A Time for Mercy

by John Grisham

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Mrs. Huff showed them the larger refrigerator, filled with food and bottles of water and tea, all at their disposal. She showed them the coffeepot and filters. Charles gave Josie a key to the rear doors and invited her and Kiera to try to make themselves at home. The deacons had decided that two or three men would make the rounds each night and make sure they were safe. The ladies had put together a meal schedule for the next week. A retired schoolteacher named Mrs. Golden had volunteered to tutor Kiera in the church several hours a day until she caught up, and until they, whoever “they” might be, made the decision about her returning to school. Half the deacons thought she should return to the junior high in Clanton. The other half believed that would be too traumatic and that she should be homeschooled in the church. Josie had not yet been consulted.

  Mrs. Golden used her contacts at the school to obtain a set of replacement textbooks for Kiera. The others had either been burned by Earl Kofer, as he claimed, or they were in the house and could not be retrieved. New ones would be required. Kiera was in the eighth grade, a year behind where she should be, and was still struggling to keep up with her classmates. Her teachers considered her bright, but with her chaotic family and unstable past she had missed too many days of school.

  Drew was in the ninth grade, two years behind, and not gaining momentum. He loathed being the oldest kid in his class and often refused to reveal his real age. He didn’t realize his luck in arriving late to puberty and looking no older than the other boys. Mrs. Golden had gone to the high school and talked to the principal about Drew’s academic quandary. Obviously, he couldn’t take classes from the jail, nor did the school have a tutor on its payroll. Any efforts to intervene would take a court order. They decided to let the lawyers worry about that. Mrs. Golden did notice the principal’s reluctance in doing anything that might help the defendant.

  As they were leaving the church, Charles and Meg promised to pick up Josie and Kiera at nine the following morning for the trip to town. They needed to fetch their car, and they were desperate to see Drew.

  Josie and Kiera thanked everyone profusely and said goodbye. They walked to a picnic table next to the cemetery and sat on it. Once again their little family was separated and one step away from being homeless. But for the goodness of others, they would be hungry and sleeping in the car.

  * * *

  —

  JAKE WAS SITTING at his desk, staring at a stack of pink phone messages that Portia and Bev had taken that morning. So far that week he had spent about eighteen hours working on behalf of Drew Gamble. He rarely billed by the hour because his clients were working people and indigent defendants who couldn’t pay, whatever the bill, but he, like almost all lawyers, had learned the necessity of tracking his time.

  Not long after Jake began to work for Lucien, a lawyer across the square, a likable guy named Mack Stafford, represented a teenager who’d been injured in an auto accident. The case wasn’t complicated and Mack didn’t bother recording his hours since his contract gave him a contingency of one-third. The insurance company agreed to settle for $120,000, and Mack was all set to walk off with a fee of $40,000, a rarity not only in Ford County but anywhere throughout the rural South. However, since the client was a minor the settlement had to be approved by the chancery court. Chancellor Reuben Atlee asked Mack in open court to justify such a generous fee for a rather straightforward case. Mack did not have a record of his hours and failed miserably in convincing the judge that he deserved the money. They haggled for a while and Atlee finally gave Mack a week to reconstruct his time sheets and submit them. By then, though, he was suspicious of the lawyer. Mack claimed he charged clients $100 an hour and that he had invested four hundred hours in the case. Both numbers were on the high side. Atlee cut them both in half and awarded Mack $20,000. He was so incensed he appealed to the state supreme court and lost 9–0 because the court had ruled for decades that sitting chancellors have unfettered discretion in just about everything. Mack finally took the money and never spoke to Judge Atlee again.

  Five years later, in perhaps the most legendary act of criminal and ethical misconduct by a member of the local bar, Mack stole half a million dollars from four clients and skipped town. To Jake’s knowledge, not a single person, including Mack’s ex-wife and two daughters, had ever heard a word from him. On really bad days, Jake, as well as most lawyers in town, dreamed of being Mack and roasting on a beach somewhere with a cold drink.

  At any rate, the local bar swallowed the lesson whole and most lawyers kept up with their hours. In the Smallwood lawsuit, Jake had worked over a thousand hours in the fourteen months since Harry Rex landed the case and associated him. That was almost half his time and he anticipated being well compensated for it. Drew’s case, though, could possibly eat up huge chunks of time with little in the way of fees. Another reason to get rid of it.

  The phone rang again and Jake waited for someone else to answer it. It was almost 5:00 p.m., and for a moment he thought of joining Lucien downstairs for a drink, but let it pass. Carla frowned on drinking, especially on weekdays. So his thoughts moved from hard alcohol back to Mack Stafford sipping rum drinks, studying bikinis, far away from bitching clients and cranky judges and, oh well, there you go again.

  Through the intercom, Portia said, “Hey, Jake, it’s Dr. Rooker in Tupelo.”

  “Thanks.” Jake tossed the phone slips onto his desk and picked up the receiver. “Hello, Dr. Rooker. Thanks again for seeing Drew today.”

  “It’s my job, Mr. Brigance. Are you near your fax machine?”

  “I can be.”

  “Good, I’m sending over a letter I’ve addressed to Judge Noose and copies to you. Give it a look and if you agree, I’ll send it to him in a moment.”

  “Sounds urgent.”

  “In my opinion, it is.”

  Jake hustled downstairs and found Portia standing at the fax machine. The letter read:

  TO THE HONORABLE OMAR NOOSE

  CIRCUIT COURT—22ND JUDICIAL DISTRICT

  Dear Judge Noose:

  At the request of Mr. Jake Brigance, this afternoon I met and examined Drew Allen Gamble, age 16. He was brought to my office in Tupelo, in handcuffs, and wearing what appeared to be a standard orange jump suit issued by the Ford County Jail. In other words, he was not properly clothed and this was not an ideal way to begin a consultation. Everything I witnessed when he arrived suggested to me that the child is being treated like an adult and is presumed to be guilty.

  I observed a teenaged boy who is frightfully small for his age and could easily pass for a child several years younger. I did not, nor was I expected to, examine him physically, but I saw no signs of stage three or stage four pubescent developments.

  I observed the following, all of which are highly unusual for a sixteen-year-old: (1) little growth and no muscular development; (2) no sign of any facial hair; (3) no sign of acne; (4) a childlike voice with no deepening.

  For the first hour of our two-hour visit, Drew was uncooperative and said little. Mr. Brigance had briefed me on some of his background, and using this I was finally able to engage Drew in conversation that can only be described as intermittent and strained. He was unable to grasp even the simplest concepts, such as being placed in jail and not being able to leave whenever he wants. He says that at times he remembers events, at times he forgets those same happenings. He asked me at least three times if Stuart Kofer was really dead, but I did not answer him. He became irritable and on two occasions told, not asked, me to “Shut up.” He was never aggressive or angry and often cried when he couldn’t answer a question. Twice he said he wished he could die and admits that he often thinks of suicide.

  I learned that Drew and his sister have been neglected, physically abused, psychologically abused, and subjected to domestic violence. I cannot say, and do not know, all of the people responsible for this. He was simply not t
hat forthcoming. I strongly suspect there has been a lot of abuse and Drew, and more than likely his sister too, has suffered at the hands of several people.

  The sudden and/or violent loss of a loved one can trigger traumatic stress in children. Drew and his sister had been abused by Mr. Kofer. They thought, with good reason, that he had killed their mother, and that he was about to harm them, again. This is more than sufficient to trigger traumatic stress.

  Trauma in children can bring about a variety of responses, including wide swings in emotions, bouts of depression, anxiety, fear, inability to eat or sleep, nightmares, slow academic progress, and many other problems which I will detail in my full report.

  If left untreated, Drew will only regress and the damage can become permanent. The last place for him right now is a jail built for adults.

  I strongly recommend that Drew be sent immediately to the state mental hospital at Whitfield, where there is a secure facility for juveniles, for a thorough examination and long-term treatment.

  I will finish my report and fax it to you in the morning.

  Respectfully,

  DR. CHRISTINA A. ROOKER, M.D.

  Tupelo, Mississippi

  * * *

  —

  AN HOUR LATER, Jake was still at his desk, ignoring the phone and wanting to go home. Portia, Lucien, and part-time Bev had already left. He heard the familiar rattle of the fax machine downstairs, and, glancing at his watch, wondered who was still working at five minutes after six on a Thursday evening. He grabbed his jacket and briefcase, turned off his light, and went down to the fax machine. It was a single sheet of paper with the official heading: Circuit Court of Ford County Mississippi. Just under was the style of the case: State of Mississippi v. Drew Allen Gamble. There was no file number because there had been no official appearance by the defendant and no indictment. Someone, probably Judge Noose himself, had typed: “The Court does hereby direct the Sheriff of Ford County to transport the above named defendant to the state mental hospital with all possible speed, preferably on Friday, March 30, 1990, and there to surrender his person to Mr. Rupert Easley, Director of Security, until further orders of this court. So Ordered, Signed, Judge Omar Noose.”

  Jake smiled at the outcome and placed the order on Portia’s desk. He had done his job and protected the best interests of his client. He could almost hear the courthouse gossip, the rumblings at the coffee shops, the cursing among the deputies.

  He told himself he didn’t care anymore.

  14

  The weather was perfect for a funeral, though the setting left something to be desired. On Saturday, the last day of March, the sky was dark and threatening, the wind cold and biting. A week earlier, on the last day of his life, Stuart Kofer had gone fishing with friends on the lake on a beautiful, warm afternoon. They wore T-shirts and shorts and drank cold beer in the sunshine as if summer had arrived early. But so much had changed, and now, on the day of his burial, raw winds swept across the land and added more gloom.

  The service was at the National Guard Armory, a bland and sterile 1950s-style block building designed for troop gatherings and community events, but not for funerals. It could hold three hundred and the family was expecting a crowd. Though unchurched, the Kofers had lived in the county for a hundred years and knew a lot of people. Stu was a popular cop with friends, acquaintances, and colleagues with families. All funerals were open to the public, and tragic deaths always attracted the curious who had little else to do and wanted to get close to the story. At 1:00 p.m., an hour before the service, the first news van arrived and was ordered to park in a reserved area. Uniformed officers were everywhere, waiting for the crowd, the press, the pomp and ceremony. The front doors of the armory opened and the parking lot began to fill. Another news van arrived and began filming. Some reporters with cameras were allowed to congregate near the flagpole.

  Inside, three hundred rented chairs had been neatly arranged in a half-moon around a temporary stage and podium. The wall behind it was layered with dozens of flower arrangements, and more lined the walls. A large color photo of Stuart Kofer stood on a tripod to one side. By 1:30 the meeting hall was almost full and a few ladies were already sobbing. In the place of proper hymns favored by real Christians, someone within the family had selected a playlist of sad tunes by some country crooner, and his mournful braying echoed from a set of cheap speakers. Fortunately, the volume was not high, but it was still loud enough to add to the somber mood.

  The crowd filed in and before long all chairs were taken. Additional mourners were asked to stand against the walls. By 1:45, there was no more space and those trying to get in were told the service would be broadcast outside over a PA system.

  The family gathered in a small office wing and waited for the hearse from Megargel Funeral Home, the last remaining mortuary for white people in Ford County. There were two for the blacks, who were buried in their cemeteries. The whites were buried in theirs, and, even in 1990, the graveyards were tightly segregated. No one had been put to rest out of place.

  Because it was a big funeral, with a crowd and the chance of cameras, Mr. Megargel had leaned on friends in the business and borrowed some nicer cars. When he pulled his sleek black hearse into the drive beside the armory there were six identical black sedans behind him. They were empty for the moment and parked in a neat row behind the building. Mr. Megargel hopped out, as did his squad of men in somber suits, and began directing things. He opened the rear door of the hearse and called for the eight pallbearers to come forward. Slowly, they pulled the casket out and placed it on a gurney draped in velvet cloth. The family came out of the small office and stood behind the pallbearers. With Megargel leading the way, the small parade turned alongside the building and headed for the front where an impressive battalion of uniformed men awaited them.

  Ozzie had worked the phones all week and his requests had been met, in fine fashion. Troops from a dozen counties, along with the state police and municipal officers from several cities, stood in formation as the casket rolled by. Cameras clicked and could be heard above the silence.

  Harry Rex was in the crowd outside. He would later describe the scene to Jake by saying, “Hell, you’d’ve thought Kofer got killed in the line of duty, fightin’ crime like a real cop. Not passed out drunk after he beat his girlfriend.”

  The throng parted as the pallbearers guided the casket through the front doors, into the armory, and across the small lobby. As it entered the center aisle, the pastor stood at the podium and said at full volume, “Please rise.” The crowd rose noisily but then fell deathly silent as the casket inched down the aisle, with Earl and Janet Kofer in step behind it. About forty family members followed them.

  They had feuded for a week over the issue of a closed casket. It was not unusual to open the casket during a funeral service so that the loved ones and friends and other mourners could glimpse a profile of the deceased. This made the situation far more dramatic and maximized the grief, which of course was the purpose though no one would ever admit it. Rural preachers preferred open caskets because they made it easier to whip up emotions and make folks worry more about their sins and their own deaths. It was not uncommon to include a few remarks directed at the deceased, as if he or she might just rise up and yell “Repent.”

  Earl had lost his parents and a brother, and their services had been “open,” though the presiding ministers hardly knew them. But Janet Kofer knew the service would be thoroughly gut-wrenching without actually looking at her dead son. In the end she prevailed and the casket remained closed.

  When the casket was in place, a large American flag was unfolded and draped over it. Later, Harry Rex would say to Jake, “Sumbitch got kicked out of the army and they carried on like it was full honors.”

  As the family shuffled into place in the front rows, reserved with Megargel’s monogrammed velvet roping, the preacher motioned for the crowd to sit and n
odded to a dude with a guitar. Wearing a burgundy suit, black cowboy hat, and matching boots, he walked to a floor mike, strummed a few chords, and waited for everyone to be seated. When things were still, he began singing the first stanza of “The Old Rugged Cross.” He had a pleasant baritone and was deft with his guitar. He had once played in a bluegrass band with Cecil Kofer, though he had never met his deceased brother.

  It was unlikely Stuart Kofer had ever heard the old gospel standard. Most of his grieving family members had not, but it was appropriate for the sad occasion and succeeded in heightening the emotions. When he finished the third stanza he gave a quick nod and returned to his seat.

  The family had met the minister two days earlier. One of their more difficult chores during that awful week had been to locate a man of God willing to conduct the service for complete strangers. There were several country preachers who had tried to reach the Kofers over the years, but all said no to the service. As a group, they were turned off by the hypocrisy of getting involved with people who had no use for any church. Finally, a cousin bribed an unemployed Pentecostal lay preacher with three hundred dollars to be the man of the hour. His name was Hubert Wyfong and he was from Smithfield, down in Polk County. Reverend Wyfong needed the cash, but he also saw the opportunity to perform in front of a large crowd. Perhaps he could impress someone who knew a church that was looking for a part-time preacher.

  He offered a long, flowery prayer, then nodded at a pretty teenaged girl, who stepped to the mike with her Bible and read the Twenty-third Psalm.