The Final Reckoning (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers Book 4)

by Robert Bailey

  JimBone grinned at the lawman, rolling the USB drive between his thumb and index finger but not saying anything.

  “I left a note for Sergeant Morris to give to Roger Hillis if I ever turn up dead. It has instructions on where to find the tape.” He licked his lips, and JimBone could hear the man’s heart thudding.

  He’s throwing the Hail Mary, JimBone thought, and for just a half of a second, he had a begrudging admiration for DeWayne Patterson. Dumb as a rock, but not a quitter.

  “So . . . ,” JimBone began, pacing the floor of the small parlor. “I guess you’ve got us over a barrel, DeWayne. We can’t rightly kill you and risk our whole plan being blown up.”

  “Costing us the other half million,” Manny chimed in from the foyer. She had remained at the door since the sheriff arrived.

  “Exactly,” JimBone said, nodding at the woman. “So what do you suggest, DeWayne?”

  The sheriff blinked.

  “Now that you’ve flown the coop and left a tape implicating all of us in a bunch of murders, what’s next?” JimBone gritted his teeth. “What if the Tuscaloosa County sheriff gets a search warrant for your house and all the property you own and finds this tape you’re talking about? Then what?” JimBone snickered. “We all going to share the same cell on death row?”

  “I’m not an idiot,” DeWayne said, peering up at JimBone with bloodshot eyes. “They won’t be able to find the tape with any search warrant.”

  JimBone’s grin widened. “On the contrary, DeWayne. You are an idiot. You wouldn’t have come racing here in the middle of the night if you weren’t a moron.” He paused and lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “You think that little recording gives you some leverage against me?”

  DeWayne Patterson placed his face in his hands. Seconds later, he began to cry.

  JimBone gazed across the parlor to Manny. “Get the kid.”

  She nodded and the sheriff removed his hands from his face. “What—?”

  But he never finished the question as the toe of JimBone Wheeler’s size-twelve boot crashed into his nose guard, splattering fiberglass all over the floor of the cabin.

  68

  At 1:00 a.m., five police vehicles gathered at a gas station two miles from the cabin. All of the cars were from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office save one—an unmarked black Crown Victoria with Tennessee plates. Inside the lone outlier, General Helen Lewis sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Not much stealth about this, she thought.

  Above her, she could hear the rotor blades of a helicopter, and then a voice came through the control speaker in the middle of the dashboard. “Only car at the cabin is a Chevy Tahoe with Walker County plates and ‘Walker County Sheriff’s Office’ written on the sides.”

  “Patterson,” Helen said to herself.

  “The lights are off and I don’t see any movement,” the same voice from the radio added.

  Several seconds passed and another officer blared, “Ten-four, Steve. Thank you.” Then, five seconds later, “It’s go time, folks.”

  The vehicles pulled out of the gas station, and a mile later the convoy turned right onto County Road 22. Helen grabbed the receiver on her dash and spoke into it. “Do y’all have the river blocked?”

  “Affirmative, General Lewis,” Steve responded. “A patrol boat is anchored a quarter mile from Patterson’s dock and I have the chopper. We’ll have the place surrounded by land, air, and water.”

  Helen sucked in a deep breath as she saw the cabin through the leafless trees. “Please, God, let him be alive,” she whispered, thinking about Tom’s grandson. When she had come to the farm to tell him the news about Wheeler’s escape, Tom had been talking with Jackson on the back porch. He adores that boy, Helen thought. No one had told Tom yet about the kidnapping, thinking the stress would be too much, but since learning the location of the cabin from Rick, Helen had been in constant contact with Tommy and Nancy McMurtrie.

  “Please let him be alive,” the General repeated, her voice rising in the closed confines of the Crown Vic as she followed the SWAT team up the gravel driveway that led to the cabin. Please.

  69

  Helen kept her eyes peeled on the front door of the cabin as the uniformed officers surrounded the structure. Two seconds later, one of the members of the team kicked in the front door while another man slid through a window on the side of the house after jimmying the lock.

  Helen opened her door and pulled her weapon. Then she walked toward the house, darting her eyes in all directions and looking for any suspicious movement.

  She reached the foot of the steps as lights began popping on inside.

  “Oh God!” an officer’s voice rang out, and Helen felt her heart catch.

  Please, God, don’t let the boy be hurt, she prayed again.

  Helen trotted up the stairs and slid through the kicked-in door. As she entered the foyer, she saw two rocking chairs in a small parlor to the right. Continuing forward, she passed through a wide opening into a large den, seeing a fireplace and flat-screen television mounted over it. To her left, stairs led to what must have been a loft. To the right was a wet bar with glass cabinets containing various bottles of liquor. The room had tall ceilings and two wooden beams that ran along the middle from the east wall to the west wall for support. Seeing that the SWAT team were all gazing upward, Helen did the same.

  Her breath caught in her throat when she saw him. DeWayne Patterson’s naked body swung from one of the beams. A noose covered the lawman’s neck, and blood ran from his groin down both legs. Helen averted her eyes as she felt her stomach begin to lurch.

  Swallowing, Helen gritted her teeth and forced herself to remain under control. She peered at one of the officers. “Did you find the kid?”

  He shook his head.

  “Anything? Any clues?”

  The officer pointed to the coffee table below where DeWayne Patterson’s body hung. Helen walked over to it and came to an abrupt stop when she saw the piece of paper. There was something bloody on top of it. “Is that what I think it is?” She glanced at the officer she’d been speaking to seconds earlier, and he nodded.

  “Hung his ass and cut his dick off,” the man said, walking past her to the table.

  “What does the note say?” she asked.

  “It’s just two words.” The deputy frowned and shook his head. “Written in blood.”

  “What does it say?” she asked, moving her fatigued eyes around the room and looking at each of the officers, whose weapons were all lowered in defeat.

  “See for yourself,” the officer said, stepping away so that Helen could approach.

  She did, and her breath caught in her throat as she read the words aloud.

  “Too late.”

  70

  When she was back inside the Crown Vic, Helen’s cell phone rang. She glanced at the screen but didn’t recognize the number. After waiting for it to ring three times, she clicked the “Answer” button. “This is General Lewis,” she said.

  “Hello, General. What did you think of the message I left inside the cabin? Did I go too far?”

  Helen set her jaw and squeezed the phone tight to her ear. “How did you get this number, Mr. Wheeler?”

  “I have my sources,” JimBone said. “As you just found out. When your inside man is the sheriff of a county, you have a wide range of access.”

  “Well, aren’t you smart.”

  “You know that I am.”

  “What do you want?”

  A chortle on the other end of the line. “I like a woman who gets right to it. I bet you would be tough to handle, General. Speaking of, have you and McMurtrie knocked boots yet?”

  “Did you want something from me, or did you just call to gloat?”

  Silence on the other end of the line, and Helen cursed her lack of subtlety. Finally, the killer’s voice, now lower, came through the speaker. “Don’t you want to know if the kid is alive or dead?”

  Helen closed her eyes and felt her heart rate acceler
ate into overdrive. “Yes,” she said.

  More silence.

  After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Helen cleared her throat and spoke into the phone. “Mr. Wheeler, where is the boy? Where is Jackson McMurtrie?” Helen paused. “Is he safe?”

  Again, there was no answer, and Helen began to worry that the bastard wasn’t going to say any more.

  “Mr. Wheeler?” Helen pressed. “Is the boy—?”

  “Listen very carefully, General,” JimBone interrupted, his voice sharp and matter-of-fact. “I’m only going to deliver this message once, and only to you. If you interrupt me while I’m talking, the boy dies.” He paused. “If any part of these instructions is not followed, the boy dies.” He again hesitated. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Helen said, feeling cold sweat on her forehead. She squeezed her hands and noticed they were clammy. She had never been this nervous in her life.

  “Good,” JimBone said. Then for the next thirty seconds he gave his instructions.

  When she clicked off the phone, Helen’s entire body was covered in sweat and her hands shook so badly that she had to grip the wheel tightly. She didn’t need to write his instructions down due to their chilling brevity.

  Simple.

  Clear.

  And impossible to follow.

  In the cab of the Crown Vic, Helen Evangeline Lewis slammed an open palm on the dashboard. He’s going to die, she thought.

  The boy is going to die.

  71

  Bocephus Haynes sat on the damp grass in front of the headstone. His shotgun rested in his lap, and every so often he checked the weapon to make sure it was loaded. Then he would point it at the name on the grave marker. Grabbing the gun for at least the tenth time since he’d arrived, he again aimed it at the engraved name of a man he had hated his whole life. A man who had once been the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

  A man who Bo had found out two years ago was his father.

  “Andrew Davis Walton.” Bo spat the words out loud. Then, tired of playing this charade, he stood and fired the gun. Once, twice, three times. The concrete edifice broke apart in the middle, and the top of the shattered headstone crumbled over the bottom. “How do you like that . . . Daddy?” Still gripping tight to the twelve-gauge, he leaned down and retrieved a half-empty bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. A few years back, a client had rewarded him for winning a case by sending him the fifth, which supposedly was the most expensive bourbon in the world. Bo glared at the brown liquid inside the bottle and took another long pull. The alcohol burned his throat as he swallowed, but it didn’t burn near as bad as the one emotion that scalded him inside and out.

  Hate.

  Hate for the law, which had kept him in a jail cell for ten days when he should have been with T. J. and Lila. The law, which Ezra Henderson was hiding behind to prevent Bo from seeing his children. Bo hadn’t been home last night for more than five minutes before a social worker from the Department of Human Resources was knocking on the door. Before he’d be allowed to see his children, he would need to sit for an interview and be evaluated. “Is now a good time to answer some questions?” she had asked.

  “No,” Bo had said, storming out of the house. He had driven the streets of Huntsville all night before he’d finally ended up at the funeral home early this morning. He’d shown his identification and they’d taken him to the body. Ezra may have banned him from the funeral, but he hadn’t told the director Bo couldn’t see his wife’s body.

  For at least an hour, he had stared at her lifeless, cold corpse. After the refrigeration and embalming, the mannequin inside the coffin, while resembling Jazz, simply wasn’t her. Jazz was gone. Dead. Taken by an assassin’s bullet.

  He’d gazed at his wife’s body and thought back to when he was a boy. When he’d watched the men wearing the hoods and robes lynch the man who, for forty-five years, Bo thought was his father.

  And he’d felt the hate burn within him.

  Hate for mankind. For the weakness, the evil, and the utter wretchedness of the human race. Humans had killed Roosevelt Haynes. Another human had murdered his mother. And now, within the past four days, two deranged psychopaths had killed his wife and his good friends Rel Jennings and Wade Richey.

  Not to mention Alvie last year, Bo thought, glaring at the ruined headstone of his biological father. In the winter of 1960, Andy Walton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Pearl Haynes, and Bo had been the product of their illicit relationship. Andy’s wife, the diabolical Maggie Walton, eventually found out and took her revenge by killing Bo’s mother and eventually Andy himself. She would have gotten Bo, too, if not for Professor Tom McMurtrie and General Helen Lewis.

  Bo had found a lifeline to sanity when he’d met the Professor in college and a short time later had fallen in love with the former Jasmine Henderson. His love for the two of them was like cold water on a raging fire.

  But now Jazz was dead. The Professor was dying. And Ezra is right. My own kids are better off without me.

  Hate.

  Hate for the law. Hate for mankind. And most of all . . .

  He gritted his teeth and held the bottle of bourbon to his lips.

  Hate for himself.

  I hate you, Jazz had told him right before she was shot and killed.

  “I hate you,” Bo now whispered out loud.

  His thoughts flickered with another image of Jazz’s corpse, and his heart burned with hate so hot that he had to hold in a scream. He’d left the funeral home on autopilot and driven to his rental house on Holmes. He’d put the bloody shirt and jeans back on and sat in the kitchen of his empty dwelling until the sun went down. Then he’d gotten back in his vehicle. An hour and forty minutes later, he’d been at Maplewood Cemetery in Pulaski.

  Sitting at the grave of his father.

  Bo took a deep breath and one last sip of bourbon. Then, eyeing the bottle, he poured the alcohol on his head and doused his jeans and shirt with it. When the container was empty, he hurled it at what was left of the headstone, and shattered glass joined broken concrete on the grass below. Bo smirked at the ruined grave marker and pulled a lighter out of his pocket. He took two long strides toward his father’s final resting place. This is where it should end, he thought. I should go up in flames with Andy Walton’s corpse.

  He flicked on the lighter and then he turned it off. On. Off. On. Off. On . . .

  Closing his eyes, Bo began to count, holding on to the images of the people in his life he loved.

  “Five.” T. J. shooting a basketball from the top of the key and winking at Bo as he ran back down the court.

  “Four,” Lila, the spitting image of her mother, crawling into his lap on Christmas Eve and asking Bo to read “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” one more time.

  “Three.” Roosevelt Haynes, the only man he’d ever known as a father, playing catch with five-year-old Bo in in the yard outside the shack they called a home while his mother watched, sitting in a chair in the shade of a cherry tree and peeling green beans.

  “Two.” Professor Tom McMurtrie hugging Bo on Christmas Day almost a year ago and telling Bo that he loved him.

  Tears rolled down Bo’s cheeks, and he felt the sting of the flame on his thumbs.

  “One.” Jazz. In her dorm room in college. Leading Bo to her bedroom the first time they made love.

  Bocephus Aurulius Haynes opened his eyes and looked to the heavens above. He let out a scream that began in the pit of his stomach and eventually roared out of his mouth.

  Then he glared at the bright-orange fire coming from the portable device. His heartbeat was racing as he moved the lighter closer to his body. Closer . . .

  . . . closer.

  Tears streamed down his face and he bit down hard on his lip. “I hate you,” he cried. Then finally . . .

  . . . he released his thumb from the spark wheel, and the flame went out.

  For several seconds, Bo stood in front of his father’s grave, gazing at the unspar
ked lighter that just moments earlier might have ended his life. His hands and legs were shaking with equal parts adrenaline and fear. Sucking in a breath, he thought he might vomit. His legs eventually gave out and he dropped to his knees. Squinting at the lighter, he flung the device as far as he could across the cemetery.

  Then, as he again felt a wave of nausea, a familiar voice rang out in the darkness.

  “Thought I might find you here.”

  Bo turned his head and saw a silhouetted figure standing ten yards away. “General?”

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Helen snapped.

  Bo hung his head but didn’t say anything.

  “Are you really a quitter? You’re Tom’s best friend. He was your mentor, right? What would he think of this?”

  “He knows what I’ve been through.”

  “And you think he’d be OK with you tucking your tail between your legs and quitting?”

  “That’s enough, General. Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.”

  “Here’s what I know. You didn’t post bond on two bullshit criminal charges, so I was forced to do it. And now, when everyone that loves you needs you the most, you’re out here getting drunk and drowning your sorrows.” She put her hands on her hips and leaned her head toward him. “That about sum it up?”

  Not entirely, Bo thought, shivering as he remembered how close he’d brought the flame of the lighter to his alcohol-soaked body. He climbed to his feet, breathing in the bourbon that covered his clothes and skin. “If you’re here to arrest me, let’s get on with it,” Bo said, creasing his eyebrows at her. “I don’t want or need a sermon from you.” He tried to walk past her, but she stepped in front of him and blocked his path.

  “Well, you’re in luck, because I don’t have time to give you one,” Helen said. “And although I should arrest you, I can’t fool with that either.” She glared at him. “Something’s happened . . . and I need your help.”

  Bo felt another dagger of hate penetrate his chest. “JimBone?”

  Helen nodded.