Cotton

by Paul Heald

  XII.

  QUESTIONS

  James eased down into the soft leather of the sports car’s seat and Melanie pulled out of the driveway. He had no macho need to be the driver. He was perfectly happy to be chauffeured around by a beautiful woman, especially when it saved him gas and wear and tear on his aging Honda. “How long have you had the car?”

  “About three years.”

  “Wow,” he exclaimed, “I never would have guessed. It looks brand new.”

  She shot him an ironic smile. “Your side, maybe.” She pointed to a large stain on the carpet underneath her feet. “I don’t have many passengers.”

  He doubted such a glamorous woman ever lacked for company. Maybe this was her oblique way of telling him she was divorced or between boyfriends. God, if he were single, would he have the balls to ask her out?

  “So, what’s the strategy for questioning Jacob Granville’s parents?” She pushed a lock of thick golden hair behind her right ear and glanced at him. “Talking to an ex-prosecutor like Granville’s father is kind of a delicate thing, isn’t it? What was he like on the phone?” She spoke again before he could answer. “You did call them and let them know we were coming, right? Tell me we’re not driving a hundred miles there on just a hope?”

  “Phillip Granville was a little cagey,” he assured her, “but he said that they were willing to talk. He and his wife always claimed that Jacob was innocent and maybe a victim, too, so I implied that he would get more sympathetic treatment in the press this time around.”

  “Tricksy, tricksy,” she laughed. “Do you really think that Granville might be innocent, or were you just blowing smoke?”

  “I don’t see any way that he didn’t kill her.” He shook his head. His gut had always told him that Jacob killed Diana in a fit of anger and was forced to flee to avoid the Georgia electric chair. “I mean, he disappeared on the same night she did, and his car was spotted driving away from town. The blood in the apartment was hers, not his. Not to mention that the two of them had been fighting that week.”

  “Did the car ever turn up?”

  “Nope.”

  “But what about the photos?” She reached up and flipped a pair of sunglasses down from a small compartment in front of the rearview mirror. She slid them on and glanced at him, a perfect advertisement for the elegance of Ray-Bans. “Jacob and Diana couldn’t have been having too bad a week if she was doing a little bikini modeling for him.”

  “Maybe.” He paused for a moment, distracted when she suddenly took off the glasses, licked the right lens and polished it high on her blouse without slowing down the car. “But if he didn’t kill her, then why did the police cover for him? And I’m not the only one who smelled a rat. My friends on the force were told not to talk to certain potential witnesses and not to contact the FBI. They said it was like working with one hand tied behind their back.” He looked at his own glasses and noticed a smudge, which he eliminated with his handkerchief. “Why cover up for someone who hasn’t committed a crime?”

  “Hmm …” She pursed her lips and frowned. “Wouldn’t you push even harder on behalf of someone you thought was innocent? I’m just playing devil’s advocate, but maybe the cops thought that he didn’t do it.”

  “Well, if they had exculpatory evidence, then why didn’t they produce it when half the town’s old money at St. James, not to mention the sheriff and the prosecuting attorney, wanted to see the kid exonerated?” He frowned. “His being innocent just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Suspicion was one thing, but learning the details of Diana’s disappearance and proving Jacob’s guilt were quite another. And who was secondarily guilty for covering up the trail? He told Melanie about the reference to Miriam that he had found in Rodgers’s sermon on the persecution of Jacob Granville and wondered aloud whether the parents might have some clue as to what the priest was thinking when he drafted the famous public defense of their son.

  For a while, they were quiet and he watched the countryside roll by. Georgia had been one giant cotton field until the 1910s, when the boll weevil and increasingly bad soil conditions had made the crop unprofitable. The state had been left an ecological disaster, but pine trees and peanuts thrived in the nitrogen-depleted soil and slowly the region greened again. Nonetheless, they drove through no proper hardwood forests in the miles to Vidalia. The stands of oaks and poplars they encountered stood within the borders of small towns, islands surrounded by a sea of hay and pine. Cotton had come and gone, but its mark was still indelibly etched in the central Georgia landscape. If one went far enough north into the southernmost reaches of the Appalachians or down to the Okefenokee Swamp, close to the Florida border, one could imagine the wilderness that General Oglethorpe found with his first group of exiles in 1733. But for the two hundred fifty miles in between, the land had long been tamed, and its charm lay in the farmer casting a line into his fish pond or the secretary taking her lunch break on a park bench in front of the county courthouse.

  Eventually, his attention migrated from the countryside back to the driver of the car, and his gaze lingered too long on the athletic legs working the clutch and accelerator of the six-speed roadster whizzing them through the countryside. She caught him staring and turned with a mischievous glint in her eye. “So,” she asked as they slalomed between a creek and a farmhouse, “when did your wife fly the coop?”

  “Huh? What …?” He panicked but then remembered his allusion to Sondra’s absence in their phone call. “Oh, she’s just visiting her sister.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make assumptions.” She smiled. “Where does her sister live?”

  “Uh … in Clarkeston.”

  She waited for him to elaborate.

  He needed a glib explanation but one was not readily at hand. He was not about to admit to a beautiful woman that he could not always keep his wife happy.

  “If you really want to know,” he hoped his explanation might head off a follow-up question, “I’m leaving her church and she’s a little upset about it.”

  “Which church?”

  “Which church? What does that have to do with it?”

  “No Methodist or Presbyterian would care enough about that to go visit her sister.” Was that a smirk? “She’s gotta be Roman Catholic or Baptist … Pentecostals and Mormons are too sure of themselves to freak out that bad.”

  “Baptist,” he conceded defeat. “It’s the same church she grew up in—she’s pretty pissed.”

  The next moment, she threw him off guard again. “Did she ask why you’re quitting?”

  How the hell could she cut so quickly to the heart of the matter? He looked hard at her for a minute, trying to discern whether any animus lurked beneath her perfectly composed face. She turned her head and dipped it just enough to peer over her sunglasses. She must have learned that trick from the Judge, he thought. The old codger’s eyes were famous for unraveling lawyers who approached the bench.

  “No,” he admitted, “she didn’t.”

  “What a bitch!” He started to protest, but she cut him off. “Hey, I should know,” she said with a wicked grin. “I’m the biggest bitch you’ll ever meet.”

  “She’s not so bad.” He let out a guilty sigh. “Could we change the subject?” The former deacon was a loyal husband. He supported his wife’s career and had never once cheated on her, but this did not make Sondra a warm person. In fact, she often showed more annoyance with him than affection, so his loyalty had become rather existential. Good husbands did not complain about their wives; therefore, he never complained about Sondra, viewing it as his duty to behave properly regardless of her strengths and weaknesses. He still loved her deeply, but he sometimes wished he could disconnect his heart from his head.

  “How far is it to the Granvilles’ house from here?” She shifted gears smoothly as the outskirts of Vidalia approached.

  He pulled out a sheet of paper. “They’re on the edge of town past the country club. Go ahead and take the next right.”

/>   In a few minutes, they entered a wealthy neighborhood of large plantation-style homes with expansive lawns. Every house seemed to have a swimming pool, and luxury SUVs dotted the long circular drives. The Granvilles’ home was slightly more modest than its neighbors, a two-story brick Cape Cod lacking a pool but framed by exquisite landscaping. When the two travelers got out of the car and walked to the house, they saw the flick of a curtain next to the entryway, and the front door opened almost immediately after they knocked.

  Jessica Granville was a cherubic brunet in her mid-fifties, gray touched up a bit too aggressively, sporting a pair of capri pants and short-sleeved knit top. Her husband stood behind her, a tall, lean figure looming protectively over her, casting a penetrating look at James that suggested he knew the reporter considered his son a murderer.

  James introduced himself and when asked about Melanie described her as a “friend from the Justice Department” who had taken an interest in the case. Mrs. Granville replied with an offer of drinks, and a few moments later the four were sitting in a large screened porch at the back of the house. On the pebbled glass top of a wrought-iron table lay a manila envelope covered with pictures of Jacob Granville.

  “We didn’t know what you wanted to see,” Jessica explained as she spread out the pictures with a surprisingly elegant hand. “There’s some nice photos of Jake on the high school football team.” She pointed with pride at her son striking the Heisman pose in front of a pair of white goalposts. “He was too small to play in college, but he started at Clarkeston High.”

  “Darned good wide receiver,” Phillip Granville said. He was standing away from the table, unable to glance at the photos for more than a brief moment.

  “He did some drama, too,” the proud mother added, singling out a picture of Jacob dressed as a cowboy and spinning a girl around on a stage. “It wasn’t the best production of Oklahoma ever, but the singing was pretty good.” She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. “We probably have a CD around here somewhere.”

  “That’s okay,” James jumped in, “the pictures alone are very helpful.”

  He had been uncomfortable hinting that he wanted to help the Granvilles clear their son’s name, but he could not argue with the results of his disingenuousness. Jessica, at least, was ready to talk about her son, and the photographs provided a useful collage of his life, a good starting point for conversation. He pointed at a picture showing an awkward high schooler in a tuxedo posing woodenly with his arm around an equally awkward girl. “Who’s she?”

  “I think that’s Peggy Winthrop.” She squinted and held the print in her hand. “Yup, that’s Peggy. Maybe you know George Winthrop? He runs the Toyota dealership out by the Mall of Clarkeston.”

  Melanie reached out and picked up a picture that had come uncovered at the bottom of the pile. “Is this Jacob with Diana Cavendish?”

  Mrs. Granville’s face darkened, but she confirmed the guess. “Yes, that’s them. Wasting the afternoon at Six Flags, it looks like.”

  Melanie looked at the photo again and made a sound that suggested she, too, disapproved of the girl. James was impressed at how quickly she read the situation.

  “You’ve never seen a picture of her in a floral bathing suit, have you?” she asked.

  “A floral suit?” Mrs. Granville shook her head slowly. “No. I don’t believe so.”

  Melanie shrugged and held up a print where Jacob’s face could be seen in the reflection on the back side of a metal spoon. “This one is really interesting!”

  His mother’s face brightened. “Jake was a journalism major, so he took several photography courses. This was from a series of self-studies that he was required to do.” She pulled aside a picture of an intense and brooding young man staring into the camera. “I think this one was too.” Her son’s green eyes seemed to pop out of an image that was more Hollywood head shot than truly artful. Melanie murmured an exclamation of appreciation, nodding her approval of the sex appeal on display. As Mrs. Granville expounded on her son’s photographic skills, James noticed another picture of Jacob with a very attractive young woman.

  “She looks familiar,” James interrupted. The girl in the print hung adoringly on the young man. The picture was full of vitality, telling a more intimate story than the artsier photos in the pile.

  “That’s Miriam Rodgers, the priest’s girl from St. James.” Her sigh told a tale of opportunity lost. “That’s who Jake should have ended up with. What an utterly lovely girl … I’ll never understand why Jake dumped her for Diana.”

  Mr. Granville walked quickly over and steered his wife onto safer ground. “Now, Diana was a perfectly lovely girl. Why things went off the rails is no one’s business.” Phillip Granville struck James as someone who would do or say anything to protect his son. Was he trying to suggest Diana as a suspect? Or was there something in their relationship that put Jacob in a bad light? The expression on the father’s face did not invite further inquiry into what he labeled “no one’s business.” Time for a new tack.

  “You know,” James gestured at the pictures now spread all over the table, “I would have loved to know all this five years ago. I’m sure that my stories in the Chronicle at the time did not seem very sympathetic.”

  Mr. Granville responded with a snort. “Well, you didn’t ask, did you? Not that it mattered. We weren’t supposed to talk to the press, so Jake’s side of the story never came out.”

  “And what was Jake’s side of the story?”

  “That he’s innocent, of course.” Granville’s look dared anyone to disagree with him.

  James was about to plow ahead, but Melanie cut in and laid a hand gently on the arm of the woman next to her. “You’ve talked a lot about Jacob, stuff that never made its way into the newspaper, but were there also things about the disappearance that you weren’t able to share?”

  Mrs. Granville looked anxiously at her husband, whose mouth opened and then shut soundlessly. James shifted uneasily, but an imperceptible shake of Melanie’s head silenced his impulse to fill the dead air. The eyes of the married couple met, and the husband nodded at his wife.

  “Wait a moment,” she said, before she left the room. There’s something more that I want to show you.”

  James and Melanie directed their attention back to the photos while Granville walked over to the screen door and stood tensely surveying his backyard. After an awkward minute, his wife returned with a sheaf of papers in her hand. She peeled off the first three sheets and handed them to James with an air of solemnity.

  “We got the first email a couple of days after they disappeared.”

  James could feel his partner sidle up next to him. Her shoulder pressed against his and he felt a warm hand on his back. He held the pages out so that she could see more easily. Each piece of paper contained a single email message sent by Jacob Granville. The first was dated March 31, 2009, three days after Diana Cavendish’s apartment was found spattered in blood. Don’t worry. We are fine. A week later, another email from the same address. Finally safe. Will explain all later. Six months after that, a longer message. I know we have a lot to explain. We are okay. Please be patient.

  “That was the last one we got,” Mrs. Granville said. “I check my email every day, but there’s never anything more.”

  James looked over and saw Melanie looking at him, her eyes alive and full of interest. She took the sheets from his hand and looked at them briefly once more before posing a question. “Who have you shown these to?”

  The woman smiled with relief. She seemed grateful that someone was taking her troubles so seriously. “Well, we went straight to the police, of course, but they told us not to mention them to anyone else. You and Mr. Murphy are the first to see them since then.”

  James heard Mr. Granville clear his throat behind them. “That’s not quite true, is it, Jessie?” He stepped up next to his wife and wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulder. “We showed them to a private investigator, but he had no luck tracking down the ema
il address, except to say that it came from somewhere in Mexico.”

  Melanie pointed at the top of the first page. “Was this your son’s regular email address?”

  “No,” the father replied, “but the investigator said that if Jake was running from something, he might have felt safer opening up a new Gmail account that no one knew about.”

  James studied the elder Granville. Did he really believe his son was innocent? He looked like an unassuming country gentleman, but he had been an aggressive and effective criminal prosecutor in Clarkeston at the time that his son was investigated. And the sheriff would have kept no secrets from such a close friend and colleague.

  “Mr. Granville—” the journalist started a question and then interrupted himself. “Can I call you Phil?” The older man assented with a curt nod. “Phil, you worked for the city when all this was going on. Were you happy with the way the police conducted the investigation?”

  The attorney shrugged in response. “The sheriff took me aside at the beginning and asked me to stay out of it. He said he’d give me a call when they had a suspect in custody and there was a case to be brought. Until then, he said, it would be best for me to stay away from the investigation.”

  For an attorney, he was a terrible liar. “Surely you must have been curious?”

  “Of course, I was, but the police were treating Jake as a suspect.” He shook his head in irritation. “We were passing on information, but it was a one-way street.”

  Mrs. Granville then handed over the remaining papers to James. “We also found these in Jake’s room after he disappeared.”

  James and Melanie looked at the documents. The first two pages were printouts of YouTube pages, each showing the face of a distressed individual. One was labeled “Hopeless in Africa,” and the other, “Hell Just Across the Border.” The uploader was identified as j-gville. Each of the following dozen pages was topped by the name and picture of a US senator or representative from the state of Arkansas above a summary of campaign contributions, voting records, committee assignments, and tax disclosures.