Redemption Road(59)

“Not everyone sees Adrian as we do.”

“How could they when they barely know the man? Such is the nature of headlines and innuendo.”

“And murder convictions.” The old lawyer looked away, but not before Elizabeth saw the pain she’d caused. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“It’s quite all right. It’s not as if I’ve forgotten.”

Elizabeth looked back at the officers. They were still watching her, most likely hating her. “I never visited,” she said. “I tried a few times, but never got past the parking lot. It was hard. I couldn’t do it.”

“Because you loved him.”

It was not a question. Elizabeth felt her jaw drop, the sudden flush. “Why would you say that?”

“I may be old, my dear, but I have never been blind. Beautiful young ladies don’t sit so devotedly in court without good reason. It was hard to miss the way you looked at him.”

“I never … I wasn’t…”

The old lawyer nudged her with a shoulder. “I imply no impropriety. And completely understand why a woman might feel that way. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

She shrugged once, then shifted on the bench and wrapped her arms around a single knee. “How about you?”

“Visit? No. Never.”

“Why not?”

He sighed and stared at the courthouse as another man might stare at an old lover. “I tried at first, but he wouldn’t see me. Everyone hurt. There was nothing to say. Maybe he blamed me for the verdict. I never found out. After that first month, it became a matter of simple avoidance. I told myself I’d try again, then a week went by, and then another. I found reasons to avoid that side of town, the prison, even the road that would take me there. I made up lies and stories, told myself he understood, that I was old and done with the law, and that the relationship had been purely professional. Every day I whittled at the truth of my feelings, buried them deep because it hurt like hell, all of it.” He shook his head, but kept his eyes on the courthouse. “Adrian was there because of my inadequacy. That’s a hard truth for a man like me to accept. So, maybe I drank too much and slept too little. Maybe I turned from my wife and friends and all that ever mattered to me as a man and a lawyer. I lost myself in the guilt because Adrian was, perhaps, the finest man I’d ever represented, and I knew he’d never come out the same. After that, the hatred came like a thief.”

“He doesn’t hate you, Faircloth.”

“I was referring to myself. To the power of self-loathing.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

“Now? No.”

Elizabeth looked away from the lie. The old man had hurt for a long time. He still did. “How long until he’s out?”

“I’ll post the bond,” Faircloth said. “They’ll drag their feet on principle. A few hours, I imagine. He can come home with me, if he likes. I have room and spare clothes and life, still, in these old bones. He can stay as long as he likes.” The old man struggled to his feet, and Elizabeth guided him back to the sidewalk. “If you’ll help me to my car. It’s there.” He pointed with the cane, and she saw a black car with a driver by the rear door. They moved down the walk, but Faircloth stopped a few feet from the bumper, one hand white on the cane, the other still on her arm. “He did not seem well, did he?”

“No.” Elizabeth frowned. “He did not.”

“The perils of confinement, I suppose.” The driver opened the door, but the lawyer waved him off, a sudden twinkle in his eye. “Why don’t you come by the house tonight? Perhaps between the two of us we can make him feel less forgotten. Shall we say drinks at eight, dinner after?”

She looked away, and he said, “Please, do come. The house is large, and the two of us, alone, insufferably male. It would be so much livelier with your company.”

“Then, I’ll be there.”

“Beautiful. Excellent.” He tilted his head skyward and breathed deeply. “You know, I’d almost forgotten how it feels. Fresh air. Open sky. I should appreciate it more, I suppose, today being the first time in eighty-nine years I’ve risked my own involuntary confinement.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s illegal to practice law without a license, my dear.” He flashed a wink and an old man’s wicked grin. “Mine has been expired for ages.”





13

He watched the courthouse from a distance and recognized so many faces: the police, the lawyer, even some of the reporters. It was like that when you’d lived in a town as long as he had, when you knew people. He kept his eyes on the woman, though, on the way she moved and kept her eyes down and touched the old man’s elbow.

Elizabeth.

Liz.

So many years, he thought. So many times he’d laid up in the dark knowing it would end with her.

Did he have the strength to do it?

He rolled the idea around his mind, taking it apart, putting it back together. Everyone else had been a stranger. He knew the names, yes, where they lived and why he chose them: a multitude of women who, in the end, were as blank to him as water in a ditch.

Things now were getting complicated.