“You don’t have to invite this danger into your world, Tex. You could step back, take it easy for a while. Maybe even take a vacation. Relax a little—go south and get some sunshine.”
“Esther, I’m not a person that runs from danger.”
“I know,” she whispered as he walked towards the parking lot. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
CHAPTER 3
Caylee Johnson ran her finger over the Glock handgun. It felt so cold, so emotionless, but so inviting.
She loved the weight of the gun. The way it rested in her hand.
Her .22 shotgun leaned against the fence post behind her, looking strong in the country breeze. The weapon was a tenth birthday present from her father, her very own shotgun, the best present she had ever received. Her father painted the handle bright pink just for her, although the years had faded the paint. She was so happy that day. It wasn’t the first gun that she had fired, but as she entered her second decade on the planet, it was the first one that she owned.
Falling in love with the handgun almost felt like she was cheating on the shotgun, but the heart wants what the heart wants. She reasoned that there were so many guns in the house, most stored in the garage, that she had the right to choose which one suited her best. The Glock had been her favorite since she’d turned twenty, almost a year ago. There was something real about the kickback, the authority. Something raw about the intensity of power.
It was always her father’s aim to influence the policymakers. He wanted to be remembered as a game changer, someone who shifted the course of history. The family had enough guns in the shed to arm every member of the White Alliance Coalition and start a riot on the streets of Chicago. They could start a riot big enough to change policy, a riot that could change their city forever.
Her father, Chuck Johnson, talked about the moment when they would reach a turning point, a point when they would have an opportunity to be remembered in the pages of Chicago’s history.
Her Uncle Burt believed every word of the speeches, although he was gullible enough to believe anything her father told him. He would do anything for the White Alliance Coalition. Their numbers had dwindled a lot over the years, down to ten people at the last meeting, but Uncle Burt had enough blind passion for twenty men.
“The White Alliance Coalition will rise,” her father had said before the meeting. “We will conquer.”
The guns gave them power, the feeling of supremacy. Her father often said that they would be nothing without the guns, nothing without the explosives. They didn’t have much money, only enough to get by, but the weapons were their treasure trove; their fortune and wealth.
Their home backed onto the Spring Lake Nature Preserve, outside of Barrington, Illinois; a place of tranquil peace and quiet. She had long felt a kinship to this land.
Most of the homes on their road were regal, with the type of entrance that demanded tall swinging gates. Most of the properties were seven-bedroom monstrosities that sat back from the road and had horses, gardeners, and full-time housekeepers.
Not the Johnson’s home.
The old metal gate across their driveway was overgrown with weeds, and held two signs: one warning people not to trespass because of the dogs, and the other warning them not to trespass unless they wanted to get shot.
The other residents complained about them often: the constant gunshots, the overgrown weeds, and that their dogs killed the wildlife that dared to venture onto their thirty-acre property.
The property had been in the family for five generations; passed from one racist Johnson son down to the next. The original residence, little more than a hut, still sat near the road and their current family home; a one level, four-bedroom brick house built in the sixties to replace the previous weatherboard dwelling, sat at the end of a long driveway.
Chuck Johnson had won a payout due to a work accident when he was only twenty and spent most of his life on the property puttering from one thing to the next.
The two-door garage that sat next to the house contained most of their gun collection. There were forty guns at last count. Not to mention the C-4 explosives that Caylee’s father had recently gotten his hands on. It amazed her what was available on the black market.
There were four old broken down cars behind the house; two of them being rescued and worked on by her uncle. Cars were the only thing he understood.
Behind the cars were the dogs’ cages; four Dobermans, who were often barking loudly.
The police were regulars to their property, but they had visited more frequently over the last month. First, they came to question her father about his whereabouts on February 1st—the night that Reverend Dural Green was murdered—and then they were back to ask if he was involved in the shooting at the Baptist church last week.
They asked her Uncle Burt questions too, so many that his answers got mixed up. It wasn’t hard to confuse Uncle Burt.
The police didn’t ask Caylee a single question. Not one.
She had never been good at lying. If they had asked her the right question, she might have collapsed under the pressure. She almost wanted that to happen; to relieve herself of the guilt that she was carrying on her shoulders, to take the choice away.
She was getting to an age where she had to make a decision between her family or her friends.
Her friends didn’t know who her father was, who her family was, and they wouldn’t like it at all, but family was family. It was all she had.
She held the handgun tightly, pointing it towards the tree.
The slow squeeze of the trigger was what she enjoyed the most; the anticipation of the power that was to come. She smiled, waiting for that moment.
She aimed at the beer can sitting on a log that backed onto the lake. She was never too sure who would be out on the lake, out there having fun. That only added to the intensity of it all.
When she had no margin for error, no chance to flinch, no chance for a misstep, the melody began. It was when her entire body was engulfed in adrenalin, stinging her senses, pulsating fear through her being. One wrong breath, one slight lean of the body, and she would miss her target, sending the bullet on its own path to destruction.
The sound of the six shots resonated around the woods that surrounded their house.
It felt good—that rush, that power.
She smiled again as she looked at her handgun.
She would end this.
All of it.
She wasn’t going to let this war go on any longer.
This was her destiny.
CHAPTER 4
There was a time for force and a time for patience, and knowing the place for each approach was the most effective skill in any interrogation.
Tex Hunter looked to the furthest ledge of the bookshelf in his office; past the law books, past the reference material, even past the five fiction books that he had placed at the end of the row. There sat his temptation; a bottle of rare Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve bourbon. It called to him, often the result of the stress that he faced day after day.
The office was large, with the afternoon sun streaming in behind his desk. Space was at a premium off West Jackson Boulevard, and Hunter realized that every year when he received the notice about the increased rent. Even as a defense lawyer, he thought the fees were daylight robbery.
He tapped his finger on the wide desk that sat prominently in the room; it was starting to get on his nerves. Too dark. He wanted something brighter, something more modern, but he couldn’t imagine that his clients would be impressed by a light Scandinavian-style desk. His clients wanted to feel a sense of history when they entered his office, a sense of being intimidated by the might of the law.
He knew that Amos Anderson was terrified by his current situation. In their first meeting, Anderson had barely stopped twitching the entire time. When Hunter agreed to take the case to trial, Anderson almost cried with relief.
If Hunter was to extract the information he needed from the man, he ne
eded to tread gently. He needed to use silence rather than force; patience more than power.
To a nervous person like Anderson, a silent response held more potential in an investigation than a threatening one; the intense pressure of silence was more likely to provide the information he needed.
“Your four o’clock, Amos Anderson, has arrived,” Esther buzzed through his phone.
“Send him in.”
The door to Hunter’s office creaked open.
Amos Anderson stepped into the room slowly, deliberately, trying to calm his nerves. He wasn’t doing a very good job. Or perhaps he was, and his actual nerves were about to force him to collapse. Hunter had seen pictures of Anderson in the past, in which his smile was vibrant, his skin glowing, and his eyes clear.
He saw none of that now.
Instead, the man who entered his office had slumped shoulders, bags under his eyes, black frizzy hair, wrinkled shirt and trousers, and one of his shoelaces untied.
“Not sleeping well?”
Anderson tried to smile. “I haven’t slept well in a month.”
They shook hands, but even his handshake was weak and lifeless.
“It’s nice to see you again.” Anderson sat in the chair offered by Hunter. “Thank you again for taking this on. I hope this meeting is going to provide some good news. I could really do with some good news today.”
Anderson crossed his arms and leaned forward slightly; the pose of a man who looked like he was about to be ill.
Hunter was his third lawyer. Anderson had already burnt through the first two. The first was an experienced lawyer but drunk most of the time, although he managed to stay sober enough to secure Anderson bail during the first hearing. The second was a young man fresh out of law school. Anderson didn’t have faith in either of those men keeping him out of prison, and they both pushed for him to take a deal. Anderson wanted someone in his corner; someone who was more than willing to fight for him in court.
Amos Anderson had been practicing as a faith healer for three years. Although he studied to become a scientist, he found his calling using energy fields to heal people. Laughed at by his fellow science graduates, his results spoke for themselves. People claimed he had cured them of addictions, mental illness, and physical ailments. His reputation grew quickly, as did his bank account.
His followers almost became parishioners; they had faith in everything he touched.
“I’m afraid not, Amos. Only more questions.” Hunter picked up a pen, studying his client’s reaction closely. “What do you know about the Baptist church shooting in Grand Crossing?”
A look of confusion washed over Anderson’s face as he rocked slightly. “The one where you were hit in the shoulder?”
Hunter didn’t offer a response.
When a person is nervous, silence can be almost deafening. The moments of waiting can be like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard.
“I know nothing more than what I’ve read in the paper.” Anderson looked away. “Are you going to step aside from my case because you got shot in the shoulder? I completely understand if you do. These are dangerous times.”
Still, Hunter waited.
“Okay, okay. I don’t know anything directly, but I know people that hate the church,” Anderson conceded. “The White Alliance Coalition is always contacting me because they’ve hated the church for years. They’re very much about ‘taking America back’ from people like Reverend Dural Green. They know how much Green hated me, and they wanted to form a bond between us.” He looked over his shoulder. “But I don’t side with them.”
Hunter didn’t reply. Anderson felt compelled to keep moving his mouth.
“They would contact me on the phone.”
Hunter held his gaze on Anderson.
“The spokesperson for the White Alliance Coalition would also send me emails.” Anderson paused and rubbed the tip of his nose. “But I don’t understand what this has to do with my case. Shouldn’t we be working on my defense?”
Hunter leaned back in his chair, not offering a word.
“They never said anything directly. I hardly talked to them because I didn’t want to be associated with them, but I know that they’re dangerous. You shouldn’t go sniffing around in their business, you know? I’m sure they’ve hurt people in the past, and they wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.”
Anderson didn’t continue talking right away. He reached out and moved a pen holder slightly on Hunter’s desk, dispersing his nervous energy. It was a sure sign that he was avoiding an honest answer.
“I see where you’re going with this.” Anderson avoided eye contact, squirming to find a comfortable position. “You’re suggesting that he caused the pastor’s death and not me. I’m not sure that it’s a wise decision to blame someone like Chuck Johnson.”
That was the information Hunter wanted. He wanted a name, and he got it without pressing for an answer. That was the difference between power and patience.
He wrote the name down on the side of a folder and then turned his attention to the current file, finally breaking his silence.
“Amos, I’m always honest in my approach to the case, and that’s because I want you to have realistic expectations of what lies ahead. The evidence the prosecution has for the murder of Reverend Green is strong, and that means that the case is currently in their favor. They have witnesses that saw you together on the street near where his body was found, your blood and DNA on his dead body, and you have a strong motive for his murder. That doesn’t mean we can’t win, but the current position is that we won’t. If you don’t take a deal, we may lose this case, and you may go to prison for a very long time. If you want me to continue to defend you, then that risk needs to be very clear to you as we move forward.”
“I understand.” During their first meeting, Anderson was intimidated by Hunter’s presence, and he hoped that Hunter would bring that power to the courtroom.
So far, he hadn’t been disappointed.
“The information I have is that Reverend Green’s death was caused by three blows to his skull on the night of February 1st after you had an argument with him at a seminar about depression.” Hunter opened a file in front of him. “For this case to progress, I’m going to have to paint a very clear picture of what happened that day. I’m going to need to know everything about that seminar and your movements afterward. I want you to tell me the exact words that were exchanged between you and Green, who was at the seminar, and who saw you arguing. I need to know every little detail about what happened, and I want nothing but the truth because if you tell me it was windy, I’ll pull the weather report. If you tell me the traffic was bad, I’ll search through the traffic data. If you tell me that a man with a blue hat bumped into you, I’ll search the CCTV footage to find him. I need to know everything exactly as you remember it. In a case like this, our best chance of winning at trial is to present another suspect to the jury, and that will create doubt around your guilt.”
“Isn’t it the police’s job to look for suspects?”
“In their eyes, they’ve already found the killer. Their job is completed. And where their job finishes, mine starts. Now, the police have looked at the obvious answer, and found enough evidence for your arrest. They’ve looked at the big picture and come to the conclusion that you’re the murderer. They haven’t looked at the small details. And it’s in the small details that I’ll find the answers. If we only look at the big picture, we’ll come to the same conclusion as the police. Your innocence lies in the small details.”
“I didn’t do it,” Anderson whispered, shaking his head, hands together as if he still had handcuffs on. “That’s what matters.”
“Whether you’re guilty or not isn’t my concern; you’ve pleaded not guilty, and this is how we’re moving forward.” Hunter held his pen ready. “On the night of February 1st, why were you near the entrance to the alley behind 520 South Michigan Avenue? They have witnesses that place you there around the time of the murder. That ev
idence is hard to dispute.”
“That’s fairly compelling,” Anderson said.
“Because it’s so compelling, we’ll need to explain it to the court. We’ll need to convince them of a legitimate reason why you were there. These are the things that we need to be prepared for if this is going to trial. I’ll ask you again, why were you there in the alley behind the Congress Hotel on South Michigan Avenue?”
“I was never actually in the alley. I was at the entrance to the alley, on Ida B. Wells Drive, but I didn’t go down there.” Anderson looked like he wanted to fall onto the floor and curl into the fetal position. “I was in the area after the seminar about research into depression cures. I’ve been to many of these seminars before, and that night, I was giving a speech on the effectiveness of faith healing. Green was also there talking about how God was the answer to treating depression. He ambushed me after my speech. Actually, it was even during my speech—he was heckling me at every opportunity. He purposely chose that function to publicly argue with me because he knew that reporters were there.”
“But the seminar finished an hour before you were seen near the alley. Why were you still there? Why hadn’t you gone home?”
“I spent a long time talking with Lucas Bauer, my business partner, and after that, I wanted to spend some time walking the streets. Cool my jets.”
“Cool your jets?”
“Lucas and I had an argument after my confrontation with Green. Lucas wanted to expand the business and bring on fake faith healers because he saw it as a money-making opportunity, but I knew it wouldn’t work. His plan was amateurish; it was a money grab. It might’ve worked for a month, but it wouldn’t have worked long term. Money wasn’t the reason we started the Faith Healing Project. We started it to make a difference.”
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