Three Classic Thrillers

by John Grisham

  “He has a horrible reputation.”

  “Well deserved. But I can talk to him.”

  “He’ll do it if you and Wycoff recommend it, won’t he?”

  “Of course. Are you hungry?” Goodman was reaching for his jacket.

  “A little.”

  “Let’s go out for a sandwich.”

  ______

  The lunch crowd at the corner deli had not arrived. The partner and the rookie took a small table in the front window overlooking the sidewalk. Traffic was slow and hundreds of pedestrians scurried along, just a few feet away. The waiter delivered a greasy Reuben for Goodman and a bowl of chicken soup for Adam.

  “How many inmates are on death row in Mississippi?” Goodman asked.

  “Forty-eight, as of last month. Twenty-five black, twenty-three white. The last execution was two years ago, Willie Parris. Sam Cayhall will probably be next, barring a small miracle.”

  Goodman chewed quickly on a large bite. He wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. “A large miracle, I would say. There’s not much left to do legally.”

  “There are the usual assortment of last ditch motions.”

  “Let’s save the strategy talks for later. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to Parchman.”

  “No. Since I learned the truth, I’ve been tempted to return to Mississippi, but it hasn’t happened.”

  “It’s a massive farm in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, not too far from Greenville, ironically. Something like seventeen thousand acres. Probably the hottest place in the world. It sits on Highway 49, just like a little hamlet off to the west. Lots of buildings and houses. The front part is all administration, and it’s not enclosed by fencing. There are about thirty different camps scattered around the farm, all fenced and secured. Each camp is completely separate. Some are miles apart. You drive past various camps, all enclosed by chain link and barbed wire, all with hundreds of prisoners hanging around, doing nothing. They wear different colors, depending on their classification. It seemed as if they were all young black kids, just loitering about, some playing basketball, some just sitting on the porches of the buildings. An occasional white face. You drive in your car, alone and very slowly, down a gravel road, past the camps and the barbed wire until you come to a seemingly innocuous little building with a flat roof. It has tall fences around it with guards watching from the towers. It’s a fairly modern facility. It has an official name of some sort, but everyone refers to it simply as the Row.”

  “Sounds like a wonderful place.”

  “I thought it would be a dungeon, you know, dark and cold with water dripping from above. But it’s just a little flat building out in the middle of a cotton field. Actually, it’s not as bad as death rows in other states.”

  “I’d like to see the Row.”

  “You’re not ready to see it. It’s a horrible place filled with depressing people waiting to die. I was sixty years old before I saw it, and I didn’t sleep for a week afterward.” He took a sip of coffee. “I can’t imagine how you’ll feel when you go there. The Row is bad enough when you’re representing a complete stranger.”

  “He is a complete stranger.”

  “How do you intend to tell him—”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something. I’m sure it’ll just happen.”

  Goodman shook his head. “This is bizarre.”

  “The whole family is bizarre.”

  “I remember now that Sam had two children, seems like one is a daughter. It’s been a long time. Tyner did most of the work, you know.”

  “His daughter is my aunt, Lee Cayhall Booth, but she tries to forget her maiden name. She married into old Memphis money. Her husband owns a bank or two, and they tell no one about her father.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “Portland. She remarried a few years ago, and we talk about twice a year. Dysfunctional would be a mild term.”

  “How’d you afford Pepperdine?”

  “Life insurance. My father had trouble keeping a job, but he was wise enough to carry life insurance. The waiting period had expired years before he killed himself.”

  “Sam never talked about his family.”

  “And his family never talks about him. His wife, my grandmother, died a few years before he was convicted. I didn’t know this, of course. Most of my genealogical research has been extracted from my mother, who’s done a great job of forgetting the past. I don’t know how it works in normal families, Mr. Goodman, but my family seldom gets together, and when two or more of us happen to meet the last thing we discuss is the past. There are many dark secrets.”

  Goodman was nibbling on a chip and listening closely. “You mentioned a sister.”

  “Yes, I have a sister, Carmen. She’s twenty-three, a bright and beautiful girl, in graduate school at Berkeley. She was born in L.A., so she didn’t go through the name change like the rest of us. We keep in touch.”

  “She knows?”

  “Yes, she knows. My aunt Lee told me first, just after my father’s funeral, then, typically, my mother asked me to tell Carmen. She was only fourteen at the time. She’s never expressed any interest in Sam Cayhall. Frankly, the rest of the family wishes he would quietly just go away.”

  “They’re about to get their wish.”

  “But it won’t be quietly, will it, Mr. Goodman?”

  “No. It never is. For one brief but terrible moment, Sam Cayhall will be the most talked about man in the country. We’ll see the same old footage from the bomb blast, and the trials with the Klan marching around the courthouses. The same old debate about the death penalty will erupt. The press will descend upon Parchman. Then, they’ll kill him, and two days later it’ll all be forgotten. Happens every time.”

  Adam stirred his soup and carefully picked out a sliver of chicken. He examined it for a second, then returned it to the broth. He was not hungry. Goodman finished another chip, and touched the corners of his mouth with the napkin.

  “I don’t suppose, Mr. Hall, that you’re thinking you can keep this quiet.”

  “I had given it some thought.”

  “Forget it.”

  “My mother begged me not to do it. My sister wouldn’t discuss it. And my aunt in Memphis is rigid with the remote possibility that we’ll all be identified as Cayhalls and forever ruined.”

  “The possibility is not remote. When the press finishes with you, they’ll have old black-and-whites of you sitting on your granddaddy’s knee. It’ll make great print, Mr. Hall. Just think of it. The forgotten grandson charging in at the last moment, making a heroic effort to save his wretched old grandfather as the clock ticks down.”

  “I sort of like it myself.”

  “Not bad, really. It’ll bring a lot of attention to our beloved little law firm.”

  “Which brings up another unpleasant issue.”

  “I don’t think so. There are no cowards at Kravitz & Bane, Adam. We have survived and prospered in the rough and tumble world of Chicago law. We’re known as the meanest bastards in town. We have the thickest skins. Don’t worry about the firm.”

  “So you’ll agree to it.”

  Goodman placed his napkin on the table and took another sip of coffee. “Oh, it’s a wonderful idea, assuming your gramps will agree to it. If you can sign him up, or re-sign him I should say, then we’re back in business. You’ll be the front man. We can feed you what you need from up here. I’ll always be in your shadow. It’ll work. Then, they’ll kill him and you’ll never get over it. I’ve watched three of my clients die, Mr. Hall, including one in Mississippi. You’ll never be the same.”

  Adam nodded and smiled and looked at the pedestrians on the sidewalk.

  Goodman continued. “We’ll be around to support you when they kill him. You won’t have to bear it alone.”

  “It’s not hopeless, is it?”

  “Almost. We’ll talk strategy later. First, I’ll meet with Daniel Rosen. He’ll probably want a long conference with you. Second, you’l
l have to see Sam and have a little reunion, so to speak. That’s the hard part. Third, if he agrees to it, then we’ll get to work.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me, Adam. I doubt if we’ll be on speaking terms when this is over.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  Five

  The meeting was organized quickly. E. Garner Goodman made the first phone call, and within an hour the necessary participants had been summoned. Within four hours they were present in a small, seldom used conference room next to Daniel Rosen’s office. It was Rosen’s turf, and this disturbed Adam more than a little.

  By legend, Daniel Rosen was a monster, though two heart attacks had knocked off some of the edge and mellowed him a bit. For thirty years he had been a ruthless litigator, the meanest, nastiest, and without a doubt one of the most effective courtroom brawlers in Chicago. Before the heart attacks, he was known for his brutal work schedule—ninety-hour weeks, midnight orgies of work with clerks and paralegals digging and fetching. Several wives had left him. As many as four secretaries at a time labored furiously to keep pace. Daniel Rosen had been the heart and soul of Kravitz & Bane, but no longer. His doctor restricted him to fifty hours a week, in the office, and prohibited any trial work.

  Now, Rosen, at the age of sixty-five and getting heavy, had been unanimously selected by his beloved colleagues to graze the gentler pastures of law office management. He had the responsibility of overseeing the rather cumbersome bureaucracy that ran Kravitz & Bane. It was an honor, the other partners had explained feebly when they bestowed it upon him.

  So far the honor had been a disaster. Banished from the battlefield he desperately loved and needed, Rosen went about the business of managing the firm in a manner very similar to the preparation of an expensive lawsuit. He cross-examined secretaries and clerks over the most trivial of matters. He confronted other partners and harangued them for hours over vague issues of firm policy. Confined to the prison of his office, he called for young associates to come visit him, then picked fights to gauge their mettle under pressure.

  He deliberately took the seat directly across the small conference table from Adam, and held a thin file as if it possessed a deadly secret. E. Garner Goodman sat low in the seat next to Adam, twiddling his bow tie and scratching his beard. When he telephoned Rosen with Adam’s request, and broke the news of Adam’s lineage, Rosen had reacted with predictable foolishness.

  Emmitt Wycoff stood at one end of the room with a matchbox-sized cellular phone stuck to his ear. He was almost fifty, looked much older, and lived each day in a fixed state of panic and telephones.

  Rosen carefully opened the file in front of Adam and removed a yellow legal pad. “Why didn’t you tell us about your grandfather when we interviewed you last year?” he began with clipped words and a fierce stare.

  “Because you didn’t ask me,” Adam answered. Goodman had advised him the meeting might get rough, but he and Wycoff would prevail.

  “Don’t be a wise ass,” Rosen growled.

  “Come on, Daniel,” Goodman said, and rolled his eyes at Wycoff who shook his head and glanced at the ceiling.

  “You don’t think, Mr. Hall, that you should’ve informed us that you were related to one of our clients? Certainly you believe we have a right to know this, don’t you, Mr. Hall?” His mocking tone was one usually reserved for witnesses who were lying and trapped.

  “You guys asked me about everything else,” Adam replied, very much under control. “Remember the security check? The fingerprints? There was even talk of a polygraph.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hall, but you knew things we didn’t. And your grandfather was a client of this firm when you applied for employment, and you damned sure should’ve told us.” Rosen’s voice was rich, and moved high and low with the dramatic flair of a fine actor. His eyes never left Adam.

  “Not your typical grandfather,” Adam said quietly.

  “He’s still your grandfather, and you knew he was a client when you applied for a job here.”

  “Then I apologize,” Adam said. “This firm has thousands of clients, all well heeled and paying through the nose for our services. I never dreamed one insignificant little pro bono case would cause any grief.”

  “You’re deceitful, Mr. Hall. You deliberately selected this firm because it, at the time, represented your grandfather. And now, suddenly, here you are begging for the file. It puts us in an awkward position.”

  “What awkward position?” Emmitt Wycoff asked, folding the phone and stuffing it in a pocket. “Look, Daniel, we’re talking about a man on death row. He needs a lawyer, dammit!”

  “His own grandson?” Rosen asked.

  “Who cares if it’s his own grandson? The man has one foot in the grave, and he needs a lawyer.”

  “He fired us, remember?” Rosen shot back.

  “Yeah, and he can always rehire us. It’s worth a try. Lighten up.”

  “Listen, Emmitt, it’s my job to worry about the image of this firm, and the idea of sending one of our new associates down to Mississippi to have his ass kicked and his client executed does not appeal to me. Frankly, I think Mr. Hall should be terminated by Kravitz & Bane.”

  “Oh wonderful, Daniel,” Wycoff said. “Typical hard-nose response to a delicate issue. Then who’ll represent Cayhall? Think about him for a moment. The man needs a lawyer! Adam may be his only chance.”

  “God help him,” Rosen mumbled.

  E. Garner Goodman decided to speak. He locked his hands together on the table and glared at Rosen. “The image of this firm? Do you honestly think we’re viewed as a bunch of underpaid social workers dedicated to helping people?”

  “Or how about a bunch of nuns working in the projects?” Wycoff added helpfully, with a sneer.

  “How could this possibly hurt the image of our firm?” Goodman asked.

  The concept of retreat had never entered Rosen’s mind. “Very simple, Garner. We do not send our rookies to death row. We may abuse them, try to kill them, expect them to work twenty hours a day, but we do not send them into battle until they are ready. You know how dense death penalty litigation is. Hell, you wrote the books. How can you expect Mr. Hall here to be effective?”

  “I’ll supervise everything he does,” Goodman answered.

  “He’s really quite good,” Wycoff added again. “He’s memorized the entire file, you know, Daniel.”

  “It’ll work,” Goodman said. “Trust me, Daniel, I’ve been through enough of these things. I’ll keep my finger on it.”

  “And I’ll set aside a few hours to help,” Wycoff added. “I’ll even fly down if necessary.”

  Goodman jerked and stared at Wycoff. “You! Pro bono?”

  “Sure. I have a conscience.”

  Adam ignored the banter and stared at Daniel Rosen. Go ahead and fire me, he wanted to say. Go ahead, Mr. Rosen, terminate me so I can go bury my grandfather, then get on with the rest of my life.

  “And if he’s executed?” Rosen asked in the direction of Goodman.

  “We’ve lost them before, Daniel, you know that. Three, since I’ve run pro bono.”

  “What are his chances?”

  “Quite slim. Right now he’s holding on by virtue of a stay granted by the Fifth Circuit. The stay should be lifted any day now, and a new execution date will be set. Probably late summer.”

  “Not long then.”

  “Right. We’ve handled his appeals for seven years, and they’ve run their course.”

  “Of all the people on death row, how’d we come to represent this asshole?” Rosen demanded.

  “It’s a very long story, and at this moment it’s completely irrelevant.”

  Rosen made what appeared to be serious notes on his legal pad. “You don’t think for a moment you’ll keep this quiet, do you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe hell. Just before they kill him, they’ll make him a celebrity. The media will surround him like a pack of wolves. You’ll be discovered, Mr. Hall.”
>
  “So?”

  “So, it’ll make great copy, Mr. Hall. Can’t you see the headlines—LONG-LOST GRANDSON RETURNS TO SAVE GRAMPS.”

  “Knock it off, Daniel,” Goodman said.

  But he continued. “The press will eat it up, don’t you see, Mr. Hall? They’ll expose you and talk about how crazy your family is.”

  “But we love the press, don’t we, Mr. Rosen?” Adam asked coolly. “We’re trial lawyers. Aren’t we supposed to perform for the cameras? You’ve never—”

  “A very good point,” Goodman interrupted. “Daniel, perhaps you shouldn’t advise this young man to ignore the press. We can tell stories about some of your stunts.”

  “Yes, please, Daniel, lecture the kid about everything else, but lay off the media crap,” Wycoff said with a nasty grin. “You wrote the book.”

  For a brief moment, Rosen appeared to be embarrassed. Adam watched him closely.

  “I rather like the scenario myself,” Goodman said, twirling his bow tie and studying the bookshelves behind Rosen. “There’s a lot to be said for it, actually. Could be great for us poor little pro bono folks. Think of it. This young lawyer down there fighting like crazy to save a rather famous death row killer. And he’s our lawyer—Kravitz & Bane. Sure there’ll be a ton of press, but what will it hurt?”

  “It’s a wonderful idea, if you ask me,” Wycoff added just as his mini-phone buzzed somewhere deep in a pocket. He stuck it to his jaw and turned away from the meeting.

  “What if he dies? Don’t we look bad?” Rosen asked Goodman.

  “He’s supposed to die, okay? That’s why he’s on death row,” Goodman explained.

  Wycoff stopped his mumbling and slid the phone into a pocket. “I gotta go,” he said, moving toward the door, nervous now, in a hurry. “Where are we?”

  “I still don’t like it,” Rosen said.

  “Daniel, Daniel, always a hard ass,” Wycoff said as he stopped at the end of the table and leaned on it with both hands. “You know it’s a good idea, you’re just pissed because he didn’t tell us up front.”