The Resurrection File Page 19

  27

  THE SUN WAS OUT AND THE AIR WAS WARM as Will Chambers motored along the North Carolina coastline. The top was down on his Corvette convertible, and the sunlight felt good on his face after some days of cloudy weather. His golden retriever, Clarence, was in the passenger seat, his head in the wind, his ears flapping, and his eyes closed in dog delight.

  Off to his left Will saw the white band of beaches and the azure blue of the ocean. No whitecaps today. The Atlantic was calm. As he drove up and over the bridge that led out to Cape Hatteras he wondered how long it had been. Ten, fifteen years perhaps since he had last visited the ocean home of his Uncle Bull and Aunt Georgia. He had talked with them a few times by telephone. Some letters and Christmas cards had passed back and forth. The last time he had met with them face-to-face was at Audra’s funeral.

  When Will had started on his four-hour drive from Virginia down to the sand dunes and fishing boats of the Outer Banks he had told himself that he was really going there to meet his uncle for professional reasons. Bull Chambers had been a well-respected North Carolina county judge. Now that he was retired and lived year-round on the coast, from what Will gathered he spent most of his time ocean fishing and beach walking with his wife of fifty years. Bull was one of the wisest men Will had known in the law—full of the common-sense side of legal issues—studied, calm, and deliberate. And while Bull was smart, he always knew that the underside of the cold, objective standards of justice included a healthy dose of mercy. Beyond even that, Will had a bond with Uncle Bull. When Will and his father had become estranged many years back he always felt he could turn to Bull, his father’s brother, to talk things out.

  Will had told his client Angus MacCameron only that he needed to consult a trusted “legal advisor” regarding the thorny dilemma with which they were presented at the end of the deposition. MacCameron consented and told Will that whatever he decided to do about the Rule 11 motion—or anything else in the case for that matter—had his complete support.

  Yet as Will drove down the sandy dirt road to Bull and Georgia’s weathered ocean house he felt that perhaps there had been other reasons for this trip. Personal reasons. Subjects that had been put away like you put away a closed file on the shelf or hang clothes in the back closet because they’re out of season. Put away, but not forgotten.

  He came into view of the little home with wooden siding worn and bleached gray by the sun and wind and salt air. The two-story beach house with the screened-in front porch was perched up on a bluff overlooking the white dunes, which were spotted with occasional clumps of tall saw grass blowing in the breeze.

  As Will pulled his car down into the driveway, Georgia Chambers, a woman of sixty-nine with salt-and-pepper hair, scooted out of the back door and into full view. Will had always remembered her as a creature of eternal optimism and energy. Georgia was wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt, and her head was cocked slightly to the side, with an enormous grin, and both hands were on her hips in her characteristic pose of spunk and love.

  “Willie Chambers, you come over here right now and plant a big kiss on your Auntie Georgia’s wrinkled face!”

  Georgia held her arms out wide, and Will hugged her slight frame, smelling the lilac water she always wore.

  She put her arm through his and led him into the kitchen, where she had a glass of lemonade waiting for him. Clarence bounded in after them. She scolded him gently for not coming down to visit over the years. She ran her fingers through the tangle of his long hair and said, “You are getting to look so like your daddy.”

  Georgia explained that Bull was waiting for Will at the harbor, where he was working on his big fishing boat. She walked Will out onto the screened-in porch.

  There on the porch, just as Will could have expected, was a table with the pieces of a picture puzzle, some connected, some in disarray. Will looked at the semi-completed jigsaw puzzle and reached for the box cover that lay on the floor.

  Georgia quickly grabbed his hand away. “No fair. You have to guess first, Willie. Now what does it look like? Guess.”

  Will studied the collection of pieces that were already fitted together in the middle of the table.

  “Looks like a cave,” Will remarked.

  “Close,” Georgia chimed brightly. “It’s called the Garden Tomb. That’s the tomb that a British general by the name of Gordon discovered in the 1880s. A lot of folks think that was the place where the Lord Jesus was buried and rose again.”

  “How long have you been working on this?” Will asked.

  “Oh, a couple weeks. Only when I get the urge. Bull and I have been so busy doing absolutely nothing that I don’t get to it very often!” She laughed loudly and then added, “You know I’m trying to talk your Uncle Bull into taking me over to the Holy Land next year. You know, I’ve never been. What a thrill that’s going to be!”

  As they left and walked over to Will’s car, he looked back toward the porch.

  “I remember you reading to me on that porch when I was a kid.”

  “Oh yes,” Georgia replied. “Remember the little Bible lessons and stories I used to teach you and the other children on the porch? Your daddy would throw a fit! Oh my, he didn’t care for that. Well, you know your daddy!” And then she laughed some more.

  Will kissed her and hopped in his car with his dog. He promised he wouldn’t be such a stranger anymore, and would visit again. Then he started driving along the beach road toward the marina where he expected to find Bull Chambers.

  28

  DOWN AT THE DOCKS BULL CHAMBERS was working on the deck of his big fishing rig, named Sweet Georgia Mine.

  A tall, lanky man, Bull had a face that was weathered and deeply lined and showed all of his seventy years. But his arms were tan and muscular. Bull was a man who was lean and sinewy and tough but always met folks with a smile and a gentle voice. From his physical appearance, his gait, and his folksy manner, one might think that Bull had spent his life as a woodsman or a fisherman, rather than presiding over a court of law.

  The retired judge gave a big wave from the boat’s bow when he saw Will, and the two shook hands warmly as Will climbed on board. Clarence scampered behind him and then quickly plopped on top of one of the boat cushions.

  “Thought we’d do some fishing while we talked,” Bull said. “Push us off from the pier, will you, while I back her up.”

  Bull navigated the big fishing boat out of the channel, moving slowly until they started heading toward the open ocean.

  On the telephone Will had only told Bull that he had a case to discuss with him. Now, while Will stood next to Bull in the little wheelhouse of the boat as they ventured out into deeper waters, Will launched into the details of Reichstad vs. MacCameron and Digging for Truth Magazine.

  By the time Bull had arrived at his favorite spot for the big ocean tuna and marlin and was gearing the engine down, Will was just finishing his overview of the case, including J-Fox Sherman’s ruthless Rule 11 attorney’s-fees motion against Will.

  Along with his review of that case, however, Will had also talked about a great deal more—his being forced out of his law firm, his money problems, his frustration with his legal career, his irritation at his former managing partner Hadley Bates, his night with Fiona at the little Italian restaurant, and his general impressions of Angus MacCameron’s religious views.

  Bull addressed Will’s legal concerns first.

  “I know a little about how J-Fox Sherman operates,” Bull said in his slow tarheel drawl, as he baited the thick rod that was locked in next to the fishing chair at the stern. “I had him in my courtroom a number of years ago. It was a complicated product-liability case. He marched down from Washington with his army of legal assistants, you know. Sherman’s a lawyer who does to his opponents what I do to those sea bass I like to catch—first he guts them, then he pulls out the spine.”

  Bull slowed the boat to trolling speed and set Will up in the chair with the wide leather belt around his waist. Will slowly s
tarted reeling the line in.

  “Hey,” Will said, “it’s been a lot of years. I hope I remember how to do this.”

  Bull yelled out, “How do you like the name of my boat?”

  “Yeah, I noticed it,” Will replied. “Aunt Georgia must have been honored.”

  “Well,” Bull said, “it was kind of a bribe. She hates fishing—and I love it. So when I retired I figured that I had to give the woman her due, somehow, for all the time I spent out on this thing.”

  After Bull killed the engine he reached into the Styrofoam cooler and pulled out a can of diet soda.

  “Georgia thinks I’m a backslider. She’s really been working on me. So far she’s gotten me to give up my cigar-smoking, give up my drinking, and she has me back at Wednesday-night, midweek services at the Baptist church. I told her I draw the line at my Thursday poker-playing, though.”

  Bull passed a can of soda over to Will.

  The boat was creaking rhythmically as it was buoyed gently on the rolling waves.

  “You’re not helping me with my legal problem,” Will said after a few moments of silence.

  “What are you after?”

  “I need to know what you think, Bull.”

  “About what?”

  “What have I been talking about here? My case. I’ve got a decision to make. If I cave in to Sherman and we admit the issue of recklessness in my client’s publication of that article, we only have one single thin defense left at trial to try to win this case on—we would have to prove that MacCameron’s allegations about Reichstad were substantially true. That’s a pretty tall order. On the other hand—if I gamble on the fact that they can’t prove recklessness and we take our chances, and Judge Kaye rules against us on that, I may be facing a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees assessed against me.”

  “Maybe,” Bull replied. “But I’ve seen you pull more legal rabbits out of more legal hats, I swear, boy. You’ve been in tough spots before.”

  “This time it’s different.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe I’m getting tired of trying cases. Maybe I want to chuck it all and come down here and open up a fishing guide business with you—make a lot of money off the tourists. And maybe it’s something else. It just seems like nothing makes any sense. And frankly, I don’t think I care anymore,” Will said in a distant kind of voice.

  “Well, I’ve been listening to you talk about your case,” Bull said. “I’ve been listening. But I don’t really think this is about your case. Not really.”

  Will glanced at his uncle, then stared out over the slowly rolling blue ocean.

  “The last time I saw you was at Audra’s funeral. I’ll never forget the look on your face. You know, when I was in Korea I remember whenever a soldier would get hit in a serious way—you know, like if he just got gut-shot and his insides were all tore up. And the man would look up at you with that look. The look that said he knew that the life was pouring out of him, and he knew that all hope was gone.

  “Well,” Bull said, tossing his empty soda can in a bucket, “that was you. My heart just about busted for you when I walked into the funeral parlor and saw you. You looked just like you’d been gut-shot. You honestly did.”

  Will wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. He stretched out his legs so his feet rested on the stern rail, and folded his hands on his fishing rod.

  “I’m no great expert on the human heart—no psychologist—” Bull continued, “but I will say this. I think you’ve probably been carrying the weight of the world around since Audra’s death. What happened to that poor, beautiful wife of yours was terrible. She must just have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “And you probably figured that if you had done things differently—if you’d have wooed her back to you during the separation—if you’d have put down your pride and gotten her back to you there in Monroeville, things would have been different. Then she wouldn’t have been alone in that apartment in Georgetown that night when the break-in happened. And then she wouldn’t have been murdered. Now I’ll tell you something about regrets, Will-boy. Regrets are a big load to carry on your back for the rest of your life.”

  Will choked as he tried to fight back his tears. Bull came up from behind him and placed his hands on Will’s shoulders but said nothing. There was quiet for a while, except for the lapping waves and the sound of the boat rolling gently.

  “I still miss her,” Will said. “Down to my bones.” The two men were still again for a few minutes.

  Then Bull broke the silence. “I come out here on the big water, especially when everything is calm and blue—the sky and the ocean, like it is today—and I bring up a lot of memories about folks we lost. I think about you losing Audra. And I think about my brother—your dad—and how I wished I could have said goodbye to him. And I think about the two of us, as boys, fishing together. Hiking along the edge of the swampy flats that were a few miles from where we grew up.”

  “Did Dad ever tell you why he divorced Mom?”

  “Never did,” Bull replied. “I tried to talk to him about it. I could see that it was driving the two of you apart. But you know your Dad. Proud. A little pompous. Stubborn as the day is long. No, he wouldn’t talk much to me about that. He and I were different. I stayed a good ol’ boy down here in North Carolina. He moved up to Boston to go to school; he liked playing the part of a Northeastern intellectual.

  “I loved your dad. He was a brilliant man. But he could be arrogant. Always wanted to figure things out his way. Never wanted to rely on other folks. That can be a lonely way to live. When he died all of a sudden, that must have been a real shock to you.”

  “I always figured Dad and I would patch things up. But it never happened,” Will mused. “Then one day I got that call from Mom in California. She said she’d been contacted by some of the folks at the newspaper. They’d found him on the floor of his office.”

  Bull was going to say something—but he was interrupted by a noise. Will’s rod bent down violently, banging on the rail. Will straightened up and pulled back on the rod. He muscled the line as he fought the pull at the end of his pole so he could begin reeling in; suddenly a large blue and yellow and green tinted marlin broke the water and leaped in the air, its head jerking frantically side to side as it fought the hook in its mouth.

  Bull jumped over to the wheel and straightened out the boat so the line wouldn’t get tangled in the motor, and sang out to Will not to lose him.

  The marlin dove deep and Will pulled the rod again. He could feel the big fish struggling, pulling, and swimming first in one direction and then another.

  Will’s arms started tiring as he tenaciously reeled in the fish closer and closer. After twenty minutes of struggle, as Will brought the huge catch up to the side of the boat, they could finally see the glimmering ocean colors of the marlin through the water, just below the surface.

  Bull reached over with his long gaff hook and hooked it in the gills. Will unstrapped himself from the chair, and the two pulled the fish up and over, into the bay of the boat. As the heavy weight of the fish slammed down on the deck, Clarence woke up and began barking wildly.

  Bull and Will both laughed and congratulated each other, and took a minute to admire this elegant brute of a fish with its huge spiny fan spread out, its gills opening and closing as it lay in the boat.

  “How about a catch and release on this one?” Will asked.

  “No matter to me. I don’t eat ’em,” Bull said. “And I’m too cheap to mount ’em.”

  Then Bull fished around in his bag for a moment and pulled out a little camera. “Here,” he said, “let’s at least prove to my wife that we were fishing, rather than loafing and drinking down at the Harbor Lights Tavern.”

  Will needed both hands to pull the marlin up and hold it by the stringer line in front of him as Bull clicked off a couple pictures on his camera. Then they took the pliers, worked the hook out, and slowly lifted and
then pushed the big fish back over the side of the boat. The marlin slipped into the water, then made one last, quick break at the surface before it disappeared into the deep.

  The two men motored back to shore on the calmly rolling deck of the Sweet Georgia Mine. When Clarence started scenting land, and the harbor was coming up close, he began running around excitedly in circles, barking and wagging his shaggy tail.

  “You never did give me your advice on my case,” Will commented as he leaned into the ocean breeze that was hitting his face and blowing his long hair straight behind him.

  “Hmm. Okay. Here it is,” Bull said. “This is what I’ve got to say to you, Will-boy. I think that this case you’ve got here is more than some fine legal points. And I think that the Good Lord has got the right lawyer on his side in this case. And I think that he is going to make sure that you do the right thing, whatever that is.

  “Besides,” Bull said as he turned the wheel and powered the boat down, “I’ll get your Aunt Georgia to start praying about your case. And after that happens, I wouldn’t want to be in J-Fox Sherman’s shoes for all the tea in China.”

  Up ahead where the ocean met the harbor, it was peaceful and clear except for one lone sailboat that was skimming along, parallel to them. Bull Chambers waved to the sailors and began guiding his boat slowly toward his designated slip. He cut the motors, and with his weathered hand on the wheel, he guided it perfectly and effortlessly dockside.

  29

  WILL WAS CRUISING BACK TO VIRGINIA on the interstate. He knew he had to make some decisions while he drove. Clarence lay, exhausted and sleeping, on the car seat while the lawyer began to rev up his mental engines.

  He thought back over each of the details of MacCameron’s deposition. And about the issues in the case, and the evidence they had to support their defenses.

  But mostly, Will was riveted on Sherman’s motion to sanction him with attorney’s fees. In order to prevail, Sherman would have to show that MacCameron was reckless in his publishing of the article; but even further he would have to show that Will was contesting that issue with absolutely no evidence to support his conclusion—the conclusion that MacCameron had at least some facts to back up his article when he wrote it.