(2014) The Professor Read online

  Tom felt heat on the back of his neck. “Listen, Bo...”

  “No, you listen, Professor. I’m not blind. I’ve seen all that mail piling up on your kitchen table. I bring it every time I come, and there’s a steady flow. You haven’t opened a letter in months. If that’s not quitting, I don’t know what is.”

  Tom threw down his fishing pole and stood from the log, his legs shaking from the effort. “I don’t need a lecture from you.”

  Bo also stood, walking in front of Tom. “I think that’s exactly what you need, dog. What the hell are you doing out here? Are you just gon’ stay out here the rest of your life?” Bo grabbed Tom’s shoulder, making him stop. “You know what I think?” Bo asked.

  “No, Bo.” Tom turned around, brushing Bo’s hand off his shoulder. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re scared, Professor.”

  Tom glared back at him. “You think I’m scared. Me?”

  “As a prissy schoolgirl,” Bo said.

  Tom felt a flash of anger and he wheeled towards Bo, his hands tightening into fists. “Now, you listen here, Bocephus. I appreciate all that you’ve done, but I’m about to...”

  “You’re about to what?”

  Tom blinked, hesitating.

  “Go on, say it. You know what you want to say. You’re about to whup my black ass. Right? That’s what you want to say. When I challenged you, you came back at me. Now, you’re pushing seventy years old and eighteen hours removed from chemotherapy. I’m a six-foot-four-inch, two-forty-pound black man who did fifty pull-ups this morning and stopped cause I wanted to, not cause I couldn’t do any more. But when I threatened you, your first reaction was to fight. That’s what you do when challenged, Professor. You fight. That’s who you are.”

  Tom turned away.

  “So what’s the holdup?” Bo asked, continuing his rant. “The cancer? So it came back. So what? The doctor will take it out, you’ll go through some more chemo washes, and it’ll be gone for good. You’re old? So what? I’ve seen you work as hard as a man twenty years younger. You’re still strong as a bull, dog.”

  “I don’t know what to do, goddamnit!” Tom yelled, unable to take it any more. “And, yes, you’re right, Bo. I’ll admit it. I’m scared, OK. Happy? The old Professor is scared. I’m sixty-eight years old, my wife is dead, I don’t have a job, my family has moved away, my old dog is about to die, and I don’t have a fucking clue what to do.”

  “What do you want?” Bo asked, his voice quieter.

  “Part of me wants to go back. Fight...” Tom sighed. “The other part–” Tom glanced at his sleeping dog “–just wants to go where Musso’s going soon... see Julie again.” He stopped, feeling his chest swelling with emotion. “Bo, part of me was glad today. When the doctor said the cancer was back, part of me was happy. I...” Tom stopped, unable to continue. He stared at the ground, but looked up when Bo’s shoes came into his line of sight. “Look, Bo...”

  “No, you look,” Bo interrupted, digging his finger into Tom’s chest, his eyes spitting fire. “You’re telling me you just want to die. That dying is an option here. Well, forgive me, Professor, but fuck you. My daddy died when I was five years old. He was hung by a rope by twenty white men wearing sheets and hoods. You ask me why I practice in Pulaski. Well, I’ll tell you why. Cause every day, I want to show the bastards who hung my father that Bocephus Haynes hasn’t forgotten. I’ll never stop fighting, Professor. Never. Fighting’s in my blood. It’s what I was born to do. You can’t fake who you are. When I said you were scared, you didn’t hesitate. You rose to fight. By quitting, you’re going against who you are.” Bo stopped, breathing heavy.

  “I’m not quitting,” Tom said. He glared at Bo, tiring of the lecture.

  Bo glared back, but, after several seconds, his face broke into a smile and he glanced down at the ground. “We are who we are, Tom. And me and you, we’re like that bulldog over there.”

  Tom wrinkled his face in confusion as he looked at Musso, snoring away.

  “Yeah,” Bo continued, smiling at Musso. “You look at Musso, what do you see? A docile, sweet, dog that licks your face and likes to lay around all day. That’s how he is cause that’s how people for years have conditioned him to act. His ass has been domesticated. You hear me?”

  “I hear you, but what are you trying to...”

  “I’m getting to that. Now, the English bulldog wasn’t meant to be a damn lapdog. The English bulldog descended from the bull mastiff, a fighting dog. A war dog. Back in the day, the bulldogs were used by the police to catch wild bulls that had gotten loose. Wild bulls. They’d grab the bull by its nose, close their eyes, and hold on until the officer could corral the bull. That’s what Musso is. At his core, that’s what he is. And, let me tell you, it’s a shame you’ll never see it. Musso is about gone and hasn’t ever been challenged. But, you can bet your ass, Professor, that, even now, even as old as Methuselah in dog years, if Musso was ever threatened, he would not walk away and lay in the grass and die.” Bo paused. “Mark my words, as Jesus Christ is my witness and Bocephus Haynes is my name, that dog would fight.”

  For a long time, Tom gazed at Bocephus, as a gentle breeze filtered through the pine trees. Finally, he couldn’t help but smile.

  “Where’d you learn so much about bulldogs?”

  “Jazz loves the history channel,” Bo said, smirking. “Shit’s on all the time.”

  Tom laughed and his groin flared in pain. He squinted at Bo. “So you’re telling me I’m a bulldog?”

  Bo smiled, but his eyes remained intense and he took a step closer. “What I’m trying to say is you’ve been challenged by the law school and Jameson Tyler, and you’re going against who you are by not coming back at them. It doesn’t matter that you’re sick or old. You are who you are. Just like I am.” He paused. “Just like Musso is.”

  Bo reached forward and grabbed Tom around the back, squeezing him tight. “That’s my closing argument, dog.”

  Bo started to walk away, but then stopped, keeping his back to Tom. “Professor, I’m sorry about the last sentence of today’s article. I just thought you might need a push in the right direction.”

  Tom wrinkled his eyebrows and pulled out the article. He had stopped reading it after the part about Dawn. He skimmed down to the last sentence. Tom felt his blood pressure go through the roof as he read the words aloud.

  “Believed to be sick and possibly near death, the Professor has retired to his family farm in Hazel Green, Alabama.”

  “They didn’t get the ‘sick and near death’ part from me, but I think it’s a nice touch,” Bo said, beginning to walk away.

  “Goddamnit,” Tom said. “They’ll descend like vultures on this place. What the hell were you thinking, Bo?” Tom was exasperated. “Bo!”

  As Bo reached the edge of the clearing, he turned and smiled. “You can’t hide out here forever, dog.”

  45

  As the sun began to rise over the corn field, Rick gazed at the brick farmhouse. Stop procrastinating, he told himself. Just do what you came to do.

  He took a sip of coffee from a Styrofoam Hardees cup, but still he didn’t move. He glanced down at the passenger seat, where he’d put the article that ran in yesterday’s paper. Powell had brought the article by last night with an address. “Go see him, Rick,” Powell had urged. “Go get it from the horse’s mouth. He is the Professor, for God’s sake. He will help you.”

  Rick wasn’t so sure. The Professor hadn’t been very helpful in the last year. He’d cost Rick a job with the best law firm in the state. He’d referred him a case that was going down the tubes. And, despite Rick’s request not to interfere with the case, the Professor had hired him a law clerk who was now long gone. His “whore”, Rick thought, remembering Jameson Tyler’s words.

  Rick took another sip of coffee, knowing that none of that mattered anymore. He was three days from trial, and he was at the end of his rope. The Faunsdale Police Department had determined that Mule Morris’ pic
kup had flipped down the embankment of Highway 25 and exploded upon impact with a tree. The preliminary conclusion was that Mule’s brakes had gone out, causing him to lose control of the vehicle.

  But Doolittle Morris wasn’t buying it. “Mule was a certified by God mechanic, and that truck might have been old, but it ran like a top. No way the brakes would just go out.” Doo, who was distraught over his cousin’s death, had no qualms over who was to blame when Rick and Powell caught up with him the day after the accident. Doo had shook his fist at them both and had to be restrained by several friends, his eyes burning with rage. “I wish I’d have never seen either of you turds. My cousin is dead because of you.”

  And, deep down, Rick knew that Doo was right. Mule died three hours after he spoke with me and Dawn, he thought. He kept his truck in mint condition and had no known enemies. There was only one logical conclusion in Rick’s mind. Jack Willistone had hired someone to follow him, and that person had taken out Mule. Murder, Rick thought, trying not to be paranoid, but knowing he was right. Just thinking about it left his body covered in goose flesh, and Rick now drove with one eye permanently fixed on the rear-view mirror.

  Finally, there was the Wilma Newton dilemma. Tyler still hadn’t deposed her, and Rick knew that Jameson Tyler wouldn’t just overlook a witness with damaging evidence against his client. Tyler is the best, Rick thought. If he doesn’t take her deposition, there’s got to be a reason. Rick felt a gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He’d sent Wilma an affidavit weeks ago, setting out exactly what she’d told him and Dawn at the Sands, but Wilma had yet to send it back. She had also gotten spotty about answering phone calls. Rick had called three times last week with no answer. I need that affidavit signed before I put her on the stand, Rick thought.

  He sighed, his head hurting from all the questions he had and doubts he felt. Glaring at the farmhouse, he wished there was somewhere – anywhere – else he could go. But he knew there wasn’t. Other than Powell, Rick had no friends in the legal community who could help him. And Powell had told him to come here.

  Rick grabbed the door handle, trying to summon the courage to move. With his other hand, he felt in his pocket for the photograph he now kept with him at all times. A picture that Ruth Ann had given him during their first interview. He didn’t even have to look at it, the images were so burned into his mind. Bob Bradshaw’s beaming, proud face. Jeannie Bradshaw’s smile, her mouth slightly open as if someone had just made her laugh. And, finally, Nicole Bradshaw, holding a teddy bear under her arm, looking shy, vulnerable and so young.

  This ain’t about you, Rick told himself. It’s about them.

  Taking a deep breath and a last sip of coffee, Rick opened the door.

  46

  Tom woke to the sound of knocking. He turned to look at the alarm clock, and yelled as the soreness from yesterday’s “torture” sent a flare of pain through his groin. 6am. “Who the hell...” He rolled off the bed and looked down, where Musso remained snoring away. “Christ, boy, at least make an effort.” Tom put on a pair of sweatpants as the knocking continued. “I’m coming,” he yelled, and again felt a pull in his groin.

  Finally, Musso let out a weak bark and crawled off the bed.

  “That all you got?” Tom snapped, shaking his head. “Fighting dog my ass,” he muttered as he walked down the hall to the den. “If this is Bo, so help me, I am gonna whip his ass,” Tom said, limping through the den and beginning to wake up.

  Tom stopped when he saw Rick Drake’s face behind the glass window.

  “Can I come in?” Rick asked through the glass. Tom squinted back at him, wanting to make sure he understood right.

  “Can I come in?” Rick repeated. “Please, Professor... I... I know it’s early, but I need to talk with you.”

  Tom finally forced his legs to move forwards. He unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. He stood in the doorway but didn’t move back to allow access in.

  “What’s this about, kid?”

  Drake let out a breath. He looked like death warmed over, his eyes blood red.

  “I need your help.”

  They sat in the den, as the kitchen table was still completely cluttered with unopened mail. Tom sat in his rocker and Rick on the couch. Tom had made a pot of coffee, and Rick leaned forward, holding his cup with both hands. The boy looked tired and scared.

  “So how did you find me?” Tom asked, crossing his legs and drinking some coffee.

  “Powell,” Rick said, placing his cup on the coffee table in front of him and then pulling a folded newspaper from his pocket. “He gave me this article.” Rick handed it over and Tom opened it, knowing full well what it was.

  “The article mentions that you retired to a farm in Hazel Green,” Rick said, picking up his cup and gazing into it. “I think Powell managed to get your forwarding address from a friend at the post office in Tuscaloosa. He wouldn’t tell me the rest.”

  “Well, you found me,” Tom said. “What’s on your mind?”

  Rick drank some more coffee and finally raised his tired eyes. “I need to talk with you about the case you referred me, but... first...” Rick sighed, looking back down at the cup.

  “First what?” Tom asked. He stopped rocking and watched the boy, noticing sweat beads on Rick’s forehead. After a half-cup of coffee, Tom was finally awake and was beginning to realize how difficult being here must be for Rick. Whatever he came here to do, it’s killing him to do it.

  “First... I wanted to say I’m sorry about punching you in Washington. I shouldn’t have done that. I lost my temper. I... I lost control of my emotions, and it cost us the national title. I’m sorry.” Rick stopped, and met Tom’s eye, but Tom didn’t say anything. Did I just hear him right?

  “Second,” Rick continued. “I’m sorry about how the law school forced you out. That’s a lot my fault too and...”

  “Hold it,” Tom interrupted, putting his hand up for Rick to stop. “Son, I appreciate the apology, but you didn’t cost me my job. That was going to happen regardless of what happened in DC.”

  Rick wrinkled his face in confusion, and Tom cursed under his breath. “The incident was just the pretext, all right? If it hadn’t been our fight, it would’ve been something else. Dean Lambert wanted new blood, and Tyler gave him the ammunition to get rid of me.”

  “Tyler?” Rick asked. “Jameson Tyler?”

  Tom nodded. “He became attorney for the University right before I was forced out. He orchestrated the whole thing.” Tom shook his head and stood, his agitation growing. “You said you needed to ask me some things about Ruth Ann’s case.”

  Rick looked up from his cup. “I do, but... there’s one other thing.” The look of anguish on Rick’s face told Tom all he needed to know.

  “Dawn?” Tom asked.

  Rick nodded. “I have to know the deal. The newspaper–”

  “The deal is simple,” Tom interrupted. “My last week, I hired Dawn to be my student assistant. When I hired her, she was so relieved to get the job that she started crying, and the Dean walked in my office while I was patting her hand.” Tom shrugged. “Later in the week, in the pouring-down rain, I walked Dawn to her car under an umbrella so she wouldn’t get wet. She gave me a hug as a way of saying thanks.” Tom sighed. “Somehow, Tyler captured the whole thing in some photographs that paint a skewed picture. Dawn is...” Tom chuckled. “Well, hell, you’ve seen her. She’s attractive. Her T-shirt is wet in the photographs. I guess it probably looked bad, but nothing happened.”

  “You promise that was it?” Rick asked.

  “I promise.”

  “You paid her to work for me?”

  Tom crossed his arms. “I did. I felt bad she’d lost her job when I was let go. And... I thought you could use some help.”

  “I told you not to interfere,” Rick said.

  “I know,” Tom said. “But you needed help.” He paused. “She helped you, didn’t she?”

  Now it was Rick who stood, not answering the question.
r />   “Didn’t she?” Tom pressed.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Rick finally said, stepping behind the couch and gazing out the glass sliding doors to the deck. Sunlight poured through the panes, casting Rick’s entire body in an orange glow. “She confessed her arrangement with you, and I said some things that made her quit. My temper...” Rick’s voice drifted off, and Tom could see the regret in the boy’s eyes. Did something else happen with Dawn? He thought about asking him, but then held his tongue.

  “Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” Rick repeated, sighing and turning to face Tom. “The only thing that matters now is that the biggest case of my life is three days away and I don’t have a clue what to do.”

  Tom was jolted by the desperation in Rick’s voice and body language. He is scared to death, Tom thought, walking over to the rocker and plopping down in it. He gestured at the couch, and Rick took a seat.

  “OK,” Tom said, crossing his legs and narrowing his gaze. “Tell me about it.”

  For the next hour, Rick told the Professor everything.

  “I’m just not sure what to do,” Rick said, wrapping things up. “But one thing I know, Ruth Ann won’t settle for any amount of money. She wants Willistone called on the carpet for everything they’ve done.” Rick sighed. “The problem is that, with Mule dead, the only way to expose Willistone is to put Wilma Newton on the stand. I mean, come on. The trucker’s wife sticking it to the trucking company. But–”

  “You’re worried because you don’t have any sworn testimony from her,” Tom interrupted, rubbing his chin.

  “Right. And Willistone’s lawyer hasn’t deposed her either, and we disclosed her as a witness months ago. It doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t depose her unless–”

  “–they’ve talked to her and aren’t worried.” Tom again finished Rick’s thought. “Course, that might not be it. Willistone is probably being defended under a policy of insurance, and insurance companies are known to cut costs. They may have instructed the lawyer not to depose her.”