But Lee was wise and quick enough to recognize this interest. She explained that the Cayhalls were a strange and secret breed who kept to themselves and shunned outsiders. They were not friendly and warm people who gathered for Christmas and reunited on the Fourth of July. She lived just an hour away from Clanton, yet never saw them.
The visits to the pier at dusk became a ritual for the next week. They would stop at the market and buy a sack of red grapes, then spit seeds into the ocean until well past dark. Lee told stories of her childhood in Mississippi with her little brother Eddie. They lived on a small farm fifteen minutes from Clanton, with ponds to fish in and ponies to ride. Sam was a decent father; not overbearing but certainly not affectionate. Her mother was a weak woman who disliked Sam but doted on her children. She lost a baby, a newborn, when Lee was six and Eddie was almost four, and she stayed in her bedroom for almost a year. Sam hired a black woman to care for Eddie and Lee. Her mother died of cancer, and it was the last time the Cayhalls gathered.
Eddie sneaked into town for the funeral, but tried to avoid everyone. Three years later Sam was arrested for the last time and convicted.
Lee had little to say about her own life. She left home in a hurry at the age of eighteen, the week after high school graduation, and went straight to Nashville to get famous as a recording artist. Somehow she met Phelps Booth, a graduate student at Vanderbilt whose family owned banks. They were eventually married and settled into what appeared to be a miserable existence in Memphis. They had one son, Walt, who evidently was quite rebellious and now lived in Amsterdam. These were the only details.
Adam couldn't tell if Lee had transformed herself into something other than a Cayhall, but he suspected she had. Who could blame her?
Lee left as quietly as she had come. Without a hug or a farewell, she eased from their home before dawn, and was gone. She called two days later and talked to Adam and Carmen. She encouraged them to write, which they eagerly did, but the calls and letters from her became further apart. The promise of a new relationship slowly faded. Their mother made excuses. She said Lee was a good person, but she was nonetheless a Cayhall, and thus given to a certain amount of gloom and weirdness. Adam was crushed.
The summer after his graduation from Pepperdine, Adam and a friend drove across the country to Key West. They stopped in Memphis and spent two nights with Aunt Lee. She lived alone in a spacious, modern condo on a bluff overlooking the river, and they sat for hours on the patio, just the three of them, eating homemade pizza, drinking beer, watching barges, and talking about almost everything. Family was never mentioned. Adam was excited about law school, and Lee was full of questions about his future. She was vibrant and fun and talkative, the perfect hostess and aunt. When they hugged good-bye, her eyes watered and she begged him to come again.
Adam and his friend avoided Mississippi. They drove eastward instead, through Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains. At one point, according to Adam's calculations, they were within a hundred miles of Parchman and death row and Sam Cayhall. That was four years ago, in the summer of 1986, and he already had collected a large box full of materials about his grandfather. His video was almost complete.
Their conversation on the phone last night had been brief. Adam said he would be living in Memphis for a few months, and would like to see her. Lee invited him to her condo, the same one on the bluff, where she had four bedrooms and a part-time maid. He would live with her, she insisted. Then he said he would be working in the Memphis office, working on Sam's case as a matter of fact. There was silence on the other end, then a weak offer to come on down anyway and they would talk about it.
Adam pushed her doorbell at a few minutes after nine, and glanced at his black Saab convertible. The development was nothing but a single row of twenty units, all stacked tightly together with red-tiled roofs. A broad brick wall with heavy iron grating along the top protected those inside from the dangers of downtown Memphis. An armed guard worked the only gate. If not for the view of the river on the other side, the condos would be virtually worthless.
Lee opened the door and they pecked each other on the cheeks. "Welcome," she said, looking at the parking lot, then locking the door behind him. "Are you tired?"
"Not really. It's a ten-hour drive but it took me twelve. I was not in a hurry."
"Are you hungry?"
"No. I stopped a few hours ago." He followed her into the den where they faced each other and tried to think of something appropriate to say. She was almost fifty, and had aged a lot in the past four years. The hair was now an equal mixture of gray and brunette, and much longer. She pulled it tightly into a ponytail. Her soft blue eyes were red and worried, and surrounded by more wrinkles. She wore an oversized cotton button-down and faded jeans. Lee was still cool.
"It's good to see you," she said with a nice s'le.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Let's sit on the patio." She took his hand and led him through the glass doors onto a wooden deck where baskets of ferns and bougainvillea hung from wooden beams.
The river was below them. They sat in white wicker rockers. "How's Carmen?" she asked as she poured iced tea from a ceramic pitcher.
"Fine. Still in grad school at Berkeley. We talk once a week. She's dating a guy pretty serious."
"What's she studying now? I forget."
"Psychology. Wants to get her doctorate, then maybe teach." The tea was strong on lemon and short on sugar. Adam sipped it slowly. The air was still muggy and hot. "It's almost ten o'clock," he said. "Why is it so hot?"
"Welcome to Memphis, dear. We'll roast through September."
"I couldn't stand it."
"You get used to it. Sort o£ We drink lots of tea and stay inside. How's your mother?"
"Still in Portland. Now married to a man who made a fortune in timber. I've met him once. He's probably sixty-five, but could pass for seventy. She's forty-seven and looks forty. A beautiful couple. They jet here and there, St. Barts, southern France, Milan, all the places where the rich need to be seen. She's very happy. Her kids are grown. Eddie's dead. Her past is tucked neatly away. And she has plenty of money. Her life is very much in order."
"You're too harsh."
"I'm too easy. She really doesn't want me around because I'm a painful link to my father and his pathetic family."
"Your mother loves you, Adam."
"Boy that's good to hear. How do you know so much?"
"I just know."
"Didn't realize you and Mom were so close."
"We're not. Settle down, Adam. Take it easy."
"I'm sorry. I'm wired, that's all. I need a stronger drink."
"Relax. Let's have some fun while you're here."
"It's not a fun visit, Aunt Lee."
"Just call me Lee, okay."
"Okay. I'm going to see Sam tomorrow."
She carefully placed her glass on the table, then stood and left the patio. She returned with a bottle of Jack Daniel's, and poured a generous shot into both glasses. She took a long drink and stared at the river in the distance. "Why?" she finally asked.
"Why not? Because he's my grandfather. Because he's about to die. Because I'm a lawyer and he needs help."
"He doesn't even know you."
"He will tomorrow."
"So you'll tell him?"
"Yes, of course I'm going to tell him. Can you believe it? I'm actually going to tell a deep, dark, nasty Cayhall secret. What about that?"