Another Chat

Finally the attorney said: "Did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"What they're accusing you of. You sure don't have to tell them if you did or didn't. You don't have to tell God Himself, much less me, but it'll make my job a lot easier if I know what kind of defense I have to put up."

Billy sneered. "Yeah, right. Look at the one-way mirror. Damn place is probably wired for sound."

"You watch a lot ofLaw & Orderreruns, do you?" The attorney didn't expect an answer. Instead, he gave a throat-cutting gesture with his hand.

Sure enough, the lights inside the room dimmed. On the other side of the glass, the lights came up. Linda and Sue stood there. Linda went to a microphone and spoke.

"You're a good guesser, kid. When we come in there, there'll be someone else in this room, watching us to make damn sure we don't try to beat a confession out of you." Then she pushed a button.

Billy let out a curse directed at cops. Linda cupped her hand to her ear, indicating she couldn't hear him. She turned the switch back on.

"We will be back in exactly thirty minutes, Counselor. If you see anyone entering this room, push the call button on the wall and we'll summarily bust that person on departmental charges. Have a nice chat." And with another flick of the switch, Linda and Sue exited the room, leaving the light on so Billy and the attorney could see no one else was there.

Billy lit up another cigarette and took a half-dozen puffs. He took it out and rolled it between his fingers.

"Do you think I did it?"

"Eyewitnesses placing you at the scene, a deathbed confession from another participant, probably forensic evidence from the gasoline bottles. I figure the deck is stacked about ten to one against you."

Billy had evidently watched the vintage movieThe Terminator, because he let out with one of Schwarzenegger's more celebrated lines, and it wasn't "I'll be back." The lawyer just smiled.

"You think I haven't heard that one before? With a little adjustment, that's what's going to happen to you if you're found guilty. Just because you're too young for the death penalty doesn't mean they're not going to give you everything they can think of. You'll be in the juvenile system until you turn 18, and then they transfer you to adult prison. With credit for time served, you should be eligible for parole when you're about ... fifty-five."

Billy dragged so hard on his "fag" (he didn't know that was slang term for a cigarette, but he'd learn) that he choked. He coughed and spluttered. The lawyer let him recover and talked.

"It's a complete breach of ethics for me NOT to put up the best defense I can. But Southern juries are very bad about not believing the defendant unless he proves his innocence, rules of law be damned. Of course you didn't mean for a fireman to get killed, but the prosecutor will say you didn't care. That's enough to get you convicted of capital murder. Now, if you show them youdid care, we can escape the automatic life sentence and we have a lot of wiggle room on how much time you do."

"What do you want from me?"

"Did you and your buddies do this on your own ... or did someone tell you to do it? You can tell me, or you can tell me and the cops. Choose one."

Billy thought about it. He had a good idea of what happened to jailhouse rats. Still ... he thought some more. The lawyer continued.

"Oh, by the way, when someone in slam offers you a fag, he's offering you a cigarette. But if hesays it that way and youtake the fag, then he and his buddies rape you. Takes one to want one."

Billy went white.

"Harlan Roberts," he blurted out.

The attorney mulled it over. "Don't know the name."

"Deacon at my church. Owns an auto-parts and repair shop." Billy went into specifics as to the church and the auto place, and then spoke about Roberts. "That preacher man, Harry Lovell, came to the church and just ripped abortion clinics a new one. Roberts said 'Amen' all the way through the service. Later he called and offered me and the boys two hundred bucks apiece to torch that abortion clinic. Another five hundred if we torched it again when they rebuilt."

The attorney's face was grim. Theyhad rebuilt the Sanger Clinic in a rented office building with guards on patrol, but apparently Roberts had figured out a way to go after it again.

"You want me to keep this to myself, or do you want to tell the cops? If they bust him, they'll keep him out of your ass, at least."

Billy thought for a long time, but somewhere he had a heart and he really did regret the death of the firefighter.

"Call 'em in," he finally said.

*

Patrol Officer David Sutton spotted Roberts loading suspicious materials into his car and approached him. Roberts whipped out a handgun and fired. Luckily, he missed. Sutton, standing near his own car, launched himself over the hood and landed on the other side, drawing his own weapon but not firing because he had a good idea of what would happen if he missed. Roberts leaped into his car and sped off. Sutton radioed for backup.

The ensuing high-speed chase ended when Roberts lost control of his car on a curve, smashed through a fence and headed for the largest and oldest pine tree in the county. The pursuing officers made a panic stop, with good reason. The tree survived the initial impact, but not the fireball which resulted from 40 gallons of gasoline and several detonators inside the trunk. The officers couldn't get within 15 steps of Roberts until long after the falling tree had crushed the car and had burned to ashes. They told each other he died on impact from the concussion. They hoped they were right.

*

Five and a half years later ...

Rachel Davis waited outside her apartment complex in Evanston, Illinois, for the school bus bringing Megan home from first grade. She always arranged her schedule so she could meet Megan and have an early supper with her before going to her job as a recording-studio music librarian. It was a good gig, but money could get pretty tight, even with a music scholarship to Northwestern University.

The school bus arrived and Megan bounded down and ran to Rachel.

"I sent you a postcard from school, Mommy. We cut construction paper into pretty shapes and Ms. Kleppa said she'd pay for the stamps."

Rachel hugged her little girl. She didn't hear much from home, and she and Megan had grown very close over the difficult years. Very few guys wanted to date a teenage mom, and she didn't want to date most of the guys who did. She and Mikie Gibson had stayed friends all through high school, but there had never been talk of a serious romance.

Because Megan had vision problems from her time in the incubator, much of Rachel's money had gone toward helping her out. She got no real financial support from her dad, and money was always a sticking point. Still, she thought, she was glad she had this chance to further her music career. She liked her music teachers and had a mild crush on one of them, who had met Megan and had been extremely nice to her.

She loved singing in karaoke competitions, enjoyed choir and private voice lessons, and had some chances of being a backup singer for the recording artists, including several from the symphony and opera. The rumor was going around that another TV show in theAmerican Idol mode was coming up, and if it did they would certainly audition in Chicago. She had collections of many of that show's winners on CD and often bought their sheet music when she had spare change. Megan liked to accompany her on piano, though she needed special glasses to read the music.

"Do you think it got here already, Mommy?" Megan broke Rachel's reverie.

"I don't know, honey," Rachel said with a smile. "I haven't gone to the mailbox. Why don't we see what came?"

The two ladies went to the complex's mailboxes and opened one with Rachel's key. The card wasn't there – "When did she mail it?" - "This morning." - "Oh, it'll surely be here tomorrow."

But there was a notice that an oversized envelope was waiting in the main office. Mom walked and daughter skipped over there.

The envelope was labeled "FRAGILE" and was insured for a hefty sum. The clerk had had to sign a receipt for it, and handed Rachel a postcard asking her to sign as well, to be returned to the sender. Rachel did, and then carried it up to the small apartment.

There wasn't much to the apartment, a one-bedroomer with twin beds; a dinner table with two chairs; a couch, a coffee table and an old TV set and DVD player; but therewas a piano in a little nook. The landlord, with some prompting and a good deal of Rachel's savings, had cut a hole in the wall to the next-door apartment and "borrowed" its closet. He had warmed to the idea of a little music room, and had soundproofed the closet at no extra charge. There was just enough room for the piano, its bench and a chair.

To this room Rachel retired. She often got sheet music shipped to her, in envelopes of that size, and she guessed this was the same. But she wondered about the fragility of the envelope. She sat on the piano bench and Megan sat on the chair.

First Rachel looked over the envelope. The handwriting was unfamiliar but definitely feminine. She looked at the address. It was hometown, a modest but clean neighborhood. The name read "Bridget O'Brien." That rang no bells. She did a double take when she saw an Irish postmark.

Rachel handled the envelope and determined there were sheets of paper of varying sizes on the outsides, and corrugated cardboard on the inside. The sender had pressed some pages together and used cardboard to protect them. Why some and not others?

Rachel went to get a kitchen knife, carefully slit the envelope and carried it back into the piano room. She reached in and placed the cardboard, which was also taped, on the piano stand and then pulled out the other items.

To her astonishment, there was a folder with two airline tickets and a substantial check, all in her name. Then she pulled out a smaller envelope and opened it. A formal invitation tumbled out. In very fancy type, it read:

"Michael and Patricia Gibson request the honour of your presence as their son

Michael James Gibson Junior

Is Bound in Marriage to

Bridget Mary O'Brien

Saturday, May 28th at 6 o'clock in the evening

[Name of the] Cathedral

Atlanta, Georgia"

After some information on the address, the note continued:

"Mr. Michael and Mrs. Patricia Gibson will renew their vows in the same ceremony on the occasion of their 25th anniversary as husband and wife."

Then, in Pat Gibson's handwriting:

"Bridget wants you to sing some Celtic songs at the ceremony. She made a special trip to Ireland, her homeland, to get the music. She's taking this invitation with her and will mail it with the songs. She wanted you to have the authentic sheets from her collection."

Rachel jumped up, handed the note to Megan and carried the cardboard back into the kitchen, where she oh-so-carefully separated the layers. What she saw took her breath away. The sheet music from some Celtic folk songs, including two love ballads, was printed on paper that must have been over two hundred years old. Some of it was in the original handwriting. Rachel liked to watchAntique Roadshow and strongly suspected these papers were worth a fortune. She clutched the papers to her chest and then laid them down. Unless Megan really needed the money, Rachel vowed, these were precious family heirlooms and she wouldn't sell them at any price. She mulled over the cost of a good safe-deposit box.

A little note fell out from between the pages. It had the same handwriting as on the main envelope. Rachel carried it back into the piano room and asked Megan to read it. Rachel's eyes were full of tears and she smilingly said Megan could see better than she could at this point.

"Dear Rachel," Megan sounded out, "You don't know me, but Mike has told me so much about you. He fell in love with me a long time ago, but he didn't know it until he met you. He never thought I would find him again, but I finally came back. Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him.

"Mike doesn't know I'm sending you these songs, but his mom and dad do. I guess you know about Linda, but we're going to get hold of Sue and invite her too. Linda's children and grandchildren will be there, and so will Mike's nieces and nephews. We've already invited your brother.

"Please, please do me the honour [Megan pronounced it on-our; her mom smilingly corrected her] of singing these songs as we join together. I've never hired a wedding singer before, so I hope the cheque [that took some doing for Megan to read it] is enough.

"Mike thinks you're his best friend aside from me and his family. I want to show my love for him by helping you however I can.

"Your newest friend,

"Bridget"

When Megan finished saying these lines, she looked over at her mom. "Why are you crying, Mommy?"

"Believe it or not," Rachel said, "I'm so happy I can cry. Except for when you were born, I've never been this happy."

Megan grabbed hold and hugged.

(The End)