Free The Client by John Grisham Page B

looked at the small blond head with hair sticking in all directions on the pillow. Why oh why didn’t they just run when the black car pulled up and parked? He was suddenly hit with guilt, and it terrified him. All of this was his fault. He should have known better than to mess with a crazy man.
    His lip quivered and his eyes watered. He was cold. It was time to tell all. He was running out of lies and Ricky needed help. Greenway watched every move.
    And then Hardy walked slowly by the door. He paused for a second in the hall and locked eyes with Mark, then disappeared. Mark knew he wasn’t far away. Greenway had not seen him.
    Mark started with the cigarettes. His mother looked at him hard, but if she was angry she didn’t convey it. She shook her head once or twice, but never said a word. He spoke in a low voice, his eyes alternating quickly between Greenway and the door, and described the tree with the rope and the woods and the clearing. Then the car. He left out a good chunk of the story, but did admit to Greenway, in a soft voice and inextreme confidence, that he once crawled to the car and removed the hose. And when he did so, Ricky cried and peed in his pants. Ricky begged him not to do it. He could tell Greenway liked this part. Dianne listened without expression.
    Hardy walked by again, but Mark pretended not to see him. He paused in his story for a few seconds, then told how the man stormed out of the car, saw the garden hose lying harmlessly in the weeds, and crawled on the trunk and shot himself.
    “How far away was Ricky?” Greenway asked.
    Mark looked around the room. “You see that door across the hall?” he asked, pointing. “From here to there.”
    Greenway looked and rubbed his beard. “About forty feet. That’s not very far.”
    “It was very close.”
    “What exactly did Ricky do when the shot was fired?”
    Dianne was listening now. It apparently had just occurred to her that this was a different version from the earlier one. She wrinkled her forehead and looked hard at her eldest.
    “I’m sorry, Mom. I was too scared to think. Don’t be angry with me.”
    “You actually saw the man shoot himself?” she asked in disbelief.
    “Yes.”
    She looked at Ricky. “No wonder.”
    “What did Ricky do when the shot was fired?”
    “I wasn’t looking at Ricky. I was watching the man with the gun.”
    “Poor baby,” Dianne mumbled in the background. Greenway held up a hand to cut her off.
    “Was Ricky close to you?”
    Mark glanced at the door, and explained faintly how Ricky had frozen, then started away in an awkward jog, arms straight down, a dull moaning sound coming from his mouth. He told it all with dead accuracy from the point of the shooting to the point of the ambulance, and he left out nothing. He closed his eyes and relived each step, each movement. It felt wonderful to be so truthful.
    “Why didn’t you tell me you watched the man kill himself?” Dianne asked.
    This irritated Greenway. “Please, Ms. Sway, you can discuss it with him later,” he said without taking his eyes off Mark.
    “What was the last word Ricky said?” Greenway asked.
    He thought and watched the door. The hall was empty. “I really can’t remember.”
    SERGEANT HARDY HUDDLED WITH HIS LIEUTENANT AND Special Agent Jason McThune of the FBI. They chatted in the sitting area next to the soft drink machines. Another FBI agent loitered suspiciously near the elevator. The hospital security guard glared at him.
    The lieutenant explained hurriedly to Hardy that it was now an FBI matter, that the dead man’s car and all other physical evidence had been turned over by the Memphis PD, that print experts had finished dusting the car and found lots of fingerprints too small for an adult, and they needed to know if Mark had dropped any clues or changed his story.
    “No, but I’m not convinced he’s telling the truth,” Hardy said.
    “Has he touched anything we can take?” McThune asked quickly, unconcerned