The Chamber (Page 78)
He raked the coffee grounds from it and studied the label. The trash basket was small and normally emptied every other day, sometimes once a day. It was now half-filled. The bottle had not been there long. He opened the refrigerator and looked for the remaining three bottles of beer from yesterday’s six-pack. She’d had two en route back to Memphis, then one at the condo. He did not remember where they had been stored, but they were not in the refrigerator. Nor in the trash in the kitchen, den, bathrooms, or bedrooms. The more he searched the more determined he became to find the bottles. He inspected the pantry, the broom closet, the linen closet, the kitchen cabinets. He went through her closets and drawers, and felt like a thief and a cheat but pressed on because he was scared.
They were under her bed, empty of course, and carefully hidden in an old Nike shoe box. Three empty bottles of Heineken stacked neatly together, as if they were to be shipped somewhere as a gift. He sat on the floor and examined them. They were fresh, with a few drops still rolling around the bottoms.
He guessed her weight to be around a hundred and thirty pounds, and her height at five feet six or seven. She was slender but not too thin. Her body couldn’t handle much booze. She’d gone to bed early, around nine, then at some point sneaked around the condo fetching beer and vodka. Adam leaned against the wall, his mind racing wildly. She’d given much thought to the hiding of the green bottles, but she knew she’d get caught. She had to know Adam would look for them later. Why hadn’t she been more careful with the empty pint bottle? Why was it hidden in the trash, and the beer bottles tucked away under her bed?
Then he realized he was attempting to track a rational mind, instead of a drunk one. He closed his eyes and tapped the back of his head against the wall. He’d taken her to Ford County, where they looked at graves and relived a nightmare, and where she’d worn sunglasses to hide her face. For two weeks now, he’d been demanding family secrets and yesterday he’d been kicked in the face with a few. He needed to know, he’d told himself. He wasn’t certain why, but he just felt as if he had to know the reasons his family was strange and violent and hateful.
And now, it occurred to him for the first time, perhaps this was much more complicated than the casual telling of family stories. Perhaps this was painful for everyone involved. Maybe his selfish interest in closeted skeletons wasn’t as important as Lee’s stability.
He slid the shoe box back to its original position, then threw the vodka bottle in the wastebasket for the second time. He dressed quickly and left the building. He asked the gate man about Lee. According to a sheet of paper on his clipboard, she’d left almost two hours ago, at eight-ten.
It was customary for lawyers at Kravitz & Bane in Chicago to spend Sunday at the office, but evidently the practice was frowned upon in Memphis. Adam had the place entirely to himself. He locked his door anyway, and was soon lost in the murky legal world of federal habeas corpus practice.
His concentration, though, was difficult and only lasted for short intervals. He worried about Lee, and he hated Sam. It would be difficult to look at him again, probably tomorrow, through the metal screen at the Row. He was frail and bleached and wrinkled, and by all rights entitled to a little sympathy from someone. Their last discussion had been about Eddie, and when it ended Sam had asked him to leave the family stuff outside the Row. He had enough on his mind at the moment. It wasn’t fair to confront a condemned man with his ancient sins.
Adam was not a biographer, nor a genealogist. He hadn’t been trained in sociology or psychiatry, and, frankly, he was, at the moment, quite weary of further expeditions into the cryptic history of the Cayhall family. He was simply a lawyer, a rather green one, but an advocate nonetheless whose client needed him.
It was time to practice law and forget the folklore.
At eleven-thirty, he dialed Lee’s number and listened to the phone ring. He left a message on the recorder, telling her where he was and would she please call. He called again at one, and at two. No answer. He was preparing an appeal when the phone rang.
Instead of Lee’s pleasant voice, he heard the clipped words of the Honorable F. Flynn Slattery. "Yes, Mr. Hall, Judge Slattery here. I’ve carefully considered this matter, and I’m denying all relief, including your request for a stay of execution," he said, almost with a trace of cheer. "Lots of reasons, but we won’t go into them. My clerk will fax you my opinion right now, so you’ll have it in a moment."
"Yes sir," Adam said.
"You’ll need to appeal as soon as possible, you know. I suggest you do so in the morning."
"I’m working on the appeal now, Your Honor. In fact, it’s almost finished."
"Good. So you were expecting this."
"Yes sir. I started working on the appeal right after I left your office on Tuesday." It was tempting to take a shot or two at Slattery. He was, after all, two hundred miles away. But he was also, after all, a federal judge. Adam was very aware that one day very soon he might need His Honor again.
"Good day, Mr. Hall." And with that, Slattery hung up.
Adam walked around the table a dozen times, then watched the light rain on the Mall below. He swore quietly about federal judges in general and Slattery in particular, then returned to his computer where he stared at the screen and waited for inspiration.
He typed and read, researched and printed, looked from his windows and dreamed of miracles until it was dark. He had killed several hours with footless piddling, and one reason he worked until eight o’clock was to give Lee plenty of time to return to the condo.
There was no sign of her. The security guard said she had not returned. There was no message on the recorder, other than his. He dined on microwave popcorn, and watched two movies on video. The idea of calling Phelps Booth was so repugnant he nearly shuddered at the thought.
He thought of sleeping on the sofa in the den so he would hear her if she came home, but after the last movie he retired to his room upstairs and closed the door.
Chapter 28
THE explanation for yesterday’s disappearance was slow in coming, but sounded plausible by the time she finished with it. She’d been at the hospital all day, she said as she moved slowly around the kitchen, with one of her kids from the Auburn House. Poor little girl was only thirteen, baby number one but of course there would be others, and she had gone into labor a month early. Her mother was in jail and her aunt was off selling drugs, and she had no one else to turn to. Lee’d held her hand throughout the complicated delivery. The girl was fine and the baby was okay, and now there was another unwanted little child in the Memphis ghettos.
Lee’s voice was scratchy and her eyes were puffy and red. She said she’d returned a few minutes after one, and she would’ve called earlier but they were in the labor room for six hours and the delivery room for two. St. Peter’s Charity Hospital is a zoo, especially the maternity wing, and, well, she just couldn’t get to a phone.
Adam sat in his pajamas at the table, sipping coffee and studying the paper as she talked. He hadn’t asked for the explanation. He tried his best to act unconcerned about her. She insisted on cooking breakfast: scrambled eggs and canned biscuits. And she was doing a good job of busying herself in the kitchen as she talked and avoided eye contact.
"What’s the kid’s name?" he asked seriously as if he was deeply concerned with Lee’s story.
"Uh, Natasha. Natasha Perkins."
"And she’s only thirteen?"
"Yes. Her mother is twenty-nine. Can you believe it? A twenty-nine-year-old grandmother."
Adam shook his head in disbelief. He happened to be looking at the small section of the Memphis Press where it registered the county’s vital records. Marriage licenses. Divorce petitions. Births. Arrests. Deaths. He scanned the list of yesterday’s births as if he were checking scores, and found no record of a new mother named Natasha Perkins.