The Divine Appointment (10 page)

Like the rest of the house, Tag’s study was lavish. Walnut wood panels covered the walls and expensive leather furniture occupied the sitting area. The custom-built bookcases that blanketed the rear wall from floor to ceiling were filled with medical books, novels, photographs, and mementos. French doors led to a veranda and beyond that to the seventeenth hole of the Legends Club of Tennessee golf course.

“Tag, this is Eli Faulkner,” Anna said, introducing them.

Tag stood from behind the desk and approached Eli to greet him with a handshake. Tag’s hand was soft—too soft. It gave Eli an odd feeling.
He’s had an easy life
.

“Mr. Faulkner,” Tag said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Eli responded. “And since we are going to be working together, how about you call me Eli and I’ll call you Tag?”

“That’s fine with me.”

“I’ll bring in some iced tea while you two get started,” Anna offered. “I’m sure Eli has a lot of questions.”

“Tea would be great.” Eli sat on one end of a leather sofa and opened his briefcase while Tag resumed his seat behind the desk. Eli removed a notepad from the briefcase and placed it in his lap.

“Do you like it sweet or unsweet, Eli?” Anna asked.

“Sweetened, please.”

“Great. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

After Anna left the room, Eli turned to Tag. He got right to the point. “Your wife tells me that you’ve gotten into some trouble, Tag.”

“That’s an understatement. The judge ordered me to wear this thing on my leg.” Tag propped his right foot on the corner of the desk and lifted his trouser leg to reveal an electronic monitoring device strapped to his ankle. “I’m a board-certified cardiologist, and I’m confined to my own house. My partners won’t even let me back in the clinic.”

“Your wife has hired me to help with that, but you’re going to be my client. So I need to know that you want my help as well.”

“Anna’s uncle, George Thornton, recommended you highly, and I’ve checked you out on my own. My lawyer friend who helped me make bail over the weekend says you’re one of the best trial lawyers in the state. But what I want to know is, can you get me out of this?”

It was a fair question. Most clients wanted to know the end result. But it was a hard question, too, one that Eli knew he couldn’t answer. He responded honestly. “That depends on a lot of factors, most of which we don’t know yet. I never guarantee success. What I do promise is that my office and I will do everything possible to provide the best legal representation we can. My staff has already begun to investigate, and as facts develop, I’ll be better able to tell you where this case is going.”

“Fair enough.” Tag’s reply was short, almost curt.

“The most important thing is that I need to know everything, good or bad. I don’t like surprises, and I can guarantee the district attorney’s office is trying to unearth everything it can to convict you of this crime. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Completely. And don’t worry. I’ll tell you everything.”

Eli listened to the words Tag spoke but wasn’t completely convinced they contained the truth. There was something about Tag’s abruptness that made Eli uneasy.

A soft rap on the door interrupted their conversation, and Anna appeared with a silver serving tray containing two glasses of iced tea. She set it on the edge of Tag’s desk and handed Eli a glass and then one to Tag.

“Thank, you,” Eli said, but Tag expressed no appreciation to Anna.

“You’re welcome.” Anna gathered the tray. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she said as she exited and closed the door.

Eli sipped at his tea. “I assume you knew Ms. Caldwell.”

“That’s true. I knew her.”

“Were you having an affair with her?”

Tag hesitated before responding, as if he were searching for an appropriate response. “Our relationship became physical,” he said finally. A brief smirk appeared on his face.

Tag’s lack of respect—both for his own marriage and for Jessica Caldwell—didn’t sit well with Eli.

“But I didn’t love her, by any stretch,” Tag explained. “It was purely a physical attraction.”

“Were you in her town house the night she died?”

Tag stiffened his jaw. “I was there, but she was alive and well when I left her. I had absolutely nothing to do with her death.”

“Tag, let me explain something to you, and this may sound odd.” Eli leaned forward on the sofa and propped his elbows on his knees. “As your attorney, my primary concern is not whether you murdered Ms. Caldwell or not. It’s whether or not the district attorney has enough evidence, can get enough evidence, to convince a jury that you murdered her. And so far, it’s not looking too good.”

Eli returned to a normal sitting position and counted with his fingers as he continued his assessment of the case. “First, you had a relationship with her. Second, you were in her town house the night she died. I’ve already received a motion from the DA’s office seeking to obtain a DNA sample from you to compare with tissue found under Ms. Caldwell’s fingernail. If it matches, that could be strike three.”

Eli noticed that Tag scratched at a small, healing wound on his left cheek. “So you see that we have our work cut out for us. The DA will easily be able to place you at the scene of the crime. Let’s get started on trying to find a defense by you telling me everything you can remember about the night Jessica Caldwell died.”

For the better part of an hour, Eli meticulously took notes while Tag described the evening, from the time he picked up Jessica until he returned home at 1:00 a.m. Periodically Eli asked follow-up questions, such as where they went to dinner and when they arrived at Jessica’s town house.

“I even got a ticket in the mail for running a red light in front of her town house.” Tag shrugged nonchalantly. “There must be one of those surveillance cameras at that intersection.”

“Anything else?” Eli prodded. He could sense Tag’s story was coming to a close.

“That’s all I can remember right now.”

“How long a drive is it from Ms. Caldwell’s town house to your house?”

“Probably about fifteen minutes or so. Not very far.”

“So you left her town house about twelve forty-five a.m.?”

“That seems about right.”

“And what was Ms. Caldwell doing when you left?”

“She was asleep. I don’t think she even knew when I left.” The left corner of Tag’s mouth turned up in what appeared to be a half smile of satisfaction.

Tag’s facial expression caused a twinge of nausea in Eli’s stomach. Were it not for his promise to Anna, he would have walked out. He was disgusted with Tag’s cavalier attitude, but his commitment forced him to continue.

“You mentioned a traffic ticket. Do you still have it?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it in my desk.” Tag opened the middle drawer of his desk and removed a letter-size piece of paper. “I guess this is the least of my problems now,” he said as he handed the ticket and an eight-by-ten photograph attached to the ticket to Eli.

Eli scanned the ticket and the photograph. “It’s time-stamped at twelve forty-eight a.m. That would be when you were leaving, correct?”

“That’s right, and that’s my car in the picture. I can even make out the license plate.”

“You drive an Infiniti SUV?”

Tag nodded.

Eli scanned the ticket again, folded it, and placed it and the photograph in his briefcase. “I also need to ask you about your marriage. I suspect that the DA’s office is looking for any dirt it can find to strengthen its claim that you were having an affair with Ms. Caldwell. How would you describe your marriage?”

Tag folded his arms and replied with little emotion. “Our marriage has been shaky from the beginning. I thought it was all right at the time we got married, but looking back on our wedding day, I don’t remember it as a lightning-bolt experience. It was just okay and hasn’t gotten any better since then. I don’t know how much longer our marriage will last.”

The finality with which Tag spoke troubled Eli. Clearly the man had no idea what true marriage was. Eli began to understand why he felt cold when he entered the Grissom house. There was no love there. Eli had represented a husband or wife in divorce many times, but it was easy to dislike the other spouse when he or she was the adversary. This was a difficult situation. He liked Anna Grissom. His sympathy for her was the main reason he’d agreed to take this case. But his client, the man he was supposed to defend against murder charges, the man to whom his duty, loyalty, and zeal were due, obviously despised his own wife. And she was pregnant!

“Anna tells me y’all are expecting a baby.”

“Yeah, well,
she’s
having a baby. It’s due in December, but I’m not that excited about the idea. I’m too busy with my career to be tied down with children. There’s too much I want to do and too many places I want to go. Children would be in the way. I pressed her to have an abortion early on, but she refused. We’ll just have to deal with it when it gets here.”

Abortion!
The word screamed in Eli’s mind.
And he’s talking about the baby—his baby—as if it is some inanimate object
. The conversation began to make Eli feel even more sick to his stomach.

“Tag, I think I have about all I need for today. I have a lot of work to do, and I’ll get right on it. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for a week from yesterday. My associate, Jill Baker, and I will meet you and Anna at about nine a.m. next Thursday. There is a parking lot two blocks north of the courthouse. Meet us there, and we can walk in together.”

With that, Eli closed his briefcase and stood to leave. Tag stood as well, and they shook hands again.

“It was nice to finally meet you,” Tag said.

“Same here.”

The door to the study opened and Anna appeared almost on cue—as if she had been listening at the door. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

Once outside Eli sat briefly in his car before driving away. He scanned the manicured estate and thought about how perfect the Grissoms’ house looked from the outside while the home on the inside was being ravaged.

How can God allow a child to be born in to this marriage?
he thought.

Yet that was exactly what was happening. And Eli couldn’t escape the feeling that even if he did manage to exonerate Tag, Anna and her baby would be abandoned by him.

The Loveless Café, West of Nashville, Tennessee

The nationally renowned Loveless Café was housed in the quaint, renovated office building of an out-of-operation roadside motel. It was located west of Nashville near the Natchez Trace Parkway and not far from the 1-40 exit for the sleepy town of Pegram. Eli and Sara loved its country charm and Southern cooking. Eli parked amid the dozens of other cars that filled the gravel parking lot, and he and Sara waited patiently on the front porch until their name was called for an available table.

The Loveless was frequented by Nashville and national celebrities. The allure of its award-winning country ham, Southern fried chicken, and made-
from-scratch biscuits drew people from around the globe to its red-and-white-checkered tablecloths.

After they were ushered to a table near the back of the main, but small, dining room, Sara ordered country ham and biscuits and Eli requested the fried chicken. Before long they were up to their elbows in homemade preserves, fried chicken, salt-cured ham, and laughter.

“How did your meeting go with Dr. Grissom?” Sara asked not far into their dinner conversation.

Eli spread strawberry preserves on a fluffy biscuit and took a bite before responding. He thought about what he’d seen in Tag Grissom. The arrogant doctor with an ego the size of Texas. A womanizer. Treated his wife like dirt. Not the kind of man Eli wanted to socialize with. But one word kept coming to mind:
client
. And to call someone a client meant something to Eli even if he didn’t like the man.

“He’s a tough guy to figure out. He says he didn’t kill her, but he does admit he was in her town house the night of the murder. The prosecutor will easily be able to prove opportunity.”

Sara took a bite of country ham and biscuit and sipped her iced tea. Eli stared at his plate, thinking.

“I wish you would stop taking criminal cases,” Sara said. “They always weigh on you.”

Eli looked up at Sara. He heard the concern in her voice and saw it on her face. “I know, and maybe I will. I wouldn’t have taken this one were it not for his wife.”

“You told me about her going to your office.”

“I don’t appreciate enough how wonderful it is being married to you. We may have our disagreements occasionally, but our marriage is solid. Those two don’t know from one day to the next whether they are going to stay married or not. Anna wants to make it work because she’s pregnant, and she wants her child to grow up with both a mother and a father. But I’m not sure about Tag. I think he could leave her and not think twice about it. He certainly doesn’t like it that she is pregnant.”

“That sounds a little familiar,” Sara responded with a playful smile.

Even though Eli knew Sara was joking, the similarity between him and Tag suddenly struck him. Both were driven by their desire to succeed professionally, and neither wanted children to get in the way. He took a drink from his glass and swallowed hard.
How good a husband am I? And could I be a good father?

“The difference,” Eli defended, “is that I love you and he doesn’t love his wife.”

“I know you do,” Sara replied affectionately. “And I suspect another difference is that neither Dr. Grissom nor his wife knows Jesus Christ.”

Eli took a bite of his supper. Sara was right. The Grissom house was cold not just because it was loveless, but because it was without Jesus Christ.

“I’m convinced that’s true,” he said, reflecting. “Perhaps an opportunity will present itself when I can talk to them about their salvation.”

“I’ll be praying for that to happen. What does the pastor call it?” Sara asked. “‘A divine appointment’?”

Eli nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. ‘A divine appointment.’ That’s what I need—a divine appointment with Tag and Anna Grissom.”

Not only am I to defend Tag against murder charges
, he thought,
but the real reason Anna Grissom came to my office may be for me to lead them both to Christ. That was an awesome responsibility!

“It’ll work out,” Sara said.

“I know it will. But they may be a tough couple to get through to. They barely talk to each other and never agree on anything so far as I can tell.”

“Speaking of disagreements, have you given any more thought to having children?”

“You never give up, do you?” Eli chuckled.

“Not easily.”

“I’ve thought about it some more. Believe it or not, I’m warming up to the idea.”

A contagious smile crossed Sara’s face and soon was reflected on Eli’s. The conversation improved to topics more pleasant than the marital difficulties of Tag and Anna Grissom. Before long their meal was concluded and they exited the Loveless arm in arm to Eli’s car in the parking lot. As they rode quietly back to the Hermitage Hotel, Eli held Sara’s hand and inwardly thanked God for his wonderful wife.

The Hart Building, Washington DC

“It’s so good to see you, Stella,” Senator Lance Proctor said as he entered his office, where Stella Hanover was waiting for him. He was followed closely by Cooper Harrington. It was the first Monday of June, and the senator’s staff had alerted him to Stella Hanover’s unrelenting demands for an audience.

“Don’t give me that, Senator,” Stella retorted. Her crisp Boston-accented words spewed rapidly from her mouth. She rose mightily from a leather chair and pounced on him. “I never like seeing you, and I know you can’t enjoy seeing me either. Particularly when I’m this mad. I’ve been trying to get in to see you for days, and I finally had to just show up and make a scene before anybody would schedule me a time.”

Her voice reached a crescendo, just below yelling. The husky clatter of her voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard. It made Senator Proctor cringe. He tried to give Stella a polite handshake but was met with a less-than-warm reception. He ambled toward his chair behind his desk, hanging his suit jacket in the closet on the way.

“Stella, just settle down, and Cooper and I will try to satisfy all of your concerns, whatever they may be,” Senator Proctor said as he walked. His voice was calm and reassuring, with just a hint of Southern charm mixed in intentionally.

“I have one question for you, Senator. What are you going to do to stop Dunbar Shelton’s confirmation to the bench?”

Senator Proctor knew exactly why Stella was in his office, and it was the very reason he had been avoiding her. That—and the fact that he really didn’t like her.

“Now, Stella, you’re all worked up over nothing. Sit back down and let’s talk about it.”

Stella returned to her seat while Senator Proctor sat behind his desk and Cooper settled into a leather chair near Stella.

“Appointing a justice to the Supreme Court who will vote to overturn
Roe v. Wade
isn’t ‘nothing,’” Stella insisted.

“How do you know he will vote to overturn?” Cooper asked.

“That’s a good question, Stella. How do you know?” Senator Proctor added.

“Because that Christian freak of a president would only nominate someone who would vote to overturn, that’s why.” Stella drew a long, slow breath. Her face showed surprise. She glanced at her two hosts and finally stopped her gaze at Senator Proctor. “I should’ve known,” she mumbled.

“Known what?” Senator Proctor asked, playing with his beard.

Stella shook her head. “I should’ve known that Wallace had already struck a deal with you.”

Senator Proctor saw her disgust. It didn’t upset him in the least. “Stella,” he began, “we’re old friends. You’ve helped me in the past, and I’ve helped you—”

“You have, haven’t you?” Stella interrupted, her voice rising again in anger.

“Hang on, Stella—” Senator Proctor tried to continue. He raised his hands defensively, and his voice rose to match Stella’s.

“It’s true, isn’t it? Just tell me. It’s true.” Stella’s voice again reached a crescendo just below yelling. Her pale face transformed to red, and her body trembled slightly.

Without Stella seeing it, Senator Proctor winked at Cooper. Then he said, “Cooper, please excuse us for a few minutes. I need to talk to Stella alone.”

“But, but—” Cooper stammered.

“No buts, Cooper. Just do what I say. I need to talk to Stella in private. It’ll only be a few minutes.”

In dramatic disgust, Cooper stood and marched from the room. He closed the office door a little harder than normal. Senator Proctor stared at the closed door for five seconds. It was enough time for Cooper to make it to his office and activate the headphones.

Senator Proctor faced Stella. “Let me tell you something.” His voice was soft but stern. “Don’t you ever come in here again yelling at me and making demands. I’ve done countless favors for you and your organization over the years, and I think I deserve a little more respect than you’ve shown today.”

Senator Proctor saw Stella clench her jaw. “And,” he continued, “if I want to strike a deal with the president on this or any other issue, I will and you won’t tell me otherwise.”

Stella erupted from her chair more violently than she had when Senator Proctor first entered the room. “And let me tell
you
something. This fight isn’t over! I’ll spend every last dime we have to defeat this nomination and you at the next election.”

Senator Proctor reclined in his chair and smiled. He knew Cooper was laughing his head off. “Don’t threaten me, Stella,” he said with a confident air. “I know you don’t have the political connections in Tennessee to beat me. And besides, most of my constituents are against abortion. They’ll hail me as a hero if Shelton is confirmed, and if in fact he’s pro-life.”

“Oh, he’s pro-life,” Stella said, no longer yelling. “No doubt about it. Wallace wouldn’t have nominated him if he wasn’t.”

“How do you know? Do you have anything where he said he would overturn
Roe
?”

“You know I’m not going to find anything like that. Guys like Shelton and Roberts, they’re careful not to say much on any subject. It’s almost like they’ve been planning to be on the Supreme Court since grade school.” She slumped back into her chair.

“Well, if you had something like that, I might reconsider my position. Otherwise, I’m going to support Shelton, for confirmation.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“You know I can’t give up without a fight and that it’ll get ugly.”

“I know both of those things.”

“All right.” Stella’s voice was calm for the first time since Senator Proctor had entered the room. But it was also determined. “And I know what I have to do.”

With that, she stood and left without saying anything else to Senator Proctor. But she couldn’t leave without conveying one last message to the senator by slamming the door harder and louder than Cooper had. Senator Proctor knew it had to hurt Cooper’s ears.

The
Washington Post,
Washington DC

Holland Fletcher was at his metal desk at the Post headquarters on the corner of Fifteenth and L streets. His was one in a maze of cubicles in the expansive newsroom. Holland was dressed in his usual work clothes. Wrinkled khakis, three-button pullover short-sleeve shirt, and loafers, no socks. It was early afternoon, and he had finally found an opportunity to start on lunch—pastrami on rye—when the phone rang. He stuffed half of the sandwich in his mouth and chased it down with a Diet Coke. He mumbled something that sounded like hello into the receiver and dusted crumbs from his shirt.