The Guilty

by David Baldacci

  She looked like she might faint. “I…Mister, I…”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He turned and walked out. He would have to hurry now to make his meeting.

  Chapter

  13

  ROBIE WALKED INTO Momma Lulu’s on Little Choctaw at one minute past five. The place was only a quarter full, and Robie recalled that most folks who ate out in Cantrell ate out late. This was usually because they labored long, and their labor was often outside in a hot, humid climate, which required at least a shower and major amounts of deodorant before heading out to a public place.

  He looked around but did not see Taggert among the tables. He noticed a man at the cash register who was staring at him. With a slight movement of his head he motioned Robie over.

  “Go out the way you come in, turn right. There’s an alley there. Walk down it. She’ll be there.”

  “And who are you?” asked Robie.

  “A friend of hers, Mr. Robie. Just a friend.”

  Robie did as the man said, though part of him expected an ambush as he walked into the darkened alley. But it was a straight shot with no place for concealment. He exited the narrow path, again ready for someone to jump him, but he saw Taggert sitting in what he assumed was her private vehicle, though she still had on her police uniform.

  She pointed to the passenger door and he climbed in. As he belted up she put the rusty Ford Taurus in reverse, backed out, and sped off heading east. At the next intersection, she turned to go south.

  Robie looked around the interior of the car and noted the booster seat in the back. On the floorboard were discarded fast-food containers and polystyrene coffee cups. Robie could see the pavement below through a hole in the floorboard.

  The inside of the car smelled musty, layered by the stench of a fouled diaper.

  “How many kids do you have?”

  “Four.”

  He eyed the booster seat. Her gaze followed his.

  “My grandson, Sammy,” she said.

  He said incredulously, “You’re a grandmother? You’re only, what, forty-one?”

  “Had my first at nineteen. She had her first at eighteen. You do the math.”

  “Okay.”

  “You have any kids, Robie?”

  “No.”

  “Married?”

  “No.”

  “Ever been?”

  “No.”

  She shot him a glance. “You of the homosexual persuasion?”

  “Not that I’m aware.”

  Once they were clear of the small downtown she spoke again. “Heard you had some trouble at Danby’s.”

  “That just happened a few minutes ago. How’d you hear already?”

  “Small-town livin’ is faster’n Twitter ever thought’a bein’. Got me two calls probably before the last fellow hit the planks.”

  “Just for the record, they attacked me.”

  “Not disputin’ that. Pete Clancy is a royal a-hole.”

  “I understand he was from a second marriage?”

  “Shortly after Sherm came into money, he divorced Cassandra, married some bimbo he met in Biloxi when he was probably drunk outta his mind, and wham, bam, thank you ma’am, there was Pete. Then he divorced the bimbo and she’s long gone, but there’s still Pete.”

  “So with his father gone, won’t Pete be inheriting?”

  “Old Sherm liked the good life and spent his money—doubt there’ll be much left once the kids from his first marriage try to get their pound’a flesh. Seems Sherm didn’t leave a will, so he died intestate. Which makes it all a little trickier.”

  “Since you wanted to meet, I guess the riot act you read me at the jail was just that, an act?”

  “Only partly. It did piss me off to see you walk in that door. But you got outta Cantrell. Most of us didn’t. Guess I was jealous.”

  “And the other part?”

  “You’re persona non grata here, Robie. Won’t do me no good cozyin’ up to you. Folks don’t come into Cantrell all that often. Hell, almost never. And your daddy is an accused murderer of one of the citizens of this humble place. Not an esteemed citizen by any stretch, but still he was one of us.”

  Robie settled back in his seat. “So what did you want to meet for?”

  “Some things you ought’a know. And I suppose you got yourself some questions.”

  “I have nothing but questions.”

  “Let me ask you one.”

  “Okay.”

  “You took on three big guys at Danby’s and licked ’em. How? What you been doin’ with yourself all these years?”

  “Well, the last guy ran off, so it was only two really.”

  “You play cute with me, you can get your butt outta my car right now.”

  “I learned self-defense after I left here. Just a few moves, and those guys were drunk.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, clearly not believing him but apparently unwilling to push it.

  Robie looked up ahead. “Where are we going?”

  “Got a spot on the Gulf. Like to go there. Nice place to have a conversation.”

  “Why are you doing this, Deputy Taggert?”

  “Call me Sheila, for Chrissakes, Robie. I’m not on duty.”

  “You can call me Will, if you want.”

  “No. Don’t cut both ways. Can’t get too personal with you.”

  “Okay, so, Sheila, why are you doing this?”

  “I guess I naturally gravitate to the underdog. And you are the underdog here, Robie, make no mistake ’bout that.”

  “I didn’t know it was a competition.”

  “This is small-town Mississippi. Everythin’s a damn competition. We just pretend to be laid back and not give a shit ’bout nothin’. But we keep score on football games and everythin’ else. Guess it makes up for most’a us not havin’ two dimes to rub together our whole damn lives.”

  They drove along in silence until they reached the Gulf Coast. She parked her car on a narrow strip of dirt and they climbed out. He followed her down to the edge of the water. They both gazed out to where the warm Gulf waters ran to the horizon. Overhead the sun had plenty of fuel left to burn before it sank into the other side of the world.

  Robie’s mind drifted back to August 2005, when Katrina had slammed into this part of America. The storm had come ashore officially as a Category 3 hurricane, but its effect once on land had made it seem like a Cat 10. It crushed and drowned everything and everyone in its path, filling up New Orleans like a soup bowl once the levees failed. While the Big Easy had gotten most of the media attention, large parts of Mississippi had been devastated, too.

  Sheila looked over at Robie. It was as though she could read his thoughts.

  “Katrina missed Cantrell for the most part. Don’t know why. Must’ve been God’s work. Towns on either side of us weren’t so lucky, though. I lost some good friends. We all did.”

  Robie nodded slowly. He had been in Afghanistan at the time, killing the Taliban from long range with his sniper skills. The CIA had loaned him out to the DoD to help take the fight to the enemy that had toppled the Towers and viciously struck the Pentagon, using innocent American citizens trapped inside jumbo jets as their weapons of choice. He had killed many during the day and then tried to sleep at night when the temperatures dropped to a hundred degrees in the proverbial shade. His tour had lasted longer than he could remember. He had gotten little news from stateside, but the whole world had known about Katrina. From nine thousand miles away he had not checked on the town of Cantrell or his father, though he might have been able to.

  He had not done so because at that point in his life he didn’t care.

  The town and his father were no longer part of who he was. And after killing a dozen people a day himself while sniping in combat, he had grown immune to the effects of widespread death. He didn’t like that about himself, but he couldn’t deny that it had been how he had felt then. And maybe still did.

  “Where were you, Robie?” asked Taggert quietly. “When
Katrina came ashore?”

  He kept his gaze on the water; the Gulf was very un-Katrina like now—flat, smooth, like polished aquamarine glass instead of a boiling mass of fury carrying the combined destructive force of a dozen nukes. It was Mother Nature’s most powerful punch, the wickedest, most indiscriminate arrow in her quiver.

  “I was busy,” replied Robie. “A long way away. But I’m glad that Cantrell wasn’t hit.” He turned to her. “My father lives at the Willows. I met his wife and son.”

  “Lots of surprises for you.”

  “How could he afford that place?”

  “You really are out of the loop.”

  “Can you help me get back in it?”

  “Why do you want to? Why are you even here—and don’t feed me that crap ’bout your daddy bein’ in jail accused of murder, ’cause I ain’t buyin’ it.”

  Robie started to say something but then stopped. He recalibrated his remark, moving it far closer to the truth than he had initially intended.

  “I’ve come to a point in my life where things that didn’t matter to me now do. This is one of them.”

  When she gazed up at him, he did not look away from her.

  She said, “Now that may be the first piece of straight talk to come out your damn mouth since you been here.”

  He didn’t respond to this. He wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “Your daddy can afford the Willows ’cause he hit it rich as a lawyer.”

  “How? His stuff was nickel-and-dime, and he was mostly paid in chickens and vegetables.”

  “When you were here, yes. But then he represented four families that lost folks in a drillin’ platform explosion out in the Gulf. There were safety violations, cost-cuttin’, fudged paperwork, guys workin’ way too many undocumented hours, the typical corporate make-as-much-money-as-you-can-and-screw-everybody-else bullshit. Facin’ all that evidence, they brought in the big legal guns and tried to overwhelm your daddy. Then when that didn’t work, the oil company sent in some seriously bad dudes. His office got burned out. His car got shot up. They caught up to him one night and broke his arm, but he laid two of those suckers out. And all that just made your daddy—”

  “—fight harder,” observed Robie. He could envision his father facing these long odds and relishing the battle. The oil company had picked the wrong man to intimidate.

  His father feared nothing, except maybe a son he had never come close to understanding.

  Or perhaps loving.

  She said, “Yes sir, he did. Took years, but the families got tens of millions of dollars each and your daddy got his piece. Then he ran for county judge and won.”

  “When did he marry Victoria?”

  “Oh, a little over four years ago.”

  “How’d they meet? She’s not from Mississippi. I knew that when she spoke.”

  “Well, you’re from Mississippi, and you don’t sound like it.”

  “True.”

  “But the fact is, she’s not from here. They met, so’s I heard, at a legal convention up north somewhere.”

  “She’s a lawyer?”

  “No, don’t believe so. Leastways she’s never hung out her shingle. But she was at the convention. Love at first sight, way I heard tell.”

  “From who?”

  “From everybody, Robie. Your daddy come back with his heart all full of love. All’s he could talk about was Victoria this and Victoria that. Not much later they were hitched and he brought her here. They bought the Willows. And then they had Tyler.”

  “Who doesn’t talk?”

  “That’s right. They’ve had lots of doctors look at him, but so far nothin’. Maybe he just don’t have anythin’ to say right now. Maybe when he gets older, he’ll never stop talkin’.”

  “I spoke to Priscilla.”

  “She’s a smart lady, don’t miss much.”

  “She said she knew why Clancy wasn’t convicted, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Well, it ain’t no big secret. He had an alibi.”

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “No clue.”

  “You met her today.”

  Robie flinched. “Priscilla?”

  “No. Your stepma, Victoria.”

  Chapter

  14

  YOU WANT TO explain that to me?” said a stunned Robie.

  “Pretty simple. She was his alibi on the night that Janet Chisum was murdered.”

  “If that was the case, why was Clancy even tried?”

  “Well, initially there was lots of evidence against him. They were seen together earlier that day. And her body was dumped in the Pearl where it crosses Clancy’s land.”

  “What was the alleged motive?”

  “That was the other bit of evidence. Clancy liked his girls young and hot. Chisum fit both criteria. Chisum suddenly had money to buy stuff. They’d been seen together before. It was obvious that Clancy was giving her money. For what? Well, I always had my suspicions.”

  “You mean he was paying her for sex?”

  “Hell yes he was. And he admitted it, too. Now the prosecution figured that Clancy wanted somethin’ that Chisum was unwillin’ to give, and he got ticked off and he killed her. Probably while he was drunk, which he pretty much always was after three in the afternoon.”

  “That doesn’t explain the alibi.”

  “Well, that came later, while the trial was goin’ on. Victoria came forward and testified that she was with Clancy from eight that night till six the next mornin’.”

  Robie stared wide-eyed at her. “You mean she spent the night with him?”

  “Well, she said she was with him durin’ the night, so I guess one could read it that way.”

  “Doing what?”

  “She said they were just talkin’. And drinkin’. And that that was all.”

  “Why did she wait so long to come forward?”

  “Well, your daddy was a jealous man for one. And he was also the judge in the case. Pretty damn dicey. She was probably scared, but then she decided to come forward ’cause it looked like Clancy was gonna be convicted. Now he was pure scum, but if he was innocent of killin’ the gal he shouldn’t go to prison for it.”

  “But if Clancy had been with Victoria, why didn’t he tell his lawyers or the police that? Then they would have brought Victoria in for questioning.”

  “Apparently he did. And they did ask her. And she denied all of it. Then she changed her story and admitted she was with him. They could’a got her for lyin’ to the police, but they just dropped it. Figured she’d suffered enough by comin’ forward like she did.”

  “Didn’t the prosecution object?”

  “Oh, they sure as hell did. Screamed till the cows come home. Thin’ is, your daddy had to recuse himself the minute she said she was with Clancy. No way could he still be the judge then.”

  “I guess not.”