Custody of the State Read online

  Will, stung by that comment, sat up straight in his chair and leaned forward slightly.

  “There’s something I just don’t see here,” Will said. “I tell you about a case I’m not taking—a case that happens to be in Georgia. And then you use that as a basis for talking about how I haven’t made any accommodations in my life. I told you I didn’t take the case because I’ve got too much on my plate. Doesn’t that mean that I’m trying to create a place for us?”

  “No,” Fiona said bluntly. “I heard you saying that you couldn’t quite fit it into your schedule, not that you had me in mind when you made the decision. Not that you should think about me every time a new client walks in the door—what I’m talking about is not the details of this case. I’m talking about our relationship. I just want to make sure that you’re making a place for us. That you’re willing to make sacrifices and adjustments in your life.”

  “Sacrifices?” Will asked, his voice rising. “While we’re on that subject, how about your recording session, which is going to take you out of state? And it’s going to separate us—at a time when I thought we would really be able to start spending some time together. I’d never heard about this until you just dropped it on me, just now.”

  “Will,” Fiona said, her voice filled with distress, “I told you about this recording session weeks ago. Don’t you remember?”

  Will shook his head with some embarrassment and shrugged.

  Fiona managed a half-smile and reached out to touch his hand. “Will,” she said, “I want this to work just like you do. It’s just going to take a lot of sacrifice—and a lot of adjustment. And it’s going to take some change. Just like when you came to Christ. There’s still a lot of change that has to take place there also.”

  Will bristled. “So you’re saying that I’m spiritually immature because my conversion came later in life than yours?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But I think that’s what you meant,” Will replied.

  Fiona was still holding his hand, and she squeezed it. “Will, darling, listen to me. God is doing great things in your life. I look at you—and I see nothing but a miracle. Please believe me when I say that.”

  After a moment, Will looked up and smiled.

  Then Fiona remembered something. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a piece of paper. “You wanted me to make sure to remind you of the date we were arranging for the dinner at church for my dad—on the anniversary of Mom’s death. We’re scheduling a luncheon at the church, and here’s the reminder.”

  She passed the note over to Will, and as he glanced at the date and time, his countenance fell.

  “What’s wrong?” Fiona asked.

  “Well…I think I’ve got a problem with this date,” Will said hesitatingly.

  “I mentioned this date to you before I started making plans to set it up,” Fiona said, her eyes full of hurt.

  “Well, if you did, I don’t remember it,” Will said. “I don’t have my calendar with me—but I’m absolutely certain this is the date that we’ve set up an all-day meeting between the State Department and the families of all those missionaries we’re representing in our case against Sudan. It’s taken us months to set that up. We’ve got people flying in from all over the country. A few people are even coming in from overseas.” Will leaned his head on his hands. “Man, this is a disaster.”

  Fiona simply closed her eyes and shook her head.

  The waitress appeared again.

  “Any dessert?” she with a professionally cheery demeanor. “Mud pie is delicious. Berries and cream? We have a chef’s specialty—”

  “How about the check?” Will snapped.

  After the waitress was gone, Will looked across the table. Fiona’s eyes were filled with tears. She was resting her head on her hand, and her lip was quivering a bit.

  “I think I’m just overtired. Would you please take me home?” she asked.

  Will nodded. He searched for something to say. But not able to find the words, he turned in silence to watch the waitress hustling over to the table, bill in hand.

  Inside, he was trying to ignore it—the pull of the swirling whirlpool, sucking the two of them down. Into the unspoken vagaries of miscommunication and broken trust, into the carefully plotted romantic plans that always seemed to go awry. Down into the ocean graveyard of drowned intentions. To the sandy bottom, where the failures of love rest in the dark, like some rusting vessel.

  7

  JUDA COUNTY PROSECUTOR Harry Putnam was pacing back and forth behind his desk, his short, stocky frame occasionally bouncing on the balls of his feet to punctuate a point as he lectured the small circle of county staff assembled in his office.

  “One—we still don’t have our hands on Mary Sue Fellows or little Joshua. Two—we’ve got a hearing coming up in Joe Fellows’ case at the end of this week. Three—like I said, we still haven’t located the Fellows woman or her kid. Are you all starting to see a pattern in my comments this morning?”

  Putnam stared at Otis Tracher, the tall, thin plainclothes detective with a bland expression and an unruly tuft of hair that seemed to defy combing. Tracher sat up a little straighter and volunteered a thought.

  “I know that finding the perpetrator and her victim is the number-one priority here,” the detective said. “I’ve got two other officers working this in addition to myself.”

  “I am not happy,” Putnam snapped out, bouncing up with the last word. “In fact, I am very unhappy. I asked you to tail the Indian—”

  “Harry, we did. The Indian didn’t take the flight.”

  “And why not?”

  “Maybe someone tipped him off. All I know is that when that plane landed in Albuquerque, he wasn’t on the flight,” Tracher explained.

  “Where does that leave us?”

  “Wherever he came from, he returned by another route.”

  “He disappeared?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like magic?” Putnam rapped out sarcastically.

  “We’re going to get him. Just a matter of time,” said the detective in a voice that struggled to carry conviction.

  “Let me remind you,” Putnam continued, “that it really isn’t about the Indian. It’s the Fellows woman and the kid I want. The Indian is just one clue.”

  “I’ve got the PD out there in his hometown in New Mexico checking with the community college where he teaches. Talking to his neighbors. We’re running all the leads. We’ll get a bead on where the guy is.”

  “When are you going to be finished interviewing all of Mary Sue’s relatives about her whereabouts?”

  “Maybe a couple days.”

  “That brings me to point number two,” Putnam said. “Joe Fellows’ bail hearing is coming up at the end of the week. I’m not sure what the defendant is doing about an attorney, but the judge is going to make a decision about bail. I need you there at the hearing”—and with that, Putnam pointed at Liz Luden, the social worker.

  “I’ve got it in my calendar.”

  “You’ve got to really spread on the ghoulish stuff. We’re fighting bail because the mommy is still out there with the kid. Daddy isn’t stepping up to the plate to tell us where the kid is so we can save him from his abusive mother. Liz, you’ve got to be able to hammer the stuff we talked about so we can keep Joe in jail till he breaks and tells us where they are.”

  “Right,” she said. “We’ve got the medical information.”

  “Yeah—that’s dynamite. But I don’t want too much out of the bag. Just enough to let the judge know that we’ve got absolute medical proof that she’s been slipping the kid brake fluid instead of orange juice.”

  The social worker continued. “I’ve also got some policy ammunition we can use at the hearing.” She turned to the young intern sitting next to her and motioned for the notebook on her lap. The intern quickly handed it over to her supervisor.

  “Thanks, Julie,” Luden said while she was tu
rning to a page she had marked with a yellow sticky note.

  “Here it is. Part IV of my CRAM—”

  “Your what?” Putnam blurted out with arched eyebrows.

  “CRAM. Child Risk Assessment Manual,” Luden explained. “It lists standard risk-assessment modalities for evaluating children suspected of being neglected or abused. Or their families. Risk factor seven says the index of suspicion rises with ‘parents who hold rigid, authoritarian religious beliefs. Be on the lookout for absolutist child-rearing strategies that are potentially harmful—such as corporal and physical punishment, spanking, or verbal abuse cloaked in religious language.’”

  “So?” Putnam asked.

  “This Fellows woman is rigidly religious,” the social worker continued. “Fundamentalist. Bible-this and Bible-that type. The medical records from her primary health-care provider indicate that she made statements that God is the ultimate healer—or something like that—and she believes in spanking and does use that form of discipline on Joshua. I think we can argue that she meets the criteria for a heightened risk of being a child-abuser.”

  “No,” Putnam said slowly, squinting his eyes as he paced, “let’s leave that one alone right now. Play that one close to the vest. That courtroom may have reporters crawling all over the place. I don’t want any of these civil-liberties types to say we are anti-religious down here in Delphi, Georgia. After all, we are all good, God-fearing, churchgoing folks.”

  Luden nodded with a smile.

  “We’ll wait till some of the medical evidence starts coming out—when people start seeing that she must be some kind of monster. That’s when we start talking about her being a Bible-banging psycho.”

  Putnam leaned over his desk, giving his final command. “Let’s get this woman, take her and her husband to trial—and then let’s get a double conviction.”

  He straightened up and added a final thought. “No reason why we can’t wrap this whole case up by Christmas. No, sir. No reason at all.”

  8

  HILDA POKED HER HEAD into Will’s office. “Want some coffee?”

  Will looked up from the papers on his desk. “Sure.”

  “How’d it go last night?”

  There was a pause before Will replied.

  “I take mine black.”

  “Uh-oh. That bad?” Hilda said.

  “How long have you and Bruno been married?”

  “Thirty-five years,” she said, smiling.

  “What’s the secret?”

  “He’s a wonderful man. And I’m a very patient woman. And we both love each other.” And then she added with a hearty laugh, “And also, he keeps loaded weapons away from me!”

  Hilda turned to go, but then looked back and said, “Don’t lose her, Will. I just love that gal. Fiona is one in a million. You just have to know what women want.”

  “I thought I knew.”

  “Women want you to stop acting like an expert on what they are saying—and want you to start listening to how they are feeling.”

  “That sounds a little mysterious.”

  “That’s what makes us women so fascinating! Actually, I just read it in this great book—Men Are Aliens—Women Are Earthlings.”

  As Hilda left, Will thought for a moment about what she’d said. But whatever it meant, he knew it was too late to salvage last night.

  Before he could collect his thoughts, Jacki Johnson walked in and sat down across from his desk. “I took a call for you this morning from the State Department. One of their legal counsel contacted us before you got here. They wanted to talk about our plans to file suit in that Sudan case.”

  “What did they want?”

  “Let me ask you this—how is your relationship with State nowadays?”

  “As you know,” Will said, “there was a time when we didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye.”

  Jacki smiled. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “But that’s another story. Presently we have a very good working relationship. Why?”

  “They have a favor to ask.”

  “Oh, this ought to be interesting.”

  “They want us to hold off on filing suit—just for a while.”

  “What’s the reason?”

  “Apparently,” Jacki explained, “the State Department is engaged in some very delicate negotiations. A couple of relief workers were recently kidnapped in Sudan, and they’re trying to get them released. The captors are a fringe group doing their dirty work with the blessings of the Sudanese government.”

  “And they’re afraid that any outside agitation—like our lawsuit against General Nuban—may rock the boat?”

  “Exactly.”

  Will pondered the question for a moment.

  “I have been thinking,” he said, breaking the silence, “about the jurisdictional problem in this case. The only way to avoid a real cat-fight over jurisdiction is to get service of our Summons and Complaint on General Nuban personally.”

  “And doesn’t he have to be tagged with service within the borders of the U.S.?” Jacki asked.

  “He does, if we want to be absolutely certain about getting good jurisdiction.”

  “Where does that put us?” she asked.

  “I think it means that buying some time now—before we file suit—might actually be to our advantage. We can figure out the jurisdictional quirks first. Work out the legal kinks about getting General Nuban served. Besides, I don’t want to jeopardize the lives of those relief workers. I think I’ll call the clients and let them know today.”

  “Oh, one other thing,” Jacki added. “The State Department is going to have to cancel the meeting with you and the families of the missionaries. Which is probably a good thing.”

  “Why?” Will asked.

  “Two of the families called the other day. They said they couldn’t make the date that had been scheduled anyway.”

  After some reflection, Will’s face brightened. “Yeah. That is a blessing.”

  “Oh?” Jacki asked. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I inadvertently set that meeting on a bad date,” Will replied. “It was on the same day as the luncheon honoring Fiona’s dad, Reverend MacCameron—which is also on the anniversary of the death of Fiona’s mom. The whole church is turning out for it. A friend of the family is coming all the way from Scotland.”

  Jacki stared at Will. “Wow. You really hit the trifecta on that boo-boo.”

  “You talk like I’m not a caring guy. I am—right? I mean…I foul things up occasionally with Fiona, but it’s never intentional.”

  “You really want me to answer that?”

  “Sure—give it a shot.”

  “Well, like I told my hubby the other night—I said, ‘Howard my love, I know you didn’t forget our anniversary intentionally. On the other hand—intent is merely the difference between first-degree murder and second-degree murder.”

  Will tried to manage a smile as he pondered his associate’s remark.

  After Jacki left, Hilda swept in with a smile and a cup of coffee, placing the latter carefully on Will’s desk.

  “Oh, I could have gotten that,” Will said. “Thanks, Hilda. Say, would you get the Gospel Missionary Alliance on the line for me? We’ve got a new development in the Sudan case.”

  “Anything I need to tell them when I get them on the phone?”

  “I’ll explain it to them. It looks like that case may have to go on the back burner for a while.”

  “I see,” Hilda said with a smile. She stood looking at Will for a second, as if she knew something he didn’t know.

  “What’s up? You look like the cat that swallowed the canary,” Will said

  “Do I?” Hilda remarked, a little too offhandedly. Then she hurried out of his office.

  Within the hour Will connected with his clients’ representative. Yes, they would certainly defer to the State Department’s request and Will’s recommendation. The filing of the lawsuit would be postponed for a while.

  For the next two hours Will prep
ared for some upcoming depositions and went through the mail. It was getting close to lunch, and he was planning on running some errands in town. As he prepared to rise from his desk, his intercom lit up.

  But there was no message on the video screen.

  “Yes?”

  “Will?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Hilda.”

  “Yes, Hilda. I recognized the voice. Aren’t you the same one who was kind enough to bring me coffee this morning? You’re the same one who works about twenty feet from my office, right?”

  Hilda giggled.

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve got a call for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Should I put it through, Will?”

  “Hilda—who’s calling?”

  “You want to know who is on the line?”

  “Yes, Hilda. Who wants to talk to me?”

  “It’s a woman.”

  Will brightened up. So Fiona had decided to call. She wanted to let Will know how much in love she was with him—how sorry she was that things got off to a bad start at dinner. She’d been thinking about the two of them—and she wanted to talk about fixing the situation between them. Will paused for a few moments. He finished playing out the scenario and grinned.

  “Absolutely—put her through,” Will said cheerily.

  “Mr. Chambers?” said the woman at the other end.

  “Yes,” Will answered, surprised that it didn’t sound like Fiona.

  “This is Mary Sue Fellows.”

  “Who?”

  “The woman who called you the other day. About the child-abuse case.”

  Will remained silent.

  “Do you remember?”

  “Yes…what can I do for you?”

  “Mr. Chambers—I don’t mean to be presumptuous. Really. But I need your help awfully bad. And I believe God has picked you to deliver me from the hand of those who are pursuing me.”