Fatal Convictions

Epilogue

one year later norfolk, virginia

Alex Madison pulled his pickup into the designated clergy parking area, grabbed his Bible, and walked briskly toward the emergency room door. Last year, the Mobassar case had consumed his December, and Christmas had totally snuck up on him. This year, he was determined to enjoy every moment of the holiday season.

He walked through the automatic doors, feeling a little like Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol, determined to make up for lost time. “What’s up, Bones?”

The old man with the wiry gray hair looked up from his magazine. “Bah, humbug,” he said.

Alex reached into the pocket of his down jacket and pulled out two tickets to the Old Dominion basketball game on Saturday night. “Merry Christmas to you, too,” he said, handing the tickets to Bones.

“Good message Sunday,” Bones said. “Except it was about twenty minutes too long. I think I read someplace that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was only ten minutes.”

Bones had been coming to church for the last three months. When he first came, he told Alex that he hadn’t darkened a church door in nearly forty-two years. Now he was a faithful attender, and he never missed a chance to complain about the length of Alex’s sermons.

“If I were Jesus, I could get it done in ten minutes too,” Alex said. “But then again, if he were in my shoes, preaching to the folks in my congregation, he might take forty-five.”

They bantered for a while, and Bones gave Alex the room number for Billy Canham, a church member who had just endured a total hip replacement. Billy only came to church on Easter and Christmas and to watch the grandkids in the vacation Bible school program, but his wife was a longtime member. Alex had been by earlier, before the surgery.

When Alex got to Billy’s room, Judy Canham hugged him and told him how thankful she was that he had come. “They’ve had trouble getting his blood pressure back up, so they can’t give him enough pain medication,” Judy explained. “He’s in a lot of pain.”

Billy was squirming on the bed, his face contorted. “Get me out of here,” he demanded. “Preacher, my back and hip are killing me.”

“He’s got to relax,” Judy said.

Billy gritted his teeth. “Easy for you to say. Get that doctor back in here! I can’t take this!”

It took every ounce of Alex’s patience to get Billy calmed down as nurse after nurse came in to check his vitals and determined his system was still not ready for drugs. Eventually, his blood pressure stabilized enough for the anesthesiologist to start pumping him full of morphine. By the time the medication had circulated, the tight lines on Billy’s face had relaxed. Soon he was sleeping like a baby.

“I’m so glad you came,” Judy said.

“I should have just given him Sunday’s sermon,” Alex said. “That would have put him to sleep.”

Alex left the room and chatted with some of the ICU nurses he had befriended a year ago during his own hospital stay.

Before leaving, Alex made his traditional rounds to the two rooms that had changed his life.

Room 4103 was where it all started. Ghaniyah Mobassar had been supposedly recovering here from her car accident nearly eighteen months ago. She was now serving a fifteen-year term in the state correctional system. Alex thought about her courage and determination, however misplaced. Here was a woman who had crashed the passenger side of her car into a tree at nearly forty miles an hour so she could fake a brain injury. Alex still shook his head in disbelief at the thought of it.

Tonight there was an older man in the room recovering from a perforated bowel that had occurred during a colonoscopy. Alex talked to the man for a few minutes and prayed with him for a full recovery. He left a copy of his business card. One-sided. Reverend Alexander Madison, South Norfolk Community Church. He invited the man to come visit when he got back on his feet.

At the other end of the hall, in Room 4154, was a single mom who had fractured her sternum in a car accident. “A drunk driver pulled into her lane,” one of the nurses told Alex.

This was the room where Alex had rehabbed just last year. The room where Nara Mobassar had walked out of his life, leaving him confused and melancholy. Alex smiled to himself when he thought about that day. It might have been the drugs, or the intense emotions of the case, or the fact that he had come so close to dying. Whatever the reason, his reaction to Nara’s confession and departure confirmed to Alex that he should never try to make major life decisions while semiconscious and lying in a hospital bed.

At the time, Alex had desperately hoped Nara would not go back to Beirut. He had asked her to stay. Somehow, he had thought, the two of them could make it work. In hindsight, he recognized just how incompatible they would have been. And the more he thought about her deception, the more he realized that she had probably never cared for him as much as he had cared for her.

Alex and Khalid had stayed in touch. The imam had published his book and was now a leading voice in the effort to discredit those who had hijacked the Muslim faith with their violent interpretation of jihad. Nara had returned to America only once, to testify at the sentencing hearing for Fatih Mahdi. The jury had given Mahdi multiple life sentences without parole; his case was now winding its way through a labyrinth of appeals.

During Nara’s visit, Alex and Shannon had eaten lunch with Nara and Khalid and had listened to Nara’s recounting of her advocacy work in Lebanon. Alex was happy for her, and they parted with a polite hug. But the spark was gone. Alex had moved on. He sensed that Nara had as well.

They promised to keep in touch. But the only time she popped into his mind was on days like today, when he headed to Room 4154. And even now, he had no regrets about the direction his life had taken.

Alex Madison had never been happier. He had left the practice of law and thrown himself into his work at the church. Over the past year, the small congregation had turned into a medium-size fellowship, with all the good problems that accompanied growth. At first Alex felt guilty leaving his grandfather’s firm. Slogan number ten on his grandfather’s list came to mind often: If you’ve been called to be a lawyer, don’t stoop to be a king. But eventually he realized that the sentence really wasn’t about practicing law at all. It was about finding your calling-the one thing that God created you to do.

And Alex had found his.

Rosa Gonzalez, the patient in Room 4154, was a wiry woman with a swollen face and the usual assortment of tubes hanging from her body. Given the amount of painkillers flowing through her veins, she was surprisingly lucid and talkative. She opened up to Alex about the challenge of raising her two sons, and she teared up when she admitted that she didn’t know what she would do now.

Alex stayed ten minutes longer than he had planned and assured Rosa that everything happened for a reason. He said it with the conviction of someone who had been in that very bed, recovering from serious trauma himself. He told Rosa as much, and he prayed with her before trying to leave for the third time.

“Wait,” Rosa said. “I thought I recognized you. You’re that lawyer who defended the Muslim guy. I knew I’d seen you before.”

“Guilty,” Alex said. He always blushed a little when people recognized him like he was some type of celebrity. It was happening less and less these days.

“That case was incredible,” Rosa said.

Alex hoped Rosa wouldn’t want to spend another five minutes talking about the details of it. Everybody had an opinion. There were some who still believed Khalid was guilty.

“Do you think you could take my case?” Rosa asked. “I was thinking about hiring this guy who called me earlier today, but I’d rather have someone like you.”

Alex thanked her for the compliment and reached into his coat pocket for a Madison and Associates business card. Just because Alex had left the firm didn’t mean he could no longer share in the profits. He handed the card to Rosa and told her that she should never hire somebody who had the audacity to call her at the hospital.

“The least he could do is show up in person,” Alex joked. But his humor was lost on his new friend. Rosa took the card and put on her reading glasses.

“She’s the best lawyer in America,” Alex said proudly. “Maybe the world. She helped me out in that case we were just talking about.”

“Oh yeah, I remember her.” Rosa held the card between her thumb and forefinger, staring at it through her glasses. “She was some kind of gymnast or something. But the name doesn’t ring a bell.”

Alex couldn’t resist a small grin as Rosa scrunched her forehead, as if trying to remember, then read the name out loud. He liked the way it rolled off her tongue.

“‘Shannon Madison, Attorney at Law.’”