Deeper Water (30 page)

The waiter brought two cups of chilled soup.

"This is an asparagus-based soup," he said. "It sounds weird, but give it a try."

I touched a tiny spoonful to my lips. It was a puree with a much lighter flavor than I expected. I ate a larger spoonful.

"It's good," I said.

Vince ate several bites without speaking. I waited for him to continue. He kept eating, occasionally glancing around the restaurant.

"Are you going to leave me wondering why you decided not to go to hell?" I asked. "That would be stranger than this soup. Which is delicious," I quickly added.

Vince put down his spoon. "Sorry, I have a tendency to focus on one thing at a time. I'm not the best multitasker."

"Then eat your soup before you tell me more."

Vince efficiently reached the bottom of the cup.

"I'm listening," I said when I saw he'd finished. "Why did you think about hell at all? Not many preachers ever mention it."

"In a literature class I'd read Dante's Inferno and Jonathan Edwards' `Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.' I had a cultural knowledge of the Bible and was familiar with the concept of eternal punishment. But until the accident, everything was theoretical. Afterward pain dominated my life. In between morphine injections I suffered horribly. The pain would ease, but I knew it would return and my mind couldn't escape the thought of suffering at an even more extreme level-forever."

"That's terrible."

"Do you want to change the subject?"

"No, no. Our church believes in hell, but I don't like to think about it. I'm more interested in learning how to obey the Lord in my day-to-day life."

The waiter brought our meal. The food looked like a picture from one of the magazines at Mrs. Fairmont's house.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Blanquette de veau. It's a veal dish."

I took a bite. There were unusual flavors with a hint of onion.

"Can you keep talking?" I asked. "In between bites?"

Vince nodded. "Hell wasn't the only thing I thought about in the hospital. Of course, I thought about my lab partner. He should have been the one suffering, not me. Many times I imagined the chemicals spewing onto his hand and arm instead of mine. Then I read what Paul wrote about forgiving people who have sinned against us. It made logical sense. If I wanted God to forgive me so that I wouldn't go to hell, I needed to forgive the student who sinned against me. I talked to my parents about it. My father listened, but my mother thought I was delusional."

"What did she say?"

"That my mind was too precious a gift to throw away on Judeo- Christian mythology. She's a strict humanist. My father sees the order in science and that makes him doubt random chance as the explanation for the universe."

"Discussions around your supper table must be interesting."

"Anyway, after I got out of the hospital, I started reading the Bible and started attending an Episcopal church not far from our house. The thoughts of hell went away, and the love of God filled my heart."

Vince's description of his conversion left me with doubts. It didn't sound like he'd prayed it through.

"What about your lab partner? Did you forgive him?"

"Yes, and when I told him what happened to me, he prayed to receive Christ too. Now, he's in a postgraduate chemistry program at Rutgers."

We ate in silence for a minute.

"But how do you know God's love is in your heart?" I asked.

Vince smiled. "Oh, when it happens, you'll know."

During the remainder of the meal, he plied me with questions. I had to fight the sense of being interviewed by an anthropologist studying a primitive religious sect. Several times he appeared puzzled, but there was no hint of criticism. I finally decided everything I told him was going into an internal computer file to be processed later.

Dessert, custard topped with fresh blueberries, arrived. The custard was the creamiest substance I'd ever put in my mouth.

The chef returned at the conclusion of the meal. I smiled as sweetly as I could while Vince complimented him on the meal.

"Why did you take a summer job with Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter?" I asked him during the drive back to the office. "With your academic background, you could have worked anywhere."

"One, it's close to home without being there. I'll spend next weekend in Charleston."

Vince turned onto Montgomery Street. I waited for other reasons. None came.

AFTER I THANKED VINCE FOR LUNCH, I GRABBED THE JONES file from the library and rushed upstairs to Zach's office. His door was open. Fast-food paper wrappers from lunch were strewn across his desk.

"Are you ready to go?" I asked.

Zach looked at his watch. "I worked until one o'clock, then went out for a burger. Mr. Appleby doesn't take a two-hour lunch unless there is going to be a twenty-thousand-dollar fee on the line."

"Vince took me to a French cafe near Greene Square. The food was good, but the service was on European time."

Zach wadded up the food wrappers and threw them across the room into a round trash can.

"Nice shot," I said.

"When did you go to Europe?" he asked, standing up.

"I haven't. Vince told me the French take a lot of time with their meals. Eating is more of a social event with them than it is for us."

"Let's socialize with Mr. Jones at the jail," Zach said. "While you were leisurely dining, I stopped by the courthouse and copied the district attorney's file."

"What did you find?"

"I'll let you look it over in the car."

I'd never seen Zach's car. He owned a white Japanese compact. The engine didn't start until he turned the key in the ignition. He handed me the file.

"See what you think," he said.

I opened the folder. There was a one-page arrest record, and the names of the five property owners mentioned in the criminal charges. Beside each name were several dates and the words "video surveillance."

"Do you think the police were watching Moses for several weeks and videotaped him each time he tied up at one of the docks?" I asked.

"No. Video surveillance refers to images from security cameras. That's how they knew which night Moses was at each location. Each count has a specific date. While I was waiting for you, I called three of the five homeowners. They were nice enough to talk to me. That's how I found out about the surveillance cameras. The homeowners association has a contract with a security agency that services everybody."

"What else did you find out?"

"That Moses Jones did not have permission to trespass. One woman said she was terrified that Jones was going to assault her and burglarize her house. She saw his boat floating at the end of her dock early one morning and called the police. He was gone by the time they arrived, but that's when the investigation started."

"Did she talk to Moses?"

"None of them did. The two other owners I reached didn't know he'd been there until the security company checked the recordings for all the houses on the river. Jones was arrested at the dock of a homeowner who didn't answer the phone."

I turned to the next page in the folder and found the statement Moses gave to Detective Branson.

"Moses doesn't talk anything like this," I said after quickly scanning the four-paragraph statement with my client's crude signature at the bottom. "These are the detective's words put into Moses' mouth."

"Stylistic objections aside, what is your opinion of the statement?"

"Moses admits tying his boat up at the docks. I know he's guilty, but the way the detective crafted the statement bothers me."

Zach glanced sideways at me. "Are you turning into a left-wing criminal defense lawyer before my eyes?"

"No, I don't want to miss anything else. I didn't pay enough attention to the charges."

"Should we file a motion to suppress the confession?"

"I don't know if there are legal grounds."

"Research it before we appear in front of Judge Cannon tomorrow afternoon."

We arrived at the jail complex. I pointed to a parking area.

"That's near the entrance for the cell block where he's kept. Didn't you handle a criminal case when you clerked for the firm?"

"Remember, I didn't clerk in Savannah."

I felt embarrassed. Zach had told me he had clerked in Los Angeles, not Savannah, but I hadn't paid attention to the details. I started to apologize, but that would have only reinforced my blunder. We entered the waiting area. A different female deputy was on duty. I showed her the order from Judge Cannon, and a deputy took us to the interview area.

"I'll have the prisoner brought up," the deputy said.

In a few minutes the door to the cell block opened and Moses came in. He saw me and smiled. I couldn't help feeling some compassion for the old man.

"Mr. Jones, this is Zach Mays," I said. "He's a lawyer who is going to help you."

"Call me Moses," the old man said. "No one calls me Mr. Jones unless they be wanting my money, which I ain't got none."

We entered the interview room.

"What you do about my boat, missy?" Moses asked before we were seated. "It be in the same place as before."

I'd forgotten my promise to check on the status of his boat.

"Uh, that's not been decided. We'll talk to the district attorney about it and include return of the boat as part of the plea bargain in your case. Mr. Mays has been working hard on your case and has some things to tell you."

Zach told Moses about his interviews with the homeowners and Ms. Smith's plea offer. When the subject of jail time came up, Moses looked puzzled.

"She want me in this here jailhouse for six months more? I done been here 'bout two months."

"Which is long enough," Zach said. "I think they should let you out for time already served and put you on probation for less than three years."

"Oh, yeah. Plenty boys get prohibition. But the policemans, they turn that into hard time if they be wanting to. This ought to be over and done with."

"That may not be possible," Zach said. "Some probation, or 'prohibition' as you call it, will be included in your sentence. Do I have your permission to talk to the district attorney about a deal? You would have to be willing to plead guilty to at least some of the trespassing charges and agree not to do it again."

"I told missy here, I be tying up to an old tree from here on." The old man's eyes watered. "I just be needing a place of peace where they can't find me."

"Who?" Zach asked.

Moses looked at me. "The faces. I ain't on the river, but that little girl, she found me last night. I dream 'bout the river an' there she be. How she do that? In my dream, miles from the river edge?"

"What is the girl's name?" Zach asked. "Do you know her?"

"It's not relevant to the case," I said to Zach. "We don't need to ask about this. Please leave it alone."

"What's her name?" Zach persisted, leaning forward in his chair.

Moses licked his lips. "It be Prescott. She a pretty little thing. No more than ten or eleven year old. I don't do nothing bad. So, why she bother me all these years?"

I remembered the photograph in Mrs. Fairmont's room. The blood rushed from my head, and I felt slightly dizzy.

"Did you say Prescott?" I asked in a voice that trembled slightly.

"That be right, missy."

"What color eyes and hair does she have?"

"She be yellow-haired with eyes like the blue sky. Even in the dark, dark water, that hair, it still glows, those eyes, they see right through my soul."

"Is she the girl who was murdered?"

Moses stared at me and blinked.

"What are you talking about?" Zach asked me sharply.

I bolted from the room and let the door slam behind me. I leaned against the wall and took several deep breaths. The deputy on duty in the room started walking toward me. Zach came out of the interview room and joined me.

"Are you okay?" the deputy asked.

I held up my hand. "I just needed to leave the room for a minute. I'm okay."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes sir."

The deputy backed away.

"What's going on?" Zach asked as soon as the deputy was on the other side of the room. "Who is the Prescott girl?"

I didn't answer. Zach put his hands on my shoulders and came close to my face. "Talk to me!"

I pushed away his hands. "That's not necessary," I said. "Give me a second."

He backed away.

In a shaky voice I told him about the old photograph and Mrs. Fairmont's story.

"A terrible crime like that would have been the talk of the town for months," Zach said matter-of-factly. "Everyone else in Savannah would have known all about it. The girl's picture would have been on the front page of the paper every time it ran an article."

"But that doesn't explain why Moses sees her face in the water. You heard him. He wanted to make sure we didn't think he'd done anything wrong."

"Which proves?"

My frustration with Zach flew to the surface. "That you don't understand we may be representing a man who should be charged with murder, not trespassing!"

"Keep your voice down," Zach whispered as he glanced across the room toward the deputy. "We're here to talk to Moses Jones about a misdemeanor trespassing case."