Redemption Road

by John Hart

  “Crybaby Jones.”

  “Come in, come in.”

  He turned into the house, muttering apologies as he cleared newspapers and law books from different pieces of grand, old furniture. Glass clinked as empty bottles and cut-crystal glasses disappeared into the kitchen. Elizabeth wandered the room, her gaze on walking sticks, oil paintings, and dusty guns. When the old man returned, his shirt was buttoned to the collar, his hair perfectly smooth and damp enough to stay put as he moved. “Now, then.” He opened a double-door closet that concealed a wet bar and a wall of bottles. “You don’t care for bourbon, as I recall.”

  “Vodka rocks, please.”

  “Vodka rocks.” His hands hovered by a row of bottles. “Belvedere?”

  “Perfect.”

  Elizabeth watched him fix her drink, then mix an old-fashioned for himself. Faircloth Jones was a lawyer, retired. He’d come from nothing, worked weekends and nights to put himself through school, and become—arguably—the finest defense attorney ever seen in the state of North Carolina. In fifty years of practice—decades of cases involving murder, abuse, betrayal—he’d only cried once in court, the day a black-robed judge swore him into the state bar, then frowned disapprovingly and asked the young man why he was so shiny-eyed and trembling. When Faircloth explained that he was moved by the grandeur of the moment, the judge asked that he kindly move his wet-behind-the-ears, crybaby self somewhere other than his court.

  The nickname stuck.

  “I know why you’re here.” He pushed the drink into her hand, sat in a cracked, leather chair. “Adrian’s out.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Since retirement and divorce, I rarely leave the house. Sit. Please.” He gestured to his right, and Elizabeth sat in a wooden-armed chair whose cushions were covered in faded, wine-colored velvet that had, in places, been worn white. “I’ve been following your situation with great interest. An unfortunate business: Channing Shore, the Monroe brothers. What’s your lawyer’s name, again?”

  “Jennings.”

  “Jennings. That’s it. A youngish man. Do you like him?”

  “I haven’t spoken to him.”

  “Young lady.” He lowered the drink onto the arm of his chair. “Water finds a level, as you know, and the state will have its pound of flesh. Call your lawyer. Meet with him tonight if need be.”

  “It’s fine, really.”

  “I fear I must insist. Even a young lawyer is better than none at all. The papers make your situation quite plain, and I don’t pretend to have forgotten the politics of state office. Were I not a million years old, I would have sought you out myself and demanded to represent you.”

  He was agitated. Elizabeth ignored it. “I’m not here to talk about myself.”

  “Adrian, then.”

  “Yes.” Elizabeth slipped onto the edge of her chair. It seemed so small, the truth she needed. A single word, a few letters. “Was he sleeping with Julia Strange?”

  “Ah.”

  “He told me as much less than an hour ago. I just want verification.”

  “You’ve seen him, then?”

  “I have.”

  “And you asked about the presence of his skin beneath Julia’s nails?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.…”

  “Don’t say no.”

  “I wish I could help you, but that information is a matter of attorney-client privilege, and you, my dear girl, are still an officer of the law. I can’t discuss it.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “I’ve dedicated my life to the law. How can I do less when the days that remain are so few?” He drank deeply, visibly upset.

  Elizabeth leaned closer, thinking perhaps he might feel the strength of her need. “Listen, Crybaby…”

  “Call me Faircloth, please.” He waved a hand. “The nickname reminds me of better days that hurt all the more for their passing.” He settled into the seat as if a hand were pressing down.

  Elizabeth clasped her fingers and spoke as if the rest of her words might cause pain, too. “Adrian believes someone planted evidence to implicate him.”

  “The beer can, yes. We discussed that, often.”

  “Yet, it was never challenged at trial.”

  “For that, my dear, Adrian would have needed to take the stand. He was unwilling to do so.”

  “Can you tell me why?’

  “I’m sorry, but I cannot; and for the same reason as before.”

  “Another woman has been killed, Faircloth, murdered in the same manner and in the same church. Adrian has been arrested. It will be in tomorrow’s papers.”

  “Dear God.”

  The glass trembled in his hand, and she touched his arm. “I need to know if he’s lying to me about the beer can, the presence of his skin beneath Julia’s nails.”

  “Has he been charged?”

  “Faircloth—”

  “Has he been charged?” The old man’s voice shook with emotion. His fingers were white on the glass, spots of color in his cheeks.

  “Not for the murder. He was picked up on a trespass charge. They’ll hold him as long as they can. You know how it works. As for the dead woman, I know only that she was killed after Adrian’s release from prison. Beyond that, I don’t know what evidence they have. I’m frozen out.”

  “Because of your own troubles?”

  “And because Francis Dyer doubts my intentions.”

  “Francis Dyer. Phhh!” The old man waved an arm, and Elizabeth remembered the way he’d cross-examined Dyer. As hard as Faircloth had tried, he had never been able to discredit Dyer’s testimony. He was unshakable on the stand, utterly convinced of Adrian’s obsession with Julia Strange.

  “They’ll hang him for this if they can.” Elizabeth leaned closer. “You still care. I can tell. Talk to me, please.”

  He looked out from under bushy brows, the narrowed eyes very bright. “Will you help him?”

  “Trust him or walk away. Those are my choices.”

  The old man leaned back in the chair and looked small in the rumpled suit. “Did you know that my family and Adrian’s have been together on this river for two hundred years or more? No reason you should, of course, but there it is. The Jones family. The Walls. When my father was crippled in the First World War, it was Adrian’s great-grandfather who taught me to hunt and fish and work the land. He cared for my parents, and when the Depression came, he made sure we had butter and beef and flour. He died when I was twelve, but I remember the smell of him, like tractor grease and grass and wet canvas. He had strong hands and a lined face and wore a tie when he came for supper on Sundays. I grew up and followed the law and never knew Adrian that well. But I remember the day he was born. A group of us smoked cigars on the porch right there. His father. A few others. It’s good land on the river. Good families.”

  “That’s a lovely sentiment, but I need something beyond simple faith. Can you tell me anything more? About Adrian? The case? Anything?”

  The last word smelled of desperation, and the old lawyer sighed. “I can tell you that the law is an ocean of darkness and truth, and that lawyers are but vessels on the surface. We may pull one rope or another, but it is the client, in the end, who charts the course.”

  “Adrian refused your advice.”

  “I really can’t discuss it.”

  The old man drained his drink, the cherry bloodred in the bottom of the glass. He declined to meet her eyes, and Elizabeth thought she understood. He knew about the affair. He could have used it to sow doubt in the minds of the jury, but Adrian wouldn’t allow it.

  “It saddens me, child, to have you here while I have so little of value to say. I hope you can forgive an old man for such a frightful lapse, but I find myself weary.”

  Elizabeth took his hand, the bones within it light and brittle.

  “If you would be kind enough to fix another drink.” He retrieved his hand and offered the glass. “My heart aches from thoughts of Adrian, and my legs seem to
have lost much of their feeling.” Elizabeth fixed the drink and watched him take it. “Did you know that George Washington slept here, once?” He gestured vaguely; seeming tired enough to be transparent. “I often wonder which room.”

  “I’ll leave you alone,” Elizabeth said. “Thank you for speaking with me.”

  She made it to the tall, wide doors before he spoke again. “Do you know how I got my nickname?”

  Elizabeth turned her back to the curving staircase and the floor stained black by time. “I’ve heard the story.”

  “That flint-eyed judge was right about one thing. Lawyers are not to become emotionally involved. We are to be strong when clients are weak, righteous where they are flawed. It’s a simple conceit. Discipline. The law.” He looked up from the depths of his chair. “That worked for every client until Adrian.”

  Elizabeth held her breath.

  “We spent seven months prepping his case, sat side by side for long weeks of trial. I’m not saying he was perfect—God knows he was as human as the rest of us—but when he was convicted, it was like something inside me broke, like some vital, lawyerly organ simply stopped working. I kept my face, mind you. I thanked the judge and shook the prosecutor’s hand. I waited until the courtroom was clear, then I put my head on the defense table and wept like a child. You asked if there was anything I could tell you, and I guess that’s it. The last trial of Crybaby Jones.” He nodded at the liquor in his glass. “A sad old man and tears, like bookends.”

  * * *

  When Elizabeth returned to the police station, she marched through the front door without slowing. Adrian was telling the truth—that was the old man’s message. Now, she wanted to know what they had on him. Not the trespass. The murder. She wanted answers.

  “What are you doing here, Liz?”

  She rounded into the bull pen, still moving fast. Beckett worked his large body between the desks, trying to catch her as she narrowed the angle to Dyer’s door.

  “Liz. Wait.”

  Her hand found the knob.

  “Don’t. Liz. Jesus…”

  But the door was already opening. Inside, Dyer was standing. So were Hamilton and Marsh.

  “Detective Black.” Hamilton spoke first. “We were just talking about you.”

  Elizabeth faltered. “Captain?”

  “You shouldn’t be here, Liz.”

  Elizabeth looked from Dyer to the state cops. It was hours after dark, too late for the meeting to be random. “This is about me?”

  “New evidence,” Hamilton said. “We’d like your take on it.”

  “I won’t allow that,” Dyer said. “Not without representation.”

  “We can keep it off the record, if you like.”

  Dyer shook his head, but Elizabeth raised her hand. “It’s okay, Francis. If there’s new evidence, I want to hear it.”

  “Off the record, then. Come in and shut the door. Not you, Beckett.”

  “Liz?” Beckett showed his palms.

  “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

  She tried to tell herself that was true, but Dyer looked ruined. Even Hamilton and Marsh seemed burdened by some unseen weight. Elizabeth worked to hold on to her conviction and purpose. She’d come for Adrian because the old lawyer’s certainty was as compelling as any proof she’d ever seen. But the air in the close, crowded office tasted thick and sickly sweet. It was fear, she realized. She was barely three feet into the room, and already afraid. “Am I being charged?”

  “Not yet.” Hamilton closed the door.

  She nodded, but not yet meant it was coming, meant it was close. “What evidence?”

  “Forensics on the basement.” Hamilton’s fingers touched a file on the desk. “Is there anything you want to tell us about what happened there?” His voice came from some distant place. “Detective Black?”

  Everyone was looking at her, now, Dyer suddenly worried, the state cops so full of inexplicable pity they seemed grotesque.

  “We ran DNA,” Hamilton said. “On the wire used to bind Channing Shore. The lab identified blood from two different people. One was from the girl, of course, which we expected.” He paused. “The second sample came from an unknown person.”

  “A second person?”

  “Yes.”

  “One of the Monroe brothers,” Elizabeth said.

  “Both brothers have been ruled out.”

  “Then the blood came from some other crime. Cross-contamination. Old evidence.”

  “We don’t believe so.”

  “Then, some other explanation…”

  “May we see your wrists, Detective Black?” Everyone looked at her sleeves, at the light jacket and buttoned cuffs. Hamilton leaned closer, his expression as soft as his voice. “We’re not incapable of sympathy.…”

  Elizabeth kept her hands perfectly still, though her skin seemed to burn. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “If there’s a reason you snapped—”

  “I shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  “If there are extenuating circumstances—”

  “I shouldn’t be here at all.”

  She hit the door at a fast walk, blood rushing in her ears, the skin still burning. She didn’t think about why because she was tired of thinking, same with feeling, remembering, talking. There was a time and a place, and not every goddamn thing mattered. That’s what everyone else refused to understand.

  The basement was done.

  Over.

  For an instant, she sensed Beckett behind her, his voice in the stairwell, then on the street. She moved faster, slid into the car, then gunned it, seeing his face as a white blotch, his hands rising and then down. She drove fast and let the car do the talking. Rubber at the corners. Engine on the flats. Her skin still burned, but it was more like shame and rage and self-loathing.

  DNA on the wire.

  Her hand hit the wheel.

  She wanted to move and keep moving. Barring that, she wanted to get drunk. She wanted to be alone in the dark, to sit in a chair and feel the weight of a glass in her hand. The memory would still be there, but the colors would dim; the Monroe brothers would fade; the carousel would stop.

  Beckett, however, had other ideas. His car hit the driveway twenty seconds behind her own. “What are you doing here, Charlie?”

  “I heard what they said.” Beckett stopped at the bottom step. “Through the door, I heard it.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So, I don’t know what to do.” He looked as ruined as Dyer as he tried and failed to keep his eyes off the place her hands joined her arms. “Liz, Jesus…”

  “Whatever they’re talking about has nothing to do with me. I’m a cop. I’m fine.”

  “If something happened—”

  “I shot them like I said. I don’t regret it. I would do it again. Beyond that, there’s no story. Good guys won. The girl’s alive.”

  “And if the girl was talking? If Hamilton and Marsh could get through her father’s lawyers?”

  “She’d say the same thing.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. The way things are with you two.” He tilted his large head, and shadows moved on the broken landscape of his face. “You make it easy to believe the worst.”

  “Because we look out for each other?”

  “Because when you talk, you use the same words. You should look at your statements. Put them side by side and tell me what you see. Same words. Same phrasing.”

  “Coincidence.”

  “Show me your wrists.”

  “No.”

  He reached for her arm, and she slapped him so hard the sound itself was like a shot. They froze in the silence that followed. Partners. Friends. Momentary enemies.

  “I deserved that,” Beckett said.

  “You’re goddamn straight.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just—”

  “Go away, Charlie.”

  “No.”

  “It’s late.”

  She fumbled with keys, and Beckett watched from the
fog of his discontent. When the door closed between them, he raised his voice. “You should have called me, Liz! You should have never gone in alone!”

  “Go home, Beckett.”

  “I’m your partner, damn it. We have procedures.”

  “I said, go home!”

  She put her weight on the door, felt the crush of her heart and wood against her skin. Beckett was still outside, standing and watching. By the time he left, she was shaking and didn’t know why.

  Because people suspected?

  Because her skin still burned?

  “Past is past.” She closed her eyes and said it again. “Past is past and now is now.”

  “Is that how you do it?”

  The voice came from a dark corner beyond the sofa, and Liz’s hand touched checkered wood before she cataloged it. “Damn it, Channing.” She took her fingers off the pistol grip, flipped on an overhead light. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The girl’s feet were pulled up in the well of a deep chair. She wore jeans and chipped polish and canvas sneakers. The same hooded sweatshirt framed her eyes. Bright as they were, the girl still looked haunted, her narrow shoulders rolled inward, a kitchen knife in the knot of a single hand. “I’m sorry.” She put the knife on the arm of the chair. “I don’t do well with angry men.”

  Elizabeth locked the door. Crossing the room, she collected the knife and put it on the kitchen table. “How did you get in here?”

  “You weren’t home.” Channing hooked a thumb. “I jimmied the window.”

  “Since when do you break into people’s houses?”

  “Never before tonight. You should have set your alarm, by the way.”

  “Would it have stopped you?”

  “I feel safe with you. I’m sorry.”

  Elizabeth ran water in the sink, splashed some on her face. She didn’t know if the girl was sorry or not. In the end, it didn’t matter. She was hurting. Like Liz was hurting.

  “Do your parents know where you are?”

  “No.”

  “I’m facing indictment, Channing. You’re a potential witness against me. It would be … unwise.”

  “Maybe I’ll run away.”