Three Classic Thrillers (141 page)

He finished his shower, didn’t shave, and walked to the kitchen where the syrupy remains of the first pot of coffee awaited him. Lee had been up for some time. He called her name, then walked to her bedroom. He quickly checked the patio, then roamed through the condo. She was not there. The Sunday paper was stacked neatly on the coffee table in the den.

He fixed fresh coffee and toast, and took his breakfast on the patio. It was almost nine-thirty, and thankfully the sky was cloudy and the temperature was not suffocating. It would be a good Sunday for office work. He read the paper, starting with the front section.

Perhaps she’d run to the store or something. Maybe she’d gone to church. They hadn’t yet reached the point of leaving notes for each other. But there’d been no talk of Lee going anywhere this morning.

He’d eaten one piece of toast with strawberry jam when his appetite suddenly vanished. The front page of the Metro section carried another story on Sam
Cayhall, with the same picture from ten years ago. It was a chatty little summary of the past week’s developments, complete with a chronological chart giving the important dates in the history of the case. A cute question mark was left dangling by the date of August 8, 1990. Would there be an execution then? Evidently, Todd Marks had been given unlimited column inches by the editors because the story contained almost nothing new. The disturbing part was a few quotes from a law professor at Ole Miss, an expert in constitutional matters who’d worked on many death penalty cases. The learned professor was generous with his opinions, and his bottom line was that Sam’s goose was pretty much cooked. He’d studied the file at length, had followed it for many years in fact, and was of the opinion that there was basically nothing left for Sam to do. He explained that in many death penalty cases, miracles can sometimes be performed at the last moment because usually the inmate has suffered from mediocre legal representation, even during his appeals. In those cases, experts such as himself can often pull rabbits out of hats because they’re just so damned brilliant, and thus able to create issues ignored by lesser legal minds. But, regrettably, Sam’s case was different because he had been competently represented by some very fine lawyers from Chicago.

Sam’s appeals had been handled skillfully, and now the appeals had run their course. The professor, evidently a gambling man, gave five to one odds the execution would take place on August 8. And for all of this, the opinions and the odds, he got his picture in the paper.

Adam was suddenly nervous. He’d read dozens of death cases in which lawyers at the last minute grabbed ropes they’d never grabbed before, and convinced judges to listen to new arguments. The lore of capital
litigation was full of stories about latent legal issues undiscovered and untapped until a different lawyer with a fresh eye entered the arena and captured a stay. But the law professor was right. Sam had been lucky. Though Sam despised the lawyers at Kravitz & Bane, they had provided superb representation. Now there was nothing left but a bunch of desperate motions, the gangplank appeals, as they were known.

He flung the paper on the wooden deck and went inside for more coffee. The sliding door beeped, a new sound from a new security system installed last Friday after the old one malfunctioned and some keys mysteriously disappeared. There was no evidence of a break-in. Security was tight at the complex. And Willis didn’t really know how many sets of keys he kept for each unit. The Memphis police decided the sliding door had been left unlocked and slipped open somehow. Adam and Lee had not worried about it.

He inadvertently struck a glass tumbler next to the sink, and it shattered as it hit the floor. Bits of glass bounced around his bare feet, and he tiptoed gingerly to the pantry to get a broom and dustpan. He carefully swept the debris, without bloodshed, into a neat pile and dumped it into a wastebasket under the sink. Something caught his attention. He slowly reached into the black plastic garbage bag, and felt his way through warm coffee grounds and broken glass until he found a bottle and pulled it out. It was an empty pint of vodka.

He raked the coffee grounds from it and studied the label. The trash basket was small and normally emptied every other day, sometimes once a day. It was now half-filled. The bottle had not been there long. He opened the refrigerator and looked for the remaining three bottles of beer from yesterday’s six-pack. She’d had two en route back to Memphis, then one at the condo. He did not remember where they had been
stored, but they were not in the refrigerator. Nor in the trash in the kitchen, den, bathrooms, or bedrooms. The more he searched the more determined he became to find the bottles. He inspected the pantry, the broom closet, the linen closet, the kitchen cabinets. He went through her closets and drawers, and felt like a thief and a cheat but pressed on because he was scared.

They were under her bed, empty of course, and carefully hidden in an old Nike shoe box. Three empty bottles of Heineken stacked neatly together, as if they were to be shipped somewhere as a gift. He sat on the floor and examined them. They were fresh, with a few drops still rolling around the bottoms.

He guessed her weight to be around a hundred and thirty pounds, and her height at five feet six or seven. She was slender but not too thin. Her body couldn’t handle much booze. She’d gone to bed early, around nine, then at some point sneaked around the condo fetching beer and vodka. Adam leaned against the wall, his mind racing wildly. She’d given much thought to the hiding of the green bottles, but she knew she’d get caught. She had to know Adam would look for them later. Why hadn’t she been more careful with the empty pint bottle? Why was it hidden in the trash, and the beer bottles tucked away under her bed?

Then he realized he was attempting to track a rational mind, instead of a drunk one. He closed his eyes and tapped the back of his head against the wall. He’d taken her to Ford County, where they looked at graves and relived a nightmare, and where she’d worn sunglasses to hide her face. For two weeks now, he’d been demanding family secrets and yesterday he’d been kicked in the face with a few. He needed to know, he’d told himself. He wasn’t certain why, but he just felt as if he had to know the reasons his family was strange and violent and hateful.

And now, it occurred to him for the first time, perhaps this was much more complicated than the casual telling of family stories. Perhaps this was painful for everyone involved. Maybe his selfish interest in closeted skeletons wasn’t as important as Lee’s stability.

He slid the shoe box back to its original position, then threw the vodka bottle in the wastebasket for the second time. He dressed quickly and left the building. He asked the gate man about Lee. According to a sheet of paper on his clipboard, she’d left almost two hours ago, at eight-ten.

______

It was customary for lawyers at Kravitz & Bane in Chicago to spend Sunday at the office, but evidently the practice was frowned upon in Memphis. Adam had the place entirely to himself. He locked his door anyway, and was soon lost in the murky legal world of federal habeas corpus practice.

His concentration, though, was difficult and only lasted for short intervals. He worried about Lee, and he hated Sam. It would be difficult to look at him again, probably tomorrow, through the metal screen at the Row. He was frail and bleached and wrinkled, and by all rights entitled to a little sympathy from someone. Their last discussion had been about Eddie, and when it ended Sam had asked him to leave the family stuff outside the Row. He had enough on his mind at the moment. It wasn’t fair to confront a condemned man with his ancient sins.

Adam was not a biographer, nor a genealogist. He hadn’t been trained in sociology or psychiatry, and, frankly, he was, at the moment, quite weary of further expeditions into the cryptic history of the Cayhall family. He was simply a lawyer, a rather green one, but an advocate nonetheless whose client needed him.

It was time to practice law and forget the folklore.

At eleven-thirty, he dialed Lee’s number and listened to the phone ring. He left a message on the recorder, telling her where he was and would she please call. He called again at one, and at two. No answer. He was preparing an appeal when the phone rang.

Instead of Lee’s pleasant voice, he heard the clipped words of the Honorable F. Flynn Slattery. “Yes, Mr. Hall, Judge Slattery here. I’ve carefully considered this matter, and I’m denying all relief, including your request for a stay of execution,” he said, almost with a trace of cheer. “Lots of reasons, but we won’t go into them. My clerk will fax you my opinion right now, so you’ll have it in a moment.”

“Yes sir,” Adam said.

“You’ll need to appeal as soon as possible, you know. I suggest you do so in the morning.”

“I’m working on the appeal now, Your Honor. In fact, it’s almost finished.”

“Good. So you were expecting this.”

“Yes sir. I started working on the appeal right after I left your office on Tuesday.” It was tempting to take a shot or two at Slattery. He was, after all, two hundred miles away. But he was also, after all, a federal judge. Adam was very aware that one day very soon he might need His Honor again.

“Good day, Mr. Hall.” And with that, Slattery hung up.

Adam walked around the table a dozen times, then watched the light rain on the Mall below. He swore quietly about federal judges in general and Slattery in particular, then returned to his computer where he stared at the screen and waited for inspiration.

He typed and read, researched and printed, looked from his windows and dreamed of miracles until it was dark. He had killed several hours with footless piddling,
and one reason he worked until eight o’clock was to give Lee plenty of time to return to the condo.

There was no sign of her. The security guard said she had not returned. There was no message on the recorder, other than his. He dined on microwave popcorn, and watched two movies on video. The idea of calling Phelps Booth was so repugnant he nearly shuddered at the thought.

He thought of sleeping on the sofa in the den so he would hear her if she came home, but after the last movie he retired to his room upstairs and closed the door.

T
he explanation for yesterday’s disappearance was slow in coming, but sounded plausible by the time she finished with it. She’d been at the hospital all day, she said as she moved slowly around the kitchen, with one of her kids from the Auburn House. Poor little girl was only thirteen, baby number one but of course there would be others, and she had gone into labor a month early. Her mother was in jail and her aunt was off selling drugs, and she had no one else to turn to. Lee’d held her hand throughout the complicated delivery. The girl was fine and the baby was okay, and now there was another unwanted little child in the Memphis ghettos.

Lee’s voice was scratchy and her eyes were puffy and red. She said she’d returned a few minutes after one, and she would’ve called earlier but they were in the labor room for six hours and the delivery room for two. St. Peter’s Charity Hospital is a zoo, especially the maternity wing, and, well, she just couldn’t get to a phone.

Adam sat in his pajamas at the table, sipping coffee and studying the paper as she talked. He hadn’t asked for the explanation. He tried his best to act unconcerned about her. She insisted on cooking breakfast: scrambled eggs and canned biscuits. And she was doing a good job of busying herself in the kitchen as she talked and avoided eye contact.

“What’s the kid’s name?” he asked seriously as if he was deeply concerned with Lee’s story.

“Uh, Natasha. Natasha Perkins.”

“And she’s only thirteen?”

“Yes. Her mother is twenty-nine. Can you believe it? A twenty-nine-year-old grandmother.”

Adam shook his head in disbelief. He happened to be looking at the small section of the Memphis Press where it registered the county’s vital records. Marriage licenses. Divorce petitions. Births. Arrests. Deaths. He scanned the list of yesterday’s births as if he were checking scores, and found no record of a new mother named Natasha Perkins.

Lee finished her struggle with the canned biscuits. She placed them on a small platter along with the eggs and served them, then sat at the other end of the table, as far away from Adam as possible. “Bon appétit,” she said with a forced smile. Her cooking was already a rich source of humor.

Adam smiled as if everything was fine. They needed humor at this moment, but wit failed them. “Cubs lost again,” he said, taking a bite of eggs and glancing at the folded newspaper.

“The Cubs always lose, don’t they?”

“Not always. You follow baseball?”

“I hate baseball. Phelps turned me against every sport known to man.”

Adam grinned and read the paper. They ate without talking for a few minutes, and the silence grew heavy. Lee punched the remote and the television on the counter came on and created noise. They were both suddenly interested in the weather, which was again hot and dry. She played with her food, nibbling on a half-baked biscuit and pushing the eggs around her plate. Adam suspected her stomach was feeble at the moment.

He finished quickly and took his plate to the kitchen sink. He sat again at the table to finish the paper. She
was staring at the television, anything to keep her eyes away from her nephew.

“I’ll probably go see Sam today,” he said. “I haven’t been in a week.”

Her gaze fell to a spot somewhere in the middle of the table. “I wish we hadn’t gone to Clanton Saturday,” she said.

“I know.”

“It was not a good idea.”

“I’m sorry, Lee. I insisted on going, and it was not a good idea. I’ve insisted on a lot of things, and maybe I’ve been wrong.”

“It’s not fair—”

“I know it’s not fair. I realize now that it’s not a simple matter of learning family history.”

“It’s not fair to him, Adam. It’s almost cruel to confront him with these things when he has only two weeks to live.”

“You’re right. And it’s wrong to make you relive them.”

“I’ll be fine.” She said this as if she certainly wasn’t fine now, but there might be a bit of hope for the future.