Con Law by Mark Gimenez

with The Dunn Law Firm in Marfa, was killed in a one-car accident on the north side of Highway 67 nine miles east of town Thursdaynight about 11 P.M. Sheriff Brady Munn investigated the accident and reported that Jones apparently fell asleep, ran off the road, lost control of his vehicle, and crashed into a pump jack. The pickup truck’s gas tank ruptured and exploded. Jones died at the scene. ‘Speed was a contributing factor in the accident,’ Sheriff Munn said. Jones was returning to Marfa from Midland where he had business at his law firm’s offices. Thomas A. Dunn, senior partner at the firm in Midland, expressed shock at Jones’s death. ‘He was a fine young lawyer and a fine young man. We will miss Nathan.’
    ‘Good-looking boy,’ Sam said.
    A photograph of Nathan accompanied the obituary.
    JONES, NATHANIEL WILLIAM, 29, went to be with his Lord and Savior on April 5th. Nathan was born on February 12, 1983. He grew up on his family’s cattle ranch west of Marfa. He graduated from Marfa High School then Texas Tech University with a degree in English. He attended law school at the University of Texas in Austin and received his law degree in 2009. He was a member of the Texas Bar Association and was employed with The Dunn Law Firm in Marfa. Nathan is survived by his wife, Brenda, who is expecting their first child, and his parents, William and Edna. Funeral services were at the First Baptist Church with burial at the Marfa Cemetery.
    ‘Only problem with a weekly,’ Sam said. ‘Sometimes the deceased is already in the ground before the obituary comes out. Least he had a nice funeral.’
    ‘We saw you there. You went even though you didn’t know him?’
    ‘When there’s not but two thousand folks in town, one dies, it means something. Out here, Professor, folks aren’t fungible.’
    As law students often seemed to be.
    Book had lost contact with Nathanafter he had graduated from the law school. He viewed his role as similar to a parent’s: to teach the students skills for life in the legal world so they could survive on their own. Consequently, the students leave law school and their professors behind; they get on with their lives and legal careers. They seldom have contact with their professors except to shake hands at continuing legal education seminars. They return to campus for football games, and if they’re successful, to make a donation to the school. If they’re very successful, their firms might endow a chair. If they become fabulously rich, they might buy the naming rights for a building or space on campus. Hence, the law school had the Susman Godfrey Atrium, the Joseph D. Jamail Pavilion, the Jamail Center for Legal Research, the Kraft Eidman Courtroom, and the Robin C. Gibbs Atrium. His former intern had not become a rich and famous lawyer. He had not made a donation, endowed a chair, or bought a naming right. He had simply returned home to Marfa and gotten on with his life. And now his life was over. Book could not help but feel that he owed an unpaid debt to Nathan Jones.
    ‘And I took some photos of the funeral service,’ Sam said.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘A life ended. Deserves to be documented. So folks won’t forget.’
    ‘Do you have a photo of the guests at Nathan’s funeral?’
    Sam again went to his desk and returned with a computer-generated photograph. He placed it on the counter in front of Book.
    ‘Who are these people?’ Book asked.
    Sam pointed at faces in the photo. ‘She’s the wife … his parents … lawyers, I figure, who else would wear suits? … the sheriff … Sadie, the court clerk … other locals.’
    ‘May I have this photo?’
    ‘Sure.’ Sam’s eyes turned up to Book. ‘You looking into his death, figure maybe it wasn’t an accident?’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘Just hoping for a leadstory better than the roller derby.’
    ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’
    ‘Then what brings you to Marfa?’
    ‘We came for the art, stopped in to say hello to