The Full Scoop

by Jill Orr

  I used the bathroom, tried not to touch anything, and came back out to the front. Even though the lady working probably couldn’t have cared less, I decided it was only right to buy something in exchange for using their facilities. Years of hearing my dad’s best friend, Vern Wexler, who was the owner of Tut-Tut-Tuttle Gas ’n Go, complain that people use his business like a porta potty had had an effect on me.

  I walked up and down the aisles looking for something to buy. I wasn’t hungry—and I sure as hell wasn’t going to get a drink, lest Holman refresh his discourse on the intricacies of bladder function, so I grabbed a copy of the Times-News from the wire rack near the checkout counter.

  “That’ll be a dollar fifty-seven.”

  I handed her the money.

  “You just passing through?”

  “Um, I’m on my way to visit someone.”

  “Greensville?” She gave me a knowing look.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You been before?”

  “This’ll be my first time.”

  The lady nodded. She had small, thin lips that almost disappeared when she closed them together. In the background, I could hear the radio preacher reach a fever pitch as he called out, “…eternal damnation for the unrepentant!”

  “You take care now.” She handed me my change and receipt.

  I smiled as repentantly as I could. As I walked out, the lady turned her radio back up and the preacher’s voice boomed out into the empty store. “Remember, the devil doesn’t come to you wearing a red suit and horns, he comes dressed as everything you ever wanted!”

  Once we were back on the highway, the preacher’s words echoed in my mind. There did seem something a little too convenient about Tackett offering up the one thing in the world he knew I wanted more than anything. It wasn’t like I’d ever make the mistake of trusting Joe Tackett, but was it stupid of us to go see him? To engage with him? What if Tackett was just using the promise of telling me everything I ever wanted to hear and really had no information about my granddad?

  “You’re biting the corner of your lip.” Holman’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “In my experience, that means you’re worried about something.”

  I turned to him. “Do you think Joe Tackett is playing us?”

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘playing us.’ He’s been up front about wanting to use his knowledge about Albert’s death to get better conditions, so if you consider that playing us, then yes.”

  “But do you think there’s another reason, some hidden motivation for wanting to get us to come out and talk to him?”

  Holman thought about this for a moment. “It’s possible.”

  “What do you think it could be?” I twisted a strand of hair around my first and second fingers.

  “Any guesses I could make would be pure speculation,” he said. “Luckily for us, we won’t have to wait long to find out.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Greensville Correctional Center was situated at the end of a long two-lane road. I’d never been to a prison before and was surprised to see that it wasn’t just a single building; it was more like a complex, laid out in a hexagonal pattern. There were four large, long rectangular buildings, which I assumed were where the prisoners were housed, because they were guarded by six tall, armed guard towers. The entire area was surrounded by a high metal fence, topped by big loops of razor wire.

  We followed the signs to the visitors’ parking area and walked inside. After checking in at the front window, presenting our identification, and signing several documents, we were led into a room where we were asked to take off our shoes. There they searched us for weapons, checked our shoes for heaven-knows-what, and made us empty our pockets. Then we were taken into a secured area through two locked doors and finally into a small room with a table and four chairs.

  After what seemed like forever, Joe Tackett was ushered into the room by an armed corrections officer. I was glad to see that they had shackles around his legs and a waist chain hooked to his right arm. Not that I seriously thought Tackett would try to hurt me or Holman during our conversation, but the chains provided a little extra insurance in case things went sideways. After the officer got him settled in a chair, I thought for a minute that he was going to leave the room, but he didn’t. He took up a position in the corner, which was only about six feet away from Tackett, and stayed there throughout the entire visit. It was another measure of safety. Another reminder that Tackett was no longer a free man.

  For the first few moments, Tackett and I just stared at each other. The past six months had not been kind to him. His long, angular face looked pale and waxy—the color of cold oatmeal—and his wiry frame was swallowed up by his shapeless orange jumpsuit, making him appear smaller and thinner than I remembered.

  “I knew you’d come.” His voice was as cocky and biting as ever, despite his diminished physical appearance. Hearing it again caused a ripple of fear inside my chest. The man had tried to kill me, after all.

  “We received your letter,” Holman said, allowing me a moment to collect myself.

  “Yeah, I knew that’d get you. I know Riley here is desperate to find out what happened to her old granddaddy.”

  Hearing him mention my grandfather made me want to jump across the table and start clawing at him like a wild dog. I started to react, then quickly caught myself.

  Tackett saw my temper flare, and it made the bastard smile. “The way I figure it,” he said, leaning back, emboldened by my momentary slip, “I’m the only one who really knows what happened to him, ’cept for the person who did it.”

  My stomach felt like it was filling with acid. I needed to get control of myself. I was giving Tackett all the power, which was definitely not what this conversation was supposed to be about. I took a deep breath in and out through my nose. “Was it you?”

  He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Why would I think confessing to a murder would get me outta this place? How dumb do you think I am?”

  “We know you are not dumb, Joe,” Holman said. “Cruel and sociopathic, yes, but not dumb.”

  Joe smiled a hyena’s grin. “Right. So this is what I’m offering: I will give a sworn statement revealing the identity of who killed Albert, how they did it, and why, in exchange for a reduction in my sentence, or at the very least a prison transfer. I hate this fucking place.”

  “Don’t you have a lawyer? Shouldn’t you be telling them this?” I asked.

  “Fired her ass. She was incompetent.”

  His narcissism was unbelievable. “So why not bring this directly to the prosecutor?” I asked, already knowing the answer, of course. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make him admit how powerless he was. He spent years abusing his authority…it was so satisfying to see him squirm under the weight of his own impotence.

  He slid his eyes away from mine and glowered at the wall. “Tried that. She didn’t seem interested.”

  “What can you tell us about Flick?” I asked. I didn’t want to lose sight of the fact that one of my primary goals of this interview was to prove a connection between Granddad’s and Flick’s killings.

  Tackett shrugged. “How am I supposed to know what happened to him? I was in here when he bought it.”

  “Pretty big coincidence both Albert Ellison and Hal Flick, two obituary writers from Tuttle Corner who were best friends, both being killed, don’t you think?”

  He glared at me. “Maybe being an obituary writer in Tuttle is becoming a dangerous occupation.”

  Holman, sensing the mounting tension, stepped in. “Joe, we think the prosecutor would be much more likely to work with you if your information could be used to solve two crimes, particularly one that just happened.”

  His eyes flicked over to the guard in the corner. “I might know something that I might be willing to share with the proper authorities in exchange for getting what I want,” he said, his voice lower and more conciliatory than before.

  “Okay, but you understand that we’re reporters,
” Holman said. “You know we don’t have any agency over your sentence.”

  “But you have two things I don’t—one is your goddamn freedom,” he hissed. “The other is access to the newspaper. That lady prosecutor acts like she doesn’t want to deal with me, and I believe what she needs is a little public pressure to change her mind.”

  Holman kept his voice even, neutral. “My sources tell me that you tried to offer this information to a federal agent and that he or she wasn’t interested in helping you make a deal.”

  “He’s only interested in the Romero cartel. Problem is, if I said one word about that, I wouldn’t need a deal ’cuz I’d be dead. Feds say they can protect me, but they can’t—not forever, anyway.” He turned his watery pig eyes to me. “And I know how much you want to find out what happened to your granddaddy, so surely you’ll figure out a way to persuade that lady prosecutor to deal on this.”

  “You can just say prosecutor,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “You don’t have to keep calling her a ‘lady prosecutor.’ Her gender isn’t relevant.”

  “You want to give me a lesson in political correctness now? I don’t give a shi—”

  “I don’t know, Joe,” Holman jumped in again. “Albert was killed nearly seven years ago. His killer could be dead by now, and then your information wouldn’t be worth much.”

  “I can assure you that is not the case. The person responsible is very much alive. Very much in the public eye, in fact.”

  My eyes snapped to him.

  “Oh?” Tackett’s eyes widened. “Didn’t know that, did you? I thought maybe you might have had some ideas who it was by now.”

  The man was taunting me. I opened my mouth to snap something back, but Holman put a hand on my arm. He was right. There was no point in letting Tackett get the best of me, if for no other reason than that was exactly what he was trying to do.

  “If what you say is true—that the person who killed Albert is alive and some kind of public figure—that may rise to a level of interest that will get you something,” Holman said. “But you’re going to have to give us something before we’re going to help you.”

  Tackett scoffed. “You think I’m going to give up my trump card?”

  “We won’t print your vague ‘promise of information.’ That isn’t newsworthy,” I said. “And no prosecutor in her right mind would cut you any sort of deal without something more concrete. You’re a convicted criminal. Your word doesn’t count for much.”

  I was trying to flip the tables, to bait him, and I could tell by the bulging vein on the left side of his forehead that I’d done it. He leaned forward and put his free elbow on the table between us. The officer in the corner made a move, and Tackett immediately shrank back.

  “I think all parties would be highly interested in what I have to say. And it’s not just their word against mine. I have proof.”

  “What sort of proof?” Holman asked.

  “The audiotape kind, Lurch.”

  Holman blinked. “My name is Will.”

  Tackett looked confused. “Huh?”

  “You called me Lurch, but my name is Will. Will Holman. I believe you knew that, at least at one point, because you addressed the envelope you mailed to the Times to both Riley and me. Also, a few months ago, you ordered your henchman, Fausto Gonzalez, to kill me. And I’d assume when ordering someone’s death you pay attention to details like their proper name.”

  A deep crease appeared between Tackett’s eyes.

  Holman continued undeterred. “However, the stress of incarceration has been shown to negatively affect cognition, so I suppose it’s possible—”

  I leaned over and whispered in Holman’s ear, “Lurch is slang for a tall, skinny person.”

  “Oh,” Holman said.

  “Listen.” Tackett’s stinging, nasal voice came out loud in the small room, and the guard took a step forward. Tackett, knowing he’d crossed a line, leaned back and held both his palms up. He then continued in a lower voice, “I don’t know what you two idiots are talking about and I don’t care. Are you gonna help me or not?”

  Holman motioned for me to turn our backs on Tackett, then whispered. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to kill him.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Hyperbole?”

  I nodded, letting my eyes flit back over my shoulder to Tackett. He was such a cockroach, the thought of helping him made me feel sick to my stomach. But in order to get the information I wanted, I guess we had to—or at least it had to appear like we were. “Let’s see if we can talk to Lindsey again,” I said, taking my voice down as low as possible. “If we tell her about the fact that he supposedly has proof, maybe she’ll change her mind.”

  Holman nodded, then turned back around. “No guarantees, but we’ll take it to our managing editor and see what she says.”

  “Good.” Tackett sounded relieved, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how much he wanted this.

  “We’ll come back when and if we have more information to share,” Holman said and then stood up. The guard in the corner, who had obviously been listening to every word we said, stepped forward and grabbed up Tackett by the elbow. His chains clinked and jangled as he was led out of the room back to wherever it was he’d come from. There was no goodbye—we were not old friends. This was a transaction and our business was concluded, at least for the moment.

  CHAPTER 16

  Holman and I left Greensville and made the forty-five-minute drive to the Brunswick County sheriff’s office. I’d called ahead and asked Sheriff Clark if we could come by for an update on Flick’s case. He’d agreed.

  The Brunswick County sheriff’s department looked almost exactly like the Tuttle County sheriff’s department except instead of a cream and brown color scheme, they had a white and powder-blue one. The entire department basically was housed in one large room filled with a number of desks. In the far-right corner, it looked like there was a break room or kitchen and a small hallway leading back to the bathrooms. From where we stood in the entry, it seemed like there were four desks for deputies, only two of which were occupied at the moment. The place had a “government office” feel to it—that is to say, it felt like a place where people worked hard but not necessarily quickly.

  Sheriff Clark came out to greet us. He was a tall man, probably over six-four, which I hadn’t remembered. I’d only met him once, and that was right after Flick died. I didn’t remember his height or his large, bushy mustache. As he led Holman and me back to his office, it was clear from his stiff posture and clipped tones that he wasn’t super excited to see us again.

  “I’m sorry that you came all this way, but like I said on the phone, I don’t have a whole lot more to share with you about your friend’s case.”

  “We were actually in the area visiting an inmate at Greensville prison, so it wasn’t out of our way,” Holman said. “A man named Joe Tackett.”

  Sheriff Clark’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything.

  I was hoping for a bigger reaction. “You might remember him?” I said. “He was the sheriff of Tuttle County until a few months ago, when he pleaded guilty to a boatload of corruption charges?”

  “I know Joe.” His tone could have sliced through leather.

  “Holman and I worked on that case together.”

  “Story,” Sheriff Clark corrected me. “Reporters work on stories. Law enforcement works on cases.”

  Warmth started rising up my neck and into my cheeks. “Right. Anyway, it’s come to our attention that Tackett has some information about a cold case, a murder, that we believe might be connected to what happened to Flick.”

  Sheriff Clark arched an eyebrow. “Would the cold case in question happen to be that of your grandfather? The one that is currently closed and listed as a suicide?”

  I felt like a child who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but I wasn’t about to let him make me feel small over this. I lifted my chin
and said with as much dignity as I could muster, “Yes it is, as a matter of fact. Tackett may be a horrible excuse for a human being, but I didn’t believe my grandfather committed suicide then, and I don’t believe it now.”

  Holman spoke up and gave Clark a short summary of how Tackett rushed to close out Granddad’s case and went through all the reasons why it didn’t add up to suicide. He also told him about Tackett’s letter and what he was asking for. At the end, Holman added, “Riley and I have been working on a theory that Flick’s ‘car accident’ and Albert’s ‘suicide’ were engineered by the same person and for the same reason.”

  Sheriff Clark, who had taken a few notes while Holman was talking, set down his pen and looked at us. “Interesting…”

  “What’s interesting?” I asked.

  Sheriff Clark opened a file on his desk and took out a sheet of paper. He handed it to me. “That’s an incoming call log from Greensville Prison.”

  I scanned the document. There was one entry highlighted in yellow. “That’s Flick’s number,” I said.

  Sheriff Clark nodded. “I spoke to the operator who answered the phone that day and she said she remembers the call. Said Flick asked how he might go about getting an appointment with an inmate.”

  “Tackett,” I said. I knew that sonofabitch was hiding something.

  “Did he make the appointment?” Holman asked.

  “The operator told him he was not on Tackett’s list of approved visitors, so he needed to go on the Department of Corrections website and fill out a form.”

  “Did he?”

  “Not that I can find a record of,” Sheriff Clark said.

  I had been troubled from the start by the fact that Flick’s accident occurred on Highway 58, miles away from Chincoteague and Tuttle Corner. Now I wondered if maybe he’d been heading to see Tackett in prison. “I guess he could have taken 58 from Chincoteague into Greensville…maybe that’s what he was doing that night—heading to see Tackett?”