Three Classic Thrillers

by John Grisham

  Putting food on the table was a new experience for Adam, and he ate the fish he’d caught with great gusto. It always tastes better, Wyn assured him as he chomped and drank, when you catch it yourself. About halfway through the meal, Wyn switched to Scotch. Adam declined. He wanted a simple glass of water, but machismo drove him to continue with the beer. He couldn’t wimp out at this point. Lettner would certainly chastise him.

  Irene sipped wine and told stories about Mississippi. She had been threatened on several occasions, and their children refused to visit them. They were both from Ohio, and their families worried constantly about their safety. Those were the days, she said more than once with a certain longing for excitement. She was extremely proud of her husband and his performance during the war for civil rights.

  She left them after dinner and disappeared somewhere in the cottage. It was almost ten o’clock, and Adam was ready for sleep. Wyn rose to his feet while holding onto a wooden beam, and excused himself for a visit to the bathroom. He returned in due course with two fresh Scotches in tall glasses. He handed one to Adam, and returned to his rocker.

  They rocked and sipped in silence for a moment, then Lettner said, “So you’re convinced Sam had some help.”

  “Of course he had some help.” Adam was very much aware that his tongue was thick and his words were slow. Lettner’s speech was remarkably articulate.

  “And what makes you so certain?”

  Adam lowered the heavy glass and vowed not to take another drink. “The FBI searched Sam’s house after the bombing, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Sam was in jail in Greenville, and you guys got a warrant.”

  “I was there, son. We went in with a dozen agents and spent three days.”

  “And found nothing.”

  “You could say that.”

  “No trace of dynamite. No trace of blasting caps, fuses, detonators. No trace of any device or substance used in any of the bombings. Correct?”

  “That’s correct. So what’s your point?”

  “Sam had no knowledge of explosives, nor did he have a history of using them.”

  “No, I’d say he had quite a history of using them. Kramer was the sixth bombing, as I recall. Those crazy bastards were bombing like hell, son, and we couldn’t stop them. You weren’t there. I was in the middle of it. We had harassed the Klan and infiltrated to a point where they were afraid to move, then all of a sudden another war erupted and bombs were falling everywhere. We listened where we were supposed to listen. We twisted familiar arms until they broke. And we were clueless. Our informants were clueless. It was like another branch of the Klan had suddenly invaded Mississippi without telling the old one.”

  “Did you know about Sam?”

  “His name was in our records. As I recall, his father had been a Klucker, and maybe a brother or two. So we had their names. But they seemed harmless. They lived in the northern part of the state, in an area not known for serious Klan violence. They probably burned some crosses, maybe shot up a few houses, but nothing compared to Dogan and his gang. We had our hands full with murderers. We didn’t have time to investigate every possible Klucker in the state.”

  “Then how do you explain Sam’s sudden shift to violence?”

  “Can’t explain it. He was no choirboy, okay? He had killed before.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You heard me. He shot and killed one of his black employees in the early fifties. Never spent a day in jail for it. In fact, I’m not sure, but I don’t think he was ever arrested for it. There may have been another killing, too. Another black victim.”

  “I’d rather not hear it.”

  “Ask him. See if the old bastard has guts enough to admit it to his grandson.” He took another sip. “He was a violent man, son, and he certainly had the capability to plant bombs and kill people. Don’t be naive.”

  “I’m not naive. I’m just trying to save his life.”

  “Why? He killed two very innocent little boys. Two children. Do you realize this?”

  “He was convicted of the murders. But if the killings were wrong, then it’s wrong for the state to kill him.”

  “I don’t buy that crap. The death penalty is too good for these people. It’s too clean and sterile. They know they’re about to die, so they have time to say their prayers and say good-bye. What about the victims? How much time did they have to prepare?”

  “So you want Sam executed?”

  “Yeah. I want ’em all executed.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t a bad guy.”

  “I lied. Sam Cayhall is a cold-blooded killer. And he’s guilty as hell. How else can you explain the fact that the bombings stopped as soon as he was in custody?”

  “Maybe they were scared after Kramer?”

  “They? Who the hell is they?”

  “Sam and his partner. And Dogan.”

  “Okay. I’ll play along. Let’s assume Sam had an accomplice.”

  “No. Let’s assume Sam was the accomplice. Let’s assume the other guy was the explosives expert.”

  “Expert? These were very crude bombs, son. The first five were nothing more than a few sticks wrapped together with a fuse. You light the match, run like hell, and fifteen minutes later, Boom! The Kramer bomb was nothing but a half-ass rig with an alarm clock wired to it. They were lucky it didn’t go off while they were playing with it.”

  “Do you think it was deliberately set to go off when it did?”

  “The jury thought so. Dogan said they planned to kill Marvin Kramer.”

  “Then why was Sam hanging around? Why was he close enough to the bomb to get hit with debris?”

  “You’ll have to ask Sam, which I’m sure you’ve already done. Does he claim he had an accomplice?”

  “No.”

  “Then that settles it. If your own client says no, what the hell are you digging for?”

  “Because I think my client is lying.”

  “Too bad for your client, then. If he wants to lie and protect the identity of someone, then why should you care?”

  “Why would he lie to me?”

  Lettner shook his head in frustration, then mumbled something and took a drink. “How the hell am I supposed to know? I don’t want to know, okay? I honestly don’t care if Sam’s lying or if Sam’s telling the truth. But if he won’t level with you, his lawyer and his own grandson, then I say gas him.”

  Adam took a long drink and stared into the darkness. He actually felt silly at times digging around trying to prove his own client was lying to him. He’d give this another shot, then talk about something else. “You don’t believe the witnesses who saw Sam with another person?”

  “No. They were pretty shaky, as I recall. The guy at the truck stop didn’t come forward for a long time. The other guy had just left a honky-tonk. They weren’t credible.”

  “Do you believe Dogan?”

  “The jury did.”

  “I didn’t ask about the jury.”

  Lettner’s breathing was finally getting heavy, and he appeared to be fading. “Dogan was crazy, and Dogan was a genius. He said the bomb was intended to kill, and I believe him. Keep in mind, Adam, they almost wiped out an entire family in Vicksburg. I can’t remember the name—”

  “Pinder. And you keep saying they did this and that.”

  “I’m just playing along, okay. We’re assuming Sam had a buddy with him. They planted a bomb at the Pinder house in the middle of the night. An entire family could’ve been killed.”

  “Sam said he placed the bomb in the garage so no one would get hurt.”

  “Sam told you this? Sam admitted he did it? Then why in the hell are you asking me about an accomplice? Sounds like you need to listen to your client. Son of a bitch is guilty, Adam. Listen to him.”

  Adam took another drink and his eyelids grew heavier. He looked at his watch, but couldn’t see it. “Tell me about the tapes,” he said, yawning.

  “What tapes?” Lettner asked, yaw
ning.

  “The FBI tapes they played at Sam’s trial. The ones with Dogan talking to Wayne Graves about bombing Kramer.”

  “We had lots of tapes. And they had lots of targets. Kramer was just one of many. Hell, we had a tape with two Kluckers talking about bombing a synagogue while a wedding was in progress. They wanted to bolt the doors and shoot some gas through the heating ducts so the entire congregation would be wiped out. Sick bastards, man. It wasn’t Dogan, just a couple of his idiots talking trash, and so we dismissed it. Wayne Graves was a Klucker who was also on our payroll, and he allowed us to tap his phones. He called Dogan one night, said he was on a pay phone, and they got to talking about hitting Kramer. They also talked about other targets. It was very effective at Sam’s trial. But the tapes did not help us stop a single bombing. Nor did they help us identify Sam.”

  “You had no idea Sam Cayhall was involved?”

  “None whatsoever. If the fool had left Greenville when he should have, he’d probably still be a free man.”

  “Did Kramer know he was a target?”

  “We told him. But by then he was accustomed to threats. He kept a guard at his house.” His words were starting to slur a bit, and his chin had dropped an inch or two.

  Adam excused himself and cautiously made his way to the bathroom. As he returned to the porch, he heard heavy snoring. Lettner had slumped in his chair and collapsed with the drink in his hand. Adam removed it, then left in search of a sofa.

  Twenty

  The late morning was warm but seemed downright feverish in the front of the Army surplus jeep, which lacked air conditioning and other essentials. Adam sweated and kept his hand on the handle of the door which he hoped would open promptly in the event Irene’s breakfast came roaring up.

  He had awakened on the floor beside a narrow sofa in a room which he had mistaken for the den, but was in fact the washroom beside the kitchen. And the sofa was a bench, Lettner had explained with much laughter, that he used to sit on to take off his boots. Irene had eventually found his body after searching the house, and Adam apologized profusely until they both asked him to stop. She had insisted on a heavy breakfast. It was their one day of the week to eat pork, a regular tradition around the Lettner cottage, and Adam had sat at the kitchen table guzzling ice water while the bacon fried and Irene hummed and Wyn read the paper. She also scrambled eggs and mixed bloody marys.

  The vodka deadened some of the pain in his head, but it also did nothing to calm his stomach. As they bounced toward Calico Rock on the bumpy road, Adam was terrified that he would be sick.

  Though Lettner had passed out first, he was remarkably healthy this morning. No sign of a hangover. He’d eaten a plate full of grease and biscuits, and he’d sipped only one bloody mary. He’d diligently read the paper and commented about this and that, and Adam figured he was one of those functional alcoholics who got plastered every night but shook it off easily.

  The village was in view. The road was suddenly smoother and Adam’s stomach stopped bouncing. “Sorry about last night,” Lettner said.

  “What?” Adam asked.

  “About Sam. I was harsh. I know he’s your grandfather and you’re very concerned. I lied about something. I really don’t want Sam to be executed. He’s not a bad guy.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

  They entered the town and turned toward the bridge. “There’s something else,” Lettner said. “We always suspected Sam had a partner.”

  Adam smiled and looked through his window. They passed a small church with elderly people standing under a shade tree in their pretty dresses and neat suits.

  “Why?” Adam asked.

  “For the same reasons. Sam had no history with bombs. He had not been involved in Klan violence. The two witnesses, especially the truck driver in Cleveland, always bothered us. The trucker had no reason to lie, and he seemed awfully certain of himself. Sam just didn’t seem like the type to start his own bombing campaign.”

  “So who’s the man?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” They rolled to a stop by the river, and Adam opened his door just in case. Lettner leaned on the steering wheel, and cocked his head toward Adam. “After the third or fourth bombing, I think maybe it was the synagogue in Jackson, some big Jews in New York and Washington met with LBJ, who in turn called in Mr. Hoover, who in turn called me. I went to D.C., where I met with Mr. Hoover and the President, and they pretty much crawled my ass. I returned to Mississippi with renewed determination. We came down hard on our informants. I mean, we hurt some people. We tried everything, but to no avail. Our sources simply did not know who was doing the bombing. Only Dogan knew, and it was obvious he wasn’t telling anybody. But after the fifth bomb, which I think was the newspaper office, we got a break.”

  Lettner opened his door and walked to the front of the jeep. Adam joined him there, and they watched the river ease along through Calico Rock. “You wanna beer? I keep it cold in the bait shop.”

  “No, please. I’m half-sick now.”

  “Just kidding. Anyway, Dogan ran this huge used car lot, and one of his employees was an illiterate old black man who washed the cars and swept the floors. We had carefully approached the old man earlier, but he was hostile. But out of the blue he tells one of our agents that he saw Dogan and another man putting something in the trunk of a green Pontiac a couple of days earlier. He said he waited, then opened the trunk and saw it was dynamite. The next day he heard that there was another bombing. He knew the FBI was swarming all around Dogan, so he figured it was worth mentioning to us. Dogan’s helper was a Klucker named Virgil, also an employee. So I went to see Virgil. I knocked on his door at three o’clock one morning, just beat it like hell, you know, like we always did in those days, and before long he turned on the light and stepped on the porch. I had about eight agents with me, and we all stuck our badges in Virgil’s face. He was scared to death. I told him we knew he had delivered the dynamite to Jackson the night before, and that he was looking at thirty years. You could hear his wife crying through the screen door. Virgil was shaking and ready to cry himself. I left him my card with instructions to call me before noon that very day, and I threatened him if he told Dogan or anybody else. I told him we’d be watching him around the clock.

  “I doubt if Virgil went back to sleep. His eyes were red and puffy when he found me a few hours later. We got to be friends. He said the bombings were not the work of Dogan’s usual gang. He didn’t know much, but he’d heard enough from Dogan to believe that the bomber was a very young man from another state. This guy had dropped in from nowhere, and was supposed to be very good with explosives. Dogan picked the targets, planned the jobs, then called this guy, who sneaked into town, carried out the bombings, then disappeared.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “For the most part, yes. It just made sense. It had to be someone new, because by then we had riddled the Klan with informants. We knew virtually every move they made.”

  “What happened to Virgil?”

  “I spent some time with him, gave him some money, you know, the usual routine. They always wanted money. I became convinced he had no idea who was planting the bombs. He would never admit that he’d been involved, that he’d delivered the cars and dynamite, and we didn’t press him. We weren’t after him.”

  “Was he involved with Kramer?”

  “No. Dogan used someone else for that one. At times, Dogan seemed to have a sixth sense about when to mix things up, to change routines.”

  “Virgil’s suspect certainly doesn’t sound like Sam Cayhall, does he?” Adam asked.

  “No.”

  “And you had no suspects?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Wyn. Surely you guys had some idea.”

  “I swear. We did not. Shortly after we met Virgil, Kramer got bombed and it was all over. If Sam had a buddy, then the buddy left him.”

  “And the FBI heard nothing afterwar
d?”

  “Not a peep. We had Sam, who looked and smelled extremely guilty.”

  “And, of course, you guys were anxious to close the case.”

  “Certainly. And the bombings stopped, remember. There were no bombings after Sam got caught, don’t forget that. We had our man. Mr. Hoover was happy. The Jews were happy. The President was happy. Then they couldn’t convict him for fourteen years, but that was a different story. Everyone was relieved when the bombings stopped.”

  “So why didn’t Dogan squeal on the real bomber when he squealed on Sam?”

  They had eased down the bank to a point just inches above the water. Adam’s car sat nearby. Lettner cleared his throat and spat into the river. “Would you testify against a terrorist who was not in custody?”

  Adam thought for a second. Lettner smiled, flashed his big yellow teeth, then chuckled as he started for the dock. “Let’s have a beer.”

  “No. Please. I need to go.”

  Lettner stopped, and they shook hands and promised to meet again. Adam invited him to Memphis, and Lettner invited him back to Calico Rock for more fishing and drinking. At the moment, his invitation was not well received. Adam sent his regards to Irene, apologized again for passing out in the washroom, and thanked him again for the chat.

  He left the small town behind, driving gingerly around the curves and hills, still careful not to upset his stomach.

  ______

  Lee was struggling with a pasta dish when he entered her apartment. The table was set with china and silver and fresh flowers. The recipe was for baked manicotti, and things were not going well in the kitchen. On more than one occasion in the past week she’d confessed to being a lousy cook, and now she was proving it. Pots and pans were scattered along the countertops. Her seldom used apron was covered with tomato sauce. She laughed as they kissed each other on the cheeks and said there was a frozen pizza if matters got worse.

  “You look awful,” she said, suddenly staring at his eyes.

  “It was a rough night.”

  “You smell like alcohol.”