Джон Гришэм - A Time for Mercy

“Are you taking medication for pain?”

“Just some ibuprofen.”

“Okay. Can we start with you and your background, that sort of thing?”

Jake immediately interrupted with “Let’s try this. We’re working on what we hope to be a complete biographical sketch of the Gamble family. Birthdates, birthplaces, homes, addresses, marriages, employers, relatives, criminal records, the good, the bad, the ugly. Some of it they remember, some is not so clear. We need it for our side. Portia is in charge of it and it has priority. When it is complete we’ll give you a copy. Full disclosure. You can read it and if you then want to interrogate these witnesses again, we’ll talk about it. This will save us at least an hour today and there won’t be any gaps. Fair enough?”

Rady and Ozzie exchanged looks, skeptical ones. Ozzie said, “We’ll try it.”

Rady flipped a page and said, “Okay, let’s go back to Saturday night, March 24, just over a week ago. Can you tell us what happened? Tell us your story about that night.”

Josie took a sip of water through a straw and glanced nervously at Jake, who had given her strict instructions about what to cover and what to leave alone. She began with “Well, it was late, and Stu wasn’t home.” As instructed, she spoke slowly, and seemed to struggle with each word. The swelling didn’t help. She described what it was like to wait and wait while expecting the worst. She was downstairs. The kids were upstairs in their bedrooms, awake, waiting, afraid. Stu finally came home around two, very drunk, belligerent as usual, and they had a fight. She got hit and woke up in the hospital.

“You said ‘drunk as usual.’ Did Stu often come home drunk?”

“Yes, he was out of control. We had lived there about a year, and his drinkin’ was a real problem.”

“Do you know where he had been that night?”

“No, he would never tell me that.”

“But you knew he hung out in bars and such, right?”

“Oh, yes. I went with him a few times, in the earlier days, but I stopped because he would get in fights.”

Rady was careful here because the sheriff’s department was still looking for paperwork. On two occasions, Josie had called the dispatcher and said she was being beaten by Stuart Kofer. But when the deputies showed up, she refused to press charges. The reports were filed and then they disappeared. Jake would probably learn about this down the road, and Ozzie did not look forward to those questions. Missing paperwork, a cover-up, a sheriff’s department looking the other way while one of its own spiraled out of control. Jake would make them bleed in the courtroom.

“Didn’t you meet in a bar?”

“We did.”

“Around here?”

“No, it was a club up around Holly Springs.”

Rady paused and struggled with his notes. The wrong question could provoke the wrath of Jake. “So, you don’t remember the shooting?”

“No.” She shook her head and stared at the table.

“Didn’t hear a thing?”

“No.”

“Have you talked to your son since the shooting?”

She took a deep breath and fought to keep her composure. “We spoke by phone last night, the first time. He’s down in Whitfield, but you probably know that. Said the sheriff here drove him down on Friday.”

“How’s he doing, if I may ask?”

She shrugged and looked away. Jake helped out with “Just so you’ll know. I’ve talked to the counselors down there. Josie and Kiera will go to Whitfield tomorrow, the preacher is taking them, and they’ll see Drew and meet with the people who are treating him. It seems to be very important that they, the doctors, talk to the family and get the background.”

Ozzie and Rady nodded their approval. Rady flipped a page and read some of his notes. “Did Stu ever take Drew hunting?”

Josie shook her head. “He took him fishin’ once, but it didn’t go well.”

A long pause. No details were coming. “What happened?” Rady asked.

“Drew was usin’ one of Stu’s rods and he hooked a big fish that bit hard and ran and yanked the rod out of Drew’s hands. It was gone. Stu had been drinkin’ beers and he flew hot, hit Drew, made him cry. That was their only fishin’ trip.”

“Did he take him hunting?”

“No. You gotta understand that Stu didn’t want my kids to begin with, and the longer they stayed the more he resented them. The whole situation was slowly blowin’ up. His drinkin’, my kids, fights over money. The kids were beggin’ me to leave but we had no place to go.”

“To your knowledge, had Drew ever fired a gun before?”

She paused and caught her breath. “Yeah, one time Stu took him out behind the barn and they shot at targets. I don’t know which gun they used. Stu had a bunch of them, you know? It didn’t work out too well because Drew was afraid of guns and couldn’t hit anything and Stu laughed at him.”

“You said he hit Drew. Did that happen more than once?”

Josie glared at Rady and said, “Sir, it happened all the time. He hit all of us.”

Jake leaned forward and said, “We’re not going into the physical abuse today, guys. There was a lot of it, and we’ll detail it in our summary. It might be a factor in a trial, or it might not be. But as for now, we’re skipping it.”

Fine with Ozzie. What was offered as proof at trial was the business of the district attorney, not the sheriff. But what a messy trial it could be.

He said, “Look, since this is the first of these visits, let’s just hit the high points and move on. We’ve established that you, Josie, were unconscious when the shooting occurred. We didn’t know that, now we do, so we’re making progress. We’ll ask Kiera a few questions and that’ll be it, all right?”

“Sounds good,” Jake said.

Rady produced another sappy smile and said to Kiera, “Okay, miss, could you tell us your story? What happened that night?”

Her story was much more involved because she remembered all of it: the dread of another Saturday night, the waiting until late, the sweep of the headlights, the commotion in the kitchen, the yelling, the sound of flesh hitting flesh, the horror of hearing his stumbling boots coming up the stairs, his heaving, his slurred words, his goofy calling of her name, their jerry-rigged brace against the door, the rattling of the doorknob, the banging, the yelling, the unrestrained fear as brother and sister clung to each other; then the silence, the sounds of his retreat down the stairs; and, worst of all, nothing from their mother. They knew he had killed her. For an eternity the house was silent, and with each passing minute they knew their mother was dead. Otherwise, she would be trying to protect them.

Kiera managed to narrate the story while wiping away tears and not slowing down. She had tissues in both hands and spoke with emotion but her voice did not crack. Jake still had no plans to be anywhere near the trial of Drew Gamble, but the courtroom lawyer in him could not help but assess her as a witness. He was impressed with her toughness, her maturity, her determination. Though two years younger, she seemed to be years ahead of her brother.

But the part about her dead mother slowed her to the point of needing water. She took a drink from a bottle, wiped her cheeks, gave Rady a hard look, and continued: They found her on the kitchen floor, nonresponsive, no pulse, and they wept. Drew eventually called the dispatcher. Hours seemed to pass. He closed the bedroom door. She heard a shot.

Rady asked, “So, did you see Stu on the bed before he was shot?”

“No.”

As per Jake, answers in response to a direct question should be kept short.

“Did you see Drew with a gun?”

“No.”

“Did Drew say anything to you after you heard the shot?”