Chapter twenty-three

I did not spend a pleasant night. I lay on the bed in the dark fully dressed. The old bed squeaked. The old room smelled. The dark was full of images.

I saw them die again, my parents; heard the gunshots, saw them fall. Some of it came to me in flashes of crystal clarity: Laura sinking down the wall, the trail of her blood seeming to rise from her hair; the moment my mother went down; the moment I ran; the moment I turned back. Other scenes were dreamlike and uncertain, as if they were taking place underwater. They were no less frightening for that. More so, if anything. It seemed to take them out of my control, as if they might appear, shimmering in the dark before me, without warning, at any minute. I saw the scarred man turn to me and smile and raise his gun like that. I saw the dark of the broom closet like that as I waited for him, listened to his voice beckoning us, calling us to come out.

I saw other things, too. Things that kept me turning on the bed, awake. That made me reach for the cigarette pack repeatedly, promising myself that each time was the last. That made me, sometimes, sit up on the edge of the mattress and lay my head in my hands. It was one of those nights when I felt very close to things as they should be, and very distant from things as they are.

I didn’t wake up until nearly eight-thirty. Susannah and Yardley were already in the kitchen. I found them standing together before the big old stove. They were making eggs and toast.

“You overslept, doof,” said Susannah.

I didn’t answer her. I sat at the table. She brought me coffee and I saw Yardley steal a quick glance over his shoulder to watch her move. I drank the coffee in silence.

The two of them carried the food to the table. They sat down with me and we began to eat.

“Hey, you wield a mean spatula,” Yardley said.

Susannah laughed and he laughed. Then she turned and saw me staring at her. Their laughter faded away.

After a few minutes, Yardley said: “I better … I have to go to work.”

When he went out, Susannah and I sat together without speaking. We heard his car revving up in the drive. We heard the dirt crunch under the tires as it pulled away.

Susannah moved her hand out to me on the table. “Michael,” she said.

I threw my fork down on the plate. It clattered noisily.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Slowly, she raised her eyes to me. I got up and went outside without her.

The little Honda we’d rented sat alone in the drive. I went to it, opened the door. I stood still for a moment in the chill morning mist. I scanned the pale blue sky, the clouds scudding over the surrounding hills. I heard the cottage door bang shut.

“I need some time alone,” she said. She was standing beside me.

I turned to her. I lifted my hand to touch her lips. She caught my hand in hers. Her eyes were very wide, very blue. I kissed her hand. I got in the car.

Howard Marks kept an office on Main Street. It was a modest place, a converted house hidden among the antique stores near the school. He had the second floor, but stairs led to it through a private entrance. I went up, gave my name to the receptionist.

When Marks peeked out of his office, he seemed at first not to remember me. He studied me with a blank smile, his damp eyes peering over half-lens reading glasses. Then the smile faded. He remembered me, and he knew my business. He came forward, extending his hand.

“We met on Monday,” I said.

“At Carl McGill’s office in Manhattan. I remember. Come in, please.”

I followed him into his office. He sat in a swivel chair behind an enormous wooden desk, gestured me to the seat in front of it. The room provided the perfect backdrop for a country lawyer. There was a shelf with books and mementos to my left, a window on Main Street to my right. There were plaques and diplomas on the wall. There were pictures on the desk: two freckle-faced towheaded boys and a blond girl, the youngest; a slim, elegant woman with a bright, nervous smile. There were loose sheets of paper everywhere.

Marks spoke first: “Have you reached him?” He still spoke in his slow, porch-swing drawl, but the urgency was unmistakable. His client had a week to live.

“No,” I said. “But I may be able to help you.”

He removed the glasses, sat back, waited.

“My name is Michael Turner,” I said.

Marks’s lips parted. He stared at me. Slowly, he nodded. “You are, aren’t you,” he said. He shook his head. He made a clicking sound in his teeth, a purely rural sound. “Do you know why I came to see Carl McGill the other day, young man?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“Grasping at straws.” He shook his head again, bemused. “I was grasping at straws like a man going down for the third time. I guess I was doing that, too, wasn’t I? Going down for the third time.” He sniffed. “Listen to me. Lawyers love to talk that way. Highblown. Dramatic. Makes people think they got something at stake ’sides a fee. Which they don’t. When it’s all over, when the jailing’s done, or the hanging, lawyer, he’s right back in his office where he started from, talking high-blown while his client takes the ten paces from one wall of his cell to the other, or walks to the gallows.” The wrinkles of his face lifted in a sad smile. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m a little beat. What I mean to say is: I came to New York looking for you.”

“Is that right?”

“Yup. Came … See, the thing is, young man, after the trial the children, you and Susannah, you were in shock. Pure shock. Staring at the walls. The doctors, they said there was no chance you’d remember anything. Now, o’ course, Susannah, she was such a little thing, cute little thing, she could hardly talk to begin with. So she was out of it right off. Then, when we tried to question you, well, it was pretty clear the doc was right and, of course, no one wanted to … well, make things worse for you, you see. Anyway, the children were sent away … separately, as I recall.… Boy, I hated to see you two split up, you were awfully fond of each other.… Anyway, what was I …? Oh yeah, well, I lost track of you over the years, and after the Supreme Court threw out the death penalty, why, I figured that was as good as we could hope for. Good as we could hope for,” he said wistfully. He stared into space for a moment, then blinked, coming out of it. “Then this unfortunate thing occurred. Sadistic guard. Pushed Nathan … Nathan’s a … a simple man. The guard pushed him past his limits and he lashed out, that’s all. He lashed out. What happened to your parents has nothing to do with this case, I know, but, well, McGill always took a special interest in the kids, right from the beginning, he took a special interest. I figured he might know where you were, and I thought, maybe, if I could find you, if you would come forward and plead with the governor for mercy, maybe …”

“Mr. Marks,” I said. “What if I can show that Nathan Jersey is innocent?”

It was a moment before the attorney said: “Innocent of what?”

“He didn’t kill my parents.”

Marks began to speak, then stopped. He gazed off thoughtfully, twisting his lower lip between thumb and index finger. He smiled to himself. Then he looked up at me.

“Mr. Turner, my client did kill your parents. I know it. He knows it. He confessed to it. He was a poor man in a tough town, a black man in a white town, he was a retarded man in a town filled with ignorance and bigotry. You might say, well, why would a fella like that strike out at the one man who was kind to him. But the fact is, it happens all the time. Human nature. Happens all the time. I’ve claimed that he was mistreated, and he was. I’ve claimed that he was not competent, and he wasn’t. But in all these years, dearly as I would’ve liked to, I’ve never claimed he was innocent.”

I leaned forward in my chair, one hand holding the other before me. “You can start now,” I said.

I gave him the rundown, again glossing over my. relationship with Susannah. I told him she and I seemed to share a subconscious memory of a scarred man—and that we had seen him in the mist one night. I told him how he had shot at us in the alley. I told him I had now recalled some of the events of the night of the murder. I thought that was enough.

Marks sighed. He put his hand out in front of him. He pointed at one of his long fingers.

“I always seem to be doing this,” he said. “Counting on my fingers the reasons why something won’t work. Probably sixty percent of a lawyer’s job. So: The scarred man is nothing. Forget the scarred man. A subconscious memory won’t even get us a hearing.”

“We saw him, Sue and I both.”

“In the night. In the mist.”

“He shot at us.”

“Didja see him that time?”

I didn’t answer.

He counted it off. “You didn’t see him. People out here think shooting goes on in New York every day. Anyway, if you work for Carl McGill, you must have enough enemies to fill a phone book. Am I wrong?” I didn’t answer. He counted it off. “I’m not wrong. I’m running out of fingers here.”

“They can’t execute him if I remember he didn’t kill my parents.”

“They’re not executing him for killing your parents, they’re executing him for killing a vicious, sadistic prison guard who got exactly what he deserved.” He had raised his voice. He put his hand on his forehead. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“Forget it.”

“Seven days is not very much time.”

“But if I can prove he shouldn’t have been in jail in the first place—”

“If you can prove it, sure.”

I sat back, letting out a held breath. “That night,” I said. “I ran away from the killer. I kept outrunning him. Because he didn’t know the way and I did. If Nathan Jersey worked there all the time, why didn’t he know the way?” Marks was about to count on his fingers again. I said: “What if I can find the scarred man. He must’ve been in the lynch mob. He must have known that girl. He must be somewhere.”

“You’ve got seven days,” Marks said.

My eyes moved over his desk again. To the pictures of the kids again. In one shot, one of the boys had a protective arm flung over the girl’s shoulders. The girl was giggling happily into her hand.

I spoke more fiercely than I meant to. “I want to talk to Jersey.”

Marks lifted his eyebrows a little. “What’s that?”

“Can you arrange it? I have to talk to him.”

“Can I …?” He shook his head slowly. “Believe me, son. It’s useless.”

“Maybe. Maybe it is. I want to try.”

He sat slumped in his chair now, his chin on his chest. His silver-white hair hung limp. His friendly wrinkles sagged. He studied me sadly. When he leaned forward—slowly, wearily—I could almost feel the weight of the case on him, the years of attempts and failures.

“All right,” he said then.

“You’ll do it.”

“Yes. Hell, it can’t hurt. Is Susannah here too?”

I hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”

“How can I reach you?”

I looked over my shoulder toward the office door.

“Forget that, forget that,” said Marks. “Arlene can’t hear you.”

“Still,” I said. “I have a man hunting me with a rifle. No one knows where I am. Let’s keep it that way. I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Call me tonight. Here’s my number at home. I’ll set up an appointment for you and Susannah.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll … you’ll talk to the governor?”

“Sure.”

I stood up. I shook his hand. “I’m sorry this had to come back into your life,” he said.

“I don’t suppose it ever left.”

He smiled at me. His eyes were sad. His client had seven days to live.