It doesn’t sound as if she is paying me a compliment.
“Did I run my mouth that much when I was a teenager?” I ask, willing to make a fool of myself to draw her out.
“You always had an excuse,” she says succinctly, “when Tommy beat you in tennis.”
So she was paying attention.
“Which was every time we played,” I complain, good-naturedly.
“Tommy didn’t say much about how you’ve been doing. I’ve got a daughter in college. My wife died from breast cancer when Sarah was in junior high,” I babble, hoping to make her talk.
“So I’ve heard.”
So much for catching up on the life of Connie Ting. What is her problem? I liked the high-school version better.
“Mother’s puttering around in the kitchen,” she says.
“Why don’t you follow me back there?”
Amy, bless her art historian’s soul, would love this house: delicate vases, painted fans, teak furniture, jade, calligraphy, and paintings compose a veritable museum. All of it could be antiques, but, given my knowledge of art, for all I know this stuff may have been won at a carnival by turning a hand crank and dredging up junky trinkets. It looks expensive, but I’m easily fooled about these things.
Mrs. Ting (whom I wouldn’t have recognized) is seated at a yellow kitchen table drinking what appears to be a cup of tea. She is wearing a wind suit which is startlingly similar to the one Angela had on yesterday. Her hair is snow-white and pulled into a tight bun behind her head. Gold-rimmed spectacles magnify her eyes as she looks up at me. Connie asks, “Mother, do you remember Gideon Page? He’d like to visit with you for just a few minutes.”
Connie isn’t going to make this easy. Mrs. Ting gives me such a blank stare that I wonder if she is senile.
“Hello, Mrs. Ting,” I say loudly as if she were deaf, although Connie has spoken in a normal tone.
“How are you? I used to play tennis during the summers with Tommy. He always beat me.”
Mrs. Ting studies my face.
“You look like your grandpa,” she says, her thick accent making the years drop away.
“He saved Willie’s life. He made Willie go to Memphis to have his appendix out.
No hospital around here. Willie almost died.”
I blink, uncomfortable with the irony. My grandfather saved her husband’s life, now, I’m trying to save the life of the man who is charged with killing him. But what did Mr. Carpenter say? My grandfather didn’t cure anybody. Still, he knew enough to opine it wasn’t a stomach ache caused by a bad bowl of rice.
“I’m really sorry about Mr. Ting. I know what a shock it must have been to you.”
I look at Connie, who is leaning back against the dishwasher by the
stove. Like an umpire who has heard one too many players complain after taking a called third strike down the middle, she folds her arms tightly against her chest. One false move and I am out of here. Her mother says bluntly, “Willie didn’t trust lawyers.” It sounds as if she has said, “… Trust rawyers.” I’m glad I don’t have to speak Chinese.
Though I assume Tommy has said to her what I’m about to say, I tell her, “I can understand that, but I want you to know that though I represent the man accused of taking Mr. Ting’s life, I’m interested in knowing the truth, and though I can’t prove it yet, I strongly suspect someone else may have murdered your husband and has framed Class.”
Mrs. Ting looks at me blankly, while Connie interjects, “I thought a defense attorney’s job was to defend his client and let the judge and jury worry about the truth.”
I wish Connie would go shopping or something.
“The way the system works,” I say, repeating what I learned in law school, “is the truth emerges if everyone does their job well.”
Connie rolls her eyes at me.
“Gideon, do you actually think my mother believes that? Look at the O.J. trial. He got away with murder. If you get this Class Bledsoe off, it doesn’t mean you know what the truth is. It means you’ve manipulated the system. We’re not idiots.”
“The system didn’t work in the O.J. trial!” I say with more urgency than conviction.
“The police and forensics work in that case was terrible.”
“Well, what do you think happened here?” Connie asks, hugging her arms tightly. She is full of anger, but I don’t know why. As far as I could tell. Tommy wasn’t.
“I don’t know yet, but I think Paul Taylor could have been part of a plot to frame my client,” I say candidly, and repeat what I told Tommy, though I’ve no doubt he has already given her that part of our conversation, too.
“I think that’s crazy,” Connie says, shaking her head when I am finished.
“Paul didn’t know he was being taped, so why should he go to the trouble of setting up somebody who wouldn’t have had a motive? They didn’t make it look like a robbery, no money was taken that I’ve heard.
I haven’t heard that Class Bledsoe hated my father.
By all accounts, he got along with him okay. He obviously killed him for the money that Paul Taylor must have paid him.”
Or for the eventual ownership of Oldham’s Barbecue, I think, but don’t say.
“I think it’s a mistake to underestimate Paul Taylor,” I say, not having an answer for her.
“He’s more devious than you think.” She has a point. Why would somebody choose to set up Bledsoe? It occurs to me that maybe the person who did kill Willie hated Bledsoe for some reason and wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. If that’s true, it doesn’t eliminate Paul from the picture.
“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Ting says quietly, her arms resting on the table, “why anyone would kill my husband if it wasn’t to get the plant.
Everyone respected him.”
i look at this frail, worn-out old woman and blanch at the thought of suggesting to a jury she killed her husband. I was her son’s friend and I can remember the shy but friendly smile she gave me whenever I came into the store. I don’t think I’ll be seeing it again.
“Paul’s lawyer wants me to argue,” I say, watching her face, “that you killed your husband, Mrs. Ting.”
“My God!” Connie gasps as her mother bursts into tears and stumbles out of the kitchen. Connie runs after her, leaving me alone for a moment as I hear her wailing behind a closed door.
I regret having upset her, but don’t feel I have any choice if I am to convince this family to cooperate with me. I am walking a fine line here, but no jury will believe for a moment that this frail, sick woman would have been able to murder her husband without some physical evidence of a struggle.
Connie returns and confronts me across the table.
“Is that what you’re going to do? If I had known this, I wouldn’t have let you set foot in this house. How dare you come here and accuse my mother!”
I say quickly, “I haven’t accused her of anything, Connie. This is Paul’s strategy, not mine.” I don’t have the guts to say that I might have to argue this if I don’t have anything better.
“So why are you here?” she says, her voice high with exasperation.
“Because I need your help,” I say, wondering how I can convince her.
“All I’m really asking for is not to be hindered in any conversations I have with Southern Pride’s workers. I think Tommy understands this.”
“Tommy doesn’t understand anything,” she says shortly.
I don’t know what she means by this and don’t want to anger her any more than I already have.
“All I want is for you and Tommy to think about letting me really try to see if anyone else could have done this. Imagine how horrible you would feel if somebody else gets away with your father’s murder.”
“The sheriff has already conducted an investigation,” she says, but the rage has already left her voice.
“I know,” I say, “but what happens in these situations is that there is a lot of pressure in a high-profile case like this to get a conviction,