Roanoke Times and read it in an empty café while she ate a waffle with bacon. After breakfast, she
walked the streets of Brady for a while; it didn’t take long to see all of it. She passed a dozen
churches, which all seemed to be packed, judging by the crowded parking lots, and tried to
remember the last time she had seen the inside of one. Her father was a lapsed Catholic, her
mother an indifferent Protestant, and Samantha had not been raised in any faith.
She found the schools, all as old as the courthouse, all with rusting air conditioners sagging
from the windows. She said hello to a porch full of ancient people rocking their time away at the
nursing home, evidently too old even for church. She walked past the tiny hospital and vowed to
never get sick in Brady. She walked along Main Street and wondered how in the world the small
merchants stayed in business. When the tour was over she got in her car and left.
On the map, Highway 119 wiggled through the coal country of far eastern Kentucky and into
West Virginia. The day before, she had seen Appalachia from the air; now she would try it from
the road. With Charleston a vague destination, she took off with nothing but a road map and a
bottle of water. Soon she was in Kentucky, though the state line made little difference. Appalachia
was Appalachia, regardless of boundaries someone had set an eternity ago. A land of breathtaking
beauty, of steep hills and rolling mountains covered in dense hardwood forests, of rushing streams
and rapids cutting through deep valleys, of depressing poverty, of tidy little towns with redbrick
buildings and whitewashed houses, of church after church. Most of them seemed to be of the
Baptist variety, though the brands were hopelessly confusing. Southern Baptist; General Baptist;
Primitive Baptist; Missionary Baptist. Regardless, they were all bustling with activity. She stopped
in Pikeville, Kentucky, population seven thousand, found the center of town, and treated herself
to coffee amongst the locals in a stuffy café. She got some looks but everyone was friendly. She
listened hard to the chatter, at times uncertain if it was the same language, and even chuckled at
the banter. Near the West Virginia line, she couldn’t resist stopping at a country store that
advertised “World Famous Beef Jerky, Homemade.” She bought a package, took one bite, tossed
the rest in a trash can, and sipped water for fifteen miles to get rid of the taste.
She was determined not to think about coal; she was tired of the subject. But it was
everywhere: in the haul trucks that owned the roads, in the fading billboards urging union
strength, in the occasional glimpse of a strip mine and a mountaintop being removed, in the battle
of bumper stickers, with “Like Electricity? Love Coal” on one side and “Save the Mountains” on
the other, and in the tiny museums honoring the heritage of mining. She stopped at a historical
marker and read the account of the Bark Valley Disaster, a deep mine explosion that killed thirty
men in 1961. Friends of Coal had an aggressive campaign under way, and she drove past many of
their billboards declaring “Coal Equals Jobs.” Coal was the fabric of life in these parts, but the
strip-mining had divided the people. According to her Internet research, its opponents argued that
it destroyed jobs, and they had the numbers to support them. Eighty thousand miners now,
almost all non-union and half working in surface mines. Decades earlier, long before they began
blasting tops off mountains, there were almost a million miners.
She eventually made it to Charleston, the capital. She still wasn’t comfortable in traffic and
found more than she expected. She had no idea where she was going and was suddenly afraid of
getting lost. It was almost 2:00 p.m., past lunch and time to turn around. The first leg of her trip
ended when she randomly pulled in to a strip mall surrounded by fast-food restaurants. She was
craving a burger and fries.
A
ll the lights were on in Donovan’s office long after sunset. She walked by it once around
8:00, started to knock, but decided not to disturb him. At 9:00 she was at her desk, primarily
because she wanted to avoid her apartment, and not really working. She called his cell and he
answered it. “Are you busy?” she asked.
“Of course I’m busy. I start a trial tomorrow. What are you doing?”
“I’m at the office, puttering, bored.”
“Come on over. I want you to meet someone.”
They were in his war room, upstairs, the tables covered with open books and files and legal
pads. Donovan introduced her to one Lenny Charlton, a jury consultant from Knoxville. He
described the man as an overpaid but frequently effective analyst, and he described Samantha
simply as a lawyer/friend who was on his side. Samantha wondered if Donovan insulted all the
experts he hired.
He asked Lenny, “Ever hear of Marshall Kofer out of D.C.? Once a high-flying aviation trial
lawyer?”
“Of course,” Lenny said.
“Her dad. But there’s nothing in the DNA. She avoids courtrooms.”
“Smart lady.”
They were ending a long session in which they had gone through the list of sixty prospective
jurors. Lenny explained, for her benefit, that his firm was paid trifling wages to conduct
background searches of every person on the list, and that the chore was difficult given the tight
and incestuous nature of coalfield communities. “Excuses, excuses,” Donovan mumbled, almost
under his breath. Lenny explained further that picking juries in coal country was dicey because
everyone had a friend or a relative who worked either for a company that mined coal or for one
that provided services to the industry.
Samantha listened with fascination as they discussed the last few names on the list. One
woman’s brother worked at a strip mine. One woman’s father had been a deep miner. One man
lost his adult son in a construction accident, but it wasn’t related to coal. And so on. There
seemed to be something wrong with this spying game, of allowing litigants to peek into the
private lives of unsuspecting people. She would ask Donovan about it later if she had the chance.
He looked tired and seemed a bit edgy.
Lenny left a few minutes before ten. When they were alone, she asked, “Why don’t you have
co-counsel for this trial?”
“I often do, but not this case. I prefer to do it myself. Strayhorn and its insurance company will
have a dozen dark suits swarming around their table. I like the contrast, just Lisa Tate and me.”
“David and Goliath, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“How late will you work?”
“I don’t know. I won’t sleep much tonight, or this week for that matter. Comes with the
territory.”
“Look, I know it’s late and you have better things to worry about, but I have to ask you
something. You’ve offered me a part-time job as a research assistant, a paid position, so I would
become an employee of your firm, right?”
“Right. Where is this going?”
“Hang on. I’m not sure I want to work for you.”
He shrugged. Whatever. “I’m not begging.”
“Here’s the question: Do you have in your possession documents—the bad documents as you
and Vic call them—owned by Krull Mining pertaining to the contamination of the groundwater
in Hammer Valley, documents that you’re not supposed to have?”
His dark and tired eyes flashed with anger but he bit his tongue, hesitated, then smiled.
“It’s a direct question, Counselor,” she said.
“I get that. So, if the answer is yes, then I suppose you’ll decline the job and we’ll still be
friends, right?”
“You answer my question first.”
“And if the answer is no, then you might consider working for me, right?”
“I’m still waiting, Counselor.”
“I plead the Fifth Amendment.”
“Fair enough. Thank you for the offer but I’ll say no.”
“As you wish. I have lots of work to do.”
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