Deeper Water

by Robert Whitlow

  Deeper Water

  Robert Whitlow

  The Tides of Truth novels follow one lawyer's passionate pursuit of truth in matters of life and the law.

  In the murky waters of Savannah's shoreline, a young law student is under fire as she tries her first case at a prominent and established law firm. A complex mix of betrayal and deception quickly weaves its way through the case and her life, as she uncovers dark and confusing secrets about the man she's defending-and the senior partners of the firm.

  How deep will the conspiracy run? Will she have to abandon her true self to fulfill a higher calling? And how far will she have to go to discover the truth behind a tragic cold case?

  Robert Whitlow

  Deeper Water

  The first book in the Tides of Truth series, 2008

  To those who live to make the world a better place: "Ye are the salt of the earth. "

  Matthew 5:13

  Prologue

  MOSES JONES POLED HIS ALUMINUM JOHNBOAT THROUGH THE marshy waters where the Little Ogeechee River mingled with Green Island Sound. The snub-nosed boat rode on top of the water, a slight swirl marking its wake. A set of oars lay in the bow, but Moses preferred a long wooden pole. Quieter than oars, the smooth rod served double duty as a makeshift depth finder.

  The old black man slipped the twenty-five-foot-long pole noiselessly into the water until it found the muddy bottom. He glided beneath the outstretched branches of a live oak tree draped in Spanish moss. Around the bend lay one of the best fishing holes on the brackish river. It was night, but the moon shone brightly, and his kerosene lantern sat unlit on the seat.

  Moses lifted the pole from the water and balanced it across the front of the boat. He lifted his cap and scratched the top of his gray-fringed head. And listened. The only sounds were familiar night noises: the bullfrogs calling to each other across the channel, the plop of a fish breaking the surface of the water, the cries of crickets in the dark.

  Sucking air through his few remaining teeth, Moses let out a long, low moan to let the faces in the water know he was entering their domain. The faces moved from place to place along the inlets and tributaries the old man frequented, from the Tybee River to Wassaw Island. With the water as their grave, they weren't bound to one location. Their cemetery had no tombstones, no iron fences, no floweredged borders. They could be anywhere.

  Moses feared and respected the dead. One day, he knew, he would join them. Whether his face would be young or old, he didn't know.

  He rounded the bend and measured the depth of the water. The pole didn't touch bottom. He quietly lowered the concrete block he used as an anchor and let the boat find its place. The slow current took him to the center of the hole. He could bait his hooks by moonlight without having to light the lantern and attract the curiosity of a thousand insects. He lowered his trotlines into the water. A fivegallon plastic bucket set in the bottom of the boat would serve as a makeshift live well. He waited.

  Within an hour, he caught five fish that included three keepers. He put the three fish in the bucket. It would be a good night. He felt happy. The hole was teeming with life. He pulled up his lines and rebaited the hooks. The fish bumping against the side of the bucket joined the sounds of the night. When he leaned over to place the lines in the water, she floated up to the surface.

  It was the little girl.

  Moses squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to scream, but his lips were clenched. He longed to cry, but his emotions were paralyzed. Memories that couldn't separate fact from fiction raced through his mind. What had he done that she would haunt him so?

  He made himself breathe slowly. In and out, in and out. His heart pounded in his ears. Someday, the faces would grow strong arms and pull him into the water to join them. It would be justice. He continued to make himself breathe in rhythm. A bead of sweat escaped his cap and ran down his forehead. There was a jerk on the line he still held in his hand. Every muscle in his body tensed. Maybe tonight was the night of death.

  He opened his eyes. All that remained was the dark water.

  He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and pulled in the fish. It was the nicest one yet, fat and lively. His breathing returned to normal. His heart stopped racing.

  "Thank you, missy," he said softly.

  He wasn't sure if the little girl sent the fish or could hear his voice, but it didn't hurt to be grateful, even to a ghost.

  1

  "TAMMY LYNN!" MAMA CALLED OUT. "YOU'D THINK A FANCY law firm in Savannah would know how to spell your name."

  I left the pantry beneath the staircase and came into the kitchen. With lots of windows, the large kitchen protruded from our woodframe house like Mama's abdomen a week before the twins were born.

  "And is there a new law against calling an unmarried woman Miss?" Mama added as she opened a quart jar of yellow squash she'd put up the previous summer.

  I deposited two yellow onions on the scratched countertop and picked up the envelope. It was addressed to Ms. Tami L. Taylor, 463 Beaver Ruin Road, Powell Station, Georgia. I'd thought long and hard about changing the spelling of my name to Tami on my resume. First impressions are important, and I didn't want the hiring partner at a prestigious law firm to think I was a second-rate country singer who went to law school after she bombed out in Nashville.

  T-a-m-i had a more sophisticated ring to it. It could even be short for Tamara. As long as I honored my parents in the important things, secretly changing the spelling of my first name for professional reasons wouldn't be a sin. Or so I hoped. I rubbed my finger across the address. I couldn't tell Mama the law firm made a mistake. That would be a violation of the ninth commandment. I kept quiet, trusting silence to keep me righteous in the sight of a holy God. Mama's voice rescued me.

  "You're doing well in school, and I'm pleased with you," she continued. "But I'm afraid you wasted a lot of paper and stamps on those letters you sent out. You should have set your sights on working for Mr. Callahan. He might actually give you a job when you get out of school."

  "Yes ma'am."

  Mama wanted me working close to home, the only secure haven in the midst of a wicked world. Her disapproval that I'd mailed letters seeking a summer clerk position to one hundred law firms across the state wasn't a surprise. It helped a little when I reassured her I'd excluded Atlanta like the hole in the middle of a donut. To live in a place populated by millions of people after growing up surrounded by millions of trees wasn't a step I wanted to take either.

  I took the letter into the front room. Our house didn't have a formal living room. The front room served as everything from homeschool classroom to temporary church sanctuary if the preacher stopped by for an impromptu prayer meeting. I plopped down on a sofa covered by a white chenille bedspread and closely examined the return address on the outside of the envelope. I was impressed. Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter still used engraved envelopes. Most of the rejection letters I'd received arrived at my law school post office box in Athens fresh from a laser printer.

  Mama was right. Trying to find a summer clerk job through unsolicited letters to law firms picked at random from a list in the placement office was not the best use of a first-class stamp. I'd already resigned myself to another summer working first shift with Daddy at the chicken plant. I opened the envelope.

  Dear Ms. Taylor,

  We received your resume and appreciate your interest in a summer clerkship with our firm. You have an outstanding record ofacademic and personal accomplishments. Ifyou have not already obtained employment, please contact Ms. Gerry Patrick, our office administrator, to discuss one of the positions available at Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter.

  Ifyou have taken another job or no longer have an interest in working for our firm, the courtesy of a pr
ompt response notifying us accordingly would be appreciated.

  Sincerely, Joseph P. Carpenter

  "Mama," I screamed. "I have a job!" I rushed into the kitchen and tried to hand her the letter. "Read this!"

  "Calm down and wait a minute," she said, maintaining her grip on the large knife in her right hand. "I'm in the middle of chopping onions for the squash."

  "I'll read it to you!"

  I sat at the kitchen table, an oversize picnic table painted white, and in a breathless voice read the letter. Mama scraped the onions into the saucepan.

  "Read it again," she said when I finished.

  Mama sat across from me and wiped her hands with a dish towel. I read the letter more slowly.

  "And here at the top it says the firm was founded by Mr. Benjamin Braddock in 1888."

  "Are you sure it's a job offer? It sounds to me like they just want to talk to you about it."

  "They wouldn't contact me this late in the school year if they didn't have a job. Maybe someone backed out and a spot opened for me."

  Mama repositioned one of the hairpins that held her dark hair in a tight bun. She hadn't cut her hair in years, and when freed it fell to her waist. Mama and I shared the same hair color, brown eyes, tall, slender frame, and angular features. It always made her smile when someone mentioned how alike we looked. As a single woman, I was allowed to cut my hair, but it still fell past my shoulders. I only wore it in a bun on Sunday mornings.

  "Why would they offer you a job?" she asked. "They haven't even met you."

  "I laid my hands on the stack of letters and prayed before I mailed them. Then I thanked God for every rejection that came in. He saw my heart and came through at the last moment."

  "Maybe, but I'm not comfortable with you claiming his approval so quickly. We need to talk about this. Savannah is on the other end of the state. How far away is it?"

  "I don't know." I looked up at the clock on the wall beside the refrigerator. It was 5:10 p.m. "I should call right now and find out if this really is a job offer. That way we can talk it over with Daddy and not guess about anything."

  Mama returned to the stove. I waited.

  "Go ahead," she sighed. "You're at the edge of the river and need to know what's on the other side."

  The only telephone in the house was in my parents' bedroom. When I stopped homeschooling in the ninth grade and went to public high school, Mama never had to worry about me having secret phone conversations late at night. She needn't have worried anyway. Most of my calls were about basketball practice and homework assignments.

  I hit the numbers for the unfamiliar area code followed by the seven-digit phone number. The phone rang three times. Maybe the firm didn't answer calls after 5:00 p.m. Then, a silky voice spoke.

  "Good afternoon, Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter."

  The sound made my mouth suddenly go dry.

  "Ms. Gerry Patrick, please."

  "May I tell her who is calling?"

  "Tami Taylor. That's T-a-m-i."

  I couldn't believe I'd spelled my first name. I stifled a giggle while the receptionist put me on hold and let me stew like Mama's squash and onions. I rehearsed my next lines to avoid another longdistance embarrassment. A more mature-sounding female voice came on the line.

  "Gerry Patrick."

  "Good afternoon, Ms. Patrick. This is Tami Taylor, a second-year law student at the University of Georgia. I received a letter from Mr. Carpenter about a summer clerk position. He told me to contact you."

  There was a brief pause. "I have your resume, but all summer job offers go through my office. I'd know if the firm sent you a letter."

  My mouth went dry. "Could you check with Mr. Carpenter?"

  "Yes, I want to get to the bottom of this myself."

  A much longer pause followed. I counted the red tulips on the top border of the faded wallpaper in my parents' bedroom and prayed that Mr. Carpenter hadn't left for the day. Finally, Ms. Patrick spoke.

  "It's fortunate for you that you called. I'd signed a stack of rejections this afternoon without knowing Mr. Carpenter made a copy of your resume. Your turndown letter was in the mail room."

  "Thank you." I swallowed. "Do you know why he offered me a job?"

  "Not a clue. Mr. Carpenter isn't here, but his assistant confirmed the letter. Are you interested in the position?"

  "Yes ma'am."

  "I'll e-mail the details."

  "Uh, I'm home on spring break, and we don't have a computer with an Internet connection."

  I felt my face flush. The only computer in the house was an outdated one used for educational programs with the twins. Powell Station didn't boast a coffee shop with Wi-Fi.

  "Do you have access to a fax machine?" Ms. Patrick asked.

  I frantically racked my brain for a solution. "No ma'am. Would it be all right if I called you in the morning? By then I'll be able to track down a way for you to send the information."

  "I'm usually here by nine o'clock. These jobs don't stay open for long."

  "Yes ma'am."

  I hung up the phone. Challenges raised by my family's lifestyle weren't new. Daddy always said obstacles were opportunities for personal character growth. However, that didn't keep routine problems from causing pain. I returned to the kitchen.

  "I talked to Ms. Patrick, the office manager. It's a real job," I announced with reduced enthusiasm.

  "What details did she give you?"

  "She's going to send me information as soon as I figure out a way she can transmit it." I didn't mention the disdain I sensed in Ms. Patrick's voice.

  "And that won't tell you anything about these people or their values, morals, beliefs, lifestyles."

  I tried to sound casually optimistic. "No ma'am, but it's just a summer job at a law firm in Savannah. What could be wrong with that? I'll only be there for a few months, and it will give me an idea what to expect in a real law-"

  "We'll talk it over with your father when he gets home," Mama interrupted.

  I shut my mouth. When Mama invoked the title "father," it meant nothing could be discussed until he arrived.

  We would be eating chicken and dumplings for supper. Thick noodles, chicken broth, and a few chunks of chicken went a long way toward feeding our large family. The slightly sweet smell of the dumplings competed with the pungent onions in the squash.

  "Do you need help with supper?" I asked, leaning on the counter and sniffing.

  "No, thanks. Everything is cooking. Why don't you check on the twins? I left them working on an essay."

  I WAS ELEVEN YEARS OLD when Ellie and Emma were born, and we'd shared a bedroom since the first day they came home from the hospital. With preteen excitement about everything related to babies, I welcomed them into my world with open arms and a room decorated with balloons and a white poster board proudly announcing the girls' names in fancy script surrounded by flowers. My enthusiasm was instantly tested by a double dose of demands.

  My first job was to change the girls' diapers and take them to Mama for the middle-of-the-night feeding. For months, I slept in fits and starts as I listened to the tiny infants sniffle and snort while I wondered whether they were hungry or feeling an uncomfortable gas bubble. If one cried, the sound immediately became stereo. But I didn't complain. Every child was a blessing from God.

  Daddy put an old rocking chair in my bedroom, and my arms grew accustomed to holding the babies close to my heart. I kissed their heads enough to wear off the newborn fuzz. Later, when they were toddlers, they often ended up in my bed, especially on cold winter nights when the best warmth is found in closeness to a loved one.

  Now, they welcomed me home with hand-drawn pictures and silly poems. The three of us couldn't fit in my bed, but we still enjoyed sitting in our pajamas on the circular rug on our bedroom floor and talking in the moonlight until the little girls' eyelids drooped.

  I walked up the creaky stairs to the second floor of the house. No sounds came from the bedroom, a hopeful sign of serious educ
ational activity. I peeked in the door. The twins were sitting across from each other at the small table beneath the room's wide, single window. My bed was to the right of the window. The twins slept in homemade bunk beds on the opposite wall. Both dark-haired heads were bent over sheets of paper.

  "How's it going?" I asked.

  Ellie looked up with blue eyes that could have made me jealous. "We're almost finished."

  "Yeah," Emma echoed. "We wrote about different things so Mama wouldn't think we copied."

  "Do you want me to check your papers when you finish?"

  "Yes," both girls responded.

  My side of the room was immaculate. The same couldn't be said for the twins'. Emma was the neater child, but without Ellie's cooperation, they both received blame for messiness. I straightened up their side of the room while they continued writing.

  "Done!" Emma announced.

  "I'm on my last paragraph," Ellie said.

  "Keep working. I'll read Emma's paper."

  Across the top, the older of the twins had written: "Deism and the Founders of Our Country."

  For a woman who never went to college, Mama was an amazing teacher. Not many twelve-year-olds could spell deism, much less give a credible definition of the belief and explain in clear, simple terms how several signers of the Declaration of Independence viewed God as a cosmic clock-winder passively watching events unfold on the earth below. The twins would be prepared for public high school. Except for calculus and AP physics, I never made less than an A in high school.

  "Show me your research," I said to Emma.

  She handed me a stack of index cards, each one labeled with the reference. I checked the quotes in the paper against the information on the cards and corrected a handful of grammatical errors. While I worked, Ellie finished her paper and looked over my shoulder at her sister's work.

  "You should have put a comma before the conjunction separating two independent clauses," Ellie said, pointing to one of my corrections. "Everybody knows that."