“What?” Rick asked.
“That he needs to see you.”
Rick Drake imagined his best friend as he’d last seen him. Hooked up to tubes and lying on a cot in the intensive care unit. Gazing around the almost-empty courtroom and now thankful that Judge Conner had a conflict in the morning, he spoke into the phone. “I’m on my way.”
58
“I have to go to Tuscaloosa,” Rick said as he and his client walked out of the courtroom.
LaShell gazed back at him with tired eyes. “What? Why?”
Rick took a seat on one of the wooden benches in the hallway and patted the spot next to him for LaShell to join him. “LaShell, on the day Rel was killed, there was another shooting in Tuscaloosa. Remember me telling you that my best friend was shot?”
She nodded.
“I just got off the phone with his mother, and my friend, Powell Conrad, is alive. He’s awake and he needs to see me.” Rick paused. “I have to go.”
“I understand,” LaShell said. “Will you be back tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Rick started to add more, but his cell phone began to ring in his pocket. He pulled out the device and looked at the screen. He didn’t recognize the number, from a (334) area code. For a second, Rick almost didn’t answer, thinking it was probably a solicitor. But when the phone had rung five times without stopping, he clicked it.
“Hello,” Rick said.
There was no response, but Rick thought he heard the sound of breathing on the line. “Hello,” he repeated.
A voice came through, a high-pitched male whine. “Rick Drake?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“This is Lawson Snow,” the voice answered, followed by several coughs. “I got your messages.”
“Why didn’t you call me back on your cell?” Rick asked.
“Because I didn’t want to,” the man snapped. “Do you want to talk with me or what?”
“Yes,” Rick said.
“Can you be in Auburn tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m.?”
“Mr. Snow, I’m in the middle of a trial, sir. I—”
“Fine, then, sorry to bother you. Have a nice—”
“I can’t be there in the morning but I can tonight,” Rick pleaded.
For several seconds, the airway was silent, and Rick pressed the phone hard to his ear to make sure he didn’t miss anything.
Finally, Lawson Snow cleared his throat. “When’s the earliest you can make it?”
Rick glanced at the time on his phone. It was 5:20 p.m. It would take all of four hours and maybe more to get to Auburn. And I still need to see Powell. “Ten o’clock,” Rick said, praying that would be soon enough.
More silence, followed by a fit of coughing. Then, finally, Snow’s voice chimed back in. “Ever hear of a place called Toomer’s Corner?”
Rick managed a nervous smile. He’d never been to the famed spot that Auburn fans rolled with toilet paper after big victories, but he’d heard about it. “Yes, sir.”
“Meet me there at ten sharp.”
“Thank you, Mr. Snow.”
“Don’t thank me yet, boy,” he said. “And you can call me Law.”
Ten minutes later, Rick was in his Saturn and heading west on Highway 72. He crossed the bridge over the Tennessee River into Colbert County, and thirty minutes later he was on Highway 157 headed toward Cullman.
An hour later, at 6:45 p.m., he took the exit for I-65. Two hours to Montgomery and then another hour to Auburn, Rick thought, pushing the accelerator down on his ancient sedan. He’d called Sandra Conrad and told her that he’d had an emergency come up in his case and that he couldn’t make it to the hospital until morning. She said she understood and that she would greet him whenever he arrived.
Now, as his car hurtled down the interstate, Rick felt adrenaline flooding his veins. He’d had no food yet and doubted he could eat anything if it was put in front of him. He had no idea what awaited him in Auburn, but he knew his whole case hinged on it.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. Here he was, Rick Drake, an Alabama fan since the day he was born, whose partner, Tom McMurtrie, had been an Alabama football legend and played for Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.
And the entire case, and perhaps even life or death, depended on a former lawman who called Auburn home.
“War Eagle,” Rick whispered as he pushed the accelerator past eighty.
59
The Galaxy of Lights is an animated holiday light show put on every year by the Huntsville Botanical Garden. Patrons can drive their vehicle through a winding path of illuminated Christmas displays, tuning their car radio to a station that plays a holiday song to go along with the scene they are passing. There are over a hundred exhibits to see in the two-and-a-half-mile circle through the gardens. The show opens on Thanksgiving and closes on New Year’s Eve. Each year, thousands of people from all over the state of Alabama and beyond converge on Huntsville for this tradition.
For the past thirteen years, ever since Jackson was a baby, Nancy and Tommy McMurtrie had taken their young family through the Galaxy at least once during the holidays.
Nancy’s heart pounded in her chest as she, following the lead of the cars in front of her, flicked her left-turn blinker on and waited to pull into the light show. It had been twelve full days since she’d driven her car. In their two visits to the hospital to see her father-in-law, Tommy had been behind the wheel. He’s going to be mad at me, she thought. Then she gazed in her rearview mirror, where Jenny’s legs were shaking with excitement. Their eyes met, and she gave Nancy the sweetest, most grateful smile. “Thank you, Mom.”
“You’re welcome, honey.” Then Nancy moved her eyes to the seat next to her daughter, where Jackson gazed straight ahead with his arms crossed. He was still fuming over not being able to play in his basketball game. Nancy let out a sigh and returned her attention to the road.
“Are you OK, ma’am?”
Nancy glanced to her right, where Deputy Brad Onkey sat in the passenger seat. Brad was a lanky, bearded man in his midtwenties. After a few days of spending every second guarding the interior of the house, Brad had begun to eat meals with the family. Unlike Sawyer and Dawson, the two older and more stoic officers assigned to watch the outside of the house, Brad liked to cut up with the kids and seemed to enjoy his job.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just nervous. I haven’t been out of the house in twelve days.”
“Well, this is about as safe an activity as you could have chosen,” Brad said. “There’s security all through the Galaxy, and on a Monday night it shouldn’t take us much longer than thirty minutes to get through it.”
“You think the other two officers are OK back at the house with my mom and the baby?”
“They’re good, ma’am,” Brad said. “Dawson’s inside with them and Sawyer’s out on the curb. Your security system is armed, too, so if any door is opened or window is cracked the alarm will go off and the whole police department will be over there in less than five minutes.”
Nancy took in a short breath.
“Mom, can you turn the radio to the station that plays the Christmas songs?” Jenny asked.
Nancy hit a button on her dash, and Bing Crosby’s voice crooned through the van, singing his version of “Silent Night.” From the back seat, her daughter joined in and, after a while, so did Nancy. This is going to be OK, she thought, flashing a smile at Brad, who had also begun to sing along. Only Jackson remained quiet, still sulking as he gazed out the window.
We needed this, Nancy told herself.
For most of the day, she had paced the floors of her home, feeling the walls beginning to close in around her. The kids were out of school for the next three weeks, which would have been a challenge in and of itself. They always got bored during the holidays, but not being able to leave the house made the monotony almost unbearable. Instead of going to the movies, or the indoor trampoline park, or the YMCA, or anywhere, they were stuck. In the first few days after Jasmine Haynes’s mu
rder, Nancy had been glad to stay home. She was scared to death and wanted nothing more than to be locked inside her house. But they were going on twelve days now. Almost two weeks. It was terrible what happened to Jazz, whom Nancy had met several times, but they couldn’t stay holed up forever, could they? When, on a whim, Tommy had driven Jackson to Fern Bell for some basketball practice yesterday, Nancy felt the invisible chains begin to loosen. Then, this morning, her husband said he couldn’t have other surgeons covering his patients any longer. He had to go to work.
Nancy was worried, but she was also glad to see Tommy move forward with his medical practice. We can’t stop living, she had told her husband at breakfast, and he had agreed. But then in the next breath he had told Jackson that he couldn’t go to his game tonight. “Baby steps,” he’d said when Nancy had given him a disappointed look.
“What’s the difference between a practice and a game?” she’d asked.
“A lot more people,” Tommy had fired back, shaking his head. “We can’t take that risk yet.” Next to him at the table, Brad Onkey had agreed.
“Too unpredictable, ma’am. Not controlled enough.”
Nancy had reluctantly conceded the argument.
But for the next eight hours she’d had Jackson in her ear, whining, I’m going to miss the whole season, Mom. Please . . . Like a continuous broken record. Over and over and over. Please, Mom. Please . . . Please.
To make matters worse, Jenny and Jackson seemed to be fighting every few minutes, and there were only so many times they could watch A Christmas Story.
At noon, Nancy’s seventy-six-year-old mother came over and things got even worse. When Nancy had broached the subject of possibly taking the older kids to the Galaxy of Lights while Mom stayed with Julie, Mammie, as the kids called her, was stern in her rebuke. There is no way you should leave this house. Not until those killers have been caught.
“What if they aren’t ever arrested, Mom? What then?”
Her mother had just blinked at her, and Nancy’s resolve to do something—anything—only deepened.
When she wasn’t pacing, she surfed Facebook and saw all of her friends’ pictures of their kids sitting in Santa’s lap at the mall. There would be no McMurtrie family photograph with Old Saint Nick this year. If a basketball game at a rec league park was too much exposure, then Parkway Place Mall was Exposure Palooza. Nancy had one of her neighbors do some Christmas shopping for her, and, luckily, most of the kids’ Santa presents had been purchased before JimBone Wheeler broke out of prison. But still . . . what is Christmas without a trip to the mall to see Santa?
Am I that shallow? she had asked herself, finally signing off Facebook and vowing not to log back on.
No, she wasn’t. But she was sick of being scared and stuck.
At 5:30 p.m., she made her decision and mentioned the idea to Brad, who, after talking with the other two officers, went along with it. He wanted to call Tommy and tell him, but Nancy begged him not to. “He’s working late to catch up and I don’t want to bother him with this. I’m sure he’d be fine with it if y’all were.”
Now, Nancy felt a weird mixture of excitement, guilt, nausea, fear, and anxiety as she pulled the van up the drive and handed twenty-five dollars to the attendant. A minute later, the radio station began to play songs that correlated with the displays they were passing by. One of Nancy’s favorites was the Twelve Days of Christmas, which had a different exhibit matching each of the verses to the song.
As Jenny and even, finally, Jackson began to sing the familiar tune, Nancy’s heart calmed and warmth passed through her.
She felt alive for the first time in days.
Less than five minutes after getting Pasco’s message that the wife was on the move, JimBone and Manny were in the Tundra and heading into town. They met Pasco at a church parking lot a half mile from the house. JimBone handed him a package.
“What’s this?” Pasco asked, opening the box and pulling out a brown UPS uniform that Sheriff DeWayne Patterson had acquired weeks ago for this particular job.
“Put it on,” JimBone said, removing his jacket to show Pasco that he was wearing the same outfit. “It’ll give us some cover.” Then he turned to Manny. “Are you ready?”
She had on leggings, a sweatshirt, and a baseball cap, looking like any of fifteen moms who liked to run in the neighborhood.
“I am,” she said.
“Are you ever going to doubt my instincts again?”
She squinted at him. “No.”
He turned to Pasco, who was changing inside the cab of the truck. “Are they still at the light show?”
“No. They’re back on Bob Wallace Avenue.”
“How far to the house?”
“Five miles,” Pasco said.
“Alright then,” JimBone said. “Everybody know their role?”
Manny and Pasco both nodded.
“Good,” he said, patting Manny’s backside. “Roll out, partner.”
Without hesitation, she took off down the sidewalk at a brisk pace.
Officer Sawyer Davidson, whose police vehicle was parked on the curb outside Tommy and Nancy McMurtrie’s home, glanced down at his phone, checking the score to Monday Night Football. The Patriots were playing the Dolphins, and Tom Brady was in his fantasy league. As he reviewed the quarterback’s stats for the first quarter, he sensed movement. Reaching his hand to the gun clipped to his belt, he looked in the rearview mirror and noticed a woman approaching his police sedan from the west. She was dressed in jogging clothes, which hung tight to her body, and a baseball cap.
Hot, Sawyer thought, tapping his gun with his index finger. As she got closer, her pace slowed and she began to walk. Seconds later, she was knocking on his windshield.
Sawyer removed his weapon from the holster and held it in his lap. Then he pressed the automatic button for the window to roll down. He peered hard at the woman as the glass descended, thinking about the picture he had been shown of JimBone Wheeler’s female accomplice. Could this be her?
It was possible but too difficult to tell at this time of night and especially with the woman wearing a cap. He had also seen several of Nancy McMurtrie’s neighbors running at night wearing similar outfits. Could this be one of them?
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes,” the woman said. “I live at the top of the street and my husband and kids are out of town.” With her left hand, she slowly pushed her top up.
Sawyer sucked in a breath as he gazed at the woman’s bare breasts and brown nipples. “Ma’am, I—”
He didn’t see the Glock pistol in the woman’s other hand until it was too late.
Manny Reyes pressed the tip of the gun into the officer’s temple and fired two shots, both muffled by the silencer attached to the weapon. She let her pullover fall back in place and returned the pistol to her pocket. Then she began to jog again.
Behind her, she heard the engine of the Tundra approaching.
60
At 7:05 p.m., exactly an hour after they had left the house, Nancy turned left into her driveway. On the radio, Bobby Helms wailed “Jingle Bell Rock,” and Nancy tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.
“Mommy, Jackson farted,” Jenny squealed from the back of the van.
“Jenny!” Nancy whirled her head and glared at her daughter. Then she shot an embarrassed glance at Deputy Onkey. “I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” Brad said. “I was a kid once.”
Then, on her Bluetooth device a monotone voice announced through the speakers of the van that Nancy had received a new text from Jackson. Smirking, she pressed the “Read Message” icon on the dash, and the same monotone voice said, “I farted.”
“Damnit, son!” She glared into the rearview mirror at her thirteen-year-old, who was laughing uncontrollably and looking down at his phone, and she couldn’t help but laugh herself. Things were beginning to get back to normal.
She slowed the van as she approached the garage and moved her hand to the
automatic door opener. When she pressed the button, the giggling in the car was drowned out by the roar of an explosion.
As Nancy and her children screamed in terror, orange flames engulfed the front of the house.
61
“I have to get inside!” Nancy shouted at Brad over the piercing sound of the security alarm as they both jumped out of the van. “My baby and momma are in there. Watch Jackson and Jenny!” she yelled behind her, and ran toward the back of the house.
Deputy Brad Onkey didn’t try to stop her. He opened the sliding door for the children. Jenny was crying and her brother had his arm around her as they quickly exited the vehicle.
“Get in there and help Mom!” Jackson yelled at the guard, but Brad stayed in place, moving his eyes around the burning building.
Where the hell is Sawyer? Or Dawson? He glanced at the sedan parked at the curb and saw the other officer sitting in the driver’s seat. Why isn’t he moving?
Then he noticed a light-colored Toyota Tundra approaching from the east. Had it been there when they turned into the driveway a few minutes ago? Brad’s brain was scrambled as he tried to think through what to do. “Come with me,” he yelled at the kids as he ran toward the cruiser. When he opened the door, Sawyer Davidson’s body fell out of the driver’s seat.
“Oh God,” Brad said, and turned just as Jenny McMurtrie noticed the dead man. Her squeal was almost as loud as the explosion and the resulting security siren. She ran toward her brother, who scooped her in his arms.
Behind the two kids, Brad saw Nancy McMurtrie emerge from behind the house. She had her mother’s arm draped over her shoulder and the baby in her other hand.
“Mommy!” Jenny screamed, and she wiggled out of her brother’s grasp and ran toward her mother.
Hearing the squeal of tires, Brad turned as the headlights of the Tundra passed over his face. He put a hand up to block the blinding light and saw a man in a uniform on the passenger side. The driver appeared to be wearing the same outfit.
The Final Reckoning (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers Book 4) Page 22