Speaking in Tongues

“Aren’t we a pair, Tate? Guns, private eyes.”
    He said, “Bett, I’m sorry. About before.”
    She shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “There was truth in what you said.”
    They drove in silence for several moments.
    She sighed then asked reflectively, “Do you like your life?”
    He glanced at her. Responded: “Sure.”
    “Just sure?”
    “How much more can you be than sure?”
    “You can be convincing,” she said.
    “What’s life,” he asked, “but ups and downs?”
    “You ever get lonely?”
    Ah, there’s a question for you. . . . Sometimes the women would stay the night, sometimes they’d leave. Sometimes they decided to return to their husbands or lovers or leave him for other men, sometimes they’d talk about getting divorced and sometimes they were single, unattached and waiting for a ring. Sometimes they’d introduce Tate to their parents or their cautious-eyed children or, if they had none, talk about how much they wanted youngsters. A boy first, they’d invariably say, and then a girl.
    They all faded from his life and, yes, most nights he was lonely.
    “I keep pretty busy,” he said. “You?”
    She said quickly, “I’m busy too. Everybody needs interior design.”
    “Sure,” he agreed. “Things working out well with Brad?”
    “Oh, Brad’s a dear. He’s a real gentleman. You don’t see many of them. You were one. I mean, you still are.” She laughed. “You know, I keep expecting to see you on Court TV,” she said. “Prosecuting serial killers or terrorists or something. Channel Nine loved you. You gave great interviews.”
    “Those were the days.”
    “Why’d you quit practice?”
    He kept his hands at ten to two on the wheel and his eyes straight ahead.
    “Tate?” she repeated.
    “Prosecuting’s a young man’s game,” he said. Thinking he was the epitome of credibility.
    But Bett said, “That’s an answer. But not the answer.”
    “I didn’t quit practice.”
    “You know what I mean. You were the best in the state. Remember those rumors that you’d get that job you wanted?”
    Solicitor general—the lawyer who represented the government in cases before the Supreme Court—the most important forensic orator in the country. Tate’s grandfather had always hoped his grandson might get that job. And Tate himself had for years had his sights on that job.
    “I wanted to spend more time on the farm.”
    “Bullshit.” Well, this was definitely a new Bett McCall. The ethereal angel had come to earth with muddy cheeks. “Why won’t you tell me?”
    “Okay. I lost my taste for blood,” he explained. “I prosecuted a capital case. I won. And I wished I hadn’t.”
    Bett had been deeply ashamed that while they were married Tate had sent six men to death row in Jarratt, Virginia. Her horror at this achievement had always seemed ironic to him for she believed in the immortality of souls and Tate did not.
    “He was innocent?” she asked.
    “No, no. It was more complicated than that. He killed the victim. There was no question about that. But he was probably only guilty of manslaughter at best. Criminally negligent homicide, most likely. The defense offered a plea—probation and counseling.I rejected it and went for lethal injection. The jury gave him life imprisonment. The first week he was in prison, he was killed by other inmates. Actually”—his voice caught—“he was tortured and then he died.”
    “God, Tate.”
    What a man hears, he may doubt . . .
    “I talked him to death, Bett. I conjured the jurors. I had the gift on my side, not the law. And he’s dead when he shouldn’t be. If he’d been out of prison, had some help, he’d be alive now and probably a fine person.”
    But what he does, he cannot doubt.
    He waited for her disgust or anger.
    But she said only, “I’m sorry.” He looked at her and saw not pity or remorse but simple regret at his pain. “They fired you? The commonwealth’s attorney’s office?”
    “Oh, no. No. I just quit.”
    “I never heard about it.”
    “Small case. Not really newsworthy. The story died on the Metro page.”
    Staring at the road, Tate confessed, “You know something?”
    He felt Bett’s head turn toward him.
    He continued, “I wanted to tell you about what happened. When I heard that he’d died I reached for the phone to call you—before anybody else. Even before Konnie. I hadn’t seen you in over a year. Two years maybe. But you were the one I wanted to tell.”
    “I