The Legal Limit

by Martin Clark

  Custis was missing the next morning, nowhere to be found, forcing Mason to hustle between two courts and beg indulgences from the judges while Sheila did her best to placate miffed victims and impatient cops, a disaster of a day that had Mason tired and cranky by three o’clock. He twice sent a deputy to Custis’s home and he called Inez Rucker, but it didn’t do any good; Custis had disappeared. To make matters worse, Ed Hoffman phoned while Mason was huddled in his office with a pair of investigators, attempting to learn—from scratch—one of Custis’s cases during a fifteen-minute recess he’d cajoled from Judge Greenwalt despite a docket that was over an hour behind. Already harried, Mason had to excuse himself and bound up the stairs and answer the call in the library.

  “Afternoon, Mason,” Hoffman said.

  “Ed.” Mason was slightly winded. He held the receiver away from his mouth while he recovered, didn’t want Hoffman to hear him panting.

  “Sheila says you’re busy. I won’t dillydally. You decided on the polygraph? My offer still stands.”

  “I’m considering it, Ed.”

  “This bugger’s comin’, Mason. Stallings has made up his mind. Sent me to re-interview your brother. Don’t care for him, your brother. Sorry sack of shit, if I can say so.”

  “I’ll let you know, and I’m grateful to you, Ed.” Mason’s breathing was quickly regular. “We’ll see, huh?”

  “This ain’t fair,” Hoffman said, and he struck Mason as concerned and earnest. “It’s upside down.”

  “The fair left town in September, right?” An old courtroom saw they’d both used before.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I’m aware this is difficult for you, and I appreciate how generous you’ve been with me.” Mason checked his watch. “I think I told you as much at the coffee shop.”

  “Keep in touch.”

  “So Ed…so when’re you going to tell me more about your secret evidence? The nail for my coffin.” The question was clumsy, more desperate than Mason would’ve preferred.

  “Can’t. Wouldn’t be ethical. Can’t tell you jack that I’m not supposed to.”

  “I know.”

  “Can’t tell you. You might guess it. On your own. Readin’ magazines, studying, you might piece it together.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Mason said. They were both silent. Mason noticed the rows of tan Virginia Reporters on the shelves, numbered law books containing decades of disputes and rulings. “Is it reasonable to assume, if I were speculating, that I need to watch people close to me?” He shut his eyes. Clenched his teeth. Swallowed. The window-unit air conditioner was humming, its control cover sprung open and three knobs visible.

  “Always wise in any situation,” the cop replied. “Especially them who was close to you in the past.”

  “You’re a prince, Ed.” But Mason was sick when he said it, numb, and the injury, the wound, was obvious in his voice, a weight so pronounced he slurred the words.

  “Don’t know why you’d think so. The box is the only route you got, seems to me. Bus is leavin’ the station. Call anytime, twenty-four-seven.”

  Mason used the handrail as he descended the stairs from the library, kicked-in-the-groin pained, his pace a single step and a pause, both feet together on each worn oak board, and he made it halfway to the bottom before he surrendered and sat down and bent at the belly, his hands catching his face, the hell with the cops and their shoplifting file, they could wait forever. He remained in the stairway until he’d squandered most of his fifteen minutes, accomplishing nothing, stymied, wondering, half-ass contemplating disguises and fake passports. He finally collected the waiting policemen and went to court and muddled through the rest of his docket, distracted and indifferent, losing most of the cases or giving away the store in lenient plea agreements.

  No Custis on Friday, either. As soon as he had a break, Mason hustled to the clerk’s office, scanned the index and found a lawsuit filed by Art Anthony, a boundary-line fight between bullheaded neighbors quarreling over fifty feet of worthless dirt. At the end of the complaint was Art’s address, phone number and Bar ID number. Mason copied the ID number onto a scrap of paper. He walked across the street to Art’s law office and asked the secretary if he could use their library, a request that was fairly routine, given that Art had more legal volumes than anyone else in town, an inheritance from his former partner, Howard Pilson. Mason had been there three weeks ago to find a criminal precedent from 1903, and today the secretary smiled and inquired about Grace, then told him to make himself at home. “Where’s Art?” Mason asked, and discovered he was in Martinsville, involved in a deposition.

  Mason shut the door to the library, removed two books at random and placed them on a table. There was a phone in the room’s corner, near the edge of a small, junky desk, and he picked up the receiver and depressed the clear, square button for line two. The button lit red. He checked the room, considered locking the door but didn’t. He dialed the number for the state bar, got a receptionist and was put through to a lady named Marie Reilly, who was assistant bar counsel. He told her he was Art Anthony, and she confirmed his ID number.

  “So how can I help you, Mr. Anthony?” she asked after they’d finished the preliminaries.

  “I have a question about attorney-client privilege,” he informed her. “I think I know the answer, but I wanted to discuss it with the experts.”

  “I’m not sure if I’m an expert, but I’ll try to help.”

  “Here’s my scenario: Let’s say I’m standing on the street and I see my best friend running from the bank. As he passes me, he says something like, ‘Can’t talk, I robbed the bank and the cops are hot on my trail.’”

  Marie Reilly chuckled. “Now, there’s an original one.”

  “Right. So the next day, my friend is arrested, and he retains me to represent him. The trick is, he claims the commonwealth can’t call me to testify about his earlier statement, wants to assert the privilege to prevent me from revealing what I saw and heard before I was hired. How do we stand under those facts?”

  “First off,” Reilly noted, “I’d have serious reservations about taking the case when I was a potential—”

  “I understand,” Mason interrupted. “Sure. You’re correct, no doubt. That’s really not my issue, though. I need to know if the attorney-client privilege reaches back to insulate information gained before representation, info or facts that were obtained completely independent of the client’s communications and prior to any formal, legally recognizable relationship.”

  “The answer would be no. Pretty easy one there, Mr. Anthony. As a policy matter, it only makes sense—you’re not betraying any client secret or improperly revealing any unique or special insight gained via the representation. For example, a murderer couldn’t hire you months after the crime and then bar you from testifying how you observed him shoot his victim. Pretty straightforward, but again, I’d be extremely hesitant to accept such a case if I had critical knowledge I’d discovered earlier, totally apart from the representation.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Mason said, attempting to sound chipper. “I’d pretty much come to the same conclusion.” There’s more to it, he remembered shouting at Custis. We won’t be taking Allen Roberts to the grand jury. Not in June. Not ever. Lord only knew what else he’d said before he wrote the check. Great.

  Brooding on his porch that night, still wearing his suit and tie, waiting for Grace to arrive home from a friend’s pool party, the outside light swarmed by gnats, moths and hardshell bugs, the toads lying in wait beneath the azalea shadows, Mason recalled watching, years ago, a deer leap the pasture fence, chased by dogs. Not long relocated from Richmond, he and Allison had been planting perennials when they heard baying and barking and saw a fawn, still spotted, no larger than its pursuers, jump the top rail, and it was momentarily a gorgeous sight, graceful and elegant, but the baby was tired, evidently drained by the run, and its rear legs clipped the fence, causing it to go crooked in the air and stagger its landing. The dogs,
a pack of them, feral, ugly and wolfish, came into view, wild brutes breakneck charging, but Mason was certain they’d never catch their prey, never have the stamina or speed regardless of how weary the deer was. Its head start seemed enough.

  Then another group of mongrels emerged from the woods below, coming at an angle, and together with the first pack they had the deer cut off, trapped. It stopped and tried to flee to the right but was boxed in, and it leapt straight to the sky and squealed and shuddered as the first cur chewed into his thin hind leg. It was mangled and as good as dead by the time Allison reached it, shouting and waving a garden hoe and not thinking about the danger, Mason beside her clapping his hands and yelling curses. The dogs trotted to the edge of the pasture, all together now. They wouldn’t leave, just stayed at a distance, some moiling, some on their haunches, ears up. Determined not to let them reap benefit from their bloodletting, Mason and Allison wrapped the dying animal in a sheet and paid the vet a hundred dollars to put it down. Whispering comfort, Allison stood witness to its pitiful fading and vowed to kill every one of the motherfucking strays on her property.

  Surrounded and abjectly isolated, barricaded against his own particular hounds, Mason rocked in his chair, the night humid and the pasture under patches of fog. It made no sense for Custis to betray him, no sense whatsoever, and that plain inconsistency, along with his belief in Custis’s ironclad decency, gave him a dribble of optimism, kept him thinking. There was nothing to be gained, no advantage, no reason for Custis to help the cops and decimate a friend, no grounds for retribution or punishment. Perhaps Custis felt he couldn’t lie, felt he was beholden to some rule of paramount integrity that required him to honor the law and hew to the truth no matter the consequences, especially with a murder involved. But why does the guy who invents rough justice with Shug Cassidy suddenly change his stripes and decide to worship at the altar of abstract notions? And why be so suddenly, transparently hostile? Custis would’ve had to have been in cahoots with Bass and Minter from the beginning, part of their ploy with the prop gun and fake lab reports, the law office wired so he could spin webs and tease out information. But Custis Norman wasn’t a tattle or a stool pigeon, hell no, far from it, and they were as close as kin, each other’s favorite.

  Mason heard the Gregorys’ minivan bringing Grace home, and the headlights spoked through the driveway poplars and then into the pasture, animating the fog and coloring three sets of eyes red-orange. A buck and two mature does, briefly revealed from the dark, evaluated the vehicle and returned to their grazing, not alarmed or frightened, unaware of any history there in those fields.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Violet, yellow, orange, white, crimson and many of their shades and variants stacked at least five feet tall—an arrangement of flowers the likes of which Mason had never seen before was waiting on Sheila’s desk when he arrived early Monday morning, a magnificent mea culpa from Custis. There was a Mylar balloon fastened to her chair, floating the words I’M SORRY, the apology issuing from the jowls of a contrite cartoon basset hound. A box of Godiva chocolates was beside her computer, a present wrapped in metallic paper was in her chair, but there was no sign of either her or Custis. Driving to work, Mason hadn’t known what to expect, but since it was his turn to supply food and snacks, he’d optimistically brought along a bag of fruit, reduced-fat cereal bars, pecan twirls, and two pint-size containers of orange juice, hoping for the best.

  He flipped on the light behind Sheila’s desk, took another gander at the flowers and the gift and noticed, topping a neat pile of messages for Custis, a slip marked “Urgent”: “Call Ed Hoffman ASAP.” Hoffman had phoned on Friday, right after nine. Mason picked up the small piece of paper, held it between his thumb and index finger, read it aloud to the empty room in his normal voice, then laid it down; he felt no more or less disturbed than he had before finding it. He snooped through the rest of the messages and didn’t discover anything else of interest.

  Custis had also left a gift on Mason’s desk, along with a note instructing him not to open it until they were together. Settling in to wait for his partner’s arrival, Mason pried apart the juice’s waxy spout, drank from the carton and bit into a pear. He separated the sports section from the Roanoke Times and checked the baseball scores. Several bites into the fruit, nearing the stringy core, he saw a sleek black limo pass by his window—an odd sight in Stuart—and make the turn onto Main Street. Almost immediately he heard a horn honk and keep honking. He walked into the lobby, carrying his juice with him, and found the limo parked in front of the office. The driver went briskly to the rear door and out stepped Custis and Sheila, laughing and goofy, their argument apparently behind them, both in fine fettle.

  They strolled into the building and greeted Mason, and Sheila gasped at the flowers and teared up because of the balloon. “Custis came and got me in a limousine,” she said. “You coulda knocked me over with a feather. Roger saw it and ran screamin’ from the bathroom to the kitchen ’cause he thought we’d won the Ed McMahon sweepstakes or somethin’.” Her hands were excited while she spoke, embellishing her words. “And I don’t think I’ve ever seen such gorgeous flowers.” She smiled at Custis. “Thank you.”

  “The production’s not done, Mrs. Shough. Act two moves to your desk.” Custis was beaming, and as Mason saw him there, so sincere, generous and humble, making amends in high style, it was difficult to imagine him as a serpent with a hidden agenda, lying to his friend and sleeping with the cops, Ed Hoffman’s recent message notwithstanding.

  Sheila oohed and ahhed over the candy, and when she opened the present—bam!—a spring snake uncoiled and rocketed from the box, startling her and causing her to shriek and then wag her finger and promise revenge. They hugged and the rift was repaired, the first good sign for Mason in many a month.

  Later, seated in his office, Custis devouring a cereal bar and leaning against the wall, Mason asked if he could unwrap his gift as well.

  “Soon, my man. Soon.” Custis crossed his legs at the ankles, set a toe against the floor. He was wearing a tan poplin suit and novelty socks with vibrant Dr. Seuss rings. “Listen, Mace, I’m to-the-bone sorry ’bout my conduct last week, okay? Embarrassed. It wasn’t professional, it wasn’t justified and it wasn’t the way a friend should respect a friend. So you got my apology, straight up and no strings. I shouldn’t have broken on you like I did, and I hope you can wipe the slate and me and you go back where we were.”

  “Absolutely, Custis. And if I did or said something or offended you, whatever, you know I’m sorry, too. Basically, you’re the best friend I have, and I’d wrestle the devil for you. Last week never happened. I’m relieved you’re okay now. It worried me to death, you being so unhappy.”

  “Thanks. I was goin’ through things, and I should’ve never carried it to work or let it get between us. My fault.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault, Custis. I was a pain in your ass after Allison’s wreck, completely useless and glum, and I probably still would be if you hadn’t helped cure me. I figure you have plenty left in the bank where I’m concerned.”

  “Kind of you to say.”

  “I don’t want to be a nuisance, but is there anything I can do for you? All you have to do is ask.”

  “Nah, I’m clear of it.” He dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin, wiped his hands and tossed the wadded napkin into the trash. “I need to give you a heads-up on a situation, though. I hate to do it, hate to have to tell you, but it is what it is.”

  “Okay.” Mason tensed. “Sure.” He chain-blinked. He made fists and jammed them partway into his pockets.

  “Man, this is a bitch. Man…” Custis tilted his head and spoke toward the ceiling. “It has nothin’ to do with you or our friendship, but I’m guessin’ you’ll probably see it differently. Some events, Mace, some events just kinda shake out naturally.” He leveled his gaze and studied Mason. “They’re what comes next.”

  “Okay.”

  “This ain’t about you.”


  “Okay,” Mason mumbled again, stuck on the response.

  “So, well, uh…damn…I’m probably gonna be leavin’, Mason. Movin’ on. New job, new town, new Custis.” He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not immediately, mind you, and you know I won’t put you in a hole. But it’s most likely gonna happen, and you should be gettin’ ready, lining up my replacement. Takin’ measures.”

  “Why would you leave?” Mason was incredulous. “You’ve been here forever. I can’t…I mean…shit, Custis. Why? Is there a problem—you certainly don’t seem to be too thrilled about your decision. Is it money? I realize we aren’t getting rich, but we split what there is to split.”

  “Nah, it ain’t about the cash. Money’s cool. But no doubt in my mind I’m takin’ the route I need to take. A bigger city, more black folks to hang with, more for me to do. These days, I’m travelin’ to D.C. or Atlanta twice a month, and that program gets tedious. I came here planning to stay a year, and I made it with plenty to spare. Truth is, if it weren’t for you and Inez, I’d have flown this coop long ago.”

  “There’s nothing else behind this? No undercurrent? You’re simply moving to another place because you want to?”

  “Amen. Precisely. You and everyone else have treated me like family for the most part. It’s time to vacate, though. A man can leave and not be pissed or angry or disappointed. School superintendents and college coaches do it every day and nobody wonders why. Better gig at the next stop.”

  “So, Councilman Norman, the king of small-town life, is suddenly eager for traffic, crime, pollution, four-figure rent and five-dollar specialty coffee? How do the sly white editorial writers put it? What’s the code? You’re leaving us for the ‘urban’ side of the street? Why am I skeptical?”