“You’re protecting someone,” Hunter’s mouth dropped open. “You knew the Cinco Casino was connected to your case and in thirty years, you hadn’t told me. Why?”
“Tex…” Alfred’s voice trailed off.
“Why?” Hunter slapped the table. “I’ve taken your case through every avenue, through every court, I’ve spent my life trying to defend you, and there’s still something you haven’t told me. Why?”
“It’s complicated, Tex. Life is complicated. Each of us must choose our own path through life. There’s no manual, no college course, to teach people how to navigate what I’ve seen. The right path for me is not the right path for everyone. And yet, I know I made the right decision. I know it here.” Alfred tapped his chest. “Love is what matters. Love is what has always mattered. Love, even in the face of danger, even in the face of destroying your life, is what matters.”
“The casino. Tell me about it.”
“I knew dangerous people and I had to protect the people I loved. This isn’t your average case. These people, the people you want to talk about, are still alive, and I risk losing thirty years of sacrifice if the secret comes out now. That underground casino was forgotten about and it needs to stay that way.”
“What?” Hunter’s voice softened. “Why?”
“Tex,” Alfred reached forward and held his son’s hand. “It’s time to let it go. My life is ending, and so is this chapter of your life. It’s time to let go of this case. It’s time. My time. But it’s not your ending. It’s not your time. This is the point where you start a new chapter.”
“Who were you protecting?” Hunter’s voice was soft.
“Let me die here in peace. Let my sacrifice be worth it. Look at the file, make your own assumptions, but leave me to die in peace.” Alfred stared at his son with pleading eyes.
Hunter stood. “I deserve the truth. With all this has put our family through, with everything that our family has sacrificed for justice, I deserve the truth.”
Chapter 18
Esther Wright walked into the café near the Lincoln Park Zoo, greeted the barista, talked about the weather, and ordered a small latte. The barista was charming—blue eyes, blonde shoulder length hair, and a cute smile. He was attractive for a twenty-five-year-old, she reasoned. As Esther approached her mid-thirties, she started to ponder deeply about life, love and everything in-between. She considered whether she wanted to start a family, whether she wanted the joy of children, whether she wanted to hold her own baby in her arms. The answer was always a resounding yes. It was what she dreamed of, and as much as she hated to admit it, she could sense her clock ticking. Her mother, her grandmother, and every other elderly woman in her life, had warned her many times that she only had a small window of opportunity to have a child. Her time to start a family was now, and the time to start thinking about the future was upon her.
Her mother had started asking more questions, it was almost a weekly bombardment. Her older sister had recently had another child, and the questions were beginning to swirl.
Every question was followed by advice, and every piece of advice seemed to conflict with the next.
Wait for love, but go out and search for it.
They’ll come when you least expect it, but you have to expect the best.
Don’t settle for anything less than perfect, but nothing is perfect.
It all made her head spin. The advice came from a place of love, of a desire to see her happy, but now that she was asking the same questions of herself, it was overwhelming.
Esther had no trouble getting attention from men, she never had, but she got bored of the men she had dated, dreading the thought of spending every day with someone who was too concerned about wealth, fashion, or status.
Esther looked in the mirror at the side of the café. She was pretty, no doubt about it. Blonde, tanned skin, blue eyes. Straight white teeth, and a smile that made most men weak at the knees. She first realized the power in her looks during senior high, when she was struggling to make the volleyball team. There were many girls better than her, many with more speed, height or aggression, but she was the coach’s favorite. It embarrassed her to receive all the favoritism, she never asked for it, and never went out of her way to chase it. But it was clear the coach—a young single male—wanted her on the team.
Boyfriends had come and gone, and most were good-looking guys with little substance behind them. She was seduced by their love for her, their desire to be with her, but they never lived up to her expectations. Her father had set the standards high—he was a hard worker, an honorable man, and a man who taught Esther her own worth.
Tex Hunter lived up to those standards.
But he was married to the job, married to a sense of justice, and nothing seemed to pull him away from that. She didn’t know if she could live like that. Did they even have anything in common outside of the job? Esther didn’t know the answer.
She had worked for him for more years than she cared to count, and in that time, she had seen him go on five dates. She was sure women fell at his feet—he was tall, good-looking, and financially successful—but he didn’t seem to have time for the women who wanted to be a part of that life.
Earlier that Sunday morning, she had spent more time than she expected in front of the mirror, perfecting the casual, but seductive, look. To the average male eye, it would’ve looked like she rolled out of bed looking that gorgeous, but it was two hours of work to perfect the look.
When the message pinged on her phone, she finished her coffee, took one last deep breath, and then left the café to meet Hunter on the street, ready for a morning walk along the park on Stockton Drive, near the shore of Lake Michigan.
Hunter looked happy as she walked to the entrance of the park.
“What’s up, big guy?” She playfully asked as they began to walk side by side.
“The sky.”
“Oh, come on. You can do better than that.” Esther laughed. “You’re not a father yet, you don’t need to make terrible dad jokes.
“Well, I’ve got an actual joke for you.” Hunter said. “I read something interesting in a science manual yesterday. It was a study about how ‘I before E except after C’ has been disapproved by science.”
It took Esther a moment, and then she laughed. “Oh dear. Your delivery was terrible.”
“Got a better one?”
“Alligators can grow up to twenty feet, but most only grow four.”
Hunter chuckled. “You know, one of your fellow blondes went to a bookstore and asked the lady at the desk for a book on turtles. ‘Hard back?’ the lady asked. ‘Yeah,’ said the blonde. ‘That’s them. With little heads as well.’”
“Oh, you’re going with blonde jokes now?” Esther playfully punched his arm. “Well, a lawyer was sitting at the doctor's office. The doctor walks in and says, ‘I have some bad news. I'm afraid you're going to have to stop masturbating.’ ‘I don't understand, doc. Why?’ the lawyer asks. ‘Because,’ the doctor says. ‘I'm trying to examine you.’”
Hunter laughed out loud. “You really are a construction worker trapped in a model’s body, Esther.”
They laughed together as they walked, swapping the best, and worst, jokes they knew. They talked about the weather, the Cubs, and the traffic in their city. Esther filled him in on the latest hit reality television show, and Hunter shook his head the entire time. She talked about the latest viral dance challenges, showing him a few embarrassing moves, and about the latest online prank craze. He talked about the news, politics, and rumors that plagued the political landscape. They talked about the snow. They talked about the courts; old cases, and new ones. They talked about fashion. They talked about investments, about skiing, about running a marathon. They talked about anything.
But all the while they were talking, she could sense his mind was elsewhere.
“Nervous about next week?” she asked, turning the conversation back to work after walking for more than an hour.
“
Not nervous, but apprehensive. If we’re going to win it, then we need the perfect case. We can’t miss anything. I need the perfect jury, the perfect judge, and the perfect story in the courtroom to win. Someone set him up, and I won’t let them play with the system. I can’t, and I won’t, let the players own the game and do whatever they want whenever they want to do it. If I win this case, then I can break them apart. I can knock down another corruption racket. That’s got to be the focus. That’s justice.”
“Moral justice isn’t the same as legal justice.”
“Legal justice is what the system is built on. Moral justice is for Batman.”
Hunter stopped walking, resting against a metal barrier. Esther stopped next to him, and watched a small robin land on a branch nearby. It stood proud, chest out, scanning the grass ahead, before chirping to the other birds. She loved Chicago’s birds—even in all the chaos of the city, even in all the concrete, they adapted and found a way to survive.
“And moral justice would also see my father walk free,” Hunter said.
“Is that what this is all about? You look at Cowan like you do your father?”
“I went and saw my father yesterday.” Hunter turned away from Esther, his hands gripping the barrier. “He knew there was a file, and he clearly recognized the name Cowan gave me—Cinco Casino. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours trying to imagine why he never mentioned it to me.”
“Maybe he was protecting someone.”
“Who?” Hunter squinted. “After all this time, who could he be protecting?”
“You.” Esther put her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “He’s protecting you, Tex. He’s protecting his son from getting involved. He knows his time is coming and he wants you to let it go. And maybe he’s right.”
Hunter went silent. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind. Esther turned and continued walking, followed by Hunter a few moments later. They walked in silence for the next five minutes, walking past the lake and the trees, the ducks and the birds, and past the joggers that seemed so determined to get somewhere fast on a Sunday morning.
“Why do you do this to yourself, Tex?” Esther broke the silence. “His case is so ingrained in the psyche of this city, and even if he gets off, it won’t change public opinion unless you find the real serial killer. Eight girls died. Someone slit their throats and buried them in the woods. Even if a court lets him off, the city won’t forget it. The hatred for your name will be even worse. Is that really what you want?”
Hunter didn’t respond in anger. There was no one else that could talk to him with such bluntness. “I’ve been thinking about my sister Natalie a lot lately. I haven’t heard from her in thirty years. She must know something we don’t.”
“No, Tex, it’s likely she has no idea what this has put you through. She didn’t want anything to do with what your father did, and I don’t blame her. She was able to start over in a new country, in a new place, in a new life. She restarted her life in a country where the Hunter name didn’t mean she was the daughter of a serial killer. And who knows what happened to her? Maybe she got married, changed her name, and never had to think about it again. Why didn’t you do that too? You didn’t even have to change countries, you could’ve moved to Montana, and started life in a new state. Bought a farm, or even defended small town criminals. You didn’t have to stay here.”
“I stayed because he’s innocent.” Hunter stated. “I asked my brother Patrick to look for Natalie. His contacts in the border patrol have looked at the files, and it appears she changed her name after she got to Mexico, and it looks like she renounced her US citizenship. That trail went cold.”
“But?”
“But there’s also a lead with her new name. Patrick has another government contact looking into it for me, and they’re searching for her.”
They continued walking for another thirty minutes, the conversation drifting away from Hunter’s past and towards the news, current events, and the state of their city. After walking the loop track, they returned to Esther’s car, parked on the side of the road.
“What’s on for the rest of your day?” She asked, almost pleading with him to say something other than case work. “Not going to the office on a Sunday, I hope.”
“I need to review the files before tomorrow. Samuel Spencer is going to deliver the information about the redacted witnesses in the morning, and I need to make sure I haven’t missed anything. We’ve got a tight deadline before the case goes to trial.”
Her heart sank a little. She wasn’t sure this was the life she wanted. She unlocked her Volvo with a beep, and then opened the door.
“Thanks for today, Tex. I really enjoy time with you away from work.”
“So do I. I mean, I enjoy time with you away from work, not time with myself away from work.” He stumbled over his words. “If you get what I mean.”
Esther took off her jacket and placed it in the car, unsure of what to say next. She offered him a half-smile, before leaving during an uncomfortable silence.
Chapter 19
Jasmine Langford avoided the young African-American men on the corner. She walked with her head down, dark hair hanging over her face, head under a hood, avoiding attention. Since evading the man in her apartment by hiding in a cardboard box, she tried to avoid any further contact with men. After the man briefly searched her apartment, no doubt anxious about being seen breaking in, he left, leaving her hiding in the box for the next few hours. When the night came, she packed anything of value, stuffed her clothes inside a backpack, and ran. She didn’t know where she was going, she didn’t know where she was running to, but her apartment wasn’t safe.
Phil, her friend on the street, saw her running. He stopped her. He saw the worry in her eyes. He knew what it meant, he knew what she’d been through, he’d seen it so many times before. When he stopped her, she cried in fear. He hugged her, told her that he understood, and gave her the address of a women’s shelter in Englewood. It wasn’t much, Phil said, but it was safe.
After she arrived at the shelter, two other women explained Phil had helped them get away from domestic violence. Phil was a hero, they said, an angel on the streets.
On the second floor of a brick apartment building, above a closed convenience store, was the women’s shelter, a secret location known by only a few. Run by a survivor of domestic abuse, Wilma Woods, it was a haven from violence, an escape for those with nowhere else to go. Wilma had bought the building five years earlier, with the money left by her husband in his will. Death was her only escape from violence, and she appeared determined that other women shouldn’t suffer the same fate.
In the five weeks Jasmine had been staying there, the shop below had been for sale the entire time. The real estate office listed the shop as ‘a potential retail store in an up-and-coming area.’ The advertisement fooled no one. The entrance next to the shop was boarded up, and the metal door at the end of the building was supposed to be locked at all times, but the lock had been broken more times than they could fix.
Jasmine walked into the dark entrance, stepping up the cracked steps, over the needles, and into the damp smelling corridor. She fumbled with her keys in the three locks on the second floor, and then walked into the kitchen, watching Wilma busy over a large pot, cooking another batch of spaghetti and meatballs.
“I got the cans of tomatoes you asked for,” Jasmine placed the bag on the counter next to Wilma. She placed her hands on Wilma’s shoulders, guiding her to a nearby seat. “Now, you sit down and let me take over this.”
Wilma smiled. She handed the spatula to Jasmine, and sat on the nearby chair, happy to take a load off her feet.
On the second floor of the old brick building, there were fifteen African-American women, each with their own problems, each with their own past. Some had young children, others didn’t, but they all had memories they needed to forget, homes they needed to escape.
“The years are drifting past and I’m starting to feel it in my bones. Even cookin
g is taking it out of me,” Wilma said. “You’re the biggest help I’ve had in this place, Jasmine. You’re always helping everyone. Once all this blows over for you, you’re welcome to stay and help me here. I can’t afford to pay you, but if you help to cook and clean and teach those kids, like you’ve been doing, I can give you free rent and food. There’s a bed for you always. I’m getting old, and I could really use someone like you here all the time. You could even study teaching while you’re here.”
“I would love that.” Jasmine smiled. Helping people—cooking, cleaning, and teaching the children—she felt at home, felt she found her calling. She spent hours each day reading to the young kids, teaching them math, teaching them to write. The smiles of achievement filled her heart with joy.
There were fifteen bedrooms in the building—a former low-budget hotel that was empty for years before Wilma moved in. She had enough money to keep it running, enough money to feed the victims of violence for years to come. The insurance for the place was relatively high, but her occupation was a dangerous one.
“When does the trial begin?” Wilma moved a math book across the second-hand wooden table.
“Next week.”
Wilma waited for Jasmine to continue, but she didn’t. Jasmine didn’t know how to talk about it. On the news, and on the internet, she had kept up-to-date with all the events of the trial preparation, including the day the witness list would be released. There had been no local news about her disappearance, no public appeal, and no one out looking for her.
“And when do they find out you’re a witness?”
“Tomorrow. My old boss, Rick Cowan, isn’t going to be happy when he sees the list of witnesses. He’s going to send out someone else looking for me, and they won’t be friendly. I can’t be around here next week. If they find me here, I might put the other women in danger. I can’t do that.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Wilma was firm. “I said I would look after you and I will. Don’t worry about your old boss. He’ll already know you’re missing. The lawyers may even tell him that they think you’re dead.”
Deadly Justice: A Legal Thriller (Tex Hunter Book 4) Page 10