“This custody case is dismissed. The order transferring custody of Joshua to the county is hereby vacated. Mr. Putnam, there are still criminal charges outstanding against both Mr. and Mrs. Fellows, are there not?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” the prosecutor responded, not bothering to stand.
“If you can’t prove abuse by a civil standard, then you can’t prove it by a criminal standard—right?”
“That’s true—though Joe Fellows is actually charged with obstruction of justice.”
“Yes. And that case is assigned to my courtroom. Do you know what I intend to do with those charges?” the judge asked sternly.
“Actually, judge,” Harry Putnam said, finally rising to his feet, “I will be withdrawing all criminal charges against both Mary Sue and Joe.”
“Today?”
“Ah…yes. That’s right. Today.”
Joe Fellows was weeping openly and unashamedly, his shoulders heaving with sobs.
In the pandemonium that followed, the judge swept down from the bench and then slammed the doors to his chambers so firmly that the picture of George Washington hanging over the judge’s chair began swinging to and fro.
The crowd in the courtroom was on its feet—reporters were shouting for Joe and for Will. But Will was being drawn, inexplicably, out of the courtroom. Out through the cacophony and the pushing and shoving, and the sea of faces. Will made his way through them. Guard Thompson rushed to Joe and offered to escort him to his cell so he could remove his jail clothes, don the shirt and pants he was wearing the day he was arrested, and get ready to be released into the daylight.
As Will muscled his way out, the crowd of reporters was spilling out into the hallway—and soon it was packed with onlookers and members of the press.
“Mr. Chambers!” a woman’s voice called out.
Will glanced in the direction the voice had come from.
“There he is—go on!” said an older woman he didn’t recognize. She was propelling a younger woman with blonde hair and light-blue eyes toward Will.
And then the attorney realized who the younger woman must be.
The crowd parted in front of Mary Sue as she made her way toward Will Chambers, smiling, crying, and laughing all at the same time, and wiping the streams of tears away in big swipes.
She reached out her arms to Will, who accepted her tender hug.
“Thank you for giving me back my family,” she whispered, in a voice choked with tears.
Guard Thompson was smiling and opening up the crowd for his former prisoner. Then Joe Fellows saw his wife. When his eyes met hers, she gave a little convulsed sob and began running toward him.
“Mary Sue!” Joe yelled out in joy.
But in the chaos there were others.
Beth, Jason Bell Purdy’s former secretary, was in the crowded hallway, making certain for herself that the terrible mistake she had made would be corrected. She covered her mouth and disappeared quickly into the human tide in the hallway.
And there was also another, there in the hallway. In the mass of people. And as Joe ran toward Mary Sue, he realized it first.
Suddenly the elation rushed out of him—replaced instantly by fear. Stunned, he looked closer, to his right. He saw a gun barrel appearing out of the crowd.
Behind sunglasses and a hat, Linus Eggers held the revolver with both hands to steady it. It had a full round. More than enough for both of his targets—Mary Sue Fellows and Will Chambers, her attorney, who was assumed to be the repository of all of her knowledge about Henry Pencup.
Eggers aimed at Mary Sue’s chest and started to squeeze the trigger.
Joe screamed wildly and dove toward the gunman, flying at him like a crazed linebacker who was using his body like a human missile to prevent the final, deadly play.
The gun discharged with a terrible reverberating bang as Joe’s arms reached the barrel and knocked it downward.
The bullet hit the marble floor and ricocheted into the ceiling.
People were screaming and running away. Will was trying to push Mary Sue out of the line of fire. When he whirled around, he saw Linus Eggers on his back, sunglasses knocked off—pointing the gun toward his face.
There was a bang as the barrel was directed at Will’s left eye.
Immediately a second shot rang out with a terrible, hollow echo.
But Will was still standing.
Deputy Thompson, his revolver pointed at the gunman’s chest, had squeezed off two rapid-fire rounds before Linus could pull the trigger a second time. Eggers was dead on the cold marble floor, still clutching the revolver.
Joe scrambled up off the floor and rushed over to Mary Sue. He embraced her, checking her face, her hair, her body, to make sure she was unhurt.
Will stood stunned for a moment, taking a few seconds to process it all. Deputy Thompson was calling on his walkie-talkie for an emergency vehicle—and additional backup in case there were more gunmen.
They would find no other assassins.
Will walked over to the deputy. He reached out and the two men clasped hands firmly. The attorney could only shake his head—he had no words at first.
Thompson was smiling.
“Give me fifty years or so,” Will finally said, “and I will think up some way to thank you.”
62
THE PRESS CONFERENCE had been adroitly planned to take place on the front steps of the Georgia Statehouse. A bevy of news reporters and cameras were all focused on Jason Bell Purdy, who was smiling confidently while concluding his remarks.
“For those reasons,” Purdy said, “I support the quick action of Congress, as well as the President, in ending the airline strike that was threatening to paralyze our nation.”
Then Purdy pivoted ever so slightly and looked directly into the cameras, with polished sincerity and honed poise.
“Later this week I’ll be releasing my position paper on the recent developments in the Middle East, the ever-present threat of terrorism, and even more importantly, the need for a geopolitical partnership with the community of nations. Global unity and goodwill are not options in the twenty-first century, they are mandates. That will be a major theme of mine as I represent the fine state of Georgia in the United States Senate, finishing the term of Senator Jim Boggs Hartley, a truly great American whose death was a blow to us all. I am leaving this press conference and going directly to his widow so I can confer with her and get a true sense of those matters that weighed most strongly on his heart—those matters she thinks her late husband would most want me to complete on his behalf.”
A raft of hands appeared in the crowd as the reporters began pelting Jason Bell Purdy with questions.
“What about the allegations of wrongdoing in the Eden Lake Resort project? What about the questions that were raised in the child-abuse case over in Delphi?”
Purdy smiled with assurance and raised his hand to quiet the group.
“As you know,” he responded, “you were told in advance I was not going to take any questions except in regard to those matters in my prepared remarks, but I will say this: Because these wild accusations have been raised, tomorrow, at noon, my office will release a statement answering all of your questions and putting to rest this ridiculous allegation that was thrown out by a desperate trial lawyer. Of course, you all know the reputation of trial lawyers!”
A few chuckles came from the press corps.
The new senator fielded a few more questions from the media group and then excused himself with a smile and a wave to the cameras.
Jason Bell Purdy would be right about one thing—the statement released from his office, carefully prepared by political and legal strategists, would quiet the questions raised about the Eden Lake Resort project.
Bank examiners would be unable to trace the several million dollars missing from the Delphi National Bank.
Father Godfrey, who was spending more and more time fishing and tending to his small garden, would never reveal the confession of bank presid
ent Henry Pencup.
The overflow pen was permanently closed, and the brutal guard pleaded guilty on a negotiated plea and was sentenced to ten years in prison. And the Juda County jail overall, both in its procedures and its facility, would be updated.
On the whole, the predictable and safe patterns of life in Delphi continued as before. However, metal detectors were installed at all the entranceways of the courthouse—particularly when it was realized, after the Linus Eggers shooting, that the Delphi facility was one of the few remaining courthouses that had not installed them.
Eggers had died immediately in the shootout. At the autopsy, high levels of cocaine were found in his blood. That, coupled with the fact that Eggers was in the final stages of his battle with AIDS, created a comfortable conclusion for most of the community—that his attempt to assassinate Mary Sue Fellows and Will Chambers was an aberration caused by a brain dysfunction.
Harry Putnam had had hopes of being a circuit judge, but he was rightly concerned about the outcome of the Mary Sue Fellows case and felt it did not bode well for him politically, at least in the near future.
Not long after the trial, Putnam called Will Chambers at his office in Virginia to confirm the final dismissal of all the criminal charges against Joe and Mary Sue.
“Will, trying the Mary Sue Fellows case against you was—well, let’s just say it was educational. Do me a favor and don’t come up against me again anytime soon.”
Will thanked him for the compliment and wished him farewell.
After he hung up with Putnam, Will contacted the legal counsel for the State Department. The attorney told Will that the Department appreciated his cooperation in delaying the lawsuit against General Nuban for the Sudan atrocities. As a result, they wanted to offer him some information.
The lawyer indicated they had received information that General Nuban would be making a short stop on American soil for a meeting of international arms dealers in Miami. That would give Will Chambers and his legal team a perfect opportunity to serve the lawsuit papers on the general while he was within the borders of the United States, which would remove some of the jurisdictional objections the general and the nation of Sudan might have to the legal action.
After finishing the phone call with the State Department, Will stepped over to Hilda’s desk with the carbonless copy of a credit slip that documented a lunch at Denny’s Log Cabin for $7.43. Handing the slip to Hilda, he asked, “Do me a favor—get this framed, will you?”
Hilda gave him a look of total bewilderment. “You are kidding, of course—right?”
Will smiled, and then he declared, “Hilda, I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
63
SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE YOU?”
“With a little different perspective, I suppose.”
“You mean, regarding Mary and the welfare of her little boy?”
“Yes. A different paradigm. A shift of focus.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’m trying to figure this out—put myself in her shoes. She sees a tyrannical abuse of government power—obviously. But I really believe she was mostly thinking much like any loving mother would—she was trying to figure out how to protect her little boy.”
“But with obvious differences from the usual case, right?”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely.”
“In this case, the little boy is what the whole story is about.”
“Sure. But the idea is the same. That’s why I said a different paradigm, or focus. I was trying to approach the miracles in the Gospel accounts from the viewpoint of my old intellectual rationalism. I was approaching this story as if the real question were this—does God really protect us through supernatural acts?”
Len Redgrove thought for a minute about what Will had just said. Then he asked another question.
“Is that what you think was on Mary’s heart?”
“I’m not sure,” Will replied, finishing the last bite of his apple pie. “But we have to assume she would be feeling and thinking like any mother—or any parent. Or any one of us, for that matter.”
“And how is that?”
“Well, it seems to me we just think we struggle with the question of whether God will really protect us. In Mary’s case the question would have been, ‘Will God protect my boy, Jesus—protect him from the murderous plans of Herod?’ We tend to think that is the actual question. But it really isn’t.”
With that last comment, Will was waving his fork for emphasis.
“Well, what’s the actual question?” Redgrove asked.
“It seems to me that the question that plagues us is really not if God is willing to protect us—because we really know the answer to that question already. We know it through the promises in the Bible. We know it through the inner spiritual voice we have when Christ has come to live in us through his Spirit. And we know it from experience, from answered prayer—numerous ways. No, the real question we are asking, but perhaps don’t want to admit it, is this—how will God protect me? Is he going to protect me in the way I want—from tragedy, injustice, false accusations, disease, accidents, injuries? In other words, how will he do it?”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Well,” Will said after thinking a minute, “a little boy gets a toothache. His mother wants to protect him from dental problems, so she takes him to the dentist. The dentist fills the cavity, but in the process he causes some pain. The mother knows she’s protected her boy from tooth decay. But the little boy is upset because all he wanted was some protection from having to experience any pain.
“Most of us are like the little boy. We know, down deep, that the Father loves us and will take care of us—but we want to settle for much less. We want the form of protection to be our way—according to our shortsighted desire to avoid pain—rather than his way. And he has the welfare of the whole universe in his plan.”
Redgrove listened quietly, smiling.
“What our flesh feels—what our heart says to us when it’s breaking—is usually about the pain, rather than God’s plan for the human race,” the professor noted. “As long as we recognize the difference, then it’s okay to want to run from the pain—or to clench our fists and cry out when we lose loved ones. God gave us souls, but he also gave us bodies with nerve endings.”
Will reached for the check that the waitress at the Diner had just dropped off at their table, but Redgrove grabbed it first.
“Oh no. You paid last time.”
As the two walked out to the parking lot Will said, “I’ve got to hit the sack. I’m getting up really early tomorrow. Fiona is driving down from Baltimore and dropping her car off, and then the two of us are going to take a long drive.”
“Say,” his friend asked inquisitively, “when in the world are you going to ask her to marry you?”
Will kept walking to his Corvette and then said over his shoulder, “Dr. Redgrove, that is the best question you have asked me all night.”
In the countryside outside of Delphi, Georgia, it was hot, and the bugs were droning in the fields. The cattle on the farms had waded down to the nearest pond or creek.
But the sun was getting lower in the sky and there was a bit of a breeze, which, coupled with shade from the clouds overhead, was welcome relief to those down below on the farm.
Long tables in the farmhouse’s front yard were covered with checkered tablecloths and filled with platters of food—corn on the cob, barbecued ribs, mashed potatoes, steaks, fresh green beans, not to mention salads, bowls of Jell-O, and pies—more than enough to feed the crowd that had gathered at the home of Joe and Mary Sue Fellows.
Andrew White Arrow had traveled back from New Mexico to be there. Tommy, Danny, and Katherine had come all the way from South Dakota. Among the group were Madeline, Joe’s mother, and many friends from the Fellowses’ church.
A few miles away, Will was driving his ’57 Corvette with the top down, approaching the farm on the county highway. Next to him, Fiona had a bas
eball cap pulled down snugly on her head to keep her hair in place.
“What finally caused Mary Sue to return to Delphi when she did?” Fiona asked.
“That was really remarkable,” Will replied. “She had given the go-ahead to Dr. Bill to arrange for a medical airlift for Joshua, who was seriously ill by then, to the Delphi hospital. And Joe was in Delphi, but still in jail. And of course, her farm—her home—was back there. Further, she had to face the legal system sooner or later. She knew, I think, that the time had come. But there was something else.”
“Like what?” Fiona asked, checking the directions that lay in her lap to the farm.
“She asked God for a sign.”
“Really? What kind of a sign?”
“Anything, I guess. She told me she never felt comfortable doing something like that. But she was desperate. So she was in her cabin on Tommy White Arrow’s ranch, praying about it.”
“And?” Fiona asked, urging Will on.
“And there’s a sound at the door. It was Danny White Arrow.”
“Danny…oh, yes—the one who was disabled from the head injury?”
“Right,” Will said. “Danny is the youngest of the three brothers. Anyway, he trots into the room, gives his favorite yo-yo to Mary Sue, and says, ‘This is for Joshua to have after your trip back home.’
“Mary Sue looks at him and says, ‘Trip?’
“And Danny says, without skipping a beat, ‘There’s never been a better time to go home.’ His exact words.”
“So, Mary Sue took that as the final cue from the Lord?”
“That’s it. Say—” Will turned slightly to glance around the car. “We didn’t forget the flyers for the concert, did we?”
“These?” Fiona asked, pulling them out of the manila folder in her shoulder bag.
Will smiled as he glanced at the sheets in Fiona’s lap. They were glossy color versions of the ads that had been placed in several magazines, describing “a Special Benefit Concert with Dove-Award-Winning Gospel Singer FIONA CAMERON—in Honor of the Bravery of Deputy Hugh Thompson of the Juda County Sheriff’s Department.”
Custody of the State Page 32