A Time for Mercy (Jake Brigance #3) - John Grisham Page 0,93

at the foot of the hill. There was a loud noise. He thought at first it was an explosion of some sort. Then the truck in front of him hit the brakes and swerved. NN stopped in the road and hurried to the scene on foot. The train was still passing. The crossing lights were still flashing red. The warning bell was still ringing. The driver of the truck was yelling at him. Steam and smoke were coming from the wrecked car. He could see small children crushed in the rear seat. The train stopped, then moved backward and cleared the crossing. By then other drivers were stopping, and before long the first policeman and ambulance arrived. The road was blocked and he couldn’t pass so he had no choice but to hang around and watch. For three hours. He said it was pretty gruesome watching the recovery of four dead people, especially when they pulled the little kids out. Said he had nightmares for weeks, wished he hadn’t seen it.

I made sure he was clear about the warning lights. He said he heard the driver of the truck tell a state trooper that the lights were not working, and he started to say something. But he refused to get involved. He refuses to get involved now. Wants nothing to do with the case. I asked him why and he said he was involved in a bad car wreck years ago and he got blamed for it. Had to go to trial and he has a strong dislike for lawyers and courts. Also, NN has a lot of sympathy for the family and doesn’t want to hurt their case.

Interesting note: He said that a few months ago he was in the area, near Clanton, stopped by the courthouse and asked if he could see the file with the lawsuit. They said it was public record, so he read some of it and was amused to see that the witness, the driver of the pickup, Mr. Grayson was still saying that the lights were not working.

NN definitely wants to stay out of this.

When he was sure he wasn’t going to vomit, Jake managed to walk gingerly to the sofa and lie down. He pinched his nose and closed his eyes and saw his fortune fly away.

Not only was Nickel a far more credible witness, he could confirm that Hank Grayson, their star, was drinking that night.

When he could finally move, Jake folded the report into an unmarked envelope, resisted the temptation to burn it, and hid it in a thick lawbook where maybe it would vanish, or maybe he would just simply forget about it.

If Nickel wanted to avoid the trial, that was fine with Jake. They would keep the same secret.

The fear, though, was the defense. Seven months into the lawsuit, Sean Gilder had shown little interest in the case and had only gone through the motions of discovery. He had filed one set of standard interrogatories and requested the basic documents. They had agreed to depose a few of the key witnesses. Jake estimated that he had put in three times the hours as the defense lawyers who actually got paid by the hour.

If Neal Nickel insisted on lying low, there was a good chance he would not be discovered by anybody working on behalf of the railroad or its insurance company. And barring a sudden change of conscience, he would get his wish of staying out of any lawsuit.

So why did Jake spend the next three days with a knot in his stomach? The big question was Harry Rex. Should he show him the report and watch him freak out? Or should Jake simply bury it, along with any knowledge of the mysterious eyewitness? The quandary roiled Jake’s world for days, but with time he managed to shove it into another compartment and concentrate on the rest of the case.

Two months later, on January 9, 1990, to be exact, the issue returned with a vengeance. Sean Gilder filed a second set of interrogatories that sought answers he already had, for the most part. Again, he appeared listless and totally unimaginative. Jake and Harry Rex had become convinced that Gilder was not sandbagging, a common defense tactic. Rather, it appeared as if Gilder was overconfident because of the fact that Taylor Smallwood drove into a moving train. End of case.

But the last interrogatory, number thirty in a package of thirty, was lethal. It was one that was