The Resurrection File (23 page)

“So tell me frankly, how do you feel about my father's case?” Fiona asked.

“It's too early to tell,” Will responded.

Fiona laughed and said, “That's a lawyer's response.”

“I'm being as honest as I can. I'll be in a much better position to say after the opposing attorney takes his deposition next week.”

“You know, my father speaks very highly of you.”

“Well, I'm flattered. But frankly, he hasn't seen me in action on this case yet. Maybe he ought to reserve judgment,” Will noted.

“He is a very good judge of people. I believe that the Lord has given him a real gift of discernment. I have to confess that I originally had some doubts about you.”

Will was taken aback. He struggled a bit, and after a few seconds he said, “What kind of doubts?”

“My business manager had investigated you and recommended to Dad that he not hire you.”

“Oh?”

“He had some concerns about your personal life. Personal problems that might affect your ability to represent my father.”

“Like what?”

“Well, Mr. Chambers…”

“Please. Call me Will.”

“All right—Will. I was told that your wife had died and that you took it very hard. That you were a heavy drinker, but you were getting the problem under control. You know, my heart breaks for you. To lose your wife has got to be so hard.”

“Yeah, it's been hard.”

“If I may ask, how did she die?”

Fiona had just moved into an area that Will was rarely willing to discuss. But tonight he was feeling different about life. So he answered her. He took a breath before he spoke quietly.

“She was murdered.”

Fiona didn't speak at first. She brought her hand up to her face and closed her eyes. When she opened them Will could see tears.

“Dear Father,” she said, fighting back the tears. “How awful for her—and for you.”

Suddenly Will was conscious of a wall of emotion rising up, like a freak tidal wave that had appeared out of nowhere. It was threatening to engulf him. He struggled for control and said nothing for a while, but stared at the candle that was burning low. Finally he managed a question.

“You said that you had your own doubts about me. What were they?”

“Oh, I don't think that's important anymore. If my father's happy with you then I'm happy with you.”

“No, that's not fair. I disclosed something personal to you,” Will said. “Now it's your turn. What doubts?”

“Well,” Fiona said, “in addition to the problems with alcohol, I just could not understand how an attorney who used to work for the ACLU could possibly represent someone like my father.”

“You mean, how could a liberal like me represent a Christian fundamentalist?”

“I'm suspicious of that word when non-Christians use it,” Fiona said firmly. “The media loves to use that term ‘fundamentalist' to paint people—particularly Bible-believing Christians—as lunatics or fanatics.”

“I don't think your father is a lunatic. He's unique, that's for sure. But he's no lunatic,” Will said with a reassuring smile. “Besides, what makes you assume that I am a ‘non-Christian'?”

“Well,” Fiona replied gingerly, “you have a point there, Mr. Attorney. So, are you a Christian?”

“I have nothing against Jesus. I think he had a lot of great ideas. But when it comes to the big question about God, I'm probably more of an agnostic.”

Fiona wrinkled her brow slightly and leaned toward him with her arms folded in front of her. “Everything I've heard about you is that you are a man who is not afraid of taking an unpopular stand—even against all of the odds—as long as it is something you can believe in. But here is the most important issue of all—the question of whether God exists and whether he loves you and wants to save you—and on that issue, here you are, sitting on the fence.”

“Some questions just don't have easy answers,” Will retorted.

“And sometimes the answers are right there in front of you. All you have to do is open your heart.”

“I don't know what that means—‘open your heart,'” Will countered. “Religious lingo like that really turns me off.” For an instant Will regretted coming back at Fiona so aggressively.

“It turns you off?” Fiona shot back. “I thought you were in the business of pursuing the truth.”

“I never said I wasn't.”

“So if it's truth you want—then who cares whether it turns you on, turns you off, or turns you upside down,” Fiona said, pursuing the issue. “Truth is truth.”

“Okay,” Will replied, but before he could make his point, Fiona pushed on.

“And just for the record, Mr. Trial Lawyer, if you dare to confront the
real truth
about God, he
will
turn you upside down. Which is a good thing,
not a bad thing. So, the question is—are you willing to face the truth? Are you willing to have God turn your life around?”

Will smiled as he saw Fiona pressing in. She seemed to have a unique power of combining tenderness with a will as tough as an oak board. He paused for a minute and stared thoughtfully at the candle.

“Now that I've endured your cross-examination, it's my turn,” Will started again. “Tell me, do you spend a lot of time on the road?”

“Yes, I do,” Fiona said, “at least lately.”

“For the record, I think you are a beautiful performer,” Will said, and then realized that it had not come out the way he wanted it to. “I mean, you sing beautifully.”

Fiona laughed and blushed a little, and then nodded in thanks.

“So, you must have a lot of dates with lots of men around the country,” Will said somewhat indelicately.

Fiona hesitated for a moment. “No, I find my life very busy doing what the Lord has called me to do. I have a lot of friends who I love very much. And to answer your real question, I am single—as in not married. I am single by choice. I believe that God may have called me to singleness. And if that is the way I can best serve him, then I am happy with that.”

The front door to the restaurant swung open and the limo driver appeared. Fiona and Will gave their goodbyes to their hosts. As they walked outside they could feel the wind picking up. While the limo took them back to the Pavilion the two of them made small talk. They could now hear the sounds of distant thunder. When the car arrived at the spot where Will had parked his Corvette, he climbed out.

Fiona lowered her window and stretched her arm out to shake Will's hand.

“Will, I will continue to pray for you as you handle my father's lawsuit. I believe that this is an incredibly important case,” she said. “God bless you.”

Will searched Fiona's smile for some glimpse, however fleeting, of something more than just cordial appreciation. But as he stepped back from the car he decided that there was none.

He watched the limo as it drove away down the boulevard. Then he climbed in his car and headed home. Rain was starting to fall, and the wet pools on the street were reflecting the red and green streetlights.

He turned his windshield wipers on high speed. As he listened to their mechanical thumping while driving through the shimmering sheets of rain, Will was beginning to feel that familiar sense of stark and utter loneliness.

24

O
N THE TOP FLOOR OF THE OFFICES
of Kennelworth, Sherman, Abrams & Cantwell, Angus MacCameron and Will Chambers were ushered into the spacious conference room. The court reporter was already set up with her steno machine off to the side of the massive conference table. Another court reporter, a videographer, stood next to his tripod, adjusting the camera lens as he readied his equipment for the deposition that was about to begin.

They were offered coffee, but both declined. As they waited, they were able to look out over Washington, D.C., through the wall of solid glass. They could see the Capitol dome and a corner of the White House in the distance. Several more minutes went by, and then the door swung open. Two associate lawyers with legal pads and thick files under their arms walked in and introduced themselves, quickly taking their seats. A moment later a law clerk scurried into the room with a file under one arm and a laptop computer under the other arm. He quickly plugged in the laptop and booted it up. Then he dutifully folded his hands on the table and waited.

“I wasn't aware that this was going to be recorded on video camera,” MacCameron whispered somewhat nervously to Will, who was seated next to him.

“Don't let it throw you,” Will whispered back. “Pretend the camera isn't there. Just focus on what we talked about. Listen to each question before answering. Make him rephrase any question you don't understand. Don't answer a question that isn't being asked. And just tell your story
your way
and not
his way
. That's it.”

Another minute of silence passed. Then the door opened and J-Fox Sherman walked in. He was dressed down to his shirtsleeves, in an imported blue silk shirt, red suspenders, and a tie with a Picasso design.

Sherman strode over to MacCameron and extended his hand. MacCameron shook it, but Sherman said nothing. Then Sherman reached over
to Will and shook his hand. But Sherman held it in a vise grip, and for a second the two men locked eyes.

Then Sherman moved away from Will, and as he went round the table to seat himself directly across the table he said off-handedly, “Sorry, counselor, I've forgotten your name.” Sherman's law clerk announced, “Will Chambers. Attorney from Monroeville, Virginia, sir.”

“Ah, yes. Monroeville. Cute little town. The life of a country lawyer. What brings you all the way up here to big, bad Washington, D.C., Mr. Chambers?”

“Justice, Mr. Sharman,” Will responded.

“That's
Sherman,”
one of the associate attorneys snapped.

“Oh, I imagine that Mr. Chambers is just having some fun with us, isn't that right, attorney Chambers?”

Will did not respond.

Sherman stretched out his hands over the conference table and brushed it lightly. Will noticed that. It was no idle gesture—Sherman was making a point. He had no notes at his disposal. No legal pad. No file. Not even a pen. Just a naked tabletop in front of him. J-Fox Sherman was letting his opponent know that he was about to conduct a four-hour deposition completely by memory. As if to say, “I am already in complete and total command of this case. All of the facts, and the principles of law, and the points of persuasion are already ordered and neatly organized in my mind. Now stand back and behold how I destroy you.”

MacCameron raised his hand and was sworn in. Then Sherman began, his hands folded confidently on the table and his face expressionless.

Sherman had the court reporter mark, with exhibit stickers, the December issue of
Digging for Truth
magazine that lay at the core of the case. He also marked as exhibits several other issues of the publication.

After MacCameron had identified all of the magazine articles on the record, Sherman began questioning him on his educational background. He did so, not by the use of the kind of harmless, non-leading questions most lawyers use in depositions, like, “please describe when and where you received each of your educational degrees,” and then letting the witness give a rambling answer.

Rather, Sherman recited, by memory, each stage of MacCameron's educational history, putting forth each fact as a separate question to which MacCameron could only agree by answering “yes.” It was a psychological tactic to begin exerting control over the deposition process. Even more importantly, it was intended to intimidate the witness and his lawyer,
illustrating how J-Fox Sherman had already mastered all of the central facts of this case by heart.

Sherman finished MacCameron's educational background by asking a series of questions that Will found troubling.

“When you left the University of Edinburgh, a world-renowned institution, you went to America to attend the College of the Piedmont in West Virginia?”

“Yes.”

“Was the College of the Piedmont a world-renowned institution?”

“No, not really.”

“In fact that college did not even offer a PhD program or its equivalent?”

“I think that is true.”

“When you left this world-renowned institution, the University of Edinburgh, to attend a much lesser known and less-qualified school, did you leave on good terms?”

“Yes, I believe I did.”

“You had been a good student at Edinburgh—good grades?”

“Yes, quite.”

“You had no problems, such as misconduct of any kind, as a reason for your leaving?”

MacCameron took a while to answer.

When he finally replied he simply said, “No, sir.”

Then Sherman moved on to MacCameron's employment history. When MacCameron affirmed that, yes, he did leave the Family of Christ Community Church in central Pennsylvania after only two years as the assistant pastor, Sherman paused.