The Guilty

by David Baldacci

  “Just that they apparently left Cantrell without a trace,” replied Robie.

  “How does a family leave a small town and no one know?”

  “Well, apparently it happened.”

  “Your dad should know, shouldn’t he? I mean he was here all that time. And he knew them.”

  “He says he doesn’t know what happened to them.”

  “And you believe him?” asked Reel.

  “Maybe I’m getting cynical in my old age, Jess, but I’m starting not to believe anybody.”

  “Good, I haven’t believed anyone in years. Sometimes, not even myself.”

  They drove on.

  * * *

  Doc Holloway was waiting for them, dressed in a white shirt, a tie, and a white lab coat.

  His nurse was not in attendance.

  She didn’t get in until nine, Holloway told them, and it was not yet seven in the morning.

  He examined Reel first, cleaning up her gashes, slashes, and cuts from where bits of material blown off by the fired rounds had punctured her skin.

  “You hurt anywhere else?” asked Holloway as he finished stitching up a gash on her neck.

  “Nothing that won’t keep,” she said.

  “How’d you come by all these?” he asked.

  “Fast living.”

  Robie was up next and the prognosis wasn’t as good.

  “You’ve completely torn the scar tissue, which in turn has torn some ligaments and done more internal damage,” said Holloway. “I can patch up the other areas, but that one’s going to require surgery.” He slowly lifted Robie’s arm up and back, and Robie winced with each movement.

  “I’m goin’ to put you in a sling for now. You’ll need to keep it as immobile as possible. But you need to have that surgery done, Mr. Robie, or the damage really could be permanent.”

  “Understood, Doc. Thanks.”

  After Holloway cleaned up his other wounds, he helped Robie put his shirt back on. Then he fixed up the sling for Robie’s damaged arm.

  Holloway glanced at him as he put his instruments and equipment away. “You and your friend have certainly been busy in our small town.”

  “Wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have to be,” said Robie.

  “No, I understand about your father. I hear he’s out of jail.”

  “On bail.”

  “When will the trial be?”

  “Maybe there won’t be a trial.”

  “Oh really, why is that?” asked Holloway suspiciously.

  “If we find who really killed Sherman Clancy.”

  “I understood the evidence was fairly damnin’ to Dan Robie.”

  “Evidence is a funny thing. It all depends on perspective.”

  “Are you yourself in law enforcement?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Clancy and the two Chisum girls, three murders in a relatively short period of time. We’re not used to that here.”

  “I hope most places wouldn’t be used to that.”

  “Do you think it’s one person doin’ all of this?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Robie, watching him closely. “What do you think?”

  “I’m just a doctor, not a detective.”

  “But doctors have to be sort of like a detective. Investigating symptoms and arriving at the truth of a person’s condition.”

  “That’s actually a large part of what we do.”

  “Speaking of a person’s true condition, have you been by to see Billy lately?”

  “Billy Faulconer, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have, as a matter of fact.”

  “And how is he doing?”

  “He’s dyin’, Mr. Robie. And there’s nothin’ any of us can do about that.”

  “Well, that seems to be the case for a lot of folks in Cantrell,” Robie shot back.

  Chapter

  63

  OKAY, YOU OFFICIALLY look like death warmed over,” said Reel as they walked out of Holloway’s office.

  He examined the sutures on her neck, gauze on her face, and bandages on both arms.

  “Well, then we make a quite a pair because you look like shit,” Robie retorted.

  They drove back to the Willows.

  Dan Robie met them on the porch.

  “My God,” he said as he saw them fully. “I’ve seen infantry comin’ out of a firefight in Nam look better than you two.”

  “It wasn’t too pretty,” conceded Robie.

  “Taggert called me,” Dan said. “And filled me in a little.” He looked at his son’s arm in a sling. “Is it bad?”

  “I’ll get it fixed up at some point.”

  “Some point soon,” added Reel. “Or the damage could be permanent.”

  He glanced at her.

  “I was standing on the other side of a partially open door when Holloway told you that. I’m just naturally curious.”

  Dan led them inside and insisted on making them breakfast.

  Priscilla had taken Tyler to get a haircut, he said, and Victoria was still in bed with a migraine.

  Eggs, bacon, grits, biscuits, and fresh coffee were served up and they all sat down to eat.

  “So tell me what happened,” Dan said.

  Robie and Reel took turns filling him in.

  Dan shook his head. “So it was Clancy’s Range Rover that was used when Sara Chisum was killed. I thought it must be somethin’ like that when you two ran out of here after I made that comment.”

  “It did make me start thinking,” said Robie. “And we nearly got killed in the process. But the bullet hole was there.”

  Dan said, “And the Wendells? Who would’ve thought they’d be mixed up with such criminals?”

  “Bad stuff happens in all kinds of families,” said Reel.

  “I know, but I would have thought that Bobby Wendell would’ve been smarter about it. Hirin’ thugs to make this problem go away? Well, you play with snakes, you’re gonna get bit.”

  “And he was officially bitten.” Robie put his cup of coffee down, pulled out the photo of Laura, and slid it across to his father.

  Dan took it up and stared at it. “Where’d you get this?”

  “In Sherman Clancy’s Bentley.”

  “I wonder what it was doing there.”

  “I wonder, too.”

  The tone of his voice made his father glance up.

  He said sternly, “Why don’t you just say what you’re thinkin’, son, instead of beatin’ around the bush like you always do?”

  “What happened to the Barksdales?”

  “I told you I didn’t know.”

  “And not to beat around the bush, I don’t believe you.”

  “So you’re sayin’ I’m lyin’?”

  “Whatever you want to call it,” said Robie evenly.

  Dan rose and said menacingly, “You want to take this outside, boy?”

  “I’m not a boy.”

  “And he’s a little beat up for hand-to-hand combat, Dan,” pointed out Reel. “And the fact that he’s been nearly killed a few times trying to help you should count a little in his favor, don’t you think?”

  Dan blinked at her, his face changed color, and he abruptly sat back down and stared at the tabletop.

  “The Barksdales?” prompted Robie.

  His father growled, “That was over twenty years ago. What does it matter?”

  “Because it might be connected to what’s going on now.”

  Dan shot him a glance. “How do you figure that?”

  “The photo was in Clancy’s possession. Clancy was a blackmailer. I can’t think of another reason why he would have that photo. As far as I knew he didn’t even know the Barksdales. They were from far different classes of people.”

  “That’s true. And those classes generally don’t mix in Mississippi.”

  “But they might have mixed. We were told that Nelson Wendell used a shack on Sherman Clancy’s farm to have his little get-togethers with the kids. It was how C
lancy got on to what Wendell was really doing and then started his blackmailing.”

  Dan looked disgusted. “What scum. He should have gone to the cops.”

  “He was after dollars, not doing the right thing,” commented Reel.

  Robie added, “Pete said his father thought the shack was being used by Wendell for liaisons with women. He probably would have blackmailed him either way. But the kid thing was far worse than having mistresses. But let’s get back to the Barksdales.”

  Dan said, “So you think he was blackmailin’ them, too?”

  “Did he have a way to?”

  “How would I know that? I was a humble Cantrell lawyer back then. Just like Clancy, I didn’t rub elbows with the likes of the Barksdales. I told you that!”

  “But I dated Laura. In fact I wanted to run off with Laura.”

  Father and son stared across the table at each other while Reel glanced between them.

  “So that was what happened,” said Dan accusingly. “Thanks for finally gettin’ around to tellin’ me.”

  “No, it didn’t happen, because Laura decided to stay. So I went alone.”

  Dan eyed him fiercely. “And why did you do that? You had a damn college scholarship to play football at Ole Miss. Sure you were a little undersized for quarterback but you had grit. And you would’ve gotten an education, made something of yourself.”

  “I did make something of myself.”

  “But not here,” said his father. “You had to run off to do it. Cut me and your mother right out.”

  “She was already gone, Dad. Long gone by then. You saw to that.”

  Reel rose. They both glanced at her.

  “I think what’s about to come should be between you two men only. I’ll be waiting outside, Robie, when you’re done.” She paused and looked in turn at each of them. “Do I have to check for weapons?”

  She wasn’t entirely joking.

  “We’ll be fine,” said Robie.

  She walked out after giving him a meaningful glance.

  Robie turned back to his father.

  “I had to get out of Cantrell.”

  “Why?”

  “You damn well know why. Because you were here.”

  “Is that right?” snapped his father. “Just up and left without a word.”

  “You left home. So did I. Why was it okay for you and not me?”

  Dan erupted, “Because my old man was a—”

  “A what?” interrupted Robie. “An asshole that made his son’s life a living hell? Who made things so bad that his own wife couldn’t live with him and finally up and left, leaving the son alone with him?”

  “You just blurred two lives, Will, mine and yours,” said his father.

  “Apparently, they were identical,” shot back Robie.

  “You can’t understand. You don’t know anythin’ about—”

  “Then why don’t you explain it to me, Dad? Because I’m here now. And I’m listening.”

  “You don’t want to hear anythin’ I have to say,” his father scoffed.

  “Actually, that’s the reason I came back here.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Robie continued on, his tone level and calm. It was as though he had rehearsed his entire adult life to say what he was about to.

  “I have a job, Dad. A complex one that requires me to be absolutely perfect at what I do. But on my last two missions I wasn’t perfect. I was far from it, in fact.” Here Robie paused, and when he continued his voice had grown strained. “I killed someone I shouldn’t have. And the next go-round I saw something that wasn’t even there. A little boy and his old man. But they weren’t there. They were just in my head.” He tried to say something else but the words were all muddled in his head. He had thought through what he would say to his father many times. Now that he had the chance, he just couldn’t manage it.

  The case clock in the foyer ticked out the time as the men stared at each other. It felt nearly an eternity, perhaps longer to both of them.

  Finally, his father spoke. “I told Laura you’d gone off without her.”

  Robie felt like someone had fired a bullet right into his brain.

  “What?” he said quietly, trying to keep what he was feeling restrained inside him, because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he didn’t.

  “I told her you wanted to start life fresh away from here.”

  “When?”

  “She came by a few days after you left. She wanted to know where you were. I saw your stuff was gone. And that old clunker, too. I knew what’d happened. Even if you hadn’t bothered to leave me a damn note. Anythin’ could’a happened to you. Anythin’!” Dan slammed his fist on the table.

  “You had no right to tell her anything.”

  “I had every right! You were my son. Even if you had run off. And you didn’t take her with you, so I figured you just…just didn’t want her. So I told her that flat-out.”

  “And what did she do?”

  “She ran off cryin’.” Dan lowered his head, his angry expression gone. But Robie felt it all building inside of him. For one split second he imagined himself pulling his gun…

  “You didn’t need her,” continued Dan.

  “Stop talking, Dad,” Robie said, his voice barely a whisper.

  “She just would’a weighed you down. You wanted out of Cantrell? Well, you needed to make a clean break of it. And that father of hers—”

  Robie stood. “Shut up, Dad.”

  Dan looked up at him, anger flashing across his features, until he saw the look on his son’s face. And, perhaps for the first time in his life at least since Vietnam, Dan Robie seemed afraid for his life.

  Before he did something he might regret, Robie turned and walked out.

  Chapter

  64

  HOW’D IT GO?” asked Reel.

  She and Robie were out on the rear porch of the Willows.

  “I’m not talking about it,” snapped Robie. His heart was racing, his