Ford County

by John Grisham

  does it? Dr. Trane walked away without payin' a dime. His insurance company, a bunch of crooks from up north, walked away without payin' a dime. The rich folks do the damage, then get off scot-free. You care to explain this, Lawyer Wade?"

  Stanley just shook his head. There was nothing to be gained by trying to argue. He was listening, but he was also jumping ahead to the point in the near future when he would be forced to again beg for his life.

  "Let's talk about another lie," Cranwell was saying. "Our ex' pert said we could probably hire a part-time nurse for thirty thou' sand a year, and that's the low end. Thirty for the nurse, thirty for the other expenses, a total of sixty a year, for twenty years. The math was easy, one point two million. But that scared our lawyer because no jury in this county has ever given a million dollars. Highest verdict, at that time, eight years ago, was something like two hundred grand, and that got slashed on appeal, according to our lawyer. Assholes like you, Mr. Wade, and the insurance companies you whore for and the politicians they buy with their big bucks make sure that greedy little people like us and the greedy lawyers we hire are kept in place. Our lawyer told us that askin' for a million bucks was dangerous because nobody else in Ford County has a million bucks, so why give it to us? We talked about this for hours before the trial and finally agreed that we should ask for somethin' less than a million. Nine hundred thou' sand, remember that, Lawyer Wade?"

  Stanley nodded. He did in fact remember.

  Cranwell took a step closer and pointed down at Stanley. "And you, you little sonofabitch, you told the jury that we didn't have the courage to ask for a million dollars, that we really wanted a million dollars because we were trying to profit from our little boy. What was your word, Mr. Wade? It wasn't 'greed.' You didn't call us greedy. What was it, Becky?"

  "Opportunistic," she said.

  "That's it. You pointed at us sittin' there with our lawyer, ten feet from you and the jurors, and you called us opportunistic. I never wanted to slap a man so hard in my life." And with that, Cranwell lunged forward and backhanded Stanley with a vicious slap across his right cheek. His eyeglasses flew toward the door.

  "You rotten miserable piece of scum," Cranwell growled.

  "Stop it, Jim," Becky said.

  There was a long heavy pause as Stanley shook off the numbness and tried to focus his eyes. One of the four men reluctantly handed him his glasses. The sudden assault seemed to stun every' body, including Jim.

  Jim walked back to the bed and patted Michael on the shoulder, then he turned and stared at the lawyer. "Lie number four, Lawyer Wade, and right now I'm not sure I can remember all your lies. I've read the transcript a hundred times—over nineteen hundred pages in all—and ever' time I read it, I find another lie. Like, you told the jury that big verdicts are bad because they drive up the cost of health care and insurance, you remember that, Lawyer Wade?"

  Stanley shrugged as if he wasn't sure. Stanley's neck and shoulders were aching now, and it hurt to even shrug. His face was burning, his ears were ringing, his crotch was still wet, and something told him that this was only round one and round one would be the easy part.

  Jim looked at the four men and said, "You remember that, Steve?"

  Steve said, "Yep."

  "Steve's my brother, Michael's uncle. Heard every word of the trial, Lawyer Wade, and he learned to hate you as much as I did. Now, back to the lie. If juries return small verdicts, or no verdicts, then -we're supposed to enjoy low-cost health care and low-cost insurance, right, Lawyer Wade? That was your brilliant argument. Jury bought it. Can't let those greedy lawyers and their greedy clients abuse our system and get rich. No, sir. Gotta protect the insurance companies." Jim looked at his own jury. "Now, fellas. Since Lawyer Wade got a zero verdict for his doctor and his insurance company, how many of ya'll have seen the cost of health care go down?"

  No volunteers from his jury.

  "Oh, by the way, Lawyer Wade. Did you know that Dr. Trane owned four Mercedes at the time of the trial? One for him, another for his wife, a couple for his two teenagers. Did you know that?"

  "No."

  "Well, what kinda lawyer are you? We knew that. My lawyer did his homework, knew ever'thang about Trane. But he couldn't bring it up in court. Too many rules. Four Mercedes. Guess a rich doctor deserves that many."

  Cranwell walked to the file cabinet, opened the top drawer, and removed a three'inch stack of papers tightly compressed in a blue plastic binder. Stanley recognized it immediately because the floor of his office was littered with the blue binders. Trial tran' scripts. At some point, Cranwell had paid the court reporter a few hundred dollars for his own copy of every word uttered during Dr. Trane's trial for medical malpractice.

  "Do you recall juror number six, Lawyer Wade?"

  "No."

  Cranwell flipped some pages, many of them tabbed and high' lighted in yellow and green. "Just lookin' at the jury selection here, Lawyer Wade. At one point my lawyer asked the jury pool if any one of them worked for an insurance company. One lady said yes, and she was excused. One gentleman, a Mr. Rupert, said nothin' and got himself picked for the jury. Truth was, he didn't work for an insurance company because he'd just retired from an insurance company, after thirty years. Later, after the trial and after the appeal, we found out that Mr. Rupert was the biggest defender of Dr. Trane durin' deliberations. Said way too much. Raised hell if any of the other jurors as much as mentioned givin' Michael some money. Ring a bell, Lawyer Wade?"

  "No."

  "Are you sure?" Cranwell suddenly put down the transcript and took a step closer to Stanley. "Are you sure about that, Lawyer Wade?"

  "I'm sure."

  "How can that be? Mr. Rupert was an area claims man for Southern Delta Mutual for thirty years, worked all of north Mississippi. Your firm has represented a lot of insurance companies, including Southern Delta Mutual. Are you tellin' us you didn't know Mr. Rupert?" Another step closer. Another slap on the way.

  "I did not."

  Fingers thrust in the air. "Lie number five," Cranwell announced and waved his tally at his jury. "Or is it six? I've already lost count."

  Stanley braced for a punch or a slap, but nothing came his way. Instead, Cranwell returned to the file cabinet and removed four other binders from the top drawer. "Almost two thousand pages of lies, Lawyer Wade," he said as he stacked the binders on top of each other. Stanley took a breath and exhaled in relief be' cause he had momentarily escaped the violence. He stared at the cheap linoleum between his shoes and admitted to himself that once again he had fallen into the trap that often snared so many of the educated and upper-class locals when they convinced them' selves that the rest of the population was stupid and ignorant. Cranwell was smarter than most lawyers in town, and infinitely more prepared.

  Armed with a handful of lies, Cranwell was ready for more.

  "And, of course, Lawyer Wade, we haven't even touched on the lies told by Dr. Trane. I suppose you're gonna say that's his problem, not yours."

  "He testified. I did not," Stanley said, much too quickly.

  Cranwell offered a fake laugh. "Nice try. He's your client. You called him to testify, right?"

  "Yes."

  "And before he testified, long before that, you helped him prepare for the jury, didn't you?"

  "That's what lawyers are supposed to do."

  "Thank you. So the lawyers are supposed to help prepare the lies." It was not a question, and Stanley was not about to argue. Cranwell flipped some pages and said, "Here's a sample of Dr. Trane's lies, at least according to our medical expert, a fine man who's still in the business and who didn't lose his license and who wasn't an alcoholic and drug addict and who didn't get run out of the state. Remember him, Lawyer Wade?"

  "Yes."

  "Dr. Parkin, a fine man. You attacked him like an animal, ripped him up in front of the jury, and when you sat down, you were one smug little bastard. Remember that, Becky?" "Of course I do," Becky chimed in on cue. "Here's what Dr. Parkin said about
the good Dr. Trane. Said he failed to properly diagnose labor pains when Becky first arrived at the hospital, that he should not have sent her home, where she stayed for three hours before returnin' to the hospital while Dr. Trane went home and went to bed, that he sent her home because the fetal monitor strip was nonreactive when in fact he had misread the strip, that once Becky was in the hospital and once Dr. Trane finally got there he administered Pitocin over the course of several hours, that he failed to diagnose fetal distress, failed again to properly read the fetal monitorin' strips, which clearly showed Michael's condition was deterioratin' and that he was in acute distress, that he failed to diagnose that the Pitocin was creatin' hyperstimulation and excessive uterine activity, that he botched a vacuum delivery, that he finally performed a Cesarean some three hours after one should have been performed, that by performin' the Cesarean too late he allowed asphyxia and hypoxia to occur, and that the asphyxia and hypoxia could have been pre' vented with a timely and proper Cesarean. Any of this sound familiar, Lawyer Wade."

  "Yes, I remember it."

  "And do you remember telling the jury, as a fact because you as a brilliant lawyer are always accurate with your facts, that none of this was true, that Dr. Trane adhered to the highest standards of professional conduct, blah, blah, blah?"

  "Is that a question, Mr. Cranwell?"

  "No. But try this one. Did you tell the jury in your closin' arguments that Dr. Trane was one of the finest doctors you'd ever met, a real star in our community, a leader, a man you'd trust with your family, a great physician who must be protected by the fine folks of Ford County? Remember this, Lawyer Wade?"

  "It's been eight years. I really can't remember."

  "Well, let's look at page 1574, book five, shall we?" Cranwell was pulling on a binder, then flipping pages. "You wanna read your brilliant words, Lawyer Wade? They're right here. I read 'em all the time. Let's have a look and let the lies speak for them-selves." He thrust the binder at Stanley's face, but the lawyer shook his head and looked away.

  It could have been the noise, the stifling tension in the room, or simply the broken circuits in his faulty wiring, but Michael suddenly came to life. The seizure gripped him from head to toe, and in an instant he was shaking rapidly and violently. Becky jumped to his side without a word and with a sense of purpose that came from experience. Jim forgot about Lawyer Wade for a moment and stepped to the bed, which was jerking and clicking, its metal joints and springs in need of lubrication. Doyle materialized from the back of the room, and all three of the Cranwells tended to Michael and his seizure. Becky cooed soothing words and gently clutched his wrists. Jim kept a soft rubber wedge in his mouth. Doyle wiped his brother's head with a wet towel and kept saying, "It's okay, bro, it's okay."

  Stanley watched as long as he could, then leaned forward on his elbows, dropped his jaws into his hands, and studied his feet. The four men to his left stood like stone-faced sentries, and it occurred to Stanley that they had seen the seizures before. The room was growing hotter, and his neck was perspiring again. Not for the first time, he thought about his wife. His abduction was now well into its second hour, and he wondered what she was doing. She could be asleep on the sofa, where she'd spent the past four days, battling the flu with rest and juices and more pills than normal. There was an excellent chance she was out cold, unable to realize he was running late with dinner, if you could call it that. If conscious, she had probably called his cell phone, but he'd left the damned thing in his briefcase, in his car, and besides he tried his best to ignore it when he wasn't at work. He spent hours each day on the phone and hated to be bothered after he left the office. There was a remote chance she was actually a bit worried. Twice a month he enjoyed a late drink at the country club with the boys, and this never bothered his wife. Once their children moved away to college, Stanley and his wife quickly fell out of the habit of being ruled by the clock. Being an hour late (never early) was perfectly fine with them.

  So Stanley decided as the bed rattled and the Cranwells tended to Michael that the chances of a posse roaming the back roads searching for him were quite slim. Could the abduction in the Rite Price parking lot have been seen by someone, who then called the police, who were now in full alert? Possible, Stanley ad' mitted, but a thousand cops with bloodhounds couldn't find him at this moment.

  He thought about his will. It was up-to-date, thanks to a law partner. He thought about his two kids, but couldn't dwell there. He thought about the end and hoped it happened abruptly with no suffering. He fought the urge to argue with himself over whether or not this was a dream, because such an exercise was a waste of energy.

  The bed was still. Jim and Doyle were backing away while Becky bent over the boy, humming softly and wiping his mouth.

  "Sit up!" Jim suddenly barked. "Sit up and look at him!"

  Stanley did as he was told. Jim opened the lower drawer of the file cabinet and shuffled through another collection of paper' work. Becky silently crouched into her chair, one hand still on Michael's foot.

  Jim removed another document, flipped pages while they all waited, then said, "There's one final question for you, Lawyer Wade. I'm holdin' here the brief you filed with the Supreme Court of Mississippi, a brief in which you fought like hell to up' hold the jury's verdict in favor of Dr. Trane. Lookin' back, I don't know what you were worried about. Accordin' to our lawyer, the supreme court sides with the doctors over 90 percent of the time. That's the biggest reason you didn't offer us a fair settlement before trial, right? You weren't worried about losin' a trial, because a verdict for Michael would be thrown out by the supreme court. In the end Trane and the insurance company •would •win. Michael was entitled to a fair settlement, but you knew the system wouldn't let you lose. Anyway, on the next-to' the4ast page of your brief, here's what you wrote. These are your words, Lawyer Wade, and I quote: 'This trial was conducted fairly, fiercely, and with little give-and-take from either side. The jury was alert, engaged, curious, and fully informed. The verdict represents sound and deliberate consideration. The verdict is pure justice, a decision our system should be proud of.'"

  With that, Cranwell flung the brief in the general direction of the file cabinet. "And guess what?" he asked. "Our good ol' supreme court agreed. Nothin' for poor little Michael. Nothin' to compensate. Nothin' to punish dear Dr. Trane. Nothin'."

  He walked to the bed, rubbed Michael for a moment, then turned and glared at Stanley. "One last question, Lawyer Wade. And you'd better think before you answer, because your answer could be real important. Look at this sad little boy, this damaged child whose injuries could've been prevented, and tell us, Lawyer Wade, is this justice, or is it just another courtroom victory? The two have little in common."

  All eyes were on Stanley. He sat slumped in the awkward chair, his shoulders sagging, his lousy posture even more evident, his trousers still wet, his wing-tipped shoes touching each other, mud around the soles, and his unflinching stare straight ahead at the matted and unruly mop of black hair atop the hideous forehead of Michael Cranwell. Arrogance, stubbornness, denial—all would get him shot, though he had no illusions of seeing the morning sun. Nor was he inclined to stick with his old thoughts and training. Jim was right. Trane's insurance company had been will' ing to make a generous offer before the trial, but Stanley Wade would have no part of it. He rarely lost a jury trial in Ford County. His reputation was that of a hardball litigator, not one who capitulates and settles. Besides, his swagger was bolstered by a friendly supreme court.

  "We don't have all night," Cranwell said.

  Oh, why not? Stanley thought. Why should I hurry along to my execution? But he instead removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. They were moist not from fear but from the harsh reality of being confronted by one of his victims. How many others were out there? Why had he chosen to spend his career screwing these people?

  He wiped his nose on a sleeve, readjusted his glasses, and said, "I'm sorry. I was so wrong."

  "Let's try again," Cranwel
l said. "Justice, or a courtroom victory?"

  "It's not justice, Mr. Cranwell. I'm sorry."

  Jim carefully and neatly returned the binders and the brief to their proper places in the file cabinet drawers and closed them. He nodded at the four men, and they began to shuffle toward the door. The room was suddenly busy as Jim whispered to Becky. Doyle said something to the last man out. The door sprang back and forth. Jim grabbed Wade by the arm, yanked him up, and growled, "Let's go." It was much darker outside as they moved quickly away from the room, around the house. They passed the four men, who were busy near a utility shed, and as he looked at their shadows, Stanley heard, clearly, the word "shovels."

  "Get in," Jim said as he pushed Stanley into the same Ford truck. The pistol "was back, and Jim waved it near Stanley's nose and promised, "One funny move, and I'll use this." With that, he slammed the door and said something to the other men. There were several hushed voices as the mission was organized. The driver's door opened and Jim hopped in, waving the pistol. He pointed it at Stanley and said, "Put both hands on your knees, and if you move either hand, then I'll stick this in your kidney, pull the trigger. It'll blow a sizable hole out the other side. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes," Stanley said, as his fingernails clawed into his knees.

  "Don't move your hands. I really don't wanna make a mess in my truck, okay?"

  "Okay, okay."

  They backed along the gravel drive, and as they drove away from the house, Stanley saw another truck leaving, following them. Evidently, Cranwell had said enough because he had nothing to say now. They sped through the night, changing roads at every opportunity, gravel to asphalt, back to gravel, north then south, east, and west. Though Stanley didn't look, he knew the pistol was ready in the right hand while the left one handled the truck. He continued to clutch his knees, terrified any move would be considered a false one. His left kidney was aching anyway. He was sure the door was locked, and any clumsy effort to jerk it open would simply not work. That, plus Stanley was rigid with fear.

  There were headlights in the right-hand mirror, low beams from the other truck, the one carrying his death squad and their shovels, he presumed. It disappeared around curves and over hills, but always returned.

  "Where are we going?" Stanley finally asked.

  "You're goin' to hell, I reckon."

  That response took care of the follow-ups, and Stanley pondered what to say next. They turned onto a gravel lane, the narrowest yet, and Stanley said to himself, This is it. Deep woods on both sides. Not a house within miles. A quick execution. A quick burial.