Speaking in Tongues (7 page)

Matthews slid into the right lane and continued through the mist toward the mountains in the west. He looked back as often as he looked forward.

As any good therapist will advise his patients to do.

The rain had stopped but the atmosphere was thick as hot blood.

In her stylish shoes with the wide, high heels, Bett McCall came to Tate’s shoulder. Neither speaking, they stood on the back porch, looking over the back sixty acres of the property.

The Collier spread was more conservative than most Piedmont farms: five fields rotating between soy one year and corn and rye the next. A classic northern Virginia spread.

“Listen to me, Tate,” the Judge would say.

The boy always listened to his grandfather.

“What’s a legume?”

“A pea.”

“Only a pea?”

“Well, beans too, I think.”

“Peas, beans, clover, alfalfa, vetches . . . they’re all legumes. They help the soil. You plant year after year of cereals, what happens?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“Your soil goes to hell in a handbasket.”

“Why’s that, Judge?”

The man had taught the boy never to be afraid to ask questions.

“Because legumes take nitrogen from the air. Cereals take it from the soil.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll plant Mammoth Brown and Yellow for silage and Virginia soy too. Wilson and Haerlandts are good for seed and hay. How do you prepare the land?”

“Like you’re planting corn,” the boy had responded. “Sow them broadcast with a wheat drill.”

Out of the blue the Judge might glance at his grandson and ask, “Do you cuss, Tate?”

“Nosir.”

“Here. Read this.” The man thrust into Tate’s hand a withered old bulletin from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Immigration. A dog-eared chapter bemoaned the rise of young farmers’ profanity.
Even some of our girls have taken to this deplorable habit.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Judge,” Tate had said, remembering without guilt how he’d sworn a blue streak at Junior Foote at school just last Thursday.

Gazing at his fields, the Judge had continued, “But if you
do
find it necessary to let loose just make sure there’re no womenfolk around. Almost time for supper. Let’s get on home.”

Tate stayed at his grandparents’ house in Fairfax as often as at his parents’. Tate’s father was a kind, completely quiet man, best suited to a life as, say, a court reporter—a career he’d never dared pursue, of course, given the risk that he’d be assigned to transcribe one of his father’s trials. The Judge had agonized over whether or not to leave the farm to his only son and had concluded the man just didn’t have the mettle to handle a spread of this sort. So he deeded it over to
Tate while the other kin got money. (Ironically, as Tate learned during one of the few frank conversations he’d ever had with his father, the man had been dreading the day that the Judge would hand over the farm to him. His main concern seemed to be that running the farm would interfere with his passion of collecting Lionel electric trains.) Tate’s timid, ever-tired mother suited her husband perfectly and Tate could remember not a single word of dissension, or passion, between the two. Little conversation either.

Which is why, given his druthers, adolescent Tate would hitch or beg a ride to his grandparents’ house and spend as much time as he could with them.

As the Judge had presided at the head of the groaning board table on Sunday afternoons Tate’s grandmother might offer in a whisper, “The only day to plant beans is Good Friday.”

“That’s a superstition, Grams,” young Tate had said to her, a woman so benign that she took any conversation directed toward her, even in disagreement, as a compliment. “You can plant soy all the way through June.”

“No, young man. Now listen to me.” She’d looked toward the head of the table, to make sure her husband wasn’t listening. “If you laugh loud while planting corn it’s trouble. I mean, serious trouble. And it’s good to plant potatoes and onions in the dark of the moon and you better plant beans and corn in the light.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Grams.”

“Does,” she’d responded. “Root crops grow below ground so you plant them in the dark of the moon. Cereals are above ground so you plant in the light.”

Tate admitted there was a certain logic there.

This was one of three or four simultaneous discussions going on around the dinner table—aunts and uncles and cousins, as well as the inevitable guest or two that the Judge would invite from the ranks of the bench and bar in Prince William and Fairfax Counties. One crisp, clear Sunday, young Tate shared an iced tea with one guest who’d arrived early while the Judge was en route from the farm. The slim, soft-spoken visitor showed a great interest in Tate’s ant farm. The visitor was Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, taking a break from penning an opinion in a decision—maybe a landmark case—to come to Judge Collier’s farm for roast beef, yams, collard greens and, of course, fresh corn.

“And,” Grams would continue, scanning the table for the sin of empty serving bowls, “it’s also bad luck to slaughter hogs in the dark of the moon.”

“Sure is for the hogs,” Tate had offered.

The dinner would continue until four or five in the afternoon, Tate sitting and listening to legal war stories and planning and zoning battles and local gossip thick as Grams’s mashed potatoes.

Now, because his ex-wife stood beside him, Tate was keenly aware that those Norman Rockwell times, which he’d hoped to duplicate in his own life, had never materialized.

The vestige of a familial South for Tate hadn’t survived long into his adulthood. He, Bett and Megan were no longer a family. Among the multitude of pretty and smart and well-rounded women he’d dated Tate Collier hadn’t found a single chance for family.

And so, as concerned as he now was about Megan, the return of these two into his life was fraught with pain.

It brought practical problems too. He was preparing for the biggest case he’d had in years. A corporation was petitioning Prince William County for permission to construct a historical theme park near the Bull Run Battlefield. Liberty Park was going to take on King’s Dominion and Six Flags. Tate was representing a group of residents who didn’t want the entertainment complex in their backyard even though the county had granted tentative approval. Last week Tate had won a temporary injunction halting the development for ninety days, which the developer immediately challenged. Next week, on Thursday, the Supreme Court in Richmond would hear the argument and rule whether or not to let the injunction stand. If it did, the delay alone might be enough to put the kibosh on the whole deal.

Overnight Tate Collier had become the most popular—and unpopular—person in Prince William County, depending on whether you opposed or supported the project. The developer of the park and the lenders funding it wanted him to curl up and blow away, of course. But there were hundreds of local businessmen, craftsmen, suppliers and residents who also stood to gain by the park’s approval and the ensuing migration of tourists. One editorial, lauding the project, called Tate “the devil’s advocate.” A phrase that certainly resonated in this fervent outpost of the Christian South.

Liberty Park’s developer, Jack Sharpe, was one of
the richest men in northern Virginia. He came from old money and could trace his Prince William ancestry back to pre–Civil War days. When Tate had brought the action for the injunction, Sharpe had hired a well-known local firm to defend. Tate had chopped Sharpe’s lawyers into little pieces—hardly even sporting—and the developer had fired them. For the argument in Richmond he’d gone straight to Washington, D.C., to hire a law firm that included two former attorneys general, one former vice president, and, possibly, a future president.

Tate and Ruth, his secretary-assistant-paralegal, had been working nonstop on the argument and motion papers for a week, and would continue to do so until, probably, midnight of the day before the argument.

So Bett’s reappearance in his life—and Megan’s disappearance from it—might have some serious professional repercussions.

Queasy, he thought again of that day when he and Bett had fought so bitterly—ten or eleven years ago. He’d never known the girl had overheard his outburst.

Your inconvenient child . . .

Why had fate brought them back into his life? Why now?

But however he wished otherwise, they
were
back. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Finally Tate asked his ex-wife, “Think we should call my mother?”

“No,” Bett said. “Let’s give it a few days. I don’t want to upset her unnecessarily.”

“What about your sister?”

“Definitely not her.”

“Why not?” Tate wondered aloud. He knew Susan cared very much for Megan. More than most aunts would for a niece. In fact, she’d always seemed almost jealous that Bett had a daughter and she didn’t.

“Because we don’t have any answers yet,” Bett responded. Then, after a few moments, she sighed. “This isn’t like her.” She glanced at the letter in her hand. Then shoved it deep into her purse.

Tate studied his wife’s face. Tate Collier had inherited several talents from the Judge. The main gift was, of course, a way with words, and the other, far rarer, was the ability to see the future in someone’s face. Now he looked into his ex-wife’s remarkable violet eyes, saw them narrow, alight on his and move on, and he knew exactly what was going through her mind. Debate is not just about words, debate is about intuition too. The advocate who can see exactly where his adversary is headed will always have an advantage, whatever rhetorical flourishes the opponent has in his repertoire.

He didn’t like what he now saw.

Bett stepped determinedly off the porch and into the backyard, toward the west barn, where her car was parked. He followed and paused on the shaggy lawn, which was badly in need of a mowing. He stared intently at the white streak of the energetic Dalmatian, which had finally forsaken the bone and was zipping through the grass like a greyhound.

Tate glanced at the old barn, alien and yet very familiar. Then his eyes fell on the picnic bench that he and Bett had bought at one of the furniture stores
along Route 28. They’d used it only once—for the gathering after the funeral fourteen years ago. He remembered the events with perfect clarity now. It seemed like last week.

He saw Bett looking at the bench too. Wondered what she was thinking.

That had been an unseasonably warm November—just as odd as this April’s oppressive heat. He pictured Bett standing on the bench to unhook a Japanese lantern from the dogwood after the last of the family and well-wishers had left or gone to bed.

Today, Tate paused beside this same tree, which was in its expansive, pink bloom.

“Are you busy now?” she asked. “Your practice?”

“Lot of little things. Only one big case.” He nodded at the house, where a paralyzing stack of documents for the Liberty Park argument rested. When they were married the house had been littered with red-backed legal briefs, forty or fifty pages long.
The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Many of them were for death penalty cases Tate was prosecuting. Although he’d been the Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Tate had often argued down in Richmond on behalf of other counties. “Have voice, will travel,” his staff had joked. His specialty had become special-circumstance murder cases—the official description of capital punishment cases.

These assignments and his eagerness to take such cases were a source of friction between husband and wife. Bett was opposed to the death penalty.

Death, Tate reflected, always seemed to lurk behind their relationship. Her sister Susan’s continual battle
with serious heart disease, and the suicide of Susan’s husband, Harris. Then the death of Bett’s parents and Tate’s father and grandfather, all in the tragically short period of three years.

Tate kicked at piles of cornstalks.

“I have this
feeling,
Tate.” Bett’s hands lifted and dropped to her sides. “Do you understand what I mean?”

No. He didn’t. Tate was dogged and smart, but feelings? No, sir. Didn’t trust them for a minute. He saw how they got the people he’d prosecuted into deep, deep trouble. When they’d been married Bett lived on feelings. Intuition, sensations, impressions. And sometimes, it seemed, messages from the stars. Drove him crazy.

“Keep going,” he said.

She shrugged. “I don’t believe this.” She tapped her purse. Meaning the letter, he supposed.

“Why do you think that?”

“I was remembering something.”

“Hmm?” he offered noncommittally.

“I found a bag under Megan’s bed at home. When I was cleaning last week. There was a soap dish in it.”

He noticed the woman’s tears. He wanted to step close, put his arm around her. Tate tried to remember the last time he’d held her. Not just bussed cheeks but actually put his arms around her, felt her narrow shoulder blades beneath his large hands. No memory came to mind.

“It was a joke between us. I never had a dish in my bathroom. The soap got all yucky, Megan said. So she bought this Victorian soap dish. It was for my birthday.
Next week. There was a card too. I mean, she wouldn’t buy me a present and a card and then do this.”

Wouldn’t she? Tate wondered. Why not? When the pressure builds to a certain point the volcano blows—and it doesn’t care about the time of year or who’s picnicking on the slopes, drunken lovers or churchgoers. Any lawyer who’s done domestic relations work will testify to that.

“You think someone
made
her do this? Or that it’s a prank?” Tate asked.

“I don’t know. She might’ve been drinking again. I checked the bottles at home and they didn’t look emptier but . . . I don’t know.”

“That’s not much to go on,” her ex-husband said.

Suddenly she turned to him and spoke. “It’s not a hundred percent thing we’ve got, Megan and me. There’re problems. Of course there are. But our relationship deserves more than this damn letter. More than her running out . . .” She crossed her arms, gazed into the fields again. She repeated, “Something’s wrong.”