The Guilty

by David Baldacci

  “I hate his guts, as he does mine. If that fits your definition of not gettin’ along, then, no, we do not get along.”

  “You’re not from Mississippi, are you?”

  “No. But I am here now, which is fortunate for your daddy.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “The three H’s.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My life can be defined as Howard, Harvard, and Hard Knocks, and not necessarily in that order.”

  “You went to Harvard?”

  “For law school. Howard University for undergrad, and Hard Knocks for everythin’ else.”

  “How’d you end up here?”

  “I like to think I go where I’m needed. My caseload tells me I was right.”

  “So you’ll represent my father?”

  “I’ve been waitin’ all mornin’ for you to get your butt here. Been callin’ Sheila Taggert every twenty minutes.”

  “So you two are tight?”

  “We’re both in law enforcement, so to speak. She carries out the laws and I make sure the laws are carried out fairly and impartially, and not based in any way, shape, or form on personal prejudices of a litany of persuasions, the dominant one havin’ to do with skin pigment the same as mine. And let me tell you I have seen most of these prejudices here in Cantrell as well as other places in this fine country, north, south, east, and west. And they can be uh-uh-ugly.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Five thousand dollars and a retainer agreement signed by you and your daddy, so if one doesn’t pay me the other one’s got to.”

  “Can I put it on my credit card?”

  “You can put it on your ass so long as it clears the Second National Bank of Cantrell.”

  “And my father has to sign the retainer agreement too?”

  “Way attorney-client privilege attaches. He knows that. Why? Is that a problem?”

  “I hope not.”

  She smiled big. “I can tell you and me are goin’ to get on real good, Will.”

  Chapter

  27

  WHERE THE HELL have you been? You just shot outta here without a word.”

  Victoria was standing on the porch at the Willows, her hands on her soft hips, staring at Robie as he climbed out of his car.

  “Getting some things done.”

  “What things?”

  Robie walked up to her and leaned back against the railing.

  “For starters, I saw my father.”

  She gaped. “You did? How did it go?”

  Robie pointed to his swollen cheek. “He can still pack a wallop.”

  She stared at the spot. “Oh my God, do you want some ice for that?”

  “No, it’ll be fine. I also got him a lawyer.”

  “Who?”

  “Toni Moses.”

  “I hear she’s really good.”

  “I think he needs really good.”

  “Dan agreed to this?”

  Robie shrugged. “He will, when I tell him what I’ve done.”

  “You hired a lawyer for him without telling him?” She shook her head. “Well, if I were you I’d tell him from the other side of the cell door.”

  “Why, does he get physical with you?”

  The two stared at each other.

  “Why do you ask that?” she said.

  “You don’t really seem surprised that I did, Victoria.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Sort of like why you spent the night drinking with Sherm Clancy. Again, none of my business, right?”

  She sat down in a rocking chair. “I would say right, only it would be none of your damn business.”

  “But it makes a perfect motive for my father to kill the man.”

  She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I have regretted that night ever since it happened.”

  “Well, if it costs your husband his life I guess you should regret it forever.”

  “It’s not like I told Dan to kill the bastard,” she barked.

  Robie said firmly, “If he killed the bastard. So you think he did it?”

  “I don’t want to believe he had anything to do with it.”

  “He has no alibi. You were in Biloxi with Ty and Priscilla. So he had the opportunity. The weapon was like one that he possessed at some point and could have used to kill Clancy.”

  “I know all of that, Will. Do you think he did it?”

  Robie shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t know enough. I don’t think anyone does. That’s why they’re having a trial.”

  Victoria opened a bag on a table next to the rocker and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She lit one and offered the pack to Robie.

  He shook his head. “How’s Ty?”

  “He’s fine. He’s with Priscilla. Why?”

  “Credible threats.”

  “We’ve been over this. What threats? Dan doesn’t have any enemies.”

  “You can’t know that for sure. And if you’re wrong?”

  “So what do you suggest we do? Hire an armed guard?”

  “I’ll stay here with you. I can look after you. But I can’t be with you all the time.”

  “Are you really taking this seriously?”

  “I saw a man in the bushes on the rear grounds early this morning. I tried to follow him but he was already gone by the time I got outside. And your car had been searched.”

  For the first time Victoria looked scared. “Someone was outside the Willows early this morning?”

  “A tall man. White guy probably. Any idea who it might’ve been?”

  “How should I know?” she said defensively.

  “I’m just asking questions, trying to assemble some useful information. And what might he have been looking for in your car?”

  “What, are you playing at detective now?” She paused, studying him. “You’re not a cop, are you?”

  “Right now, I wish I were. I feel a little out of my depth.”

  “Even so, I don’t understand what you’re doing. Are you saying you’re going to investigate the case and try to get to the truth?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Why? And don’t tell me it’s because of your father. You’ve been gone longer than you were here. And you’ve never contacted him. Dan would have told me.”

  “I don’t like questions without answers.”

  “Well, like them or not, I think that’s what you’re faced with here.”

  Robie’s phone buzzed. He checked the screen.

  It was Blue Man.

  “I have to take this,” said Robie.

  He headed for the back of the property as he answered the phone.

  “How is Mississippi?” asked Blue Man.

  “Not as friendly as the tour guides say, at least for me.”

  “Have you seen your father?”

  “I have.”

  “And did it go well?”

  “No.”

  “You still want to follow through with this?”

  Do I want to follow through? thought Robie.

  “Like it or not, I think I have to.”

  “I expected you to say that. And I think you’re right.”

  “What have you found out?”

  “Not as much as I would have liked. It was damn tricky, Robie. You head down and all of a sudden the federal government gets interested in a murder in Mississippi. We had to tread carefully.”

  “I understand that, but you must’ve found out something.”

  “Sherman Clancy was intoxicated when he was killed. His blood alcohol was twice the legal limit.”

  “Meaning he was pretty much incapacitated, incapable of defending himself?”

  “Yes. The murder weapon was a serrated-edge knife. The police believe they have enough evidence there to say it was a Ka-Bar knife, though I’m not sure that would hold up in court. But it was definitely a serrated blade.”

  “And evidence tying my father to the crime?”

  “Well, the motive wa
s obvious.”

  “His wife was with Clancy and he found out.”

  “Right. Have you talked to his wife, well, I guess also your stepmother?”

  “I have. In fact, I’m staying at their house. She says she was just drinking with Clancy, nothing more.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “I don’t believe anyone. What else is there tying him to the crime?”

  “Dan Robie was seen driving his car near the spot where the murder took place.”

  “Who saw him?”

  “A local fisherman and his son.”

  “Their names?”

  “Tuck Carson and his son Ash. They told the police they saw your father in his Range Rover driving from the direction where the body was found about one in the morning. That would be about the time the death occurred.”

  “What were they doing out at that time of night?”

  “They said they were out to get bait for the next morning.”

  “What else?”

  “At the crime scene forensics found a boot print matching one of your father’s by the driver’s-side door. The ground was damp and muddy and the impression was clear. There were also several hairs that they said matched his found in the Bentley’s interior.”

  “He could have ridden in the car before. Or they could have been planted. So could the boot prints.”

  “Yes, they could have. But the witnesses apparently did see him in the area at the time.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Your father publicly threatened Clancy outside a restaurant in Cantrell two days before Clancy was killed. Several people heard it. Your father said he knew what Clancy had done and he was going to make him pay.” Blue Man paused. “So even if your father isn’t the murderer, you can understand why the police arrested him.”

  “I can,” conceded Robie. “Anything on Janet Chisum?”

  “Not much more than you probably know. Gunshot to the head killed her. Body thrown in the river. Fished out downriver the next day. Clancy was tried for the crime because of their, well, their relationship, but he was acquitted.”

  “Principally because my stepmother provided him with an ironclad alibi.”

  “The same alibi that may have provided the motive for your father to kill him. And the cause and effect didn’t take long. Five days after he was acquitted and released from jail, Sherman Clancy was dead.”

  “So if Clancy didn’t kill Janet Chisum, who did?”

  “Why are you concerned about that? It has nothing to do with your father.”

  “We don’t know that. There might be a connection.”

  “And there might actually be a Loch Ness monster, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Anything else?”

  “Jessica?”

  “Still out. Listen, Robie, I understand why you’re down there doing what you’re doing. And I know that I was the one who suggested that you resolve past issues. But you are a highly valuable asset of your government. We have spent a lot of time and money training you. The last thing any of us want is you getting killed down there over a matter best left to others.”

  “I think you should know by now that I can take care of myself.”

  “And life is highly unpredictable. And small rural towns hold dangers sometimes that the worst hot spots in the world couldn’t match. You remember that.”

  Blue Man clicked off.

  Robie put his phone away and concluded that Blue Man was a very wise person indeed.

  He stood there lost in thought for a few moments. He was putting together a to-do list and there were now many items piling up on it.

  He assembled them in some order, then climbed into his car and left in pursuit of the first one.

  The eyewitnesses.

  Chapter

  28

  TUCK CARSON’S HOUSE was on the Pearl River, befitting a man who made his living from pulling fish out of its depths and taking those who wanted to do the same on guided tours. It was more a shack than a house. There was a pressure-treated wood pier out back at which two boats were docked. One was a sleek bass boat, low to the water with a Yamaha engine on the stern and a bow trickle thruster when it came time to fish. The other boat was a twenty-two-foot, center-console hardtop with twin engines on the back and fishing poles resting in holders up and down the sides of the watercraft.

  The smell of fish guts was strong as Robie got out of his car and walked up the gravel path to the house.

  Before he got to the porch the door opened and out stepped a short, stocky man around forty with thick forearms and greasy hair that sprawled out from under an oil-stained Briggs & Stratton ball cap. He had on a dirty work shirt that revealed his top-most chest hair. He wore cutoff shorts that showed bandy legs that were deeply tanned and muscled.

  In his right hand he held a gutting knife. In his other was an unopened can of Michelob.

  “What can I do you for?” said the man. “We go out at five in the mornin’, back at ten. Full up for the next two days. Talk to the wife ’bout schedulin’ somethin’.”

  “I’m not here to fish,” said Robie.

  The man gripped his knife more tightly. “What then?”

  “I’m Will Robie.”

  The man’s eyes widened, as Robie knew they would.

  “Are you Tuck Carson?”

  Carson stuck the point of his knife into the porch railing, popped his can of beer, and took a long swig. “I done said all I had to say to the police.”

  “I’m sure. But you’ll have to testify when the time comes, that you saw my father where and when you did.”

  “Don’t think you should be here, bein’ his son and all.”