The Hush

by John Hart

  “Ms. Green apologizes for the delay. As you can see, people get busy around here.” The comment appeared meaningless, but enough awareness remained for Johnny to divine the deeper truth. She disliked the frayed cuffs, the rime of mud on his shoes. “This is her office.”

  She stopped at a closed door, and Johnny sensed movement beyond it: fingers on fabric, a sudden flush. The receptionist opened the door and moved aside. “Ms. Green,” she said. “Your one o’clock is here.”

  Johnny stepped through the door, and stopped. Behind her desk, the lawyer was ivory-skinned and finely dressed, her eyes bright under eyebrows arched to elegant perfection.

  “Mr. Merrimon. Welcome. My name is Leslie Green.” She offered a hand, and Johnny took it. “Sit, please.” She indicated a chair, then sat behind the desk. “Jack Cross tells me you need an appellate lawyer. He also says you can’t meet my fee.”

  “Ah. Straight to the point.”

  Johnny smiled, but it was not returned. “I bill my time in six-minute increments. What some consider blunt, I consider efficient.”

  “Then, yes. Jack is right.”

  “Yet you own six thousand acres, unencumbered.”

  “Think of me as land-poor.”

  “A not-uncommon situation. My parents were much the same way.”

  “Farmers?”

  “Ranchers. Texas.” The bright eyes lingered on his lips, the line of his jaw. “You could sell land to meet the fee.”

  “That will never happen.”

  The hardness was there. He couldn’t hide it. Strangely, the lawyer seemed to like it. Heat built in her skin. The pupils dilated. But she wasn’t angry, he thought. Not the way she was leaning forward, not the way she was staring.

  “Why should I help you?”

  “I was under the impression you’d already agreed to take my case.”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  She shrugged. “Mr. Cross is a colleague. Consider this a courtesy.”

  That was not entirely true. Johnny could tell that, too. “Very well. What can I do to convince you?”

  “Do you understand why Luana Freemantle filed the appeal?”

  “I won at trial. She doesn’t like it.”

  “I mean the legal framework of her appeal, the nuances. Do you understand the foundation on which she’s built the appeal?”

  “You’ve read the brief?”

  “And transcripts of the trial. This meeting may be a courtesy, but I would never take it unprepared. Besides, the case holds a certain interest.”

  “Such as?”

  The lawyer crossed her legs, showed a flash of knee. “Trial courts find fact, Mr. Merrimon, while appellate courts consider errors of law. You maintained ownership of Hush Arbor because the original conveyance stipulated that title to the land would return to the Merrimon family when and if the last male Freemantle died. Levi Freemantle was the last male of his line, and he died ten years ago. Those are the facts established at trial. Without obvious errors of law, Mrs. Freemantle has been forced to appeal on the grounds of public policy, equity, gender inequality. Those are compelling issues, and likely to be argued before the State Supreme Court. Perhaps that helps you understand my interest.”

  “Do you agree with Ms. Freemantle’s arguments?”

  “You ask that, why? Because I’m female?”

  “Partly.”

  “Are you interviewing me, Mr. Merrimon? That’s not how this works.”

  “Public policy. Gender inequality. I just wonder how dedicated to my case you could possibly be.”

  “Your ancestor’s beliefs were a product of the time. In 1853, men owned ninety-nine percent of all real property in the country. That’s a simple fact. What matters now is the law and its theoretical underpinnings. Courts are loath to reinterpret the plain language of any conveyance, but it happens if equity and public policy demand it. In that case, you would need dedicated counsel.”

  “You can maintain that dedication?”

  “I’m a professional.”

  “Other women might take issue.”

  “And notoriety brings its own reward, especially in the practice of law. I’m not above a headline if it helps the cause.”

  She still appeared cool and in control, but makeup couldn’t hide the pulse at her throat, the smell of overwarm skin. Johnny wanted to think it was the argument—the back and forth—but she’d been like that since the moment he walked in.

  “Do I factor into your thoughts on notoriety?”

  “Personally, you mean?” She laced her fingers and spoke as if the answer were a foregone conclusion. “A law practice is a business like any other. That requires me to think about reputation, perception. There’s nothing inherently wrong with media attention.”

  “And you’ll get more of it because of who I am.”

  She ignored the obvious anger.

  “Television. Newspapers. Books. Right or wrong, the community has certain perceptions about you. In my experience, there is rarely such a thing as bad publicity. I’m speaking honestly here so there’ll be no illusion as to motive. I don’t do anything for free.”

  Johnny’s jaw hardened. “I won’t discuss my sister or what happened ten years ago.”

  “Levi Freemantle died in your mother’s house. What happened ten years ago is relevant to your case.”

  “I won’t discuss my sister or her disappearance, nor will I discuss my portrayal in the media. Things were said about me, yes. Some considered what I did newsworthy. The photographs were … provocative.”

  “As were things left unsaid. Your continued silence has led to speculation, and that has kept your name in the media. Is it true you turned down a movie offer?”

  Johnny stood.

  “Mr. Merrimon—”

  “Levi Freemantle is dead. The facts are settled. You’ve said as much yourself. As for Hollywood, no, no one has offered money for my story. Had it happened, I would have turned it down.”

  Johnny’s anger was now impossible to hide. He looked at the dilated pupils, the damp lips. Too many people were drawn to the road he’d walked as a boy, to suffering and dark places, the flowers of childhood, ruined.

  “My interest is purely professional.”

  “I somehow doubt that.”

  “Mr. Merrimon, please.”

  “The book is there, on your shelf.” Johnny watched the lawyer turn toward the bookcase behind her. She stopped halfway. “Under the file,” he said. “Half-hidden.”

  “How did you—?”

  “I won’t talk about my sister or how I found her or about the people who died along the way. Let me make that plain.”

  “Very well.” The lawyer cleared her throat and leaned closer to the desk. “Let’s talk about this instead.”

  She laid out a photograph. In it, Johnny’s hair was shorter. He was unsmiling, wearing orange. “That’s a booking photo,” he said. “From two years ago.”

  “William Boyd and Randall Parks. They claimed that you tried to kill them.”

  Johnny sat, and measured his words. “If I’d wanted them dead, they’d be dead. My intention was to frighten them.”

  She removed another sheaf of photographs. They showed a campsite in disarray, personal items shot through with a large-caliber weapon. Canteens. A camp stove. The stock of a rifle. “Do you always hit the things at which you shoot?”

  Johnny said nothing, but in his mind he heard men screaming and the crash of a .270 Winchester, the action slick and fast as he’d pumped round after round into tent poles and weapons and gear.

  “You could have been charged with attempted murder.”

  “They were killing bear out of season.”

  The lawyer leaned back and pursed her lips. She was looking at the angles now, all business. “William Boyd is a wealthy man.”

  “If you’re worried about representing me, let me put your mind at ease. Boyd lives in New York. He only comes here to hunt.”

  “The lod
ge, yes. I know about that. What’s your relationship with Mr. Boyd today?”

  “He has a restraining order against me.”

  “Have you ever violated it?”

  “Not yet.”

  The lawyer pursed her lips once more, dissatisfied. “The district attorney could have locked you up and thrown away the key. Instead, he offered you a misdemeanor plea and a four-month sentence. Can you tell me why he did that?”

  “Perhaps you should ask Mr. Boyd.”

  “Do you actually want my help, Mr. Merrimon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then understand my position. You’re visible, unpredictable, and demonstrably violent. Notoriety is one thing, criminality something entirely different. I need to know that you’ll not be shooting at billionaire hedge fund managers from New York. If you can’t promise that, I can’t help you.”

  “I pinky-swear.”

  She lifted an eyebrow; waited.

  “Fine,” Johnny said. “I won’t shoot at any billionaire hedge fund managers.”

  The lawyer studied him for long seconds, then rose from the desk and moved to a window. Johnny guessed she was thirty-three or -four, an educated woman used to being taken seriously.

  “Why did he do it?” she asked.

  “What?”

  She leaned against the windowsill. “Your ancestor owned forty thousand acres of Raven County. He was one of the wealthiest men in the state, yet he freed a hundred slaves and gave one of them six thousand acres. The decision cost him his land, his fortune, his place in society. Yet none of the history books say why he did it.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “No family stories?”

  “None I’m willing to share.”

  She tensed minutely, a hint of anger. “Then later, perhaps.”

  “That depends.”

  The lawyer did not respond. Her fingers found a chain at her throat.

  “Will you help me or not?” Johnny asked.

  “I’ll think about it. You can call me next week.”

  She kept her face neutral, and Johnny watched it for a long moment. He wanted a sign, some kind of hint.

  But Johnny was too long from the swamp.

  He couldn’t read her.

  * * *

  After Johnny left her office, Leslie let the façade break, slumping in her chair to blow out a slow and steady breath. She’d known attractive men her whole life, and dated more than her fair share of them. Yet there was something about this Johnny Merrimon—her friends were right about that. Was it the looks? The brown eyes and stillness? Or was it, indeed, his history, what a friend once called the dark celebrity of the surreal? Leslie had dated famous men before: the football player in Charlotte, the senator in D.C. Those men had worn celebrity like a suit of clothes, and maybe that was the difference. Johnny wanted none of it. He was wild-haired and rough and unapologetic.

  “Joyce.” Leslie buzzed her assistant through the intercom.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you bring me the rainmaker file on William Boyd?”

  “Of course. Two minutes.”

  Leslie drummed her fingers as she waited. Like any ambitious firm, this one was made up of partners who knew it was better to work smart than hard. That meant bringing in the big clients, the million-dollar retainers. Files were kept on the best prospects, and William Boyd was one of them. He ran a nine-billion-dollar hedge fund from his offices on Wall Street. The fund paid its New York attorneys nine hundred dollars an hour. His own income was rumored to be thirty million dollars a year.

  When Joyce returned from the short walk to central filing, her hands were empty. “The William Boyd file was signed out three days ago.”

  “By whom?”

  “Jack Cross. Would you like me to track it down?”

  Leslie thought about it for half a second. “No thank you, Joyce. I’ll take care of it.”

  Leslie waited for her assistant to leave, then slipped into a blazer and took the elevator to seven. Bankruptcy law was a big part of what the firm did, but she preferred working with winners, so generally stayed clear of the seventh floor. This was a different issue, though, and it wasn’t just about Johnny Merrimon.

  Leaving the marbled lobby she followed the hallways until they began to narrow, at which point she cut through the center of the building, twisting between the cubicles and file rooms until she reached a stretch of decent offices. Putting her head in the first door, she said, “Jack Cross?”

  An attorney she recognized but whose name she forgot pointed deeper into the bankruptcy section. “Sixth door down, two before the corner.”

  When she reached Jack Cross’s office, she didn’t bother knocking. “Where is it?”

  Jack was hunched over the desk, hair rumpled, a yellow highlighter between his fingers. “What?”

  “Rainmaker files are for partners. You have no business with the William Boyd file.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Every associate knows. It’s part of the orientation. The file.”

  She held out a hand, and Jack turned for the credenza behind his desk. When he handed over the file, he appeared contrite. “I’m not trying to land him as a client.”

  Leslie felt a flutter of humor at the idea of a first-year associate trying to convince a man like William Boyd to trust him with anything more serious than a parking ticket. She knew why Jack had the file. “You showed this to your friend.” Jack said nothing. “Johnny Merrimon was just here. Did you show it to him?”

  “It’s not really confidential.”

  “It’s proprietary.”

  Leslie had not been through the file for several years, but knew it held more than could easily be found in the public domain. Rainmaker files contained the usual newspaper clippings, interviews, and business filings, but they also contained proprietary financial estimates, research into political affiliations, social connections, marital status. Was the prospect moral or immoral? Did he have mistresses, bad habits, vindictive ex-partners? If a prospective client was big enough, the firm had been known to use private investigators, paid informants, forensic accountants. Nothing illegal was done to accumulate the information and nothing illegal would ever be done once it was in hand. But being a rainmaker took work, and knowledge was power.

  Leslie held up the file. “I could have you fired for this.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Leslie took the chair opposite the desk, not quite so angry as she pretended. Six different partners had tried to land William Boyd, and she knew it would never happen. He used the top firm in New York, and considered anything else provincial. He came to Raven County only to hunt on a nineteen-hundred-acre preserve that used to be part of the Merrimon estate. There was a lodge on it, she knew, and when Boyd was there, he kept it full of clients and dead animals and, usually, young women. You couldn’t swing a cat in Raven County without hitting a pretty young thing with some story or other about wine from France and pale men from the big city.

  Ignoring Jack for the moment, Leslie flipped through the file to see if anything had changed since the last time she saw it. Boyd was forty-two and single. A graduate of Yale and Wharton, he had an ex-wife who came from California money. Vineyards, apparently. Napa. Sonoma. Photographs showed Boyd in various settings, his offices on Wall Street, a mansion in Connecticut. The financials had been recently updated. His fund now ran thirteen billion dollars, and required a minimum investment of twenty million. His income last year was twice that amount. Halfway through the file, Leslie came across a tax map showing the preserve and its place in the county. The northern corner of it was less than a mile from the southern edge of Hush Arbor. She snapped the file closed. “I assume Mr. Merrimon came here before his meeting with me.”

  “Listen, Leslie—”

  “What did he want with this?”

  She held up the file, and Jack swallowed in a dry throat. “He was just, you know. Curious.”

  “None of this con
vinces me to help either you or your friend.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Is he still angry with Mr. Boyd?”

  “You mean actively angry?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Cross. I may yet fire you.” The young attorney leaned away from the threat, but Leslie wasn’t going to fire him—she didn’t have the power. “Why did Johnny shoot at Boyd? The real reason.”

  “He told you about the bear cubs.”

  “It can’t be as simple as that.”

  “Johnny had tracked Boyd before, a couple times at least. Deer. Bear. Bobcat. The killing was indiscriminate. There’d been confrontations in the past.”

  “Violent?”

  “Close enough.”

  “He could have gone to the police.”

  “That’s not really Johnny’s style.”

  Leslie tapped the file against her knee, thinking of pro bono cases and billion-dollar hedge funds. “Can you drive a stick with that arm?”

  Jack looked confused, but nodded.

  “Good.” She tossed keys on the desk. “Because you’re driving.”

  * * *

  Leslie read through the rest of the file as Jack drove. Boyd was five-ten and handsome—not Johnny Merrimon handsome, but decent enough. He played golf and squash, but hunting seemed to be his passion. Africa. The Far East. If something could be killed for sport, chances were good he’d killed it.

  “How do you know he’s even in town?”

  Jack’s words were the first uttered in five minutes. Leslie cut her eyes left. He looked uncomfortable behind the wheel of a machine as aggressively styled as her Jaguar XKR. His good arm worked the stick through the gears; his bad one barely reached the wheel. “I don’t,” she said. “But if you want me to help your friend, I need both sides of the story.”

  She didn’t mention that the day could still go two ways. Either she got to know Johnny Merrimon or she brought in the largest client of her career. According to the file, William Boyd’s hedge fund had paid twelve million in legal fees the previous fiscal year. Ten percent of that business would make her a senior partner. Twenty would make her a rock star.