54 pages • 1 hour read
The Partner
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Chapters 11-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
Sandy meets with Patrick in the hospital. Patrick shares his experience of abduction and torture, showing Sandy his injuries. Sandy assures Patrick that Eva is safe. Sandy is amused to think that all the time he and Patrick’s other friends were grieving, Patrick was free and wealthy. His only concern is the dead body in Patrick’s car. Patrick has apparently committed murder, which Sandy finds hard to believe. Sandy asks who tortured Patrick but Patrick claims not to know.
Trudy tells her daughter Ashley Nichole that Patrick is a murderer and a thief, that it is his fault there are reporters camped outside their house. She tells Ashley Nichole that this evil Patrick is her father. Ashley Nichole had always assumed that Lance was her father but Lance never took an interest in her. Ashley Nichole says she hates Patrick. Trudy promises to fight forever to keep him away from her.
Lance goes in search of someone he can pay to kill Patrick.
Chapter 12 Summary
Eva goes to Paris. While she is there, she reflects on how she met Patrick. He came to her law office for advice on import and taxation. A romance developed, and, soon, Patrick told her the truth about himself. She promised to protect his secret. Patrick told her where the money was and showed her how to move it quickly. Eva and Patrick weren’t able to live together because he has to stay in hiding but the see each other for a few days at a time. She noticed that he rarely slept for more than two hours. Patrick became increasingly convinced that he will be found and they made plans for that eventuality. Eva had not really believed he would be found.
Now in hiding, Eva is homesick and unsure about the future. She particularly misses her father. She communicates with Patrick through Sandy, but knows it will be weeks at the very least before she can actually see him.
Patrick is about to be moved from the military base in Puerto Rico to Biloxi. He gives Sandy the pictures of his injuries that were taken by Luis the orderly. He tells Sandy to file a suit against the FBI for torture. Both he and Sandy know it wasn’t the FBI who did it, but Patrick needs to keep the FBI off balance.
Chapter 13 Summary
Hamilton Jaynes, the Deputy Director of the FBI, sees the press conference in which Sandy announces the filing of the suit against the FBI and shows reporters the pictures of Patrick’s injuries. Jaynes has agents bring in Jack Stephano and demands to know who tortured Patrick, who funded the search for Patrick and where Stephano’s people got the tip that led them to Patrick. Mrs. Stephano continues to feel mortified by the attention from the FBI, which further motivates Stephano to make a deal with the FBI.
Chapter 14 Summary
Patrick is transferred to a hospital in Biloxi. En route, Patrick dozes and has anxious dreams. He has been having these dreams for four years, always fearing his eventual capture. He has long realized that he stole too much money. If it had been a smaller amount, the people he stole it from wouldn’t have been so determined to find him. It is almost a relief to be caught.
Patrick’s mother visits him in the hospital. He has always found her to be an overwhelming person who enjoys being miserable. They have not been close since he left home for college.
Chapter 15 Summary
Stephano persuades the consortium that funded the search for Patrick to cooperate with the FBI. Benny Aricia has listened to the torture tape several times and is convinced that Patrick has told all he knows. He asks Stephano how hard it will be to find the girl who now controls the money. Not too hard, Stephano assures him, and the FBI don’t know they are looking for her.
The FBI is reviewing their evidence from the Patrick’s disappearance. They have pictures of his burned-out car with what they believed to be his remains. The driver appeared to have been thrown into the passenger side as the car tumbled into a ravine. Reconstructing his movements before the “accident,” they knew he had spent a weekend at his hunting cabin.
Chapter 16 Summary
The FBI had always suspected that the body in the car was that of Pepper Scarboro, a 17-year-old who lived mostly in the woods near Patrick’s hunting cabin. He was reported to have disappeared around the time as Patrick. Pepper’s shotgun, tent and sleeping bag were found under Patrick’s bed in his cabin.
Shortly after Patrick’s capture, Pepper’s mother hires a lawyer and holds a press conference. Seeing the press conference on television, Patrick reflects on his relationship with Pepper. The young man was shy and had a stammer and lived in the forest near Patrick’s hunting cabin. They talked occasionally. Patrick is not surprised that the FBI thinks he killed Pepper.
Patrick anticipates that his enemies will still be looking for Eva. He tells Sandy to get a bug sweeper and make sure he clears his office of surveillance devices. He has a letter for Sandy to give to Eva.
Chapter 17 Summary
At Patrick’s arraignment, Patrick’s old friend, Judge Karl Huskey asks to see him. Huskey is happy to see Patrick despite the circumstances. He feels betrayed by Patrick but relieved to know that he is alive, and deeply sympathetic. Huskey plans to handle all the preliminary matters before the trial, then recuse himself. They discuss the procedures for the day.
The courtroom is crowded with interested observers: reporters, Patrick’s old partners seething with hatred, other lawyers delighting in Patrick’s escape in pursuit of the dream of freedom. The people on his side are sure the dead body will be satisfactorily explained. Lance is there assessing Patrick’s security detail. The arraignment proceeds at length. Patrick pleads not guilty to the murder charge.
Chapter 18 Summary
Stephano gives a statement to the FBI; he was hired by Benny Aricia. His agency found bugs and wiretaps all over Patrick’s former firm. There was a relay device to transmit the recordings, but they had no way of knowing where it was transmitting to, but he suspects to a boat.
Chapter 19 Summary
Eva contacts Sandy. They meet at a hotel. Trudy has been slandering Patrick in the press, and it is bad for Patrick’s public perception. Eva tells Sandy that Patrick wants the divorce, but he has no intention of giving Trudy anything he might retain of the stolen money. Eva shows Sandy photos of Lance coming and going from Patrick’s old house and Trudy and Lance sunbathing naked by the pool. Genetic testing shows that Ashley Nichole is not Patrick’s daughter—although Patrick does love the child. Eva gives Sandy a letter for Patrick and asks him to assure Patrick that she has been moving around and hasn’t seen anyone following her.
Benny Aricia and Guy, are setting up headquarters in Biloxi where they can wait for Eva to contact Patrick. Aricia is bitter about returning to the Mississippi coast, which he has always disliked. He had first come there when he worked for Platt & Rockland, a large conglomerate that had a $12 billion contract to build Navy submarines. The company had a history of cost overruns, overbilling, and false claims. At that time, Aricia contacted Charles Bogan, the senior partner in Patrick’s firm as Bogan is related to a US Senator who favors military appropriations. Aricia retained the firm to help him with a whistle-blower claim. He had all the documentation to prove Platt & Rockland had been overbilling and making fraudulent claims to as much as $600 million of government money. Aricia would get 15% of the amount returned to the government. The law firm would receive a third of that. The senator would receive $10 million. Platt & Rockland pay up. Aricia gets ready to receive his $90 million. Patrick disappears and the money disappears too.
Chapters 11-19 Analysis
In this section the opposing forces introduced in previous chapters try to outmaneuver each other. The stakes rise and the reader’s understanding of the interconnected conflicts and rivalries grows.
Grisham further explores Patrick’s state of mind thought his anxiety dreams and reflections on the stress of being on the run. The money hasn’t given him freedom or security but created a prison, physically and emotionally. Patrick’s anxiety illustrates the theme of Money and Corruption. The looming presence of the money corrupts Patrick, and then stealing it corrupts his paradise. The money has ruined his peace of mind. Patrick does have many friends in Biloxi who care about him and wished him well in his escape. For them, Patrick represents the escape they can’t have (and don’t fully want) for themselves because they have a sense of contentment. As a result, they are protected from the lure of money and corruption through their connection to community.
Revelations about Patrick’s family continue to develop in this section, helping the reader to understand his motives in leaving his previous life. Trudy is manipulating her daughter to make sure that Ashley Nichole will reject Patrick in case Patrick ever sues for visitation. This will allow her to keep emotional control of the child. Trudy’s manipulation suggests that her relationship with her daughter is selfish. Ashley Nichole’s assurance that she hates Patrick further justifies Patrick’s apparent abandonment; Ashley Nichole neither remembers him nor wants him in her life. The information that Lance has always been around in Ashley Nichole’s life foreshadows the revelation that Patrick is not the child’s real father. The fact that Patrick spied on his wife and did the DNA test on Ashley Nichole illustrates Patrick’s meticulous and calculating nature. It is crucial, however, to Patrick’s character that he does love Ashley Nichole. Patrick is an anti-hero, but it is important that he does not lose the sympathy of the reader. Where Trudy is culpable, Ashley Nichole is innocent. Patrick’s regret in relation to her shows that he is not entirely without a sense of his responsibilities. Patrick’s visit with his mother further illustrates the lack of connections in his former life, which allows him to flee without regrets. The treatment of Patrick’s family and his feelings about them play an important part in the role of Freedom and Connection. Patrick is shown as having the capacity for meaningful connection and responsibility and the lack of fulfilment he felt in his life before was because these were missing.
The question of whether Patrick is really a criminal is set up in this section, creating suspense and tension. This hangs on the mystery of Pepper Scarboro and the narrative presents numerous possibilities and perspectives. If he is the body in the car, then it would appear that Patrick is a murderer. Patrick’s friends find it hard to imagine him killing anyone, but they can’t see any other explanation. At this point, the reader is considering other possibilities: Pepper died of natural causes, and Patrick used his body. Patrick stole a body from a morgue. Patrick found another body somewhere, and Pepper disappeared on his own for other reasons. His friends, however, don’t seem to consider those other options. Patrick’s (apparent) guilt is supported by his refusal to explain himself, a decision which is essential for the suspense and drama of the plot. His lack of explanation, the novel suggests, may be due to his state of anxiety and the trauma he has experienced. In this way, the narrative balances the devices of plot and character.
To this point, Patrick’s maneuvering has conformed to the legal thriller genre in which the culprit is known, and the game is to catch him. Patrick’s situation turns the legal thriller upside down (drawing on the heist narrative) by posing the question of how Patrick will get himself released. The arraignment is a courtroom drama scene in which lawyers are using legal fencing as part of their “catching” strategy. They are raising the stakes for Patrick and the reader. Patrick counters them by manipulating the information available to both the FBI and his own lawyer. He already has a detailed plan that has to unfold one piece at a time in order to get the result he wants. He has to get the fraud and theft charges dropped—which will get the death penalty off the table—before he can focus on the murder charge.
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By John Grisham
