Mountain Top

by Robert Whitlow

  “Can you keep talking?” I asked. “In between bites?”

  Vince nodded. “Hell wasn’t the only thing I thought about in the hospital. Of course, I thought about my lab partner. He should have been the one suffering, not me. Many times I imagined the chemicals spewing onto his hand and arm instead of mine. Then I read what Paul wrote about forgiving people who have sinned against us. It made logical sense. If I wanted God to forgive me so that I wouldn’t go to hell, I needed to forgive the student who sinned against me. I talked to my parents about it. My father listened, but my mother thought I was delusional.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That my mind was too precious a gift to throw away on Judeo-Christian mythology. She’s a strict humanist. My father sees the order in science and that makes him doubt random chance as the explanation for the universe.”

  “Discussions around your supper table must be interesting.”

  “Anyway, after I got out of the hospital, I started reading the Bible and started attending an Episcopal church not far from our house. The thoughts of hell went away, and the love of God filled my heart.”

  Vince’s description of his conversion left me with doubts. It didn’t sound like he’d prayed it through.

  “What about your lab partner? Did you forgive him?”

  “Yes, and when I told him what happened to me, he prayed to receive Christ too. Now, he’s in a postgraduate chemistry program at Rutgers.”

  We ate in silence for a minute.

  “But how do you know God’s love is in your heart?” I asked.

  Vince smiled. “Oh, when it happens, you’ll know.”

  During the remainder of the meal, he plied me with questions. I had to fight the sense of being interviewed by an anthropologist studying a primitive religious sect. Several times he appeared puzzled, but there was no hint of criticism. I finally decided everything I told him was going into an internal computer file to be processed later.

  Dessert, custard topped with fresh blueberries, arrived. The custard was the creamiest substance I’d ever put in my mouth.

  The chef returned at the conclusion of the meal. I smiled as sweetly as I could while Vince complimented him on the meal.

  “Why did you take a summer job with Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter?” I asked him during the drive back to the office. “With your academic background, you could have worked anywhere.”

  “One, it’s close to home without being there. I’ll spend next weekend in Charleston.r”

  Vince turned onto Montgomery Street. I waited for other reasons. None came.

  19

  AFTER I THANKED VINCE FOR LUNCH, I GRABBED THE JONES file from the library and rushed upstairs to Zach’s office. His door was open. Fast-food paper wrappers from lunch were strewn across his desk.

  “Are you ready to go?” I asked.

  Zach looked at his watch. “I worked until one o’clock, then went out for a burger. Mr. Appleby doesn’t take a two-hour lunch unless there is going to be a twenty-thousand-dollar fee on the line.”

  “Vince took me to a French café near Greene Square. The food was good, but the service was on European time.”

  Zach wadded up the food wrappers and threw them across the room into a round trash can.

  “Nice shot,” I said.

  “When did you go to Europe?” he asked, standing up.

  “I haven’t. Vince told me the French take a lot of time with their meals. Eating is more of a social event with them than it is for us.”

  “Let’s socialize with Mr. Jones at the jail,” Zach said. “While you were leisurely dining, I stopped by the courthouse and copied the district attorney’s file.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I’ll let you look it over in the car.”

  I’d never seen Zach’s car. He owned a white Japanese compact. The engine didn’t start until he turned the key in the ignition. He handed me the file.

  “See what you think,” he said.

  I opened the folder. There was a one-page arrest record, and the names of the five property owners mentioned in the criminal charges. Beside each name were several dates and the words “video surveillance.”

  “Do you think the police were watching Moses for several weeks and videotaped him each time he tied up at one of the docks?” I asked.

  “No. Video surveillance refers to images from security cameras. That’s how they knew which night Moses was at each location. Each count has a specific date. While I was waiting for you, I called three of the five homeowners. They were nice enough to talk to me. That’s how I found out about the surveillance cameras. The homeowners association has a contract with a security agency that services everybody.”

  “What else did you find out?”

  “That Moses Jones did not have permission to trespass. One woman said she was terrified that Jones was going to assault her and burglarize her house. She saw his boat floating at the end of her dock early one morning and called the police. He was gone by the time they arrived, but that’s when the investigation started.”

  “Did she talk to Moses?”

  “None of them did. The two other owners I reached didn’t know he’d been there until the security company checked the recordings for all the houses on the river. Jones was arrested at the dock of a homeowner who didn’t answer the phone.”

  I turned to the next page in the folder and found the statement Moses gave to Detective Branson.

  “Moses doesn’t talk anything like this,” I said after quickly scanning the four-paragraph statement with my client’s crude signature at the bottom. “These are the detective’s words put into Moses’ mouth.”

  “Stylistic objections aside, what is your opinion of the statement?”

  “Moses admits tying his boat up at the docks. I know he’s guilty, but the way the detective crafted the statement bothers me.”

  Zach glanced sideways at me. “Are you turning into a left-wing criminal defense lawyer before my eyes?”

  “No, I don’t want to miss anything else. I didn’t pay enough attention to the charges.”

  “Should we file a motion to suppress the confession?”

  “I don’t know if there are legal grounds.”

  “Research it before we appear in front of Judge Cannon tomorrow afternoon.”

  We arrived at the jail complex. I pointed to a parking area.

  “That’s near the entrance for the cell block where he’s kept. Didn’t you handle a criminal case when you clerked for the firm?”

  “Remember, I didn’t clerk in Savannah.”

  I felt embarrassed. Zach had told me he had clerked in Los Angeles, not Savannah, but I hadn’t paid attention to the details. I started to apologize, but that would have only reinforced my blunder. We entered the waiting area. A different female deputy was on duty. I showed her the order from Judge Cannon, and a deputy took us to the interview area.

  “I’ll have the prisoner brought up,” the deputy said.

  In a few minutes the door to the cell block opened and Moses came in. He saw me and smiled. I couldn’t help feeling some compassion for the old man.

  “Mr. Jones, this is Zach Mays,” I said. “He’s a lawyer who is going to help you.”

  “Call me Moses,” the old man said. “No one calls me Mr. Jones unless they be wanting my money, which I ain’t got none.”

  We entered the interview room.

  “What you do about my boat, missy?” Moses asked before we were seated. “It be in the same place as before.”

  I’d forgotten my promise to check on the status of his boat.

  “Uh, that’s not been decided. We’ll talk to the district attorney about it and include return of the boat as part of the plea bargain in your case. Mr. Mays has been working hard on your case and has some things to tell you.”

  Zach told Moses about his interviews with the homeowners and Ms. Smith’s plea offer. When the subject of jail time came up, Moses looked puzzled.

  “She
want me in this here jailhouse for six months more? I done been here ’bout two months.”

  “Which is long enough,” Zach said. “I think they should let you out for time already served and put you on probation for less than three years.”

  “Oh, yeah. Plenty boys get prohibition. But the policemans, they turn that into hard time if they be wanting to. This ought to be over and done with.”

  “That may not be possible,” Zach said. “Some probation, or ‘prohibition’ as you call it, will be included in your sentence. Do I have your permission to talk to the district attorney about a deal? You would have to be willing to plead guilty to at least some of the trespassing charges and agree not to do it again.”

  “I told missy here, I be tying up to an old tree from here on.” The old man’s eyes watered. “I just be needing a place of peace where they can’t find me.”

  “Who?” Zach asked.

  Moses looked at me. “The faces. I ain’t on the river, but that little girl, she found me last night. I dream ’bout the river an’ there she be. How she do that? In my dream, miles from the river edge?”

  “What is the girl’s name?” Zach asked. “Do you know her?”

  “It’s not relevant to the case,” I said to Zach. “We don’t need to ask about this. Please leave it alone.”

  “What’s her name?” Zach persisted, leaning forward in his chair.

  Moses licked his lips. “It be Prescott. She a pretty little thing. No more than ten or eleven year old. I don’t do nothing bad. So, why she bother me all these years?”

  I remembered the photograph in Mrs. Fairmont’s room. The blood rushed from my head, and I felt slightly dizzy.

  “Did you say Prescott?” I asked in a voice that trembled slightly.

  “That be right, missy.”

  “What color eyes and hair does she have?”

  “She be yellow-haired with eyes like the blue sky. Even in the dark, dark water, that hair, it still glows, those eyes, they see right through my soul.”

  “Is she the girl who was murdered?”

  Moses stared at me and blinked.

  “What are you talking about?” Zach asked me sharply.

  I bolted from the room and let the door slam behind me. I leaned against the wall and took several deep breaths. The deputy on duty in the room started walking toward me. Zach came out of the interview room and joined me.

  “Are you okay?” the deputy asked.

  I held up my hand. “I just needed to leave the room for a minute. I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes sir.”

  The deputy backed away.

  “What’s going on?” Zach asked as soon as the deputy was on the other side of the room. “Who is the Prescott girl?”

  I didn’t answer. Zach put his hands on my shoulders and came close to my face. “Talk to me!”

  I pushed away his hands. “That’s not necessary,” I said. “Give me a second.”

  He backed away.

  In a shaky voice I told him about the old photograph and Mrs. Fairmont’s story.

  “A terrible crime like that would have been the talk of the town for months,” Zach said matter-of-factly. “Everyone else in Savannah would have known all about it. The girl’s picture would have been on the front page of the paper every time it ran an article.”

  “But that doesn’t explain why Moses sees her face in the water. You heard him. He wanted to make sure we didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.”

  “Which proves?”

  My frustration with Zach flew to the surface. “That you don’t understand we may be representing a man who should be charged with murder, not trespassing!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Zach whispered as he glanced across the room toward the deputy. “We’re here to talk to Moses Jones about a misdemeanor trespassing case.”

  “Then why did you keep going on about the girl in the water after I asked you to stop? This isn’t my fault!”

  “I’m not blaming you,” Zach answered. “But we can’t leave Jones alone while we argue. I’m going back in. We need to finish meeting with him about the trespassing case before thinking about anything else.”

  We returned to the interview room.

  “Sorry to leave you like that,” Zach said to Moses.

  I stared at the old man’s hands. They were arthritic now, but when he was younger they could have been lethal weapons.

  “How did the Prescott girl die?” I blurted out. “Was she strangled and drowned?”

  “No, Tami,” Zach said. “Leave it alone.”

  Moses didn’t pay attention to Zach. “People, they know. I not be telling the policemans. How could I?”

  Zach spoke. “Mr. Jones, you don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.” Moses blinked his eyes and began to cry softly.

  “Tami, do you have a tissue?” Zach asked.

  I reluctantly took one from my purse and handed it to Moses. The old man wiped his eyes and put his head in his hands. There was nothing to do but watch. Moses’ shoulders shook slightly from the sobs. He sniffled several times.

  “Mr. Jones, maybe we should come back later,” Zach said.

  Moses raised his face. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “I be tired,” he said. “I been rowing this boat way too long. Time to pull it up on the bank and lighten my load.”

  “What do you mean?” Zach asked.

  Moses turned to me. “Do you believe I done hurt that little girl, missy?”

  The old man’s face didn’t look sinister, but how could I trust my eyes?

  “I don’t know.”

  “Row my boat,” he replied softly. “All I done, is row my boat. That be the whole truth. He give me a shiny silver dollar, but I throwed it in the river.”

  “Who?” Zach asked.

  “He gave me that dollar, and talk about that little girl,” Moses said with a faraway look in his eyes. “But it make me scared.”

  “Who gave it to you?” Zach persisted.

  Moses refocused his eyes on Zach. “Ol’ Mr Carpenter, the big boss man, he give it to me. He be toting a wicked-looking gun.”

  I looked at Zach. “Joe Carpenter?”

  Moses turned to me and shook his head. “No, missy. Ol’ Mr. Carpenter, he be dead and in the water hisself.”

  Zach pushed his chair away from the table. “Okay, that’s enough. Mr. Jones, I need to apologize to you. I let my curiosity get the best of me and asked you questions that don’t have anything to do with your trespassing case. Ms. Taylor and I are here to discuss the hearing in front of Judge Cannon tomorrow. You’ll have to plead guilty or not guilty. I need your permission to work out a plea bargain with the district attorney’s office. If I can get you out of jail for time served followed by a reasonable period of probation and the return of your boat, does that interest you?”

  “I be listening,” Moses replied. “You be the lawyers.”

  Zach looked at me before he answered. “I’ll interpret that as your agreement for us to negotiate a better plea bargain; however, you’ll make the final decision tomorrow.”

  Moses stared at me for a few seconds. I waited for him to speak.

  “Yes, missy,” he said. “You be thinking about all Moses done told you. That other tall girl. She listen, but I think you be knowing more than she do. Taking a green pill, that don’t change the past.”

  Zach rose to his feet. “We’ll see you in the courtroom tomorrow,” he said to the old man.

  I watched the deputy return Moses to the cell block.

  “Who is the ‘other tall girl’?” Zach asked when Moses was gone.

  “Probably a mental health worker who prescribed medication. Detective Branson knew Moses needed professional help.”

  A deputy led us back to the main entrance.

  “Should we talk to Mr. Carpenter about this?” I asked as we left the building.

  “And ask why his family name was linked by an insane old man to the death of
the Prescott girl?” Zach replied. “That kind of conversation might shorten your stay as a summer clerk.”

  “No, I want to ask his opinion of whether it’s right to get Moses out of jail on probation when he may be guilty of murder.”

  WE PHONED MAGGIE SMITH from Zach’s office. The assistant district attorney wouldn’t be available until the morning.

  “What do we do in the meantime?” I asked.

  Zach pulled on his ponytail. “Wait.”

  “I know what I’m going to do,” I said. “Find out more about the Prescott girl’s death.”

  “Are you sure that’s smart? Our job is to represent him in a trespassing case. The rest of it is probably a fantasy of random information swirled together in his mind. We don’t even know there was a murder investigation.”

  “Mrs. Fairmont wasn’t confused when she mentioned it.”

  “And could be remembering a rumor. On something like this, it’s best to be skeptical. I’m not sure I’m going to let you—”

  “Investigate it at all?” I interrupted sharply.

  “Calm down,” Zach answered.

  I imagined steam coming out of my ears. After a few moments, Zach spoke. “We’ll get on the phone to the district attorney’s office first thing in the morning about a plea bargain on the trespassing case. After that’s taken care of, you can decide if you want to talk some more with Moses about the faces in the water or let him slip back into the marsh. If you still want to check it out, I won’t stop you.”

  WHEN I RETURNED TO THE LIBRARY, Julie was sitting hunched over one of the research terminals. She turned around when I entered and held up her right hand. It was clenched in the shape of a claw.

  “See my misshapen hand?” she asked. “That’s what two and a half hours of nonstop note-taking will do to otherwise healthy fingers. While you were laughing it up with Vinny, I barely had time to take a sip of water.”

  “Is it an interesting case?”

  “If you think sorting through fourteen shell companies, some registered overseas, others with dummy boards, is more fun than the Sunday crossword puzzle, this client will be a blast. At one point, I think Mr. Carpenter was having second thoughts about trying to get the business, but when the main guy agreed without argument to the amount of the retainer, all reservations flew out of the room. Now, I’m researching information about the other side. They seem as devious as our client.” Julie pushed her chair away from the computer. “So, what about Vinny? Did you tell him you have a crush on Zach Mays?”