The Closing: A Whippoorwill Hollow novel (The Whippoorwill Hollow novels) (2 page)

Nate knew that critics of perceived hair follicle matches argue that comparing the characteristics of hair is similar to comparing facial features and concluding that two people who look alike are in fact the same person. He assumed that Swiller could not have hired an expert witness within the state’s budget to present this criticism, but there were anti-death-penalty groups that provided private funding to attack this type of analysis. Nevertheless, Swiller had not called an expert to rebut the evidence.

The prosecution rested after West testified. The defense rested without calling a witness. The court recessed for lunch.

After the break, George Maupin delivered a powerful closing statement, pulling all the evidence together to tell a vivid story. George said Deatherage encountered Darlene Updike somewhere away from the warehouse. He beat her savagely to subdue her, dragged her to the seclusion of the warehouse, and ripped off her clothing. He choked her with a rope while he raped her. With the tightening of the rope, he brought her to the edge of death, and she passed out. Then he loosened the rope to allow her to breathe. She regained consciousness and he started in again. He did this three times, creating three bloody rings around her neck.

Somewhere along the way she made too much noise and Deatherage stuffed a rag in her mouth to gag her. Gasping for air, she swallowed the rag and it blocked her air passage. That obstruction and the constriction of the rope choked her to death. Odoms flashed a light in the warehouse window and saw Deatherage in the spot where Updike’s corpse was found. Deatherage panicked. He wiped off her blood with another rag while he ran to the rear of the warehouse. He tossed the rag on the floor, climbed out a back window, and ran toward his truck. Odoms caught Deatherage before he reached his truck and held him down until Deputy Jones arrived and found Updike’s scarf in Deatherage’s pocket. George argued that there was no reasonable doubt that Deatherage killed Updike. All the evidence pointed to him as the killer and to no one else.

In Swiller’s closing, he stammered through a vague explanation of reasonable doubt, but he gave the jury nothing to hang on that peg.

The jurors retired to the jury room at two thirty. They returned at four fifteen and rendered a verdict of guilty. The next morning George presented evidence in support of the death penalty. Swiller offered no evidence against it. The jury retired and returned shortly before noon with a unanimous vote in favor of a death sentence. Judge Herring entered a sentence of death in a hearing on February 23 and set the execution for July 12. The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals postponed the execution date indefinitely and extended the deadline for filing an appeal to August 10 due to Swiller’s sudden death.

Nate returned the file to the cardboard box, looked out his office window, and thought about the case. He was convinced Deatherage was guilty. A competent defense counsel could have weakened the impact of each separate piece of evidence against Deatherage, but Nate could imagine no coincidence of innocent occurrences that could explain all the evidence taken together. But he was also convinced there was a strong argument for overturning Deatherage’s conviction because Swiller did nothing to defend him. Appellate courts rarely overturned convictions based on inadequate representation at trial, but Swiller’s passivity was in a class by itself. A successful appeal based on the denial of Deatherage’s Sixth Amendment right to competent counsel would force the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to remand the case to the Buck County Circuit Court for a new trial, and Nate would be required to defend Deatherage there. The question hanging over Nate like a poisonous cloud was whether he could force himself to do his best for Deatherage, knowing that he was a murderer.

An attorney’s opinion about guilt or innocence is not supposed to affect his representation of his client, but Nate was having difficulty adjusting his sentiments to his new role as a criminal defense lawyer. He wanted to believe Deatherage was innocent. The day after reviewing the case file, Nate returned to the state penitentiary, hoping to find information that would change his conclusion about Deatherage’s guilt.

The air in Visit A – Max Sec was hot and close. Sweat beaded Deatherage’s brow and upper lip. Nate mopped his own face with a handkerchief. “I want to know the facts surrounding the murder,” Nate said. “Don’t hold anything back. I want to know everything. And no lies. That’s a hard and fast rule with me. If I find out you’ve lied to me, I’ll withdraw from your case. Do you understand me?”

Deatherage nodded. “What do you want to know?”

“Had you ever met Darlene Updike before the night of the murder?”

“I saw her once or twice, but I never met her.”

“Where did you see her?”

“I saw her in a restaurant in Bloxton called the Coal Bin.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. I didn’t even know her name till they charged me with the murder.”

“When did you first see Updike the night of the murder?”

“I found her body in the warehouse after she was killed.”

“What were you doing in the warehouse?”

“I had a fight with my old lady. I ran off and bought a jug of white lightnin. I went to the warehouse to drink my hooch where nobody would bother me.”

“What time did you have the fight with your wife?”

“About eight or nine o’clock the night before I was arrested for killin the girl. I lost my temper. The damn baby was cryin. I told my old lady to shut him up, but she wouldn’t do it. That kid squalls all the time, and she won’t ever shut his damn mouth. That night I lost it and hauled off and hit her. Busted her teeth. I’m not proud of it, but I couldn’t help it. I went plum crazy there for a second or two.”

“Where did you go after you fought with your wife?”

“I drove out to Cecil Garrison’s house. He’s a moonshiner. I bought a jar of white lightnin and drove back to Bloxton. I parked next to the warehouse and sat in my truck and drank.”

“Why did you choose to park at the warehouse to drink?”

“It was a good place to pull a big drunk. There was nobody around.”

“When did you go inside the warehouse?”

“By midnight I was snookered. I went inside to find a place to sleep. I went upstairs, sat under a window, and drank the rest of my hooch. I stretched out on the floor and passed out. I was there all night, sleepin it off.”

“What time did you wake up?”

“I don’t know exactly. It was still dark. About five in the mornin, I guess.”

“What did you do then?”

“When I woke, I heard the woman. ‘Please. Please don’t. Please stop.’”

“Where did the cries come from?”

“Downstairs.”

“What did you do?”

“I got up to go see what was goin on, but I had a sour belly from that hooch. I puked up most of my guts. I sat down to get my strength back. I don’t know how long I sat there, but it was a long spell. When I got up, I didn’t hear the woman’s cries, and I kind of forgot about her. I decided to go home. When I came downstairs, I saw the woman lyin on the mattresses under a window at the front wall.”

Nate paused. “There was no mention of mattresses in the case file.”

“She was on top of a pile of four or five old mattresses when I saw her.”

Nate was skeptical. “No mattresses were mentioned in the deputy sheriff’s report or the medical examiner’s testimony.”

“I know what I saw. She was sprawled on top of a pile of mattresses.”

“Why would there be mattresses in an abandoned warehouse?”

“Callao Coal Company used to own the warehouse. Before they closed the coal mine and pulled out of Buck County, there were beds in the upstairs rooms because the managers from up north stayed in the warehouse when they came to town. After the coal company left town for good, somebody hauled the old mattresses down to that window where I found the girl. They been piled up there for years.”

Nate studied Deatherage’s demeanor. He seemed truthful. Nate decided to move on. “All right. What did you do when you saw Updike?”

“I was rattled by the sight of the girl. She was in awful shape. Clothes torn off of her. Blood comin out her mouth. Bloody cuts around her neck. Face beat up. I wanted to help her awful bad.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried to loosen the rope that was tied around her neck. I fiddled with the stick that was twisted up in the rope, but I couldn’t do any good because my hands shook too bad. I leaned over too far and I fell on the girl. I sank down into those old mattresses and I had a hard time gettin off her and I rolled around on her. When I finally got off her, I had blood on my shirt. I figure that’s how my hair got on her body, too. It was damn dumb to fall on her like that.”

Nate was amazed. Deatherage provided a simple explanation for the partial fingerprint on the mullion, the blood on his shirt, and the presence of his hair on Updike’s corpse. He didn’t believe him, but he gave him credit for resourcefulness. “Did you tell Swiller about falling on Updike?”

“I told Swiller, Darby Jones, Sheriff Feedlow, the sheriff’s secretary, the damn county lawyer, and everybody else I saw, but nobody would listen to me. They were too busy settin me up for the electric chair.”

There was no sign of dissemblance in Deatherage’s face, but Nate’s experience was that deceit did not always show through a practiced mask. “Was Updike alive when you found her?”

“I ran off before I could tell.”

“Why did you run?”

“I saw a light in the window, and I heard sirens. I figured the man with the light was the law, and I knew the law was comin for the girl. I was right there beside her and I figured they’d blame me for it. I ran out the back, came around the warehouse, and high-tailed it toward my truck. I would’ve made it, but Willis Odoms ran me down and stuck a gun in my craw.”

“Why did you have a woman’s scarf in your pocket when Jones arrested you?”

“I didn’t have no scarf in my pocket.”

“Deputy Jones said he found a bloody scarf in your pocket.”

Deatherage shook his finger at Nate. “Now that was a damned lie. I didn’t take that scarf off the girl. She didn’t have no scarf on her when I saw her.”

“Why would the deputy lie?”

“He was part of it. They had it wired to put it on me. Think about it, lawyer. If I killed the woman, I sure as hell wouldn’t run off with her scarf in my pocket. I might as well pin a sign on my chest says ‘Killer.’”

“Some killers take trophies from their victims and use them to revive memories of a killing.”

“Well, I didn’t take no trophy. I didn’t kill her.”

“It’s convenient for you to say Jones planted the scarf. The scarf had blood on it matching Updike’s blood type. It’s damning and you can’t explain it.”

“That’s why Darby Jones told that lie. He set me up. He was part of it.”

“Part of what?”

“Part of the bunch that decided to put the girl’s murder on me. They used that lie to do it. When I told em I fell on the girl, they knew I could explain the blood and hairs so they phonied up that scarf to nail me, and they gave me Swiller as my lawyer to make sure I’d go down without a fight. Judge Herring, the sheriff, Swiller, Odoms, Darby Jones—they were all part of it. They set me up.”

“Why would the authorities in Buck County want to pin the murder on you?”

“Maybe one of em did it or maybe they’re hidin somethin about the murder that makes em look bad. I don’t know. All I know is I was an easy mark. I had nobody to help me and no way to fight back.”

“Why would public officials risk their careers to frame you?”

“You tell me. You did it. You framed the retard, didn’t you?”

Nate put his pen and pad in his briefcase, snapped it shut, and prepared to leave.

“Wait,” Deatherage said. “I’m sorry I said that. I don’t know what you did in Selk County and I don’t care. Don’t walk out on me. Please. Help me fight the bastards in Buck County.” Deatherage leaned forward. “Look. I don’t know who was in on it and I don’t have no way to figure it out because I’ve been locked up since the killin. All I know is Darby Jones lied about that scarf and Swiller wasn’t worth a damn because he didn’t do anything to help me at the trial and Judge Herring just sat there and watched him throw me over. I don’t know who else was part of it but you’re smart and you know how it’s done. Go to Buck County. Talk to em. You can figure out how they did it to me.”

Nate searched Deatherage’s face one last time. He seemed to be telling the truth, but Nate had convicted good liars on less evidence than confronted Deatherage. “I’ll see what I can find out.” He hung up the phone and closed his briefcase.

Deatherage’s expression was hopeful. He raised his hand in a silent farewell. Nate returned the gesture with a tentative wave.

One morning several days later the trial transcript was open before Nate on his desk when Howard Raines walked in. He was an attorney who had opposed Nate many times when Nate was commonwealth’s attorney, and he owned the office building. His office was on the first floor, and he rented Nate’s to him at a low rate to help him get back on his feet. He and Nate were about the same age, but where Nate was tall, lean, and had a full head of hair, Howard was short, stout, and bald.

Although Howard’s specialty was criminal defense, Nate’s wife, Christine, had hired him to file a bill of complaint for divorce against Nate. Nate was representing himself in the proceedings.

“Brought you the mail,” Howard said. He tossed a manila envelope on the desk, shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked out the window. “Pretty day. One of the last cool days before the summer rolls in.” Neither of them said anything for a while. Then Howard said, “You and I need to come to an understanding.”

“About what?”

“Your divorce. You need to face reality.”

Nate turned his back on Howard, looked out the window, and said nothing.

“Look,” Howard said. “I understand what happened. You had a midlife crisis. It was a doozy. Your father was fifty-three when he got cancer and died. You hit fifty-three and you got nervous, I guess.”

“Don’t try to analyze me, Howard. You’re not a psychiatrist.”

“My point is you messed up pretty badly, you drank too much, you did terrible things, things you would never have done sober, and you lost everything. Now you’re trying to regain your reputation and rebuild your legal career. That’s all fine and good, but you can’t regain Christine. You have to let her go.”

Nate turned and faced Howard. “Drop it, Howard. I don’t want to discuss this with you.”

“That’s too bad, damn it. I’m in the thick of your personal problems with you, and believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do.”

“I told you before. I’d much rather have you representing Christine than some stranger who doesn’t care what happens to us. I’m glad you took Christine’s case.”

“Well, I’m not.” Howard sighed heavily. “You broke Christine’s heart, you know.”

“I wish I could take back everything I did, but I can’t change the past.”

“You can control the present. You can agree to finalize your divorce and allow Christine to move on with her life.”

Nate didn’t respond.

Howard said, “Are there any terms you would accept to settle the case?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s high time to end this ordeal, Nate. Christine’s done everything she can to accommodate you. All she’s received in return is truculence. She made a reasonable settlement offer. You rejected it out of hand. She improved her offer, and you rejected that. She wants to be shed of the marriage, but you seem determined to drag out this divorce to no apparent purpose.”

“I’m doing what I have to do.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not ready to settle.”

Howard grimaced. “I owe Christine my best effort, Nate.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to do any less.”

“I hope you understand where this thing is headed if we don’t resolve it. The settlement conference is next Monday. We’ll make a settlement offer to you then. It will be our last offer. If you reject it, I’ll be forced to destroy you at trial. Don’t make me do it.” Howard went to the door and stopped. He stood there with his back to Nate for a few moments and then turned. His eyes glistened. “I know how hard it must be to let her go. You still love her. I can see that, but she doesn’t love you any more, Nate. Prolonging the divorce proceedings won’t save your marriage. You’re only causing her more pain.”

Tears welled in Nate’s eyes. He swiveled his chair around so Howard couldn’t see them. Behind him, he heard Howard’s steps walking away down the hall. Nate wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew Howard was right about his marriage. There was no realistic possibility he could save it. He had hurt Christine in too many ways before they separated, and his actions since their separation had only made matters much worse.

They’d separated the day Judge Blackwell forced Nate to resign from his position as commonwealth’s attorney. He didn’t go home until two in the morning that night, and he was drunk when he parked his car in the driveway of his farm in Whippoorwill Hollow. His home was a two-story yellow frame house. A fist tightened around his heart when he saw a light in the downstairs window. No amount of whiskey could ease the pain of the loss he knew he was about to suffer.

He had broken her heart many times before that night. Christine complained about his drinking, and he lashed out at her. Her criticism intensified and he pushed back harder, belittling and demeaning her. Two years of lying and hiding and bullying had taken their toll. By the time he sat in his driveway staring at the house, Christine’s patience was exhausted; her loyalty destroyed; her faith breeched. The revelation of Nate’s crimes would merely confirm what she already knew: he was no longer the man she loved.

His short confrontation with her that night was seared into his memory. He got out of the car and walked toward the house. The sky had begun to clear and a pale yellow three-quarter moon peeked through a veil of mist, casting a tall blue shadow of Nate across the snow-covered pasture to the barn. As he climbed the porch steps, Christine opened the door and stood in the doorway. Her raven hair was streaked with gray. She was trim and fit and beautiful, even though her eyes were red-rimmed and filled with hurt.

“Is it true?”

Nate didn’t answer.

“What they’re saying about you, is it true?”

“I’m sorry.”

Christine’s eyes brimmed with tears. She turned and ran upstairs. The next day she told him to get out.

That night he gathered all the bottles of whiskey in the house, packed them in a box, and lugged it out to the car. The previous day’s snow had frozen into a crust and his steps broke through it unevenly when he crossed the yard. Down at the barn, the mare trotted to the corral’s fence and stared at Nate, jets of steam blowing from her nostrils. Chloe was Nate’s present to Christine on her fiftieth birthday. He’d blindfolded Christine and led her to Chloe’s stall. When he took off the blindfold, Christine let out a little cry and grabbed Chloe’s neck and kissed her. Then she threw her arms around Nate and kissed him.

Nate looked down at the beautiful bay bathed in moonlight. He wiped a tear away, took a last look at the house and farm, and drove away. Sometime after midnight, about a hundred miles south, he crossed the Starkey County line and drove into the town of Hayesboro, rented a room, and drank until he passed out.

In the coming weeks, he was too ashamed to go home and face all the people he had disappointed, so he hid in Hayesboro and tried to forget all the trappings of his former life—the practice of law, his friends, the farm, his home. And Christine.

When he ran out of cash, he took a job as a night shift desk clerk in a run-down hotel on the edge of Hayesboro’s slums. The pay was meager but it covered his limited needs: room, board, and enough whiskey to numb his pain.

Late at night, six months into Nate’s stay, Howard Raines found him at the hotel’s front desk. Howard withdrew a document from his valise and handed it to Nate. “Christine retained me to file this bill of complaint for divorce.” Nate leafed through it.

“You’ll represent yourself, I suppose,” Howard said.

“I guess so.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

“All right. When you’re ready to talk, give me a call.” Howard started to leave, but halfway across the lobby he stopped and looked back at Nate. “I guess you heard about Jack Tin,” he said.

Jack Tin, the mentally impaired defendant he had convinced to sign a confession to murder, was one of the many memories Nate had tried to kill with whiskey. “No,” he said. “I haven’t followed the case.”

“The sheriff solved the case. Tin is innocent. He didn’t murder anyone.” Nate didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry I brought it up,” Howard said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

Nate folded his hands on top of the counter and looked down at them.

Howard said, “Listen, Nate, you have a great gift. You’re an excellent lawyer. You made a mistake, a big one, but don’t throw your talent away. Come back to Jeetersburg and the practice of law. You have a lot of friends who’ll forgive and forget. There’s still a place for you in Selk County.” Howard turned and walked out the door.

That night in bed Nate gazed at the moonshadows on the ceiling, sipped from a bottle of whiskey, and thought about Howard’s words. A sea of whiskey had pooled in his cells and deadened most of his feelings. He didn’t care about his talent as a lawyer or his friends who might forgive and forget. Whiskey had drowned all that. It was the pain of losing Christine that no anesthesia seemed capable of easing. He still loved her. He loved her more than anything, more than life itself.

The next morning, he packed his bag and drove back to Jeetersburg. He leased a one-room apartment above Sally’s Diner on Lee Street, met with Judge Blackwell, and convinced him to allow Nate to practice law again. Howard rented Nate the office in his building, and the legal work trickled in, but there wasn’t enough to fill Nate’s day. During his downtime, he reviewed Christine’s complaint for divorce, searching for a defense. But there was no defense. If the case moved all the way to a conclusion, a divorce decree would be entered and he would lose her forever. He thought his only hope was to circumvent the court proceedings by persuading her to withdraw the complaint and take him back. She had loved him once. He had to convince her to love him again.

He drafted a presentation to her, similar to a closing argument he would present to a jury at the conclusion of a trial. In his closing, he argued that the burden of years of prosecutions had broken him down and distorted his judgment, but he admitted these were merely mitigating circumstances. They didn’t excuse his behavior. He’d betrayed the public’s trust and destroyed her faith in him. He was abusive, cruel, and selfish. He agreed he deserved to be punished, but the thrust of his argument was that his punishment did not fit his crime. He conceded that losing his position as commonwealth’s attorney, the respect of his peers and the citizenry, and his reputation and good name was fair and just, but he argued that losing Christine was too harsh a penalty.

He argued that he had rested and healed and regained his moral sensibilities during his penance of dark days in Hayesboro, and he contended that he was once again the man he had been before he betrayed Christine’s trust. He begged her to grant him a probationary reconciliation, with full reconciliation to be based upon his good behavior. He would submit to any conditions she desired. He would live in a separate bedroom in their home or in the tack room in the barn. He would agree not to approach her unless invited. She could reacquaint herself with him at her own pace and according to her own standards. She could decide at her sole discretion whether she could trust him again.

Nate became obsessed with his closing. He worked on nothing else for weeks. He revised it, polished it, and rehearsed it. One rainy night in October, he thought he was ready to make his case to Christine, but he was afraid. His life was on the line. He drank a bottle of whiskey to calm his nerves, but his hands still shook. Halfway through a second bottle he got in his car. The rain came down in sheets and lightning flashed like bursts of artillery along the road through Whippoorwill Hollow. Nate’s fear overwhelmed him again when he reached the farm, so he parked beside the road just short of the driveway and finished off the rest of the whiskey.

His memory of what transpired after that was blurred. He remembered Christine meeting him at the door and trying to lock him out, but he shoved his way in. He recalled that she tried to call the sheriff’s office and he snatched the phone out of her hands. The exact sequence of events immediately after that was jumbled and confused. He recalled his great frustration that she wouldn’t listen to his closing and that she kept trying to get away. He remembered grabbing her and trying to hold her in place while she kicked and screamed at him. A lamp fell to the floor and a chair tumbled over.

She slapped him and raked her nails down his face, and rage rose up inside him. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself hit her.

Shaken, he let her go and stepped back and stared at her fearfully. He hadn’t hit her, but he had come close. He loved her more than life itself, but he had come to the very edge of striking her. In that moment, he realized he was lost. The impenetrable shields of denial erected by his alcoholism fell away, and he knew he was not the man he claimed to be in his closing. He had not reformed. He was still a drunk, a liar, and a felon. And he had been on the verge of hitting Christine to bend her to his will, to get what he wanted.

She must have seen in his eyes what he was thinking, because she backed away from him and ran to the door. She opened it and turned back to him. “I hate you!” she said. “I hate you!” And she ran outside.

He staggered out to the porch. In a flash of lightning he saw Christine running down the hill to the barn. His mental faculties receded into an alcoholic fog after that. Only a few disjointed segments of the remainder of the night survived. He recalled wrestling with the steering wheel as his car crashed through a fence and skated down a steep slope. He saw the massive trunk of a fallen tree across the path of the car, but high enough that he thought he might pass under it unharmed. He remembered being alone on his back in a field of grass in pouring rain and seeing red and blue lights flashing above him.

When he regained his senses, he was in bed on his back. A soft light emanated from a bowl-shaped fixture above him. Bandages swathed his head and face and smelled of disinfectant. Tubes ran from his nose and arms to machines standing sentry beside him. To the left of the bed, Judge Blackwell sat slumped in a chair, his head lolling to one side.

Nate swallowed to moisten his powder-dry throat. “Harry,” he said. He saw Judge Blackwell’s eyes open and saw him sit up straight. “Christine,” Nate said. “I want to see Christine. I need to tell her I’m sorry.” His throat closed over and he wept.