by John Grisham
She kept her fingers on his arm, as if desperate to touch something.
“You are a good person, aren’t you, Nate?”
“No, I am actually not a good person. I do lots of bad things. I am weak, and fragile, and I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t come here to find God. Finding you was hard enough. I’m required by law to give you these papers.”
“I’m not signing the papers and I don’t want the money.”
“Come on—”
“Please don’t beg. My decision is final. Let’s not talk about the money.”
“But the money is the only reason I’m here.”
She removed her fingers, but managed to lean an inch or two closer so that their knees were touching. “I’m sorry you came. You’ve wasted a trip.”
Another gap in the conversation. He needed to relieve himself, but the thought of stepping three feet in any direction was horrifying.
Lako said something and startled Nate. He was less than ten feet away, still unseen.
“He needs to go to his hut,” she said, rising to her feet. “Follow him.”
Nate unfolded himself and slowly stood, joints popping and muscles reluctantly stretching. “I would like to leave tomorrow.”
“Good. I’ll speak to the chief.”
“It won’t be a problem, will it?”
“Probably not.”
“I need thirty minutes of your time, to at least go over the papers and show you a copy of the will.”
“We can talk. Good night.”
He practically breathed down the back of Lako’s neck as they shuffled along the short trail and into the village.
“Over here,” Jevy whispered in the dark. He had somehow managed to secure the use of two hammocks on the small porch of the men’s building. Nate asked how. Jevy promised to explain in the morning.
Lako vanished in the night.
THIRTY
_____________
F. PARR WYCLIFF was in his courtroom, running late with a docket of dull motion hearings. Josh waited in the Judge’s office with the video. He paced the floor of the cluttered room, gripping his cell phone, his mind in another hemisphere. There was still no word from Nate.
Valdir’s assurances seemed well rehearsed—the Pantanal is a big place, the guide is very good, the boat is large, the Indians move about, the Indians do not wish to be found, everything is fine. He would call when he heard from Nate.
Josh had considered the idea of a rescue. But getting to Corumbá seemed enough of a challenge; penetrating the Pantanal to find a missing lawyer seemed impossible. Still, he could go there and sit with Valdir until they heard something.
He was working twelve hours a day, six days a week, and the Phelan matter was about to explode. Josh barely had time for lunch, let alone a trip to Brazil.
He tried Valdir on his cell phone, but the line was busy.
Wycliff entered the office, apologizing and removing his robe at the same time. He wanted to impress a powerful lawyer like Stafford with the importance of his docket.
It was just the two of them. They watched the first part of the video without comment. It began with old Troy sitting in his wheelchair, Josh adjusting the microphone in front of him, and the three psychiatrists with their pages of questions. The exam lasted twenty-one minutes, and ended with the unanimous opinions that Mr. Phelan knew exactly what he was doing. Wycliff couldn’t suppress a grin.
The room cleared. The camera directly across from Troy was kept on. He whipped out the holographic will, and signed it four minutes after the mental exam had ended.
“This is where he jumps,” Josh said.
The camera didn’t move. It caught Troy as he suddenly pushed back from the table and stood. He disappeared off-screen as Josh and Snead and Tip Durban watched in disbelief for a second, then bolted after the old man. The footage was quite dramatic.
Five and a half minutes elapse, the camera records nothing but empty chairs and voices. Then poor Snead takes the seat where Troy sat. He’s visibly shaken and on the verge of tears, but manages to tell the camera what he just witnessed. Josh and Tip Durban do the same thing.
Thirty-nine minutes of video.
“How are they going to unravel that?” Wycliff asked when it was over. It was a question with no answer. Two of the heirs—Rex and Libbigail—had already filed petitions to contest the will. Their lawyers—Hark Gettys and Wally Bright respectively—had managed to attract significant attention and get themselves interviewed and photographed by the press.
The other heirs would quickly follow suit. Josh had spoken with most of their lawyers, and the scramble for the courthouse was in process.
“Every discredited shrink in the country wants a piece of this,” Josh said. “There will be lots of opinions.”
“Does the suicide worry you?”
“Sure it does. But he planned everything so carefully, even his death. He knew precisely how and when he wanted to die.”
“What about the other will? The thick one he signed first.”
“He didn’t sign it.”
“But I saw him. It’s on the video.”
“No. He scrawled the name Mickey Mouse.”
Wycliff was taking notes on a legal pad, and his hand stopped in mid-sentence. “Mickey Mouse?” he repeated.
“Here’s where we are, Judge. From 1982 until 1996, I prepared eleven wills for Mr. Phelan. Some were thick, others were thin, and they disposed of his fortune in more ways than you can imagine. The law says that with each new will, the old one has to be destroyed. So I would bring the new will to his office, we’d spend two hours nitpicking our way through it, then he’d sign it. I kept the wills in my office, and I always brought the last one along. Once he signed the new one, we—Mr. Phelan and I—would feed the old one through a shredder he kept near his desk. It was a ceremony that he enjoyed immensely. He’d be happy for a few months, then one of his kids would make him mad, and he’d start talking about changing his will.
“If the heirs can prove that he lacked sufficient mental capacity when he executed the handwritten will, then there is no other will. They were all destroyed.”
“In which case he died without a will,” Wycliff added.
“Yes, and, as you well know, under Virginia law his estate is then divided among his children.”
“Seven children. Eleven billion dollars.”
“Seven that we know about. Eleven billion seems to be fairly accurate. Wouldn’t you attack the will?”
A big nasty will contest was exactly what Wycliff wanted. And he knew that the lawyers, including Josh Stafford, would get even richer from the war.
But the battle needed two sides, and so far only one had surfaced. Someone had to defend Mr. Phelan’s last testament.
“Any word from Rachel Lane?” he asked.
“No, but we’re looking.”
“Where is she?”
“We think she’s a missionary somewhere in South America. But we haven’t found her. We have people down there.” Josh realized he was using the word “people” quite loosely.
Wycliff was gazing at the ceiling, deep in thought. “Why would he give eleven billion to an illegitimate daughter who is a missionary?”
“I can’t answer that, Judge. He surprised me so many times that I became jaded.”
“Sounds a little crazy, doesn’t it?”
“It’s strange.”
“Did you know about her?”
“No.”
“Could there be other heirs?”
“Anything is possible.”
“Do you think he was unbalanced?”
“No. Weird, eccentric, whimsical, mean as hell. But he knew what he was doing.”
“Find the girl, Josh.”
“We’re trying.”
________
THE MEETING involved only the chief and Rachel. From where Nate sat, on the porch under his hammock, he could see their faces and hear their voices. The chief was bothered by something in the cl
ouds. He would talk, then listen to Rachel, then raise his eyes slowly upward as if anticipating death from the skies. It was obvious to Nate that the chief not only listened to Rachel but also sought her advice.
Around them, the morning meal was winding down as the Ipicas prepared for another day. The hunters gathered in small groups at the men’s house to sharpen their arrows and string their bows. The fishermen laid out their nets and lines. The young women began the day-long task of keeping the dirt properly swept around their huts. Their mothers were leaving for the gardens and fields near the forest.
“He thinks it’s going to storm,” Rachel explained when the meeting was over. “He says you can go, but he will not send a guide. It’s too dangerous.”
“Can we make it without a guide?” Nate asked.
“Yes,” Jevy said, and Nate shot him a look that conveyed many thoughts.
“It would not be wise,” she said. “The rivers run together. It’s easy to get lost. Even the Ipicas have lost fishermen during the rainy season.”
“When might the storm be over?” Nate asked.
“We’ll have to wait and see.”
Nate breathed deeply as his shoulders sagged. He was sore and tired, covered with mosquito bites, hungry, sick of his little adventure, and worried that Josh was worried. His mission so far had been a failure. He wasn’t homesick because there was nothing at home. But he wanted to see Corumbá again, with its cozy little cafés and nice hotels and lazy streets. He wanted another opportunity to be alone, clean and sober and unafraid of drinking himself to death.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I really need to get back. There are people at the office waiting to hear from me. This has already taken much longer than expected.”
She listened but she really didn’t care. A few worried people in a law office in D.C. didn’t concern her that much.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
“I have to go to the next village for the funeral of the little girl. Why don’t you go with me? We will have plenty of time to talk.”
Lako led the way, his right foot twisted in, so that with each step he dipped to the left, then jerked himself to the right. It was painful to watch. Rachel followed him, then Nate, laden with a cloth bag she’d brought. Jevy stayed well behind them, afraid he might overhear their conversation.
Beyond the oval ring of huts, they passed small square patches of farmland, now abandoned and overrun with scrub brush. “The Ipicas grow their food on small plots which they carve out of the jungle,” she explained. Nate was close behind her, trying to keep up. She took long strides with her wiry legs. A two-mile hike through the woods was child’s play. “They are hard on the soil, and after a few years it stops producing. They abandon it, nature reclaims it, and they dig farther into the jungle. In the long run, the soil returns to normal and no harm is done. Land means everything to the Indians. It is their life. Most of it has been taken away by the civilized folks.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Yes, it does. We decimate their population with bloodshed and disease, and take away their land. Then we put them on reservations and can’t understand why they’re not happy about it.”
She said hello to two naked little ladies tilling soil near the trail. “The women get the hard work,” Nate observed.
“Yes. But the work is easy compared to childbirth.”
“I’d rather watch them work.”
The air was humid, but free of the smoke that hung eternally over the village. When they entered the woods, Nate was already sweating.
“So tell me about yourself, Nate,” she said over her shoulder. “Where were you born?”
“This could take a while.”
“Just hit the high points.”
“There are more low ones.”
“Come on, Nate. You wanted to talk, let’s talk. The hike takes half an hour.”
“I was born in Baltimore, oldest of two sons, parents divorced when I was fifteen, high school at St. Paul, college at Hopkins, law school at Georgetown, then I never left D.C.”
“Was it a happy childhood?”
“I suppose. Lots of sports. My father worked for National Brewery for thirty years, and he always had tickets to the Colts and Orioles. Baltimore is a great city. Are we going to talk about your childhood?”
“If you like. It wasn’t very happy.”
What a surprise, thought Nate. This poor woman has never had a chance at happiness.
“Did you want to be a lawyer when you grew up?”
“Of course not. No kid in his right mind wants to be a lawyer. I was going to play for the Colts or the Orioles, maybe both.”
“Did you go to church?”
“Sure. Every Christmas and Easter.”
The trail almost disappeared and they were wading through stiff weeds. Nate walked while watching her boots, and when he couldn’t see them, he said, “This snake that killed the girl, what kind is it?”
“It’s called a bima, but don’t worry.”
“Why shouldn’t I worry?”
“Because you’re wearing boots. It’s a small snake that bites below the ankle.”
“The big one will find me.”
“Relax.”
“What about Lako up there? He’s never worn shoes.”
“Yes, but he sees everything.”
“I take it the bima is quite deadly.”
“It can be, but there is an antivenin. I’ve actually had it here before, and if I’d had it yesterday, the little girl wouldn’t have died.”
“Then if you had lots of money you could buy lots of antivenin. You could stock your shelves with all the medicines you need. You could buy a nice little outboard to take you to Corumbá and back. You could build a clinic and a church and a school, and spread the Gospel all over the Pantanal.”
She stopped and turned abruptly. They were face to face. “I’ve done nothing to earn the money, and I didn’t know the man who made it. Please don’t mention it again.” Her words were firm, but her face gave no hint of frustration.
“Give it away. Give it all to charity.”
“It’s not mine to give.”
“It’ll be squandered. Millions will go to the lawyers, and what’s left will be divided among your siblings. And, believe me, you don’t want that. You have no idea of the misery and heartache these people will cause if they get the money. What they don’t waste they’ll pass down to their kids, and the Phelan money will pollute the next generation.”
She took his wrist and squeezed it. Very slowly she said, “I don’t care. I’ll pray for them.”
Then she turned and started walking again. Lako was far ahead. Jevy could barely be seen behind them. They hiked in silence through a field near a stream, then entered a patch of tall thick trees. The limbs and branches were woven together to form a dark canopy. The air was suddenly cool.
“Let’s take a break,” she said. The stream curved through the woods and the trail crossed it in a bed of blue and orange rocks. She knelt by the water and splashed her face.
“You can drink this,” she said. “It comes from the mountains.”
Nate squatted near her and felt the water. It was cold and clear.
“This is my favorite spot,” she said. “I come here almost every day to bathe, to pray, to meditate.”
“It’s hard to believe we’re in the Pantanal. It’s much too cool.”
“We’re on the very edge of it. The mountains of Bolivia are not far away. The Pantanal begins somewhere near here and stretches east forever.”
“I know. We flew over it trying to find you.”
“Oh you did?”
“Yes, it was a short flight, but I had a good view of the Pantanal.”
“And you didn’t find me?”
“No. We flew into a storm and had to make an emergency landing. I got lucky and walked away. I’ll never get near another small airplane.”
“There’s no place to land around here.”
&nb
sp; They took off their socks and boots and dipped their feet into the stream. They sat on the rocks and listened as the water trickled by. They were alone; neither Lako nor Jevy were within eyesight.
“When I was a little girl in Montana, we lived in a small town where my father, my adoptive father, was a minister. Not far from the edge of town was a little creek, about the size of this. And there was a place, under some tall trees, similar to these, where I would go and put my feet in the water and sit for hours.”
“Were you hiding?”
“Sometimes.”
“Are you hiding now?”
“No.”
“I think you are.”
“No, you are wrong. I have perfect peace, Nate. I surrendered my will to Christ many years ago, and I follow wherever He leads. You think I’m lonely—you’re wrong. He is with me every step of the way. He knows my thoughts, my needs, and He takes away my fears and worries. I am completely and perfectly at peace in this world.”
“I’ve never heard that before.”
“You said last night that you are weak and fragile. What does that mean?”
Confession was good for the soul, Sergio had told him during therapy. If she wanted to know, then he would try and shock her with the truth.
“I’m an alcoholic,” he said, almost proudly, the way he’d been trained to admit it during rehab. “I’ve hit the bottom four times in the past ten years, and I came out of detox to make this trip. I cannot say for sure that I will never drink again. I’ve kicked cocaine three times, and I think, though I’m not certain, that I will never touch the stuff again. I filed for bankruptcy four months ago, while in rehab. I’m currently under indictment for income tax evasion, and stand a fifty-fifty chance of going to jail and losing my license to practice law. You know about the two divorces. Both women dislike me, and they’ve poisoned my children. I’ve done a fine job of wrecking my life.”
There was no noticeable pleasure or relief in laying himself bare.
She took it without flinching. “Anything else?” she asked.
“Oh yes. I’ve tried to kill myself at least twice—twice that I can recall. Once last August that landed me in rehab. Then just a few days ago in Corumbá. I think it was Christmas night.”
“In Corumbá?”
“Yes, in my hotel room. I almost drank myself to death with cheap vodka.”