Gray Mountain

  Donovan stood to address the court. He was wearing his lawyer’s finest, a handsome navy suit that hung fashionably on his lean frame. His long hair had been slightly trimmed for the occasion. He was clean shaven for a change. He moved around the courtroom as if he owned it. The jurors watched every move and absorbed every word as he announced that the plaintiff was satisfied with the jury and had no more challenges.

  At 5:45 p.m., the judge adjourned for the day. Samantha hurried out and beat the rush. She drove four blocks to the lower school Mandy and Trevor attended. She had talked to the principal twice during the day. Their assignments had been put together by their teachers. The principal had heard the family was living in a car and was very concerned. Samantha assured her they were in a better place and things were looking up. She hoped they would be back in school in a matter of days. In the meantime, she would make sure they kept up their studies and finished their homework.

  Driving away, Samantha admitted she felt more like a social worker than a lawyer, and there was nothing wrong with that. At Scully & Pershing, her work was more suitable for accountants or financial analysts, or at times minimum-wage clerks or simple pencil pushers. She reminded herself that she was a real lawyer, though she often had doubts.

  As she was leaving Colton, a white pickup truck ran up behind her, then backed away. It followed her all the way to Brady, keeping the same distance, not too close but never out of sight.

  17

  Pizzerias in big cities benefit from Italian natives or descendants thereof, people who understand that real pizza comes from Naples where the crusts are thin and the toppings simple. Samantha’s favorite was Lazio’s, a hole-in-the-wall in Tribeca where the cooks yelled in Italian as they baked the crusts in brick ovens. Like most things in her life these days, Lazio’s was far away. So was the pizza. The only place in Brady to get one to go was a sub shop in a cheap strip mall. Pizza Hut, along with most other national chains, had not penetrated deep into the small towns of Appalachia.

  The pizza was an inch thick. She watched the guy slice it and slide it into the box. Eight bucks for a pepperoni and cheese, which seemed to weigh five pounds. She drove it to the motel where the Bookers were watching television and waiting. They had been scrubbed and looked much better in clean clothing, and they were embarrassingly grateful for the changes. Samantha also brought along the bad news that she now had the kids’ homework for the next week, but this did nothing to dampen their moods.

  They had dinner in Pamela’s room, pizza and soft drinks, with Wheel of Fortune in the background on low volume. The kids talked about school, their teachers, and the friends they were missing in Colton. Their transformation from early that morning was startling. Frightened and hungry, they had hesitated to say a word. Now they wouldn’t shut up.

  When the pizza was gone, Pamela cracked the whip and made them buckle down and study. She was afraid they were falling behind. After a few timid objections, they went to their room and got to work. In low voices, Samantha and Pamela talked about the lawsuit and what it might mean. With a little luck, the company might realize its mistake and talk settlement. Otherwise, Samantha would have them in court as soon as possible. She managed to convey the confidence of a seasoned litigator and never hinted that this was her first real lawsuit. She also planned to meet with Mr. Simmons at the lamp factory and explain the mistakes that led to the garnishment. Pamela was not a deadbeat; rather, she was being mistreated by bad people abusing the legal system.

  As she drove away from the Starlight Motel, Samantha realized she had spent the better part of the past twelve hours aggressively representing Pamela Booker and her children. Had they not stumbled into the clinic early that morning, they would be hiding somewhere in the backseat of their car, hungry, cold, hopeless, frightened, and vulnerable.

  Her cell phone buzzed as she was changing into jeans. It was Annette, a hundred feet across the backyard. “The kids are in their rooms. Got time for some tea?” she asked.

  The two needed to talk, to air things out and get to the bottom of whatever was bugging Annette. Kim and Adam managed to interrupt their homework long enough to say hello to Samantha. They preferred to have her there for dinner every night, with television afterward and maybe a video game or two. Samantha, though, needed some space. Annette was certainly helping matters.

  When the kids were back in their rooms and the tea was poured, they sat in the semi-dark den and talked about their Monday. According to Annette, there were a lot of homeless people in the mountains. You don’t see them panhandling on the streets, like in the cities, because they usually know someone who’ll share a room or a garage for a week or so. Almost everybody has kinfolk not far away. There are no homeless shelters, no nonprofits dedicated to the homeless. She had a client once, a mother whose teenage son was mentally ill and violent, and she was forced to make him leave. He lived in a pup tent in the woods, surviving off stolen goods and an occasional handout. He almost froze in the winter and almost drowned in a flood. It took four years to get him committed to a facility. He escaped and had never been seen since. The mother still blamed herself. Very sad.

  They talked about the Bookers, Phoebe Fanning, and poor Mrs. Crump, who didn’t know whom to give her land to. This reminded Annette of a client once who needed a free will. He had plenty of money because he’d never spent any—“tight as a tick”—and he handed over a prior will, one drafted by a lawyer down the street. The old man had no family to speak of, didn’t like his distant relatives, and wasn’t sure whom to leave his money to. So the prior lawyer inserted several paragraphs of indecipherable drivel that, in effect, left everything to the lawyer. After a few months, the old man got suspicious and showed up in Annette’s office. She prepared a much simpler will, one that gave it all to a church. When he died, the lawyer down the street cried at his wake, his funeral, and his burial, then blew up when he learned of the later will. Annette threatened to report him to the state bar association and he settled down.

  Kim and Adam reappeared, now in pajamas, to say good night. Annette left to tuck them in. When their doors were closed, she poured more tea and sat on one end of the sofa. She took a sip and got down to business. “I know you’re spending time with Donovan,” she said, as if this were a violation of something.

  Samantha couldn’t deny it; why should she? And did she owe anyone an explanation? “We went flying last Saturday, and the day before we hiked up Dublin Mountain. Why?”

  “You need to be careful, Samantha. Donovan is a complicated soul, plus he’s still married, you know?”

  “I’ve never slept with a married man. You?”

  She ignored the question with “I’m not sure if being married means much to Donovan. He likes the ladies, always has, and now that he’s living alone, I’m not sure anyone is safe. He has a reputation.”

  “Tell me about his wife.”

  A deep breath, another sip. “Judy is a beautiful girl, but it was a bad match. She’s from Roanoke, kind of a city girl, certainly a stranger to the mountains. They met in college and really struggled with their future together. They say a woman marries a man with the belief she can change him, and she can’t. A man marries a woman with the belief that she won’t change, and she does. We do. Judy couldn’t change Donovan; the more she tried the more he resisted. And she certainly changed. When she came to Brady she tried hard to fit in. She planted a garden and volunteered here and there. They joined a church and she sang in the choir. Donovan became more obsessed with his work and there were repercussions. Judy tried to get him to back off, to pass on some of the cases against the coal companies, but he just couldn’t do it. I think the final straw was their daughter. Judy didn’t want her educated in the schools around here, which is kind of a shame. My kids are doing just fine.”

  “Is the marriage over?”

  “Who knows? They’ve been separated for a couple of years. Donovan’s crazy about his daughter and sees her whenever he can. They say they’re trying to find a solution
, but I don’t see one. He’s not leaving the mountains. She’s not leaving the city. I have a sister who lives in Atlanta, no children. Her husband lives in Chicago, a good job. He thinks the South is inbred and backward. She thinks Chicago is cold and harsh. Neither will budge, but they claim to be happy with their lives and have no plans to split. I guess it works for some folks. Seems odd, though.”

  “She doesn’t know he fools around?”

  “I don’t know what she knows. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if they have an agreement, some type of open arrangement.” She looked away as she said this, as if she knew more than she was saying. What should have been obvious suddenly became so, to Samantha anyway. She asked, “Has he told you this?” It seemed a stretch for Annette to merely speculate on such a salacious matter.

  A pause. “No, of course not,” she said, without conviction.

  Was Donovan using the married man’s favorite line: Let’s have a go, honey, because my wife is doing it too? Perhaps Annette was not as starved for companionship as she pretended to be. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Say she was having an affair with Donovan, for either lust or romance or both. Now the new girl in town had his eye. The tension between them was nothing but old-fashioned jealousy, something Annette could never admit, but couldn’t hide either.

  Samantha said, “Mattie and Chester talked about Donovan. They seem to think Judy got scared when the harassment started, said there were anonymous phone calls, threats, strange cars.”

  “True, and Donovan is not the most popular person in town. His work irritates a lot of people. Judy felt the sting a few times. And as he’s gotten older, he’s become even more reckless. He fights dirty, and so he wins a lot of cases. He’s made a bunch of money and, typical of trial lawyers, his ego has expanded with his bank accounts.”

  “Sounds like there are a lot of reasons for the split.”

  “Afraid so,” she said wistfully, but with little feeling.

  They sipped and thought and said nothing for a moment. Samantha decided to go for it all, to get to the bottom of things. Annette was always so open when discussing sex, so give it a try. “Has he ever come on to you?”

  “No. I’m forty-five years old with two kids. He sees me as too old. Donovan likes ’em younger.” She did a passable job of selling this.

  “Anybody in particular?”

  “Not really. Have you met his brother, Jeff?”

  “No, he’s mentioned him a few times. Younger, right?”

  “Seven years younger. After their mother killed herself, the boys lived here and there, with Mattie stepping in to raise Donovan while Jeff went to another relative. They are very close. Jeff’s had a rougher time of it, dropping out of college, drifting here and there. Donovan has always looked out for him, and now Jeff works for him. Investigator, runner, bodyguard, errand boy, you name it and Jeff does it. He’s also at least as cute as Donovan, and single.”

  “I’m not really in the market, if that’s what you mean.”

  “We’re always in the market, Samantha. Don’t kid yourself. Maybe not for a permanent fix, but we’re all looking for love, even the quick variety.”

  “I doubt my life would get less complicated if I return to New York with a mountain boy in tow. Talk about a bad match.”

  Annette laughed at this. The tension seemed to be easing, and now that Samantha understood it, she could deal with it. She had already decided that Donovan was close enough. He was charming, exciting, certainly sexy, but he was also nothing but trouble. With the exception of the first time they had met, Samantha had always felt as though they were just a step or two away from getting undressed. If she had taken his job offer, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to avoid a fling, if for no other reason than boredom.

  They said good night and Samantha walked back to her apartment. As she climbed the dark stairs above the garage, the question hit her: How many times has Annette put the kids to bed, then sneaked over here to her little love nest for a quick romp with Donovan?

  Plenty, something told her. Plenty.

  18

  Samantha found the lamp factory in a badly neglected industrial park outside the town of Brushy in Hopper County. Most of the metal buildings had been abandoned. Those still in business had a few cars and pickups in their parking lots. It was a sad barometer of an economy long in decline, and far from the pretty poster envisioned by the Chamber of Commerce.

  At first, over the phone, Mr. Simmons said he had no time for a meeting, but Samantha pressed and charmed her way into the promise of thirty minutes. The front reception area reeked of cigarette smoke and the linoleum floors had not been swept in weeks. A grouchy clerk led Samantha to a room down the hall. Voices penetrated the thin walls. Machinery roared from somewhere in the rear. The operation had the feel of a business trying gamely to avoid the fate of its industrial park neighbors as it churned out cheap lamps for cheap motels at the lowest wages possible, with absolutely no thought of additional benefits. Pamela Booker said the perks included one week of unpaid vacation and three sick days, also without pay. Don’t even think about health insurance.

  Samantha calmed herself by thinking of all the meetings she had suffered through before, meetings with some of the most incredible jerks the world had ever seen, really rich men who gobbled up Manhattan and ran roughshod over anyone in their way. She had seen these men devour and annihilate her partners, including Andy Grubman, a guy she actually missed occasionally. She had heard them yell and threaten and curse, and on several occasions their diatribes had been aimed at her. But she had survived. Regardless of what a prick Mr. Simmons was, he was a kitten compared to those monsters.

  He was surprisingly cordial. He welcomed her, showed her a seat in his cheap office, and closed the door. “Thanks for seeing me,” she said. “I’ll be brief.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” he asked politely.

  She thought of the dust and clouds of cigarette smoke and could almost visualize the brown stains caked along the insides of the communal coffeepot. “No thanks.”

  He glanced at her legs as he settled in behind his desk and relaxed as though he had all day. She silently tagged him as a flirt. She began by recapping the latest adventures of the Booker family. He was touched, didn’t know they were homeless. She handed him an edited, bound copy of the documents involved, and walked him step-by-step through the legal mess. The last exhibit was a copy of the lawsuit she filed the day before, and she assured him there was no way out for Top Market Solutions. “I got ’em by the balls,” she said, a deliberate effort at crudeness to judge his reaction. He smiled again.

  In summary, the old credit card judgment had expired and Top Market knew it. The garnishment should never have been ordered, and Pamela Booker’s paycheck should have been left alone. She should still have her job.

  “And you want me to give her her job back?” he asked, the obvious.

  “Yes sir. If she has her job she can survive. Her kids need to be in school. We can help her find a place to live. I’ll drag Top Market into court, make them cough up what they clipped her for, and she’ll get a nice check. But that will take some time. What she needs right now is her old job back. And you know that’s only fair.”

  He stopped smiling and glanced at his watch. “Here’s what I’ll do. You get that damned garnishment order revoked so I don’t have to fool with it, and I’ll put her back on the payroll. How long will that take?”

  Samantha had no idea but instinctively said, “Maybe a week.”

  “We got a deal?”

  “A deal.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Anything.”

  “How much is your hourly rate? I mean, I got a guy over in Grundy, not that sharp, really, and slow to return calls, slow with everything, and he charges me two hundred bucks an hour. That might not be much in the big leagues, but you see where we are. I’d send him more work, but, hell, it’s not worth it. I’ve been looking around but there a
ren’t many reasonable lawyers in these parts. I figure you gotta be real reasonable if Pamela Booker can hire you. So, what’s your rate?”

  “Nothing. Zero.”

  He stared at her, mouth open. “I work for legal aid,” she said.

  “What’s legal aid?”

  “It’s free legal services for low-income people.”

  It was a foreign concept. He smiled and asked, “Do you take on lamp factories?”

  “Sorry. Just poor folks.”

  “We’re losing money, I swear. I’ll show you the books.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Simmons.”

  As she raced back to Brady with the good news, she thought of the possible ways to quash the garnishment order. And the more she thought, the more she realized how little she knew about the basics of practicing everyday law.

  In New York, she had seldom left the office late in the afternoon and gone straight home. There were too many bars for that, too many single professionals on the prowl, too much networking and socializing and hooking up and, well, drinking to be done. Every week someone discovered a new bar or a new club that had to be visited before it got discovered and the throngs ruined it.

  The after hours were different in Brady. She had yet to see the inside of a bar; from the street they looked sketchy, both of them. She had yet to meet another young, unmarried professional. So, her choice boiled down to (1) hanging around the office so she wouldn’t have to (2) go to her apartment and stare at the walls. Mattie preferred to hang around too, and each afternoon by 5:30 she was roaming around, shoeless, looking for Samantha. Their ritual was evolving, but for now it included sipping a diet soda in the conference room and gossiping while watching the street. Samantha was eager to pry about the possible hanky-panky between Annette and Donovan, but she did not. Maybe later, maybe one day when she had more proof, or probably never. She was still too new to town to involve herself in such sensitive matters. Plus, she knew Mattie was rabidly protective of her nephew.

  They had just settled into their chairs and were ready for half an hour or so of debriefing when the bells clanged on the front door. Mattie frowned and said, “Guess I forgot to lock it.”