The Last Trial (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers Book 3)

by Robert Bailey

  Bo nodded.

  “The articles online don’t sound too good for her. Convicted prostitute whose husband died driving trucks for Willistone.” He grunted.

  “The Professor believes she was framed for the crime,” Bo said. “And he visited with an old employee of Bully’s yesterday, who said that Bully could have pulled something like that off without a hitch. Easy as pie.”

  “Who was the former employee?”

  “JimBone Wheeler. That name ring a bell?”

  Rel’s eye’s widened, the fear unmistakable. “Loud and clear. Never met the man, thank Jesus, but I know he’s from this area. He’s not exactly Walker County’s favorite son. On death row, right?”

  “That’s where the Professor interviewed him.”

  “Damn,” Rel said, letting out a low whistle. “Going to be tough to get that kind of information on Bully. You’re asking for a lot.”

  “I know,” Bo said. “But I figure if anyone can find out, it would be you.”

  “What’s in it for old Rel?” He smiled sheepishly.

  “You owe me, dog. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have driven up here. You would have walked. Not many jobs you can work these days without being able to drive.”

  “I know, Bo, but digging up information on Bully Calhoun is a dangerous game. He’s been mostly legit since getting out of the joint back in the ’90s, but still. He owns too many businesses in town. We talking laundromats. A storage facility. Two restaurants. A bar. Lumber company. You name it in Jasper, Alabama, it’s got Bully Calhoun’s fingerprints on it. He also owns at least a thousand acres of land on the edge of the Sipsey Wilderness, and you know who the newly elected sheriff of Walker County’s biggest campaign contributor was.”

  “Bully.”

  “You got it. Bocephus, I seen this man go to the farmers market on Airport Road, and the ladies selling tomatoes and peaches is handing him free sacks of produce like he’s Don Corleone in Brooklyn.”

  Bo leaned back in his seat and eyed his old friend. “Is what I’ve asked you to find impossible?”

  Rel shot a quick glance around the restaurant before looking at Bo. “No.”

  “How?”

  Rel moved closer and kept his voice just above a whisper. “I got a contact on the inside.”

  Bo folded his hands into a tent. “And this contact would know what I’ve asked.”

  Rel bobbed his head. “He would, but Bo, I don’t owe you this much. You’re my friend and I want to help you because you’ve gotten me out of several jams. But if I’m going to cross Bully Calhoun, I have to get paid.”

  Bo rubbed his own chin. Tom hadn’t given him any kind of budget to work with, and he worried that the Professor was handling the case pro bono. But Bo had spent two decades trying personal injury cases in Tennessee and had built up quite a war chest of his own. All roads lead to Jasper, he thought again. If we can’t find out what Bully Calhoun was doing during the time of the murder, then we are sunk.

  “How much?” Bo asked.

  Rel blinked and rubbed his hands together, an obvious tell that he hadn’t given the question much thought. “Ten thousand dollars,” he finally said.

  Bo smirked and said nothing.

  “Times are tight, brother, and you’ve asked for the moon,” Rel pressed.

  “Five,” Bo countered.

  Rel didn’t answer and abruptly stood from the table. “Been nice seeing you, Bo. I’ve got to run now. This information obviously doesn’t mean much to you.”

  Bo let Rel go, placed a five-dollar bill on the table, and followed him out the door. As Rel began to unlock his vehicle, a black Cadillac Escalade, Bo finally caught up to him. “Times don’t look that tight,” Bo said, stepping into the crack that the open door had made and blocking Rel’s entry.

  “Boy, I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve got, and I’m putting my little girl through Alabama right now. I’m the manager of the McDonald’s in Walker County. You want to guess who owns the franchise?”

  “Bully Calhoun,” Bo said.

  “One of his various LLCs.” Rel’s shoulders sagged. Before he could say more, Bo put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “Relax, dog. I’ll pay ten.”

  Rel grimaced, his face immediately registering that he should have asked for more. He gazed down and cursed under his breath.

  “Your contact?” Bo asked, his voice soft. “Do you think he would help us?”

  “I know he would,” Rel said, glaring at Bo.

  “How so? Me and you been friends for thirty years and you wouldn’t help me without being promised ten thousand dollars, and I can already tell you think you’ll regret it.”

  “I’m afraid I will,” Rel said more to himself than Bo.

  Bo let several seconds pass. Then he pressed further, feeling the same sense of dread that he’d first noticed when he saw the Walker County Line sign. “How can you be so sure of your contact?”

  “Because he’s my brother.”

  Bo laughed. “Everyone’s your brother, Rel. I’m your brother.”

  Rel’s smile was tight and the fear in his eyes was palpable. “It’s not like that, Bo. I’m taking about blood.” He paused. “I’m talking about my little brother.”

  Bo felt his heart rate quicken as an image came to mind. He and Rel playing basketball at the rec center at the University of Alabama in what must have been 1978, and a younger boy—maybe five years their junior—tagging along. He had been shorter but had a pure outside jump shot. “Alvie?” Bo asked, surprised that the name had come to him.

  Rel hung his head. “I should have asked for more money.”

  23

  Marcellus “Bully” Calhoun was not what Powell or Wade had been expecting. Stories abounded regarding the alleged mobster’s tendency to dress in powder-blue leisure suits with long slicked-back silver hair and thick eyebrows that he curled up on the ends. But the man sitting across from Powell and Wade in the nineteenth hole of the Jasper Country Club looked like any other old man who liked to play golf and bet a little money on the outcome on Wednesday afternoons. Bully was clad in a white Under Armour golf shirt, khaki shorts, and a pair of golf shoes. A black Titleist cap with a gold magnetized ball marker on the bill was propped on the corner of his chair, and his sweat-soaked silver hair was cut short on the sides. The only thing odd about this scene, other than Wade and Powell being there, was the presence of a uniformed officer sitting next to Bully at the corner table.

  Sheriff DeWayne Patterson was a wiry man with steel-blue eyes that shined just under his police hat, which he had yet to remove since meeting Powell and Wade outside the clubhouse and ushering them to the nineteenth hole lounge. Sheriff Patterson had arranged the meeting, and instead of holding it at his office, he said that Mr. Calhoun suggested they meet at the club for a late lunch. At 1:30 p.m., the once-crowded dining area had cleaned out as most of the patrons had either gone back to work or were out on the course for an afternoon round.

  Bully took a sip from a mug of beer and squelched a burp. Wrinkling up his face, he glanced at Wade and then Powell. “Heard what you boys done in Pulaski.” He shook his head. “You both got brass balls, I’ll give you that.” His voice was a husky baritone that had no doubt been enhanced by a combination of whiskey and tobacco over the years.

  “I believe you were acquaintances with Mr. Wheeler.” Wade smiled. It wasn’t a question.

  Bully nodded. “A man makes a lot of choices if he lives long enough. Some good. Others bad.” He grimaced. “Bone was one of my bad ones.”

  “How do you mean?” Powell asked, his voice loud enough to cause Sheriff Patterson to slightly jump back from the table. Bully didn’t budge, and his mouth curved into a grin.

  “That boy is where he belongs thanks to you two. Now . . .” He slapped both hands on the table. “My time is short. The big team tees off at two and I’d like to hit a few balls on the range before we play. You didn’t come here to ask me about JimBone Wheeler, did you?”
>
  “No, sir,” Wade said, glancing at Powell. “We’re investigating the murder of Jack Willistone, your son-in-law, and we wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  Again Bully grimaced. “What do you want to know?”

  “You picked him up at the Springville prison on the morning of May 7?”

  “I did.” Bully leaned back in his chair, his shoulders relaxed and his arms hanging by his side, the posture of a man who had nothing to hide.

  “Why you?” Wade asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean why did you pick him up and not your daughter, Kathryn?”

  Bully narrowed his gaze. “I didn’t want Kat within thirty miles of that place and neither did Jack. I volunteered to pick him up, and she was fine with it.”

  “Mr. Calhoun,” Powell waded in, removing a slip of paper from the briefcase at his feet, “we have the visitor’s log for Mr. Willistone’s incarceration at the St. Clair Correctional Facility. For the first sixteen months, you didn’t visit him at all.” Powell paused, gauging Bully’s response, but the man’s face registered nothing. “Then in the last two months”—Powell made a show of counting the columns—“you came five times.” Powell stopped, but Bully’s expression remained neutral. “Can you explain that?”

  “I knew Jack was getting out after eighteen months, and I wanted to know what his plans were. My little girl had stood by her man while he was behind bars, and I wanted to make sure that Jack was going to be able to provide for her when he got out.”

  “Why no visits prior to this March?” Wade chimed in.

  “Because there was nothing to be accomplished, and I wasn’t going to give him a conjugal visit.”

  “Speaking of that, why didn’t your daughter ever visit the prison?” Powell asked, ratcheting up the intensity in his voice.

  “You’ll need to ask her that,” Bully snapped.

  “You visited him twice in March, twice more in April, and once in May, not counting May 7, when you picked him up.” Wade recounted the times, gazing down at the log. “What did you learn from your visits?”

  Bully shrugged. “Jack was determined to get back into trucking. He told me he still had contacts in the business and that he was going to try to rebuild his company.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  Bully chuckled. “You boys were around Jack a good bit, weren’t you?”

  “I arrested him in Henshaw and then prosecuted him for witness tampering and blackmail,” Powell said. “I also interviewed him last year in connection with the murder of Andy Walton in Pulaski.”

  Bully drained the rest of his beer. “Then you know how he was.” He stared wistfully at the empty glass. “I’ve never met a more cocksure man in my life. Jack didn’t just want to make a living again. He wanted all the way back. He told me he could have a hundred trucks rolling in two years.” Bully snorted. “I was like Jack once. Used to dress flashy and talk big like he did.” He jiggled the handle of the empty beer mug. A few seconds later, a barmaid placed a full mug on the table and took away the empty one. Bully took a long sip and wiped his mouth. “Prison changed me. When I got out, I gave up the fancy clothes and the big talk. I stopped making myself a target.” He jerked his head. “Incarceration didn’t have the same effect on Jack.”

  Wade glanced at Powell and they shared a look. “Mr. Calhoun, I appreciate that, but it doesn’t really answer my question.” Powell moved his eyes back to Bully. “Did you believe that your son-in-law would be able to provide for your daughter?”

  “Provide for her? Yes. Have a hundred trucks rolling in two years? I think he was in for a rude awakening about that.”

  “Did Jack ask for your help during any of your visits?” Wade asked.

  Bully rubbed his chin and suppressed a grin. “Oh hell yeah. Jack was not shy about asking for money. I was going to give him some too. Not enough to bankroll his operation, but some to get him started.” He took another sip of beer. “Never got the chance, though.”

  Powell again glanced at Wade. So far the interview had gleaned nothing, which was a relief in some ways. Still, as Powell began to take the interview in a different direction, he was wary of the man sitting across from him. If anything, the lack of flash made Bully Calhoun seem even more dangerous. “Mr. Calhoun, tell us everything you did after picking up Jack at prison.”

  Bully looked up at the ceiling of the lounge, appearing to think out loud. “Well, we picked him up around nine or so that Monday.”

  “We?” Wade asked. “Did you have someone with you?”

  “Yes. My driver. I don’t do any driving anymore except around town. Back gets too stiff and my eyes ain’t what they used to be.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “Gray four-door Crown Victoria.”

  Powell was expecting him to say a limousine, but then he remembered what Bully had said about not making himself a target. “Then what?”

  “We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Bessemer on the way to Tuscaloosa so Jack could get a meat and three. Arrived in T-Town around one.”

  “Did you stick around?”

  “Just long enough to give my baby girl a kiss. Was home that afternoon.”

  “Did you see Jack again?” Powell asked.

  “No. I got a call from Kat on Wednesday morning that Jack had been killed.”

  “Did you go back to Tuscaloosa any between May 7 and May 8?”

  Bully shook his head. “Only to drop Jack off. That was it.”

  “And what about the night of Tuesday, May 8? What were you doing that night between ten o’clock and midnight?”

  Bully drank from his mug. “Well, I played big team that afternoon until four o’clock. Then because the bets were all screwed up, we played an emergency nine, and that finished up around six thirty. Then there was the poker game in the back room here till around eight thirty or so . . .” He motioned with his hand at the young waitress cleaning mugs behind the bar. Powell turned to look at her. She had brown hair done up in a ponytail and had caked on a little too much eye shadow. “About nine o’clock, Layla there drove me home and”—he made a show of looking at his watch, which Powell noticed was a plastic Casio—“at approximately ten o’clock that evening, I believe I was putting Mr. Johnson inside of Ms. Layla. After those ninety seconds were up, we watched old Cheers reruns on the tube before falling asleep.”

  “So, you were with . . . Ms. Layla from 10:00 p.m. until midnight on May 8?”

  “Literally and biblically.” He finished off the rest of his beer and stood up. “Are we finished, gentlemen? I need to warm up if I’m going to play big team.”

  Powell and Wade also stood, but Sheriff Patterson remained seated. “Mr. Calhoun, how many businesses do you own in Walker County?” Powell asked, knowing he had no authority to hold the man any longer than he desired to stay, but not half-finished with the questions he’d wanted to ask.

  “Too many to list, boy.”

  “Are you aware of any of your employees being in Tuscaloosa on the night of May 8?” Wade asked.

  “No, I am not,” Bully said. “But hell, that don’t mean none of them weren’t there. I’ve got hundreds of employees, and some of them probably have relatives in that area.” He turned to go.

  “Mr. Calhoun?” Powell stepped in front of him to block his path. “We believe that the woman we’ve arrested, Wilma Newton . . . killed Jack Willistone on the night of May 8. We have arrested Ms. Newton and charged her with murder.”

  “Congratulations,” Bully said, scowling at Powell, his face flushed red with irritation. “Now get out of my way.”

  “Ms. Newton’s lawyers are sure to try to investigate you given your . . . history.”

  “So what? They’ll hear the same thing I just told you. At the time my son-in-law, God rest his soul, was murdered, I was at my house near the Sipsey Wilderness with that fine piece of tail by the bar.”

  “And the people who work for you?”

  “I had provided no instruction
s to any of my employees to go anywhere near Jack Willistone.”

  “That will be your testimony.”

  “That’s a fact.” Bully brushed past Powell and made his way for the door.

  “Mr. Calhoun?”

  Bully stopped with his hand wrapped around the doorknob. He glared back at Powell. “What?”

  “What’s the name of your driver? The guy that drove you and Jack from the prison to Tuscaloosa?”

  Bully sighed. “I have a security detail that does that. It could have been any number of people.”

  Powell approached Bully. “Think, Mr. Calhoun. Whoever it was is likely to be interviewed by the defense. We’d like to talk to him first.”

  Bully rubbed his chin. “You really think they’ll be fool enough to go after me for this?”

  Powell took a step closer. He could smell the scent of beer and grease on the man’s clothes. “You’re a convicted felon, and though all of your businesses appear to be legitimate now, you were once considered to be one of the biggest figures in organized crime in the Southeast. Not only that, but your daughter indicated that she was the sole beneficiary of a three-million-dollar life insurance policy on Jack’s life.” Powell paused. “If I were them, I’d go after you with both barrels.”

  Sheriff Patterson grabbed Powell’s arm and spoke in a whisper. “Listen, son, if you want to talk with Bully anymore, we’ll set up another meeting. But let him go now. He’s told you enough today.”

  Powell ignored the sheriff and kept his eyes on Bully, who had stayed glued to his position. Then his mouth curved into a grin. “I hope they do, boy. Because I’m as clean as Ms. Layla’s shaved honeypot, you hear?”

  Bully swung the door open, and Wade’s voice rang out from behind Powell. “Mr. Calhoun, can we get the name and contact information for your driver on May 7?”

  Bully stopped in the opening. “C&G Security. They’ve got an office on Highway 78. That’s my detail and they’ll know.”

  “You really can’t remember the name of your driver that day?” Powell asked. “Awful long trip . . .”