The Closing: A Whippoorwill Hollow novel (The Whippoorwill Hollow novels) (3 page)

He saw tears in the judge’s eyes, too. “Thank God, son,” he said. “I was afraid we’d lost you.”

Sitting at his desk in his office ten months later, Nate traced the path of his scar with his fingertips and took a deep breath. That was the worst night of Nate’s life. It was the night that extinguished any realistic hope of regaining Christine’s love. He knew Howard was right. Prolonging the divorce proceedings served no purpose. He’d known it that awful night when she said she hated him, but he had not been able to force himself to give her up. He would never voluntarily consent to the entry of a divorce decree. He would stall and hope for a miracle. He would fight for her until the law said he could fight no longer.

Nate’s recuperation from the accident was slow and painful. The trunk of the fallen tree Nate had seen as he sped down the slope had peeled off the top of the car and struck Nate at his hairline, scalping him and splitting open one side of his face. The surgeon found Nate’s scalp folded up at the back of his head. He’d slid it forward to its proper place and sewed Nate’s face back together. The wound healed badly. Tissue on both sides of a crimson gash melded back together unevenly to form a jagged scar that sliced across his forehead just below the hairline and plunged down the side of his face.

Nate thought the events of that night would inflict an indelible scar on his legal career as well. He expected to be prosecuted for assault and trespass for breaking into the house, forcing himself on Christine, grabbing her, and pushing her, and he assumed the Virginia State Bar’s Disciplinary Committee would initiate proceedings to disbar him for those felonies, but Judge Blackwell stepped in again. He persuaded Christine that Nate was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. She agreed not to press charges in exchange for Nate’s stipulation to a restraining order. He was forbidden from contacting her outside of meetings required by the divorce proceedings, and the judge again convinced the county sheriff and the commonwealth’s attorney not to file criminal charges. As a result, no one reported the assault and trespass to the disciplinary committee, and there were no disbarment proceedings.

The judge’s favors came with a price: “From this day forward, you will not drink alcohol. You will meet with me weekly. In each meeting you will affirm that you have remained sober.” Nate did not resist the judge’s demands. There was no argument to be made. The evidence of his alcoholism was incontrovertible. Days after the accident, he had pulled the tubes out of his arms and staggered down the hospital hallway in search of whiskey. The orderlies tied him down. For days he fought against the restraints, begged the doctors for whiskey, and cursed them for not giving it to him. Nate’s body purged the poison from his system during his stay in the hospital, but his craving for alcohol did not abate. Months after his accident, it was all he could think about.

In one of his weekly meetings with Judge Blackwell, Nate said, “The craving is relentless. It gives me no peace.”

“Turn to your work to occupy your mind. Immerse yourself in your caseload.”

“I don’t have a caseload. No one will hire a disgraced ex-prosecutor.”

“You have the court appointments I gave you.”

“A handful of small cases requiring no skill. I sleepwalk through them.”

“What about that death penalty appeal the chief justice called me about? Did you take that case?”

“I took it.”

“Pour your energy into that case.”

“I hate the case.”

“Why?”

“I have the wrong side of it.”

“You’re a lawyer, Nathan, not a judge. Give the defendant your best effort and leave it to the court to decide the case.”

Nate was trying to follow the judge’s advice, but his instincts were those of a prosecutor. Those instincts told him Deatherage was a sadistic rapist and murderer. The morning Howard came to Nate’s office and spoke to him about his divorce, Nate had been trying to concentrate on the Deatherage case despite his revulsion for his client. After Howard left, thoughts of Christine and the mess Nate had made of both their lives crowded everything else out of his mind. A long time passed before he was able to force himself to return his attention to his work.

Nate picked up the envelope Howard had tossed on his desk when he brought Nate the mail and opened it. It contained a legal file and an enclosure letter from Carol Ergenbright of Bloxton. Her letter said the Buck County Circuit Court had appointed her the executrix of Randolph Swiller’s estate and that Swiller’s Deatherage case file was enclosed.

Nate looked through a thin folder. There were copies of a few pleadings from the court file and three pages of notepaper. The first page contained a crude sketch of a judge sitting on the bench and a black man in a witness chair. The second page contained the words “Reasonable Doubt” written in ink in script so large that it filled the entire page. There were elaborate swirls and curlicues adorning the characters of the two words. They had been traced over many times. The only writing on the third page was “Eva Deatherage” and a phone number.

Nate called Carol Ergenbright. “I received your packet. These papers aren’t of much use to me. I need the case file.”

“You have it.”

“That’s impossible. There’s nothing in this file. This is a capital case. The real case file must be voluminous.”

“I’m sorry, Mister Abbitt. I sent you every scrap of paper I could find.”

“There must be more work product somewhere. Are you sure you’ve found all Swiller’s files?”

“I’ve tried my best, but I’m not certain. No one knows where Mister Swiller kept his files. I didn’t know him and I can’t find anyone who knows anything about his business. No one in town seems to have known him well.”

“How did you become the administrator of his estate?”

“He died in testate. The court couldn’t locate any of his relatives. Judge Herring asked me to administer Mister Swiller’s estate in order to close his legal business and transfer his cases to other lawyers. If I’d known how difficult that task would be, I would have refused the assignment. I’ve tried my best to satisfy the needs of Mister Swiller’s clients, but I can’t find complete files. I scoured his office and his apartment, but I found almost nothing. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Did you speak with his secretary?”

“Mister Swiller practiced law alone with no staff. He used an off-site service to answer his phone. The people there didn’t know anything about him. He rented an office in a building near the freight yard where there are no other law offices. None of the lawyers in town socialized with him. He lived in a boarding house near the coal mine. The other boarders didn’t know him. He seems to have had no friends in town. No one has been able to give me any information about him.”

“There should be notes of his witness interviews, information about Deatherage’s background, research of case law about the death penalty. This file you sent me contains nothing but doodles.”

“I understand your concern, Mister Abbitt. I’ve explained the situation over and over again to the other lawyers and they’re just as upset as you are, but I’ve done my best and I don’t know what else to do.”

“What other lawyers?”

“The lawyers the court appointed to replace Mister Swiller on his death penalty cases, Mister Campbell from Appomattox and Mister Garth here in town. Mister Driscoll from Waynesboro. They’ve all said the same thing. There must be more files, but I can’t find them.”

“You mean Swiller represented other capital defendants?”

“Three others.”

Nate stared at the tracings. “Were all Swiller’s capital cases tried in Bloxton?”

“Yes, sir. In the Buck County Circuit Court before Judge Herring.”

“What’s the status of the other cases?”

“They’re in various stages of the death penalty appeal process.”

“Were all Swiller’s capital defendants sentenced to death?”

“Yes, sir. They’re all on death row.”

Nate was troubled. Swiller had offered no defense in the Deatherage case. He appeared to be grossly incompetent, but he had tried three other capital cases.

“Mister Abbitt? Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. Mrs. Ergenbright, when were the other capital cases tried?”

“Well, let me look at my notes. Let’s see. The first one was Otis Banks. He shot the men at the gas station. I believe that was about three years ago. Yes. It says here the Banks case was tried on November 8, 1965. Carl Gibson killed his wife about that same time, but his trial was later on, I think. That’s right. It was February 16, 1966. Then they tried James Washington for killing Mister Hitt in the spring of 1967, I believe. Here it is. April 13, 1967. Then your case, Kenneth Deatherage. That one was tried last winter.”

“Have any other death penalty cases been tried in Buck County since 1965?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t remember hearing about any other murder trials.”

Nate fell silent.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, Mister Abbitt?”

“No, ma’am. Not at the moment.”

Nate hung up the phone. Buck County was a sparsely populated rural county. There were four capital cases tried there in three years. Swiller represented all four defendants. They were all convicted and sentenced to death. Nate wondered what sort of defense, if any, Swiller had provided the other defendants.

Appellate counsel often accepts the facts presented at trial and concentrates on legal issues, but the Deatherage case required a different approach. Swiller had done nothing to develop the facts of the case. To prepare the strongest possible appeal, Nate felt he should investigate the facts anew, as if he were preparing the case for trial. After lunch that same day, he called the office of the Buck County commonwealth’s attorney, George Maupin, spoke with George’s secretary, and scheduled a meeting with him for the next morning. Nate then found Swiller’s note about Eva Deatherage and dialed her number.

“Hello.”

“Mrs. Deatherage?”

“That’s my name. What do you want?” Her voice was gruff and sounded older than he expected.

“I’m Nate Abbitt. I’m a lawyer. I represent your husband.”

“My husband left me near-on to thirty years ago.”

Nate hesitated. “I represent Kenneth Deatherage.”

“Kenny’s my son.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I misunderstood.”

“What do you want?”

“Your son’s lawyer died of a heart attack. I’ve taken his place. I’ll be in Buck County tomorrow. I’d like to meet with you and your son’s wife and any other family members you think could be helpful to me.”

“What for?”

“Well, to be frank, ma’am, your son’s first lawyer didn’t leave me much to work with. He didn’t present any information to the jury about your son’s background. I want to talk with you about what type of young man he was before this tragedy occurred.”

“You get with Kenny yet?”

“Yes, ma’am. I met with him twice.”

“Then you know what kind he is. You don’t need no help from me, and you won’t get none. You won’t get no help from his wife neither. You’re diggin a dry well.”

“Yes, ma’am. Well, I’d appreciate the chance to talk to you about him.”

“No use in talkin about him. I told Judge Herring he killed that girl. There’s nothin more I can do.”

“You talked to Judge Herring about your son?”

“Yes, sir. I told him there’s no doubt Kenny killed that poor girl.”

“How do you know he killed her?”

“Oh, I didn’t see it or anything like that, but I know he killed her. It’s in his nature to cause pain to every livin soul around him. I’m sorry for what happened to that girl, but it ain’t my fault. There was nothin I could do about the way Kenny turned out. He was a bad seed from birth, and it’s a mighty sore point with me. I won’t talk about Kenny to you or no one else, and that’s my last word.” Eva Deatherage hung up the phone.

Mrs. Deatherage’s comments about talking with Judge Herring puzzled Nate even more than her callousness toward her son. Nate’s review of the record revealed that she didn’t testify at any of the hearings or at the trial. If she spoke to Judge Herring, the trial judge, their conversation was outside the court proceedings. Nate had once disqualified a trial judge for conversing with a witness off the record outside the presence of counsel. The rule against ex parte conversations applied to Judge Herring’s contact with Eva Deatherage and should have caused the judge to recuse himself from the trial. Nate was beginning to think Deatherage’s claims of bias were not totally frivolous.

As Nate drove out of Jeetersburg late that afternoon and headed the hundred and thirty miles west to Bloxton, a thunderstorm swept through the region and the temperature fell into the fifties. A steady rain followed the storm and made the mountain road dark, slick, and treacherous.

Buck County lay along the Virginia-West Virginia border, and Bloxton, its county seat, was a small town at the base of Skink Mountain. When geologists discovered a massive vein of coal there in the 1850s, Callao Coal Company bought all the property on the mountain, and Norfolk and Western Railway ran a rail line from Bluefield, Virginia, to the mines, linking them to Roanoke and points east all the way to Norfolk. The town of Bloxton had grown up around the freight depot.

The coal vein was a major supplier of fuel to the nation and to Europe for many years until production petered out in the 1930s and Callao Coal Company shut down its mines, laid off all the miners, and pulled out of Bloxton. In 1968, Buck County was sparsely populated. There were few jobs. Its people were dirt poor, and the county suffered from one of the highest per capita crime rates in the state.

The conditions required Nate to drive slowly and he didn’t reach Bloxton until ten that night. It was still drizzling when he turned off the state highway to the town’s main thoroughfare, Ewell Street. George’s secretary had told Nate the only place in Bloxton that rented rooms to travelers was the Black Gold Motel. The windshield wipers pumped back and forth, whining and thumping as Nate peered through the fogged-up windshield searching for the motel.

Ewell Street dead-ended at the foot of Skink Mountain at the mouth of an abandoned coal mine. The old freight yard stretched out along one side of the street and a five-story dilapidated gray building stood on the other side. In front of the building sat a motel and a signpost with neon tubes that flashed “Bla k Gold otel.”

Nate pulled into a gravel parking lot. A sign over a door in the middle of a line of rooms said “Office” and a placard in its window said “Check In.” He got out of his car, approached the office, and opened its screen door. Its top hinge was detached and the door scraped against the stoop. He pushed the main door open, stepped inside, found a light switch on the wall, and flicked it. An overhead light cast a gray pallor over a sparsely furnished room. A chair with cracked leather upholstery sat beside the door. A plywood counter stood on the other side of the room. A dust-covered rolltop desk rested behind the counter. There was no one in the office. Nate looked out the window. There was no one in sight. There were no cars parked in the lot, and all the motel rooms were dark. There was an Esso station across Ewell Street. The station was closed, but a light shone in a second-floor window above it. Otherwise, the street was dark.

Nate waited, but no one came. Time passed. He didn’t know what to do. He noticed a row of boxes containing room keys in the mouth of the rolltop desk. He rounded the counter to look at the keys and stepped on some papers strewn on the floor. He picked up the papers. They were carbon copies of receipts for renting rooms, dated weeks earlier. “Paid $10. April 18, 1968. Lawrence Driscoll.” Nate knew Driscoll. He was a defense lawyer from Waynesboro. Carol Ergenbright had mentioned that Driscoll took one of Swiller’s death penalty appeals. Nate glanced at the other receipts.

The screen door scraped against the front stoop, the door opened, and a short, squatty old man wearing bib overalls and a red ball cap stepped inside. “What the hell are you doin?”

Nate dropped the receipts onto the desk. “I didn’t know what to do. No one was here.”

“I came soon’s I saw your car. Now get the hell outta there. You ain’t supposed to go behind the counter.”

Nate rounded the counter.

The stumpy old man limped to the desk behind the counter, grabbed a big black book, and plopped it on the countertop. “Ten dollars a night for number three. It’s the one’s got the clean sheets. Five dollars for the other ones. There’s a coin laundry two blocks up Ewell Street if you want to wash the sheets yourself.” The man placed his stubby forearms on the counter and looked at him. The man flinched. He gawked at Nate’s scar until he noticed Nate staring back at him. He looked down at the registration book and then at the window. When he turned back to Nate, his eyes darted back and forth from his scar to his eyes. “So what’ll it be, lawyer? Number three or one of the other ones?”

“How do you know I’m a lawyer?”

“Ain’t you Abbitt? The one who wants em to turn Kenny Deatherage loose?”

“How do you know who I am?”

The old man smiled. Two bottom front teeth were missing and the old man’s tongue rolled into the blank space. “George Maupin’s secretary, Miss Lucy, told me you was comin. Said you’d need a room, so I told Gladys to put the clean sheets in number three.”

“I see. I’ll take number three then.”

The old man handed him the key, and Nate signed the book.

“Name’s W. D. Drinkard. Live across the street above the gas station. You need somethin when I ain’t here, go to the station and tell one of the boys who runs it. Them boys can always find me.”

Nate gave Drinkard a ten-dollar bill. Drinkard retrieved a booklet from the desk and scrawled a receipt. He tore the original receipt and a carbon copy from the booklet, handed the original to Nate, and tossed the copy on the desk.

Nate looked out the window. The rain had slackened to a mist. A tall gray building loomed in the dark beside the motel.

“You’re lookin at the place where he did it.”

“What?”

“That’s where Kenny Deatherage killed the girl. Old warehouse. Callao Coal used the top floors for offices for the big shots and the bottom floor to store equipment and supplies for the coal mine, but they moved out years ago. It’s a stinkin old rattrap today. Walls buckled down. Roof leaks.”

Nate squinted into the darkness. “What’s that little building next to it?”

“Used to be the mine superintendent’s house. Willis Odoms lives in it now. Big old colored boy. Strong as a bull. Willis caught Kenny Deatherage in the dirt road behind this here motel, right behind number three. I saw it all from my window over the gas station. Break of dawn Darby Jones came barrelin down Ewell Street in his patrol car, lights flashin and sirens wailin. Willis had Deatherage down on his belly in the dirt. Darby jumped outta the car, fell on top a Deatherage, and slapped the cuffs on the sumbitch. Then Darby went in the warehouse and found the girl, dead as a mackerel.”

“Did you know Kenneth Deatherage before he was arrested?”

“Everybody knows everybody in Bloxton.”

“What do you think of him?”

“He killed the woman, if that’s what you mean. No slick lawyer can get the bastard off. You’re wastin your time.”

“What did you think of him before he was arrested?”

“He was a good-for-nothin drunkard, but that’s no crime. Lots of drunkards round these parts. I never heard about no serious trouble with Kenny.”

Nate thought about Deatherage’s allegation that Deputy Jones lied about finding a bloody scarf on Deatherage when Jones arrested him. “What’s Deputy Jones’ reputation?” Nate said.

“Good boy. His daddy’s the preacher at Mount Zion Baptist Church. Made him walk the straight and narrow when he was a boy, but Darby loosened up some since then. He drinks a little, cusses some, chases the girls once in a while. Nothin bad. Nothin I didn’t do when I was a young buck.”

“What kind of deputy is he?”

“He’s all right. Only been a lawman a couple years.”

“What did he do before he became a deputy?”

“Army drafted him and sent him off to Vietnam. He was a big hero over there. Came home with a chest full a medals. He was with a bunch got ambushed. Most of em was cut to shreds, but he shot his way out. Took a bullet in his leg, but he kept fightin. When it was all over, his leg was hurt so bad they wouldn’t let him fight no more. Sheriff Feedlow snapped him up soon’s he got back, and he’s been a deputy ever since.”

“Have you heard any complaints about his conduct as a deputy?”

“No complaints about him from the decent folk. I heard tell the bad ones whine to the sheriff about him some.”

“What do they say?”

“The usual malarkey. Slaps em around, kicks em when they’re cuffed, smacks em when they smart-mouth. Nothin worth listenin to.”

A preacher’s son and a war hero, Nate thought. Jones didn’t fit the profile of a corrupt policeman. On the other hand, Nate didn’t fit the profile of a corrupt prosecutor either.

Nate wondered what Drinkard might know about the victim. “Did you know Darlene Updike?”

“Never met the young lady.” Drinkard smiled. His tongue fell into the gap in his teeth.

“I thought everybody knew everybody in Bloxton.”

“She wasn’t from Bloxton.” Drinkard chuckled.

Nate wondered what he thought was humorous. He stared at the registration book on the counter. The motel was the only place to stay in Bloxton and Darlene Updike was from New York. He stepped over to the counter and turned back a page in the registration book. He pointed to an entry. “Darlene Updike signed your book.”

Drinkard closed the book and tossed it on the desk behind him out of Nate’s reach. “I don’t remember nothin about her.” He laughed.

“You don’t seem to do much business here at the Black Gold Motel.”

“People don’t come to Bloxton much these days. We was busy when Callao Coal ran the mine, but they shut her down a long time ago. Now that the coal’s all gone, people don’t have cause to come here no more.”

“With so few guests it seems you’d remember Miss Updike.”

“Gettin old, lawyer. Forgot more’n I ever knew.” Drinkard laughed again.

“Mind if I take another look at your registration book?”

“Can’t do it, lawyer.” Drinkard rolled the top of the desk down to cover the book and the receipts. He locked the rolltop and put the key in his pocket. “People stay at the Black Gold don’t want no lawyers messin in their business. You got to get out now. I got to lock her up and go to bed.”

Nate went outside. A light mist still fell. Drinkard pulled the door shut, locked it, and headed to the gas station.

“She stayed here the night she was murdered, didn’t she?” Nate said.

Drinkard stopped and looked at Nate. He laughed. “Told you, lawyer. Forgot more’n I ever knew.” He squinted at the sky, hustled across Ewell Street, and disappeared from sight behind the gas station.

Nate went to number three. The room was small and bare. The bed smelled of mildew. A naked light bulb hung from the center of the ceiling. No carpet. No wall hangings. The bathroom was a sink with a leaking faucet, a urine-stained toilet, and a shower stall barely large enough to accommodate a man standing sideways.

Once Nate settled in, he pulled the curtain back from the window. Dust billowed from its folds. He looked up and down Ewell Street. The light was still on in the room above the gas station. Otherwise Ewell Street was dark. He gazed at the abandoned warehouse and thought about Deatherage’s claim that he found Updike’s corpse on top of mattresses. Nate turned up his collar against the drizzle and went outside. He retrieved a flashlight from his car, walked across the gravel lot to the warehouse, and stood in a dirt road in front of the building. The warehouse was five stories tall. Its walls were streaked with black stains and most of its windows were broken. He pointed his light at a row of windows on the ground floor. Odoms said he saw Deatherage peering out of one of those windows. Nate walked to a window, flashed his light inside, and moved the light along the floor under the windows. He saw no mattresses. Of course, a year had passed since the murder. Someone could have disposed of the mattresses, if they ever existed.