The Great Divide

by T. Davis Bunn

  He moved behind her and began clattering and banging. The owner’s son walked into the room, the slender young man who had spoken to her that day in the dusty square. He carried something too, something that looked vaguely familiar, only her panic was so great she could not draw it into focus. He remained at the other end of the table, setting up what appeared to be a tripod. When neither of the men touched her or even approached, Gloria managed to see through her fear. It was indeed a tripod, and on it he was setting a video camera.

  From behind her Chou hit a switch, and suddenly the room was bathed in a harsh light. Gloria flinched as the young man walked toward her. But he merely slapped a sheet of paper down on the table in front of her and commanded, “You read this.”

  “What is it?” But she was already squinting over the scrabbled writing. And when the words swam into focus, she could not help sobbing.

  “No, no cry! You read words!”

  But she could not stop. Just four weeks she had been here. Yet it had been long enough for the reason she had come and the nine months of planning and the two years of researching and the loss of her beloved Gary to melt into a puddle of random thoughts and aching remorse. Now, here upon the table before her, the plans became real again. The plans and the hope and the purpose. She sobbed so hard she could scarcely draw breath. She had won.

  “You stop tears or we make real pain!” The young man slammed an open palm upon the table. “You stop now!”

  “Y-yes. All right …” Gloria drew a hard breath. Another. She had to do this. She gave her head a violent shake to clear away the tears. Blinked away those yet unshed. Squinted. Focused. Took a deep breath. And read the words aloud.

  As soon as she was done, the young man drew the tape from the video and left. Chou cut off the harsh lights and followed. Soon enough they returned. Chou walked over and released her. An iron hand gripped her arm and lifted her erect. She was walked from the chamber and down the stairs. But not back down the aisle. Instead, Chou pulled her around to a second set of stairs leading to the doors no prisoner ever passed through more than once. She knew this because Hao Lin had told her. Gloria’s sobs became louder still as Chou half carried her down and away. She had indeed won.

  ONE

  I CALL MARCUS GLENWOOD to the stand.”

  Judge Gladys Nicols turned to where Marcus sat, isolated and unprotected. “One last time, Marcus. Go find yourself legal representation.”

  He scarcely heard her. The meager portion of his mind that functioned normally watched as someone else rose to his feet and approached the witness stand. This other person took the oath and settled into the seat. And waited.

  Suzie Rikkers was a tiny waif of an attorney, made smaller by her habit of wearing oversize clothes. Today it was a dark skirt with a matching double-breasted jacket whose shoulder pads were so thick they raised the lapels up in line with her ears. She had been looking forward to this moment for a very long time. “You are Marcus Glenwood?”

  “Yes.” He had known the agony of two sleepless weeks over what was about to come. Marcus had visualized the scene in such vivid detail that now, filtered as it was through a fog of fatigue, his imaginings seemed far more real.

  Suzie Rikkers was an associate in his former firm. He had been instrumental in blocking her promotion to partner. As she walked toward the witness box, she granted him a smile of pure revenge. “You reside in the Raleigh area known as Oberlin?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Of course.” She spoke with the voice of a broken pipe organ, all shrieks and fierce winds. “You sold that house, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how much did you have in cash after paying off the mortgage?”

  “You have the figures.”

  She spun about. “Your Honor, please instruct the witness to answer the question.”

  Judge Gladys Nicols had been Marcus’ friend for several years, ever since he had joined her in pressing the state bar to pass a measure requiring pro bono work from all big firms. Pro bono meant “for the public good,” and signified work done for clients who could not pay. Back when most North Carolina legal work was performed by a tight-knit clan of locals, anyone who refused pro bono assignments was shunned. But nowadays, attorneys who regularly accepted non-paying clients were classed as fools.

  Judge Nicols’ expression clearly showed how much she disliked leaning over to tell him, “You know the drill, Marcus.”

  “About a hundred thousand dollars,” Marcus replied.

  “Plus another eighteen thousand dollars from the auction of your wife’s collection of antiques. Which, I might add, had been valued at around nine times that amount.”

  “She didn’t want them. I wrote—”

  “She didn’t want?” Suzie Rikkers’ pacing had such a catlike quality that Marcus could almost see her tail twitching. “You contacted Carol Rice while she was still recuperating in the hospital, and when she did not respond immediately, you sold everything she had brought to the marriage! Is that not true?”

  “I gave her a chance to take them. I had no place to store—”

  Suzie Rikkers chopped him off. “You were a full partner in the local firm of Knowles, Barbour and Bradshaw. That is, until they fired you. Is that not correct?”

  “I resigned. They did not fire me.”

  “Of course not.” Suzie Rikkers continued to stalk about his field of vision. “Would you not say that your rapid rise within the firm was due in large part to your wife’s connections?”

  “She helped a little.” And complained bitterly whenever asked.

  “I would suggest that it was more than a little. I would suggest that it was the primary reason behind your being made partner. You were elevated within the firm so that the Rice Corporation and the Rice family name and the Rice family connections would bring in more business.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She leaned into the sneer, adding all the force of her over-small frame. “So you became the youngest partner in the firm’s hundred-year history strictly because of your skills as an attorney?”

  He knew why Suzie Rikkers despised him, why she had begged for the chance to represent his estranged wife. Marcus had not been the only partner who disliked Suzie. But he was the one formally to suggest she be fired. And the only one to have declared that the woman was emotionally unstable. Borderline insane was how he had put it at the partners’ meeting. Minutes of these meetings were supposed to be strictly confidential. But Suzie Rikkers knew. Oh yes. She knew all right. “That is correct.”

  She turned so that her laugh could be shared with the man seated directly behind her table. Logan Kendall had no business being in court today, except to watch Marcus bleed. Logan was the newest partner in Marcus’ former firm. He had been promoted to take the place that Marcus had vacated. It was only the second time Logan had won a battle against Marcus. He was obviously there to even the score.

  Suzie Rikkers went on. “Your claim is hardly substantiated by what has happened since your wife left. You have gone from a partnership in the state’s capital to practicing law in the basement of a ramshackle home in a small eastern North Carolina town.” She shared her delight over that with Logan, finishing with genuine pleasure, “You have lost virtually every single one of your clients.”

  “I did not ask them to join me.”

  “Oh, please.” She spun back around. “Spare us the bald-faced fabrications, all right? Your life is a total shambles. You’ve lost everything. Why? Because your wife isn’t there any longer to prop you up.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Slowly, Suzie Rikkers approached the stand. The next question was put almost delicately. “Of course, there was nothing left of your Lexus to auction, was there?”

  “No.” To his dismay, the blinding tendrils of fatigue began to whither, leaving him acutely aware of the witness box. Trapped in a wood-lined cage, stalked by Suzie Rikkers. “There was not.”

  She closed in, and smi
led. “Let’s speak about the events that led to your wife’s hospitalization.”

  He heard Judge Nicols’ chair creak as she angrily shifted her considerable bulk. But she could not save him. No one could. Marcus had no choice but to sit and endure and hope it would not take too long.

  At the plaintiff’s table directly in front of him, one woman remained seated beside the chair vacated by Suzie Rikkers. His former mother-in-law observed him with cold loathing. Behind her, Logan Kendall watched Marcus’ torment with bitter pleasure.

  Suzie Rikkers kept to one side, so as not to block his vision of the pair. “You were down at Figure Eight Island for the weekend. You were there with several new clients. Your wife and children were with you. Is that correct?”

  His children. The words left him unable to draw breath.

  “Mr. Glenwood, are you with us?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened on the way home from that weekend?” No answer.

  “You were involved in an accident, were you not?”

  He nodded.

  “Answer the question, Mr. Glenwood. Were you involved in an accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “A terrible accident.” Her smile drifted in and out of focus. “Was it your fault?”

  “The police said no.”

  “I didn’t ask what the police said. I asked you. Was the accident your fault?”

  “No.” It was only this hope that made the day possible.

  “But you had been drinking, had you not?”

  “Not that day.”

  “The night before. And all the previous day. You had drunk almost continually that weekend. In fact, drinking was pretty much a constant in your life.” When he did not respond, she asked, “Do you have a problem with alcohol, Mr. Glenwood?”

  “No.” Not anymore.

  “I suggest that you do.” She moved closer so that Marcus could not help focusing upon her. “I suggest that your chronic problem with alcohol fogged your thinking and resulted in a tragedy that wrecked your wife’s life and destroyed her hopes for the future. The accident was therefore entirely your fault, Mr. Glenwood. You are the guilty party here. Is that not correct?”

  The questions were drawn from the horrors of his dark hours. Marcus struggled but could not find the breath to respond. Which was just as well, since he had no idea what to say.

  Suzie Rikkers leaned closer still. “Didn’t you feel horrible when it happened? Couldn’t you have driven better? Couldn’t you have saved their lives?”

  The gavel banged with such force that both of them jumped. “All right, that is enough!”

  Suzie gathered herself. “Your Honor, I am trying to establish—”

  “I know precisely what you are trying to do, Ms. Rikkers. And I will not allow this travesty to continue!” She rose and drew the court with her. “I will see you and Mr. Glenwood in my chambers.”

  “But Your Honor—”

  “Now, Ms. Rikkers. Right this very instant.”

  OUTSIDE THE JUDGE’S CHAMBERS, Marcus kept his distance from Suzie Rikkers by standing inside the cramped cloakroom. On one wall a cracked mirror rose to mock him. The stranger glaring back had the chiseled face of a Marlboro Man’s younger brother and the body of a college athlete. Hidden away was a soothing voice, a good mind, a better smile. For years he had treated them all with casual pride. Now they fit like clothes borrowed from an intruder.

  The door to the judge’s office opened, and the strong voice said, “All right. Both of you get in here.”

  The office was a narrow jumble of boxes and books and piles of papers. Before Marcus was seated in a chair across from the judge’s desk, Gladys Nicols honed in on him. “You shouldn’t need me to tell you that proceeding without an attorney is like playing football without a helmet.” When Marcus did not respond, she snapped, “Are you paying attention to me, Mr. Glenwood?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “That’s good, because I detest wasting my breath. And I particularly resent such a disruption to my last day in this courtroom.” Judge Gladys Nicols had recently been elevated to the federal district bench, the first black female in the state’s history to ever achieve this status. Even those who loathed her sharp tongue and even sharper mind had to agree that Judge Nicols was one of the most competent jurists in the state. And one of the toughest. “You’ve been around these courts long enough to know what happens to pro se litigants. Now am I right there?”

  A pro se litigant was someone who insisted on representing himself at trial. Charlie Hayes, Marcus’ earliest mentor and former best friend, had once described a pro se litigant in divorce proceedings as a person who wanted to light a cigarette while sitting in a bathtub of kerosene. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Judge Nicols turned her dark gun-barrel gaze onto Suzie Rikkers. “You have focused your questioning upon some highly emotional issues that are absolutely irrelevant to this divorce hearing.”

  Suzie Rikkers did not back down. “Your Honor, if you will allow me to proceed to my intended conclusion, the facts will speak for themselves. Marcus Glenwood is a murderer. He deserves to roast in hell. Since we can’t arrange that, we will settle for everything he has.”

  “I’ll tell you what the facts are,” Nicols lashed back. “Your client out there is rich as Croesus. She’s not after money. She’s after revenge. She wants to break this man out of spite.”

  “That is her privilege, Your Honor. And he deserves it.”

  “Not in my courtroom.” She pointed one bony finger at the door. “You get out there and tell your client she has two choices. The first is, I will put this case on indefinite hold until the wife herself appears before me.”

  Suzie Rikkers showed unexpected dismay. “Your Honor, the former Mrs. Glenwood has granted her mother full power of attorney. She herself has been seriously injured through the actions of Mr. Glenwood. She is in no state—”

  “Save it. I don’t care if this case freezes up until everybody involved is dead and gone, do you hear what I’m saying? Her alternative is to accept a proper settlement. Say, half of what Mr. Glenwood presently holds in liquid assets.” She glared across the paper-strewn desk. “Go out there and tell it to her like it is, Ms. Rikkers. You’ve got ten minutes.”

  When Suzie Rikkers had stormed out and isolated them behind a slammed door, Gladys leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Marcus, Marcus, what on earth am I supposed to do with you?”

  Because she was a friend, and because she had gone out on a limb to help, he was compelled to respond. “I had no choice. Appointing counsel would only drag this out longer. My only hope was to let her do her worst and get it over with as swiftly as possible.”

  Gladys Nicols reached for her phone. Up close it was possible to see the fine wrinkles marring her stern features and the feather strokes of silver in her tight black curls. She punched a number and said, “Bring me those New Zion papers, please.” She hung up, inspected him anew, and declared, “You were expecting me to stop her, weren’t you?”

  “I’m not certain I understand.”

  “Don’t you try your foolishness with me. This was all calculated and planned. You knew if Suzie Rikkers started in, with you sitting there all broken and defenseless, I’d have no choice but to pull her up short.”

  He nodded. “I hoped you would.”

  “And my last day on the local bench. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “They wanted me to have counsel. They wanted me to fight. They wanted to drag this out for weeks.” He took a hard breath and finished, “I couldn’t take her standing there asking me all the questions I’ve been asking myself every night for the past eighteen months.”

  “That accident wasn’t your fault, Marcus. I’ve seen the police report. That truck came out of nowhere.”

  “I couldn’t take days of cross,” he repeated, his voice hoarse from the strain of confessing. “My only hope was to agree to whatever she said and get it over with.”

  “And risk
losing everything in the process.”

  Marcus responded to that by lifting his gaze and revealing to her the hollow core that had once contained his life.

  One glance was enough to cause her to flinch and turn away. At the knock on her door, Judge Nicols responded with an almost grateful, “Come in.”

  From behind Marcus, a younger woman’s voice announced, “The writ is complete, Judge.”

  “Let me have it.” She slipped on her half-moon reading glasses. “Marcus, you know my chief clerk, Jenny Hail.”

  Marcus raised his chin but not his gaze. He licked his lips, but no words came. His throat remained locked around the unspoken—that he had already lost all he had of any worth.

  “All right, this looks in order.” Nicols reached for her pen and scratched busily. “Based on your argument and the formal appeal, I am hereby issuing a writ of mandamus against New Horizons.”

  Marcus could only manage a weak, “Thank you.”

  One of his new clients was a black church in Rocky Mount, his current home. The Church of New Zion had been founded with the first earnings of freed slaves. Their cemetery contained the memories of six generations, the same cemetery that now bordered property owned by New Horizons Incorporated, the world’s largest producer of sports shoes, sports fashion, and what their constant advertising called Teen Gear. New Horizons was also the largest employer in a six-county area. Currently they were building a new corporate headquarters on a hill overlooking the church. Well used to throwing its weight around, New Horizons found it objectionable that its boardroom would look down on acres of rainwashed graves. They had asked the local council to condemn the site and remove the tombs.

  “As you requested, I am hereby instructing the county commission to respect the cemetery’s grandfather clause and allow the current use of the land to continue.” She settled the papers back into the folder and handed it over. “Go home, Marcus.”