John Grisham Read online

  Enemies one moment, old pals the next. Theo had seen it before. His mother had tried to explain that lawyers are paid to do a job, and to do it properly they had to park their personal feelings at the door. The real professionals, she said, never lose their cool and carry grudges.

  Ike said that was nonsense. He despised most of the lawyers in town.

  Omar Cheepe was not laughing, and he was not invited to have a drink with the enemy. He and Pete Duffy made a quick exit through a side door.

  Chapter 7

  Tuesday night meant dinner in a soup kitchen. It wasn't the worst meal of the week. That would be Sunday night, when his mother attempted to roast a chicken. But it wasn't a great meal either. The soup kitchen was just called that. It really wasn't a kitchen and they rarely served soup. It was a large dining room in the basement of a converted church where homeless people gathered to eat and spend the night. The food was prepared by volunteers who usually offered sandwiches, chips, fruit, cookies. "Stuff from a bag," Theo's mother called it. Not all that healthy.

  Theo had heard that there were around three hundred homeless people in Strattenburg. He saw them on Main Street, where they begged for money and slept on benches. He saw them in garbage Dumpsters scrounging for food. The city was alarmed at this number and by the lack of beds in shelters. The city council seemed to argue about this problem every week.

  Mrs. Boone was alarmed, too. She had been so concerned about homeless mothers that she started a program to assist victims of domestic violence. Women who'd been beaten and threatened. Women who had no place to live, no one to turn to. Women with children who needed help and didn't know where to find it. Mrs. Boone, along with several of the other female lawyers in town, had started a small legal clinic to reach out to these women.

  And so every Tuesday night, the Boone family walked a few blocks from their office downtown to the Highland Street Shelter, where they spent three hours with the less fortunate. They took their turns serving dinner to the hundred or so folks gathered there, then afterward they had a quick bite.

  Though he wasn't supposed to know, Theo had overheard his parents discussing whether they should increase their monthly donation to the shelter from two hundred to three hundred dollars. His parents were far from wealthy. His friends thought he was rich because both parents were lawyers, but the truth was their work was not that profitable. They lived modestly, saved for Theo's education, and enjoyed being generous with those of lesser means.

  After dinner, Mr. Boone set up a makeshift office at the far end of the dining room, and a few homeless people drifted that way. He would help them with problems that usually ranged from being evicted from their apartments to being denied food stamps or medical care. He often said that these were his favorite clients. They couldn't pay a fee, so there was no pressure to collect from them. They were grateful for whatever he tried to do. And, he genuinely enjoyed talking to them.

  Because of the more sensitive nature of her work, Mrs. Boone saw her clients in a small room upstairs. The first client had two small children, no job, no money, and, if not for the shelter, no place to sleep that night.

  Theo's task was to help with the homework. The shelter had several families that were allowed to stay there for up to twelve months--that was the limit at Highland Street. After a year, they had to move on. Most of them found jobs and places to live, but it took time. While they were in the shelter, they were treated like other residents of Strattenburg. They were fed and clothed and treated for medical problems. They were either employed or looking for work. They were invited to churches for worship.

  And their children attended the local schools. At night, in the shelter, homework sessions were organized by volunteers from a church. Theo's job every Tuesday was to teach English to two second graders, Hector and Rita, and to help their brother with algebra. They were from El Salvador, and their father had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving them homeless. They were found by the police living under a bridge with their mother.

  As always, Hector and Rita were thrilled to see Theo and clung to him as he stuffed down his sandwich. Then they scurried down the hall to a large open room where other children were being tutored.

  "No Spanish," he said repeatedly. "Only English."

  Their English was amazing. They were absorbing it daily at school and teaching it to their mother. They found a corner table and Theo began reading a picture book, something about a frog lost at sea.

  Mrs. Boone had insisted that Theo start Spanish in the fourth grade, as soon as it was offered. When the classes proved too easy, she hired a private tutor who stopped by the office twice a week for rigorous lessons. With his mother pushing him hard, and with Madame Monique giving him daily inspiration, Theo was learning rapidly. He read a page, then Rita reread it. Then Hector. Theo corrected their mistakes, then moved on. The room was noisy, even rowdy, as two dozen or so students of all ages plowed through their homework. The twins had an older brother, Julio, a seventh grader Theo saw occasionally on the playground at school. He was extremely shy, to the point of being awkward. Mrs. Boone speculated that the poor kid was probably scarred from the trauma of losing his father in a strange country with no one to turn to. She always had a theory when someone acted strange. After Theo finished the second book with Hector and Rita, Julio joined them and sat down at the table. "What's up?" Theo said. Julio smiled and looked away.

  "Let's read another book," Hector said.

  "In a minute."

  "I'm having trouble with algebra," Julio said. "Can you help?"

  "He's with us," Rita said to her brother, and appeared ready to fight.

  Theo picked out two books from a shelf and placed them before Hector and Rita. Then he arranged two writing tablets and two pencils. "Read these books," he said. "Say every word as you read it. When you see a word you don't know, write it down. Okay?"

  They yanked the books open as if it were a contest.

  Theo and Julio were soon lost in the world of pre algebra.

  Chapter 8

  At 10:00 p.m., the Boones were at home in front of the television. Judge was asleep on the sofa, his head in Theo's lap. The Duffy murder was the only news in Strattenburg and the town's two television stations covered nothing else that evening. There was a video of Pete Duffy walking into the courthouse, surrounded by lawyers and paralegals and other men with dark suits and somber faces. Another video, this one shot from the air, showed the Duffy home on the sixth fairway at Waverly Creek. A reporter outside the courthouse gave a rapid-fire account of the testimony so far. Judge Gantry had a gag order in place; thus, none of the lawyers or police or other witnesses could share their thoughts or opinions.

  Judge Gantry also banned cameras from his courtroom. The news crews were kept out.

  Theo had talked of nothing else, and his parents shared his suspicion that Pete Duffy was guilty. Proving it, though, looked difficult. During a commercial break, Theo began coughing. When this did not get the attention of his parents, he coughed some more, then said, "My throat is getting sore."

  "You look sort of pale," his father said. "You must be getting sick."

  "I don't feel well."

  "Are your eyes red?" his father asked.

  "I think so."

  "A headache?"

  "Yes, but not bad."

  "Sniffles, runny nose?"

  "Yes."

  "When did this happen?" his mother asked.

  "You're a very sick boy," his father said. "I say you should skip school tomorrow so you won't spread this terrible infection. But, it might be a good idea to go to court instead and watch the Duffy trial. What do you think, Mom?"

  "Oh, I see," she said. "A sudden onset of the flu."

  "Probably just another one of those nasty twenty-four hour episodes that seems to end miraculously when the school day is over," his father said. "I really don't feel well," Theo said, busted but gamely trying to hang on.

  "Take an aspirin, maybe a cough drop," his father
said. Woods Boone seldom saw a doctor and believed most people spent far too much money on medications. "Can you cough again for us, Teddy?" his mother asked. As a mother, she was slightly more sympathetic when he felt bad. The truth was that Theo had a history of faking it, especially when he had something better to do than go to school. His father started laughing. "Yes, it was a pretty lame cough, Theo, even by your standards."

  "I could be dying," Theo said, trying not to laugh.

  "Yes, but you're not," his father said. "And if you show up in the courtroom tomorrow Judge Gantry will have you arrested as a truant."

  "You know any good lawyers?" Theo shot back. His mother burst out laughing, and, eventually, Woods saw the humor. "Go to bed," he said.

  Theo limped up the stairs, thoroughly defeated, with Judge trailing behind. In bed, he opened his laptop and checked on April. He was relieved when she answered,

  APRILNPARIS: Hi, Theo. How are you?

  TBOONEESQ: Okay. Where are you?

  APRILNPARIS: At home, in my bedroom, with my door locked.

  TBOONEESQ: Where's your mother?

  APRILNPARIS: Downstairs. We're not speaking.

  TBOONEESQ: Did you make it to school?

  APRILNPARIS: No, the trial lasted until noon. I'm so glad it's over.

  TBOONEESQ: How was it on the witness stand?

  APRILNPARIS: Terrible. I cried, Theo. I couldn't stop crying. I told the judge that I didn't want to live with my mother or my father. Her lawyer asked me questions. His lawyer asked me questions. It was awful.

  TBOONEESQ: I'm sorry.

  APRILNPARIS: I don't understand why you want to be a lawyer.

  TBOONEESQ: To help people like you, that's why. That's what good lawyers do. Did you like the judge?

  APRILNPARIS: I didn't like anybody.

  TBOONEESQ: My mom says he's good. Did he make a decision about your custody?

  APRILNPARIS: No. He said he would in a few days. For now, I'm living with my mother and her lawyer thinks I'll stay here.

  TBOONEESQ: Probably so. Will you be at school tomorrow?

  APRILNPARIS: Yep, and I haven't touched my homework in a week.

  TBOONEESQ: I'll see you tomorrow.

  APRILNPARIS: Thanks, Theo.

  An hour later he was still awake, his thoughts switching back and forth, from April to the Duffy murder trial.

  Julio was waiting. Theo slid to a stop at the bike rack near the flagpole in front of the school and said, "Hola, Julio. Buenos dias."

  "Hola, Theo."

  Theo wrapped the chain around the front tire and clicked the lock. The chain still frustrated him. Up until a year earlier, bikes were safe in Strattenburg. No one bothered with a chain. Then bikes began disappearing, still were, and parents began insisting on the extra security.

  "Thanks for your help last night," Julio said. His English was good, but still heavily accented. The fact that he had approached Theo at school and initiated a conversation was a big step forward. Or so Theo thought.

  "No problem. Anytime."

  Julio glanced around. A crowd from the buses was moving through the front door. "You know the law, right, Theo?"

  "Both my parents are lawyers."

  "Police, courts, all that?"

  Theo shrugged. He never denied that he possessed a sizable knowledge of the law. "I understand a lot of it," he said. "What's up?"

  "This big trial, is it Mr. Duffy?"

  "Yes, he's on trial for murder. And it is a big trial."

  "Can we talk about it?"

  "Sure," Theo said. "May I ask why?"

  " Maybe I know something."

  Theo studied his eyes. Julio looked away, as if he'd done something wrong. An assistant principal yelled at some students to stop mingling and get inside. Theo and Julio headed for the door. "I'll find you during lunch," Theo said. "Good. Thanks."

  " No problem."

  As if Theo didn't have enough of the Duffy trial on his mind, now he had even more. A lot more. What could a homeless twelve-year-old from El Salvador possibly know about the murder of Myra Duffy?

  Nothing, Theo decided as he walked to homeroom. He said good morning to Mr. Mount as he unpacked his backpack. He was not happy. The trial, the biggest trial in the history of Strattenburg, would start again in half an hour, and he would not be there. There is no justice, he decided.

  During the morning recess, Theo sneaked away to the library and hid in a study carrel. He pulled out his laptop and went to work.

  The court reporter assigned to the Duffy trial was a Ms. Finney. She was the best in town, according to what Theo had heard around the courthouse. As in every trial, Ms. Finney sat at the foot of the bench, below the judge and next to the witness chair. It was the best seat in the house, and rightfully so. Her job was to record every word spoken by the judge, the lawyers, the witnesses, and, finally, the jury. Using her stenograph machine, Ms. Finney could easily take down 250 words a minute.

  In the old days, according to Mrs. Boone, the court reporters used shorthand, a method of recording that included symbols and codes and abbreviations and pretty much anything else they needed to keep up with the dialogue. After the trial, the court reporter would translate the shorthand to a typed, neat transcript of what was said during the trial. This would take days, even weeks, sometimes months, and was hard work.

  But now, thanks to technology, the recording was far easier. And, better still, it produced an instant record of the trial. There were at least four desktop computers in the courtroom--one on the bench for Judge Gantry, one on the defense table, one for the prosecutor, and one for the court clerk. As Ms. Finney captured every word, the text was translated, formatted, and zipped into the system so that the four computers ran the proceedings in real time.

  Often, in a trial, there is a dispute over what a witness said or did not say. Years earlier, the judge would be forced to call time-out while the poor court reporter scurried through her notepads, found her shorthand scribblings, and recounted what she'd written. Now, though, the record was instant and far more reliable.

  Ms. Finney shared an office on the third floor with several other court reporters. Their software system was called Veritas. Theo had hacked into it before when he'd been curious about something that happened in court.

  It was not a secure system because the information was available in open court. Anyone could walk into the courtroom and watch the trial. Anyone, of course, who was not confined by the rigors of middle school. Even though Theo couldn't be there in person, he certainly planned to know what was happening.

  He hadn't missed much. The first witness of the second day was a security chief who worked the front gate at Waverly Creek. There were only two gates--the front and the south. Both had gatehouses that were staffed by at least one armed and uniformed guard around the clock. Both had multiple surveillance cameras. Using video records, the security chief testified that Mr. Duffy, or at least Mr. Duffy's car, had left through the front gate at 6:48 a.m. on the day of the murder, and had returned at 10:22 a.m.

  The records proved that Mr. Duffy's car was at home when his wife was murdered. This meant nothing since it had already been admitted. He went to work, came home, parked his car, got in his golf cart, and drove away, leaving his wife behind, still alive.

  Big deal, thought Theo. He checked the time. Only five minutes left in recess.

  The prosecution was going through a tedious summary of describing each vehicle that had entered Waverly Creek that morning. There was a plumbing truck and crew that went to one home. A flooring crew to another. And so on. It appeared, at least to Theo, that the prosecution was trying to account for every nonresident who might have gone past the gates.

  And to prove what? Maybe Jack Hogan would try to prove that there were no unauthorized vehicles, or people, in Waverly Creek at the time of the murder. This seemed a stretch to Theo.

  He realized he was missing a dull part of the trial. He turned off his laptop and hustled to class.

  Julio
was not in the cafeteria. Theo ate in a hurry, then went to look for him. His curiosity was nagging him, and the longer he sat through class, the more he wanted to know what Julio might know. He checked with some seventh graders. No one knew where Julio was.

  Theo returned to the library, to the same study carrel, and quickly hacked into Ms. Finney's software. The trial was in recess for lunch, as Theo expected. Otherwise, he would have found some excuse to dart downtown during the noon break and check out the action.

  As expected, the prosecution had attempted to prove that there were no unauthorized vehicles in Waverly Creek at the time of the murder. Therefore, to follow Jack Hogan's theory, the killer was not someone who had entered without permission. Any stranger would have been noticed by the elaborate security. The killer, then, had to be someone who could easily come and go without drawing attention from the guards. Someone who lived there. Someone like Pete Duffy.

  This effort by the prosecution drew heavy fire from Mr. Clifford Nance, who had kept quiet during the early hours of the trial. During a heated and sometimes harsh cross- examination, Mr. Nance forced the security chief to admit that there were (1) 154 single-family homes and 80 condos in Waverly Creek; and (2) at least 477 vehicles owned by the residents there; and (3) an asphalt service road that was not watched by either guards or cameras; and (4) at least two gravel roads that provided access to the area and were not on the map.

  Mr. Nance drove home the point that Waverly Creek covered some twelve hundred acres, with lots of streams, creeks, ponds, woods, coves, streets, alleys, homes, condos, three golf courses, and, well, it was "impossible" to secure all that.

  The chief reluctantly agreed.

  Later, he admitted that it was impossible to know who was present inside the gated community at the time of the murder and who wasn't.

  Theo thought the cross-examination was brilliant, and very effective. It made him sadder that he had missed it. "What are you doing?" The voice startled Theo and snapped him back into the world of middle school. It was April. She knew his hiding places. "Checking on the trial."

  "I hope I never see another trial."

  He closed his laptop, and they moved to a small table near the periodicals. She wanted to talk, and in a near whisper she replayed the nightmare of testifying in court with a bunch of frowning adults hanging on every word.