Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction

by Grif Stockley

  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.”

  I point out, trying not to sound too combative, “You weren’t the last child to fly the coop.”

  For the first time, Mary Patricia concedes, “And I wasn’t the favorite.” She adds, however, “But Daddy wouldn’t talk Hector into killing Art.”

  “He wouldn’t have to,” I say, seizing on her earlier comment about her father’s ability to influence other people.

  “Hector would get the idea.”

  There is a respectful pause while she apparently considers the possibility.

  “I just don’t see Hector capable of murder.”

  I drop the subject, myself troubled by the timing of the events. How would this old man know things were flying apart at this particular moment? Nobody has accused him of being a peeping Tom. He did say it was odd that Leigh didn’t wave. But that was all.

  “What about Leigh?” I ask.

  “What do you see her capable of?”

  There is no hesitation in Mary Patricia’s voice.

  “If Leigh were angry enough,” she says, “she could have killed him. Leigh has Mother’s temper, but she’s incapable of killing someone in cold blood.”

  mrs. Norman has been forgotten in all of this. Both quintessential Southern women. All that repressed anger beneath a boozy surface. Leigh could have had a snootful to try to relax that morning and simply exploded.

  Her mother’s baggage. Maybe Jill’s offer of ten years for manslaughter is about right.

  “Does Leigh drink?”

  Mary Patricia answers, “Not unless Art was teaching her.”

  Perhaps he was. We talk for a few more minutes, but I get nothing useful except a promise that she will call me if she hears from Leigh.

  I call Chet to run my latest theory by him, but Wynona tells me he had already taken a painkiller and is in no condition to speak to me. I think to myself that this case is turning into a joke. No lawyer, no client, only a single, flaky witness from California. I mope around the kitchen looking for something to eat and decide the easiest thing to do is to open a can of soup. I am beginning to have some real doubts about myself both as a lawyer and as a father. Nothing I say or do seems to make a difference. Chet apparently has no confidence in my abilities to handle this case. Perhaps he has been in touch with my old employers. Mays & Burton, who fired me. Granted, I didn’t give my bosses anything to write home about, but I wasn’t given much to work with either. As I open the pantry to look for the chips, the phone rings, startling me out of my growing self-pity.

  “Is this Mr. Page?” It is a foreign voice, perhaps Japanese and barely understandable.

  In no mood for telemarketing, I bark, “If you’re selling something, you better tell me right now.” Wow.

  What am I going to do hang up on them?

  I hear the sound of someone clearing his throat.

  “There is a young lady in our motel who is asking for you. I’m afraid she is very drunk. Room 104 of the Delta Inn. Would you please come get her?” This last sentence is more of a command than a request, and the line goes dead. Leigh, obviously. Grabbing my keys off the shelf by the phone, I race out to the Blazer. It could be Sarah. Or even Jessie St. vrain. The way the day has gone, it would be just my luck.

  The delta inn is on 1-30 almost halfway to Benton.

  Since its parking lot is shielded from the highway, the motel offers a twenty-five-dollar-a-night sanctuary to adulterers and others who have a reason to hide their automobiles. Leigh’s father claims his church members have cruised every motel parking lot in Blackwell County, but I can see how someone in a hurry would have missed Leigh’s maroon Acura, which is not parked in front of the rooms but is wedged between two pick ups across from the motel restaurant. I park right in front of room 104 and knock on the door a full thirty seconds before Leigh opens it and staggers back four feet to sit on the bed.

  “Don’t take me home,” she says, her voice slurred and low.

  “I won’t,” I promise, but I have to get her out of here before I throw up. The tiny, moldy room smells overpoweringly of mildew and bourbon and the remains of some kind of Mexican dinner that looks more than twelve hours old. A half-empty six-pack of Cokes, an empty bottle of Old Crow, and a clouded plastic glass sit on top of a dresser that looks as if it has survived a couple of fires. An entire bottle would have blot toed me. I marvel how Leigh managed to give my name to the manager. It is hard to believe such a beautiful woman can look so terrible. Matted, damp hair frames her face, which is swollen I assume from crying and alcohol. She appears to be in a stupor, and from the phone by the bed, I dial Rainey’s number.

  “I need some help,” I say when she answers the phone.

  “I’ve just found Leigh dead drunk in a motel, and I need a woman’s touch in sobering her up for the trial tomorrow.”

  Rainey responds immediately.

  “Bring her over here.”

  Taking a look at the dried vomit on Leigh’s sweatshirt, I gag before I can get out, “We’ll be there in half an hour.”

  I feel like a gangster hauling an unconscious body out to the Blazer as I struggle to support Leigh’s weight in the darkness. Fortunately, there is nobody else around as I half-drag her out to the Blazer. I feel keenly selfconscious about how this must look: a middleaged guy forcing a drugged young woman into a car. She is surprisingly solid; and, to my consternation, the image of her dancing nude for the camera forces its way into my mind as I help her lie down in the backseat. There is nothing visually attractive about Leigh at the moment. I go back in, looking for any personal belongings, but find only her purse. I know myself well enough to realize that calling Rainey was the best decision I’ve made in a while. At moments like this, she has always been there for me, even when she is furious at me. It hasn’t been too many months since my face was turned into mincemeat while I was working on a case. I was in worse shape than my present passenger in the backseat, but I pried myself loose from soft asphalt in a honkytonk parking lot and headed like a homing pigeon for Rainey’s, where she patched me up enough to allow me to go home and face my daughter.

  I stop in front of the office and run in to pay the bill and tell the man at the desk that it may be tomorrow or the next day before we pick up the car. With his distinct Asian features and his black dressing gown that could cover the side of a barn, he looks like a finalist from a sumo wrestling championship forty years ago. A rerun of the “Cosby Show” flickers on an ancient black and white TV in the corner next to a huge green safe, and I wonder briefly what odyssey has brought this man to the desk of the Delta Inn.

  “I think you called me about the young woman in 104,” I say over the voice of one of Cosby’s TV daughters, whose problems never got this seedy.

  “I’m taking her home.”

  He shoots me a look of pity.

  “Is the room all right?”
/>   he asks in a heavily accented voice. What the hell, I think. Henry Kissinger still sounds as if he just got off the boat, too.

  “I think so,” I reply, not really having checked it out.

  How much damage could anyone do to the Delta Inn and not be justified in calling it a part of a demolition effort?

  “You send me the bill if there are any problems with it, okay?” I hand him a card, as if I were the manager of a rock group that regularly trashes hotels.

  “You a good rawyer?” he asks, studying my card.

  Poor guy. What a crap shoot You get one, and he’s dead on his feet of cancer. I nod ambiguously. This man has probably been a citizen for longer than I’ve been alive, yet he’ll go to his grave thinking he can be deported because he can’t say his ‘s.p>

  “I need a divorce,” he confesses, near tears as he hands me a bill, showing an amount owing of fifty cents for two phone calls.

  “My wife—she run off with one of the maids.”

  I can’t say that I blame her.

  “Give me a call next week,” I say, fishing from my pocket two quarters and the room key. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be able to give up taking civil cases when Leigh’s trial is over.

  On the drive to Rainey’s, Leigh stirs in the backseat but says nothing I can understand. Alcohol. It may be playing more of a role in this case than I thought.

  Leigh, out from under the parental thumb, may indeed be a hooch hound like her mother.

  Rainey is waiting outside and helps me walk Leigh into her house.

  “This is my friend Rainey,” I say to Leigh.

  “She’s very discreet.”

  “Hi, Rainey,” Leigh says, giggling loudly.

  “Are you his girlfriend?”

  “Just friends,” I say, taking Rainey off the spot. I am grateful for the darkness.

  “Have you called her father?” Rainey asks as she opens the door.

  At this reference to the man who has loved her longer than any other male, Leigh opens her eyes and tries to pull away from us. I tighten my grip on Leigh’s arm and reassure her, “No, and I’m not going to.” To Rainey behind Leigh’s head, I mouth the words, “I’ll tell you later.”