Deep Threat

by Scott Pratt

  Where did the years go?

  A row of white pines that were once knee-high saplings had taken over the outfield, and a small pond occupied the space where home plate used to be. His mother had always wanted a pond.

  Franklin Beckett’s red pickup was the only vehicle in the driveway, and Billy parked beside it.

  It took a minute to muster the courage to go inside, but he exhaled a deep breath and walked through the carport and into the kitchen. His father was reading the newspaper at the table.

  “I heard what happened,” Billy said. “Where is John?”

  Franklin offered an uneasy shrug. “He came back here with me this morning and got some stuff together and left. I don’t know where he was going.”

  “Have you tried calling him?”

  “He never picks up anymore. I’m really worried about him. This whole thing with your football star has torn him apart.”

  “It’s torn everybody apart,” Billy said. “I tried to help John, and you see what I got. He stabbed me in the back.”

  “Your brother loves you, Billy. His head just isn’t right. Hasn’t been for a while.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t feel real loved right now. And I’m not sure my head is quite right either. I’m thinking some bad thoughts.”

  “I told you about tying yourself to these high-risk athletes,” his father said. “It’s hard to live a normal life when you have to depend on them. One day everything is great, and the next day it’s all to hell. They can’t be trusted any more than the billionaires that own them.”

  Billy couldn’t absorb much more. His eyes were about to close.

  “I give up, Dad. Would you mind if laid down for a while in the back bedroom? If I don’t get some sleep, I’m going to keel over.”

  “Go ahead. Maybe your brother will be here when you get up.”

  “Wake me up if he comes.”

  Billy walked down the hall to his old room and didn’t even bother to take off his clothes. He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  ***

  It was almost midnight when he opened his eyes again. A quick nap had turned into six hours, and it would have been longer if not for the nagging thought that finally stirred him awake.

  What about Mark Fletcher?

  The private investigator should have met again with Romano’s former henchmen hours ago. He probably knew who Gene’s partner was by now, and maybe a whole lot more.

  Billy checked his phone for new messages, but there were none. He got up and staggered down the hallway and into the living room. All was quiet, except for the tick-tock of the old grandfather clock in the corner that had been there for as long as he could remember. His father had already gone to bed, and there were no signs John had been back.

  He sat on the couch and began to slip on his shoes while he fumbled with his phone. No answer in New Orleans; Fletcher’s voice mail picked up.

  “Just touching base,” Billy said. “It’s getting late and I’m heading home from my father’s. You call me and let me know what you heard, no matter what time it is. I won’t be able to sleep anyway thinking about it.”

  There would be no call tonight, and no sign of his brother.

  PART III

  Chapter fifty-five

  John Beckett stood on the rubber and took in the surroundings. After all these years, the mound still looked and felt the same.

  The wind was biting and blowing in, the pitcher’s friend. He stared toward home plate, envisioning another poor batter who was in way over his head. How many strikes, how many unhittable pitches, had he thrown from this very spot?

  The cheers of family and friends still echoed in his head.

  John was a can’t-miss prospect, and everyone in town knew it. Especially Billy. No one enjoyed watching a baseball fired from that cannon of an arm more than John’s older brother. There was a sense of pride built from all those summer days when Billy would don the catcher’s gear and squat in the hot sun, analyzing every delivery. He reveled in John’s successes, one after another, and dreamed right along with him.

  Franklin Beckett used to take his boys down to Atlanta to catch a couple of Braves games every summer, and they all decided then that John would look best wearing the red, white and blue. The picture never changed in any of their minds; John would indeed be a Brave, the young gun in the starting rotation with the Hall of Famers – Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux.

  Years later, when he was working in the city, it was hard for Billy to go out to Turner Field without imagining what might have been. His dad would drive down and join him occasionally, but John never went back. It was too painful.

  Near the end at Florida State, after John had lost his velocity and was being roughed up by light-hitting infielders, the once invincible left-hander no longer felt like the tallest man on the diamond. The pitcher’s mound was a scary place, and there was nowhere to hide.

  John pulled a half-pint of bourbon from his jacket and knelt in the red dirt, scanning the empty parking lot and grandstands at Sevier County High School. He took a big drink and wiped his eyes. There were no games today, only memories and regrets.

  “I’m sorry, Billy,” he said. “For everything.”

  Billy had been standing in his kitchen, still waiting to hear from Mark Fletcher when his brother’s name appeared on the caller ID. For some reason, the anger that had been penned up inside him gave way to concern before the conversation even started.

  “John, where are you?” he said.

  “I’m lost ... just lost. And I don’t want to find my way back.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve done some bad things, Billy. Our mother would be so ashamed. She always believed in me, right to the end. She was a fool.”

  His tone was ominous, alarming. “I don’t like the sound of this, John,” Billy said. “Tell me where you are. Let me come help.”

  “You can’t help me this time, big brother.”

  Billy was suddenly afraid. He tried to buy time, pull out some pleasant memories. Anything to keep his brother talking.

  “Don’t you remember all those all-star games where we were in tight spots? You were the strong one, the one everybody depended on. You were the guy who picked up the team and carried us. You still have that in you.”

  “That was a long time ago,” John said. “I’m weak now.”

  “No, you’re not. You have an addiction, and you can beat it. I’ll help you.”

  There was no answer.

  John took another gulp and began to sob quietly.

  “You know I couldn’t have made it this far without you, Billy. And how did I pay you back? Conspired with your enemies to set up your star client. I put everybody here in danger. And Rachel ... that never should have happened.”

  “Rachel?”

  John turned up the bottle and finished with one mighty swallow.

  He could hear the cheers growing.

  Louder. Louder. Louder.

  There was a small revolver in his left hand now.

  John raised it to his temple, calm and steady.

  “I love you, Billy,” he said. “Tell Dad I love him, too. Please forgive me.”

  Chapter fifty-six

  It didn’t take long to find the body. A custodian at the high school had heard the shot, and police were on the gruesome scene within minutes. The gun and empty liquor bottle laid by John’s side.

  Another life once filled with such promise had come to a tragic end, and word traveled fast in Sevierville.

  By late afternoon the high school field had become a memorial. Flowers and baseballs with scribbled notes of condolence were piling up on all sides of the mound.

  The suicide rattled the town, which is a gateway to a bustling national park and tourist mecca but close-knit all the same. Eve
ryone knew and respected the Becketts.

  Franklin had been on the police force for three decades, and his wife was active in virtually every civic organization around. The boys were local celebrities in their own right. Billy, in fact, had quarterbacked Sevier County to the only state championship in its football history. The fans had never forgotten.

  John was a sophomore receiver on that team, a big target with great hands, but the spring and summer months were when he did his best work. He’d stride out of the dugout, slowly but with supreme confidence, and take the mound with the bill of his cap pulled low. He knew all eyes were upon him, and he loved it. John always wanted to be the center of attention.

  And so he was again in this twisted way, gone at thirty-three, and his father and brother were left to try to make sense of it.

  The psychological wounds of Anna Beckett’s death were suddenly fresh again for Billy. The guilt was overwhelming, but he tried to bottle it up. At the moment, he felt more numb than anything else.

  “Is there anything I can get you?” Billy said to his father. Grief-stricken, Franklin stared blankly out the window. He had experienced heartache on many levels, but this was the cruelest blow of all. A man isn’t supposed to bury his son.

  Billy sat on the couch and rubbed his face, trying to stimulate the blood flow to his brain. He couldn’t afford to be exhausted; he had to be strong.

  He needed to call Sam Jamison, an old family friend, to make funeral arrangements. There were relatives to contact and plenty of other details to attend to, sad details he never could have imagined.

  Billy knew he was losing control. The good life he had constructed was coming undone, piece by piece. A burning rage was starting to build inside of him.

  “I don’t know how things have gone so wrong so quickly,” he said, “but I can’t sit back and take it anymore. I’m going to get these animals, if it’s the last thing I do. I promise you that.”

  Franklin said nothing.

  Billy wasn’t sure where he was going, but he grabbed his coat and headed toward the front door. His father could have tried to stop him. He didn’t.

  Before Billy could turn the knob, the doorbell rang and he was standing eye to eye with Steve Thomas, a Sevierville detective. Neither knew what to say.

  Thomas and Franklin Beckett went back a long way. They worked on dozens of investigations together through the years and had become the best of friends. Their boys played in the same sports leagues and the families used to barbeque on weekends, even took beach vacations together a couple of times.

  And now Thomas was here to offer condolences, and maybe some clarity, in the aftermath of a gut-wrenching tragedy. The pain showed plainly on his face.

  “I’m so sorry about John,” he said, giving Billy a hug on the porch. “Can I speak to your father?”

  Billy pointed him inside, and Franklin stood up and greeted him with a long embrace.

  “I can’t tell you how bad I’m hurting for you right now,” Thomas said. He took a deep breath. “Did you have any idea that John was struggling to this extent?”

  “I knew he hadn’t been happy, but no,” Franklin said. “He just felt like he’d let everybody down and there was no way to make things right again.”

  “So you had spoken to him earlier?”

  “No, but he called Billy. He was at the ballpark.”

  “What did he say to you, Billy?” Thomas said.

  “He just kept apologizing, and I tried to calm him down. I had a bad sense from the start. Then …”

  Billy closed his eyes and bowed his head. “He said to forgive him and then I heard the shot.”

  There was silence in the room.

  “I don’t want to get into a lot of this now,” Thomas said, “but if you’ll bear with me...”

  “It’s okay, Steve,” Franklin said. “I understand.”

  “Let me ask you about the Jarvis Thompson case. I know John was involved to some extent in whatever went down at Billy’s house that night.”

  “That’s right. He had a drug habit that was worse than any of us realized. It drove him to make some very bad decisions. That’s why we’re standing here right now.”

  Thomas pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his jacket.

  “The reason I ask is that one of our officers found this in John’s pocket this morning. I’m assuming there’s a connection here.”

  He handed the note to Franklin. The block letters had been written in red ink, the message short.

  DON’T LET THEM WIN

  Franklin rubbed his thumb across the paper and eased back into his chair. Billy’s face was flushed with anger. Neither man spoke.

  “I need to keep this as part of the investigation,” Thomas said, “but I thought you would want to see it. As the lead investigator for our department, I’m confident that law enforcement officials will continue to work hard across the region to solve the Jarvis Thompson case. That’s the way things should proceed.”

  He hesitated.

  “As a friend, I understand your frustration. This has been going on far too long.”

  “Damn right,” Billy said. “Reputations lost. And now lives – my own brother. How much longer?”

  He grabbed his coat and left the house.

  Chapter fifty-seven

  The last thing Billy was expecting was a call from Mark Fletcher’s wife. The message was waiting on his phone when he climbed into the rental car.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but this is Anita Fletcher. I’m at home in Atlanta and was just a little concerned about Mark. He was supposed to call me last night; we had a couple of important financial matters we needed to wrap up. That’s why he had to come home from Florida earlier. I never heard from him and just wondered if you had. I would appreciate it if you could give me a call.”

  Billy started replaying their last conversation, which had gotten lost in his mind. Fletcher said he might be out of touch for a few days but should have reported back to him by now. And he sure should have called his wife.

  The PI’s phone kicked to voice mail immediately. Billy’s anxiety level continued to rise as he dialed Anita Fletcher back.

  “Anita, I’m sorry I missed your call,” he said. “I have a problem at home here and haven’t spoken to Mark. Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know what he’s working on for you, Billy, but it isn’t like Mark not to call when he knows I have something to take care of here. I’m afraid to do anything until I talk to him.”

  Billy tried to put his misery aside for a brief moment. Fletcher forgetting to call, both him and his wife? It wasn’t likely. Unable to call? Perhaps.

  Billy still wanted to be reassuring.

  “I’m sure he’s all right,” he said. “You know those Texans; sometimes they get their minds locked onto something and can’t let go. I haven’t been able to try Mark today, but I will. Maybe he’ll call you in the meanwhile.”

  “Thank you, Billy. I don’t mean to interfere. I just want to be sure everything is all right.”

  All right? Nothing was all right. Billy started the car and headed toward Knoxville. His head was swimming.

  He needed to give his brother a proper burial.

  He needed to know Mark Fletcher was safe.

  He needed to find Jarvis Thompson.

  He needed to save his business.

  At this point, he was desperate enough to throw a Hail Mary, so he called Trey Birchfield.

  “I didn’t know if I’d hear from you again,” the reporter said. “Really sorry about your brother. That’s not something I expected to be writing about today.”

  “Listen, Trey, I need to turn in a rental car at the airport,” Billy said. “How would you like to pick me up there, outside Hertz? That’ll give us some time to talk.”

  “I can be there in an hour.”

&nb
sp; ***

  Birchfield arrived right on time, and Billy folded himself into the passenger seat of the small convertible without really knowing what direction their discussion would take.

  “Thanks for the lift,” he said.

  Birchfield studied him carefully. “It’s okay; I don’t really know what to say. I’m surprised you’re out here and not with your father right now. And I’m really surprised you’re calling reporters for rides.”

  “I guess the circle has gotten smaller. Must be a bad sign, huh? No shortage of bad signs right now.”

  Birchfield merged into traffic and turned down the radio.

  “So tell me, how can we help each other on this?” he said. “Wasn’t that the idea?”

  Billy sat quietly for a few seconds. He was working on the fly, something he used to be very good at.

  “I’m driving to New Orleans in a couple of days. How would you like to ride with me?” he said. “I think a lot of news could come out of the trip, and you’d have a front-row seat.”

  “A front-row seat to what exactly?”

  “I can’t promise you anything, but I have a feeling the whole Jarvis Thompson saga will reveal itself. Isn’t that what reporters live for – an exclusive story the whole country is interested in?”

  A crooked smile crossed Birchfield’s lips. “Why are you offering me this?”

  “Because I think I can trust you,” Billy said. “And because your skills may come in handy down there. We’ll have to gather some information to put things together, and everyone says you’re very good at that. Here’s the rub, though: I don’t want anybody else to know you’re with me. That includes your bosses, and your wife.”

  “So I’m supposed to take who knows how long off work without telling anybody where I’m going and what I’m doing. Even my wife.”

  “Right,” Billy said. “If that doesn’t work for you, forget it. I’ll go by myself and you can read about how it all turned out in some other newspaper.”

  “Give me a minute to process this,” Birchfield said as he drove along in interstate traffic. Finally, he looked over at Billy and nodded.