The Resurrection File (27 page)

“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

W
ILL WAS CRUISING BACK TO
V
IRGINIA
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.

So, hadn't MacCameron had
some
facts when he wrote the article to indicate that Reichstad might have erred in his conclusions about 7QA? First, there was the possibility that 7QA might have been part of a larger fragment—this was implied by what Richard Hunter had said. And if that were so, then how could Reichstad be so sure that his interpretation of 7QA was correct without also looking at and interpreting the other fragments that might originally have been part of the same piece of writing?

But Will was aware that unless—and until—they could prove the existence of those other fragments, and then actually produce them, this argument was based entirely on inference rather than direct proof.

As to the other accusation that MacCameron made against Reichstad—that he might have been implicated in the deaths of Azid, the antiquities dealer, and Hunter, Will could only see three facts in his favor: 1) Reichstad was in Jerusalem at a conference during the times of their deaths in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, respectively; 2) Hunter believed he was being
followed and possibly stalked by someone who wanted his “discovery” (whatever that was); and 3) Reichstad had admitted in his own journal articles that he had obtained the 7QA fragment from Azid—though he said he had purchased it shortly before Azid's “suicide” and of course vehemently denied that Richard Hunter had anything to do with 7QA.

Will thought through the variations in how Judge Kaye might rule on the recklessness issue, and then on whether Will ought to be punished with a huge attorney's-fee sanction for contesting an issue that could not be defended. And, of course, Judge Kaye was always unpredictable.

But there was something else here in the picture that did not make sense. Why did J-Fox Sherman need to slam Will with a motion for attorney's fees so early in the case?

Was there something that Sherman was afraid of? Beyond that, was there some piece of information that they were trying to get from MacCameron and his attorney? Is that why they were using the blackmailing power of an attorney's-fee motion to start squeezing them to settle the case—at almost any cost?

So what did Reichstad really want? wondered Will. He had to know that MacCameron would not have the money to pay any substantial damage judgment, even if one were awarded against him. Will asked himself again:
What is it that Reichstad really wants?

Of course, Sherman had made a routine demand for the tape from MacCameron's answering machine, the one with Hunter's message, during the deposition. Was that it? Bringing a lawsuit just to get that message tape hardly seemed worth the bother.

Then Will remembered that he had received a large envelope from Sherman just before he took off for North Carolina. In a hurry, he had tossed it unopened into the trunk of his car with the other parts of the MacCameron file.

Will pulled the car off the interstate at a rest stop where there were some picnic tables. He got out of the car, opened the trunk, and retrieved the envelope from Sherman.

In the envelope was a document headed “Plaintiff Dr. Albert Riechstad's First Demand for Documents to Defendants MacCameron and
Digging for Truth
Magazine.”