The Chamber by John Grisham

was 1963, and the idea of a large wedding with his family of aristocrats and my family of rednecks was not appealing. His mother would not speak to me, and my father was burning crosses. At that time, Phelps did not know my father was a Klansman, and of course I desperately wanted to keep it quiet.”
    “Did he find out?”
    “As soon as Daddy was arrested for the bombing, I told him. He in turn told his father, and the word was spread slowly and carefully through the Booth family. These people are quite proficient at keeping secrets. It’s the only thing they have in common with us Cayhalls.”
    “So only a few know you’re Sam’s daughter?”
    “Very few. I’d like to keep it that way.”
    “You’re ashamed of—”
    “Hell yes I’m ashamed of my father! Who wouldn’t be?” Her words were suddenly sharp and bitter. “I hope you don’t have some romanticized image of this poor old man suffering on death row, about to be unjustly crucified for his sins.”
    “I don’t think he should die.”
    “Neither do I. But he’s damned sure killed enough people—the Kramer twins, their father, your father,and God knows who else. He should stay in prison for the rest of his life.”
    “You have no sympathy for him?”
    “Occasionally. If I’m having a good day and the sun is shining, then I might think of him and remember a small pleasant event from my childhood. But those moments are very rare, Adam. He has caused much misery in my life and in the lives of those around him. He taught us to hate everybody. He was mean to our mother. His whole damned family is mean.”
    “So let’s just kill him then.”
    “I didn’t say that, Adam, and you’re being unfair. I think about him all the time. I pray for him every day. I’ve asked these walls a million times why and how my father became such a horrible person. Why can’t he be some nice old man right now sitting on the front porch with a pipe and a cane, maybe a little bourbon in a glass, for his stomach, of course? Why did my father have to be a Klansman who killed innocent children and ruined his own family?”
    “Maybe he didn’t intend to kill them.”
    “They’re dead, aren’t they? The jury said he did it. They were blown to bits and buried side by side in the same neat little grave. Who cares if he intended to kill them? He was there, Adam.”
    “It could be very important.”
    Lee jumped to her feet and grabbed his hand. “Come here,” she insisted. They stepped a few feet to the edge of the patio. She pointed to the Memphis skyline several blocks away. “You see that flat building facing the river there. The nearest to us. Just over there, three or four blocks away.”
    “Yes,” he answered slowly.
    “The top floor is the fifteenth, okay. Now, from the right, count down six levels. Do you follow?”
    “Yes,” Adam nodded and counted obediently. The building was a showy high-rise.
    “Now, count four windows to the left. There’s a light on. Do you see it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Guess who lives there.”
    “How would I know?”
    “Ruth Kramer.”
    “Ruth Kramer! The mother?”
    “That’s her.”
    “Do you know her?”
    “We met once, by accident. She knew I was Lee Booth, wife of the infamous Phelps Booth, but that was all. It was a glitzy fundraiser for the ballet or something. I’ve always avoided her if possible.”
    “This must be a small town.”
    “It can be tiny. If you could ask her about Sam, what would she say?”
    Adam stared at the lights in the distance. “I don’t know. I’ve read that she’s still bitter.”
    “Bitter? She lost her entire family. She’s never remarried. Do you think she cares if my father intended to kill her children? Of course not. She just knows they’re dead, Adam, dead for twenty-three years now. She knows they were killed by a bomb planted by my father, and if he’d been home with his family instead of riding around at night with his idiot buddies, little Josh and John would not be dead.