John Grisham

by The Brethren (v5)

  Rules prohibited inmates from having their own TV’s.

  The guard on duty happened to like basketball. There was a college game on ESPN, and the room was packed with inmates. Hatlee Beech hated sports, and he sat alone in the other TV room and watched one banal sitcom after another. When he was on the bench and working twelve hours a day, he had never watched television. Who had the time? He’d had an office in his home where he dictated opinions until late while everyone else was glued to prime time. Now, watching the mindless crap, he realized how lucky he’d been. In so many ways.

  He lit a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked since college, and for the first two months at Trumble he’d resisted the temptation. Now it helped with the boredom, but only a pack a day. His blood pressure was up and down. Heart disease ran in the family. At fifty-six with nine years to go, he would leave in a box, he was certain.

  Three years, one month, one week, and Beech was still counting the days in as opposed to the days to go. Just four years ago he’d been building his reputation as a tough young federal judge who was going places. Four rotten years. When he traveled from one courthouse to the next in East Texas, he did so with a driver, a secretary, a clerk, and a U.S. Marshal. When he walked into a courtroom people stood out of respect. Lawyers gave him high marks for his fairness and hard work. His wife had been an unpleasant woman, but with her family’s oil trust he’d managed to live peacefully with her. The marriage was stable, not exactly warm, but with three fine kids in college they had reason to be proud. They had weathered some rough times and were determined to grow old together. She had the money. He had the status. Together they’d raised a family. Where was there to go?

  Certainly not to prison.

  Four miserable years.

  The drinking came from nowhere. Maybe it was pressure from work, maybe it was to escape his wife’s bickering. For years, after law school, he’d been a light social drinker, nothing serious. Certainly not a habit. Once when the kids were small, his wife took them to Italy for two weeks. Beech was left alone, which suited him fine. For some reason he could never determine, or remember, he turned to bourbon. Lots of it, and he never stopped. The bourbon became important. He kept it in his study and sneaked it late at night. They had separate beds so he seldom got caught.

  The trip to Yellowstone had been a three-day judicial conference. He’d met the young lady in a bar in Jackson Hole. After hours of drinking they made the sad decision to take a ride. While Hatlee drove she took off her clothes, but for no other reason than to just do it. Sex had not been discussed, and at that point he was completely harmless.

  The two hikers were from D.C., just college kids returning from the trails. Both died at the scene, slaughtered on the shoulder of a narrow road by a drunken driver who never saw them. The young lady’s car was found in a ditch with Beech hugging the steering wheel, unable to remove himself. She was naked and knocked out.

  He remembered nothing. When he awoke hours later he saw for the first time the inside of a cell. “Better get used to it,” the sheriff had said with a sneer.

  Beech called in every favor and pulled every string imaginable, all to no avail. Two young people were dead. He’d been caught with a naked woman. His wife had the oil money so his friends ran like scared dogs. In the end, no one stood up for the Honorable Hatlee Beech.

  He was lucky to get twelve years. MADD mothers and SADD students protested outside the courthouse when he made his first official appearance. They wanted a life sentence. Life!

  He himself, the Honorable Hatlee Beech, was charged with two counts of manslaughter, and there was no defense. There was enough alcohol in his blood to kill the next guy. A witness said he’d been speeding on the wrong side of the road.

  Looking back, he’d been lucky his crime was on federal lands. Otherwise he would have been shipped away to some state pen where things were much tougher. Say what you want, but the feds knew how to run a prison.

  He smoked alone in the semidarkness, watching prime-time comedy written by twelve-year-olds, and there was a political ad, one of many those days. It was one Beech had never seen, a menacing little segment with a somber voice predicting doom if we didn’t hurry and build more bombs. It was very well done, ran for a minute and a half, cost a bundle, and delivered a message no one wanted to hear. Lake Before It’s Too Late.

  Who the hell’s Aaron Lake?

  Beech knew his politics. It had been his passion in another life, and at Trumble he was known as a fellow who watched Washington. He was one of the few who cared what happened there.

  Aaron Lake? Beech had missed the guy. What an odd strategy, to enter the race as an unknown after New Hampshire. Never a shortage of clowns who want to be President.

  Beech’s wife kicked him out before he pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter. Quite naturally, she was angrier over the naked woman than the dead hikers. The kids sided with her because she had the money and because he’d screwed up so badly. It was an easy decision on their part. The divorce was final a week after he arrived at Trumble.

  His youngest had been to see him twice in three years, one month, and one week. Both visits were on the sly, lest the mother find out about them. She had prohibited the kids from going to Trumble.

  Then he got sued, two wrongful death cases brought by the families. With no friends willing to step forward, he’d tried to defend himself from prison. But there wasn’t much to defend. A judgment of $5 million had been entered against him by the trial court. He appealed from Trumble, lost from Trumble, and appealed again.

  In the chair beside him, next to his cigarettes, was an envelope brought earlier by Trevor, the lawyer. The court had rejected his final appeal. The judgment was now written in stone.

  Didn’t really matter, because he’d also filed for bankruptcy. He’d typed the papers himself in the law library and filed them with a pauper’s oath, sent them to the same courthouse in Texas where he was once a god.

  Convicted, divorced, disbarred, imprisoned, sued, bankrupt.

  Most of the losers at Trumble handled their time because their falls had been so short. Most were repeat offenders who’d blown third and fourth chances. Most liked the damned place because it was better than any other prison they’d visited.

  But Beech had lost so much, had fallen so far. Just four years ago he’d had a wife with millions and three kids who loved him and a big home in a small town. He was a federal judge, appointed by the President for life, making $140,000 a year, which was a lot less than her oil royalties but still not a bad salary. He got himself called to Washington twice a year for meetings at Justice. Beech had been important.

  An old lawyer friend had been to see him twice, on his way to Miami where he had kids, and he stayed long enough to deliver the gossip. Most of it was worthless, but there was a strong rumor that the ex-Mrs. Beech was now seeing someone else. With a few million bucks and slender hips it was only a matter of time.

  Another ad. Lake Before It’s Too Late again. This one began with a grainy video of men with guns slithering through the desert, dodging and shooting and undergoing some type of training. Then the sinister face of a terrorist—dark eyes and hair and features, obviously some manner of Islamic radical—and he said in Arabic with English subtitles, “We will kill Americans wherever we find them. We will die in our holy war against the great Satan.” After that, quick videos of burning buildings. Embassy bombings. A busload of tourists. The remains of a jetliner scattered through a pasture.

  A handsome face appeared, Mr. Aaron Lake himself. He looked directly at Hatlee Beech and said, “I’m Aaron Lake, and you probably don’t know me. I’m running for President because I’m scared. Scared of China and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Scared of a dangerous world. Scared of what’s happened to our military. Last year the federal government had a huge surplus, yet spent less on defense than we did fifteen years ago. We’re complacent because our economy is strong, but the world today is far more dangerous than we realize. Our enemies are
legion, and we cannot protect ourselves. If elected, I will double defense spending during my term of office.”

  No smiles, no warmth. Just plain talk from a man who meant what he said. A voice-over said, “Lake, Before It’s Too Late.”

  Not bad, thought Beech.

  He lit another cigarette, his last of the night, and stared at the envelope on the empty chair—$5 million lodged against him by the two families. He’d pay the money if he could. Never saw the kids, not before he killed them. The paper the next day had their happy photos, a boy and a girl. Just college kids, enjoying the summer.

  He missed the bourbon.

  He could bankrupt half the judgment. The other half was for punitive damages, nonbankruptable. So it would follow wherever he went, which he assumed was nowhere. He’d be sixty-five when his sentence was over, but he’d be dead before then. They’d carry him out of Trumble in a box, send him home to Texas, where they’d bury him behind the little country church where he’d been baptized. Maybe one of the kids would spring for a headstone.

  Beech left the room without turning off the TV. It was almost ten, time for lights-out. He bunked with Robbie, a kid from Kentucky who’d broken into 240 houses before they caught him. He sold the guns and microwaves and stereos for cocaine. Robbie was a four-year veteran of Trumble, and because of his seniority he had chosen the bottom bunk. Beech crawled into the top one, said, “Good night, Robbie,” and turned off the light.

  “Night, Hatlee,” came the soft response.

  Sometimes they chatted in the dark. The walls were cinderblock, the door was metal, their words were confined to their little room. Robbie was twenty-five and would be forty-five before he left Trumble. Twenty-four years—one for every ten houses.

  The time between bed and sleep was the worst of the day. The past came back with a vengeance—the mistakes, the misery, the could-haves and should-haves. Try as he might, Hatlee could not simply close his eyes and go to sleep. He had to punish himself first. There was a grandchild he’d never seen, and he always started with her. Then his three kids. Forget the wife. But he always thought about her money. And the friends. Ah, the friends. Where were they now?

  Three years in, and with no future there was only the past. Even poor Robbie below dreamed of a new beginning at the age of forty-five. Not Beech. At times he almost longed for the warm Texas soil, layered upon his body, behind the little church.

  Surely someone would buy him a headstone.

  SIX

  FOR QUINCE GARBE, February 3 would be the worst day of his life. It was almost the last, and it would’ve been had his doctor been in town. He couldn’t get a prescription for sleeping pills, and he didn’t have the courage to use a gun on himself.

  It began pleasantly enough with a late breakfast, a bowl of oatmeal by the fire in the den, alone. His wife of twenty-six years had already left for town, for another day of charity teas and fund-raising and frantic small-town volunteerism that kept her busy and away from him.

  It was snowing when he left their large and pretentious banker’s home on the edge of Bakers, Iowa, and drove ten minutes to work in his long black Mercedes, eleven years old. He was an important man about town, a Garbe, a member of a family that had owned the bank for generations. He parked in his reserved spot behind the bank, which faced Main Street, and made a quick detour to the post office, something he did twice a week. For years he’d had a private box there, away from his wife and especially away from his secretary.

  Because he was rich and few others were in Bakers, Iowa, he seldom spoke to people on the street. He didn’t care what they thought. They worshiped his father and that was enough to keep their business.

  But when the old man died, would he have to change his personality? Would he be forced to smile on the sidewalks of Bakers and join the Rotary Club, the one founded by his grandfather?

  Quince was tired of being dependent on the whims of the public for his security. He was tired of relying on his father to keep their customers happy. He was tired of banking and tired of Iowa and tired of snow and tired of his wife, and what Quince wanted more than anything that morning in February was a letter from his beloved Ricky. A nice, brief little note confirming their rendezvous.

  What Quince really wanted was three warm days on a love boat with Ricky. He might never come back.

  Bakers had eighteen thousand people, so the central post office on Main was usually busy. And there was always a different clerk behind the counter. That’s how he’d rented the box—he’d waited until a new postal worker was on duty. CMT Investments was the official lessee. He went straight to the box, around a corner to a wall with a hundred others.

  There were three letters, and as he snatched them and stuffed them in his coat pocket his heart froze as he saw that one was from Ricky. He hurried onto Main, and minutes later entered his bank, at exactly 10 A.M. His father had been there for four hours, but they had long since stopped bickering over Quince’s work schedule. As always, he stopped at his secretary’s desk to hurriedly remove his gloves as if important matters were waiting. She handed him his mail, his two phone messages, and reminded him that he had lunch in two hours with a local real estate agent.

  He locked his door behind him, flung his gloves one way and his coat the other, and ripped open the letter from Ricky. He sat on his sofa and put on his reading glasses, breathing heavily not from the walk but from anticipation. He was on the verge of arousal when he started reading.

  The words hit like bullets. After the second paragraph, he emitted a strange, painful “Awwww.” Then a couple of “Oh my gods.” Then a low, hissing “Sonofabitch.”

  Quiet, he told himself, the secretary is always listening. The first reading brought shock, the second disbelief. Reality began settling in with the third reading, and Quince’s lip started to quiver. Don’t cry, dammit, he told himself.

  He threw the letter on the floor and paced around his desk, ignoring as best he could the cheerful faces of his wife and children. Twenty years’ worth of class photos and family portraits were lined along his credenza, just under the window. He looked out and watched the snow, now heavier and accumulating on the sidewalks. God how he hated Bakers, Iowa. He’d thought he might leave and escape to the beach, where he could frolic with a handsome young pal and maybe never come home.

  Now he would leave under different circumstances.

  It was a joke, a hoax, he told himself, but he instantly knew better. The scam was too tight. The punch line was too perfect. He’d been set up by a professional.

  All his life he’d fought his desires. Somehow he’d finally found the nerve to crack the closet door, and now he got shot between the eyes by a con man. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could this be so difficult?

  Random thoughts hit from every direction as he watched the snow. Suicide was the easy answer, but his doctor was gone and he really didn’t want to die. At least not at the moment. He wasn’t sure where he’d find a hundred thousand bucks he could send off without raising suspicions. The old bastard next door paid him a pittance and kept his thumb on every dime. His wife insisted on balancing their checkbook. There was some money in mutuals, but he couldn’t move it without her knowing. The life of a rich banker in Bakers, Iowa, meant a title and a Mercedes and a large mortgaged house and a wife with social activities. Oh how he wanted to escape!

  He’d go to Florida anyway, and track the letter somehow, and confront this con man, expose his extortion attempt, find some justice. He, Quince Garbe, had done nothing wrong. Surely a crime was being perpetrated here. Perhaps he could hire an investigator, and maybe a lawyer, and they’d protect him. They’d get to the bottom of this scam.

  Even if he found the money, and wired it as instructed, the gate would be opened and Ricky, whoever in hell Ricky was, might want more. What would stop Ricky from extorting again, and again?

  If he had guts he’d run off anyway, run to Key West or some hot spot where it never snowed and live any damn way he wanted to live, and let the pit
iful little people of Bakers, Iowa, gossip about him for the next half-century. But he didn’t have the guts, and that’s what made Quince so sad.

  His children were staring at him, freckled smiles with teeth wrapped in silver braces. His heart sank, and he knew he’d find the money and wire it precisely as directed. He had to protect them. They had done nothing wrong.

  The bank’s stock was worth about $10 million, all of it still tightly controlled by the old man, who at the moment was barking in the hallway. The old man was eighty-one, very much alive but still eighty-one. When he was gone, Quince would have to contend with a sister in Chicago, but the bank would be his. He’d sell the damned thing as fast as he could and leave Bakers with a few million in his pocket. Until then, though, he’d be forced to do what he’d always done, keep the old man content.

  Quince’s getting yanked out of the closet by some con man would devastate his father, and pretty much take care of the stock. Sister in Chicago would get all of it.

  When the barking stopped outside, he eased through the door and passed his secretary for a cup of coffee. He ignored her as he returned to his room, locked his door, read the letter for the fourth time, and collected his thoughts. He’d find the money, and he’d wire it just as instructed, and he’d hope and pray with a fury that Ricky would go away. If not, if he came back for more, Quince would call his doctor and get some pills.

  The real estate agent he was meeting for lunch was a high-roller who took chances and cut corners, probably a crook. Quince began to make plans. The two of them would arrange a few shady loans; overappraise some land, lend the money, sell to a strawman, etc. He would know how to do it.

  Quince would find the money.

  THE LAKE CAMPAIGN’S doomsday ads landed with a thud, at least in public opinion. Massive polling through the first week showed a dramatic increase in name recognition, from 2 to 20 percent, but the ads were universally disliked. They were frightening and people just didn’t want to think about wars and terrorism and old nukes getting hauled across mountains in the dark. People saw the ads (they were impossible to miss), and they heard the message, but most voters simply didn’t want to be bothered. They were too busy making money and spending it. When issues were confronted in the midst of a roaring economy, they were limited to the old standbys of family values and tax cuts.