The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  “Lowe is still trying,” she said. “He’s not a quitter, he’s up in Rome now, seeing what more he can find. He’s dropped his fees to half, he’s been very kind, Morgan. He wants this appeal, he believes in you. Please give him a chance, don’t lose faith. Somewhere there has to be more evidence.”

  He said nothing.

  “But here’s the good news,” she said. “Morgan, please look at me.”

  He turned toward her, his face hard and closed.

  “There’s a warrant out for Falon. A federal warrant.”

  “A warrant for what? Not the robbery?”

  “The FBI wants him. For some land scams out on the West Coast, and for fraud by wire. The other four men in it have already been indicted. If they’re convicted, if Falon’s convicted, Sergeant Trevis said he could get ten to twenty years.”

  “If they find him,” Morgan said. “If they can get him to trial. If they can convict him.”

  “The FBI will find him. If he’s arrested in Georgia, he’ll be shipped out to the coast. Trevis says he’d be tried out there, that if he’s convicted he’ll most likely be in prison out there—far away from us.”

  Morgan took her in his arms, holding her close—but not believing Falon would ever be imprisoned.

  “We have to go with this, Morgan. We have to put our faith in this. If Falon’s wanted for another federal crime, the U.S. attorney will look at him differently. He’ll look differently at our new try for an appeal.”

  “Maybe,” he said noncommittally.

  “Believe it will happen. We have to believe, have to hang on to something.” Holding his hand, she looked across the room again at Lee and Sammie, so engrossed in the frail album. “Our family pictures,” she said gently. “Lee as a child. His sister Mae, aunts and uncles, they all belong to us and to Lee.”

  Watching Morgan as he considered her words, as he considered the tough old man and Sammie, so comfortable together, she saw his face soften, saw the hint of a smile.

  25

  BRAD FALON, AFTER attempting to run Becky’s car off the bridge, had slipped on into town behind her. He didn’t think she’d go to the police, and the cops wouldn’t listen anyway. They’d been down on Morgan ever since the robbery and they had no more use for Becky. He’d seen to that, had done enough one-on-one talking with selected officers to sour the validity of what either Morgan or Becky said. The rumors he’d spread about Becky and him, through a couple of friends, had further tarnished her credibility. Damn woman. Her gunshot wound in his leg hurt bad, and now, so did the crease in his shoulder where she’d winged him back there on the bridge. The pain made it hard to drive. Leaving the bridge he’d popped a couple of the Dover’s Powder pills, the same pain pills with which he’d drugged Morgan before the bank robbery—only then, he’d used enough to leave Blake sleeping like a dead flounder.

  Washing the pills down with the last of an open Coke, he threw the bottle out the window and, staying well behind Becky out of sight, headed for Natalie’s place. He needed his shoulder bandaged, needed the bandage on his leg changed, needed someone to take care of him, cook for him, needed a place to hole up until he healed. He wouldn’t go to his mother’s, she was too judgmental, he didn’t see her often. The cops would already have been there looking for him; they didn’t waste time when there’d been a shooting no matter who the victim was. They would have searched Natalie’s apartment, too, late last night or maybe this morning. Natalie wouldn’t rat on him, she wouldn’t like the consequences.

  He’d moved in, sent her out for a steak and a bottle of bootleg, was settled in just fine. He’d been there three days when the Rome cops found him. It was two A.M., he was asleep in Natalie’s bed tossing with fever from the wound in his leg. Earlier that evening just after supper, the first time the cops showed up, they didn’t have a warrant. Natalie had helped him hide in the attic crawl space. It hurt like hell getting up the folding stairs, his leg burning like fire. Natalie had refused to let the law in without the proper paperwork. When they’d gone, he’d been too sick to leave. He’d gone back to bed, had thought, if the cops came back with a warrant, he could make it out onto the balcony, could handle the five-foot drop to the concrete. The damn cops wouldn’t be looking for him if Becky hadn’t reported the bridge incident. She’d sure as hell sworn out a warrant, why else would they be there?

  Natalie had been careful to keep his presence secret, had made no increased purchases of food, had pulled the drapes at dusk as was her habit. She had some antiseptic and an old sheet to tear up, so she needn’t buy anything incriminating; she had nursed him as best she knew how. When, at night, he grew too fevered and restless to lie still she’d brought him cold compresses for his leg; and she’d moved out of the double bed into the living room, and slept on the couch. She was asleep there when, two hours past midnight, the cops pounded on her door again.

  When they kept pounding, she shouted at them to shut up and go away. When Falon himself, groggy from the Dover’s Powder, heard the sharp bite of a cop’s voice, he rolled out of bed, shocked to wakefulness, pain jarring through him. He’d pulled on his pants and was sliding the balcony door open when he heard the front door crash open and two cops stormed in. One of them lunged and grabbed him, jerked his arms behind him, striking pain through him. The other cuffed him, and it was all over. They searched his pockets and found a set of car keys. They looked at his bandaged wounds. Once they were done questioning him and jerking him around, he pulled on his shirt, Natalie tied his shoes for him, crying, and handed him his jacket. She had a talent for crying on cue, she had done that to perfection in the courtroom when she took the stand at Blake’s trial.

  Two of the cops escorted him out of the apartment, forced him down the stairs and out the back door to a squad car, hustling him along, making no effort to allow for the pain he was experiencing. A third officer went to try Falon’s keys in the cars that were parked behind the building. Falon’s Ford coupe wasn’t among them; he and Natalie had ditched it outside town behind an empty barn, returning in her car.

  Falon was housed in the Rome city jail in a private cell to increase security while Rome police waited for the U.S. marshals to pick him up. His shoulder began bleeding again, soaking through the bandage and through his shirt. He was treated by the doctor who tended the prisoners, his wound was rebandaged, and he was given a shot for the infection. His rage at being arrested was directed equally at Becky Blake, at every bastard cop on the Rome force, and at Natalie for not alerting him soon enough to get him out of the apartment—but most of all at Becky. Somewhere down the line she’d pay for this and for all the snubs and injustices she’d forced on him over the years.

  IT WAS FIVE A.M. the next morning that the ringing phone jerked Becky from a heavy sleep. She rolled over, fighting the covers, grabbing for the receiver—afraid it was the prison, that Morgan was hurt.

  “It’s Quaker. I’m sorry to wake you.”

  She sat up in bed, glancing over at Sammie, who had come wide awake and lay watching her. “Quaker? What is it? What’s happened?” His last call hadn’t been good news. What had happened now?

  But there was a smile in Quaker’s voice. “Becky? The Rome police have picked up Falon. He’s locked down tight. They hauled him out of Natalie’s at two-thirty this morning. He was hurting real bad from your gunshot wounds,” he said cheerfully.

  “Can they keep him locked up, now that they have the warrants?”

  “They can. Do you want me to tell Morgan? I have an early appointment down that way.”

  “Oh yes, please. That’s the best news he could have. It’s a pain to try to call. I tried twice in the last weeks; they said I could talk to him on visiting day. But, Quaker, you won’t tell him that Falon attacked us? I’ve told him none of that, I couldn’t bear to worry him, he has enough to deal with.”

  “Not a word,” Lowe said. “Becky, the bureau will be all over Falon. With the crimes out on the coast, and after the bridge incident and the break-in there at
your aunt’s, I think we’ll see some action.”

  When Lowe had hung up, Becky climbed into bed with Sammie, hugging her and laughing. “He’s in jail, Falon’s in jail, he can’t touch us.” And as Sammie chimed in, “He’s in jail, he’s in jail,” Misto was suddenly there snuggling close and warm against them, big and golden and ragged-eared, his whole body rumbling with purrs.

  26

  MORGAN PARTED FROM Quaker Lowe outside the prison office that was used by attorneys and their clients. Shaking hands with Lowe, he wanted to hug the man; they were both smiling as Lowe turned away toward the sally port. Morgan, double-timing to the mess hall, shouldered in among the stragglers looking for Lee. The kitchen staff was cleaning up the last of breakfast, the clanging of metal and crockery, the smell of overcooked food and soapy water. Lee sat at a table across the room where he’d pushed aside his empty plate. Morgan grabbed a plate, served himself from what was left in a few big pans, the eggs and pancakes limp and cold. Heading across among the empty tables, setting down his tray, he gave Lee a thumbs-up, “Falon’s in jail. Locked up tight.”

  Lee let out a whoop that made the men in the kitchen turn and stare. “Hot damn! That’s what Lowe came out here for. To give you the news in person. Becky knows?”

  “He called her at five this morning, said she laughed like a kid. Rome cops picked him up on the federal warrant. Lowe agrees with them, if Falon’s convicted in L.A., they’ll keep him out there, maybe at Terminal Island.”

  Lee smiled. Morgan grinned back at Lee’s pleasure, which seemed to wipe away the years. But Lee’s eyes were bright with challenge, too. And that turned Morgan uneasy.

  “He went over parts of the trial transcript again,” Morgan said, watching Lee. “Wanted to know if there was anything I’d forgotten, that might have seemed unimportant at the time. I couldn’t think of one detail.” Morgan made a face at the cold eggs but shoveled them in. “This has set him up, Lee. The guy really wants to burn Falon. I like him, he doesn’t act superior like the lawyers I’ve known. They come in the shop to get their car fixed, they want it yesterday and they know exactly what’s wrong with it, they want it done exactly the way they tell me, even when they’re dead wrong.”

  “You couldn’t think of any new leads.” Lee said. “Anything he can move on.”

  “Nothing.” Morgan stirred sugar into his coffee; at least the coffee was hot. “It’s the money that would fry him. If we knew where he hid the money.”

  Lee was quiet, watching Morgan.

  “He was good at hiding things,” Morgan said. “When we were kids, he knew places to stash car radios and batteries that I never thought of. He’d dig stuff out of the big flour bin in his mother’s kitchen or an old water heater lying in the lot next door, dig out all the stash we’d lifted so we could take it to the fence.”

  Still, Lee said nothing. Morgan finished his breakfast; they returned their trays to the counter and moved out into the exercise yard. The morning’s rain had stopped. As they moved down the concrete walk, puddles splashed their shoes. “The bank money,” Morgan said, “he wouldn’t trust that to some water heater—or to Natalie, either. She lied for him, but that doesn’t mean he’d trust her with money. Falon’s opinion of women is on a level with hogs in a mud hole.”

  “I wonder,” Lee said, “if he’s already retrieved the stash. He’s had plenty of time to split it up, hide it in half a dozen places or maybe in banks. Maybe the bureau didn’t find all the accounts. Maybe some small deposits, say, over in Kentucky and Alabama, accounts he might have already set up.”

  “Lowe’s checking the banks in several states. That takes a while, when they’d be under false names. Harder still if he opened them some time ago, so they wouldn’t show up under new accounts.” Two joggers passed them moving swiftly, glancing at them without interest.

  “If the feds haul him out to California,” Morgan said, “he won’t get his hands on the cash for some long time.” He looked up at the sky, the clouds dark and low above them. “Or maybe he buried it, maybe thought that was safer than banks. He knows the land around Rome real well.”

  “And so do you,” Lee said.

  “So? You think I can look for it, locked in this damn prison?”

  “There might be a way,” Lee said. Over the last days, working in the steamy kitchen, he’d laid out a plan. Even now, with this new turn in Falon’s fate, Lowe’s try for an appeal could fail. If that happened, what Lee had in mind might be Morgan’s only shot at a new trial, his only chance at freedom.

  Lee didn’t tell Morgan what he had in mind, he wanted Blake to think of it himself. He’d been working on Blake, planting the notion of escape, describing prison breaks he’d heard about, but then moving on to a colorful crime or a well-known inmate. Whether or not Blake knew what he was doing, the idea of escape was planted. Now, watching Morgan, Lee said, “What if we could find the money?”

  “That’s all the proof Lowe would need, he could get him back in court.” Morgan looked hard at Lee. “If somehow I could get my hands on Falon before they ship him off . . . Get him alone and make him spill where he hid it . . .”

  “How would you do that? Even if you broke out, he’s locked up.” Lee kicked at a pebble. “And by tomorrow or the next day, he’ll be gone. On his way to the West Coast.” He visualized Falon belly-chained in a DC-3 between a couple of deputy marshals. He hoped they were hard-nosed bastards; he wished Falon a miserable flight.

  “If he’s acquitted of the land scam,” Morgan said, “he’ll come back for the money. If I could get out of here, I could watch him and follow him.”

  “Slim chance he’ll walk, if the feds are this hot to convict him.”

  “I want to get the bastard, Lee. Make him talk, make him tell where the money is. If I could get out, get my hands on him . . .”

  Lee looked hard at Morgan. “You think you could take down Falon?”

  Morgan looked uncertain. Lee said, “Together we could. We could hurt him bad enough so he’d tell whatever we want.” And, watching Morgan, he knew Blake had grabbed the bait.

  But what lay ahead would take all the planning, all the wiliness and strength the two of them had. Lee tried not to think how dangerous it was. His agenda wasn’t only crazy, it was pushing suicide.

  “You sure they’d put him in Terminal Island?” Morgan said.

  “That’s the closest to L.A. Why go to the expense of bringing him back here?”

  “If there was a way to get transferred out there, if I could get into T.I. with him, I swear I’d beat the truth out of him.”

  “Well, sure, if you could get out there,” Lee said. “The prison system does that all the time. You just tell your counselor you’re unhappy here, that you’d like the California climate better, he’ll put in for a transfer and you’ll be on your way.”

  They moved over as four more joggers surged by, stinking of sweat. Morgan had taken the bait real well. “If he’s sent to T.I.,” he said stubbornly, “and I could get out there, I’d have a chance at him. I had no chance after the bank robbery. When I came to, groggy from the drugs, I was already on my way to jail. But now, if I could break out somehow, get out to California . . .”

  “Then what? You camp on the doorstep of T.I. waiting for Falon to be released? Wait there how many years for him to walk out the prison door, then you nail him?”

  “I have to do something. Becky and Sammie and I have our whole lives ahead of us. I don’t want to watch from behind this damned wall as Sammie grows up. I want my life back.”

  Lee waited.

  “If he is convicted, if he does do his time out there, there has to be some way I can get into the joint.” Morgan looked helplessly at Lee. “I know it’s impossible, but . . . Maybe I could get out through the train gate, where that guy got crushed. Maybe I could do a better job of it than he did.”

  “And what if you screw up? End up crushed, like him?”

  Morgan slowed, looked at Lee a long time. “In here, I might as well be
dead. In here, I’m nothing to Becky and Sammie. I can’t work to support them, can’t hold them and love them except in public at the exact place and time of day the prison says I can.”

  They had circled the exercise yard, had started around again when Morgan said, “If I did find a way to break out, if I got all the way out there, they wouldn’t ship me back right away? I am a federal prisoner, wouldn’t they hold me, maybe right there in T.I. for a few days, while they did the paperwork?”

  Lee looked hard at Morgan. “They might not ship you back at all. It would be cheaper to keep you there.” He shrugged. “Maybe T.I. Why not?”

  “Then how do I do it? How do I get out, avoid the feds long enough to hop a freight or hitchhike, get on out to L.A.?”

  Lee glanced up at the wall.

  “I sure can’t go over that baby,” Morgan said, laughing sourly. “Thirty, forty feet. And the guards. Even if there was a way over, I wouldn’t last two seconds, with those rifles trained on me.”

  “Maybe,” Lee said. “Maybe there’s a way. Come on,” he said, heading across the big yard.

  Sitting with their backs to the concrete barrier, Lee laid out the plan. He showed Morgan the dimples in the concrete. He watched Morgan glance up, as Lee himself had done, looking toward the towers that couldn’t be seen from that position. He watched Morgan’s expression change to disbelief and then to excitement, and Lee’s own blood surged. They could do this. They could get out of there, in a way that no one had ever done, before.

  Maybe something was pushing him, maybe not. This was what he meant to do and to hell with his short sentence. Beside him, Morgan began to smile. “Sammie was right,” he said.

  “Right about what?”

  “That you’d come here to Atlanta and save me,” Morgan said. “That you’d get me out of this cage.”

  27

  LEE SAT ACROSS the visiting room as far away from Morgan and Becky as he could get, holding Sammie on his lap hoping she couldn’t hear Morgan’s pitch as he laid out their escape plan to Becky. Though the child would know soon enough, he thought wryly. If she hadn’t already dreamed of what they meant to do. Dreamed it, but had kept it from her mother?