Three Classic Thrillers

by John Grisham

  “Not anymore.”

  Barbara got up and moved slowly around the office. She refilled the cups, then sat down and resumed her study of the newspapers.

  “He’s not a tort reformer,” Skip said, though not without some doubt. “He doesn’t fit their mold. He’s got too much baggage for a hard campaign. There’s at least one DUI, at least two divorces.”

  “I think I agree, but if he’s never been involved before, then why is he suddenly screaming about the death penalty? Where does this conviction come from? This passion? Plus, his show yesterday was well organized. He’s got people. Where do they come from?”

  “Do we really care? Sheila McCarthy beats him two to one. We should be thrilled he is what he is—a buffoon who, we think, is not being financed by the Commerce Council and all the corporate boys. Why aren’t we happy?”

  “Because we’re trial lawyers.”

  Skip turned gloomy again.

  “Should we arrange a meeting with Judge McCarthy?” Barbara asked after a long, heavy pause.

  “In a couple of days. Let the dust settle.”

  __________

  Judge McCarthy was up early, and why not? She certainly couldn’t sleep. At 7:30 she was seen leaving her condo. She was trailed to the Belhaven section of Jackson, an older neighborhood. She parked in the driveway of the Honorable Justice James Henry McElwayne.

  Tony was hardly surprised by this little get-together.

  Mrs. McElwayne greeted her warmly and invited her inside, through the den and kitchen and all the way back to his study. Jimmy, as he was known to his friends, was just finishing the morning papers.

  McElwayne and McCarthy. Big Mac and Little Mac, as they were sometimes referred to. They spent a few minutes chatting about Mr. Coley and his astounding press coverage, then got down to business.

  “Last night, I went through my campaign files,” McElwayne said as he handed over a folder an inch thick. “The first section is a list of contributors, beginning with the heavy hitters and going south. All the big checks were written by trial lawyers.”

  The next section summarized his campaign’s expenses, numbers that Sheila found hard to believe. After that there were reports from consultants, sample ads, poll results, a dozen other campaign-related reports.

  “This brings back bad memories,” he said.

  “Sorry. This is not what I wanted, believe me.”

  “You have my sympathy.”

  “Who’s behind this guy?”

  “I thought about it all night. He could be a decoy. He’s definitely a nut. Whatever he is, you can’t take him lightly. If he’s your only opponent, sooner or later the bad guys will find their way into his camp. They’ll bring their money. And this guy with a fat checkbook could really be frightening.”

  McElwayne had once been a state senator, then an elected chancery court judge. He’d fought the political wars. Two years earlier, Sheila watched helplessly as he was savaged and abused in a bitter campaign. At its lowest point, when his opponent’s television ads (later known to be financed by the American Rifle Association) accused him of being in favor of gun control (there is no greater sin in Mississippi), she had told herself that she would never, under any circumstances, allow herself to be so degraded. It wasn’t worth it. She would scamper back to Biloxi, open a little boutique firm, and see her grandchildren every other day. Someone else could have the job.

  Now she wasn’t so sure. She was angered by Coley’s attacks. Her blood was not yet boiling, but it wouldn’t take much more. At fifty-one, she was too young to quit and too old to start over.

  They talked politics for over an hour. McElwayne spun yarns of old elections and colorful politicians, and Sheila gently nudged him back to the battles she now faced. His campaign had been expertly run by a young lawyer who took a leave of absence from a large Jackson firm. McElwayne promised to call him later in the day and check his pulse. He promised to call the big donors and the local operatives. He knew the editors of the newspapers. He would do whatever he could to protect her seat on the bench.

  Sheila left at 9:14, drove nonstop to the Gartin building, and parked.

  __________

  The Coley announcement was noted at Payton & Payton, but little was said. On April 18, the day after, three important events occurred, and the firm had no interest in other news. The first event was well received. The others were not.

  The good news was that a young lawyer from the tiny town of Bogue Chitto stopped by and cut a deal with Wes. The lawyer, an office practitioner with no personal injury experience, had somehow managed to become the attorney for the survivors of a pulpwood cutter who’d been killed in a horrible accident on Interstate 55 near the Louisiana line. According to the highway patrol, the accident had been caused by the recklessness of the driver of an eighteen-wheeler owned by a large company. An eyewitness was already on record stating that the truck passed her in a wild rush, and she was doing “around” seventy miles per hour. The lawyer had a contingency agreement that would give him 30 percent of any recovery. He and Wes agreed to equally split it. The pulpwood cutter was thirty-six years old and earned about $40,000 a year. The math was easy. A million-dollar settlement was quite possible. Wes drew up a lawsuit in less than an hour and was ready to file. The case was especially gratifying because the young lawyer chose the Payton firm on account of its recent reputation. The Baker verdict had finally attracted a worthwhile client.

  The depressing news was the arrival of Krane’s appellant brief. It was 102 pages long—twice the limit—and gave every impression of being beautifully researched and written by an entire team of very bright lawyers. It was too long and two months late, but the concessions had been granted by the court. Jared Kurtin and his men had been very persuasive in their arguments for more time and more pages. It was, obviously, not a routine case.

  Mary Grace would have sixty days to respond. After the brief was gawked at by the rest of the firm, she hauled it to her desk for the first reading. Krane was claiming a grand total of twenty-four errors at trial, each worthy of correction on appeal. It began pleasantly enough with an exhaustive review of all the comments and rulings by Judge Harrison that allegedly revealed his intense bias against the defendant. Then it challenged the selection of the jury. It attacked the experts called on behalf of Jeannette Baker: the toxicologist who testified as to the near-record levels of BCL and cartolyx and aklar in Bowmore’s drinking water; the pathologist who described the highly carcinogenic nature of these chemicals; the medical researcher who described the record rate of cancer in and around Bowmore; the geologist who tracked the toxic wastes through the ground and into the aquifer under the town’s well; the driller who drilled the test holes; the doctors who performed the autopsies on both Chad and Pete Baker; the scientist who studied pesticides and said ghastly things about pillamar 5; and the most crucial expert, the medical researcher who linked BCL and cartolyx to the cancerous cells found in the bodies. The Paytons had used fourteen expert witnesses, and each was criticized at length and declared unqualified. Three were described as charlatans. Judge Harrison was wrong time and again for allowing them to testify. Their reports, entered into evidence after lengthy fights, were picked apart, condemned in scholarly language, and labeled as “junk science.” The verdict itself was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence and a clear indication of undue sympathy on the part of the jury. Harsh but skillful words were used to attack the punitive element. The plaintiff fell far short in her efforts to prove that Krane had contaminated the drinking water either by gross negligence or by outright intent. Finally, the brief ended with a strident plea for a reversal and new trial, or, better yet, an outright dismissal by the supreme court. “This outrageous and unjustified verdict should be reversed and rendered,” it read in closing. In other words, throw it out forever.

  The brief was well written, well reasoned, and persuasive, and after two hours of nonstop reading Mary Grace finished it with a splitting headache. She took three Advil,
then gave it to Sherman, who eyed it with all the caution he would have given a rattlesnake.

  __________

  The third event, and the most alarming news, came in a phone call from Pastor Denny Ott. Wes took it after dark, then walked to his wife’s office and closed the door.

  “That was Denny,” he said.

  As Mary Grace looked at her husband’s face, her first thought was that another client had passed away. There had been so many sad phone calls from Bowmore that she could almost anticipate one. “What is it?”

  “He talked to the sheriff. Mr. Leon Gatewood is missing.”

  Though they had no affection whatsoever for the man, the news was still troubling. Gatewood was an industrial engineer who had worked at the Krane plant in Bowmore for thirty-four years. A company man to the core, he had retired when Krane fled to Mexico, and had admitted, in deposition and on cross-examination at trial, that the company had given him a termination package worth three years’ salary, or about $190,000. Krane was not known for such generosity. The Paytons had found no other employee with such a sweet deal.

  Gatewood had retired to a little sheep farm in the southwest corner of Cary County, about as far from Bowmore and its water as one could possibly get and still reside in the county. During his three-day deposition, he steadfastly denied any dumping at the plant. At trial, with a stack of documents, Wes had grilled him without mercy. Gatewood called the other Krane employees liars. He refused to believe records that showed tons of toxic by-products had, in fact, not been hauled away from the plant, but had simply gone missing. He laughed at incriminating photographs of some of the six hundred decomposed BCL drums dug up from the ravine behind the plant. “You doctored those,” he shot back at Wes. His testimony was so blatantly fabricated that Judge Harrison talked openly, in chambers, of perjury charges. Gatewood was arrogant, belligerent, and short-tempered and made the jury despise Krane Chemical. He was a powerful witness for the plaintiff, though he testified only after being dragged to court by a subpoena. Jared Kurtin could have choked him.

  “When did this happen?” she asked.

  “He went fishing alone two days ago. His wife is still waiting.”

  The disappearance of Earl Crouch in Texas two years earlier was still an unsolved mystery. Crouch had been Gatewood’s boss. Both had vehemently defended Krane and denied what had become obvious. Both had complained of harassment, even death threats. And they weren’t alone. Many of the people who worked there, who made the pesticides and dumped the poisons, had been threatened. Most had drifted away from Bowmore, to escape the drinking water, to look for other jobs, and to avoid getting sucked into the coming storm of litigation. At least four had died of cancer.

  Others had testified and told the truth. Others, including Crouch, Gatewood, and Buck Burleson, had testified and lied. Each group hated the other, and collectively they were hated by the remainder of Cary County.

  “I guess the Stones are at it again,” Wes said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No one will ever know. I’m just happy they’re our clients.”

  “Our clients are restless down there,” she said. “It’s time for a meeting.”

  “It’s time for dinner. Who’s cooking?”

  “Ramona.”

  “Tortillas or enchiladas?”

  “Spaghetti.”

  “Let’s go find a bar and have a drink, just the two of us. We need to celebrate, dear. This little case from Bogue Chitto might just be a quick million-dollar settlement.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  C H A P T E R 19

  After ten performances, Coley’s Faces of the Dead Tour came to an end. It ran out of gas in Pascagoula, the last of the big towns in the southern district. Though he tried desperately along the way, Clete was unable to get himself arrested again. He did, however, manage to generate quite a buzz at every stop. The reporters loved him. Admirers grabbed his brochures and began writing checks, albeit small ones. The local cops watched his announcements with silent approval.

  But after ten days, Clete needed a break. He returned to Natchez and was soon at the Lucky Jack taking cards from Ivan. He had no real campaign strategy, no plan. He’d left nothing behind in the places he stopped, except for some fleeting publicity. There was no organization, except for a few volunteers that he would soon ignore. Frankly, he wasn’t about to spend the time or the money necessary to rev up a campaign of respectable size. He wasn’t about to touch the cash Marlin had given him, not for campaign expenses anyway. He would spend whatever contributions trickled in, but he had no plans to lose money on this adventure. The attention was addictive and he would show up when necessary to make a speech, attack his opponent, and attack liberal judges of all stripes, but his priority was gambling and drinking. Clete had no dreams of winning. Hell, he wouldn’t take the job if they handed it to him. He had always hated those thick law books.

  __________

  Tony Zachary flew to Boca Raton and was picked up by a chauffeur-driven car. He had been to Mr. Rinehart’s office once before and looked forward to the return. They would spend most of the next two days together.

  Over a splendid lunch with a beautiful view of the ocean, they had a great time reviewing the antics of their stooge, Clete Coley. Barry Rinehart had read every press clipping and seen every TV news report. They were quite pleased with their decoy.

  Next, they analyzed the results of their first major poll. It covered five hundred registered voters in the twenty-seven counties of the southern district and had been conducted the day after Coley’s tour ended. Not surprisingly, at least to Barry Rinehart, 66 percent could not name any of the three supreme court judges from the southern district. Sixty-nine percent were unaware that the voters actually elected the members of the supreme court.

  “And this is a state where they elect highway commissioners, public service commissioners, the state treasurer, state commissioners of insurance and agriculture, county tax collectors, county coroners, everybody but the dogcatcher,” Barry said.

  “They vote every year,” Tony said, peering over his reading glasses. He had stopped eating and was looking at some graphs.

  “Every single year. Whether it’s municipal, judicial, state and local, or federal, they go to the polls every year. Such a waste. Small wonder turnout is low. Hell, the voters are sick of politics.”

  Of the 34 percent who could name a supreme court justice, only half mentioned Sheila McCarthy. If the election were held today, 18 percent would vote for her, 15 percent would vote for Clete Coley, and the rest either were undecided or simply wouldn’t vote because they didn’t know anyone in the race.

  After some initial straightforward questions, the poll began to reveal its slant. Would you vote for a supreme court candidate who is opposed to the death penalty? Seventy-three percent said they would not.

  Would you vote for a candidate who supports the legal marriage of two homosexuals? Eighty-eight percent said no.

  Would you vote for a candidate who is in favor of tougher gun-control laws? Eight-five percent said no.

  Do you own at least one gun? Ninety-six percent said yes.

  The questions had multiple parts and follow-ups, and were obviously designed to walk the voter down a path lined with hot-button issues. No effort was made to explain that the supreme court was not a legislative body; it did not have the responsibility or jurisdiction to make laws dealing with these issues. No effort was made to keep the field level. Like many polls, Rinehart’s skillfully shifted into a subtle attack.

  Would you support a liberal candidate for the supreme court? Seventy percent would not.

  Are you aware that Justice Sheila McCarthy is considered the most liberal member of the Mississippi Supreme Court? Eighty-four percent said no.

  If she is the most liberal member of the court, will you vote for her? Sixty-five percent said no, but most of those being polled didn’t like the question. If? Was she or wasn’t she the most liberal? Anyway,
Barry considered the question useless. The promising part was how little name recognition Sheila McCarthy had after nine years on the bench, though, in his experience, this was not unusual. He could argue with anyone, privately, that this was another perfect reason why state supreme court judges shouldn’t be elected in the first place. They should not be politicians. Their names should not be well-known.

  The poll then shifted away from the supreme court and settled onto the individual participants. There were questions about religious faith, belief in God, church attendance, financial support of the church, and so on. And there were questions about certain issues—where do you stand on abortion, stem cell research, et cetera?

  The poll wrapped up with the basics—race, marital status, number of children, if any, approximate income status, and voting history.

  The overall results confirmed what Barry suspected. The voters were conservative, middle-class, and white (78 percent) and could easily be turned against a liberal judge. The trick, of course, was to convert Sheila McCarthy from the sensible moderate she was into the raging liberal they needed her to be. Barry’s researchers were analyzing every word she had ever written in a legal ruling, both at the circuit court level and on the supreme court. She could not escape her words; no judge could ever do that. And Barry planned to hang her with her own words.

  After lunch, they moved to the conference table, where Barry had a display of the initial mock-ups of Ron Fisk’s campaign literature. There were hundreds of new photographs of the Fisk family in all its wholesomeness—walking into church, on the front porch, at the baseball park, the parents together, alone, dripping with love and affection.

  The first soft ads were still being edited, but Barry wanted to share them anyway. They had been filmed by a crew sent from Washington to Mississippi. The first was of Fisk standing by a Civil War monument at the Vicksburg battlefield, gazing off into the distance as if listening to distant cannons. His soft, richly accented voice played over: “I’m Ron Fisk. My great-great-grandfather was killed on this spot in July of 1863. He was a lawyer, a judge, and a member of the state legislature. His dream was to serve on the supreme court. That’s my dream today. I am a seventh-generation Mississippian, and I ask for your support.”