Skin Privilege

by Karin Slaughter

  'I'm okay,' she kept telling him, long after he figured out the words were more for her own benefit than his. Even when he drove her back to Grant County, she kept telling him that she was fine. It wasn't until last night that she'd finally broken down. He'd told her he was returning to Reece to help Nick Shelton interrogate Fred Bart. She hadn't told him not to go, but this morning, he'd felt like a criminal as he sneaked out of the house before she woke up.

  Jeffrey pulled up in front of the Elawah County jail, vowing that this really would be the last time he laid eyes on the place. There was a HAZMAI truck parked in the lot, a couple of government types milling around and drinking coffee. After the explosion at Hank's house, they had evacuated his neighborhood within half a square mile so they could clean up the toxic waste. The only things left of the sheriff were bits of DNA they'd found in the yard and the man's severed hand.

  Jake Valentine. Jeffrey felt sick every time he thought about the man. Now that Valentine was dead, they'd found out all sorts of interesting things about him. His modest house in town was obviously his idea of slumming. He owned a large cabin at the lake with two powerboats docked outside. His arrest jacket was pretty clean, but his brother's was another matter. David Valentine had been stabbed to death in a knife fight with a rival skinhead gang, but judging from his rap sheet, he'd been pretty high up in the Brotherhood. Arson, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder.

  Valentine must have learned from his brother's mistakes; he'd kept a low profile. Except for a misdemeanor arrest for public drunkeness back in college, there was nothing on Jake Valentine's record that would tell you he was a skinhead drug trafficker running millions of dollars worth of meth. The missing piece of the puzzle was Myra, his wife. Myra Valentine, nee Fitzpatrick, was the baby sister of Jerry and Carl Fitzpatrick, the leaders of the Brotherhood of the True White Race. Their parents had moved to Elawah after their hometown in New Hampshire had made it clear that they didn't want the family of a cop killer living in their midst. Myra had liked it in Reece well enough to stay. Jake Valentine had married into a powerful family, and like most powerful families, they had found a way to employ their shiftless brother-in-law.

  Nick had sent out a request to the Brotherhood's New Hampshire compound, asking to interview Myra. The compound had not replied.

  Jeffrey had never entirely trusted Jake Valentine, but he'd been so damn hot on putting Ethan in the middle of everything that he'd let Sara and Lena go off alone with the man. Jeffrey didn't know whether to feel angry or ashamed at his own blindness. He remembered Grover Gibson's words that day Jeffrey and Valentine had gone to the man's shack in the woods to tell him that his son was dead.

  'You did this to him!' Grover had screamed, fists flying as he jumped the sheriff. 'You killed him!'

  Valentine had set it up so well, warning Jeffrey ahead of time that Grover blamed him for his dead son's drug dependency. Jeffrey had actually helped defend the sheriff.

  He couldn't dwell on that now, because it only made him furious. Fred Bart had to be his focus now. The slimy dentist was the only one left to punish, and he seemed intent on fighting it every step of the way. He'd been in his office filling a cavity when Don Cook finally got around to looking for him. Bart insisted it was sheer coincidence that the patient in his chair also happened to be his lawyer. Nick was sure that Jeffrey could help him break the man. Jeffrey didn't share the state agent's optimism. Elawah County was built on secrets that went back decades. The town thrived on looking the other way. Jeffrey doubted very seriously anyone was about to change that, especially Fred Bart.

  The jail lobby was even more claustrophobic than Jeffrey remembered. Don Cook was probably in the sheriff's office upstairs, measuring for new furniture. Nick was seated at the man's desk, thumbing through one of the deputy's hunting magazines. He glanced up when he saw Jeffrey. 'You look like hell, man.'

  'Sara's not too happy about me being here.'

  'She'll get over it,' Nick said, but Jeffrey wasn't too sure. 'I'm real tore up about Bob Burg, man. They picked him up last night.'

  Jeffrey felt the same way. He'd assumed Burg was one of the good guys, but the GBI agent had apparently been taking money for years. 'Is he saying anything?'

  'Not a peep,' Nick answered. 'Bob's not stupid. He knows he's not going to see daylight for a while, and he's not about to rat out a damn skinhead.'

  'You didn't find anything about Hank contacting him?'

  'Bob didn't write down jack, man. Even if he did, we'd need him to testify, and there's no way he'll flip. Those Nazi fuckwads are everywhere. Bob's gonna be sleeping with one eye open for the rest of his life.'

  Jeffrey guessed that was some kind of payback.

  'How's Lena doing?'

  'Fine,' he answered, glad to be talking about something else. 'She's gonna need therapy for her lungs, but she should be ready to go back home by the middle of next week.' He added, 'They moved her to the same hospital as Hank last night.'

  'How's he doing?'

  'Better. Still not out of the woods yet. What about Bart – he doing any talking yet?'

  'Shit,' Nick mumbled, standing from the desk. 'He's doing nothin' but talking. That jackass thinks he can squirm his way out of anything. Claims Lena must've been high from the chemicals, that she's remembering it all wrong. His lawyer says Bart will tell us everything he knows about Valentine if the charges are reduced to reckless endangerment.'

  Jeffrey laughed for the first time in days. 'He really thinks he's gonna walk away from this?'

  'His lawyer indicated he'd be open to probation with time served.'

  Jeffrey laughed again. He was suddenly looking forward to seeing Fred Bart.

  Nick turned serious. 'I want your read on the lawyer. Something's going on there.'

  'All right,' Jeffrey agreed. 'You got the goods?'

  Nick handed him a folder, then reached under the desk and buzzed the door open. Jeffrey followed him to the back, thinking that even though only a few days had passed, the building had an air of neglect to it. Don Cook wasn't exactly a leader, and it was going to take someone with a strong personality and a lot of experience to help the town recover from Valentine's betrayal. Jeffrey gave the man two months before he stepped down, took his retirement and went fishing for the rest of his life.

  A tripod with a digital camera on top stood outside the small conference room. Nick rapped his knuckles on the door as he opened it.

  'Finally,' Bart said, as if he was glad to see them.

  Jeffrey threw the file Nick had given him on the table, then he held out his hand, introducing himself to Bart's lawyer. The man didn't offer his name, and Jeffrey guessed from his expensive suit and fancy haircut that he was more at home in Atlanta than Elawah County.

  Nick indicated the camera. 'Just let me get this set up.' He whistled under his breath as he placed the tripod at the head of the table, moving it just so, acting like he had all the time in the world. Jeffrey knew he was just trying to make the dentist antsy, but the technique was working on Jeffrey, too. By the time Nick was finished, Jeffrey was almost squirming in his chair.

  Nick sat down beside Jeffrey, opposite Fred Bart and his lawyer. For the sake of the camera, he said, 'I'm Nick Shelton with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Beside me is Grant County Chief of Police Jeffrey Tolliver, who will be leading this interview. That okay with you boys?'

  The lawyer nodded. He was a burly man, his hair shaved close to his head. Jeffrey wondered if he had something tattooed on his scalp.

  Bart said, 'Can we get this over with?'

  Jeffrey opened the file on the table. He fanned out the photographs they had found in a folder on Jake Valentine's desk. Judging from the charred debris in his wastebasket, there had been more photographs, but Valentine had taken care to make sure it was only Fred Bart and Boyd Gibson implicated in the surveillance photos. The sheriff had been telling Jeffrey the truth when he said he'd called the GBI. Nick's office had logged a call on his voice mail a
bout an hour before Jeffrey and Sara had gotten to the jail. Valentine had sounded giddy as he laid out the case of the drug-pin dentist.

  Fred Bart barely glanced at the photographs. The pictures were grainy, but they still managed to tell a story. Jeffrey tapped his finger on the top one, which showed Fred Bart with Boyd Gibson smoking cigarettes outside an abandoned-looking warehouse. Behind them, a drug transaction was taking place. Another photo showed Bart in his Jag passing off a stack of money to Boyd Gibson, All the photos pointed the finger at Fred Bart as being the meth mastermind in town with Gibson as his muscle.

  Bart blustered, 'Obviously, those have been doctored.'

  'I'm sure you can find an expert to tell that to a jury,' Jeffrey admitted. Jake Valentine had done a good job setting up the dentist. If Lena hadn't seen the tattoo under the sheriff's arm, no one would have questioned Valentine's evidence – or Bart's death in his own homegrown meth lab, courtesy of Clint Jones.

  Jeffrey told him, 'Your bank account shows a cash deposit of over two hundred thousand dollars Friday morning.'

  'I was in my office with patients. I have no idea what you're talking about.'

  'You mean your office where they found enough meth to powder a ski slope?' He paused. 'Jake was ready to hand the GBI the bust of a lifetime.'

  Bart shook his head slowly side to side. 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

  Jeffrey laid it out for the man. 'You're looking at the death penalty.'

  The lawyer interjected, 'My client is cooperating in every way he knows how.'

  'He shot a man in cold blood in front of a police detective.'

  'She was high,' Bart protested, much as Nick had predicted. 'With the amount of chemicals in that room, I'm surprised she even remembers she was there. You know what she did to Jake. She cut off his hand! That's not the action of a thinking person.'

  Jeffrey thought it was the action of somebody who didn't want to die. 'You injected my wife with a sedative.'

  'Jake would've hurt her if I hadn't knocked her out. Mark my words. He was a violent man.'

  The lawyer stiffened. Jeffrey would have missed it if he hadn't been watching.

  Jeffrey asked Bart, 'How were you protecting Charlotte Gibson in the back of that Escalade?'

  'I've already told your friend here that wasn't me,' Bart insisted. 'I was at home watching TV that night.'

  ' Lena 's willing to make a positive ID.'

  Bart flashed a smile. 'It's my understanding that the perpetrator of that crime was masked.'

  'Yeah,' Jeffrey agreed. 'But it's hard to hide behind a mask when you've got little ferret teeth.'

  Bart covered his mouth with his hand before he could stop himself.

  Jeffrey said, 'Tell me about Boyd Gibson.'

  The lawyer seemed to perk up at the sound of Gibson's name. Was Fred Bart the only person in the room who didn't realize the guy was working the other side? Jeffrey would've loved to roll up the man's sleeves, look for any tattoos he might have.

  Jeffrey repeated, 'Boyd Gibson?'

  Bart talked slowly, moving his lips as little as possible as if he could hide his teeth. 'Jake told me what happened,' he said. 'Clint and Boyd never got along, but Jake kept them in line. He told them to burn down Hank's bar. Lena had spent some time there and Jake didn't like her poking around. He was trying to scare her off.'

  'So?' Jeffrey prompted.

  'So, Jake said that they poured gasoline around the outside of the bar. Clint threw a match on it, but then Boyd started yelling about how Hank kept some money inside, stuffed under a floorboard or something.'

  'He ran into a burning building to get cash?'

  Jeffrey asked, thinking that if Bart was telling the truth, Jeffrey had risked his life to save one of the stupidest bastards on earth.

  Bart nodded. 'At that point, you came along. Boyd got away and he met up with Clint in the woods. They had some kind of argument. I told you these men were hotheaded.' Bart paused for effect. 'At any rate, Clint ended up stabbing Boyd.'

  'And then what?'

  'And then he had to tell Jake.'

  'What about the knife?'

  'Clint didn't want to lose his knife – it was expensive – so he used one he'd… found.' The man held out his hands in an open shrug. 'Mind you, I got this story second-hand from Jake, so I can't confirm the veracity.'

  'Yeah,' Jeffrey said. 'I understand that.' He crossed his arms. 'Did Jake say whose idea it was to throw Boyd's body into my hotel room?'

  'His. Jake thought if your wife got scared enough, you'd leave town.'

  Jeffrey asked, 'What about Charlotte Gibson?'

  'Jake got worried because she was talking to Lena.'

  'So Jake torched her?'

  'Yes. Jake liked to send messages.'

  'Is that right?'

  'Yes.'

  Jeffrey remembered what Lena had said about Bart's last words to Valentine, the anger that had boiled up between the two men. The dentist had been supplementing his income with meth since Valentine was in diapers. He'd been the big man in town until Myra had married her college sweetheart.

  'Lemme get this straight.' Jeffrey summarized, counting off the dead bodies on his fingers as he said, 'Clint Jones killed Boyd Gibson, Jake killed Charlotte and of course you were kind enough to shoot Clint in – what – self-defense? I guess leaving Lena and Sara in the house to die was some kind of oversight on your part?'

  'I know I shouldn't have left those women there, but I was terrified. Jake has some powerful friends. I ran away because I was frightened. I take full responsibility for that.'

  'I'm happy to hear you take responsibility for something.'

  He tried to defend himself, saying, 'I called the sheriff's office and gave an anonymous tip.'

  Nick had obviously heard this before. 'We listened to the nine-one-one tapes from Friday, Fred. We haven't found anything.'

  'Then you need to keep looking,' Bart insisted. 'I called from a pay phone at the Stop 'n' Save. It should have my fingerprints on it.'

  Jeffrey didn't doubt the phone had Bart's prints on it. He'd had plenty of time to think up an alibi while Lena and Sara were fighting for their lives.

  'What about the other body?' Jeffrey asked.

  'Other body?' Bart echoed. 'What other body?'

  He seemed as surprised as Sara and Lena had been. Both women swore they hadn't seen anyone else in Hank's house, but the remains of a man's body had been found somewhere in the vicinity of the back bedroom.

  Jeffrey told him, 'There was another set of bones in Hank Norton's house. The state coroner says he was an older man, maybe in his sixties.'

  Bart looked at his hands. 'I don't know anything about that.'

  'You don't know anything about a lot of things,' Jeffrey challenged. 'I think you're just sitting there with your little mind spinning, trying to come up with quick answers for every question, but the thing is you've got no idea how deep this hole is you're standing in.'

  'I don't know what you mean.'

  Jeffrey looked at Nick. Both men knew that Bart was either too arrogant or too stupid to see that his life was pretty much over the minute he shot Clint Jones and told Jake Valentine to get under the sink.

  'All righty.' Nick sighed, pressing his palms against the table as he stood up.

  Bart yelped, 'What are you doing?'

  'Packing up,' Nick told him, collapsing the tripod. 'You don't know doodly squat, Tonto, and I have a feeling any second now the Lone Ranger there's gonna be heading back up to the corral to get along with his little doggies.'

  The lawyer chuckled. 'Well put.'

  Nick told him, 'No offense, buddy, but we're really hoping none of this goes any farther than it has to.'

  'I think we've had enough collateral damage to last us for a while.' The lawyer pushed Valentine's photos of Fred Bart across the table. 'It seems to me you have an overwhelming amount of evidence here. Surely enough to charge the guilty party.' He stood, telling Jeffrey. 'I'm very sorry tha
t your wife was in harm's way.' As an afterthought, he added, 'And your detective, too, of course.'

  Jeffrey took the man's meaning, but he wanted to be clear. 'Just so long as they're safe now.'

  'They are.'

  The lawyer turned to leave, but Bart clawed his arm, screaming, 'You said they'd work a deal! You said they would-'

  'Get your hands off me,' he barked, jerking his arm away.

  Bart finally seemed to understand that the lawyer wasn't on his side, that the only reason the man was here was so he could make sure Bart wasn't a threat to the people who were really paying his fees.

  For his part, the lawyer seemed relieved that the masquerade was over. He gave Nick a nod, then Jeffrey. 'Gentlemen, if you'll excuse me.'

  'What are you doing?' Bart demanded. 'You're my lawyer! Where are you going?'

  The man left the room without looking back.

  Bart stood by the table, wringing his hands like a woman.

  Nick told him, 'Sit down, Fred.'

  Bart sagged into his chair. 'I want to cut a deal,' he muttered. 'I need to cut a deal.'

  'Welcome to the State of Getting Your Head Out of Your Ass.' Nick clapped his hands in mock congratulations. 'What kind of deal you think you can make, Freddy boy?'

  'Any kind,' Bart pleaded. 'Just tell me what you want me to say.'

  Nick shook his head. 'We want you to say some names, Fred. Only problem is, you don't know 'em.'

  'I know them!' Bart screeched. 'I know all of them!'

  'Like?'

  'Like…' His mouth worked as he tried to come up with something. 'Just tell me. Tell me who you want and I'll say it!'

  'Rhymes with Spitzpatrick.'

  He paled. 'No,' he said. 'I can't do that.'

  Nick shrugged. 'Lookit, hoss, we're giving you enough rope here to hang a snake. Not my fault you can't tie the knot.'

  'They'll kill me,' Bart said. 'They'll… worse than that. They don't just kill people… they…' His words stopped as he gulped for air. 'Please…' he cried.