Justice McCarthy eased into her office late Saturday morning and found it deserted.
She flipped through her mail as she turned on her computer. Online, at her official e-mail address, there was the usual court business. At her personal address, there was a note from her daughter confirming dinner that night at her home in Biloxi.
There were notes from two men, one she'd been dating and one who was still a possibility.
She wore jeans, sneakers, and a brown tweed riding jacket her ex-husband gave her many years ago. There was no weekend dress code at the supreme court because only the clerks showed up.
Her chief clerk, Paul, materialized without a sound and said, "Good morning.”
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"The usual. Reading briefs.”
"Anything of interest?”
"No." He tossed a magazine on her desk and said, "This one is on the way. Could be fun.”
"What is it?”
"The big verdict from Cancer County. Forty-one million dollars. Bowmore.”
"Oh yes," she said, picking up the magazine. Every lawyer and judge in the state claimed to know someone who knew something about the Baker verdict. The coverage had been extensive, during the trial and especially afterward.
It was often discussed by Paul and the other clerks. They were already watching it, anticipating the arrival in a few months of the appellate briefs.
The article covered all aspects of the Bowmore waste site and the litigation it created.
There were photos of the town, desolate and boarded up; photos of Mary Grace peering at the razor wire outside the Krane plant and sitting with Jeannette Baker under a shade tree, each holding a bottle of water; photos of twenty of the alleged victims- blacks, whites, kids, and old folks. The central character, though, was Mary Grace, and her importance grew as the paragraphs flew by. It was her case, her cause. Bowmore was her town and her friends were dying.
Sheila finished the article and was suddenly bored with the office. The drive to Biloxi would take three hours. She left without seeing another person and headed south, in no particular hurry. She stopped for gas in Hattiesburg and, on a whim, turned east, suddenly curious about Cancer County.
When she presided over trials, Judge McCarthy often sneaked to the scene of the dispute for a furtive firsthand look at the site. The murky details of a tanker collision on a busy bridge became much clearer after she spent an hour on the bridge, alone, at night, at the precise moment of the accident. In a murder case, the defendant's claim of self-defense was discounted by her after she ventured into the alleyway where the body was found. A light from a warehouse window glared down, illuminating the spot. During the trial of a wrongful death at a railroad crossing, she drove the street night and day, twice stopping for trains, and became convinced the driver was at fault. She kept these opinions to herself, of course. The jury was the trier of fact, not the judge, but a strange curiosity often attracted her to the scene. She wanted to know the truth.
Bowmore was as bleak as the article said. She parked behind a church two blocks from Main Street and took a walk. It was unlikely that she would see another red BMW convertible in the town, and the last thing she wanted was attention.
Even for a Saturday, traffic and commerce were slow. Half the storefronts were boarded up, and only a few of the survivors were open. A pharmacy, a discount store, a few other retail merchants. She paused at the office of F. Clyde Hardin & Associates.
He was mentioned in the article.
As was Babe's Coffee Shop, where Sheila took a stool at the counter in anticipation of learning something about the case. She would not be disappointed.
It was almost 2:00 p.m. and no one else was at the counter. Two mechanics from the Chevrolet place were having a late lunch in a front booth. The diner was quiet, dusty, in need of paint and refinished floors, and apparently hadn't changed much in decades.
The walls were covered with football schedules dating back to 1961, class pictures, old newspaper articles, anything anybody wanted to display. A large sign announced: "We Use Only Bottled Water.”
Babe appeared across the counter and began with a friendly "What would you like, dear?" She wore a starched white uniform, spotless burgundy apron with "Babe" embroidered in pink, white hose, and white shoes, and could have stepped from a 1950s movie.
She had probably been around that long, though her teased hair was still aggressively colored. It almost matched her apron. She had the wrinkled eyes of a smoker, but the wrinkles were no match for the thick layer of foundation Babe caulked on every morning.
'Just some water," Sheila said. She was curious about the water.
Babe performed most of her tasks while gazing forlornly at the street through the large windows. She grabbed a bottle and said, "You're not from around here.”
"Just passing through," Sheila said. "I have some kinfolks over in Jones County." And it was true. A distant aunt, one she thought might still be alive, had always lived next door in Jones County.
In front of her, Babe placed a six-ounce bottle of water with the simple label "Bottled for Bowmore." She explained that she, too, had kin-folks in Jones County. Before they went too far down the genealogical road, Sheila hastily changed subjects. In Mississippi, sooner or later, everyone is related.
"What's this?" she asked, holding the botde.
"Water," Babe said with a puzzled look.
Sheila held it closer, allowing Babe to take charge of the conversation. "All our water here in Bowmore is bottled. Trucked in from Hatties-burg. Can't drink the stuff they pump here. It's contaminated. Where you from?”
"The Coast.”
"You ain't heard about the Bowmore water?”
"Sorry." Sheila unscrewed the cap and took a swig. "Tastes like water," she said.
"You oughta taste the other stuff.”
"What's wrong with it?”
"Good Lord, honey," Babe said and glanced around to see if anyone else had heard this shocking question. There was no one else, so Babe popped the top on a diet soda and sidled up the counter. "You ever heard of Cancer County?”
"No.”
Another look of disbelief. "That's us. This county has the highest rate of cancer in the country because the drinking water is polluted. There used to be a chemical plant here, Krane Chemical, buncha smart boys from New York. For many years-twenty, thirty, forty, depending on who you believe-they dumped all kinds of toxic crap-pardon my language-into some ravines behind the plant. Barrels and barrels, drums and drums, tons and tons of the crap went into the pit, and it eventually filtered into an underground aquifer that the city-run by some real dunces, mind you-built a pump over back in the late eighties. The drinking water went from clear to light gray to light yellow.
Now it's brown.
It began smelling funny, then it began stinking. We fought with the city for years to clean it up, but they stonewalled us. Boy, did they ever. Anyway, the water became a huge fight, and then, honey, the bad stuff started. Folks started dying. Cancer hit like the plague around here. Folks were dying right and left. Still are. Inez Perdue succumbed in January. I think she was number sixty-five. Something like that.
It all came out in the trial." She paused to examine two pedestrians who were strolling along the sidewalk.
Sheila carefully sipped the water. "There was a trial?" she asked.
"You ain't heard of the trial either?”
Sheila gave an innocent shrug and said again, "I'm from the Coast.”
"Oh, boy." Babe switched elbows and leaned on the right one. "For years there was talk about lawsuits. I get all the lawyers in here for their little coffee chats and no one taught those boys how to whisper. I heard it all. Still hearing it. Big talk for a long time. They're gonna sue Krane Chemical for this and for that, but nothing happened. I think that the suit was just too big, plus you're taking on a big chemical company with lots of money and lots of slick lawyers. The talk died down, but the cancer didn't. Kids were dying of leukemia. Folks with tumors in their kidneys, liver, bladder, stomach, and, honey, i............