The Testament

by John Grisham

  “How many wives have you had?”

  “How many have you had?” Junior shot back, then looked at his lawyer for approval. Hark was studying a sheet of paper.

  Nate kept his cool. Who knew what the Phelan lawyers had been saying behind his back? He did not care.

  “Let me explain something to you, Mr. Phelan,” Nate said without the slightest irritation. “I will go over this very slowly, so listen carefully. I am the lawyer, you are the witness. Do you follow me so far?”

  Troy Junior slowly nodded.

  “I ask the questions, you give the answers. Do you understand that?”

  The witness nodded again.

  “You don’t ask questions, and I don’t give answers. Understand?”

  “Yep.”

  “Now, I don’t think you’ll have trouble with the answers if you’ll pay attention to the questions. Okay?”

  Junior nodded again.

  “Are you still confused?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. If you get confused again, please feel free to consult with your attorney. Am I getting through?”

  “I understand.”

  “Wonderful. Let’s try it again. How many wives have you had?”

  “Two.”

  An hour later they finished with his marriages, his children, his divorce. Junior was sweating and wondering how long his deposition would last. The Phelan lawyers were staring blankly at sheets of paper and asking themselves the same thing. Nate, however, had yet to look at the pages of questions prepared for him. He could peel the skin off any witness simply by staring at his eyes and using one question to lead to another. No detail was too small for him to investigate. Where was your first wife’s high school, college, first job? Was it her first marriage? Give us her employment history. Let’s talk about the divorce. How much was your child support? Did you pay all of it?

  For the most part it was useless testimony, evoked not for the sake of information, but rather to annoy the witness and put him on notice that the skeletons could be summoned from the closet. He filed the lawsuit. He had to suffer the scrutiny.

  His employment history took them to the brink of lunch. He stumbled badly when Nate grilled him about his various jobs for his father’s companies. There were dozens of witnesses who could be called to rebut his version of how useful he’d been. With each job, Nate asked for the names of all his co-workers and supervisors. The trap was laid. Hark saw it coming and called time-out. He stepped into the hall with his client and lectured him about telling the truth.

  The afternoon session was brutal. Nate asked about the five million dollars he’d received on his twenty-first birthday, and the entire wall of Phelan lawyers seemed to stiffen.

  “That was a long time ago,” Troy Junior said with an air of resignation. After four hours with Nate O’Riley, he knew the next round would be painful.

  “Well, let’s try to remember,” Nate said with a smile. He showed no signs of fatigue. In fact, he’d been there so many times he actually seemed anxious to grind through the details.

  His acting was superb. He hated being there and tormenting people he hoped he’d never see again. The more questions Nate asked, the more determined he was to start a new career.

  “How was the money given to you?” he asked.

  “It was initially placed in an account in a bank.”

  “You had access to the account?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did anyone else have access to the account?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “How did you get money out of the account?”

  “By writing checks.”

  And write them he did. His first purchase had been a brand-new Maserati, dark blue. They talked about the damned car for fifteen minutes.

  Troy Junior never returned to college after receiving the money, not that any of the schools he’d attended were anxious to have him back. He simply partied, though this came not in the form of a confession. Nate hammered him about his employment from ages twenty-one to thirty, and slowly extricated enough facts to reveal that Troy Junior did not work at all for those nine years. He played golf and rugby, traded cars with gusto, spent a year in the Bahamas and a year in Vail, lived with an amazing assortment of women before finally marrying number one at the age of twenty-nine, and indulged himself in grand style until the money ran out.

  Then the prodigal son crawled to his father and asked for a job.

  As the afternoon wore on, Nate began to envision the havoc this witness would sow upon himself and those around him if he got his sticky fingers on the Phelan fortune. He would kill himself with the money.

  At 4 P.M., Troy Junior asked to be excused for the day. Nate refused. During the break that followed, a note was sent to Judge Wycliff down the hall. While they waited, Nate looked at Josh’s questions for the first time.

  The return message instructed that the proceedings keep going.

  A week after Troy’s suicide, Josh had hired a security firm to conduct an investigation into the Phelan heirs. The probe was more financial than personal. Nate skimmed the highlights while the witness smoked in the hall.

  “What kind of car are you driving now?” Nate asked when they resumed. The exam took yet another direction.

  “A Porsche.”

  “When did you buy it?”

  “I’ve had it awhile.”

  “Try to answer the question. When did you buy it?”

  “Couple of months ago.”

  “Before or after your father’s death?”

  “I’m not real sure. Before, I think.”

  Nate lifted a sheet of paper. “What day did your father die?”

  “Lemme see. It was a Monday, uh, December the ninth, I think.”

  “Did you buy the Porsche before or after December the ninth?”

  “Like I said, I think it was before.”

  “Nope, wrong again. On Tuesday, December tenth, did you go to Irving Motors in Arlington and purchase a black Porsche Carrera Turbo 911 for ninety thousand dollars, give or take?” Nate asked the question while reading from the sheet of paper.

  Troy Junior squirmed and fidgeted yet again. He looked at Hark, who shrugged as if to say, “Answer the question. He’s got the paperwork.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did you buy any other cars that day?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “A total of two.”

  “Two Porsches?”

  “Yes.”

  “For a total of nearly one hundred and eighty thousand dollars?”

  “Something like that.”

  “How did you pay for them?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “So the cars were gifts from Irving Motors?”

  “Not exactly. I bought them on credit.”

  “You qualified for credit?”

  “Yes, at Irving Motors anyway.”

  “Do they want their money?”

  “Yes, you could say that.”

  Nate picked up more papers. “In fact, they’ve filed suit to recover either the money or the cars, haven’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you drive the Porsche to the deposition today?”

  “Yes. It’s in the parking lot.”

  “Let me get this straight. On December tenth, the day after your father died, you went to Irving Motors and bought two expensive cars, on some type of credit, and now, two months later, you haven’t paid a dime and are being sued. Correct?”

  The witness nodded.

  “This is not the only lawsuit, is it?”

  “No,” Troy Junior said in defeat. Nate almost felt sorry for him.

  A rental company was suing for nonpayment on a furniture lease. American Express wanted over fifteen thousand. A bank sued Troy Junior a week after the reading of his father’s will. Junior had fast-talked it into a loan of twenty-five thousand dollars, secured by nothing but his name. Nate had copies of all the litigation, and they trudged through t
he details of each lawsuit.

  At five, another argument occurred. Another note was sent to Wycliff. The Judge appeared himself and asked about their progress. “When do you think you’ll finish with this witness?” he asked Nate.

  “There’s no end in sight,” Nate said, staring at Junior, who was in a trance and praying for liquor.

  “Then work until six,” Wycliff said.

  “Can we start at eight in the morning?” Nate asked, as if they were going to the beach.

  “Eight-thirty,” His Honor decreed, then left.

  For the last hour, Nate peppered Junior with random questions on many subjects. The deponent had no clue where his interrogator was going, and Junior was being led by a master. Just as they settled on one topic and he began to feel comfortable, Nate changed course and hit him with something new.

  How much money did he spend from December 9 to December 27, the day the will was read? What did he buy his wife for Christmas, and how did he pay for the gifts? What did he buy for his children? Back to the five million, did he put any of the money in stocks or bonds? How much money did Biff earn last year? Why did her first husband get custody of her kids? How many lawyers had he hired and fired since his father died? And on and on.

  At precisely six, Hark stood and announced the deposition was being adjourned. Ten minutes later, Troy Junior was in a bar in a hotel lobby two miles away.

  Nate slept in the Stafford guest room. Mrs. Stafford was somewhere in the house, but he never saw her. Josh was in New York on business.

  ________

  THE SECOND day of questioning started on time. The cast was the same, though the lawyers were dressed much more casually. Junior wore a red cotton sweater.

  Nate recognized the face of a drunk—the red eyes, the puffy flesh around them, the pink cheeks and nose, the sweat above the brows. The face had been his for years. Treating the hangover was as much a part of the morning as the shower and the dental floss. Take some pills, drink lots of water and strong coffee. If you’re gonna be stupid you gotta be tough.

  “You realize that you’re still under oath, Mr. Phelan?” he began.

  “I do.”

  “Are you under the influence of any drugs or alcohol?”

  “No sir, I am not.”

  “Good. Let’s go back to December the ninth, the day your father died. Where were you when he was examined by the three psychiatrists?”

  “I was in his building, in a conference room with my family.”

  “And you watched the entire examination, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “There were two color monitors in the room, right? Each twenty-six inches wide?”

  “If you say so. I didn’t measure them.”

  “But you could certainly see them, couldn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your view was unobstructed?”

  “I had a clear view, yes.”

  “And you had a clear reason to watch your father closely?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you have any trouble hearing him?”

  “No.”

  The lawyers knew where Nate was going. It was an unpleasant aspect of their case, but one that could not be avoided. Each of the six heirs would be led down this path.

  “So you watched and heard the entire exam?”

  “I did.”

  “You missed nothing?”

  “I missed nothing.”

  “Of the three psychiatrists, Dr. Zadel had been hired by your family, correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Who found him?”

  “The lawyers.”

  “You trusted your lawyers to hire the psychiatrist?”

  “Yes.”

  For ten minutes, Nate quizzed him on exactly how they came to select Dr. Zadel for such a crucial exam, and in the process got what he wanted. Zadel was hired because he had excellent credentials, came highly recommended, and was very experienced.

  “Were you pleased with the way he handled the exam?” Nate asked.

  “I suppose.”

  “Was there something you didn’t like about Dr. Zadel’s performance?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  The trip to the edge of the cliff continued as Troy Junior admitted that he was pleased with the exam, pleased with Zadel, happy with the conclusions reached by all three doctors, and left the building with no doubt that his father knew what he was doing.

  “After the exam, when did you first doubt your father’s mental stability?” Nate asked.

  “When he jumped.”

  “On December the ninth?”

  “Right.”

  “So you had doubts immediately.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did Dr. Zadel say to you when you expressed these doubts?”

  “I didn’t talk to Dr. Zadel.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “From December ninth to December twenty-seventh, the day the will was read in court, how many times did you talk to Dr. Zadel?”

  “I don’t remember any.”

  “Did you see him at all?”

  “No.”

  “Did you call his office?”

  “No.”

  “Have you seen him since December the ninth?”

  “No.”

  Having walked him to the edge, it was time for the shove. “Why did you fire Dr. Zadel?”

  Junior had been prepped to some degree. “You’ll have to ask my lawyer that,” he said, and hoped Nate would just go away for a while.

  “I’m not deposing your lawyer, Mr. Phelan. I’m asking you why Dr. Zadel was fired.”

  “You’ll have to ask the lawyers. It’s part of our legal strategy.”

  “Did the lawyers discuss it with you before Dr. Zadel was fired?”

  “I’m not sure. I really can’t remember.”

  “Are you pleased that Dr. Zadel no longer works for you?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was wrong. Look, my father was a master con man, okay. He bluffed his way through the exam, same way he did all of his life, then jumped out of the window. He snowed Zadel and the other shrinks. They fell for his act. He was obviously off his rocker.”

  “Because he jumped?”

  “Yes, because he jumped, because he gave his money to some unknown heir, because he made no effort to shield his fortune from estate taxes, because he’d been crazy as hell for some time. Why do you think we had the exam to begin with? If he hadn’t been nuts, would we have needed three shrinks to check him out before he signed his will?”

  “But the three shrinks said he was okay.”

  “Yeah, and they were dead wrong. He jumped. Sane people don’t fly out of windows.”

  “What if your father had signed the thick will and not the handwritten one? And then he jumped? Would he be crazy?”

  “We wouldn’t be here.”

  It was the only time during the two-day ordeal that Troy Junior fought to a draw. Nate knew to move on, then to come back later.

  “Let’s talk about Rooster Inns,” he announced, and Junior’s shoulders fell three inches. It was just another one of his bankrupt ventures, nothing more or less. But Nate had to have every little detail. One bankruptcy led to another. Each failure prompted questions about other doomed enterprises.

  Junior’s had been a sad life. Though it was hard to be sympathetic, Nate realized that the poor guy had never had a father. He had longed for Troy’s approval, and never received it. Josh had told him that Troy had taken great delight when his children’s ventures collapsed.

  The lawyer freed the witness at five-thirty, day two. Rex was next. He’d waited in the hall throughout the day, and was highly agitated at being put off again.

  Josh had returned from New York. Nate joined him for an early dinner.

  FORTY-FIVE

  _____________

  REX PHELAN had spent most of the previous day on the c
ell phone in the