My throat had closed up, and my bowels were churning. I sat down on the couch and stared at Amanda.
“John, did you know who the young man was with Jack last night?” Amanda asked.
“No, did you?”
“Not until Morrie told me. It was Chip Blakeney, Sam Blakeney’s son,” Amanda said.
“Sam Blakeney, the banker?”
“Sam Blakeney the banker,” Amanda answered. “Also Sam Blakeney Jack’s roommate at Virginia, and Sam Blakeney Jack’s regular golf partner.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Amanda said.
“So what happens now?” I asked. “I mean to Betty Jo’s case?”
“Jack and Betty Jo were still married at the time of his death, so she’ll take a spouse’s elective share and get something like ten or twenty percent of his estate regardless of whether he cut her out of his will,” Amanda replied. “I’ve got to look at the statute. Her percentage depends on how long they were married.”
“What about you,” I asked, “what do you get since there wasn’t a settlement or award?”
“I could tell you that’s none of your business, but I won’t,” Amanda said. “My fee arrangement covers this possibility. I’ll get a third of whatever Betty Jo gets.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “You’re a rich woman. Or maybe I should say a richer woman.”
“Fuck you,” she said. “I didn’t come over here to be congratulated.”
“Then why did you come?” I asked.
“I really don’t know,” she answered. “I guess I’ll leave. I’ll send you a check when I get my money And there’ll be a lot for you. It was your tape that did it.”
I had never before seen Amanda looking anything but calm and professional, with a slight air of useful bitchiness. Now, inspecting her more closely, she seemed different. Her blonde hair, usually perfectly coiffed in a shoulder length pageboy, was sticking out here and there, and her makeup was smeared.
She turned to go back out the door.
“Sit down for a minute,” I said. “Let me get you something to drink.”
“Like I said, I didn’t come over here to be congratulated, and I don’t feel like celebrating. This isn’t that kind of a case,” Amanda said, as she turned back to me.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I just don’t know what the appropriate response is here. I mean, I’m glad Betty Jo is going to get some money, and I’m glad you’re going to get some money. Hell, I’m glad I’m going to get some money. On the other hand, I’m sorry Jack died. It wasn’t what any of us intended.”
Amanda sat down on the couch and ran her fingers through her hair. That explained part of her appearance. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I don’t know how to react, either. But I’m trying to fight this overwhelming feeling that I’m responsible for his death. It’s been eating at me since Morrie called. Don’t you feel that way, too?”
I looked down and noticed the forgotten Sam Adams bottle in my hand. I took a long pull, decided there was no point in confessing the wave of guilt washing through me, and said, “I’m not sure what I feel, but I know in my head that neither one of us is responsible for Jones’s death. Your head is better than mine, so you must know it, too. You were representing your client, and I was doing a job. Jack stroking out over the tape is not a foreseeable effect of that.”
“I don’t know, John, I’m having a hard time going with my head on this one.”
“Your head has gotten you a long way,” I said. “You ought to stay with it.”
3 _____________________
The heat wave broke the second week of September, bringing the highs down into the mid-eighties and lowering the humidity. It was a temporary respite, and there would be more days in the nineties, but the emotional worst of summer was over.
I had the windows open in my office and was sitting at my desk on a fine blue sky Thursday morning, sipping coffee and watching a barge of gravel work its way up the river when Amanda called. I hadn’t heard from her since she had delivered the news of Jack Jones’s death, and I knew it would be at least several months before Betty Jo, then Amanda, then I received any money from his estate.
“I’ve got a case I want you to take, Jack,” Amanda said. “Don’t worry, it’s not a divorce. It’s a missing person case.”
“Who’s missing?” I asked.
“The son of a client,” she said. “She’s sitting here in my office. I was wondering if you could come over now.”
“Now? You must think I’m not very busy,” I replied.
“Can you come or not, Jack? It’s important,” Amanda said.
“No time for levity this morning, huh? Give me fifteen minutes.”
I was wearing khakis and a white buttondown shirt, and added a tie and seersucker coat before heading out. Amanda was not a believer in casual day.
Ten minutes later, Amanda’s receptionist led me into her office. Amanda was seated behind her glass-topped desk, and in one of her red leather client chairs sat an overweight black woman who appeared to be in her forties. She was wearing orange stretch pants that didn’t look like they could stretch any further, and a t-shirt with a picture of a basketball star dunking the ball. For shoes, she was wearing purple house slippers without any heels.
“Ms. Tuggle,” Amanda said formally, “this is John McAlister. John, Ms. Tuggle.”
“How do you do, ma’am?” I said.
Ms. Tuggle nodded at me, but didn’t say anything or offer her hand. I sat down in the other chair and waited.
“Ms. Tuggle’s son, Thomas, is missing,” Amanda said. “Ms. Tuggle, why don’t you tell John about it.”
“I done told you, why I got to tell him, too?” she asked.
“Because,” Amanda replied patiently, “John is the one who will look for Thomas, not I.”
Ms. Tuggle took a deep, ragged breath, and began to speak in an angry voice. “I never had nothing good in this life but Thomas, and now he gone, too. How this white man going to change that?”
“I don’t know that I can, but I’m sure that I can’t if I don’t know what’s going on. If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll go enjoy the rest of my day. It’s entirely up to you,” I said. I looked across the glass at Amanda and shrugged with my eyebrows.
“Goddamit, Lucy, tell the man the story,” Amanda said, in a voice that had made more than one philandering husband fear for his retirement plan and club membership.
“Fuck
