Water's Edge (8 page)

“I’ll speak to the family about it.”

As soon as the group left and the door closed, Tom sat down in one of the reception room chairs.

“That was different,” he said.

“They turned the office into a church, didn’t they?” Bernice said.

“Church? I thought it was rude.”

Bernice cleared her throat, adjusted her glasses, and turned her attention back to her typewriter. The rest of the morning passed without interruption. Tom organized half the files in one box, dictated several letters to clients, and prepared three motions to withdraw in pending court cases. Bernice brought him a document to review and sign.

“If I brought in my computer, I could type this stuff myself,” he said.

“Are you saying you don’t need me?” Bernice asked, a wounded expression on her face.

“No, no. You proved your worth today with Randall Freiburger and the Ebenezer Church crowd. If you’d not been here when the religious folks walked in, I’d still be trying to figure out what they wanted. Don’t take it wrong when I bring my laptop. I’ll mostly use it to organize the financial records.”

“Oh.” Bernice winced. “That’s the area where your daddy and I struggled the most.”

“Did you balance the checkbook?”

“Most months,” Bernice said hopefully. “And the bookkeeper reconciled things the best she could when she prepared your father’s tax return.”

“What about the trust account?”

“Your daddy took care of that himself. It’s in the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk.”

______

Shortly before noon, Bernice came to the door of the office. “If it’s okay, I’ll be on my way.”

“Could you stay a few more minutes?” Tom asked. “I have something personal to tell you.”

Bernice sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and listened as Tom told her about losing his job. Partway through the story, she started to cry and grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on one of the bookshelves. She blew her nose. Tom paused. He’d not been trying to stir up emotion.

“Do you want me to stop? I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

“No, it just breaks my heart to think about you being treated so badly.”

Bernice’s empathy was an ingrained characteristic. She always saw the people who walked through the front door of the office as hurting people first, clients in need of legal services second.

“Once we’re finished shutting down the office, I’ll go back to Atlanta and start looking for a job. I have to pay the rent on my apartment, the lease for the BMW parked out front, and a couple of credit cards with balances that have crept up too high.”

Bernice wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

“And after I’m gone, you should take a vacation,” Tom concluded.

“I’ve already planned one to North Carolina. We’ve never been to Kitty Hawk.”

“You’ll like it. The Outer Banks is a special place, and there’s decent surfing near the Hatteras Lighthouse.”

“I don’t think Carl and I will do much surfing.” Bernice managed a smile.

“Thanks for all your help,” Tom replied, standing up. “Not just to me but for all the years you served my father. He couldn’t have done it without you.”

Bernice grabbed another tissue from the box on the desk and left.

chapter
SIX

T
om walked up a slight incline to the tree-lined street that ran in front of the courthouse. Two blocks to the south he stopped in front of the Chickamauga Diner and looked inside a large plateglass window. The restaurant was filled with people sitting in metal chairs around square black-vinyl-topped tables.

The Chickamauga Diner hadn’t been around as long as the Civil War battlefield that gave the restaurant its name, but it had occupied the same location for two generations. On weekdays most of the patrons were local businessmen. Today, families with children dominated the lunch crowd. The diner didn’t offer plastic toys in bags, but the fried chicken was great.

“Hey, Tom!” called out Alex Giles, the current owner of the diner. “Have a seat at the counter or wait for a table?”

“I’ll sit at the counter.”

Tom perched on a shiny black stool atop a chrome pole. Waitresses scurried back and forth carrying plates of food and small baskets of corn bread and yeast rolls. Alex’s mother refilled glasses with sweet tea. Several people nodded in greeting to Tom when they saw him. A mechanic who’d worked on the Crane family cars for years invited Tom to join his group, but Tom shook his head.

“What’ll it be?” asked the unshaven cook, wiping his hands on a white apron.

“I need something to get the taste of cheap Atlanta sushi out of my mouth,” Tom replied.

“How about a steak burger on the grill topped off with onions, mushrooms, and American cheese? That’s as far from sushi as you can get.”

“Sounds good.”

The best grills season over time, and the sizzling flattop at the Chickamauga Diner was in prime condition. Tom watched the cook prepare his food. The man placed chopped onion directly on the grill and let it cook for a couple of minutes before adding the mushrooms. Opening the door of a small built-in refrigerator, he took out a large metal bowl filled with bright-red ground round and scooped out a generous portion that he formed into a thick patty. The meat sputtered when he dropped it on the grill. He dusted the top of the meat with salt and pepper.

After turning the burger once, the cook added the onions and mushrooms, topped it off with the cheese, and hid it under an aluminum dome. He dropped both halves of the bun facedown on the flattop. Unveiling the meat, he deposited it on the lower half of the bun. The melted cheese dripped down the side of the sandwich. Crisp lettuce, a thick slice of fresh tomato, and a fat pickle rested beside the burger on a plastic plate.

“Is that American enough for you?” the cook asked.

“More than apple pie.”

Tom carefully lifted the assembled product and opened his mouth as wide as possible. The first bite didn’t disappoint. The melded flavors caused his taste buds to stand up and cheer.

Halfway through the sandwich Tom felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. It was Charlie Williams, the local district attorney. In his midfifties, the prosecutor boasted that a felony indictment in Etowah County was a prepaid ticket to the penitentiary. He slid onto a vacant stool beside Tom.

“What brings you back to town?” Williams asked.

Tom wiped his mouth with a thin paper napkin. “Shutting down my father’s practice and settling his estate.”

Williams, a former college football player, put his beefy hands on the counter, glanced around, and leaned closer to Tom. “I know he was having financial trouble. Was there enough life insurance to take care of everything?”

It was a blatantly inappropriate question.

“I’m working through that,” Tom replied carefully.

Williams nodded. “He talked to me about his situation with the IRS. I told him Matt Franklin was the best young CPA in town and could probably cut a deal for him, maybe even get a reduction in the amount he owed. Did he ever contact Matt?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You might want to check with him. He could help you too.”

“Okay.”

Williams slid his right hand across the counter, knocking a bread crumb to the floor. “Pressure from the IRS is tough to handle too. Was that the only problem he had hanging over him?”

“As far as I know. Once he moved in with Elias, his life was simple.”

“That’s good to hear. I know he liked to fish a lot.”

Tom took another bite of his burger.

“Do you know much about his relationship with Harold Addington?”

“We never discussed it.”

Williams tapped his finger against the counter. “Addington met Arthur Pelham in London about five years ago. Arthur hired him to develop the overseas market for Pelham’s investment products. About a year ago Addington was transferred to Bethel and moved here with his wife. That’s a long way from London, isn’t it?”

“About six thousand miles, give or take a few.”

Williams didn’t smile. “Did your father ever represent Addington?”

“I’m not sure since I haven’t gone through all his files. Why do you want to know?”

Williams turned his head so that his eyes met Tom’s. “Two men died in what everyone says was a tragic boating accident. It’s my job to make sure that’s all it was.”

Tom’s mouth felt dry. “Do you have any reason to think differently?”

“My job is to ask questions.”

“Have you talked to Addington’s widow?”

“Yes.” Williams nodded. “Did you know she has multiple sclerosis?”

“No.”

“She takes an injection every day that’s supposed to help, but the illness is starting to give her more problems, maybe in part due to all the stress she’s had.”

“What did she tell you about the relationship between her husband and my father?”

“They went fishing a lot. She said the first time a largemouth bass hit her husband’s lure he couldn’t get enough of it. Of course, your father knew all the fishing holes where big bass like to hang out.” Williams paused. “She also says your father represented her husband but she doesn’t know why, which seems strange to me. I was hoping you could help me with that.”

“I can check the files.”

“You should do that. One of Addington’s daughters is handling the business affairs. According to the probate records, she’s the executrix of the estate. You might want to talk to her too.”

“What’s the daughter’s name?”

“Rose. She was in Serbia at the time her father died and couldn’t get a flight out for a couple of days.”

“Serbia?”

“Yeah, she works for an international adoption agency.”

“You’ve really been checking this out, haven’t you?”

“Noah Keller helped.” Williams motioned to a slightly built man with dark, close-cropped hair sitting alone at a table across the room. “He’s a detective with the sheriff’s department. Like I said, there’s no formal investigation, but I’m sure you want us to exercise due diligence.”

“Of course.”

“When can I expect to hear from you?”

“The beginning of the week if I talk to the Addington family and they waive the attorney-client privilege. Most of the cases I’ve looked at so far are small stuff. My father never handled any complex litigation or business transactions.”

“Right. If he’d ever put his whole heart into it, he could have had a solid practice.”

The DA stood and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder again. “Any chance you’ll stay in Bethel? With your local connections, you could make a name for yourself and build a solid practice.”

“No. This is home, but it’s not where I want to live.”

“Caught the big-city bug?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Too bad. Give me a call as soon as you find out anything.”

Williams left. The last bite of the hamburger on Tom’s plate didn’t look nearly as appetizing as the first.

Returning to the office, he placed all the boxes on the floor and began looking for files with the name Addington on them. Toward the back of the fourth box he found a folder with the words “Addington Matter” written on the tab. Tom pulled it out and flipped it open.

It was empty.

He continued searching through all the other boxes, but the empty folder was the only one with the former Pelham employee’s name on it. He called Bernice at home, but there was no answer. She didn’t own a cell phone.

Tom’s father kept older, closed files in a mini-warehouse, but if Addington had lived in Bethel for only a year, it was unlikely any recent cases would be there. To be sure, Tom checked the metal box that contained index cards about closed files for the current and previous year and found nothing about Harold Addington.

While engaging in his fruitless search, Tom stewed about his conversation with Charlie Williams. He didn’t appreciate the DA’s asking personal questions and casting about vague insinuations without substance. It was bad enough for him to do that to Tom; it was worse to do it with Addington’s widow and daughter.

When Tom left the office, the afternoon sun had warmed the mountain air. As he drove, Tom decided it would be fun to take Rover on a hike so the dog’s nose could experience sensory overload. When he pulled up to the house, he saw Elias sitting under the large oak tree with Rover at his feet. The old man was wearing an orange camouflage cap. The dog rose up and barked at the approach of the car, then trotted over with his tail wagging.

“Rover seems happy,” Tom said.

“I am too,” Elias replied. “He’s a good dog. I took him to the mailbox and back.”

“I had something longer in mind. Maybe take him—”

“To Austin’s Pond,” Elias interrupted, sitting up straighter in the chair. “If you park at the first dirt road it’s a nice flat hike, not more than half a mile. Of course, you can go to the second road and drive to the edge of the water, but I feel up to a short walk. The hay has been cut and stored in the barn.”

Elias was like a young child who wouldn’t accept “no” or “later” as an answer.

“We should probably get that over with,” Tom answered with a sigh. “I’ll change clothes.”

Tom put on jeans and a short-sleeved shirt and grabbed two bottles of water from the pantry. When he went outside, Elias and Rover were in the garage.

“Here it is,” Elias said, triumphantly holding up a camouflage cap identical to the one on his head. “You’ll need this.”

The hat still had the sales price on the bill.

“Why?”

“You don’t want a deer hunter taking a shot at you.”

“It’s not deer season.”

Elias grinned, and Tom put the hat on his head. If Clarice had any second thoughts about ending their relationship, seeing him wearing the cap would make them vanish.

“What’s all that?” Tom pointed to rows of boxes stacked four and five high at the rear of the garage.

“Things your father brought over from the house. He never got a chance to go through them.”

Sorting through all the boxes would be a hassle. It would be easier to haul everything, sight unseen, to the dump.

“That was over three years ago,” he said.

“Anything you don’t want, I can give to the Burk family to sell in a yard sale.”