“It must’ve been hard for Rhys.”
“It was. Rhys had a horrible upbringing. Horrible. I did my best to control it, but he would beat him, us, regularly. There were so many days I couldn’t leave the house because of my black eye, or my swollen lip, or my bruised arms, and Rhys saw that. He saw it all, and there were so many days he couldn’t even sit down at school because his father took to him with the belt. He would cry, and I would try to stop Sidney, but then I would just make it worse. Rhys used to say that he would save me, that he would take me away from him one day, and I was so proud of him for saying that.” She fought back the tears. “And now look at Rhys—he’s a deadbeat.”
She looked at the wall again, at the only photo of Rhys smiling. It was a blurry photo, taken after Rhys had finished the school cross country race, coming in second, and he proudly held up the ribbon he’d won. That day, more than fifteen years ago, was one of the last days she saw her stepson truly happy.
“I saw Rhys outside at the funeral. How come he didn’t come inside the church?”
“I asked him to come to the funeral.” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue and tried to smile again, an attempt to hide the years of pain. “No matter how much good Sidney tried to do in the last twelve months, he would never redeem himself in Rhys’s eyes. All those childhood years of trauma, all that pain, both physical and emotional, was too much. It left a permanent scar on Rhys’s world.”
“Redemption is different for everyone.” Hunter sipped his coffee again, not that he wanted to, but he thought it was polite not to leave a full cup behind. “I’m sorry to hear about your pain.”
“My grandfather, rest his soul, was also a police officer in Vietnam, and a really good one. Growing up, he instilled a sense of integrity in me, which I thought Sidney had when we first married. And in those early years, Sidney did have honor. Those first few years he was so much like my grandfather—that strong sense of justice, that strong sense of fairness. I loved Sid so much in those years. Then the fire changed him. That pain never left him. It kept him awake at night, and it haunted his thoughts every time he closed his eyes. He turned to alcohol to self-medicate and it was the demon drink that really changed him. I don’t blame Sidney.”
“Back then, police officers didn’t have the support they do now.”
“Even now, it’s probably not enough. Looking back, it was clear it was PTSD that affected Sidney, but no one could help him then. They told him to tough it out, that he’d move on from it. Time heals all wounds, we were told.” She had tears in her eyes. “Alcohol was the only thing that helped him silence those memories. I never blamed Sidney for hitting me or Rhys. It wasn’t his fault. All we could do was support him. He risked his life to save others, and in the end, it cost him most of his.”
“You’re an honorable woman.”
“I tried. My whole life I’ve tried to live up to the ideals of honor.” She stared at the lawyer. “And the right thing was not to abandon Sidney. He did the right thing for his community, and my sacrifice was I had to do the right thing for him. I had to be there for him, no matter how hard it was.”
Hunter let the silence sit in the room for a long period of time before continuing.
“But that’s not why you called me here, is it, Mrs. McCann?”
“No, it’s not. I called you here because it’s what Sidney would’ve wanted.” She looked at him with wide eyes. “I’m not going to lie, Sidney spent fifteen years as a terrible person. He would risk his life for his community at work, but at home, he was terrible. But in the last twelve months, he became an honorable man again. For twelve months, I had my Sidney back.”
“After his heart attack.”
“He tried to redeem himself for all the wrongs he had done before. And it was only once he looked death in the face that he changed.” She paused and looked down into her coffee. “Do you think the young girl killed Sidney? The girl you’re defending, is she guilty?”
“I can’t discuss that with you.” Hunter shook his head.
She nodded and looked at the wall again, at the photos of her husband.
“I asked you here because there’s something I wanted to say. I’m sure you know Sidney was trying to right the wrongs of his past before his death. He wanted to leave a positive legacy behind. He tried to patch things up with Rhys, even though Rhys wouldn’t listen, he spent time with people at AA meetings, supporting them, and he spent time with women at the center for domestic violence. And that was fabulous, I was so proud of Sidney. For the first time in almost fifteen years, I was proud of my husband. It made sticking by him so worth it. In the end, Sidney changed the world for the better, Mr. Hunter. He really did.”
“A person can only try to redeem their past. That’s all we can do.” Hunter placed his mug on the table in front of him. “If there’s nothing else, Mrs. McCann, I really must go.”
“Wait.” She held up her hand and closed her eyes, composing herself before she went on. “He was doing the right thing by trying to fix the wrongs of the past, but I’m not sure he did that. He did so much wrong in the past, and I’m not sure if he even became the Pope that he would’ve been able to right all those wrongs. He was a person with authority, a trusted figure, and he abused that. I’m sure you realize we couldn’t have afforded this house on a detective’s wage. Not that I knew anything about what he did. I never asked.”
Hunter let the pause settle over them while she gathered the courage to continue. Her speech was calculated, planned; as if every word had been rehearsed.
“Two months before he disappeared…” She drew a deep breath. “He decided to right other wrongs of his past. Wrongs he had made in the police force. I told him to leave it alone, not to go against his old police department. I told him to stop, but his legacy… he kept talking about his legacy, and he wanted to correct the mistakes he had made for so many years.”
“Such as?”
“He wouldn’t talk about them to me. He said it was too dangerous to let me know, so I didn’t push the issue, but it was police corruption. It was pretty clear to me that’s what he was trying to fix. And then…” She bit her bottom lip. “And then the week before he went missing, he became really scared. He told me to keep the doors locked at all times, and to watch who was following me, even in the car. He was fearful of what was going to happen, but he was determined to right those wrongs.”
“Any idea what it might’ve been about?”
“I know there were a lot of people in the department that didn’t want Sidney’s secrets to come out. He’d been corrupt for a long time. Deep down, I knew that, but I never did anything about it. I didn’t want him to expose police corruption. It would’ve put us through so much pain. I would’ve been looking over my shoulder every second of every day. I didn’t want that.”
“You’re saying someone in the police department put a stop to what he was doing?” Hunter leaned forward.
“All I know is that Sidney isn’t here, and in the days before his disappearance, he was scared of someone in the police department. He said he could go to prison for what he was about to say, but he was working with the Department of Justice to strike a deal for immunity. People must have known what he was doing. Those cops know everything. I pleaded with him not to go through with it.”
“Why were you so strongly against exposing the corruption?”
“Because it would’ve destroyed my life. Those cops wouldn’t let him do it without a fight. After all those years of pain, after all those beatings, my life was finally good. I deserved that. Sidney was a good man doing good in the world, and for once, I was happy. I didn’t want to throw that away because of the past. I told Sidney to let the past be the past. I pleaded with him not to let corruption destroy our lives again.”
Hunter sat back in the sofa. There was hope, and not only for Nina’s case.
He was aware that hope was a dangerous feeling, but right now, he couldn’t stop that train of thought.
“If someone in
the police department did this…” Li McCann looked down. “I don’t want to blame them, they were my family too, but I know Sidney worked so hard for the truth to come out. And maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe the girl did murder my Sidney, but… but I want to honor my husband’s memory and what he was trying to do in the end. If this is what he died for, if he died because he was trying to expose someone, then the truth must come out.”
“Thank you, Mrs. McCann.” Hunter stood. “Thank you for your honesty.”
He turned to the door, the thoughts racing through his head faster than he could process them.
There was hope for Nina.
There was hope for proving Sidney McCann’s corruption in court.
And that meant there was hope that every arrest McCann had ever made could be reviewed.
Including an arrest made thirty years ago.
Chapter 8
Tex Hunter was thinking deeply late at night, as he often did, on the indoor basketball court—ball in hand, freely shooting the ball into the hoop, hitting his fifth straight three-pointer in a row.
Alone on the court within the East Bank Club, a multi-level complex that could be described as a country club within city limits, Hunter had a place to think, a place to let his mind run free. The indoor court was like a high-school gym—covered by a high ceiling, one long stand of tiered seats to the left of the court, and an old scoreboard to the right. It was rarely used for basketball competitions, other than local games with middle-aged men trying to recapture their youth, but it was well-maintained, the floorboards almost spotless. It was where he did some of his best thinking: something physical to distract his hands, something mental to distract his thoughts, and something competitive to divert his attention from whiskey. With his mind on something else, something mindless, his brain was free to explore his deeper subconscious.
Before his father’s conviction, Hunter loved spending time on the basketball court. Taller and quicker than most, he dominated the court, even when playing two age groups higher. After the conviction, after his family name was spread through the country, no basketball team welcomed his last name on their roster. If he tried to enroll in a team, the mothers would withdraw their kids.
He had never known anything but pain in his family, nothing but the horrible agony of defending his name. His mother was a beautiful woman, someone full of caring and love, but she was convicted as an accessory to the murder of eight girls, although she had protested her innocence at every step of the process. To watch her wither in prison, to watch her soul being crushed by the system, broke his heart.
His father never denied the crimes to Hunter’s face, but he also never admitted that he murdered the eight girls. He pleaded ‘not guilty’ and was convicted during a trial, and his subsequent appeals were denied, but Alfred Hunter never looked his youngest son in the eyes and said that he was innocent. Hunter had asked that question many, many times, but his father always had a reason not to answer.
Hunter had always believed his father was innocent. He had to. It was all he had.
That notion of innocence had driven him through life, driven him through the late nights, through the pain, and through the rivers of hate that he had to swim through.
Legacy was a word he heard a lot of lately. He reasoned that maybe that’s why he was driven into law—on a subconscious level, he was trying to deal with his father’s past. There was a part of him that wanted to redeem his family name, a part of him that wanted the Hunter name to rise above the abuse.
“Tex.”
Hunter turned, unhappy that his thoughts had been interrupted.
“Alicia Carson.” He shot another three, but this time, the ball bounced off the rim. “You broke my streak.”
A Director within the Bureau of Organizational Development in the Chicago PD, Alicia Carson walked onto the court looking confident, wearing a dark suit that fitted her feminine figure well. She was usually confident. Graduated top of her class at the academy thirty years earlier, worked extremely long hours, and found success in the office. She did her time as a Detective, before moving into the administration branch of the department, where she ruthlessly climbed the corporate ladder. Inside the walls of the Police Department, she was a powerhouse, someone to be feared.
Outside of the office, however, was a different story. At fifty-five, she was never married—no man had lasted more than six months with the workaholic—and she lived alone in her penthouse apartment just outside the Loop. She loved that feeling of opening the blinds in the morning and looking down on everyone else.
“I wish I could say this was a coincidence.” Her voice was smooth, calm, but fake. It was a tone practiced many times over, in front of video recorders, tapes, and phone recordings. She had read that if her tone was too high-pitched, people wouldn’t respect her as a worker, and if it was too deep, people wouldn’t respect her as a woman. It took her years of practice to hit that middle tone. “But it’s not. The doorman at your apartment told me that I could find you here.”
Hunter’s path had crossed with Alicia Carson numerous times. He had never trusted her, as he was sure she didn’t trust herself. There was a coldness to her actions, a tension in her face, which kept her at arm’s length away from any personal attachment.
“What do you want, Alicia?” Hunter questioned.
“I came to say sorry for being so aggressive at the funeral.” She folded her arms. “But don’t tell me it’s true.”
Hunter didn’t respond.
“She’s not taking the deal, is she? She wants to take this to trial? You’re letting her take this to court?”
Hunter nodded. He picked up the ball, bounced it aggressively, and shot again. Again, the ball hit the rim, his rhythm disrupted.
“Why? She killed a cop. She murdered our Sidney. Our friend.” Her voice was slightly more high-pitched than normal, a truer tone than she had spoken in years. “Why don’t you let the public defenders do this? Why do you have to take this to court?”
“Sidney McCann was not my friend, and I’d be surprised if you truly called McCann a friend. For most of his life, that man took advantage of everyone and everything. For almost six decades, he only cared about himself.”
“He changed. He wanted to leave something positive behind. He chased redemption in that final year of his life. That’s got to be worth something.”
“McCann didn’t redeem himself in the eyes of his son, nor many, many other people.”
“Sidney wasn’t perfect. Nor are you, and nor am I.” She held her hands up. “But Sidney was still a colleague in justice. One of us. He’s the same as you and me. And you want to defend his killer? I can’t understand why you would want to do that. I haven’t heard of you taking on pro-bono cases for random people before. Don’t tell me that this is some sort of sick revenge for him putting the handcuffs on your father thirty years ago?”
Hunter shook his head.
“It wouldn’t be money. She couldn’t possibly afford your fees.”
“She can’t.”
“Then why? Why do you have to do this?”
They say that a lion can sense fear up to half-a-mile away, and there was no doubt that Hunter could sense the fear in her tone. She sighed, uncrossed her arms, and tapped her foot on the edge of the court. Her shoes made a loud sound on the boards, echoing throughout the room. After a few moments, she ran her hands over her skirt, folded her arms again, and smiled, although it was clearly forced.
“As you would be aware, I’ve been interviewed by the prosecution as a witness. The prosecution has requested my presence on the stand, if it gets to court.” She stood with a rigid back, not at all comfortable looking. “They want me to testify on the stand if this gets that far.”
“I wasn’t aware of that.” Hunter stopped bouncing the ball, turning his full attention to Carson.
“I guess they haven’t updated you with their witness lists yet. Lawyers, always so slow to get things done,” she scoffed. “Well, I’ll give
you an update. I saw Sidney that day at a dinner function for a charity in Chinatown.”
She waited for Hunter to respond, however he didn’t.
“After I left the function, I went looking for a bite to eat. There’s a really, really good deep-dish pizza place that’s open twenty-four seven, and I’m sure you know that at these functions there’s a lot of alcohol. I had a lot to drink, and it was late, so I needed something to soak up the alcohol.”
Hunter waited, studying the woman opposite him. She had less wrinkles on her brow than he would expect for a woman her age, and mostly because she could afford Botox.
“When I was walking to the pizza joint, I saw two people arguing at the end of a street. They were loud and quite aggressive, then I realized that one of the people was Sidney McCann. One minute later, just after I had crossed the street, I heard some yelling and then saw the girl, Nina, walk away.”
“Are you sure it was Sidney McCann that you saw on the street?”
“I know what you’re doing, Tex, but this isn’t a court room. Yes, I was drunk, and yes, it was dark and yes, it was at night. But it was definitely Sidney that I saw. Absolutely.”
“Did you report this at the time?”
“What was there to report? I didn’t know who screamed, I didn’t know why it happened, and I didn’t know if anything actually happened. My call would’ve been a waste of police resources. It was only once I heard of Sidney’s disappearance that I reported it. And I didn’t even know that he was reported missing until I heard about his body being recovered in the river.”
“Did you investigate the screams, or did you just keep walking?”
“I don’t wear a cape, and I would never consider myself a hero. I have my own life to protect.” She rolled her eyes. “I looked briefly, didn’t see anything, and then kept walking to the pizza joint.”
“So, you’re going to testify that you saw Nina and Sidney McCann on the night of his death?” He stepped towards her, rolling the basketball in his hands.
Corrupt Justice Page 5