“And you knew?”
“Let’s say I suspected, but we don’t have the manpower to investigate something this unbelievable. My wagon is fully loaded with deadlines elsewhere. Tad, though, always knew it was an ambush, and he was making some pretty wild accusations when he fired us. I think he was onto something. Again, the poor kid was so mentally unbalanced it was hard take him seriously.”
“What are the chances it was not a suicide?”
Amos grunted and wiped his nose with the back of a sleeve. “I would bet good money, and I don’t have much, that Tad didn’t die by his own hand. I’ll speculate and say that the authorities wanted to keep him quiet until they could kill him properly in July. And we’ll never know because the investigation, if you could call it that, will be a whitewash. There’s no way to find the truth, Mitch. Another one’s gone and nobody cares.” He sniffled and wiped his eyes again.
“I’m sorry.” Mitch was somewhat surprised that a lawyer who had lost twenty clients to executions would be so emotional. Wouldn’t you get callous and jaded after a few? He had no plans to find out. His time in this little corner of the pro bono world had just come to an end.
“And I’m sorry too, Mitch. Sorry you made the trip down.”
“No problem. It was worth it to meet you and see your office.”
Amos waved at the overhead door attached to the ceiling. “Whatta you think? Who else practices law in an old Pontiac place. Betcha don’t have one of these in New York.”
“Probably not.”
“Give it a try. We have an opening, guy quit last week.”
Mitch smiled and suppressed a laugh. No offense, but the salary would be less than his property taxes in Manhattan. “Thanks, but I’ve tried Memphis.”
“I remember. The Bendini story was a big one around here for a while. An entire firm blows up and everybody goes to prison. Who could forget it? But your name was hardly mentioned.”
“I got lucky and got out.”
“And you’re not coming back.”
“And I’m not coming back.”
Chapter 4
In his rental car, Mitch called his secretary and asked her to change his travel plans. He’d missed the morning nonstop to LaGuardia. Connecting flights would take hours and send him crisscrossing most of the country. There was a direct from Nashville at 5:20 and she got him a ticket. Getting to the airport would dovetail nicely with an idea he’d been kicking around.
The traffic thinned and Memphis was behind him before an unexpected wave of exhilaration hit hard. He had just dodged an awful experience, and the rogue DEA subplot was enough to give a lawyer ulcers, at best. He had taken one for the team, notched a huge favor with Willie Backstrom, and was fleeing Memphis again, this time without threats and other baggage.
With plenty of time, he stayed on the two-lane highways and enjoyed a peaceful drive. He ignored some calls from New York, checked in with Abby, and loafed at fifty miles an hour. The town of Sumrall was two hours east of Memphis, one hour west of Nashville. It was the county seat and had a population of 18,000, a big number for that part of the rural South. Mitch followed the signs and soon found himself on Main Street, which was one side of the town square. A well-preserved nineteenth-century courthouse sat in the center of the square with statues, gazebos, monuments, and benches scattered about, all protected by the shade of massive oak trees.
Mitch parked in front of a dress shop and walked around the square. As always, there was no shortage of lawyers and small firms. Again he wondered why his old friend would choose such a life.
They met at Harvard in the late fall of Mitch’s third year, when the most prestigious law firms made their annual trek to the school. The recruiting game was the payoff, not for hard work because that was the drill at every law school, but for being smart and lucky enough to get accepted to Harvard. For a poor kid like Mitch, the recruiting was especially thrilling because he could smell money for the first time in his life.
Lamar had been sent with the team because he was only seven years older than Mitch, and a more youthful image was always important. He and his wife, Kay, had embraced the McDeeres as soon as they arrived in Memphis.
There had been no contact in fifteen years. The internet made it easy to snoop around and see what folks were doing, especially lawyers, who as a breed, and regardless of their success or lack of it, enjoyed all the attention they could generate. It was good for business. Lamar’s website was rather simple, but then so was his practice: the bland offering of deeds, wills, no-fault divorces, property transactions, and, of course, Personal Injuries!! Every small-town lawyer dreamed of landing some good car wrecks.
There was no mention of such unpleasantries as Lamar’s indictment, guilty plea, and prison sentence.
His office was above a sporting goods store. Mitch lumbered up the creaky steps, took a deep breath, and opened the door. A large woman behind a computer screen paused and offered a sweet smile. “Good morning.”
“Good morning. Is Lamar around?”
“He’s in court,” she said, nodding behind her in the general direction of the courthouse.
“A trial?”
“No, just a hearing. Should be over soon. Can I help you?”
Mitch handed her a Scully business card and said, “Name’s Mitch McDeere. I’ll try to catch him over there. Which courtroom?”
“There’s only one. Second floor.”
“Right. Thanks.”
It was a handsome courtroom of the old variety: stained wood trimmings, tall windows, portraits of white, dead, male dignitaries on the walls. Mitch eased in and took a seat on the back row. He was the only spectator. The judge was gone and Lamar was chatting with another lawyer. When he finally saw Mitch he was startled, but kept talking. When he finished he slowly made his way down the center aisle and stopped at the end of the row. It was almost noon and the courtroom was empty.
They watched each other for a moment before Lamar asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Just passing through.” It was a sarcastic response. Only a lost idiot would be passing through such a backwater place as Sumrall.
“I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”
“I was in Memphis last night, had some business that got canceled. My flight is out of Nashville in a few hours so I made the drive. Thought I’d stop by and say hello.”
Lamar had lost so much hair he was hardly recognizable. What remained was gray. Like a lot of men, he was trying to replace the thinness on top with the thickness of a beard. But it too was gray, as it usually is, and only added to the aging. He eased down the row in front of Mitch, stopped ten feet away, and leaned on the pew in front. He had yet to smile and asked, “Anything in particular you want to discuss?”
“Not really. I think about you occasionally and just wanted to say hello.”
“Hello. You know, Mitch, I think about you too. I spent twenty-seven months in a federal pen because of you, so you’re rather hard to forget.”
“You spent twenty-seven months in a federal pen because you were a willing member of a criminal conspiracy, one that tried its best to entice me to join. I managed to escape, barely. You got a grudge, so do I.”
In the background a clerk walked in front of the bench. They watched her and waited until she was gone, then resumed staring at each other.
Lamar gave a slight shrug and said, “Okay, fair enough. I did the crime and did the time. It’s not something I dwell on.”
“I’m not here to start trouble. I was hoping we could have a pleasant chat and bury the hatchet, so to speak.”
Lamar took a deep breath and said, “Well, if nothing else, I admire you for being here. I thought I’d never see you again.”