Charlie fought the urge to cross her arms. She had a sudden, nervous, shaky feeling, like she was trapped.
Leroy sensed her unease. This was the creepy guy at the bar who didn’t know how to take “no” for an answer. This was his true nature. He leaned in closer, openly looking down her shirt. “I like a gal got a little fight in her.”
Charlie felt her jaw clench. If he was trying to intimidate her, he had picked the exact wrong words. Her fear evaporated, replaced by anger—at herself for almost letting him get to her, at him for being such a bastard. She wasn’t trapped. She was a grown woman with a degree from one of the top ten law schools in the country.
She leaned in closer, too, her face inches from his. “Hey, asshole, a fight is exactly what you’re going to get. I’m helping Flora with this case. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she gets away from you.”
Leroy was the first to break eye contact. He looked back at the building. Maude had come out of the apartment. She was standing on the stoop, watching them.
He said, “Whatever you got planned for me, that’s me. You’re gonna have to pry that girl from Maude’s cold, dead hands, ’cause she ain’t never letting her go.”
Charlie recognized the sleight of hand. “Do you really think a judge is going to buy that your wife didn’t know what was going on in the next room?”
“You’re going down a bad road there, missy. You can fuck with me all you want, but you try to take on Maude—” He shook his head. “You remember this moment when I warned you.”
“You remember this moment when I call you to the stand and the bailiff tells you to put your hand on the Bible and swear that you never touched your granddaughter.”
He kept his gaze on his wife. “You got proof of what you’re saying? You gonna ask Flora that same question after she swears on the Bible?”
Charlie couldn’t tell if his certainty came from knowing that he was innocent of the crime or if it came from knowing that Flora would protect him at all costs.
There was only one more card that she could play.
She asked, “What if I go to the police and tell them you’re a junkie and your wife’s been embezzling money from Flora’s trust fund?”
Leroy gave a sharp laugh. “I’d tell you to go to the graveyard and ask your mama what happens when your daddy’s clients feel threatened.”
3
Charlie took the long way back to her office, which added an extra but much-needed five minutes to her trip. The moment she’d left Leroy Faulkner at the picnic tables, her hands had started shaking. The morning queasiness had returned. She’d been forced to pull over to the side of the road and hang her head out the door as she waited for the Doritos to make their return. Only luck and force of will had kept them down.
Charlie had been threatened by clients before. It came with the job when you were defending criminals. Most of the threats thus far had been of the idle variety, usually from a client who felt desperate about his possible prison term. Many more had been of the stupid variety, usually from a client who was on a recorded payphone line at the detention center.
This was the first threat that had actually made Charlie scared.
Her mother.
Murdered in front of Charlie’s eyes.
A disgruntled client of her father’s holding the shotgun.
Charlie shuddered so hard that her teeth rattled in her head.
She could still see Maude standing outside the open door to her apartment, swilling another beer, smoking another cigarette, as her beady eyes followed Charlie to her car. Or at least toward her car. Charlie had forgotten where she had parked, so she had to double back before finding her Subaru at the end of the lot. Sweat had dotted her upper lip as she cranked the engine. A glance in the rear-view mirror as Charlie had pulled onto the road had shown Maude still tracking her progress.
Meemaw made the Culpepper girls look like amateurs.
Thankfully, Charlie’s stomach had settled by the time she pulled into the parking lot behind her father’s office building. The additional five minutes on her drive had brought her some calm if not clarity. She still needed to talk to Nancy’s parents. It was almost three thirty. The Pattersons would probably be home from work around five. Charlie would have to find the strength to go talk to them in person. A phone call would’ve been easier, but that was the coward’s way out. She needed to see the home, assess the parents’ willingness and ability to take care of Flora so that she could honestly tell the judge that the girl had a safe place to land.
That Charlie still wanted to help Flora despite the danger was a congenital defect, likely passed down from her father. Over the years, Rusty Quinn had represented defendants from every side of the spectrum, from abortion clinics to the zealots who tried to blow them up, from undocumented workers to the farmers who got caught hiring them under the table. The blowback on the family had been substantial. When Charlie was thirteen, their house had been firebombed. Eight days later, both her mother and sister had been shot by clients of Rusty’s who thought they could make their outstanding legal bills go away.
Charlie should have taken a lesson from her father’s losses, but if anything, they had made her want to fight harder.
As Rusty often said—
You’re not doing your job right if nobody’s screaming at you.
Charlie parked in her usual space behind the office she shared with her father. She got out of her car. Every single step she took toward the building, she found a visual reminder of how dangerous her father’s detractors could be: the rolling security gate that required a six-digit code to open, the twelve-feet high fence with razor wire, the multiple CCTV cameras, the thick bars on the windows, the security gate on the steel back door, the lighted alarm panel beside it.
Charlie punched in the code. She used her key to engage the giant bar lock that bolted the door into either side of the steel jamb.
The first thing she smelled was the odor of her father’s unfiltered Camels. Then the weird dampness that permeated the carpets. Then cinnamon buns.
Charlie followed the delicious smell to the office kitchen. Lenore was standing in front of the refrigerator. She was almost thirty years older than Charlie, but she was dressed in a pink miniskirt and matching heels. Her eyes were on the television set mounted on the wall. The Young and the Restless. This time, Katherine Chancellor was screaming at Jill Abbott. Charlie was only mildly ashamed that she knew the characters on sight.
Lenore said, “You look like hell, baby.”
“I’m off my feed,” Charlie said, even as she eyed the cinnamon buns on the table. “Do you know Maude and Leroy Faulkner?”
“I wish I didn’t.” Lenore put her hand to Charlie’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever. Were you sick?”
Charlie did not answer, but Lenore’s frown indicated she had figured it out.
Lenore said, “Stay away from the Faulkners. He’s an oily turd and that bitch will cut you with a knife.”
“Good to know.” Charlie sat down at the table. She picked at the edge of the cling wrap on the cinnamon buns. Lenore always made them with apple sauce and almond milk in deference to Charlie’s lactose issue.
She told Lenore, “Maude’s granddaughter wants to be emancipated from her grandparents.”
“She gonna pay you?”
Charlie laughed.
Lenore took over on the cling wrap, expertly removing the film without messing up any of the frosting. She found a plate in the strainer by the sink. “What about Dexter Black?”
“What about him?” The man’s name had taken on a Voldemort quality. “You’re not going to tell me anything that I don’t already know.”
“When has that ever stopped me?” Lenore opened a drawer. She found a spatula and slid a cinnamon bun onto Charlie’s plate. “I saw on your call log that you had a message from Visa.”
“Crap.” Charlie had forgotten about the phone message at home. She dug around in her purse and pulled out the state
ment. She should call them back, but she suddenly felt too tired to do anything. She stared at the pages, yawning so hard that her jaw popped.
Lenore asked, “Baby, are you okay?”
“I’m—shit.” Charlie saw the problem with Visa now. The minimum amount owed was $121.32. According to Charlie’s own handwriting, she had made the check out for $121.31. She was going to get hit with a late fee because of a freaking penny. She scanned the statement until she found the grace period. She was one day off. “If I had seen this yesterday, I could’ve paid them without being penalized.”
Lenore studied the bill over her shoulder. “Not last week, baby. Two weeks ago. Today is the eighth.”
“No it’s not.”
Lenore pointed to the wall calendar.
Charlie stared at the date until her eyes blurred. “Shit.”
“This will make you feel better.” Lenore pushed the plate toward Charlie as she sat down. “You want to know about Leroy Faulkner?”
Charlie had to force her gaze away from the wall calendar. “What?”
“Leroy Faulkner, Maude’s husband. He’s one of Rusty’s repeats, started using him back in the eighties.”
Charlie folded the Visa statement in two, pulling a Scarlett O’Hara so she could think about it tomorrow.
Or maybe the day after.
Or next week.
Lenore continued, oblivious. “Leroy was into mostly petty crimes, boosting weed eaters and mowers from weekenders’ cabins, but then he went over the line with a John Deere golf cart, which graduated him from misdemeanor theft to a felony.”
Charlie silently played back Lenore’s words in her mind so that she could understand what she had been told. In the end, she was not surprised by the escalation. Most people did not wind up in prison because they were smart. She asked, “What happened to his leg?”
“He was working maintenance at the blue jean factory before it moved to Mexico. Climbed one of those old wooden ladders to change out a light bulb, but the ladder broke. Leroy fell straight down, feet first. One of his legs was longer than the other, so it took the full weight of the fall. Crushed the bones up to his hip.”
“How tall was the ladder?”
“Thirty feet.”
“Good Lord.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. I saw the X-rays from the hospital. His foot was folded up behind his calf like a clam shell.”
Charlie thought about the brace on Leroy’s leg. Was he too disabled to chase after his granddaughter? Flora was young, but she looked like she could handle herself. All she had to do was briskly walk away. Then again, if she was being assaulted by her grandfather, a man who had taken over as her father when her own father had died, then she might not feel like she could run away from anything.
“About his injury.” Charlie looked up at Lenore. “I was wondering if—”
Lenore held up a finger to stop her. The woman’s hearing was bat-level precise. Three more seconds passed before Charlie heard the humming and snapping and clicking that announced her father walking up the hallway.
“What warm delights!” He clutched his chest at the sight of them. “Two beautiful women in my kitchen. And cinnamon buns!” Rusty helped himself to a pastry. “Tell me, ladies, what does a thesaurus eat for breakfast?”
“A synonym bun,” Charlie answered. “I was asking Lenny about Leroy and Maude Faulkner.”
Rusty raised an eyebrow as he took a messy bite of bun. He had no qualms about talking with his mouth full. “Last time I dealt with those two, Maude had sliced open Leroy’s face with a switchblade.”
Charlie felt a chunk of broken glass pump through her heart. “Any particular reason?”
“The magic of inebriation, I assume. Leroy refused to press charges once he sobered up.” Rusty took the paper napkin Lenore shoved in his face. “It’s a love/hate relationship. They love to hate each other.”
Charlie asked, “Do you think they’d ever turn on each other?”
“Absolutely, but then they’d turn right back.” Rusty grinned around another bite of pastry. “Those two are the proverbial finger and the asshole. You can never tell who’s fucking who.”
Charlie had long become anesthetized to her father’s colorful remarks. She did not want to, but she looked at the calendar again. She could feel a sheen of sweat on the back of her neck. She worked to stay with the problem at hand, asking Rusty, “What do you know about their granddaughter?”
“She lost her mother in a terrible accident.”
“Are they capable of taking care of her? I mean, like, without hurting her?”
He gave her a curious look. “What are you asking?”
Charlie did not know how to ask her father if Leroy Faulkner was a pedophile. Even if Rusty knew, he was likely bound by attorney–client privilege and couldn’t tell her. “Do you think she’s safe with her grandparents?”
“People make bad decisions when they’re down on their luck.”
“So, she’s not safe?”
“I did not say that.” Rusty grabbed up another cinnamon bun. “I will, however, tell you that back when the girl’s mama died, the fact that there was a trust fund went a long way toward convincing them that they should raise her. Like tying a pork chop around a kid’s neck so the dog will play with her.”
Charlie wasn’t surprised by the news. “What happens when the money runs out?”
“Indeed.”
Another non-answer. Charlie tried to narrow down his options: “They only pretend to love her because of the money in the trust? Or do they really love her, even without the money?” She groaned. “How much money did you get for Leroy after the accident?”
“Forced arbitration,” Rusty answered, which meant that the case had not been handled by a judge and jury, but by a professional arbitrator who likely worked for the company that was being sued. “Most of the money went to the doctors and the hospital and rehab. Not much left after that. His greedy lawyer sucked up all the rest.”
Charlie looked away as pieces of pastry fell from his mouth.
Rusty took another bite. “Anything else, Charlie Bear?”
Charlie held up her hand. “You’ve been so helpful already.”
He was immune to sarcasm. “You are most welcome, my beloved daughter.”
Rusty left, snapping his fingers, humming until the cinnamon bun got caught in his throat, then hacking a cough that sounded like the late stages of tuberculosis.
Charlie asked Lenore, “Why do you put up with him?”
“I don’t, really.” Lenore told Charlie something Rusty would not: “Your dad cut his fee in half to help out, but Leroy walked away with around fifty grand, which is a lot, but not a hell of a lot.”
“Is Leroy on disability?”
“I doubt it. He wouldn’t be able to qualify because he’s a convicted felon. Can’t get food stamps or housing or any government aid.”
“I don’t guess Maude has a job?”
“She’s got plenty of beer money,” Lenore said. “And she’s at Shady Ray’s more than your father, so she’s pulling an income somehow.”
“Do you know her?”
“Just around.” She winked at Charlie. “I’m at Shady Ray’s more than your father, too.”
“Is Maude making the beer money on her back?”
“I guess there’s a certain type of man who’d pay to screw her, but I can’t think there’s enough kink in this pissant town to keep her gainfully employed.”
Charlie could not disagree. Neither could she see Maude Faulkner prostituting herself out. Running a bevy of prostitutes, maybe, but not doing any of the dirty work herself.
Which meant that the woman’s beer money had probably been siphoned from Flora’s college fund.
Lenore asked, “You okay, baby?”
Unbidden, Charlie’s eyes had gone to the calendar again. “They threatened me. Leroy did, but Maude was clearly on board.”
“Is that why you look so pale?”
Charlie mad
e herself look down at the half-empty pan of cinnamon buns. Her mouth watered at the prospect of the sweet, warm goodness, but her arms felt too tired to move.
“Charlotte?”
Slowly, reluctantly, Charlie’s gaze returned to the calendar. She stared at the numbers, willing them to roll back. This wasn’t only about the Visa bill. She had lost an entire week. How had that happened?
Lenore asked, “How was Belinda this morning?”
“Angry,” Charlie said, because there was no better description. “She was angry the first time she was pregnant, too.”
“She’s not angry because she’s pregnant. She’s angry because her husband’s a dick.”
“She said that men change when you have children.”
“Ryan was always a dick. It’s what made him a good soldier.” Lenore held her hand. “What is it, honey?”
“What was Mama like when she was pregnant?”
Lenore smiled. “Excited. A little scared. Radiant. I never believed that bullshit about pregnant women glowing. I mean, what are they, light bulbs? But with your mama, it was true. She glowed with joy.”
Charlie smiled back. She had thought the same thing about Belinda this morning.
Lenore continued, “You sister was a happy accident, but with you, everything was planned. She told your daddy exactly when it was going to happen, what you were going to be named, what subjects you were going to love in school, what you were going to be when you grew up.”
“Was she right?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Your mother was always right about everything.” Lenore added, “And she loved you and your sister to her very last breath.”
Charlie had witnessed her mother’s last breath. She knew that Lenore’s words were true.
Lenore said, “Not all men are assholes.”
“I know.” Charlie picked at the cinnamon bun until a piece flaked off.
“Ben is a wonderful human being.”
Last Breath Page 5