimp rémoulade, with some raw oysters thrown in, he drifted back across the bay, back through Biloxi and Gulfport. In the town of Pass Christian he found what he was searching for—a new, flat motel with doors that opened to the outside. The surroundings looked safe, the parking lot was half-full. He paid sixty dollars cash for one night and backed the car as close to his door as possible. He’d changed his mind about being without a
weapon. One strange sound during the night, and he’d be outside in a flash with the Judge’s .38, loaded now. He was perfectly prepared to sleep in the car, if necessary.
______
Hancock County was named for John, he of the bold signature on the Declaration of Independence. Its courthouse was built in 1911 in the center of Bay St. Louis, and was practically blown away by Hurricane Camille in August 1969. The eye ran right through Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis, and no building escaped severe damage. More than a hundred people died and many were never found.
Ray stopped to read a historical marker on the courthouse lawn, then turned once more to look at his little Audi. Though court records were usually open, he was nervous anyway. The clerks in Clanton guarded their records and monitored who came and went. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for or where to begin. The biggest fear, however, was what he might find.
In the Chancery Clerk’s office, he loitered just long enough to catch the eye of a pretty young lady with a pencil in her hair. “May I help you?” she drawled. He was holding a legal pad, as if that would somehow qualify him and open all the right doors.
“Do y’all keep records of trials?” he asked, trying hard to string out the “y’all” and overemphasizing it in the process.
She frowned and looked at him as if he had committed a misdemeanor.
“We have minutes from each term of court,” she said slowly, because he obviously was not very bright. “And we have the actual court files.” Ray was scribbling this down.
“And,” she said after a pause, “there are the trial transcripts taken down by the court reporter, but we don’t keep those here.”
“Can I see the minutes?” he asked, grasping at the first item she’d mentioned.
“Sure. Which term?”
“January of last year.”
She took two steps to her right and began pecking on a keyboard. Ray looked around the large office where several ladies were at their desks, some typing, some filing, some on the phone. The last time he’d seen the Chancery Clerk’s office in Clanton there had been only one computer. Hancock County was ten years ahead.
In a corner two lawyers sipped coffee from paper cups and whispered low about important matters. Before them were the property deed books that dated back two hundred years. Both had reading glasses perched on their noses and scuffed wing tips and ties with thick knots. They were checking land titles for a hundred bucks a pop, one of a dozen dreary chores handled by legions of small-town lawyers. One of them noticed Ray and eyed him suspiciously.
That could be me, Ray thought to himself.
The young lady ducked and pulled out a large ledger filled with computer printouts. She flipped pages, then stopped and spun it around on the counter.
“Here,” she said, pointing. “January ’99, two weeks of court. Here’s the docket, which goes on for several pages. This column lists the final disposition. As you’ll see, most cases were continued to the March term.”
Ray was looking and listening.
“Any case in particular?” she asked.
“Do you remember a case that was heard by Judge Atlee, from Ford County? I think he was here as a special chancellor?” he asked casually. She glared at him as if he’d asked to see her own divorce file.
“Are you a reporter?” she asked, and Ray almost took a step backward.
“Do I need to be?” he asked. Two of the other deputy clerks had stopped whatever they were doing and were frowning at him.
She forced a smile. “No, but that case was pretty big. It’s right here,” she said, pointing again. On the docket it was listed simply as
Gibson v. Miyer-Brack
. Ray nodded approvingly as if he’d found exactly what he wanted. “And where would the file be located?” he asked.
“It’s thick,” she said.
He followed her into a room filled with black metal cabinets that held thousands of files. She knew exactly where to go. “Sign here,” she said, handing over a clipboard with a ledger on it. “Just your name, the date. I’ll do the rest.”
“What kind of case was it?” he asked as he filled in the blanks.
“Wrongful death.” She opened a long drawer and pointed from one end to the other. “All this,” she said.
“The pleadings start here, then discovery, then the trial transcript. You can take it to that table over there, but it cannot leave the room. Judge’s orders.”
“Which judge?”
“Judge Atlee.”
“He died, you know.”
Walking away, she said, “That’s not such a bad thing.”
The air in the room went with her, and it took a few seconds for Ray to think again. The file was four feet thick, but he didn’t care. He had the rest of the summer.
______
Clete Gibson died in 1997 at the age of sixty-one. Cause of death, kidney failure. Cause of kidney failure, a drug called Ryax, manufactured by Miyer-Brack, according to the allegations of the lawsuit, and found to be true by the Honorable Reuben V. Atlee, sitting as special chancellor.
Mr. Gibson had taken Ryax for eight years to battle high cholesterol. The drug was prescribed by his doctor and sold by his pharmacist, both of whom were also sued by his widow and children. After taking the drug for about five years, he began having kidney problems, which were treated by a different set of doctors. At the time, Ryax, a relatively new drug, had no known side effects. When Gibson’s kidneys quit completely, he somehow came to know a Mr. Patton French, attorney-at-law. This happened shortly before his death.
Patton French was with French & French, over in Biloxi. A firm letterhead listed six other lawyers. In addition to the manufacturer, physician, and pharmacist, the defendants also included a local drug salesman and his brokerage company out of New Orleans. Every defendant had a big firm engaged, including some heavyweights from New York. The litigation was contentious, complicated, even fierce at times, and Mr. Patton French and his little firm from Biloxi waged an impressive war against the giants on the other side.
Miyer-Brack was a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, privately owned, with interests in sixty countries, according to the deposition of its American representative. In 1998, its profits were $635 million on revenues of $9.1 billion. That one deposition took an hour to read.
For some reason, Patton French decided to file a wrongful death suit in Chancery Court, the court of equity, instead of Circuit Court, where most trials were by jury. By statute, the only jury trials in Chancery were for will contests. Ray had sat through several of those miserable affairs while clerking for the Judge.
Chancery Court had jurisdiction for two reasons. First, Gibson was dead and his estate was a Chancery matter. Second, he had a child under the age of eighteen. The legal business of minors belonged in Chancery Court.
Gibson also had three children who were not minors. The lawsuit could’ve been filed in either Circuit or Chancery, one of a hundred great quirks in Mississippi law. Ray had once asked the Judge to explain this enigma, and as usual the answer was simply,
“We have the greatest court system in the country.” Every old chancellor believed this.
Giving lawyers the choice of where to sue was not peculiar to any state. Forum shopping was a game played on the national map. But when a lawsuit by a widow living in rural Mississippi against a mammoth Swiss company that created a drug produced in Uruguay was filed in the Chancery Court of Hancock County, a red flag was raised. The federal courts were in place to deal with such far-flung disputes, and Miyer-Brack and its phalanx of lawyers tried gallantly to remove the case. Judge Atlee held firm, as did the federal judge. Local defendants were included, thus removal to federal court could be denied.
Reuben Atlee was in charge of the case, and as he pushed the matter to trial, his patience with the defense lawyers wore thin. Ray had to smile at some of his father’s rulings. They were terse, brutally to the point, and designed to light a fire under the hordes of lawyers scrambling around the defendants. The modern-day rules about speedy trials had never been necessary in Judge Atlee’s courtroom.