The Sweet Hereafter (15 page)

I Now, however, everything was different. Now I had to turn him off me, and in such a way that no other lawyer could get to him instead.

This wasn’t quite ethical, of course; maybe not even moral. Necessary, however legal triage.

I’d planned to give Ansel another few days before making direct contact, but that seemed too risky now.

Better hit on the guy soon, or better yet, talk to him this evening at his house, late, especially if he’s into drinking.

Give him a genteel nudge that pisses him off more after wards than at the time of delivery, and he’ll want to kill the next lawyer he talks to, I figured.

There was no point in contacting any additional parents until I’d first brought Ansel’s testimony under my control and had answered the question of how fast the bus was moving when it went through the guardrail. So I went to work on the other aspects of the cash-checked the state police in Marlowe, the county seat, to find out who had arrived at the scene first; stopped by the county mapping office for a look at the pitch and height of the highway and adjacent roads and lands; that sort of thing gathering data, mainly, for later.

That night, after the blue plate special at the Noon mark over in Keene Valley (ham and macaroni and cheese kiddie food, but at least there weren’t any lawyers or journalists eating there), I drove out to Ansel’s house, which was up on Staples Mill Road. I passed the house by and parked a short ways beyond it with my lights out, thinking I’d reconnoiter a bit before approaching the man in person.

It was a lovely moonlit night, the snow a pale blue color under it, the trees black against the snow. And cold I didn’t even want to know the temperature.

I got out of the car and walked slowly back toward the house, a large well maintained stone faced colonial that looked recently renovated, with sharply cleared paths and driveway, two car garage, breezeway like a dentist’s house in the suburbs. The only lights on were in the room adjacent to the breezeway, apparently the kitchen, and from the road where I stood, next to the mailbox, I could see him through the large picture window, seated at the table, alone.

Jesus, he looked sad. Tousled dark hair, shoulders slumped, elbows planted on the table, a single glass and a half empty bottle in front of him the picture of permanent depression. Gone to where he thought his kids had gone.

If I’d wanted the guy for a client, I’d have been worried.

Suddenly, he stood up and turned and faced out the window, looking across the snow covered front yard right at me. I froze and stared back at him. Nothing else to do.

I remember that for several seconds we seemed to be gazing at one another, me in moonlight at the side of the road, him in the soft light of his kitchen a hundred feet away, neither of us moving a muscle. We were like mirror images of each other, but who knows if he saw me at all, or, if he saw me, what he thought he was looking at? Maybe all he could see was himself reflected off the window glass, a muscular bearded guy in his late thirties in a plaid flannel shirt and khakis; and saw nothing of the tall skinny fifty five year old guy shivering outside in his camel hair coat. It was a weird moment, though. As if we were long lost brothers, separated early and passing by accident decades later, not quite recognizing each other, but then, for a second or two, something something licks.

The moment passed. Ansel turned away from the window and poured himself another drink: it looked like straight whiskey. He sat heavily back down at the table, and I quickly walked back to my car. He’s too drunk to talk to tonight, I thought; probably wouldn’t even remember it in the morning. The aftereffect of what I had to say to him was more important to me than the immediate effect. I think I was rationalizing, though. Scared.

I decided to drive back to the motel by way of Ansel’s garage in town, which was where they’d hauled the wrecked bus. I wanted some pictures of the vehicle while I could still get them, even if I had to take them at night with a flash. In a day or two, I knew, once I’d filed notices of claim, the bus was likely to disappear.

I pulled into the garage lot and drove around to the rear, where there were seven or eight different vehicles parked and stowed, including the school bus, which was pretty smashed up, although not as badly as I’d expected.

Most of the windows toward the rear were gone, kicked in by the divers, probably, but the vehicle was basically intact, probably even salvagable-a repair job that I did not think Billy Ansel would be taking on.

I took maybe twenty pictures, from all sides and even a few through the windows, and had just got back into my car and started the motor, when I saw a pickup truck enter the lot. It was Ansel’s. I kept the motor running but the lights off and watched, as he drew up behind the bus and after a few seconds stepped out of his truck. To my surprise, he walked steadily and didn’t look especially drunk. A little crazy, maybe, which was okay; but not drunk. In the glare of his headlights I watched him walk over to the driver’s side of the bus, where he stopped by the window and stood looking up at it for a long time, as if talking to someone inside.

Finally, he turned away from the bus and moved back toward his own vehicle. I decided to speak to him. I wasn’t scared of him anymore.

The timing and locale couldn’t be better. It was invasive but not intrusive.

I got out of my car and crossed the lot toward him.

You work for Ansel? I asked him, as if I didn’t know who he was.

I am Ansel.

I moved closer and in a low voice said, I’m sorry about your children, mister Ansel.

You are, eh? He was already combative.

Yes.

We stared directly into each other’s eyes. The old stare-down.

He broke first and said, I take you to be a lawyer, which let me counterpunch, which is how you control these things.

Yes, I am an attorney. My name is I Mister, I don’t want to know your name.

True enough, but he was damn well going to learn it anyhow. I understand, I said.

No. No, you don’t understand.

I can help you.

No, you can’t help me. Not unless you can raise the dead, he declared, moving away from me and getting into his truck.

I quickly handed him a card. Here. You may change your mind.

He read the card and then passed it back, looking me straight in the face, but distracted somehow, as if memorizing the card.

Fine by me. I stared him back.

mister Mitchell Stephens, Esquire, would you be likely to sue me if right now I was to beat you with my hands and feet? he growled. Beat you so bad that you pissed blood and couldn’t walk for a month?

Because that is what I’m about to do, you understand. Whether you sue me or not.

Lawyers sue; he’d made the connection. And suing is bad; he’d taken his stand. In what I hoped was a slightly weary but kindly tone, because I did not want to sound in the slightest defensive, the way I knew those other lawyers would react when he started threatening them, I said, No, mister Ansel. No, I wouldn’t sue you. And I don’t think there’s anyone in this county who would even arrest you for it. But you’re not about to beat me up, are you?

He paused, reconsidering. No, I’m not going to beat you up. Just don’t talk to me again. Don’t come around my garage, and don’t come to my house or call me on the telephone.

The rest was finish work. You may change your mind. I can help you, I said.

Leave me alone, Stephens. Leave the people of this town alone. You can’t help any of us. No one can.

You can help each other. Several people have agreed to let me re present them in a negligence suit, and your case as an individual will be stronger if I’m allowed to represent you together as a group. This was no longer the hook I’d originally planned it to be; now it was merely a way for him to feel morally superior to his neighbors, which, of course, would keep him clean for me later on, when I put him in front of a jury.

My ‘case’? I have no case. None of us has a case.

You’re wrong about that. Very wrong. Your friends the Walkers have agreed, and mister and missis Otto, and I’m talking with some other folks. It’s important to initiate proceedings right away. Things get covered up fast. People lie. You know that. People lie about these things. We have to begin our own investigation quickly, before the evidence disappears. That’s why I’m out here tonight. I showed him my camera.

He looked at it with disgust. Our children aren’t even buried yet, he said. It’s you you’re the liar. Risa and Wendell Walker, I know them, you’re right, but they wouldn’t hire a goddamned lawyer. And the Ottos, they wouldn’t deal with you, for Christ’s sake. You’re lying to me about them, and probably to them about me. We’re not fools, you know, country bumpkins you can put the big city hustle on. You’re just trying to use us. You want us to pull each other in, he announced, getting it nicely wrong.

Smiling at his minor triumph, he shut the door of his truck, backed the vehicle up and turned, then drove quickly from the lot. The truck fishtailed as it hit the road and turned left, heading toward the west end of town. Where the Bide a Wile Motel was located; and Risa Walker.

I did not have too much trouble imagining the conversation that would take place between them there. Husband Wendell, I was certain, would not be a party to it. Poor sap. I liked Wendell. I did not like Billy Ansel.

Things moved pretty fast for a while then. A lot of it was strictly procedural, the kind of search and destroy that precedes filing a notice of claim, where you’re essentially boxing off the defendants so that you can both narrow the terms and widen the areas of liability.

I had some files and a fax machine shipped up from New York by UPS and set up a sort of office for myself in my room at the Bide a Wile. The Walkers seemed pleased by the arrangement, especially Risa; from their point of view, they now had a lawyer in residence. I wasn’t exactly on retainer, but I did end up advising them, Risa in particular, on a few matters other than their negligence suit, which I was now attempting to aim at the State of New York, for not having installed sufficiently strong guardrails along that especially dangerous stretch of roadway, and at the town of Sam Dent, for not having drained the sandpit.

And I was contemplating a suit against the school board, for having permitted Dolores Driscoll to service her school bus herself. I figured, cast as wide a net as possible and catch whatever fish you can in it.

As a defendant, the driver was out of bounds, of course, but I was now considering making even her a plain tiff, since, if she was not herself responsible for the accident, she might be shown to have a cause for action for emotional distress. What the hell, it was worth a try.

It’d make an interesting precedent. Also, I might be able to run it back ward: it would be that much harder for the state, town, and school lawyers to lay the responsibility for the accident on her if she was one of the parties suing them for negligence.

In an important way, the whole case rose or fell on the question of Dolores Driscoll’s liability, and it was a question I’d just as soon not get asked at all. At least not without a few roadblocks.

The funerals started the next day, all over town, going on for several days, for three or four children at a time, and naturally I planned on staying away. Out of decency, but strategy as well. It doesn’t hurt to be the only lawyer in town who doesn’t come off as a buzzard.

The town was beginning to formalize its response to the tragedy.

There had appeared one morning fourteen tiny crosses out at the crash site, which turned out to be the work of schoolchildren, at the instigation of the school board. So much for separation of church and state. A memo rial service for the victims, announced in the local weekly newspaper, was scheduled to be held the following week in the school auditorium, where the state representative from the district, the school principal, and half a dozen area clergymen would intone.

Money was being collected, ostensibly for the families of the victims (although the exact purpose of the money was a little vague-funeral expenses for some, medical expenses for others, I supposed), in glass jars at all the local businesses, even at the Noonmark Diner over in Keene Valley. TV viewers from around the country were sending contributions money, clothing, canned food, stuffed animals, crucifixes, and potted plants all of which was being logged in and held at the school for eventual distribution. Even then I could see problems down the road with that, but it was none of my affair, so I just listened and nodded as Risa filled me in on the details. She was evidently quite touched by the generosity of strangers, and I saw no reason to disabuse her of it. Some people, when terrible things happen to them, take strength from believing that other people are better than in fact they are.

Not me. I go in the opposite direction.

Actually, I knew that Risa’s increasing confidentiality with me, her evident need to talk to me as frequently as possible, was her way of leading up to a conversation about how to divorce Wendell. I doubt she knew that herself then, but it was surely on the agenda. The death of her son had eliminated the one reason she was married to the boy’s father.

I still hadn’t taken the measure of Dolores Driscoll, however, so when Risa told me that the woman was showing up at all the funerals, sitting way in the back and then disappearing at the end of the service, only to reappear down the road at the next one, I decided to break my rule and take in a funeral myself then head back to the city for a few days.

I had several other cases that I’d left hanging and needed attention.

That morning at the motel, however, the phone in my room rang, and it was Zoe, out of the blue, after three months of silence, and it caught me completely by surprise, or I doubt I’d have handled it as badly as I did.

Daddy, it’s me! she’d said. Her voice was full of the usual phony enthusiasm, but it was dead, dead as the kids in their caskets.

Zoe! Jesus! I’d been shaving, and I snapped off my electric razor and sat down on the bed. It was like getting a call from a ghost. Every time I think my period of mourning is over, she calls to remind me that I haven’t really started yet.