But small-town adultery was of zero interest to Garrett. That was not what he’d been talking about.
I picked up my phone.
“Leland!” Henry said. “You win your murder case already? I wasn’t expecting you to call in the middle of the day.”
I laughed. Henry was a nice guy. Or he had social skills. I wasn’t sure which.
“Not quite there yet,” I said. “We got a recess, though. And I dropped by the office because a Blue Seas issue was nagging at me. It’s a little delicate. I was thinking maybe you could come in for a quick chat?”
“Oh my. Uh, today is a mess—any chance you could come here?”
“This is actually something we might want to insulate,” I said. “Make sure nobody overhears.”
“My goodness.” He thought for a second. “And I’m in Charleston tomorrow. But I could stop in on my way. Maybe seven a.m.? Before court?”
“See you then.”
Terri texted to say she had something on the snitch. I asked if she could come to the office. Then I went to the door, leaned out, and let Laura know if she wanted, she could leave early, do some Christmas shopping or whatever. She said thanks, grabbed her purse, and headed out.
When Terri got there, she looked serious. Her normal big smile was just a flicker when I said hello.
“You got bad news?”
She looked around the office. “You by yourself?”
“Yeah, I sent Laura home.”
“Okay. I got… kind of scary news.”
She walked past me into my office, sat where a client would, and set her laptop on the desk. I got us both coffees while she was starting it up.
When I came back, she had a document on her screen that started with a mug shot. It was a kid, maybe twenty years old. “This is our snitch,” she said. “He’s awaiting trial for vandalism.”
“He’s been in the county jail for two-plus months on vandalism charges?”
“He was pro se,” she said, meaning he didn’t have a lawyer at his arraignment, “and he couldn’t make bail.”
I set her coffee down. “What’s the scary part?”
“His license and all the papers for this case have a local address,” she said. “But when I searched for previous addresses, look what came up.”
I peered at her screen. “Holy shit. Isn’t that Pete Dupree’s old house? Who is this kid?”
“Well, his name’s not Dupree. But that’s where his driver’s license said he lived before he came here. And he only came here this summer.” She was shaking her head at her screen, like she couldn’t quite believe it. “And what would you say if I told you the arresting officer and sole witness to the vandalism was Blount?”
“Jesus. Do you think Blount arrested him just to get him in with Jackson? On orders from Pete?”
“It’s a hell of a coincidence if he didn’t.” She took a deep breath, like she was trying to stay calm. “I tried to think of another explanation. I’m still trying. And I keep thinking, you know, Karl was just trying to make a buck, but it went too far. He got himself into something a whole lot bigger and more dangerous than he realized.” She looked up at me—I was still standing beside her—and said, “Leland, so did we. So did we.”
35
Wednesday, December 18, Morning
I got to the office before dawn and put the coffee on. About twenty minutes later, Henry’s silver Mercedes swooped into the parking lot. I went to meet him at the door. I didn’t know if I was imagining it, but behind his usual confident smile, I thought I caught a hint of nervousness.
“Morning, Leland.” He glanced over his shoulder at the sky, which was still more gray than blue. “Or maybe I shouldn’t say that until the sun’s actually up.”
“Close enough,” I said, letting him in and heading for the coffee maker. “I just made a fresh pot. Want some?”
“No, thanks. Already had a triple espresso to keep awake on the drive to Charleston.” He looked around the office. “Leland,” he said. “We alone here?”
“Yes, we are.” I was watching him out of the corner of my eye as I poured a cup. “Roy is not a seven a.m. guy.”
He nodded and gave a deep exhale, like he was psyching himself up for something.
“That’s my office there,” I said. “Let’s step on in.”
He went in but didn’t sit down. “Pretty decent view,” he said, looking out my window at the palm tree. “Better than staring at the parking lot.”
“Yep.” I walked around him to my desk and sat. “So, Henry, I’m sorry to mess with your schedule, but something came up that I thought you’d want to know.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Little disconcerting, the whole not-being-overheard thing, but I appreciate the discretion.” He turned and took a seat.
“Confidentiality is something you can count on in me.”
“Well, thanks.”
“I know you got a busy day,” I said, “so I’ll get right to the point. I have it on good authority that it at least appears a contractor of yours may have used Blue Seas as a cover for drug dealing.”
It took part of a second for his face to assume a surprised expression.
I continued, “And I’ve been informed that anyone at Blue Seas who can provide good information on that could be given immunity.” Accusing him of being involved was not my way, even if I’d been sure he was. Which I wasn’t.
“Uh, wow,” he said. He nodded slowly, eyes wide, like he needed a second to process this.
“Immunity or even, if it comes to that, witness protection.”
“Huh,” he said. “You mean like on TV and whatnot? Moving a whole family out of harm’s way?”
“Yep,” I said. “Exactly.”
He leaned back in the chair, laced his fingers together across his belly, and tilted his head like he was appraising me. He was quiet long enough that I noticed the ticking of the clock on my office wall.
Finally, he said, “Leland, you ever done something you’re ashamed of?”
“Of course.” I smiled a little. “But I doubt we got time to get into that, since Roy gets in around nine.”
It was a quarter past seven. He smiled back.
He moved his clasped hands to the back of his head, stuck his elbows out, and shut his eyes. “So I want you to picture,” he said, “if you’d been doing something wrong, for some other people, and then you manned up and told them that was it, no more. But then you came downstairs real early one morning to get some work stuff wrapped up, and one of them was sitting on your couch, right in your goddamn living room. Got through your burglar alarm somehow. And he had a Glock in his hand. And he smiled at you and said, ‘How you doing? Family still good?’”
I said, “Doesn’t seem like you’d have much choice.”
He nodded, brought his hands back to his lap, and leaned forward. “Leland,” he said, “I need to get my family out of here. There is nothing I will not do to achieve that. You just tell me who to call.”
“Federal prosecutor friend of mine. I’ll send you his number.” I took out my phone. As I sent it, the first ray of sun hit my desk, filtered through the palm fronds outside. I was skeptical of signs, but that seemed like it might qualify as a good one.
His phone pinged. He looked at it and said, “Up in Charleston, huh? Shoot, maybe I’ll call him on the way.”
“I’m sure he’d like to hear from you.”
He nodded, slapped his hands on the desk, and stood up. I stood too, to shake his hand and say, “You have yourself a good trip, now.”
“Thanks. And I mean it.” He went to the door, stopped, and looked back at me. “One thing I’ve wished I could’ve told you,” he said, “but I had to think of my family first, is that Mazie’s son did not kill Karl.”
In my poker voice, I said, “Uh-huh. I didn’t think so. You happen to know who did?”
He hesitated. “It’ll be safer,” he said, “for everyone, if I just tell your friend. And anyway, this might be better going through the f
eds than the local police.” He held up one hand in a wave goodbye and walked out.
I sighed and sat back down. There was nothing to do but compartmentalize and get back to dealing with the trial. In a few hours, I had to be back in court trying to give Chambliss a solid legal reason to keep Ruiz’s jailhouse snitch from testifying. And to keep us safe, I needed an argument that had nothing to do with Pete Dupree or any drug cartel.
My phone dinged while I was starting up my computer. I looked over, hoping Henry had had a change of heart and was texting me the name of the murderer.
On my screen was a photo of some park or green space. The message was from a number I didn’t recognize. I touched the photo to make it bigger.
It was the park where I walked Squatter, but from high up, like it was taken from a nearby roof or upper story. In the distance, a person was crouching down. I zoomed in. The person, squatting to adjust a little dog’s leash, was Noah.
A text bubble popped up. Nice family. Then another photo. The park was a blur of green in the background. In the foreground, in sharp focus, was the black barrel of a rifle resting on a windowsill.
I nearly vomited on my desk.
Then I took a breath and forced myself to think. What were my options? Text Noah to get out of there? No. Short of a trapdoor in the grass, he couldn’t get out of range in time. And what if he looked around and this sniper realized I’d warned him?
Call the cops? Which ones could I trust? And they’d take too long anyway.
Buy time.
I wrote back, Who is this?
We have a proposition.
Ok.
After a second, an address came through. Then, Come talk.
I answered, If you keep sending pix. Need to know he’s ok.
If u bring cops/anyone, the response said, he dies.
I got up to leave, then sat back down to scribble a note. If I didn’t get out of this, I was at least going to leave some evidence. I wrote the address down. Then, “If I’m killed, cartel did it, Jackson innocent of Karl, call Garrett Cardozo,” and his number. Then I folded it up, hid it under my keyboard—I didn’t want anyone finding it and coming after me while Noah was still in danger—and left.
The address was in a rougher part of town. Compared to any big city it was nothing, but to us it was the rough side of the Black neighborhood. At every stop sign, I checked my phone. Two more photos of Noah came through.
The house was small and run-down, but someone had kept it neat. Trimmed grass, faded curtains. I parked, ran across the street and up the porch steps, and knocked. Nobody answered. I heard nothing from inside.
A text pinged: Back door.
I looked around. A few cars were parked on the street. It was a sunny morning. Palm trees bent over the gray roof of the shotgun shack next door. If I walked around to the back, I might get invited inside and shot in the head. A proposition could be discussed on the front porch.
I wrote back, Talk out front?
The answer came. Two photos. Noah sitting on a bench with Squatter asleep on his lap. Then the windowsill, with a long, brass-colored bullet sitting on it.
Then a word: Hollowpoint.
The kind of bullet that expanded, or exploded, inside the victim. Maximum lethality.
I answered, Going around back now.
I went down the steps. When I got to the walkway, a thought stopped me: They must know Noah and Jackson were friends.
To buy a second to think, I crouched down and took off my shoe, pretending I felt a rock in it. I knocked it on the cracked cement.
They might think Jackson had told him something, or even that I had. Once Noah had served his purpose by getting me to this house, why would they let him go? What reason did I have to trust them?
I put my shoe back on and stood up. As I walked around the corner of the house and down the side, Ruiz came to mind. He was the law; he had resources. He was a father and a good man. I scrolled back to the first photos of Noah and the rifle and sent them to him. My son in danger, I wrote. Be discreet please! Where would sniper be if this view of park?
I didn’t even know if Ruiz was up yet. I stopped for a second, closed my eyes, and prayed to the only being I ever prayed to: Elise. The prayer was two words long: Save him. Save him.
Then I went around to the back of the house. This side was lower than the front, a half basement. The door was slightly ajar. I knocked. It swung open.
At the far end of the room, Terri was standing with her hands up. When she saw me, she yelled, “Run! Just go!”
A deep male voice said, as relaxed as if this were a social engagement, “No, please, come in.”
His voice was familiar. I said, “Morning,” pushed the door the rest of the way open, and stepped inside.
Tony Rosa was holding Terri at gunpoint from about four feet away. In an armchair to the right, Collin Porter sat with one leg crossed over the other, smoking a cigarette.
“Morning, Leland,” he said. “Thank you for joining us. I know you and Tony already know one another, and I took the liberty of inviting your friend along too.”
“You can let her go,” I said, walking over. “If you’ve got a proposition for me, she doesn’t need to hear it.”
He chuckled. “Let her go,” he said, almost to himself, and chuckled again.
Tony said, “Don’t be a fucking idiot, Leland.”
Porter reached into his blazer, and I flinched, expecting a gun. His hand came back out with a pack of cigarettes. He lit one off his own and offered it to me. As I leaned over to take it, a dark shape on the floor behind his chair caught my eye. Terri’s dog. A pool of blood. I thought I saw Buster’s chest rise and fall, just a bit, but he’d clearly been taken down for the count.
“So, the proposition,” Porter said, “has changed. Anthony, why don’t you explain?”
“Me, sir?”
Porter nodded.
“Okay.”
I looked in Tony’s direction. He kept his eyes and his gun on Terri. I flicked my glance her way. We didn’t need words to know this was it.
Tony said, “Mr. Porter just didn’t see a role for you guys. I mean, a way that you could be useful if we brought you in. So he came up with a different idea, which is that the two of you were lovers—”
I said, “Oh, but we aren’t. We’ve just been friends since—”
Tony glared at me and said, “Shut up, Leland!” Then he resumed his shooting stance, looking at Terri. “So the story is, you two were lovers, but then things went wrong. You got jealous.”
I locked eyes with her and saw terror there, but fury too. She hadn’t given up.
Porter picked up where Tony left off. “And that’s why you lured her here this morning—”
I gave Terri a nod, then lunged and punched Porter in the jaw. It was a crappy punch from a bad angle, but it made Tony swing around. I got a glimpse of Terri launching herself at him, and then Porter hit my gut with the hardest punch I’d ever taken.
As I doubled over, he burst out of his chair and shoved me toward the nearest wall. I hit it, turned around, and saw Terri and Tony struggling on the floor. His gun went off as Porter stalked toward me, pulling his own gun from his belt. It was pointing at my face when one of his feet slipped on Buster’s blood. He flailed to get his balance, and I ducked, pushed off the wall, and rammed him with my shoulder. A gun fired again, and Terri started screaming like a Valkyrie. I grappled with Porter, trying to push him out of the way so I could see if she’d been hit.
She was still screaming, one hand clamped on Tony’s wrist, her elbow locked to keep him from pointing the gun at her. The blast horn of her voice in his face was pure rage, pure power, a thing she needed to find the strength to hold him off.
Then another sound came from outside: the whoop of a police siren. I felt Porter’s muscles freeze. The siren shrilled again. He shoved me away and ran out the back door.
I yelled Tony’s name. He looked up, then looked around. His arm slackened as he realized his
boss was gone. Terri stopped yelling and tried to catch her breath.
I walked over, took Tony’s gun, and kicked him hard in the ribs.
Outside, some cop’s voice on a bullhorn said, “Police. Police. We have you surrounded. Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up.”
Terri got to her feet and held her hand out for the gun. She popped the clip out, gave it to me, and racked the slide to get rid of the last bullet. Then she tossed the gun toward the door, walked over to Buster, and squatted down.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, stroking his fur. “Buster, baby, I’m so sorry they hurt you.” He whined weakly as she struggled to try to pick him up, and I eased her aside and gathered him up in my arms.
Then, together, we walked to the door.
36
Tuesday, December 24, Morning
Jackson was released just before lunch on Christmas Eve. After the FBI made several arrests and Garrett spoke with Ruiz’s boss, after charges were formally dropped and all the paperwork was done, the only thing left to do was go get him. I drove, because Mazie said, “I can’t look at the road. I’ll cause an accident. I just want to look at him.”
We went in, and I waited a little while in the jail’s waiting room, letting them have a moment together. When they came out, Jackson was wearing the freshly laundered clothes Mazie had brought: jeans, death metal T-shirt, black fleece. He was so skinny that they hung on him. Apart from that, he was himself again. Or not exactly. He was himself, but stronger.
I got up, shook his hand, and clapped him on the shoulder.
He clapped my shoulder back and said, “Thank you, Mr. Munroe. I can’t wait to get home.”
That night, we all gathered at my house for dinner. The two of them, me and Noah, Terri, and even Ruiz, who brought a gift-wrapped box of his wife’s cookies to add to our grocery-store Christmas dinner. We passed them around, and everyone toasted Jackson for coming home a free man.
Defending Innocence (Small Town Lawyer Book 1) Page 24