In the glow of the overhead light on the trailer’s front stoop, Tom saw Laurie Ann’s lip begin to quiver. “I hate my life, that’s what’s wrong. I’m embarrassed by what you just saw in there. I wish my sister would talk more. I wish my daddy hadn’t died driving that rig. I wish my momma hadn’t turned to stripping and whoring. I wish you had never set foot in that courtroom in Henshaw. I wish, I wish, I wish. I pray, I pray, I pray. And ain’t nothing changes.”
Tom approached the young woman and placed his hands on her shoulders. “None of that is your fault.”
When she didn’t say anything, he shook her gently. “You hear me? It’s not your fault.”
“You’re wrong,” Laurie Ann said.
“I’m right,” Tom said. “It’s not your fault.” Thinking it was time for him to go, he began to walk toward his truck. “Please tell your sister and aunt that I was pleased to meet them.”
When he reached the door, he heard footsteps behind him and turned.
Laurie Ann Newton, with fresh tears in her eyes, stood before him. “I’m sorry, Professor. Sometimes I get a little”—she pointed back to the trailer—“overwhelmed by everything.”
“It’s OK,” Tom said. “I want you to know something. I took this case because of you. Because of the hurt and brokenness I saw in your eyes and that I feel when I’m around you. I know I played a role in making things the way they are for you and your sister, and I want to help.” He quickly grabbed his back, as it felt like a thousand little pinpricks were rolling down his spine.
“Are you alright, Professor?”
Tom nodded and gnashed his teeth against another current of pain. “Yeah, but I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be doing this. Your mom’s case may be my last jury trial.” He looked at her tear-streaked face. “And I damn sure don’t want to lose it.”
“I’ll talk to Momma,” Laurie Ann said, her voice stronger and determined.
“That’s more like it,” Tom said, patting her shoulder. He opened the door and was about to get in when he called after her. “You know that scenario you just described?”
She squinted at him, not understanding.
“You said your mom was probably having sex for money with one of the other lessors of that apartment complex on the night of the murder.”
“I was just ranting,” Laurie Ann said.
“Were you?” Tom asked, not quite believing her. Rant or not, the statement had a ring of truth. “If she was doing what you described between ten o’clock and midnight on May 8, then you know what that gives her?”
Laurie Ann wiped her eyes and her lips curved into a cautious smile. “An alibi?”
“Bingo,” Tom said, relishing the word that Coach Bryant used to say on his weekly television show when someone made a big hit. Tom liked the sound of it so much that he said it again. “Bingo.”
47
The Pink Pony Pub is a dive bar in Gulf Shores, Alabama. It’s a little more than twelve miles from Ono Island. True to its name, the exterior of the tiny building is hot pink and has a pony painted under the sign.
Once Zorn walked inside, Bo called Tom on his cell phone. It was now 10:00 p.m., but he figured the Professor wouldn’t go to bed without hearing from him.
“About damn time,” Tom said after the first ring, forgoing any salutation. “Tell me.”
Bo did. After he was through with his summation, Tom began to pace his house, thinking. Finally, he said, “I wish you had called me when the movers were on the island. I could’ve gotten you across the bridge.”
“How?”
“I know a guy who used to live there. He may still own a house on the island. Even if he doesn’t, he could have gotten you through the gate.”
“Do I know this fella?”
“The pride of Foley High?” Tom responded. “I would hope so. At one point, the whole world knew him.”
Then it clicked for Bo. “Snake? I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”
Tom smiled. Kenny “the Snake” Stabler, a Foley High School legend, had played on Coach Bryant’s 1964 and 1965 national champions and went on to be a Super Bowl–winning quarterback for the Oakland Raiders. “Don’t sweat it. He’s more my generation than yours anyway. My bet is that Zorn is running scared and probably won’t talk.”
“I think you’re right, but there may be some value in letting him know we’re onto him.”
“I agree. Bo, watch your back in there. Didn’t Mr. Jennings say his brother is convinced he’s being followed?”
“Yeah.” Bo went over the conversation at Archibald’s again in his mind. “He said Bully uses a Filipino woman to do his dirty work, and that Alvie had seen her five or six times in the last month watching him.” As he looked past the pink bar and out into the dark waters of the Gulf, Bo felt the skin on his arms begin to prickle.
“Call me when you’re through,” Tom said. “And promise me something. If things get crazy, get the hell out of Dodge, alright?”
“Ten-four.” Bo clicked off the phone and grabbed the door handle. Then, thinking about Bully Calhoun’s enforcer, he undid the latch of his glove compartment and grabbed the Glock from inside. If things did get crazy, he didn’t want to be bringing a knife to a gunfight. He stuck the pistol in the back of his pants and put a sports jacket over his button-down shirt. Then, closing the door, he ambled toward the entrance to one of the most famous watering holes on the Gulf Coast.
Tom kept his cell phone in his hand and walked out on the back porch of his Tuscaloosa home. He plopped down in one of the rocking chairs. Below him, Lee Roy lay on his stomach, dead asleep. The only sound in the yard besides the dog’s snoring was the whirring of a fan above and a few stray crickets.
“Don’t let me disturb you, boy,” Tom said, and Lee Roy didn’t budge. The bulldog could sleep through a tornado and almost had when the F-5 hit Tuscaloosa in April 2011. Tom leaned over and petted Lee Roy behind the ears and, even with his eyes remaining closed, the dog’s stub of a tail began to shake back and forth. Tom smiled, but his mind was still with Bo in Gulf Shores.
Tom had been to the Pink Pony Pub on at least a half-dozen occasions in his life, usually during the day. It was a little crazy at the bar on the water after dark, and he’d only been there once at this time of night. I should’ve gone, he thought, unable to escape his feelings of fear and worry. Bocephus Haynes was one of the smartest and most resourceful men he’d ever known. He was also tough as nails. If there was a chance in hell of getting Greg Zorn to talk, Tom knew Bo was the man for the job.
But as his dog snoozed below him, Tom felt the same cold chill he’d had earlier in the day at Barbara Willistone’s house. The case was taking on a dangerous tenor, and Tom had a premonition that something terrible was about to happen. He felt it the same way he used to sense a trick play coming from the offense during his football days. It was the same vibe he’d experienced last fall when, after the trial in Pulaski and the shooting on the square, he’d felt compelled to drive out to the clearing on Walton Farm, arriving just in time to thwart Bo’s death. Now his whole being throbbed with the same frequency.
With adrenaline flooding his veins, Tom began to pace along the porch. He soon heard a low growl. He glanced down. Lee Roy was baring his teeth, and the dog’s white and brown coat shook. He feels it too, Tom thought. He smiled down at the friend that Bo had given him as a gift two years earlier.
“Easy, boy,” Tom said, looking at the phone in his hand. In times of stress, Tom often went back to the teachings of Coach Bryant, and one of them came to him now. Loud and clear, as if the gravelly voice were speaking right in his ear.
Leave it on the field. Hold nothing back.
Nodding and feeling the same steely calm he had in Pulaski eight months earlier, Tom clicked on the four digits that unlocked his mobile device. One . . . nine . . . six . . . one.
Before he could change his mind, he made the call.
48
Bo found Greg Zorn belly up to the bar i
n much the same position as the painted pony on the side of the building. For a weeknight during the middle of summer, the bar was hopping, and on the stage to the right of the bar, Tom saw a bleached-blond fortysomething holding a microphone and doing a scratchy-voiced rendition of “Delta Dawn” by Tanya Tucker.
Karaoke night, Bo thought. Wonderful.
As he walked toward the bar, Bo noticed the glances and double takes that he always received. When a six-foot-four-inch, two-hundred-forty-pound, bald-headed black man walks into a dive bar in south Alabama where the patrons are all lily white except for the suntan or sunburn on their neck and arms, he’s unlikely to go unnoticed. Bo ignored the looks and murmurs. He took a place on the stool next to his target and waited. When the attorney finally turned and took notice of him, Zorn shot off the stool and tried to walk away.
Bo grabbed the man’s arm and spoke in a firm voice above the screechy sounds of the karaoke singer. “Sit down, Zorn. I’m going to buy you whatever you’re drinking and we’re gonna have us a conversation.”
“The hell we are!” Zorn’s eyes were bloodshot and his voice slurred. He was half-drunk already, which told Bo that he had started hitting the booze at his house or in the car on the way.
Bo tightened his grip. “Greg, I followed a moving van four hours to find you, and I’m going to buy you this drink and have my say.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’m going to kick your ass from here to Foley.”
“You’re crazy, man. I know you. Bocephus Haynes, right? Well, I’m going to call the Tennessee bar tomorrow and tell them about this little conversation. Who knows? Maybe that’ll result in a suspension of your license.”
Bo didn’t let go. “You’re a little late to that party, dog. I’m already suspended and, generally speaking, I’ve been in a bad mood for the last nine months. Don’t let me take it out on you.”
Zorn opened his mouth, but no words came out. Sweat beads pooled on his forehead.
“Sit down, Greg,” Bo continued. “I want to tell you a little story, and I want you to tell me how it ends.”
“Everything OK, gentlemen?” The bartender’s voice broke through loud and deep as the karaoke singer mercifully finished butchering Tucker’s classic.
“We’re good,” Bo said. “I’ll have a Red Stripe, and please set my friend up here with another of what he’s drinking.” He pulled out his wallet and slid his credit card across the bar. “Put them both on my tab.”
“Yes, sir,” said the bartender, a twentysomething man wearing a hot-pink shirt with the name of the bar adorned on the front, giving Bo a mock salute.
Bo pushed Zorn onto his stool, and the lawyer finally relaxed, either too drunk or weak to fight any longer. “That’s my boy,” Bo said. When the bartender set their drinks down, Bo glanced at Zorn’s glass. “That a Long Island Iced Tea?”
The attorney nodded and took a sip. Zorn wore an untucked white golf shirt over khaki shorts and flip-flops. He had a two-day growth of beard, and for all the world he looked like a local beach bum. “You’re kinda fitting in to this beach life, huh?” Bo asked.
“Can we get to the point?” Zorn asked. “You said you had a story to tell me.”
“That’s right,” Bo said, rubbing his chin and watching the other man. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you, Greg? That’s why you’re on your way to a ten-gallon hangover, right? You’re scared shitless. You’ve made a choice you can’t take back, and you don’t know what to do about it. Based upon the people you been making deals with, I bet you cringe every time you start that sweet Porsche too. Am I right?”
“What do you know?” Zorn asked, but he didn’t look at Bo. Instead he focused on the mirror behind the bar.
“I know that on the day he was released from prison, your client, Jack Willistone, was picked up at the St. Clair Correctional Facility by his father-in-law, Marcellus ‘Bully’ Calhoun. I know that Bully dropped Jack off at his house in Tuscaloosa and then went directly to see you. I know that Bully Calhoun spent north of an hour with you in your office some eight hours before his son-in-law and your longtime client was murdered on the dock of your house on the banks of the Black Warrior River.” Bo licked his lips and pressed closer to the other man. Zorn stunk of alcohol, and there was a slight twinge of body odor coming from him. Bo wondered when the man had showered last. “I know that Jack Willistone intended to change the beneficiary of his three-million-dollar life insurance policy from his wife, Kat, to his autistic son, Danny. I know that he had already completed the form and sent it to you to process with New York Life so the change would be finalized.”
Though Zorn continued to look at the mirror, Bo noticed that the attorney’s knees were knocking each other and his hand shook slightly when he raised his glass to his lips.
“And I know that this change of beneficiary form somehow never made it to New York Life, and that Bully Calhoun left your office eight hours before Jack Willistone’s murder carrying a manila envelope in his hand. Now I would bet my newly inherited farm in Giles County that the change of beneficiary form that Jack had completed at the jail and sent to his attorney for safekeeping was in that envelope, and I would further wager that said form has been burned to ashes and spread somewhere along Highway 69 in Walker County.” He took a sip of Red Stripe and nudged Zorn with his fist. “How am I coming?”
Zorn snickered “That’s a hell of a story, but you can’t prove any of it.”
“Wrong, dog. I can actually prove every bit of it except the part about the change form being in the envelope. I’m going to need you for that, Greg, I won’t lie to you. I’m going to need you to suck it up and turn state’s evidence, and maybe your sentence won’t be too bad if you put a noted mobster who’s running one of the largest meth operations in the Southeast behind bars.” He took a pull off his beer. “Hell, maybe your suspension will be less than mine.”
For at least a minute, Zorn just looked at his reflection in the mirror and drank. When he had taken down the last of the Long Island Iced Tea, he finally turned to Bo. “Bully’s driver, right? That’s how you know all this.”
Bo smiled. “Ask no questions. Tell no lies. Keep your mouth shut. Catch no flies.”
“If you won’t talk, I won’t talk,” Zorn slurred. “But I don’t need you to answer that question, because it’s a no-brainer. Your source is Alvie Jennings. Head coach of the Jasper Middle School basketball team. Wife’s name is LaShell. Son’s name is LaByron.” Zorn paused. “He should probably be a little more careful about leaving his garage door up during the day. I don’t think LaShell is always good about locking that side door.”
Bo grabbed the man under his arms and lifted him off the stool so that the Zorn’s feet dangled a foot off the ground. “How do you know that?”
“Routine background check for the job and names,” Zorn managed. “I can’t tell you how I gleaned the other stuff because it’s protected by the attorney-client privilege.”
Bo placed Zorn roughly back on his stool. “You’re Bully’s lawyer too?”
Zorn coughed as he struggled to catch his breath. “There’s nothing wrong with an attorney representing multiple members of the same family.”
“What about when there’s a conflict of interest?” Bo asked.
Zorn held up his index finger and motioned for Bo to come closer. The lawyer leaned into Bo’s ear, and when he breathed, Bo’s nostrils burned with the scent of liquor. “If Alvie Jennings is your source, then he’s a dead man,” Zorn whispered. “Dead, you hear me?”
Bo pulled away and looked at his own reflection in the mirror. He could see the fear in his own eyes. Alvie . . .
“I’m sorry,” Zorn said.
Bo turned his head and glared at Zorn. “You should be. You don’t look like an idiot to me, Greg, so let me ask you one more thing.”
Zorn held up his empty glass and the bartender took it. When it was returned to him full, he gazed at Bo with dead eyes. “Shoot.”
“Did you keep a co
py of the change form?”
Zorn blinked, and Bo knew the answer without him saying a word.
“You aren’t as dumb as you look, Greg.” Bo took a sip of his beer. “That’s your leverage, right? That’s why you’re not a dead man too.”
Zorn tilted up his glass, and after smacking his lips, he motioned Bo to lean toward him again.
Bo held his breath and did as instructed.
“If the wrong person ever heard what we were just talking about . . .” He gave his head a jerk and swept his eyes over the bar. “Then we’re both dead.”
49
The wrong person had heard.
Manny Reyes waited at one of the picnic tables outside the restaurant. She had a clear view of the Gulf of Mexico but paid the shadowy water no mind. Instead she listened to the recording device she’d placed in the woman’s purse sitting next to Greg Zorn. She’d caught the woman in the gift shop and pulled her aside and asked if she could do her a small favor: “I’m a private investigator for that man’s wife”—she pointed at Zorn around the corner—“and I think the black guy is a pimp that runs prostitutes to him.”
For $500 cash, the woman, who had been through her own nasty divorce, was happy to oblige. As she listened to the conversation on earbuds, Manny knew that things had already gone too far. When her boss heard the tape, he would agree with the actions she was about to take. He had already approved the removal of Zorn, but she now viewed the investigator as a threat too. She removed the knife from the holster clipped to her right thigh and, after casually glancing around the dimly lit parking lot, slashed the four tires on Zorn’s Porsche. Then, sauntering over to Haynes’s Sequoia, she quickly did the same to his wheels. She returned the knife to its holster and resumed her position at the picnic table.
Manny wore a yellow sundress that was cut just below the thigh and a white cap with the words “Pink Pony Pub” embroidered on the front that she’d bought at the gift shop. Spreading her dress over her knees, she felt for the bulge on her left thigh and ran her fingers along the barrel of the pistol. Since the gun had a silencer, no sound would be heard when she killed the two men. Even better, given that there were only a few lights in the lot, a witness to the shooting would be highly unlikely.
The Last Trial (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers Book 3) Page 25
