Ford County

by John Grisham

  up. Minutes passed as they drove deeper into the county along Route 32, a busy road during the day but deserted at night. Stanley knew the area well. He'd lived in Ford County for twenty-five years and it was a small place. His breathing slowed again, as did his heart rate, and he concentrated on absorbing the details around him. The truck, a late-1980s Ford, half ton, metal-lie gray on the outside, he thought, and some shade of dark blue on the inside. The dash was standard, nothing remarkable. On the sun visor above the driver there was a thick rubber band holding papers and receipts. A hundred and ninety-four thousand miles on the odometer, not unusual for this part of the world. The kid was driving a steady fifty miles an hour. He turned off Route 32 and onto Wiser Lane, a smaller paved road that snaked through the western part of the county and eventually crossed the Tallahatchie River at the Polk County line. The roads were getting narrower, the woods thicker, Stanley's options fewer, his chances slimmer.

  He glanced at the pistol and thought of his brief career as an assistant prosecutor many years earlier, and the occasions when he took the tagged murder weapon, showed it to the jurors, and waved it around the courtroom, trying his best to create drama, fear, and a sense of revenge.

  Would there be a trial for his murder? Would that rather large pistol—he guessed it was a .44 Magnum, capable of splattering his brains across a half acre of rural farmland—one day be waved around a courtroom as the system dealt with his gruesome homicide?

  "Why don't you say something?" Stanley asked without looking at Jim Cranwell. Anything was better than silence. If Stanley had a chance, it would be because of his words, his ability to reason, or beg.

  "Your client Dr. Trane, he left town, didn't he?" Cranwell said.

  Well, at least Stanley had the right lawsuit, which gave him no comfort whatsoever. "Yes, several years ago."

  "Where'd he go?"

  "I’m not sure."

  "He got in some trouble, didn't he?"

  "Yes, you could say that."

  "I just did. What kind of trouble?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Lyin' ain't gonna help you, Lawyer Wade. You know damned well what happened to Dr. Trane. He was a drunk and a drug head, and he couldn't stay out of his own little pharmacy. Got hooked on painkillers, lost his license, left town, tried to hide back home in Illinois."

  These details were offered as if they were common knowledge, available every morning at the local coffee shops and dissected over lunch at the garden clubs, when in fact the meltdown of Dr. Trane had been handled discreetly by Stanley's firm, and buried. Or so he thought. The fact that Jim Cranwell had so closely monitored things after the trial made Stanley wipe his brow and shift his weight and once again fight thoughts of throwing up.

  "That sounds about right," Stanley said.

  "You ever talk to Dr. Trane?" "No. It's been years."

  "Word is he disappeared again. You heard this?"

  "No." It was a lie. Stanley and his partners had heard several rumors about the pulling disappearance of Dr. Trane. He'd fled to Peoria, his home, where he regained his license and resumed his medical practice but couldn't stay out of trouble. Roughly two years earlier, his then-current wife had called around Clanton asking old friends and acquaintances if they'd seen him.

  The boy turned again, onto a road with no sign, a road Stanley thought perhaps he'd driven past but never noticed. It was also paved, but barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. So far the kid had not made a sound.

  "They'll never find him," Jim Cranwell said, almost to himself, but with a brutal finality.

  Stanley's head was spinning. His vision was blurred. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, breathed heavily with his mouth open, and felt his shoulders sag as he absorbed and digested these last words from the man with the gun. Was he, Stanley, supposed to believe that these backwoods people from deep in the county somehow tracked down Dr. Trane and rubbed him out without getting caught?

  Yes.

  "Stop up there by Baker's gate," Cranwell said to his son. A hundred yards later, the truck stopped. Cranwell opened his door, waved the pistol, and said, "Get out." He grabbed Stanley by the wrist and led him to the front of the truck, shoved him against the hood spread eagle, and said, "Don't move an inch." Then he whispered some instructions to his son, who got back in the truck.

  Cranwell grabbed Stanley again, yanked him to the side of the road and down into a shallow ditch, where they stood as the truck drove away. They watched the taillights disappear around

  a curve.

  Cranwell pointed the gun at the road and said, "Start walkin'."

  "You won't get away with this, you know," Stanley said.

  "Just shut up and walk." They began walking down the dark, potholed road. Stanley went first, with Cranwell five feet behind him. The night was clear, and a half-moon gave enough light to keep them in the center of the road. Stanley looked to his right and left, and back again, in a hopeless search for the distant lights of a small farm. Nothing.

  "You run and you're a dead man," Cranwell said. "Keep your hands out of your pockets."

  "Why? You think I have a gun?" "Shut up and keep walkin'."

  "Where would I run to?" Stanley asked without missing a step. Without a sound, Cranwell suddenly lunged forward and threw a mighty punch that landed on the back of Stanley's slender neck and dropped him quickly to the asphalt. The gun was back, at his head, and Cranwell was on top of him, growling.

  "You're a little smart-ass, you know that, Wade? You were a smart-ass at trial. You're a smart-ass now. You were born a smartass. I'm sure your Momma was a smart-ass, and I'm sure your kids, both of 'em, are too. Can't help it, can you? But, listen to me, you little smart-ass, for the next hour you will not be a smart-ass. You got that, Wade?"

  Stanley was stunned, groggy, aching, and not sure if he could hold back the vomit. When he didn't respond, Cranwell jerked his collar, yanked him back so that Stanley was on his knees. "Got any last words, Lawyer Wade?" The barrel of the gun was stuck in his ear.

  "Don't do this, man," Stanley pleaded, suddenly ready to cry.

  "Oh, why not?" Cranwell hissed from above.

  "I have a family. Please don't do this."

  "I got kids too, Wade. You've met both of them. Doyle is drivin' the truck. Michael's the one you met at trial, the little brain-damaged boy who'll never drive, walk, talk, eat, or take a piss by himself. Why, Lawyer Wade? Because of your dear client Dr. Trane, may he burn in hell."

  "I'm sorry. Really, I mean it. I was just doing my job. Please."

  The gun was shoved harder so that Stanley's head tilted to the left. He was sweating, gasping, desperate to say something that might save him.

  Cranwell grabbed a handful of Stanley's thinning hair, yanked it. "Well, your job stinks, Wade, because it includes lyin', bullyin', badgerin', coverin' up, and showin' no compassion whatsoever for folks who get hurt. I hate your job, Wade, almost as much as I hate you."

  "I'm sorry. Please."

  Cranwell pulled the barrel out of Stanley's ear, aimed down the dark road, and, with the gun about eight inches from Stanley's head, pulled the trigger. A cannon would have made less noise in the stillness.

  Stanley, who'd never been shot, shrieked in horror and pain and death and fell to the pavement, his ears screaming and his body convulsing. A few seconds passed as the gunshot's echo was absorbed into the thick woods. A few more seconds, and Cranwell said, "Get up, you little creep."

  Stanley, still un-shot but uncertain about it, slowly began to realize what had happened. He got up, unsteady, still gasping and unable to speak or hear. Then he realized his pants were wet. In his moment of death, he'd lost control of his bladder. He touched his groin, then his legs.

  "You pissed on yourself," Cranwell said. Stanley heard him, but barely. His ears were splitting, especially the right one. "You poor boy, all wet with piss. Michael wets himself five times a day. Sometimes we can afford diapers; sometimes we can't. Now walk."

  Cranwell shoved hi
m again, roughly, while pointing down the road with the pistol. Stanley stumbled, almost fell, but caught himself and staggered for a few steps until he could focus and balance and convince himself that he had not, in fact, been shot.

  "You ain't ready to die," Cranwell said from behind.

  Thank God for that, Stanley almost said but caught himself because it would most certainly be taken as another smart-ass comment. Lurching down the road, he vowed to avoid all other smart-ass comments, or anything even remotely similar. He put a finger in his right ear in an effort to stop the ringing. His crotch and legs felt cold from the moisture.

  They walked for another ten minutes, though it seemed like an eternal death march to Stanley. Rounding a curve in the road, he saw lights ahead, a small house in the distance. He picked up his pace slightly as he decided that Cranwell was not about to fire again with someone within earshot.

  The house was a small brick split-level a hundred yards off the road, with a gravel drive and neat hedges just below the front windows. Four vehicles were parked haphazardly along the drive and in the yard, as if the neighbors had hurried over for a quick supper. One was the Ford pickup, once driven by Doyle, now parked in front of the garage. Two men were smoking under a tree.

  "This way," Cranwell said, pointing with the gun and shoving Stanley toward the house. They walked by the two smokers. "Look what I got," Cranwell said. The men blew clouds of smoke but said nothing.

  "He pissed on himself," he added, and they thought that was amusing.

  They walked across the front yard, past the door, past the garage, around the far side of the house, and in the back they approached a cheap, unpainted plywood addition someone had stuck on like a cancerous growth. It was attached to the house but could not be seen from the road. It had unbalanced windows, exposed pipes, a flimsy door, the dismal look of a room added as cheaply and quickly as possible.

  Cranwell stuck a hand on Stanley's bruised neck and shoved him toward the door. "In here," he said, the gun, as always, giving direction. The only way in was up a short wheelchair ramp, one as rickety as the room itself. The door opened from the inside. People were waiting.

  Eight years earlier, during the trial, Michael had been three years old. He had been displayed for the jury only once. During his lawyer's emotional final summation, the judge allowed Michael to be rolled into the courtroom in his special chair for a quick viewing. He wore pajamas, a large bib, no socks or shoes. His ob' long head fell to one side. His mouth was open, his eyes were closed, and his tiny misshapen body wanted to curl into itself. He was severely brain damaged, blind, with a life expectancy of only a few years. He was a pitiful sight then, though the jury eventually showed no mercy.

  Stanley had endured the moment, along with everyone else in the courtroom, but when Michael was rolled away, he got back to business. He was convinced he would never see the child again.

  He was wrong. He was now looking at a slightly larger version of Michael, though a more pathetic one. He was wearing pajamas and a bib, no socks or shoes. His mouth was open, his eyes still closed. His face had grown upward into a long sloping fore-head, covered in part by thick black matted hair. A tube ran from his left nostril back to some unseen place. His arms were bent at the wrists and curled under. His knees were drawn to his chest. His belly was large, and for an instant he reminded Stanley of those sad photos of starving children in Africa.

  Michael was arranged on his bed, an old leftover from some hospital, propped up with pillows and lashed down with a Velcro strap that fit loosely across his chest. At the foot of his bed was his mother, a gaunt, long-suffering soul whose name Stanley could not immediately recall.

  He'd made her cry on the witness stand.

  At the other end of the bed was a small bathroom with the door open, and next to the door was a black metal file cabinet with two drawers, legal size, and enough scratches and dents to prove it had passed through a dozen flea markets. The wall next to Michael's bed had no windows, but the two walls along the sides had three narrow windows each. The room was fifteen feet long at most and about twelve feet wide. The floor was covered •with cheap yellow linoleum.

  "Sit here, Lawyer Wade," Jim said, shoving his prisoner into a folding chair in the center of the small room. The pistol was no longer in sight. The two smokers from outside entered and closed the door. They took a few steps and joined two other men who were standing near Mrs. Cranwell, only a few feet from Wade. Five men, all large and frowning and seemingly ready for violence. And there was Doyle somewhere behind Stanley. And Mrs. Cranwell, Michael, and Lawyer Wade.

  The stage was set.

  Jim walked over to the bed, kissed Michael on the forehead, then turned and said, "Recognize him, Lawyer Wade?"

  Stanley could only nod.

  "He's eleven years old now," Jim said, gently touching his son's arm. "Still blind, still brain damaged. We don't know how much he hears and understands, but it ain't much. He'll smile once a week when he hears his momma's voice, and sometimes he'll smile when Doyle tickles him. But we don't get much of a response. Are you surprised to see him alive, Lawyer Wade?"

  Stanley was staring at some cardboard boxes stuffed under Michael's bed, and he did so to avoid looking at the child. He was listening with his head turned to his right because his right ear wasn't working, as far as he could tell. His ears were still traumatized from the gunshot, and if faced with lesser problems, he might have spent some time -worrying about a loss of hearing. "Yes," he answered truthfully.

  "I thought so," Jim said. His high-pitched voice had settled down an octave or two. He was not agitated now. He was at home, in front of a friendly crowd. "Because at trial you told the jury that Michael wouldn't reach the age of eight. Ten was impossible, accordin' to one of the many bogus experts you trotted into the courtroom. And your goal was obviously to shorten his life and lessen the damages, right? Do you recall all this, Lawyer Wade?"

  "Yes."

  Jim was pacing now, back and forth alongside Michael's bed, talking to Stanley, glancing at the four men bunched together along the wall. "Michael's now eleven, so you were wrong, weren't you, Lawyer Wade?"

  Arguing would make matters worse, and why argue the truth? "Yes."

  "Lie number one," Jim announced, and held up an index finger. Then he stepped to the bed and touched his son again. "Now, most of his food goes through a tube. A special formula, costs $800 a month. Becky can get some solid foods down him every now and then. Stuff like instant puddin', ice cream, but not much. He takes all sorts of medications to prevent seizures and infections and the like. His drugs cost us about a thousand a month. Four times a year we haul him to Memphis to see the specialists, not sure why, because they can't do a damned thang, but anyway off we go because they tell us to come. Fifteen hundred bucks a trip. He goes through a box of diapers every two days, $6 a box, a hundred bucks a month, not much, but when you can't always afford them, then they're pretty damned expensive. A few other odds and ends and we figure we spend thirty thousand a year taking care of Michael."

  Jim was pacing again, laying out his case and doing a fine job. His handpicked jury was with him. His numbers sounded more ominous this far from the courtroom. "As I recall, your expert scoffed at the numbers, said it would take less than ten grand a year to care for Michael. You recall this, Lawyer Wade?"

  "I think so, yes."

  "Can we agree that you were wrong? I have the receipts."

  "They're right over there," Becky said, pointing to the black metal cabinet. Her first words.

  "No. I'll take your word."

  Jim thrust forward two fingers. "Lie number two. Now, the same expert testified that a full-time nurse would not be necessary. Made it sound like little Michael would just lie around on the sofa like some zombie for a couple of years, then die and ever'thang would be fine. He disagreed with the notion that Michael would require constant care. Becky, you want to talk about constant care?"

  Her long hair was all gray and pulled into a ponytail.
Her eyes were sad and fatigued. She made no effort to hide the dark circles under them. She stood and took a step to a door next to the bed. She opened it and pulled down a small foldaway cot. "This is where I sleep, almost every night. I can't leave him because of the seizures. Sometimes Doyle will sleep here, sometimes Jim, but somebody has to be here during the night. The seizures always come at night. I don't know why." She shoved the cot back and closed the door. "I feed him four times a day, an ounce at a time. He urinates at least five times and has at least two bowel movements. You can't predict when. They happen at different times. Eleven years now, and there's no schedule for them. I bathe him twice a day. And I read to him, tell him stories. I seldom leave this room, Mr. Wade. And when Fm not here, I feel guilty be' cause I should be. The word 'constant' doesn't begin to describe it." She sat back down in her old recliner at the foot of Michael's bed and stared at the floor.

  Jim resumed the narrative. "Now, as you will recall, at trial our expert said that a full-time nurse would be required. You told the jury this was a bunch of baloney. 'Hogwash,' I believe is what you said. Just another effort by us to grab some money. Made us sound like a bunch of greedy bastards. Remember this, Lawyer Wade?"

  Stanley nodded. He could not remember the exact words, but it certainly sounded like something he would say in the heat of a trial.

  Three fingers. "Lie number three," Cranwell announced to his jury, four men with the same general body type, hair color, hard faces, and well-worn dungarees as Jim. Clearly, they were all related.

  Jim continued. "I made forty thousand bucks last year, Lawyer Wade, and I paid taxes on all of it. I don't get the write-offs that you smart folks are entitled to. Before Michael was born, Becky here worked as a teacher's assistant at a school in Karraway, but she can't work now, for obvious reasons. Don't ask me how we get by, because I can't tell you." He waved at the four men and said, "We get a lot of help from friends and local churches. We get nothin' from the State of Mississippi. It doesn't make much sense,