Speaking in Tongues

salvation. Something he did, yet not of his doing, something that would let him survive, if not prosper, graciously: the silence of rooted growth. And if at times that process betrayed him—hail, drought, tumbling markets—Tate could still sleep content in the assurance that there was no malice in the earth’s heart. And that, the former criminal prosecutor within him figured, was no small thing.
    So even though Tate claimed, as any true advocate would, that it made no nevermind to him whether he wasrepresenting the plaintiffs or defendants in the Liberty Park case, say, his heart was in fact with the people who wanted to protect the farmland from the roller coasters and concession stands and traffic.
    He felt this even more now, seeing these rolling hills. And he felt, too, guilt and a pang of impatience that he was distracted from his preparations for the Liberty Park hearing. But a look at Bett’s troubled face put this discomfort aside. There’d be time to hone his argument. Right now there were other priorities.
    They passed the Oatlands farm and as they did the sun came out. And he sped on toward Leesburg, into old Virginia. Confederate Virginia.
    There weren’t many towns like this in the northern part of the state; most people in Richmond and Charlottesville didn’t really consider most of northern Virginia to be in the commonwealth at all. Tate and Bett drove through the city limits and slowed to the posted thirty miles per hour. Examining the trim yards, the white clapboard houses, the incongruous biker bar in the middle of downtown, the plentiful churches. They followed the directions Tate had been given to the hospital where Dr. Hanson was visiting his mother.
    “Can he tell us much?” Bett wondered. “Legally, I mean.”
    She’d be thinking, he guessed, of the patient-doctor privilege, which allowed a doctor to keep secret the conversations between a patient and his physician. Years ago, when they’d been married, Tate had explained this and other nuances of the law to her. But she often grew offended at these arcanerules. “You mean if you don’t read him his rights, the arrest is no good? Even if he did it?” she’d ask, perplexed. Or: “Excuse me, but why should a mother go to jail if she’s shoplifting food for her hungry child? I don’t get it.”
    He expected that same indignation now when he explained that Hanson didn’t have to say anything to them. But Bett just nodded, accepting the rules. She smiled coyly and said, “Then I guess you’ll have to be extra persuasive.”
    They turned the corner and the white-frame hospital loomed ahead of them.
    “Well, busy day,” Bett said, assessing the front of the hospital as she flipped up the car’s mirror after refreshing her lipstick. There were three police cars parked in front of the main entrance. The red and white lights atop one of them flashed with urgent brilliance.
    “Car wreck?” Bett suggested. Route 15, which led into town, was posted fifty-five but everybody drove it at seventy or eighty.
    They parked and walked inside.
    Something was wrong, Tate noted. Something serious had happened. Several nurses and orderlies stood in the lobby, looking down a corridor. Their faces were troubled. A receptionist leaned over the main desk, gazing down the same corridor.
    “What is it?” Bett whispered.
    “Not a clue,” Tate answered.
    “Look, there he is,” somebody said.
    “God,” someone else muttered.
    Two policemen were leading a tall, balding mandown the corridor toward the main entrance. His hands were cuffed behind him. His face was red. He’d been crying. As he passed, Tate heard him say, “I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it! I wasn’t even there!”
    Several of the nurses shook their heads, eyeing him with cold expressions on their faces.
    “I didn’t do it!” he shouted.
    A moment later he was in a squad car. It made a U-turn in the driveway and sped off.
    Tate asked the receptionist, “What’s that all about?”
    The white-haired woman shook her head, eyes wide, cheeks pale. “We nearly had an assisted suicide.” She was very shaken. “I don’t believe it.”
    “What happened?”
    “We have a patient—an elderly woman with a broken hip. And it looks like he”—she nodded toward where the police car had been—“comes in and talks to her for a while and next thing we know she’s got a syringe in her hands and’s trying to kill herself. Can you imagine? Can you just imagine?”
    “But they