Cray Rawls rose from the table, smoothing the folds of his suit straight as he looked toward the jury, meeting each and every one of the members’ gazes with an ominous glare that suggested he might still be able to affect the outcome of the case. He looked at them and smirked, his nostrils still teeming with Candy’s cheap perfume from the night before, reminding him of what it felt like to hold all the power, a sensation he clung to while awaiting the verdict.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” the presiding judge continued, “in the first count of the indictment, People of Lynchville, North Carolina, versus Rawls Energy, Petroleum, and Chemical, or REPC, also known as REPCO, how say you?”
“We find the defendant, Cray Rawls, not guilty.”
Rawls could hear the murmurs of surprise spreading through the jam-packed courtroom, continuing until the judge rapped his gavel.
“In the second count of the indictment…”
Rawls listened intently, but his mind drifted elsewhere. He hadn’t been overly concerned about the verdict because the state clearly hadn’t met its burden in trying to prove his company was responsible for poisoning the tainted drinking wells. Under his direction, his legal team had opted for a risky strategy of conceding REPCO’s coal ash storage ponds had indeed leaked nearly forty thousand tons of toxic ash into a major river basin. Coal ash, containing such toxins as arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium, was what was left over when coal was burned to generate electricity.
Even the company’s concession that this was among the worst such spills in history still left the burden on the state to prove REPCO had poisoned the class action complainants’ well water. Experts called by both sides proved to be a study in contradiction and confusion. Then, Rawls had surprised opposing counsel again by not taking the stand in his own defense. They had elected to name him as a defendant in the suit, so he could face jail time even as his company faced ruin. In doing so, though, they had removed the option of calling him to the stand, relying on an inevitable cross-examination that had proven not so inevitable at all.
“We find the defendant not guilty.”
The media was as disappointed by the unexpected turn as the prosecution. Rawls had denied them the show they were anticipating. One national outlet had nicknamed him the Dark Prince, poking fun at his dark hair and Mediterranean features, marred by scars and pits—the pits had been left by acne, the scars from when a well cap blew on an offshore rig and sent steel bits into his face. When the first wells he invested in struck big, he let his investment ride, like a bettor on a hot streak, building the stake for founding his own company, which would ultimately grow into REPCO.
“… not guilty.”
The media never focused on that, choosing instead to belabor the various rumors and tall tales that had accompanied Cray Rawls on his climb up the corporate ladder. How he had punched out rivals who underbid him, sabotaged the rigs of competitors who encroached on his perceived territory, and burned down an East Hampton country club that had denied him admission. To them, he was no more than Texas trash, even though that experience was mired in a long-forgotten stage of his life.
“In the eleventh count of the indictment…”
Cray Rawls wasn’t going to let rumors or lawsuits spoil his day, especially not while he was on the verge of something that would catapult him to the forefront of American business moguls. He would be a billionaire many times over, thanks to the greatest scientific discovery ever known to man. He would buy the goddamn East Hampton country club that had denied him admission and make those behind his ridicule and embarrassment kiss his feet if they wanted to stay members.
Literally.
“… not guilty.”
“… not guilty.”
“… not guilty.”
Once he’d been acquitted on the nineteenth and final charge, the jury was dismissed with the thanks of the court and the bailiff offered to have Rawls spirited out of the courthouse via a rear entrance. Rawls declined, thirsting for the whir and click of the cameras, the microphones shoved in his face, and the media outlets begging for interviews.
True to form, his journey down the front steps of the Wake County courthouse was a portrait in sticking it in the face of both overzealous prosecutors and their parade of holier-than-thou “harmed” who had put all their problems at REPCO’s doorstep. He’d sent them bottled water by the truckload and had knocked on hundreds of doors himself to check on their well-being. And in return he got the blame for everything from autism to Down syndrome to cancer, even if such maladies had struck before any of REPCO’s coal ash had allegedly polluted the groundwater. One woman went so far as to blame him for her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, breaking down on the stand when his lawyers reminded her, under cross-examination, that exposure to coal ash doesn’t cause that.
Having entertained the media’s questions just long enough to stick it in her face and the faces of all the others, Rawls climbed into the back of the limousine, and then noticed the man already seated there.
“What are you doing here, Sam Bob?” he asked the minerals broker from Houston.
“Your driver thought it best I wait in the car.”