Death to the Chief (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 2)

by Lance McMillian

  “Oh, that’s a bunch of horse hockey. You have a gift, son. You think I haven’t been following your career since you graduated from law school? You’re one of the best trial lawyers in Georgia. Your work on the Bernard Barton trial impressed everybody. Your name carries credibility. This investigation needs some credibility.”

  My work on the Bernard Barton trial is why I gave up my legal career. In prosecuting Bernard for the murder of his wife Sara Barton, I broke too many laws and professional rules to list. Only three people—Scott, Ella, and the person I sent to prison—know the real story, and even they don’t realize the whole of it. After the trial, my actions received praise from all quarters. I even won some awards that I refused to accept. The undeserved acclaim felt like a heap of burning coals being dumped upon my head. The shame still sears.

  “Minton, you don’t understand. I’ve walked away and never intend to go back. I’m a different man now.”

  We study each other. One of us is going to blink. Will he really hold Ella’s appointment hostage to get me to take over the Jackson investigation? That’s the million-dollar question. The possibility can’t be discounted. Minton was born a stubborn cuss, and no one to my knowledge has ever won a game of chicken against him.

  The thought of confessing the truth about my conduct during the Bernard Barton trial is tempting. I figure Minton would have no choice except to find somebody else for the job. And while Minton’s stubbornness is legendary, he has never been one for spite. Ella would still get to be a judge. But silence gets the better of me. I’m not in the mood to share those particular secrets—not with Minton, not with anyone. Instead, the two of us just stare at each other, waiting for the other fellow to blink.

  The Governor says, “You were born into politics, Chance. You know how it works. Quid pro quo. How bad do you want Ella Kemp to be a judge?”

  “Can’t you just do this one thing for me? Ella deserves that position on the merits. I’ve never asked you for anything.”

  He sighs, “I don’t like putting you in this position, and that’s the God’s honest truth. That I’m strong-arming you this way is a reflection of my desperation. I take no pleasure in doing it and hope you know me well enough to realize that. But I need someone that I can trust. And that person is you.”

  Visions of Ella fill my head—both the happy times and the sad times that we shared. My debt to her is unrepayable, but I can make a down payment. Minton smiles at my slight nod of acceptance.

  “Thank you, Chance. Press conference tomorrow. Comb your hair and brush your teeth. You’re going to need a team—lawyers, cops, what not. I’ll make sure that state and local governments loan you anyone you want. I’ll also find the money you need. Leave that stuff to me. But you need to pick the team—people you can trust. We’re up against something here. I feel it deep in my bones. The most important position you need to fill is lead investigator, someone good, tough as nails. Any ideas off the top of your head?”

  Scott’s ugly mug is the only choice, of course. Looks like the team will have an encore performance.

  “Yeah, I know a guy.”

  3

  I escape from the room with an air of defeat. Martha Towns peers at me sympathetically. She knows the score. I’m not the first haggard-looking person to exit Minton McReynolds’ office over the years. Seeing her gives me a thought.

  “Martha, can I ask you a question?”

  “You know you can, honey.”

  “What did Warren Jackson ever do to my father?”

  The kindly features transform into a slight frown. She looks away, but I hold my ground. She turns back to me and shakes her head before giving me an answer.

  “Chance, if you don’t know and the Governor didn’t see fit to tell you, then you don’t need to know.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “It’s history, honey. That’s all. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

  But I’m not a sleeping dog. I’m a hunting dog. That’s what made me an effective lawyer and why Minton wants me to lead the investigation into Warren Jackson’s murder now. You can’t drop hints about the most important man ever in my life and think I’m not going to follow the trail. I have to know. That’s who I am.

  ***

  Gene accosts me on the way out. He says, “Well, how did it go? You boys cook up something good?”

  His wide, Jabba-like smile drips with insincerity. I decide to mess with him.

  “We cooked up something delicious, Gene. I expect you’ll hear all about it soon enough. The appointment is a tremendous honor. I am humbled by the Governor’s confidence in me.”

  “For the Supreme Court?”

  His jowls drag in disappointment. He really does have a bee in his bonnet about that Supreme Court seat. I give him an ambiguous wink. Getting his goat has been the highlight of an otherwise disappointing day.

  ***

  On the ride home, I call my older brother, Ben. He is a pastor in our hometown ninety minutes south of Atlanta. Bigger churches often try to lure him away by offering him more money and a larger platform, but he remains content to minister to his modest flock. The life agrees with him. He is the happiest person I know.

  I start, “Ben, I have a question. Do you know of any trouble between Daddy and Warren Jackson? I met with the Governor today, and he dropped some veiled hints about something Jackson did to Daddy. I asked Martha Towns about it afterwards, and she acted real cagey, too.”

  “What were you meeting with Minton for?”

  “He wants me to lead the investigation into Jackson’s murder.”

  “I thought you quit all that.”

  “Minton made me un-quit.”

  Silence follows, which itself is a tell. Ben knows what I don’t know. I decide to wait him out.

  When I was a young lawyer, I learned what an effective tool silence can be. I had a dispute with a defense attorney over the production of certain documents. Both sides accused the other of bad faith. After we presented our arguments to the court, the judge sat there and stared into our souls for a full five minutes, all without saying a word. A pin drop would’ve sounded like a gunshot in the oppressive quiet. The experience unnerved me. When he did speak, the judge instructed us to try working out the dispute one more time. We brokered an agreement in ten minutes. The lesson I learned that day has returned amazing dividends over the years: people fear the silence.

  Ben finally relents, “What do you want me to say?”

  “The truth.”

  “I can’t. Dad made me promise not to tell you about it.”

  People sure are going to a lot of trouble to avoid telling me something. And that means that my father’s part in the story reflects badly on him. I think back on Daddy’s dying days as he sat on our porch with a Bible in his lap. The moral goodness of my father is one of the foundational pillars of my life. The chiseling away of that bedrock in the past hour fills me with nausea. The Governor told me to drop it. Martha, too. But I’ve never been a good listener.

  “Daddy’s gone, and the cat’s out of the bag. You can tell me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe I should ask Mom.”

  “Don’t.”

  The tone behind the response is as firm a command as my brother has ever spoken to me. I process the implications.

  “Then you tell me.”

  “What would you do if Dad swore you to secrecy? Would you tell me? I don’t think so. You would take his wishes with you to the grave.”

  I don’t argue the point and plot another way to uncover the truth. When I pull into my carport, Eliza’s wailful moans bombard me from the house. Every time I arrive home, the same bone-chattering Hound of the Baskervilles sound assaults me. It’s good to be missed, I guess.

  ***

  Eliza and I take a long walk around the property once I change my clothes. Less than three hours after being pulled back into the legal world, the dirt starts to accumulate on me all over again. I moved out here to get away from crime, mu
rder, and the law. The change did me much good. God and nature became the new normal. But now the progress of the preceding months feels loose to the grip. One unknown ghost has already escaped from the past to torture me. How many more are lurking about? I reflect on Scripture: “My groans are many and my heart is faint.” I pray that God will hear my lament.

  ***

  I’m buffing out a scratch on the Corvette when Scott pulls up in the driveway with pizza for the both of us. I’ve yet to tell him about my meeting with the Governor earlier this afternoon. We sit down at a table in the back of the garage.

  He asks, “You been working on that thing all day?”

  “I wish. Life had other plans for me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The Governor summoned me to his office. He’s going to appoint me special attorney general over the Warren Jackson investigation.”

  “What on earth? I thought you retired to work on cars. How did the Governor ever get you to do that?”

  “He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Ella is going to be Fulton County’s next Superior Court Judge.”

  He whistles. Scott, more than anyone, knows the degree to which I wronged Ella in the past. Taking a bite of his pizza, he chews over the news. I give him the time to digest everything and hand Eliza the remnants of my uneaten crust. Scott takes a sip of his beer and gives me the verdict.

  “You did the right thing.”

  “I wish there was another way.”

  “Yeah well, that’s life, ain’t it? What does being a special attorney general mean anyway? You now overseeing the GBI or something?”

  “Nope. It means I need to pick my own team, starting with a lead investigator. The Governor told me to find a tough-as-nails detective who knows his business. That rules you out.”

  He flashes me the finger but smiles a greedy smile. We plot for a good hour over how we want to work things—just as we used to do. Afterwards, I confess my frustration over the mystery involving Warren Jackson and my father and the unwillingness of anyone to give me any answers.

  Scott replies, “Probably has to do with that Susan Benson business.”

  I gawk at him like he’s an alien. Susan Benson has served as a justice on the Georgia Supreme Court for over thirty years—a verifiable legend in the state legal community. I’ve never heard her name in connection with my father until this moment.

  “What Susan Benson business?”

  An uncomfortable Scott mutters, “You know, the—” He leaves the thought hanging.

  “No, I don’t know. What?”

  He pauses but then spits out, “The relationship they had.”

  The heat in my face rises, and I pace around the garage to get my bearings. Ben signaled something of this nature with his admonition not to talk to Mom, but having it confirmed is a punch to the gut all the same. I turn to Scott and demand, “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

  “Man, sorry, I assumed you knew. And it’s not exactly the kind of thing that naturally flows into a conversation, ‘Hey, what about that time your dad was shagging that Supreme Court lady?’ I mean, you know, some things are just best left unsaid.”

  The weight of my ignorance leaves me dumbfounded. I ask, “Am I the only person in Atlanta who didn’t know?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  ***

  Falling asleep is tough business. I’ve been around enough people to know that not everyone is as moral as surface appearances may suggest. But Daddy? That’s a hard one to swallow. He was my hero, and now I ache as if he died all over again. When you learn that your understanding of history was all wrong, you lose part of yourself.

  Eliza cares nothing for these concerns and shows annoyance that my shiftiness is disturbing her from something important. Just as her eyelids shut again, a beep on my phone ushers in a new interruption. Eliza’s tired eyes struggle to open before retreating back into sleepful bliss.

  A text from Ella reads: “Wanted to let you know that the governor appointed me as the next superior court judge today. Swearing in to follow. Will text details. I hope you can make it.”

  Minton didn’t waste any time. He kept his end of the bargain, and now I have to keep mine. I reply to Ella with the usual congratulations and promise to attend the ceremony.

  I wait for a response that doesn’t arrive and mull over the concept of righting a wrong. Can we ever repay those we hurt? I’ve let go of a lot of emotional burdens in the past half year, including forgiving the unnamed man who killed my family—someone I used to call Mr. Smith for no other reason than to focus my hate. But the guilt of what I did to Ella remains an unrelenting thorn in the flesh that pricks me still. Did Daddy feel similar remorse toward Mom? I snuggle up next to Eliza and mourn again the unchangeable past.

  4

  I call Ben the next morning and ask, “Did Daddy have an affair with Susan Benson?”

  “You didn’t ask Momma, did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  After a deep breath, Ben explains, “Yeah, that’s why he didn’t run for governor. Warren Jackson found out and told Dad he would keep the secret if Dad appointed him to the Supreme Court. Dad refused, dropped out, and Jim Farley became governor. Farley put Jackson on the Supreme Court.”

  I absorb the news in silence. Daddy told me a much different tale behind his aborted run for governor. The sting of his deceit leaves a bitter residue in my mouth. Adultery is apparently okay, but he drew the line at bribery—a true man of principle. I feel sick.

  Ben asks, “You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Dad disappointed a lot of people, himself most of all. He couldn’t stand to disappoint you, too. The two of you were always thick as thieves. That you continued to revere him in the midst of his disgrace carried him through some dark days.”

  “The truth be damned.”

  “The news is tough, Chance. I was mad at him for a good long while. But Dad was no different from anyone else. He was a sinner. Just like you. Just like me. You would do well to stop expecting perfection both from him and yourself. Don’t let his mistake poison your memories. Hold on to the good.”

  Ben’s words are a needed tonic. Most of my life, I’ve had a fundamentalist streak a mile long—that’s one of the reasons I became a prosecutor in the first place. But recent events have caused me to lose my taste for judging people. I now try to season my view of others with a dollop of grace. Early returns are mixed. I’m still a work in progress.

  He continues, “I was meaning to call you anyway. Do you know Judge Cate Slattery on the Court of Appeals?”

  “Not personally.”

  “She and her mother have been attending worship with us lately and are having lunch with the family after services this Sunday. I was hoping you could come down so she can at least talk to you about lawyer stuff if all else fails. Momma would like to see you, too.”

  Guilt over not visiting Mom enough and guilt over how Daddy betrayed her compel me to agree to the request.

  ***

  The press conference is at noon. The walk across the Capitol’s rotunda toward the Governor’s office is heavy with dread. Gene materializes from behind a pillar and arrests my progress. He smiles that big, dumb grin of his and wags a disapproving finger in my direction.

  “You pulled my leg yesterday. You told me you were being appointed to the Supreme Court. That wasn’t true.”

  “I said nothing of the sort.”

  “Don’t be difficult. You knew what you were doing. Anyway, I don’t know why the Governor is going to all this trouble about this investigation, but you would do well to think about the future, Chance. The Governor won’t be around forever, you know. Only two more years.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you care about the investigation and why do you care about my future job prospects? And what does one have to do with the other?”

  He stands th
ere with his mouth wide open, visibly plotting something in that round head of his. The floppy folds of his skin bobble in uncertainty. Gene’s problem is that he assumes that everyone is as corrupt as he is. He doesn’t answer the question.

  I continue, “Were you there at the new courthouse the night Warren Jackson was murdered?”

  “What if I was?”

  “Then I’ll be talking to you soon.”

  I leave him stewing in his own juices. Minton told me yesterday that we were up against something, and Gene’s behavior is the first warning sign. As I make it to the Governor’s door, Attorney General Tommy Dalton eyes me from across the hall. He gives me a neutral nod of recognition, and I return the favor.

  ***

  After the press conference, Minton and I congregate back in his office. He asks, “Off to the races now, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re going to need a Fulton County judge to oversee the case, grant you search warrants, approve subpoenas. Who do you want?”

  “Those assignments are random.”

  The Governor gazes at me kindly and responds, “Chance, don’t be so naïve. Give me a name.” Son of a politician and fifteen years as a trial lawyer in the big city, I’m still slow on the uptake as to how things really work in the unseen corridors where politics happens. I give him a name: “Mary Woodcomb.”

  “She’s good?”

  “She’s the best, and she loves me.”

  “Excellent. And let me give you a bit of unsolicited advice: be suspicious of everybody. A lot of intrigue happens around these parts—politicians angling for the next job, lobbyists slithering on the floor looking for favors, opportunists readying to stab you in the back. And Warren Jackson was always in the thick of it. Assume the worst of everybody, and you won’t be too far off the mark.”

  Obi-Wan’s sage words to young Luke Skywalker as they prepared to enter Mos Eisley come to mind: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

  But Obi-Wan never ventured to Atlanta.