by John Grisham
He had pity for the Phelan children. He felt sorry for Snead, a sad little man just trying to survive. He wished he hadn’t attacked the new experts with such vigor.
His shame was back, and Nate was pleased. He was proud of himself for feeling so ashamed. He was human after all.
At midnight, he stopped at a cheap motel near Knoxville. There was heavy snow in the Midwest, in Kansas and Iowa. Lying in bed with his atlas, he mapped a trail through the Southwest.
He slept the second night in Shawnee, Oklahoma; the third in Kingman, Arizona; the fourth in Redding, California.
________
THE KIDS from his second marriage were Austin and Angela, twelve and eleven respectively, seventh and sixth grades. He’d last seen them in July, three weeks before the last crash, when he took them to an Orioles game. The pleasant outing later turned into another ugly scene. Nate had drunk six beers at the game—the kids counted because their mother told them to—and he drove the two hours from Baltimore to Arlington under the influence.
At the time, they were moving to Oregon with their mother, Christi, and her second husband, Theo. The game was to be Nate’s last visit with them for some time, and instead of dwelling on good-byes Nate got plastered. He fought with his ex-wife in the driveway while the children watched, all too familiar with the scene. Theo had threatened him with a broom handle. Nate woke up in his car, parked in the handicapped zone of a McDonald’s, an empty six-pack on the seat.
When they met fourteen years earlier, Christi was the headmistress of a private school in Potomac. She was on a jury. Nate was one of the lawyers. She wore a short black skirt on the second day of the trial, and the litigation practically stopped. Their first date was a week later. For three years Nate stayed clean, long enough to get remarried and have the two kids. When the dam started cracking, Christi was scared and wanted to run. When it burst, she fled with the children and didn’t return for a year. The marriage endured ten chaotic years.
She was working at a school in Salem. Theo was with a small law firm there. Nate had always believed that he ran them out of Washington. He couldn’t blame them for fleeing to the other coast.
He called the school from his car near Medford, four hours away, and was put on hold for five minutes; time, he was certain, for her to lock her door and collect her thoughts. “Hello,” she finally said.
“Christi, it’s me, Nate,” he said, feeling silly identifying his voice to a woman he’d lived with for ten years.
“Where are you?” she asked, as if an attack were imminent.
“Near Medford.”
“In Oregon?”
“Yes. I’d like to see the kids.”
“Well, when?”
“Tonight, tomorrow, I’m in no hurry. I’ve been on the road for a few days, just seeing the country. I have no itinerary.”
“Well, sure, Nate. I guess we can work something out. But the kids are very busy, you know, school, ballet, soccer.”
“How are they?”
“They’re doing very well. Thanks for asking.”
“And you? How’s life treating you?”
“I’m fine. We love Oregon.”
“I’m doing well too. Thanks for asking. I’m clean and sober, Christi, really. I’ve finally kicked the booze and drugs for good. Looks like I’ll be leaving the practice of law, but I’m doing really well.”
She’d heard it before. “That’s good, Nate.” Her words were cautious. She was planning two sentences in advance.
They agreed to have dinner the following night, enough time for her to prepare the kids and fix up the house and allow Theo to decide what his role should be. Enough time to rehearse and plan exits.
“I won’t get in the way,” Nate promised, before hanging up.
________
THEO DECIDED to work late and skip the reunion. Nate hugged Angela tightly. Austin just shook hands. The one thing he vowed not to do was gush about how much they’d grown. Christi loitered in her bedroom for an hour as the father was reintroduced to his children.
Nor would he bury them with apologies about things he couldn’t change. They sat on the floor of the den and talked about school, and ballet, and soccer. Salem was a pretty town, much smaller than D.C., and the kids had adjusted well, with lots of friends, a good school, nice teachers.
Dinner was spaghetti and salad, and it lasted for one hour. Nate told tales from the jungles of Brazil as he took them on his journey to find the missing client. Evidently, Christi had not seen the right newspapers. She knew nothing of the Phelan matter.
At seven sharp, he said he had to go. They had homework, and school came early. “I have a soccer game tomorrow, Dad,” Austin said, and Nate’s heart almost stopped. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been called Dad.
“It’s at the school,” Angela said. “Could you come?”
The little ex-family shared an awkward moment as each of them glanced at the other. Nate had no idea what to say.
Christi settled the issue by saying, “I’ll be there. We could talk.”
“Of course I’ll be there,” he said. The children hugged him as he left. Driving away, Nate suspected Christi wanted to see him two days in a row to examine his eyes. She knew the signs.
Nate stayed in Salem for three days. He watched the soccer game and was overcome with pride in his son. He got himself invited back to dinner, but agreed to come only if Theo would join them. He had lunch with Angela and her friends at school.
After three days, it was time to leave. The kids needed their normal routines back, without the complications Nate brought. Christi was tired of pretending nothing had ever happened between them. And Nate was getting attached to his children. He promised to call and e-mail and see them soon.
He left Salem with a broken heart. How low could a man sink to lose such a wonderful family? He remembered almost nothing of his kids when they were smaller—no school plays, Halloween costumes, Christmas mornings, trips to the mall. Now they were practically grown, and another man was raising them.
He turned east, and drifted with the traffic.
________
WHILE NATE was meandering through Montana, thinking of Rachel, Hark Gettys filed a motion to dismiss her answer to the will contest. His reasons were clear and obvious, and he supported his attack with a twenty-page brief he’d worked on for a month. It was March 7, almost three months after the death of Mr. Phelan, not quite two months after the entry of Nate O’Riley into the matter, nearly three weeks into discovery, four months before the trial, and the court still did not have jurisdiction over Rachel Lane. But for the allegations of her attorney, there’d been no sign of her. No document in the official court file had her signature on it.
Hark referred to her as the “phantom party.” He and the other contestants were litigating against a shadow. The woman stood to inherit eleven billion dollars. The least she could do was sign a waiver and follow the law. If she’d gone to the trouble to hire a lawyer, she could certainly subject herself to the jurisdiction of the court.
The passage of time was benefiting the heirs greatly, though it was hard for them to be patient while dreaming of such wealth. Each week that passed with no word from Rachel was further proof that she had no interest in the proceedings. At the Friday morning meetings, the Phelan lawyers reviewed discovery, talked about their clients, and plotted trial strategy. But they spent most of their time speculating why Rachel had not made an official appearance. They were enthralled with the ridiculous notion that she might not want the money. It was absurd, yet it somehow managed to surface every Friday morning.
The weeks were turning into months. The lottery winner was not claiming her prize.
There was another significant reason for putting pressure on the defenders of Troy’s testament. His name was Snead. Hark, Yancy, Bright, and Langhorne had watched their star witness’s deposition until it was memorized, and they were not confident of his ability to sway jurors. Nate O’Riley had made a fool out of h
im, and that was only in a deposition. Imagine how sharp the daggers would be at trial, in front of a jury made up primarily of middle-class folks struggling to pay their monthly bills. Snead pocketed a half a million to tell his story. It would be a hard sell.
The problem with Snead was obvious. He was lying, and liars eventually get caught in court. After Snead stumbled so badly in the deposition, the lawyers were terrified of presenting him to a jury. Another lie or two exposed to the world, and their case was down the toilet.
The birthmark had rendered Nicolette completely useless as a witness.
Their own clients were not particularly sympathetic. With the exception of Ramble, who was the scariest of all, each had been handed five million dollars with which to get a start. None of the jurors would earn that much in a lifetime. Troy’s children could whine about being raised by an absent father, but half the jurors would be from broken homes.
The battle of the shrinks would be hard to call, but it was the segment of the trial that worried them the most. Nate O’Riley had been shredding doctors in courtrooms for more than twenty years. Their four substitutes could not withstand his brutal cross-examinations.
To avoid a trial, they had to settle. To settle, they had to find a weakness. Rachel Lane’s apparent lack of interest was more than sufficient, and certainly their best shot.
________
JOSH REVIEWED the Motion to Dismiss with admiration. He loved the legal maneuvering, the ploys and tactics, and when someone, even an opponent, got it right, he silently applauded. Everything about Hark’s move was perfect—the timing, the rationale, the superbly argued brief.
The contestants had a weak case, but their problems were small compared to Nate’s. Nate had no client. He and Josh had managed to keep this quiet for two months, but the ruse had run its course.
FORTY-EIGHT
_____________
DANIEL, HIS oldest child, insisted on meeting him in a pub. Nate found the place after dark, two blocks off the campus, on a street lined with bars and clubs. The music, the flashing beer signs, the co-eds yelling across the street—it was all too familiar. It was Georgetown just a few months ago, and none of it appealed to him. A year earlier he would’ve been yelling back, chasing them from one bar to the other, believing he was still twenty and able to go all night.
Daniel was waiting in a cramped booth, along with a girl. Both were smoking. Each had two longneck bottles sitting on the table in front of them. Father and son shook hands because anything more affectionate would make the son feel uncomfortable.
“This is Stef,” Daniel said, introducing the girl. “She’s a model,” he added quickly, proving to his old man that he was chasing a high caliber of woman.
For some reason, Nate had hoped they could spend a few hours alone. It was not going to happen.
The first thing he noticed about Stef was her gray lipstick, applied heavily to the thick and pouty lips, lips that scarcely cracked when she gave him the obligatory half-smile. She was certainly plain and gaunt enough to be a model. Her arms were as skinny as broom handles. Though Nate couldn’t see them, he knew her bony legs ran to her armpits, and without a doubt there were at least two tattoos burned into the flesh around her ankles.
Nate disliked her immediately, and got the impression the feeling was mutual. No telling what Daniel had told her.
Daniel had finished college at Grinnell a year earlier, then spent the summer in India. Nate had not seen him in thirteen months. He had not gone to his commencement, had not sent a card or a gift, had not bothered to call with congratulations. There was enough tension at the table without the mannequin puffing smoke and looking at Nate with a completely blank stare.
“You wanna beer?” Daniel asked when a waiter got close. It was a cruel question, a quick little shot designed to inflict pain.
“No, just water,” Nate said. Daniel yelled at the waiter, then said, “Still on the wagon, huh?”
“Always,” Nate said with a smile, trying to deflect the arrows.
“Have you fallen off since last summer?”
“No. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Dan tells me you’ve been through rehab,” Stef said, smoke drifting from her nostrils. Nate was surprised she was able to start and finish a sentence. Her words were slow, her voice as hollow as her eye sockets.
“I have, several times. What else has he told you?”
“I’ve done rehab,” she said. “But only once.” She seemed proud of her accomplishment, yet saddened by her lack of experience. The two beer bottles in front of her were empty.
“That’s nice,” Nate said, dismissing her. He couldn’t pretend to like her, and in a month or two she’d have another serious love.
“How’s school?” he asked Daniel.
“What school?”
“Grad school.”
“I dropped out.” His words were edgy and strained. There was pressure behind them. Nate was involved in the dropping out; he just wasn’t exactly sure how and why. His water arrived. “Have you guys eaten?” he asked.
Stef avoided food and Daniel wasn’t hungry. Nate was starving but didn’t want to eat alone. He glanced around the pub. Pot was being smoked somewhere in another corner. It was a rowdy little dump, the kind of place he’d loved in a not too distant life.
Daniel lit another cigarette, a Camel with no filter, the worst cancer sticks on the market, and he blasted a cloud of thick smoke at the cheap beer chandelier hanging above them. He was angry and tense.
The girl was there for two reasons. She would prevent harsh words and maybe a fight. Nate suspected his son was broke, that he wanted to lash out at his father for his lack of support, but that he was afraid to do so because the old man was fragile and had been prone to crack and go off the deep end. Stef would throttle his anger and his language.
The second reason was to make the meeting as brief as possible.
It took about fifteen minutes to figure this out.
“How’s your mother?” he asked.
Daniel attempted to smile. “She’s fine. I saw her Christmas. You were gone.”
“I was in Brazil.”
A co-ed in tight jeans walked by. Stef inspected her from top to bottom, her eyes finally showing some life. The girl was even skinnier than Stef. How did emaciation become so cool?
“What’s in Brazil?” Daniel asked.
“A client.” Nate was tired of the stories from his adventure.
“Mom says you’re in some kind of trouble with the IRS.”
“I’m sure that pleases your mother.”
“I guess. She didn’t seem bothered by it. You going to jail?”
“No. Could we talk about something else?”
“That’s the problem, Dad. There is nothing else, nothing but the past and we can’t go there.”
Stef, the referee, rolled her eyes at Daniel, as if to say, “That’s enough.”
“Why did you drop out of school?” Nate asked, anxious to get it over with.
“Several reasons. It got boring.”
“He ran out of money,” Stef said helpfully. She gave Nate her best blank look.
“Is that true?” Nate asked.
“That’s one reason.”
Nate’s first instinct was to pull out his checkbook and solve the kid’s problems. That’s what he’d always done. Parenting for him had been one long shopping trip. If you can’t be there, send money. But Daniel was now twenty-three, a college grad, hanging around with the likes of Ms. Bulimia over there, and it was time for him to sink or swim on his own.
And the checkbook wasn’t what it used to be.
“It’s good for you,” Nate said. “Work for a while. It’ll make you appreciate school.”
Stef disagreed. She had two friends who’d dropped out and pretty much fallen off the face of the earth. As she prattled on, Daniel withdrew to his corner of the booth. He drained his third bottle. Nate had all sorts of lectures about alcohol, but he knew how phony they’d so
und.
After four beers, Stef was bombed and Nate had nothing else to say. He scribbled his phone number in St. Michaels on a napkin and gave it to Daniel. “This is where I’ll be for the next couple of months. Call me if you need me.”
“See you, Pop,” Daniel said.
“Take care.”
Nate stepped into the frigid air and walked toward Lake Michigan.
________
TWO DAYS later he was in Pittsburgh for his third and final reunion, one that did not occur. He’d spoken twice to Kaitlin, his daughter from marriage number one, and the details were clear. She was to meet him for dinner at 7:30 P.M., in front of the restaurant in the lobby of his hotel. Her apartment was twenty minutes away. She paged him at 8:30 with the news that a friend had been involved in an auto accident, and that she was at the hospital, where things looked bad.
Nate suggested they have lunch the following day. Kaitlin said that wouldn’t work because the friend had a head injury, was on life support, and she planned to stay with her there until she was stable. With his daughter in full retreat, Nate asked where the hospital was located. At first she didn’t know, then she wasn’t sure, then upon further thought a visit was not a good idea because she couldn’t leave the bedside.
He ate in his room, at a small table next to the window, with a view of downtown. He picked at his food and thought of all the possible reasons his daughter didn’t want to see him. A ring in her nose? A tattoo on her forehead? Had she joined a cult and shaved her head? Had she gained a hundred pounds or lost fifty? Was she pregnant?
He tried to blame her so he wouldn’t be forced to face the obvious. Did she hate him that much?
In the loneliness of the hotel room, in a city where he knew no one, it was easy to pity himself, to suffer once again through the mistakes of his past.
He grabbed the phone and got busy. He called Father Phil to check on things in St. Michaels. Phil had been bothered by the flu, and since it was chilly in the church basement Laura wouldn’t let him work there. How wonderful, thought Nate. Though many uncertainties lay in his path, the one constant, at least for the near future, would be the promise of steady work in the basement of Trinity Church.
He called Sergio for their weekly pep session. The demons were well in hand, and he felt surprisingly under control. His hotel room had a mini-bar, and he had not been near it.
He called Salem and had a pleasant chat with Angela and Austin. Odd how the younger kids wanted to talk while the older ones did not.
He called Josh, who was in his basement office, thinking about the Phelan mess. “You need to come home, Nate,” he said. “I have a plan.”
FORTY-NINE
_____________
NATE WASN’T invited to the first round of peace talks. There were a couple of reasons for his absence. First, Josh arranged the summit, so it was therefore held on his turf. Nate had thus far avoided his old office and wanted this to continue. Second, the Phelan lawyers viewed Josh and Nate as allies, and rightfully so. Josh wanted the role of peacemaker, the intermediary. To gain trust from one side, he had to ignore the other, if only for a short while. His plan was to meet with Hark et al., then with Nate, then back and forth for a few days if necessary until a deal was struck.
After a lengthy session of pleasantries and chitchat, Josh asked for their attention. They had lots of territory to cover. The Phelan lawyers were anxious to get started.
A settlement can happen in seconds, during a recess in a heated trial when a witness stumbles, or when a new CEO wants to start fresh and unload nagging litigation. And a settlement can take months, as the lawsuit inches toward a trial date. As a whole, the Phelan lawyers dreamed of a quickie, and the meeting in Josh’s suite was the first step. They truly believed they were about to become millionaires.
Josh began by diplomatically offering his opinion that their case was rather flimsy. He knew nothing about his client’s plans to whip out a holographic will and create chaos, but it was a valid will nonetheless. He had spent two hours with Mr. Phelan the previous day finishing the other new will, and he was