Corruption of Justice

by Brenda English

  “That’s right. Someone shot him in a park in Virginia. He was being investigated for illegal use of money at the foundation he ran, and I’m trying to find out as much as I can about his years in Tallahassee. I know that he went to Washington about a year before your son’s death and before the problems at Three Rivers came out. But I can’t help but think Coleman might have played some sort of role in those problems.”

  Again, Gladys Williams waited for several seconds before replying.

  “What was your name again?” she asked.

  “Sutton McPhee.”

  “All right,” she said when she finally spoke again. “You can come talk to me if you like. I live at the Spring Hill Retirement Center now, but I have my own apartment, and we can talk privately. How is two o’clock? We’re all finished with lunch by then.”

  “Two o’clock is fine,” I said. It meant I could make an unhurried trip to Panama City, some 120 miles away, and find some lunch for myself before meeting with her.

  Mrs. Williams gave me the address of the retirement center but no directions.

  “I’m not good with directions anymore since I no longer drive,” she explained, when I asked for them. “But pick up a Panama City map as soon as you get to the area, and you’ll find it without too much trouble.”

  I thanked her genuinely for agreeing to see me. Even after this many years, her son’s suicide and the scandal surrounding it still had to be painful subjects for her. And I had no way of knowing what her health was like these days or what kind of strain talking about her son’s death might place on it.

  We hung up and, with my plans for the next day now made, I went into the bathroom to wash away what was left of the day’s makeup and brush my teeth. When I walked back into the bedroom, I glanced at the TV set that I had yet to turn on and considered the possibility that I should watch CNN long enough to catch up on the news of the day. But a look at the bed pushed the idea from my mind. It had been a very long last two days, and I just wanted to crawl under the covers and get a decent night’s sleep.

  Once I was there, however, I realized how much tension I still carried in every limb and muscle of my body. I called on what I had learned in more than seven years of yoga classes, taking in and letting out several cleansing breaths, then consciously relaxing the tension, one set of muscles at a time, from my feet and toes, up to my scalp. At about the level of my shoulders, my chronic nuisance decided to put in an appearance.

  So, are you gonna call Jack while you’re here?

  Not that again, I thought. I hadn’t spoken to Jack in almost six years, not since the brief but unpleasant afternoon in the Leon County Courthouse when our marriage of two years officially was dissolved on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. Irreconcilable because Jack had announced, six months into the marriage, that he wanted me to quit my job, the only job I had ever wanted to do.

  We had argued about it for a year. Then Jack had told me, in one of our final shouting matches, that he always had hated what I did for a living, but that he had tolerated it while we were only dating because then it had had little effect on his life and because he had thought he could convince me to change jobs once we were married. I had remained unconvinced. Instead, I had accused him of hypocrisy and deceit in not telling me how he felt before the wedding. At that point in the breakdown of our marriage, all gloves had been off, and we both had said more than a few ugly, hurtful things to each other, things for which neither of us had ever apologized. And that state of affairs had left me with a nagging conscience at the way I had let things end and remain all this time, at my lack of any effort toward some sort of civil closure. But was I ready yet to try to make any sort of amends? And had I let far too much time go by already? And why did I care whether Jack and I had parted civilly or otherwise? He had been incredibly dishonest with me from the beginning. Did I really owe him even civility?

  That part of my life is dead and gone, I told my voice.

  Yeah, that’s why you’re so happy about the idea of getting involved with Lansing. Because Jack is such a faded memory.

  I don’t know, I thought back as I dropped off into the sleep I had sought. I just don’t know.

  Thursday

  Thirteen

  Fortified by an uncharacteristically sizable breakfast of waffles and bacon, I took my time on the trip over to Panama City from Tallahassee, driving along I-10 at the speed limit. It was pleasant to once again drive through the gently rolling hills of northern Florida, hills that mark the southern end of the fall line that runs across Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, separating the piedmont from the hills. A sort of last hurrah, if you will, of the Appalachian mountain chain. It’s a topography that is very different from the flat, sun-seared landscape in the southern half of the state. I realized, too, how much I missed the spreading-limbed live oak trees that are so-called because they are green all year, even though they are deciduous. As the miles rolled across my odometer, I also registered the familiar Florida Panhandle names that drifted past me on large, green interstate highway signs: Quincy, Gretna, Chattahoochee, Marianna. Small towns, but each with a considerable store of history that went back, in many cases, to well before the recent unpleasantness between the states. I had been to them all more than once in my time in Florida.

  West of Marianna, I turned south on U.S. 231 to Panama City, stopping at a gas station and convenience store combination several miles outside of town to get a soda and a Panama City map. The store was completely out of those particular maps, of course. Frustrated, I decided to go on into Panama City, figuring I could always call Spring Hill for directions and that I might as well get at least a glimpse of the beach and have a light lunch while I was there, before my two o’clock meeting.

  The beach thing turned out to be a mistake. Rather than relaxing me, all my walk along the white sands of the Saint Andrews Recreation Area did was to bring back memories of more than one trip there with Jack.

  God, I thought, as I stood barefooted at the edge of the glitteringly clear green water, letting the gentle wash of low tide slop over my feet, is he going to haunt me for the rest of my life? He’s ancient history. Why can’t I get my mind off him?

  Maybe because of what’s going on with Lansing? I’d say Lansing’s got you good and scared.

  I could have argued the point, I suppose, but what if the little bastard was right? Was I afraid of what was happening with Noah Lansing because of what had happened with Jack? If we got seriously involved, would Lansing turn into someone else and demand I quit my job because of the conflicts it created for both of us? I knew that the answer to any such demands from him or from any other man would be the same answer I had given Jack. But did I really want to go through all that again?

  “Damn it,” I said aloud, to no one in general. I aimed a kick at a wave that was a little higher than the previous ones. It collapsed and sprayed me with droplets of salt water, which I hoped wouldn’t leave too many noticeable spots on the jungle-flowered summer dress I had put on that morning. Disgusted with myself, I made the long walk back to the parking lot, where I used tissues from my bag to brush the sand off my feet and legs, and then put my sandals back on.

  Maybe, I thought, some fresh seafood would get my mind off places I really didn’t want to visit right now. With plenty of time still to kill, I drove back over to U.S. 98 West and found my way to the Saltwater Grill, a local seafood house that was regularly written up in papers around the country and whose owner and chef, Billy Redd, found time from cooking his award-winning cuisine to indulge a hobby in ice carving. Half an hour later, I was indulging myself in a serving of Sesame Crusted Yellowfin Tuna and rice pilaf, having already downed a salad.

  What was that about a light lunch?

  I was taught never to speak with my mouth full, I thought back, savoring the honey and cream sauce that topped the tuna filet. Maybe you should learn some manners, too.

  What? And spoil all my fun?

  Several swallows of iced tea
drowned the voice out for the moment, and within another half hour, I was back in the car and calling the Spring Hill Retirement Center to get directions. Following the receptionist’s instructions, I drove back through town and out the north side, on U.S. 231 again, turning west just outside the city limits. The directions then took me down quieter and quieter streets until Spring Hill Center Drive deposited me in front of the retirement center.

  The sign at the gated entrance said the Spring Hill Retirement Center had opened only the previous year. Its rambling brick wings had been set down, obviously with some thought to atmosphere, in the middle of several acres of live oaks. The developer and builder clearly had gone to great pains to preserve as many of the trees as possible and to quickly hide any signs of recent construction, and the results gave the center the lush, shaded appearance of longevity and stability, rather than the scraped-earth, raw-wound look of most new construction.

  I parked the car in a space marked Visitors Only and followed the sidewalk up to a long, dark blue canopy, which jutted out from the building’s glassed, double front doors and reached the sidewalk’s edge at a small circular drive intended for picking up and dropping off residents. On the other side of the doors, I stepped into the cool, dry, interior air and went up to the oak reception desk that dominated the left side of the large living-room-furnished lobby.

  “My name is Sutton McPhee,” I said to the young woman who sat at the desk, a telephone console at her right hand, next to a name plate that read Peggy Banks. “I’m here to see Mrs. Gladys Williams.”

  Peggy Banks smiled up at me with dark brown eyes, several shades darker than her skin.

  “I’ll let her know you’re here,” she said, reaching down to press several telephone buttons. Within seconds, someone answered on the other end.

  “Mrs. Williams, this is Peggy,” she said into the receiver. “You have a visitor. A Ms. McPhee?”

  Peggy listened for a few seconds more and then said, “I’ll send her back,” before hanging up the phone and looking back up at me.

  “Just follow this hall behind me,” she said, gesturing and looking over her right shoulder. “At the end, turn right, and it will be three doors down on your left. It’s apartment A-6.”

  I thanked her and walked around her desk to take the hallway she indicated. As my feet sank into the well-cushioned gunmetal blue carpeting and I passed several pieces of pleasant watercolor art on the walls, I could see that, whatever had happened to Three Rivers Development, either Arthur Williams or someone in the family still had provided well for his mother.

  At apartment A-6, I raised my hand to knock on the door, but it opened before I could make contact. In front of me stood a short, elegantly dressed, elderly woman, her vibrant blue eyes contrasting pleasingly with her snow white hair and beige linen dress and contradicting the deterioration of her stooped and aging body.

  “Come in,” she said, holding the door all the way open to make room for me to enter, then closing it behind me when I did.

  “I’m Sutton McPhee, Mrs. Williams. Thank you for seeing me.” I held out my hand, and she took it, her grasp light and tentative, whether from age or etiquette lessons learned in a time when women didn’t shake hands, I couldn’t tell.

  “Please come sit down,” Mrs. Williams said, and she began to make her way slowly to where a tightly upholstered, cream-colored love seat and two oak rocking chairs faced each other in front of French doors that opened onto a small concrete patio. Through the doors, I could see the other wings of the building, jutting out around a spacious green lawn. There were a variety of benches and chairs scattered around the lawn, with a white gazebo in the center as a focal point. Several of the other residents were outside, a couple by themselves, a man with a woman who probably was his daughter, and a several more who had pulled their chairs together into a group where they were talking, gesturing, and laughing.

  At the love seat, I stood and waited for Mrs. Williams to finish making her own way over. When she stopped in front of the first rocker, which was turned at an angle to look out the French doors, I stepped over to hold it steady while she lowered herself into it.

  “Thank you,” she said, and I told her she was welcome as I finally sat down on the love seat.

  “I appreciate your agreeing to see me,” I said. “Even though it’s been a long time since your son’s death, I don’t imagine that it’s an easy subject to discuss.”

  Mrs. Williams studied me silently for a moment, her blue eyes dissecting and analyzing the person in front of her. I suspected that, even at her age, she didn’t miss much where other people were concerned.

  “The most painful part was having to live with what my son had become,” she said bitterly. “No matter how much I would like to make excuses for him, I can’t change the things he did before he died. And he ruined the lives of a number of other people besides himself—as well as his own and mine.” It was a pretty damning indictment from someone’s mother, I thought, listening to the anger still evident in her voice.

  “But he provided somehow for you?” I asked, looking around me. Spring Hill clearly wasn’t geared to the Medicare crowd. It was costing someone a pretty penny for Gladys Williams to live out her last years here.

  “No, dear, that was my father’s doing,” she said, her voice becoming softer again. “Papa was a very successful pharmacist here in Panama City, and when he died, he left money in a trust for me, thank heavens. Arthur went through everything that Marshall, his own father, left both of us. After Arthur killed himself and the company fell apart, I had to move out of my house in Tallahassee, of course. Arthur, you see, had mortgaged my house to the hilt without my knowledge, had forged my signature to the papers. So I came back here to Panama City, where I still had many friends.”

  No wonder she was still bitter, I thought.

  “How well did you know Robert Coleman?” I asked, getting to the reason I was here.

  “Not well,” she answered, and I’m sure my face fell. Had I driven all the way over here for nothing? I wondered.

  She wasn’t done, however.

  “But I knew enough to know that he was just as responsible as Arthur was for what happened with the company,” she said, and my suspicious nature took heart again.

  “In what way?” I asked. “I know that Coleman left town a year before your son’s death, and that he supposedly cut all his connections with the company.”

  “I don’t know exactly when it was,” Mrs. Williams said, “but some time not long before Robert left Tallahassee, Arthur came to me. He was very worried, and since he never married, I suppose I was the only person he could unburden himself to safely.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He told me that there were some big financial problems with the company, that he and Robert had been spending money they didn’t have to keep all their projects going, and that some of the things they had done weren’t legal. He said that someone in the state attorney’s office had been investigating Robert and that Arthur was afraid they were going to come after him and the whole company next.”

  “Did he tell you what kind of things they had been doing?”

  “No, I’m sure he thought it was too complicated for me to understand. And I didn’t ask.”

  Mrs. Williams paused, clearly somewhat short of breath. I sat silently, waiting for her to gather her energies again.

  “I was very worried about him because I didn’t want to see my only child ruined and in prison, no matter what he had done. But a few weeks later, he came back and told me to forget about our conversation, that there no longer was anything to worry about.”

  “But what about the investigation?” I asked.

  “That was my first question to him. He said Robert had taken care of the problem and that they could stop worrying about it. Not long after that, Robert left town, and I hoped and prayed that everything would be all right with him gone. I was still looking for a way to excuse whatever Arthur might have done, hoping tha
t it was mostly Robert and that the problems had left with him. But I was wrong.”

  “After your son died, the investigators went through the company pretty thoroughly, but they never connected anything to Coleman. Did you tell anyone what your son had said to you?”

  “No,” she said, “and now I’m ashamed that I didn’t. But I didn’t know anything specific, and Arthur made me promise, when he thought everything was all right again, that I would never breathe a word of it to anyone. He said I could be held responsible for knowing even what little he had told me, so even after he killed himself, I kept quiet. I couldn’t change what had happened, couldn’t help any of the people he harmed. All I could do was to try to keep his memory from being any more tarnished than it already was.”

  “Who was handling the original investigation of Coleman that your son told you about?” It was clear that Coleman had pulled a major rabbit out of his hat if he had managed to stall an investigation by the state attorney’s office. I wanted to know what kind of rabbit it had been.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Williams answered. “I just don’t remember if Arthur ever said. I was thinking back on it this morning, and I know that it was during the time that Ford Truesdale was the state attorney for that area. But I don’t know if Ford handled it personally or whether it was someone else in the office.”

  “Well then, I’ll ask Truesdale.” Surely, I thought, he would remember who was looking into Coleman’s activities at Three Rivers and why the investigation had been halted.

  “Oh no, dear,” Mrs. Williams said sadly. “Ford Truesdale is dead. I believe he died only a few weeks before Arthur killed himself. Of a stroke.”

  Damn it, I thought, was I just going to keep running into nothing but corpses on this story? Although realistically, I supposed I had to expect that people who had been middle-aged at the time might be dead or dying twenty years later. Still, it was incredibly frustrating to see one line of inquiry after another irrevocably closed to me.