John Grisham: The Rainmaker

“Don’t mention it.” He and Hamlet kick their chairs back and stomp toward the door. “You got five minutes,” he says over his shoulder. They slam the door.

“Don’t make any moves, okay,” I say under my breath. “They’re watching through that window. And this place is probably bugged, so be careful what you say.”

She doesn’t say anything.

I continue in my role as the lawyer. “I’m sorry this happened,” I say stiffly.

“What does manslaughter mean?”

“Means a lot of things, but basically it’s murder without the element of intent.”

“How much time could I get?”

“You have to be convicted first, and that’s not going to happen.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Are you scared?”

She carefully wipes her eyes, and thinks for a long time. “He has a large family, and they’re all just like him. All heavy-drinking, violent men. I’m scared to death of them.”

I can’t think of anything to say to this. I’m scared of them too.

“They can’t make me go to the funeral, can they?”

“No.”

“Good.”

They come for her a few minutes later, and this time they use handcuffs. I watch them lead her down the hall. They stop at an elevator, and Kelly strains around one of the cops to see me. I wave slowly, then she’s gone.

When you commit a murder you make twenty-five mistakes. If you can think of ten of them, then you’re a genius. At least that’s what I heard in a movie once. It wasn’t actually a murder but more of an act of self-defense. The mistakes, though, are beginning to add up.

I pace around my desk at the office, which is covered with neat rows of yellow legal paper. I’ve diagrammed the apartment, the body, the clothes, the gun, the bat, the beer cans, everything that I can remember. I’ve sketched the position of my car, her car and his truck in the parking lot. I’ve written pages recalling every step and every event of the evening. My best guess is that I was in the apartment for less than fifteen minutes but on paper it looks like a thin novel. How many screams or yells that were capable of being heard from the outside? No more than four, I think. How many neighbors saw a strange man leave just after the screams? Who knows.

That, I think, was mistake number one. I shouldn’t have left so soon. I should have waited for ten minutes or so to see if the neighbors heard anything. Then I should have eased into the darkness.

Or maybe I should have called the cops and told the truth. Kelly and I had every right to be in the apartment. It’s obvious he was lying in ambush somewhere nearby at a time when he should have been elsewhere. I was well within my rights to fight back, to disarm him and to hit him with his own weapon. Given his violent nature and history, no jury in the world would convict me. Plus, the only other witness would be squarely on my side.

So why didn’t I stay? She was pushing me out of the door for one thing, and it just seemed like the best course of action. Who can think rationally when, in the span of fifteen seconds, you go from being brutally attacked to being a killer?

Mistake number two was the lie about her car. I drove through the parking lot after I left the police station, and found her Volkswagen Rabbit and his four-wheel-drive pickup. This lie will work if no one tells the cops that her car hasn’t been moved in days.

But what if Cliff and a friend somehow disabled her car while she was at the shelter, and this friend comes forth in a few hours and talks to the cops? My imagination runs wild.

The worst mistake that’s hit me in the past four hours is the lie about the phone call Kelly allegedly made to me after she dialed 911. This was my excuse for being at the police station so quick. It’s an incredibly stupid lie because there is no record of the call. If the cops check the phone records, I’m in serious trouble.

Other mistakes pop up as the night wears on. Fortunately, most are the result of a scared mind, most go away after careful analysis and sufficient scribbling on the legal pad.

I allow Deck to sleep until five before I wake him. An hour later he’s at the office with coffee. I give him my version of the story, and his initial response is beautiful. “No jury in the world will convict her,” he says, without a doubt.

“The trial is one thing,” I say. “Getting her out of jail is another.”

We formulate a plan. I need records — arrest reports, court files, medical records and a copy of their first divorce filing. Deck can’t wait to gather the dirt. At seven, Deck goes out for more coffee and a newspaper.

The story is on page three of Metro, a brief three paragraphs with no photo of the deceased. It happened too late last night to be much of a story. WIFE ARRESTED IN HUSBAND’S DEATH is the headline, but Memphis has three of these a month. If I wasn’t searching for it I wouldn’t see it.

I call Butch and raise him from the dead. He’s a late-nighter, single after three divorces, and likes to close down bars. I tell him that his pal Cliff Riker has met an untimely death, and this seems to perk him up. He’s at the office shortly after eight, and I explain that I want him to scour the area around the apartment and see if anybody saw or heard anything. See if the cops are on the scene doing the same thing. Butch cuts me off. He’s the investigator. He knows what to do.

I call Booker at the office and explain that a divorce client of mine killed her husband last night, but she’s really a sweet girl and I want her out of jail. I need his help. Marvin Shankle’s brother is a criminal court judge, and I want him to either release her on recognizance or set a ridiculously low bond.

“You’ve gone from a fifty-million-dollar verdict to a sleazy divorce case?” Booker asks jokingly.

I manage a laugh. If he only knew.

Marvin Shankle is out of town, but Booker promises to start making calls. I leave the office at eight-thirty and speed toward downtown. Throughout the night, I’ve tried to avoid the thought of Kelly in a jail cell.

I enter the Shelby County Justice Complex and go straight for the office of Lonnie Shankle. I’m greeted with the news that Judge Shankle, like his brother, is out of town, and won’t return until late afternoon. I make a few phone calls and try to locate Kelly’s paperwork. She was just one of dozens arrested last night, and I’m sure her file is still at the police station.

I meet Deck at nine-thirty in the lobby. He has the arrest records. I send him to the police station to locate her file.

The Shelby County District Attorney’s office is on the third floor of the complex. It has over seventy prosecutors in five divisions. Domestic Abuse has only two, Morgan Wilson and another woman. Fortunately, Morgan Wilson is in her office, it’s just a matter of getting back there. I flirt with the receptionist for thirty minutes, and to my surprise, it works.

Morgan Wilson is a stunning woman of about forty. She has a firm handshake and a smile that says, “I’m busy as hell. Get on with it.” Her office is impossibly stacked with files, but very neat and organized. I get tired just looking at all this work to be done. We take our seats, then, it hits her.

“The fifty-million-dollar guy?” she says, with a much different smile now.

“That’s me.” I shrug. It was just another day’s work.

“Congratulations.” She’s visibly impressed. Ah, the price of fame. I suspect she’s doing what every other lawyer is doing — calculating one third of fifty million.

She earns forty thousand a year max, so she wants to talk about my good fortune. I give a brief review of the trial and what it was like when I heard the verdict. I wrap it up quickly, then tell her why I’m here.