Excerpts from THE CLOSING

• The Truth

  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.

• The Divorce

  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.

  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.

• Swiller’s Cas­es

  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.