The Chamber (17 page)

This place was as quiet as a funeral parlor. Cooley pushed open a door and flipped on a switch. “How’s this?” he asked, waving his arm in a broad circle. The room was more than adequate, a long narrow office with a beautiful polished table in the center and five chairs on each side. At one end, a makeshift workplace with a phone, computer, and executive’s chair had been arranged. Adam walked along the table, glancing at the bookshelves filled with neat but unused law books. He peeked through the curtains of the window. “Nice view,” he said, looking three floors below at the pigeons and people on the Mall.

“Hope it’s adequate,” Cooley said.

“It’s very nice. It’ll work just fine. I’ll keep to myself and stay out of your way.”

“Nonsense. If you need anything, just give me a call.” Cooley was walking slowly toward Adam. “There is one thing, though,” he said with his eyebrows suddenly serious.

Adam faced him. “What is it?”

“Got a call a couple of hours ago from a reporter here in Memphis. Don’t know the guy, but he said he’s been following the Cayhall case for years. Wanted to know if our firm was still handling the case, you know. I suggested he contact the boys in Chicago. We, of course, have nothing to do with it.” He pulled a scrap of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Adam. It had a name and a phone number.

“I’ll take care of it,” Adam said.

Cooley took a step closer and crossed his arms on
his chest. “Look, Adam, we’re not trial lawyers, you know. We do the corporate work. Money’s great. We’re very low key, and we avoid publicity, you know.”

Adam nodded slowly but said nothing.

“We’ve never touched a criminal case, certainly nothing as huge as this.”

“You don’t want any of the dirt to rub off on you, right?”

“I didn’t say that. Not at all. No. It’s just that things are different down here. This is not Chicago. Our biggest clients happen to be some rather staid and proper old bankers, been with us for years, and, well, we’re just concerned about our image. You know what I mean?”

“No.”

“Sure you do. We don’t deal with criminals, and, well, we’re very sensitive about the image we project here in Memphis.”

“You don’t deal with criminals?”

“Never.”

“But you represent big banks?”

“Come on, Adam. You know where I’m coming from. This area of our practice is changing rapidly. Deregulation, mergers, failures, a real dynamic sector of the law. Competition is fierce among the big law firms, and we don’t want to lose clients. Hell, everybody wants banks.”

“And you don’t want your clients tainted by mine?”

“Look, Adam, you’re from Chicago. Let’s keep this matter where it belongs, okay? It’s a Chicago case, handled by you guys up there. Memphis has nothing to do with it, okay?”

“This office is part of Kravitz & Bane.”

“Yeah, and this office has nothing to gain by being connected to scum like Sam Cayhall.”

“Sam Cayhall is my grandfather.”

“Shit!” Cooley’s knees buckled and his arms dropped from his chest. “You’re lying!”

Adam took a step toward him. “I’m not lying, and if you object to my presence here, then you need to call Chicago.”

“This is awful,” Cooley said as he retreated and headed for the door.

“Call Chicago.”

“I might do that,” he said, almost to himself, as he opened the door and disappeared, mumbling something else.

Welcome to Memphis, Adam said as he sat in his new chair and stared at the blank computer screen. He placed the scrap of paper on the table and looked at the name and phone number. A sharp hunger pain hit, and he realized he hadn’t eaten in hours. It was almost four. He was suddenly weak and tired and hungry.

He gently placed both feet on the table next to the phone, and closed his eyes. The day was a blur, from the anxiety of driving to Parchman and seeing the front gate of the prison, from the unexpected meeting with Lucas Mann, to the horror of stepping onto the Row, to the fear of confronting Sam. And now the warden wanted to meet him, the press wanted to inquire, the Memphis branch of his firm wanted it all hushed up. All this, in less than eight hours.

What could he expect tomorrow?

______

They sat next to each other on the deep cushioned sofa with a bowl of microwave popcorn between them. Their bare feet were on the coffee table amid a half dozen empty cartons of Chinese food and two bottles of wine. They peered over their toes and watched the television. Adam held the remote control. The room was dark. He slowly ate popcorn.

Lee hadn’t moved in a long time. Her eyes were wet, but she said nothing. The video started for the second time.

Adam pushed the Pause button as Sam first appeared, in handcuffs, being rushed from the jail to a hearing. “Where were you when you heard he was arrested?” he asked without looking at her.

“Here in Memphis,” she said quietly but with a strong voice. “We had been married for a few years. I was at home. Phelps called and said there had been a bombing in Greenville, at least two people were dead. Might be the Klan. He told me to watch the news at noon, but I was afraid to. A few hours later, my mother called and told me they had arrested Daddy for the bombing. She said he was in jail in Greenville.”

“How’d you react?”

“I don’t know. Stunned. Scared. Eddie got on the phone and told me that he and Mother had been instructed by Sam to sneak over to Cleveland and retrieve his car. I remember Eddie kept saying that he’d finally done it, he’d finally done it. He’d killed someone else. Eddie was crying and I started crying, and I remember it was horrible.”

“They got the car.”

“Yeah. No one ever knew it. It never came out during any of the trials. We were scared the cops would find out about it, and make Eddie and my mother testify. But it never happened.”

“Where was I?”

“Let me see. You guys lived in a little white house in Clanton, and I’m sure you were there with Evelyn. I don’t think she was working at the time. But I’m not sure.”

“What kind of work was my father doing?”

“I don’t remember. At one time he worked as a manager
in an auto parts store in Clanton, but he was always changing jobs.”

The video continued with clips of Sam being escorted to and from the jail and the courthouse, then there was the report that he had been formally indicted for the murders. He paused it. “Did any one of you visit Sam in jail?”

“No. Not while he was in Greenville. His bond was very high, a half a million dollars, I think.”

“It was a half a million.”

“And at first the family tried to raise the money to bail him out. Mother, of course, wanted me to convince Phelps to write a check. Phelps, of course, said no. He wanted no part of it. We fought bitterly, but I couldn’t really blame him. Daddy stayed in jail. I remember one of his brothers trying to borrow against some land, but it didn’t work. Eddie didn’t want to go to jail to see him, and Mother wasn’t able. I’m not sure Sam wanted us there.”

“When did we leave Clanton?”

Lee leaned forward and took her wineglass from the table. She sipped and thought for a moment. “He’d been in jail about a month, I believe. I drove down one day to see Mother, and she told me Eddie was talking about leaving. I didn’t believe it. She said he was embarrassed and humiliated and couldn’t face people around town. He’d just lost his job and he wouldn’t leave the house. I called him and talked to Evelyn. Eddie wouldn’t get on the phone. She said he was depressed and disgraced and all that, and I remember telling her that we all felt that way. I asked her if they were leaving, and she distinctly said no. About a week later, Mother called again and said you guys had packed and left in the middle of the night. The landlord was calling and wanting rent, and no one had seen Eddie. The house was empty.”

“I wish I remembered some of this.”

“You were only three, Adam. The last time I saw you you were playing by the garage of the little white house. You were so cute and sweet.”

“Gee thanks.”

“Several weeks passed, then one day Eddie called me and told me to tell Mother that you guys were in Texas and doing okay.”

“Texas?”

“Yeah. Evelyn told me much later that y’all sort of drifted westward. She was pregnant and anxious to settle down some place. He called again and said y’all were in California. That was the last call for many years.”

“Years?”

“Yeah. I tried to convince him to come home, but he was adamant. Swore he’d never return, and I guess he meant it.”

“Where were my mother’s parents?”

“I don’t know. They were not from Ford County. Seems like they lived in Georgia, maybe Florida.”

“I’ve never met them.”

He pushed the button again and the video continued. The first trial started in Nettles County. The camera panned the courthouse lawn with the group of Klansmen and rows of policemen and swarms of onlookers.

“This is incredible,” Lee said.

He stopped it again. “Did you go to the trial?”

“Once. I sneaked in the courthouse and listened to the closing arguments. He forbade us to watch any of his three trials. Mother was not able. Her blood pressure was out of control, and she was taking lots of medication. She was practically bedridden.”

“Did Sam know you were there?”

“No. I sat in the back of the courtroom with a scarf over my head. He never saw me.”

“What was Phelps doing?”

“Hiding in his office, tending to his business, praying no one would find out Sam Cayhall was his father-in-law. Our first separation occurred not long after this trial.”

“What do you remember from the trial, from the courtroom?”

“I remember thinking that Sam got himself a good jury, his kind of people. I don’t know how his lawyer did it, but they picked twelve of the biggest rednecks they could find. I watched the jurors react to the prosecutor, and I watched them listen carefully to Sam’s lawyer.”

“Clovis Brazelton.”

“He was quite an orator, and they hung on every word. I was shocked when the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict and a mistrial was declared. I was convinced he would be acquitted. I think he was shocked too.”

The video continued with reactions to the mistrial, with generous comments from Clovis Brazelton, with another shot of Sam leaving the courthouse. Then the second trial began with its similarities to the first. “How long have you worked on this?” she asked.

“Seven years. I was a freshman at Pepperdine when the idea hit. It’s been a challenge.” He fast-forwarded through the pathetic scene of Marvin Kramer spilling from his wheelchair after the second trial, and stopped with the smiling face of a local anchorwoman as she chattered on about the opening of the third trial of the legendary Sam Cayhall. It was 1981 now.

“Sam was a free man for thirteen years,” Adam said. “What did he do?”

“He kept to himself, farmed a little, tried to make ends meet. He never talked to me about the bombing
or any of his Klan activities, but he enjoyed the attention in Clanton. He was somewhat of a local legend down there, and he was sort of smug about it. Mother’s health declined, and he stayed at home and took care of her.”

“He never thought about leaving?”

“Not seriously. He was convinced his legal problems were over. He’d had two trials, and walked away from both of them. No jury in Mississippi was going to convict a Klansman in the late sixties. He thought he was invincible. He stayed close to Clanton, avoided the Klan, and lived a peaceful life. I thought he’d spend his golden years growing tomatoes and fishing for bream.”

“Did he ever ask about my father?”

She finished her wine and placed the glass on the table. It had never occurred to Lee that she would one day be asked to recall in detail so much of this sad little history. She had worked so hard to forget it. “I remember during the first year he was back home, he would occasionally ask me if I’d heard from my brother. Of course, I hadn’t. We knew you guys were somewhere in California, and we hoped you were okay. Sam’s a very proud and stubborn person, Adam. He would never consider chasing you guys down and begging Eddie to come home. If Eddie was ashamed of his family, then Sam felt like he should stay in California.” She paused and sunk lower into the sofa. “Mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1973, and I hired a private investigator to find Eddie. He worked for six months, charged me a bunch of money, and found nothing.”

“I was nine years old, fourth grade, that was in Salem, Oregon.”

“Yeah. Evelyn told me later that you guys spent time in Oregon.”

“We moved all the time. Every year was a different
school until I was in the eighth grade. Then we settled in Santa Monica.”

“You were elusive. Eddie must’ve hired a good lawyer, because any trace of Cayhall was eliminated. The investigator even used some people out there, but nothing.”

“When did she die?”

“Nineteen seventy-seven. We were actually sitting in the front of the church, about to start the funeral, when Eddie slid in a side
door and sat behind me. Don’t ask how he knew about Mother’s death. He simply appeared in Clanton then disappeared again. Never said a word to Sam. Drove a rental car so no one could check his plates. I drove to Memphis the next day, and there he was, waiting in my driveway. We drank coffee for two hours and talked about everything. He had school pictures of you and Carmen, everything was just wonderful in sunny Southern California. Good job, nice house in the suburbs, Evelyn was selling real estate. The American dream. Said he would never return to Mississippi, not even for Sam’s funeral. After swearing me to secrecy, he told me about the new names, and he gave me his phone number. Not his address, just his phone number. Any breach of secrecy, he threatened, and he would simply disappear again. He told me not to call him, though, unless it was an emergency. I told him I wanted to see you and Carmen, and he said that it might happen, one day. At times he was the same old Eddie, and at times he was another person. We hugged and waved good-bye, and I never saw him again.”

Adam flipped the remote and the video moved. The clear, modern images of the third and final trial moved by quickly, and there was Sam, suddenly thirteen years older, with a new lawyer as they darted through a side door of the Lakehead County Courthouse. “Did you go to the third trial?”