The Final Reckoning (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers Book 4)

by Robert Bailey

“Did he kill someone else?” Bo asked, gazing down at the grass. “Is it the Professor?” he whispered.

  “Tom is alive, but Wheeler did attack tonight,” Helen said.

  “What happ—?”

  “I need you to come with me,” Helen interrupted, and the anguish in her voice was now palpable. Her hands were shaking. “Please . . . we must go now.”

  Bo rubbed his face with his hands, trying to snap out of the drunken rage that had engulfed him. “OK,” he said, taking a couple of steps closer to her and gazing into her piercing green eyes. “What do you need me to do?”

  Helen bit her lip, and when she spoke again, her voice trembled with fear. “I need you to deliver a message.”

  72

  In his dark room on the fourth floor of Huntsville Hospital, Tom drifted in and out of consciousness. Something is wrong, he thought in his rare moments of lucidity before the morphine took him again. He’d seen it in his son’s eyes last night. Or was it this morning? Tom had lost track of time, but Tommy’s face had been tight and strained. Even doped up on as much pain medication as he was on, Tom could tell that his boy was worried sick and it went beyond worry over Tom. Tom had asked his boy at least twice what was bothering him, but Tommy hadn’t replied.

  When was that? Tom wondered, trying to remember the last time he’d had a visitor. Over the course of the past few days, it seemed like folks dropped by at least every four to six hours, but it had been longer than that since he’d seen anyone.

  Tom envisioned JimBone Wheeler’s copper eyes and felt a shiver despite the warm blankets that were piled on top of him. Has he killed someone else?

  Tom picked up his cell phone and gazed at it. It was four in the morning. He tried to think when he’d had his last conversation with Tommy. As the thoughts scrambled his brain, he closed his eyes. Seconds later, he was asleep again.

  When Tom woke, the room seemed even darker than before. He blinked and realized he was still holding his cell phone. He clicked on it, and the time was now 8:00 a.m. Four more hours, he thought. Usually he would have been awakened by a visitor or a nurse checking on him by now.

  Tom swallowed and felt something catch in his throat. He rolled to make it easier to cough, but his body still shook with pain as the fit began. He squeezed his eyes tight and prayed that it would be a quick one. It was. After about four hard coughs, his airway relaxed. He opened his eyes and saw a Styrofoam cup being held in front of him.

  Tom nodded, and the cup was pressed to his lips. He drank in a tiny sip and then another. The liquid burned going down, but he knew he needed it. As he sucked in a breath of air, Tom smelled a strange odor permeating the room. The scent was out of place for a hospital, but his brain was so muddled that he couldn’t quite place it.

  “Thank you,” Tom managed, laying his head back against the pillow. The effort of coughing and taking two sips of water had drained him of the little energy he’d felt when he opened his eyes.

  “You’re welcome, dog.”

  Tom turned his head. He’d assumed the person holding the cup was a nurse, but it wasn’t. “Bo?” Tom said, his voice almost gurgling. He’d heard one of the doctors say the phrase “fluid on the lungs,” and he figured that was why his vocal cords sounded so weird.

  “Yeah, Professor. It’s me.”

  With every ounce of energy he could muster, Tom sat up in the bed and gazed at his friend. Bocephus Haynes wore blue jeans with dark stains down the front and a button-down shirt with several red streaks. His eyes were tinged with red, and his beard, which had been stubble the last time Tom saw him, was now thick and almost full. “You look terrible,” Tom finally said.

  “Thanks,” Bo said.

  Tom took in a ragged breath. “What’s that smell?”

  Bo brought his sleeve to his nose and squinted at Tom. “Bourbon.”

  Tom cocked his head in confusion.

  Bo sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  For a moment, the two friends just gazed at each other. Finally, Tom moved his hand toward Bo, who clasped it in his own.

  “Bo, I . . . I’m so . . .” As Tom peered at his friend, whose spirit seemed as broken as his body, emotion got the best of him and he was unable to make his voice work.

  “I know,” Bo said, nodding at Tom. “I know.”

  Tom couldn’t imagine what Bo had been going through since Jazz’s murder and found it hard to look at his best friend without tearing up. Tom bit his lip and squeezed Bo’s hand. “I’m so sorry,” he finally managed.

  “Wasn’t your fault, Professor,” Bo said, his tone matter-of-fact. “It was mine. I couldn’t stop her from going, and I didn’t do enough to protect her once she was there.”

  “You did all you could do.”

  “No, sir,” Bo said, his voice now louder. “I didn’t. I let pride and jealousy get in the way.” He sighed. “And Jazz is dead because of it.”

  Tom didn’t want to argue with his friend. Still, on this point he couldn’t let things be. “Jazz . . . is dead because of a deranged psychopath.” He stopped and let out a ragged breath. “And if anyone around here should be blaming himself, it’s me. I’m the reason he’s doing all of this. He wanted to bring a reckoning on me, and by God he’s done it.”

  For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the hum of the heater. Finally, Bo stood from the recliner chair he’d been sitting in and approached the bed. “Professor, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Tom closed his eyes. Something is wrong, he knew. He’s killed someone else. Gritting his teeth, Tom forced his tired lids open. “What?” Tom asked.

  Bocephus Haynes blinked. “Tommy told the General that he didn’t want you to know. Said he couldn’t bear”—Bo paused, and Tom saw that his friend’s lip was quivering—“that he couldn’t bear having two funerals in such a short period of time.”

  “Tell me,” Tom said, noticing his pulse rate had shot up to 120 beats a minute on the monitor to the right of his friend.

  Bo sat on the side of the bed. “Last night, JimBone attacked your son’s house. He killed all of the security officers and set the home on fire.” When Tom’s eyes widened, Bo held out his palms. “Everyone in the family . . . is alive.”

  Tom struggled to find his voice. “Are any of them hurt?”

  Bo’s face hardened and he didn’t say anything.

  “Spit it out, Bo.”

  “I . . . I don’t know if he’s . . . hurt, Professor. It’s just . . . it doesn’t look good.” Bo leaned in close and peered at Tom with eyes that radiated intensity. “And if I can’t get you to the farm to answer the telephone at ten o’clock this morning, he’ll be dead.”

  “He?” Tom asked, feeling as if the temperature in the room had dropped below zero. His pulse rate was now 140 on the monitor, but Tom paid it no mind. Instead, he focused all of his attention on the eyes of Bocephus Haynes.

  “It’s Jackson,” Bo finally said, grinding his teeth and trying to keep his voice under control. “The bastard’s kidnapped your grandson.”

  73

  There is a reserve tank of energy that every person has.

  Incidents have been documented where women who weighed barely over a hundred pounds have lifted objects twice their size in order to save small children. It is not something a person can summon at will, but it almost always involves a love so powerful that the men and women who find themselves possessed with this seemingly superhuman strength many times can’t remember what they’ve done. All they know is that a person they loved so deeply it hurt was in danger, and a switch was flicked.

  The tank was activated.

  And though love is what triggers the button to be pushed, it is not what fuels the tank. No, the energy producer that fills this reserve pump is another emotion.

  Rage.

  White-hot rage that burns the heart and soul so badly that a person becomes strong.

  Stronger than they thought they were capable of being.

  At 8:30 a.m. on December 17, 20
13, Thomas Jackson McMurtrie checked himself out of Huntsville Hospital. The nurses on the fourth floor begged him to stay, to no avail. Michael Harper, his night shift nurse, who was pulling double duty that day, would remark that it was the first time he’d seen his patient on his feet other than a few brief trips to the restroom, with which Michael had assisted him. But there he was, standing under his own power next to a huge black man and signing the Patient Leaving Against Medical Advice form.

  Minutes later, Tom stood on the sidewalk by the pickup circle of the entrance to the hospital on Gallatin Street. According to his phone, the temperature was forty-eight degrees. Tom wore the same fleece sweat suit he’d worn to Clearview Cancer Institute a week and a half before. He knew he should be cold, but he wasn’t. His body was on fire.

  “Professor McMurtrie?”

  Tom turned and saw Dr. Trey Maples step out of the revolving door at the entrance and approach him. The physician’s face was red and he walked with a forward lean. He stopped a foot from Tom. “I haven’t discharged you, sir.”

  “I know,” Tom said. “I discharged myself.”

  Trey’s eyes widened and he took a step closer. “Professor, you are not hemodynamically stable enough for discharge. You had a fever this morning, your vital signs are still out of whack, and based on the nurse’s notes, you haven’t been out of the bed all day and haven’t done the laps I ordered.”

  “I know that, Doc, but something’s happened and I have to go.”

  Trey shook his head. “I know what’s going on, Professor McMurtrie, OK? I know about your grandson. I advised Tommy not to tell you because I thought something like this might happen.”

  “Tommy didn’t tell me,” Tom said as Bo pulled the white Sequoia to a stop in the circle and hopped out of the car to open the passenger-side door. “My friend did,” Tom said, hooking his thumb at Bo.

  Dr. Maples laid his hands on Tom’s shoulders. “Listen to me, sir. I realize how upset you must be, but you’re in no condition to leave this hospital. With your vitals, you could literally die any second.”

  Tom slapped the doctor on the back. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me, Doc.” He turned and walked toward the car.

  “You’ll die,” Maples said, his voice cold and authoritarian. The voice of a man who had handed out thousands of death sentences to cancer patients over the years.

  Tom stopped and glared at him.

  “The stress you’re about to put yourself through,” Maples continued, giving his head a jerk. “You’ll die. Do you really want to do that to your son, especially if your grandson . . . ?” His voice faded away without finishing the rest, but Tom knew the gist.

  Tom took two long strides toward Maples and gazed into the physician’s brown eyes. “You’ve already told me I’m going to die. You said it could be a month or two. Remember?”

  Trey Maples didn’t say anything in response.

  Tom squinted at the doctor and felt the rage burn within him. “Well, I think it’s time we get on with it.”

  PART FIVE

  74

  At 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, December 17, 2013, Kathryn Calhoun Willistone was forty-five minutes into an hour-long session on her Precor machine. The elliptical trainer was one of several cardiovascular machines in the fitness room of the Calhoun mansion. Sweat glistened off Kat’s body, and she watched herself in the glass mirror that covered every square inch of the far wall. When her cell phone rang, she sighed and contemplated not answering it. Had the caller been Virgil Flood or one of her other attorneys, she would have let it ring until she finished her workout.

  Unfortunately, after glancing at the screen and seeing the name of the caller, she knew she couldn’t ignore this one. She clicked the “Answer” button and decided against formality.

  “DeWayne, you better have good news for me.”

  “The sheriff is . . . hanging out for the moment, sweetie.” The voice was cold and did not belong to DeWayne Patterson. Kat slowed her pace on the machine so that she could talk without losing her breath.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is the guy you hired to do that little job for you.”

  Kat stopped moving and the elliptical slowly came to a halt. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to wire the rest of the money to the Caymans within the next two hours.” Pause. “And I need an airplane.”

  Kat felt equal parts fear and anger, and her pulse quickened. How dare you? she thought, wondering how her father would have handled this level of disrespect.

  “You haven’t finished the job,” Kat said, stepping off the machine and sitting down on a utility bench.

  “I know that, sweetie, but I still need you to wire the money and get me a plane.”

  “Oh, well in that case . . . fuck you.” Kat smiled, feeling adrenaline beat through her. She waited for his response, but instead of the killer’s voice, she heard her own on the other end of the line.

  “Talk, moron.”

  Kat felt her stomach turn to acid at the sound of her recorded voice, which was followed by Sheriff Patterson’s weak retort. “Mr. Wheeler says that everything is fine and that he is going to fulfill his contract.”

  “He better,” Kat’s recorded voice responded. “He was supposed to kill Drake and Twitty. Why did he go cowboy and start killing randoms?”

  The voices stopped, as the killer must have either paused or turned off the recording.

  “Where’s DeWayne?” she asked, hearing and hating the dread in her tone.

  “DeWayne has gone far away,” JimBone said. Then he whistled. “Mrs. Willistone, if you don’t wire that money to the account in the Caymans within two hours and have me an airplane waiting at the Madison County Executive Airport in Meridianville in three, I’m going to send this gem of a recording to the Daily Mountain Eagle, to the law offices of McMurtrie & Drake, and to the sheriff’s departments in Madison, Walker, and Tuscaloosa Counties.” He paused. “Do I make myself clear?”

  Kat stood and paced the floor of the fitness room. She looked at herself in the mirror and was startled by the terror she saw in her eyes.

  “Do I make myself clear?” JimBone repeated.

  “Crystal,” Kat said.

  75

  Thirty minutes after leaving the hospital, Bo pulled up the driveway to the Hazel Green farm. Along the way, Tom had called Bill Davis, who was now home in Tuscaloosa after visiting Tom over the weekend.

  “Bill, it’s Tom.”

  “Hey, buck. Have they found Jackson yet?”

  Tom had closed his eyes. “No. Listen, Bill, I don’t have much time or energy to talk, so I need to make this quick.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I need you to come to the farm, and I need you to bring all the steroids you can round up.”

  “Tom, what’s this about? Are you out of the hospital?”

  “Checked out against medical advice a few minutes ago. I need you to bring the ’roids . . . and any damn thing else that you think will make me feel good until we can find my grandson.”

  Five seconds of silence. Then Bill was back on. “It’ll take me thirty minutes to get the medicine, so I can be there in three hours. That work?”

  “I should be good on adrenaline until then.”

  “Tom, you know the steroids could give you a heart attack.”

  Tom couldn’t help but laugh. “All you damn doctors are the same. You tell me I’m going to die any day from cancer, but then you sound worried about a heart attack. Bring the ’roids, Billy boy.”

  “They can also make the visions you’ve been having worse.” Bill paused. “A lot worse.”

  Tom had blinked as the Sequoia sped through Meridianville and into the long loop at Steger’s Curve. “I don’t care about that. Just bring what you got.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “And, Bill.” Tom had rubbed his chin, thinking it through, before making his call. “Stop by your shooting range and bring all the guns and ammo at your disposal.”

&
nbsp; 76

  At 10:00 a.m., the telephone in the kitchen of the Hazel Green farmhouse began to ring.

  Tom met Helen’s eye, who snapped at the officers sitting at the island. “Are we ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” one of the men said, hovering his finger over a recording device.

  Then Helen nodded at Tom, who strode over to the landline. On the second ring, he answered.

  “Hello.”

  Static on the other end of the line.

  “Hello,” Tom repeated.

  “Remember what I promised you at the prison?”

  Tom nodded at Helen, who waved her arms at the officers.

  “It’s him,” she whispered, slipping on a pair of headphones and slinging two other pairs at Rick, Tommy, and Bo, all of whom were seated around the kitchen table. Tommy put his on, and Bo and Rick shared the other one.

  “I remember,” Tom said.

  “Do you think I’ve delivered yet?”

  Tom paused, knowing he needed to keep the maniac talking. “Do you?” Tom asked.

  “Not hardly,” JimBone fired back. “Have we talked long enough for the people recording the call to know where I am?”

  Tom looked at Helen, who raised her eyebrows. Then he peered at the island, where one of the officers whispered, “Thirty more seconds.”

  Tom cleared his throat and spoke into the receiver. “Where’s my grandson?”

  Soft laughter on the other end of the line. “I didn’t think you’d answer, old man. Aren’t you supposed to be dying?”

  “It hasn’t taken yet,” Tom said.

  “I’m glad.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to be the one that sees you when death knocks on your door. I want to give you the perfect ending.”

  “Is my grandson alive?”

  JimBone sighed. “Good-looking boy. Must take after his mom’s side of the family.”

  “Is Jackson alive?”

  “He was a rambunctious young lad.”

  “If you harm a hair on his head—”

  “You’ll what? Beat me up? Kill me? You can barely walk.”