Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (top 50 books to read .TXT) 📕

the main building, talking, holding hands, nervous, saying what they could in the time they had, afraid they would forget something. Visitors were dressed casually, though here and there men in lawyers’ uniforms—dark suits, ties and fedoras—were spotted. Lizzie found herself looking for Barton Pitts but knew Milstein would have arranged to have him kept far away. Gil l’Amoureux was at Folsom, too, a popular place. She hadn’t thought of Gil since his trial. Twelve to fifteen, she recalled. She wondered when he’d be getting out and what Angie thought about that, made a mental note to ask her at the wedding.

“Not bad as prisons go,” said the lawyer as they waited, “and I’ve seen ’em all—at least in California.” Lizzie remembered Milstein’s baggy eyes and lisp from the trial. She’d said nothing about the coming meeting to Cal on the drive up—uncomfortable about seeing Callender again and convinced they were on a wild goose chase. She’d come because curiosity got the better of her, as it usually did.

They sat at a table under a canopy that stopped the sun but not the heat, their eyes fixed on the door leading to the visitor’s room inside the main building. Time crawled as the sun rose higher, beating down ever stronger on the canopy. At length, Callender emerged from the building and stood a moment outside shielding his eyes, accustoming them in the bright sun. He nodded to a guard posted by the door and started across the grounds alone.

She watched him coming: the man who’d been cheated by her father and killed him in revenge. Cal knew him; she didn’t. She’d seen him at the trial. McManus wouldn’t let her cover it, but she’d been there. What she remembered, what she would never forget, was what he did after the shooting. Pitts, still the lead prosecutor in those days, kept emphasizing it, making sure the scene was indelible in the jurors’ minds. “You shot Eddie Mull, Mr. Callender, but why did you kick his body into the ocean, why did you have to do that?” Watching Callender coming toward the tent, she didn’t want to look at his face. She made herself do it.

Milstein went out to shake his client’s hand. “Why don’t we all sit down,” he said. No other hands were offered, though Lizzie saw Callender start to offer Cal his hand, then stop. The man’s blue eyes had lost none of their intensity, she noted, and he stared hard at her as introductions were made. The mustache was gone. He and Milstein sat down on one side of the table, leaving Lizzie and Cal to slide in on the bench across from them. Everyone but Callender, who looked serene and cool, was dripping in the heat. She felt her blouse soaked through.

Callender was the first to speak. “Calvin Mull,” he said, chagrin in the voice, “I understand that you would not want to shake hands with me, though in other times we were friends, just as I was a friend of your father, may his soul rest in peace. I have his chess set here with me, at Folsom, the set you gave me, the one he had from his grandpa. Willie and I still play, do you know that?” His face brightened. “Sometimes he wins.”

Cal smiled, and Callender looked to Lizzie, who’d not spoken a word. “I am happy that you are here, young lady. I did you a terrible grievance and for that I am sorry, but it could not be otherwise. I will share your pain if you will share mine. You lost your father, and I lost my savior and mentor, the Reverend Willie Mull, the man I loved more than any other in the world, the godly man who led me back to Jesus Christ, the father of this fine young man who sits beside you. When that beautiful man was taken away, the goodness went out of me, the goodness Willie Mull had taught me to keep in my heart, the goodness that drove away the rancor that had lodged there since the day I was cheated.

“When Willie was gone, I determined to settle the score, as I would have done sooner except for Willie, as I had always done out on the trail. Nothing could dissuade me, and I was full ready to accept the consequences. I embraced the jury’s verdict and even wished for the death penalty so I could join Willie in heaven. Do you know that when he went we were in the middle of a chess game? We always kept a game going at the temple. Cal knows that. I finished that game in my home, with Nyx, my cat, who is gone now, too. Do you know that the Reverend Willie won that game?”

His bright eyes fixed steadily on Lizzie. Finally, he dropped them to stare at his gnarled hands. “Through me, he was making the moves from heaven.”

No one said a word. Milstein opened his mouth to say something and quickly closed it again. Callender was not done.

“I do not seek to atone. A man cannot atone for a mortal sin, though it be an eye for an eye. I feel no guilt, for what I did was in the situation.” He paused for some time, and still no one thought to intercede. Eventually, he raised his eyes to Lizzie again. “I do not seek to atone, but think maybe I can help you. I know what you are doing, Miss Mull. I know about the murder of Pat Murphy. Folsom has a good library and I read the Times every day. I follow the story in the front-page notebook. I believe I have learned something that can help you. I want to help you. I believe I can give you the name of the man you are looking for.”

Lizzie went suddenly stiff. Her mouth was the only dry part of her. She’d thought this man might be crazy, but there was nothing crazy