I lean back in my chair, intrigued by this story. Crossett, a mill town in southern Arkansas that owes its soul to the Georgia Pacific company, is a long way from the Big Cave.
“I take it Art began coming to Christian Life.”
“Religiously,” Norman says, without a trace of irony.
“I had gotten Leigh a job with the church after her graduation, and he joined as soon as he moved back to Arkansas. What a con artist! Within a month after the wedding, he had stopped all but minimal Sunday attendance and within three months so had Leigh.”
There is a mixture of anger and sadness in Norman’s voice as it trails off.
“Art fooled me as badly as he did Leigh. The only problem I had with him was the age difference, and it didn’t bother me the way it bothered her mother. The man could charm the pants off a snake though, and I was convinced he was sincere. If he hadn’t been killed, I mink he would have had Leigh moved to New York inside another six months.”
I rub my tongue over my sugar-coated teeth, marveling at Wallace’s persistence. When he was killed, they hadn’t been married quite a year.
“Do you know of any enemies,” I ask, realizing for the first time I’m talking to one, “that Wallace could have had?”
Norman gives me a bleak smile.
“Other than myself, you mean?” He laughs, but the sound coming from his throat is not a merry one.
“He could have had a million.
Who knows? He could have been running drugs into the country with all the overseas contacts he had.”
I smile to take the sting out of my words.
“So could you.” I sit up straight in my chair and feel my back pro test. How do people stand surgery on their spines? It hurts mine just to sit erect.
“My point is,” I say quickly, “we’ve got to come up with something specific if Leigh’s to have a chance. Self-defense would be okay, but there was no sign of a struggle, and besides, she already gave the cops and everyone else a different story.
I suspect you probably made some calls about Art before he married your daughter. What did people say about him?”
Norman licks his lips. He has refused my offer of coffee or a soft drink, so if he wants something, he’ll have to ask.
“That he was ethical, smart, a whiz at numbers,” Norman admits.
“I was told by one guy Art Wallace had a great future at Chase.”
I pull our investigator’s report from its envelope.
Wallace was areal chamber of commerce poster boy.
Sure, he made bad loans, but back then Chase was practically begging the Third World to take their money. At any rate, there is no evidence that some foreign operative tracked him to Blackwell County and snuffed him because at some point Chase wanted its money back.
My recollection is they finally said to hell with it and wrote off billions.
“Do the police know you called Leigh around ten that morning?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light. Talk about the proverbial nail in your coffin.
“You said you heard her in the background. Was she crying, laughing, or what? Maybe it wasn’t Leigh.”
Norman seems to be staring at my diplomas as he considers my questions. I feel selfconscious, since I have been out of law school less than five years.
Bracken must have hyped me. Finally, he says, “It was Leigh. I’d know her voice anywhere. She has this giggle when she’s excited …”
His voice dies, and I guess aloud what I’ve suspected.
“You think she was in bed with him?” My question sounds crude. I know how I would feel. This guy is her father, and a Holy Roller at that. Your child’s sexuality is taboo, but surely he has thought the same thing: that Leigh went home to get it on and somehow things turned bad. If this were Sarah, I wouldn’t want to be thinking about it either. Yet, the cops found nothing: no drugs, no gun, no weirdness of any kind. Still, she could have put anything she didn’t want the cops to see in the car and dropped it off somewhere on the way to Christian Life when she went back at eleven-thirty. If Leigh did kill her husband, though, why was she giggling an hour before his death? Norman must think this information will incriminate her. It might save her life.
“She obviously was close by,” Norman says finally.
“It was the kind of laugh she had when she was caught being bad as a child. I’ve confronted her, but she denies she was there. It’s ridiculous for her to say that!” He adds, “I haven’t lied to the police about this. They just didn’t ask the right question.”
I have a mental picture of Leigh, and it is a hot one.
She and Art making it to beat the band, when the old man calls. She might have been blowing him while he was talking to her father, and this prompted the hysteria. (My mind goes back to phone calls Rosa and I received when we were having sex. Coitus interruptus we called it. Hi, what’s going on? My husband is eating me, but aside from that, nothing much.) Poor Shane. He can’t even pretend his daughter isn’t lying. Would I lie to protect Sarah from a murder charge? Surely so. But Bracken says Norman doesn’t do things that way.
“Why were you calling her?” I ask, trying to shake the idea of Leigh’s naked body from my mind.
Norman’s face flushes.
“I was checking up on her.
She had promised to come hear the missionary from Guatemala we had been supporting, and I didn’t see her Acura in its usual parking place when I was coming from one of our morning Bible study classes, so, damn it, I called her.”
I lean back in my chair and study the lock on the main drawer in my desk. Norman is obviously embarrassed he is having to acknowledge he harassed his daughter, and I give him a moment to compose himself.
I can imagine myself doing the same thing. It must have been maddening to watch her slip away from him.
“What did you say to him after you heard Leigh’s voice?”
Norman sighs and ducks his head like a ten-year-old.
“I called him a son of a bitch. He just laughed and hung up.”
Norman is such an obvious murder suspect I want to laugh out loud. Why didn’t Chet clue me in? Norman must have an ironclad alibi. Surely Chet has checked it out. I push my drawer in and out. It catches on all the junk I have crammed into it.
“What could have happened afterward,” I propose, “is that Leigh felt guilty and they had an argument, and he made fun of you and Christian Life, and she shot him. Is that possible?”
Norman shifts uneasily in the chair as if his bladder is sending him signals of distress. He swallows with some difficulty.
“It’s possible,” he agrees.
“Have you told diet this?” I ask, knowing he hasn’t.
Damn clients. They hire you to help them and then never tell you the truth.
Norman wags his head.
“I kept hoping someone would verify her story, and either Chet hasn’t been around much or I haven’t been around.”
Weak but understandable. With this information, Nor man thinks he has been holding the key to the prison door. Now that time is running out, he is finally spilling his guts. But why tell me instead of Chet? I wonder if he is beginning to lose confidence in Chet. I am. Pissed, I lecture him, “There’s no way we can help you and Leigh if you don’t tell us the whole story, no matter how bad it makes either of you look. Do you under stand that?”
Norman gives me a sickly smile. He is not used to being talked to like this, but he takes it.
“Of course you’re right,” he says, clearing his throat.
“Tell me something. Is Chet all right? He said he’s in remission, but he looks bad to me.”
I have just preached a sermon on honesty, but it doesn’t work both ways.
“I guess he’s okay,” I say breezily.
“He hasn’t complained to me.”
Norman looks behind me at my diplomas.
“He says you’re really good.”
I shrug, but inwardly I am ridiculously pleased.
Bracken�
�s good opinion is worth a lot. Yet he couldn’t very well say that he had hired a guy who, outside of a couple of cases, hadn’t particularly distinguished him self. Also, I doubt if he told Norman I was at least his third choice. There is some dishonesty here, but this is no time for true confessions.
“We’re only as good as our last case,” I say, trying to seem modest. Actually, I don’t believe this. If you only take die easy ones, your “won and lost” record is meaningless. At the Public Defender’s we measured our success by how much time our clients actually did in comparison with what they could have pulled when they were originally charged.
Only if you are a Chet Bracken does it make sense to look at your record of outright acquittals or dismissals.
The problem with this case is that the Chet Bracken of six months ago doesn’t exist any longer. How could Chet not have gotten from Norman that he called Leigh the morning of her husband’s death? He must really be slipping fast. What else don’t I know about this case?
We talk a few more minutes, but I do not get anything else useful. I walk Norman to the elevators, realizing he hasn’t mentioned his wife even once, and head for Dan’s office. Poor guy. I have to feel something for him, too. If Pearl truly has been a hooch hound their entire married life, no wonder he’s been so strict with the girls. Keep ‘em down on the farm as long as possible.
Dan is on the phone but hangs up as I come in.
“I’m thinking of having liposuction,” he says, “but it costs a fortune. I should have become a doctor. You don’t really believe that crap about doctors asking their nurses to be present when they examine their female patients?”
I close his door and take a seat. Dan’s office is gross.
The air smells like the alley behind the Layman Building that receives the exhaust fumes from a Chinese restaurant that has just opened on the first floor. Boxes, files, law reviews, bar association magazines, books, and food compete for space in Dan’s office on a no-holds-barred basis. My files are admittedly disorganized, but anything that enters Dan’s office has less chance of being found than a ship sailing into the Bermuda Triangle.
“You’re not serious about liposuction?”
I ask, somewhat alarmed. Dying is the only way Dan is going to lose weight, and even that might not do it.
He’s joked he wants to be buried with a box of Hostess cupcakes and a case of root beer.
“They say the pain is terrible,” Dan says gloomily.
“Jesus, I can’t even stand to have Brenda cut my toenails.”
The thought of Dan’s prissy society wife agreeing to perform such a mundane task makes me smile.
“Get this,” I tell him.
“Bracken hasn’t told Norman that he’s about to croak.”
Dan rolls back the cuffs of his shirt two folds, revealing fat, hairy wrists.
“Why the hell not?” he muses.
“He’s setting himself up for a malpractice claim and incompetence of counsel charges if Leigh doesn’t get off.”
“His estate,” I remind him.
“I wonder if I’ve got some duty to tell Norman about Bracken. The truth is, Chet hasn’t done shit on this case, and Norman tells me just now that he called Leigh at home the morning of the murder and heard her voice in the background. The cops don’t know this yet, but it’s just one more thing that can cook Leigh’s goose. Chet didn’t know either.”
Dan reaches in his desk and pulls out a Snickers. It is not even ten yet. He offers it to me, but I shake my head. As he peels off the paper, he says, “If I were you, I’d have a heart-to-heart with Bracken. If this case is headed for the toilet, you’re the one who’s gonna be flushed.”
I begin to wonder if I have made a serious mistake in agreeing to second chair this case. A neon sign inside my head is blinking the word “sucker.” This was to be my ticket to the big leagues. The way it is shaping up it looks like a bush-league game for last place. I fight back a momentary wave of panic. As Dan ingests the chocolate in two bites, I am reminded of the night he called from the jail to tell me he was arrested at a convenience store for stealing a Twinkie. Some people can’t tell the truth even if you hand them a script. Dan, for all his faults, can’t tell a lie.
“On top of everything else, Norman admits he can’t find a thing on Wallace either,” I complain.
“Other than stealing Norman’s daughter under false pretenses. Art was a model citizen.
Even Norman admits nobody had a motive to snuff him except himself. Of course, he was smiling when he said this.”
Dan wipes brown goo from the corners of his mouth with a dirty handkerchief. With all his practice, I mink he’d learn to hit the target.
“You check out his alibi?”
I shrug. How can Brenda stand to make love to him?
She is no Barbie but hardly a Petunia Pig either.
“He says he called from the church.”
Dan finds a corner of his handkerchief to blow his nose.
“That one didn’t wash for Leigh,” he points out “Who all saw him that morning? You just said he hated Wallace’s guts.”
If I had been in his position, I would have hated my son-in-law’s guts, too, but I doubt I would have killed him. Norman isn’t areal suspect, as far as I’m concerned.
He has far too much to lose. Even assuming he lost his temper big time, the image he has of himself wouldn’t allow him to shoot the man his daughter loved. As different as Norman and I are, I mink I understand the guy. If Sarah marries a rich creep, I’ll get her the best divorce lawyer his money can buy. Sooner or later, despite the woman-obey-your-husband garbage fundamentalists love, Norman, I’m convinced, would have come around to trying to talk Leigh into a divorce.
I reach behind me and open a window to let in some air. Dan has a great view of the Arkansas River. He tells me he will switch offices any time I want. He’d rather have my view any day.
“Come on, Dan,” I say mildly, “get real. Norman’s a lover, not a fighter.”
Dan reaches into his desk again but only to pull out a paper clip. He straightens it and begins to pick his teeth.
“How else was he gonna get his kid back? To Norman, Wallace was the Devil incarnate. What could damn a person more in a preacher’s eyes than a man who uses God for his own ends, especially if it involves the person he loves best?”
Dan is forgetting that preachers are supposed to hate the sin but love the sinner, and that usually precludes murdering him. I breathe deeply. There is a slight odor of mildew in the room. Some of these boxes have probably been sitting here for years. I indulge Dan, knowing he has to get this crap out of his system or he will never shut up. I point out, “But Norman wouldn’t set up Leigh to take the rap.”
Dan, loving the role of the great hypothesizer, says, “Norman wasn’t setting her up. He calls her at home, makes her feel guilty. She goes back to the church, and he slips out and goes to their house and offs Wallace, thinking she’ll never be charged, but the cops screw it up because they can’t figure out who else to nail. Norman thinks this will be a snap, but he gets the best criminal defense lawyer in town anyway. What he doesn’t know is the best is eaten up with cancer and can barely answer the bell.”
From Dan’s window I can see a barge coming into view. He’s got a point. Preachers have been known to commit murder for more sordid reasons than protecting their daughters. Not too long ago I read about a minister who killed his wife to run off with another woman. Yet, Norman, like myself, I realize, would try to talk somebody to death before he would shoot him. To humor him, I say, “I’ll check his alibi, but surely Chet has already done that much.”
Dan runs his tongue over his teeth to get every last bit of sugar, chuckling, “But talk about biting the hand that’s feeding you.”
I protest, “I haven’t bitten it yet.” Actually, it’s Bracken who is bothering me more than anything. Even if he has been sick, I can’t believe he has done such a sorry job. I realize I have been intimidated by his repu
tation.
If I’m going to keep from making a fool of myself at the trial, I’ll have to stop acting like I’m the messenger boy in this case. To give Chet credit, he isn’t hiding his lack of effort from me. In fact. he is practically rubbing my nose in it. Why? Can it be that he wants me to take over the role of lead counsel and can’t bring himself to say so? Men are harder to read than women. In our sex, the ego is like a five-hundred-pound gorilla guarding the door to the rest of the psyche.
Women are more vulnerable.
“By the way, the wife’s a lush. She’s functional, but she keeps her tank topped during the day. She was lit the afternoon I saw Leigh, and Rainey confirmed she has a problem. Norman didn’t mention it.”
Dan grimaces. I have confirmed his prejudices. He says, “Of course not. These guys go halfway around the world while their families go to hell in a hand-basket.”
Julia sticks her head in the door.
“Can’t you stay in your office thirty minutes by yourself?” she scolds me.
“I thought you were having a heart attack in the crapper. Mrs. Chestnut’s been waiting for ten minutes while I’ve been trying to find you.” Julia looks at Dan and shakes her head.
“That’s how Elvis died, straining on the pot. That’s how you fat boys check out a lot of times, you know.”
Dan grits his teeth, pretending to strain. I stand up, trying to remember mrs. Chestnut’s problem. Some kind of contract dispute. I follow Julia into the waiting room for my client.
“Thanks for looking for me.”
She turns and grins.
“It was just an excuse to see Dan . It’s like visiting a preschool every time I go back there.”
mrs. Chestnut is a sweet-looking old lady with oldfashioned puffed sleeves and a floral-patterned skirt that almost touches the floor. Jewelry and pearls give her a nice rich look. Though she was extremely vague about her problem over the phone, she expressed the hope that she wouldn’t have to go to court. I hope so, too. I can’t read a contract without yawning. She sits primly in my small office, and I wish, not for the first time, my furnishings were classier. Judging by her clothes and her address in western Blackwell County, I wouldn’t mind probating her estate.
Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction Page 9