"Could we go to the jail later today? I promised Vince that I'd have lunch with him. We tried to get together several times last week, and it kept getting pushed back. I don't want to hurt his feelings."
"Hurt his feelings? What kind of lunch is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Did you talk to your mother about Vince Colbert?" Zach asked.
I felt my face flush. "No. He didn't ask me to."
Zach looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds before lowering his eyes and meeting my gaze. "For a laid-back California guy, I'm not doing very well," he said. "Have a good lunch with Vince; then check with me. I'll carve out at least two hours for a trip to the jail to meet Mr. Jones."
In the hall outside Zach's office I ran into Gerry Patrick.
"Hope your first week wasn't too dull," she said cheerily. "We have some events planned that will liven things up."
"No ma'am. It's been very stimulating," I replied. "Much more than I'd guessed."
"Good. I'm here if you have any questions."
I returned downstairs to finish a memo for Bob Kettleson. In double-checking my research, I discovered that one of the cases I relied on had been seriously criticized in a recent appellate court opinion. After offering a quick prayer of thanks, I pointed out the potential pitfall in an extra two paragraphs of the memo before sending it to the senior associate. No one came into the library until Vince, the ubiquitous notebook computer in his hand, arrived at precisely 11:50 a.m.
"Are you still available?" he asked.
"Yes."
I noted my time on a log and closed the folders.
"Julie is in a big meeting with several of the partners and associates," Vince said as we checked out at the reception desk.
"I was there when Myra Dean asked her to come."
We walked outside into the hot sun. The slight coolness I enjoyed during my early morning runs didn't last past the point most people in the city were sipping their first cup of coffee.
"How does Savannah compare to Charleston?" I asked.
"Same and different."
We walked in silence. A lunch with Vince might be similar to my morning quiet time. He unlocked the passenger door and held it open for me. Before he reached the driver's side, the car's engine started and the air conditioner started blowing warm air.
"I've never been to Charleston," I said. "Does your family live near the Battery?"
Vince smiled. It was a nice smile without a hint of mockery.
"No. I have a great-aunt that lives south of Broad Street, but I grew up in a newer area. My father is a chemistry professor at the College of Charleston. He also holds several patents in the plastics industry."
I thought about my daddy working at the chicken plant in Powell Station. He was more into biology than chemistry.
"Would you like to go to a cafe I found before you and Julie arrived?" Vince asked.
"Sure."
Without Julie around to interrupt, I found Vince capable of holding up his end of a conversation. During the drive, I learned that he had two older sisters: the one who was married in Savannah and another who lived in Boston.
"Did you think about going to Harvard?" I asked, expecting him to say that he'd not been accepted for admission at the older institution.
"Yes, it was a tough choice," he replied. "Both Yale and Harvard are good schools."
I stifled a laugh. He glanced over at me.
"What's so funny?"
"Oh, you know, the dilemma of having to pick between two of the finest law schools in the country. At least you didn't have to worry about Virginia, Michigan, and Stanford."
"Virginia and Michigan accepted me, but I didn't apply to Stanford. I didn't want to be on the West Coast."
I looked out the car window. Vince parked on the street.
"The cafe is a block north," he said. "I hope you'll like it."
The restaurant was in the downstairs of an older home near Greene Square. A hostess wearing a black skirt and white blouse placed us at a table for two where we could look through a window into a garden much more elaborate than the one at Mrs. Fairmont's house. Everything about the place, from wall decorations to furniture, had a French flavor.
"This is really nice," I said after I'd had a chance to look around.
"The food is good too."
I opened the menu and didn't recognize a single entree by name. Only when I read the ingredients could I partially decipher what was offered.
"It really is a French place, isn't it?" I said.
"The chef is from Marseille."
"How do you know?"
Before he answered, a short waiter wearing rimless glasses came to our table. Vince spoke to him in French, and the man left.
"Is he from Marseille too?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"No, he's from a little town in Provence. He'll send out the chef so we can find out what he recommends."
"You speak French?"
"Enough to get by."
I took a sip of water. The more I learned about Vince, the less confident I felt in his presence. The waiter returned accompanied by a rotund man wearing an apron and a tall white chef's hat. Vince continued to speak exclusively in French. The chef bowed toward me. Vince held out the menu while the three men had a rapid-fire conversation. Most of the other patrons in the restaurant turned to watch. I pressed tightly into my seat, not even trying to pretend I could understand. The chef and waiter left.
"How did it go?" I asked.
"He's going to put together something special that isn't on the menu."
"The menu didn't have any good options?"
"Yes, but he wants to make the lunch memorable."
"It's already that. I've never been in the middle of a French conversation before."
"What foreign language did you take in college?"
"Spanish, but I've only used it in public with a few of the workers at the chicken plant."
As soon as I mentioned the chicken plant, I wanted to cram my napkin in my mouth. This was not the time or place for another discussion about my previous experience as an eviscerator. Vince looked across the room.
"Do you see that painting?" he asked, nodding toward the far wall. "The one above the fireplace."
I turned my head and saw a pastoral scene with vibrant colors. "Yes."
"It's an original. Twentieth-century but in an earlier style. What do you think?"
"I like it."
When I looked back, Vince was staring at me.
"Tell me more about you," he said. "Where you're from, something about your family, your travels."
"Well, I've lived my whole life in rural north Georgia with my parents, two brothers, and twin sisters. I didn't apply to any law schools except Georgia because I can't afford out-of-state tuition. Yesterday, I saw the ocean for the second time in my life. My conversational Spanish doesn't function past basic communication. I can't compete with you in any area of life or experience."
"Life isn't primarily about competition, is it?"
"No, it's about glorifying God," I said.
Vince nodded. "Gerry Patrick told me you were a serious Christian. Your faith made an impression on her, and I wanted to find out why."
"I'm not sure it was a good impression."
"She seemed positive, but the Bible says we shouldn't be surprised by persecution and misunderstanding."
I couldn't believe my ears. "Are you persecuted?"
Vince shrugged. "Imagine how people at the law school react when they find out I believe the Bible is true and Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. The only acceptable belief is no belief, and the greatest foolishness is commitment to truth."
"How did you come to believe?" I asked.
Vince rubbed the back of his scarred right hand. "In high school I suffered a serious chemical burn to my right hand and arm when a lab partner caused a minor explosion during an experiment. The corrosive activity of the chemicals didn't stop until they took me into surgery."
"I spent almost a week in the hospital and have had multiple skin grafts. I usually don't tell people this, but as I suffered, I thought about hell, where the fire never stops and the pain never ceases."
The waiter brought two cups of chilled soup.
"This is an asparagus-based soup," he said. "It sounds weird, but give it a try."
I touched a tiny spoonful to my lips. It was a puree with a much lighter flavor than I expected. I ate a larger spoonful.
"It's good," I said.
Vince ate several bites without speaking. I waited for him to continue. He kept eating, occasionally glancing around the restaurant.
"Are you going to leave me wondering why you decided not to go to hell?" I asked. "That would be stranger than this soup. Which is delicious," I quickly added.
Vince put down his spoon. "Sorry, I have a tendency to focus on one thing at a time. I'm not the best multitasker."
"Then eat your soup before you tell me more."
Vince efficiently reached the bottom of the cup.
"I'm listening," I said when I saw he'd finished. "Why did you think about hell at all? Not many preachers ever mention it."
"In a literature class I'd read Dante's Inferno and Jonathan Edwards' `Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.' I had a cultural knowledge of the Bible and was familiar with the concept of eternal punishment. But until the accident, everything was theoretical. Afterward pain dominated my life. In between morphine injections I suffered horribly. The pain would ease, but I knew it would return and my mind couldn't escape the thought of suffering at an even more extreme level-forever."
"That's terrible."
"Do you want to change the subject?"
"No, no. Our church believes in hell, but I don't like to think about it. I'm more interested in learning how to obey the Lord in my day-to-day life."
The waiter brought our meal. The food looked like a picture from one of the magazines at Mrs. Fairmont's house.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Blanquette de veau. It's a veal dish."
I took a bite. There were unusual flavors with a hint of onion.
"Can you keep talking?" I asked. "In between bites?"
Vince nodded. "Hell wasn't the only thing I thought about in the hospital. Of course, I thought about my lab partner. He should have been the one suffering, not me. Many times I imagined the chemicals spewing onto his hand and arm instead of mine. Then I read what Paul wrote about forgiving people who have sinned against us. It made logical sense. If I wanted God to forgive me so that I wouldn't go to hell, I needed to forgive the student who sinned against me. I talked to my parents about it. My father listened, but my mother thought I was delusional."
"What did she say?"
"That my mind was too precious a gift to throw away on Judeo- Christian mythology. She's a strict humanist. My father sees the order in science and that makes him doubt random chance as the explanation for the universe."
"Discussions around your supper table must be interesting."
"Anyway, after I got out of the hospital, I started reading the Bible and started attending an Episcopal church not far from our house. The thoughts of hell went away, and the love of God filled my heart."
Vince's description of his conversion left me with doubts. It didn't sound like he'd prayed it through.
"What about your lab partner? Did you forgive him?"
"Yes, and when I told him what happened to me, he prayed to receive Christ too. Now, he's in a postgraduate chemistry program at Rutgers."
We ate in silence for a minute.
"But how do you know God's love is in your heart?" I asked.
Vince smiled. "Oh, when it happens, you'll know."
During the remainder of the meal, he plied me with questions. I had to fight the sense of being interviewed by an anthropologist studying a primitive religious sect. Several times he appeared puzzled, but there was no hint of criticism. I finally decided everything I told him was going into an internal computer file to be processed later.
Dessert, custard topped with fresh blueberries, arrived. The custard was the creamiest substance I'd ever put in my mouth.
The chef returned at the conclusion of the meal. I smiled as sweetly as I could while Vince complimented him on the meal.
"Why did you take a summer job with Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter?" I asked him during the drive back to the office. "With your academic background, you could have worked anywhere."
"One, it's close to home without being there. I'll spend next weekend in Charleston."
Vince turned onto Montgomery Street. I waited for other reasons. None came.
19
AFTER I THANKED VINCE FOR LUNCH, I GRABBED THE JONES file from the library and rushed upstairs to Zach's office. His door was open. Fast-food paper wrappers from lunch were strewn across his desk.
"Are you ready to go?" I asked.
Zach looked at his watch. "I worked until one o'clock, then went out for a burger. Mr. Appleby doesn't take a two-hour lunch unless there is going to be a twenty-thousand-dollar fee on the line."
"Vince took me to a French cafe near Greene Square. The food was good, but the service was on European time."
Zach wadded up the food wrappers and threw them across the room into a round trash can.
"Nice shot," I said.
"When did you go to Europe?" he asked, standing up.
"I haven't. Vince told me the French take a lot of time with their meals. Eating is more of a social event with them than it is for us."
"Let's socialize with Mr. Jones at the jail," Zach said. "While you were leisurely dining, I stopped by the courthouse and copied the district attorney's file."
"What did you find?"
"I'll let you look it over in the car."
I'd never seen Zach's car. He owned a white Japanese compact. The engine didn't start until he turned the key in the ignition. He handed me the file.
"See what you think," he said.
I opened the folder. There was a one-page arrest record, and the names of the five property owners mentioned in the criminal charges. Beside each name were several dates and the words "video surveillance."
"Do you think the police were watching Moses for several weeks and videotaped him each time he tied up at one of the docks?" I asked.
"No. Video surveillance refers to images from security cameras. That's how they knew which night Moses was at each location. Each count has a specific date. While I was waiting for you, I called three of the five homeowners. They were nice enough to talk to me. That's how I found out about the surveillance cameras. The homeowners association has a contract with a security agency that services everybody."
"What else did you find out?"
"That Moses Jones did not have permission to trespass. One woman said she was terrified that Jones was going to assault her and burglarize her house. She saw his boat floating at the end of her dock early one morning and called the police. He was gone by the time they arrived, but that's when the investigation started."
"Did she talk to Moses?"
"None of them did. The two other owners I reached didn't know he'd been there until the security company checked the recordings for all the houses on the river. Jones was arrested at the dock of a homeowner who didn't answer the phone."
I turned to the next page in the folder and found the statement Moses gave to Detective Branson.
"Moses doesn't talk anything like this," I said after quickly scanning the four-paragraph statement with my client's crude signature at the bottom. "These are the detective's words put into Moses' mouth."
"Stylistic objections aside, what is your opinion of the statement?"
"Moses admits tying his boat up at the docks. I know he's guilty, but the way the detective crafted the statement bothers me."
Zach glanced sideways at me. "Are you turning into a left-wing criminal defense lawyer before my eyes?"
"No, I don't want to miss anything
else. I didn't pay enough attention to the charges."
"Should we file a motion to suppress the confession?"
"I don't know if there are legal grounds."
"Research it before we appear in front of Judge Cannon tomorrow afternoon."
We arrived at the jail complex. I pointed to a parking area.
"That's near the entrance for the cell block where he's kept. Didn't you handle a criminal case when you clerked for the firm?"
"Remember, I didn't clerk in Savannah."
I felt embarrassed. Zach had told me he had clerked in Los Angeles, not Savannah, but I hadn't paid attention to the details. I started to apologize, but that would have only reinforced my blunder. We entered the waiting area. A different female deputy was on duty. I showed her the order from Judge Cannon, and a deputy took us to the interview area.
"I'll have the prisoner brought up," the deputy said.
In a few minutes the door to the cell block opened and Moses came in. He saw me and smiled. I couldn't help feeling some compassion for the old man.
"Mr. Jones, this is Zach Mays," I said. "He's a lawyer who is going to help you."
"Call me Moses," the old man said. "No one calls me Mr. Jones unless they be wanting my money, which I ain't got none."
We entered the interview room.
"What you do about my boat, missy?" Moses asked before we were seated. "It be in the same place as before."
I'd forgotten my promise to check on the status of his boat.
"Uh, that's not been decided. We'll talk to the district attorney about it and include return of the boat as part of the plea bargain in your case. Mr. Mays has been working hard on your case and has some things to tell you."
Zach told Moses about his interviews with the homeowners and Ms. Smith's plea offer. When the subject of jail time came up, Moses looked puzzled.
"She want me in this here jailhouse for six months more? I done been here 'bout two months."
"Which is long enough," Zach said. "I think they should let you out for time already served and put you on probation for less than three years."
"Oh, yeah. Plenty boys get prohibition. But the policemans, they turn that into hard time if they be wanting to. This ought to be over and done with."
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