Read Online The Brethren by John Grisham - Free Book Online Page A

first two months at Trumble he’d resisted the temptation. Now it helped with the boredom, but only a pack a day. His blood pressure was up and down. Heart disease ran in the family. At fifty-six with nine years to go, he would leave in a box, he was certain.
    Three years, one month, one week, and Beech was still counting the days in as opposed to the days to go.Just four years ago he’d been building his reputation as a tough young federal judge who was going places. Four rotten years. When he traveled from one courthouse to the next in East Texas, he did so with a driver, a secretary, a clerk, and a U.S. Marshal. When he walked into a courtroom people stood out of respect. Lawyers gave him high marks for his fairness and hard work. His wife had been an unpleasant woman, but with her family’s oil trust he’d managed to live peacefully with her. The marriage was stable, not exactly warm, but with three fine kids in college they had reason to be proud. They had weathered some rough times and were determined to grow old together. She had the money. He had the status. Together they’d raised a family. Where was there to go?
    Certainly not to prison.
    Four miserable years.
    The drinking came from nowhere. Maybe it was pressure from work, maybe it was to escape his wife’s bickering. For years, after law school, he’d been a light social drinker, nothing serious. Certainly not a habit. Once when the kids were small, his wife took them to Italy for two weeks. Beech was left alone, which suited him fine. For some reason he could never determine, or remember, he turned to bourbon. Lots of it, and he never stopped. The bourbon became important. He kept it in his study and sneaked it late at night. They had separate beds so he seldom got caught.
    The trip to Yellowstone had been a three-day judicial conference. He’d met the young lady in a bar in Jackson Hole. After hours of drinking they made the sad decision to take a ride. While Hatlee drove shetook off her clothes, but for no other reason than to just do it. Sex had not been discussed, and at that point he was completely harmless.
    The two hikers were from D.C., just college kids returning from the trails. Both died at the scene, slaughtered on the shoulder of a narrow road by a drunken driver who never saw them. The young lady’s car was found in a ditch with Beech hugging the steering wheel, unable to remove himself. She was naked and knocked out.
    He remembered nothing. When he awoke hours later he saw for the first time the inside of a cell. “Better get used to it,” the sheriff had said with a sneer.
    Beech called in every favor and pulled every string imaginable, all to no avail. Two young people were dead. He’d been caught with a naked woman. His wife had the oil money so his friends ran like scared dogs. In the end, no one stood up for the Honorable Hatlee Beech.
    He was lucky to get twelve years. MADD mothers and SADD students protested outside the courthouse when he made his first official appearance. They wanted a life sentence. Life!
    He himself, the Honorable Hatlee Beech, was charged with two counts of manslaughter, and there was no defense. There was enough alcohol in his blood to kill the next guy. A witness said he’d been speeding on the wrong side of the road.
    Looking back, he’d been lucky his crime was on federal lands. Otherwise he would have been shipped away to some state pen where things were muchtougher. Say what you want, but the feds knew how to run a prison.
    He smoked alone in the semidarkness, watching prime-time comedy written by twelve-year-olds, and there was a political ad, one of many those days. It was one Beech had never seen, a menacing little segment with a somber voice predicting doom if we didn’t hurry and build more bombs. It was very well done, ran for a minute and a half, cost a bundle, and delivered a message no one wanted to hear. Lake Before It’s Too Late.
    Who the hell’s Aaron Lake?
    Beech knew his politics.