“Bitterness got the best of me for a couple of years, and I made some bad decisions as a result. Real bad. But eventually the weight of it all was too much to shoulder on my own. I had to give my grief to God or else. I don’t know of any other way.”
He absorbs the response in contemplative silence. After a deep breath, he says, “I lost track of the case. Did they ever catch the guy who did it?”
“Not a single lead after all this time.”
The not knowing eats at me still. I’ve made an uneasy détente with the fact that justice will never likely happen in this lifetime but continue to struggle with whether Amber and Cale paid the price for my actions. I put away a lot of murderers in my time and even witnessed two men I prosecuted get lethal injection. Maybe someone’s family decided to even the score.
I ask, “What about your daughter?”
The change that comes over him is visible. The kind eyes become cloudy, the humanity lost to a rising ruthlessness that emanates off his skin like a heat haze in the hot desert. I know that hate—carried it around like an anvil for over two years until it was too great a burden to bear. He spits out a response.
“Her boyfriend did it. We were at the lake with the Chief. She didn’t want to come. She was a sophomore at UGA and preferred to stay with her boyfriend in Athens. We hadn’t seen her much recently, and I pressed her pretty hard to spend some family time together. She agreed but wasn’t happy about it. After we went to bed one night, she left to meet her boyfriend anyway to fool around. Turns out he lived down the road—ten miles away or so. We found her car the next morning, wrapped around a tree. She was stuck there in the passenger seat, and that bastard didn’t tell anybody. Left her there to die. His family is rich and connected. They lied to protect him. Gave him an alibi. His prints were all over the car, but he rode in it all the time. The Chief did what he could, pressed the local prosecutor hard. No use. All the evidence died with my daughter.”
The wavering voice and the rawness of his pain take me back to Amber and Cale. The image of their blood staining our living room floor remains stamped on my brain and torments me whenever the memory comes to mind. Now is such a moment, and no amount of scrubbing can make that floor clean.
Kenny asks, “What would you do in my place? I feel less than a man letting that monster walk around free. I want to kill him so much I can’t stand it. What would you do?”
The truth—I don’t know. The identity of my family’s killer remains a mystery. The option to mete out vigilante justice isn’t one that is available to me. Lord knows I’ve fantasized about killing Mr. Smith enough over the past few years, prayed to bathe my feet in his blood. But the actual doing is of a different cloth. Kenny, though, has a target and is liable to listen to the darker angels of his nature. Someone needs to talk him down off the ledge, and I might be the only person he would listen to.
“Don’t do it. Killing him won’t bring your daughter back, and it won’t bring you peace. Think of your family. You being in jail for murder would only magnify their suffering. As hard as it is, and trust me that I am as thirsty for revenge as you are, you need to turn the other cheek.”
He scowls and looks as if he might cry again.
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
***
That night, Scott e-mails me the contents of the flash drive we found hiding in that fake book on Warren Jackson’s bookshelf—a single audio file. Eliza lounges at my feet next to the warm fireplace, and I debate whether to listen to the file now or in the morning. Going to bed seems the better bet, but the house is chilly and movement requires more exertion than I’m in the mood for. I press play.
“Good to see you, Warren. Always good to talk to somebody from the old days.”
I recognize the voice in an instant—Gene Davis, the ooze leaking from his pores, even on tape.
“What do you want, Gene?”
“I’m here to make you an offer you cannot refuse.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Not this time, Chief.”
Silence ensues, and I picture the confrontation—Gene posing with the same fake friendliness he tried to unleash on me, Warren Jackson impatient with such posturing. Gene picks up the dialogue.
“To keep things on the level, I won’t say on whose behalf I’m here today, but we both know the who and we both know the why. You’re nearing retirement, and it would be mighty nice for you to have a fancy place to stay in the location of your choice—maybe a mansion on Sea Island off the Georgia coast, a high-rise condo in New York City, or even a castle in Europe. Your choice. Somewhere you can take your wife. Or, knowing you as I do, somewhere your wife doesn’t even have to know about.”
The response is immediate: “Not interested.”
Gene laughs, apparently confident in the strength of his hand.
“We know some things about you, Chief. Embarrassing things. It would be a shame to see such a distinguished career end in scandal.”
“Are you blackmailing me or bribing me, Gene? Make up your mind.”
“Whatever works.”
“I thought you worked for the Governor. I have a hankering to tell him that you’re playing both sides of the fence.”
Gene laughs again.
“The Governor is an old, beaten down man. He has lost his fastball since Ruth died and is only playing out the string at this point. He already doesn’t like me but knows that he needs me if he’s going to survive the next two years. And you need to think about the future.”
I play this recording for Minton, and Gene won’t be laughing, that’s for sure.
“Gene, you’ve known me a long time. You know what I hate more than anything?”
“Can’t say that I do.”
“New Money. New Money is crass, it is vulgar, and it has no manners of which to speak. It throws its weight around with no respect for the traditional pillars necessary to support a civilized society. New Money thinks it can buy a seat at the table, but just because someone is good at turning a buck doesn’t mean they get to call the shots. I hate New Money, and I hate little minions like you that prostitute themselves at the altar of New Money. Are you getting the picture? You failed in your mission. Go back and tell Daddy Dalton to stick that castle up his ass.”
“You’re making a mistake, Warren.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. Now get out.”
The roots of political sleaze run deep. When I was in high school, my father made me read All The King’s Men. Willie Stark—the power-mad governor hellbent on destroying his political opponents—assured a subordinate that dirt had to exist on a perceived moral pillar of the community: “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.”
I remember talking to Daddy about that quote—a memory long lost to me but now born again. I asked him what a didie is.
He answered, “A diaper. Man is sinful from the time he wears dirty diapers to the moment they put a shroud over his dead, decaying body. From cradle to grave.”
“Is there always something?”
“Always.”
I taunted him, “Even you?”
“Nothing you need to know about.”
He smiled as he answered, and I joined him. The suggestion of corruption on his part was laughable, and we both enjoyed the joke. The memory reads differently in hindsight. He told me the truth but made me believe something else. Daddy was always a good politician.
I reflect on my own crimes and try to resist the impulse to judge him now. I whisper to myself, “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.” Willie Stark was right.
There is always something.
11
The funeral is a high-profile event. Scott and I arrive before most of the crowd. Safely inside the sanctuary, we sit down to watch and observe. Most of the people on our suspect list will soon be in this room, presenting a valuable opportunity to do some reconnaissance. The e
xercise may prove useless, but that’s the thing about an investigation. You never know which avenue of inquiry will bear the most fruit.
I keep a lookout for Senator Clement Parsons. Repeated calls to his office have gone unanswered, making me twitchy. He was one of the last people to see Warren Jackson alive, and we have to talk to him. If he shows, I can emphasize to him in person the pressing need for a formal interview. But Parsons is just one of the problems. The full import of the investigation is starting to keep me up at night. I explain to Scott.
“We are swimming in deep waters. Hank Dalton is the richest person in Georgia. Tommy Dalton is going to be the next Governor, Jerry Dalton controls the state police force, and Senator Parsons may be the next president.”
“Well at least we have your wits and my good looks.”
I’m dubious.
Beverly Jackson—still not wearing black—strolls past but returns when she recognizes us.
She says, “They won’t let me smoke in here. Can you believe that? Don’t they know that I’m the widow? They should let me do whatever the hell I want. I’m grieving.”
I reply, “Condolences.”
“Many thanks, and you,” she says, talking to Scott, “call me.” The widow winks at him and walks off.
Scott bemoans, “I’m going to have to nip that in the bud.”
“What happened to ‘if the price is right’?”
“The price is wrong, very wrong. Besides, got to keep it professional. According to you, I may have to throw the cuffs on her at the end of the day.”
“She might be into that sort of thing.”
A grim, tight smile distorts his face. He threatens, “Another comment along those lines and I’m going to take my Glock out and shoot you dead on the spot.”
Jackson’s fellow justices start to arrive and make their way to a special section on the front row. The three justices unaccounted for on the night of the murder—Aurora Winnett, Adam Lumpkin, and Susan Benson—draw the majority of my attention.
Aurora Winnett walks with purpose down the aisle with a sullen-looking man by her side—presumably her husband Gary, also at the party. Now in her late forties, she still maintains the figure of a woman half her age. Her hair is a rich shade of ebony. I still can’t square her as Jackson’s lover, but Beverly was adamant on that point, even claiming that an angry Gary called her to complain about the affair. I have an appointment to interview Aurora on Monday at the courthouse, and Scott’s going to take a turn with Gary that same day. We’ll see what shakes out.
An intense man with cropped hair and stylish spectacles strides past us—Adam Lumpkin, the youngest justice on the court. By reputation, he is always the smartest person in the room and unafraid to make sure that everybody else knows it. A degree in Philosophy from Princeton, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and first in his class at Yale Law School back up the conceit. I don’t suspect we’ll have much in common.
The last individual of interest is Susan Benson—more personal than professional. I doubt that she walked down the hall to Jackson’s chambers and fired two shots into him, but I’m open to being surprised. Her manner is regal, and I can tell that she once was quite beautiful. She talks to a number of people as she maneuvers through the spectators, wearing the confident smile of one secure in her place at the top of the legal pyramid.
Her back is to us, and then she turns in our direction. When she sees me, Benson freezes in mid-smile as if trapped in time and loiters in place for several uncomfortable seconds. I force my eyes to remain neutral, not knowing if the attempt succeeds. At last, her mask of friendliness returns, and she hurries to her seat. The service proceeds with the typical rituals, but my thoughts remain fixated on Susan Benson.
Senator Parsons never shows up.
***
Fulfilling my promise to Ben, I head home for the Sunday after-church meal. Ben’s wife, Sally, already has the kitchen firing on all cylinders when I pull up, the fried chicken smell of country goodness hovering over the driveway. Billy and Debbie, my nephew and niece, run out to give me a hug. I give them a dollar each to complete the ritual.
Ben slaps my back on the front porch, leads me into the living room, and introduces me to his guests—Mrs. Tammy Wilson and her daughter, Court of Appeals Judge Cate Slattery.
“Nice to meet you, Your Honor.”
“Please call me Cate.”
Mom sits on a nearby chair, and I go over to give her a hug, holding onto her a touch longer than normal as some kind of penance for Daddy’s betrayal. After the embrace, she studies me like a hawk before demanding, “What’s wrong?” Mom’s a born detective, better than Scott. But Sally calls the group to eat at that moment and rescues me from having to answer the question.
Family meals used to be a staple of my life but now feel like experiences from another world. We all sit around a large wood table that Ben built with his bare hands. While I grew up fixing cars, Ben’s passion was woodworking. Jesus was a carpenter, after all. Mom arranges for Cate and me to sit next to one another, our own lawyers’ corner. Everyone holds hands, Ben blesses the food, and we eat.
Mom addresses me, “About time you let Minton appoint you to something. This step is just the beginning, Chance.”
I turn to Cate and explain, “Mom thinks I should be governor. I’m not interested.”
Mom retorts, “Stop being so stubborn and trying to be above it all. The state needs good people like you.”
Her disappointment that Daddy never reached the Governor’s Mansion has long been known to me, and recent discoveries put the whole situation in a different light. But I can’t go into politics just to give Mom some psychological closure from events that happened twenty-five years ago.
Changing the topic, I ask Cate, “How’s life on the Court of Appeals?”
“Busy. I’ve been on the court three years now, and the cases just keep rolling in nonstop. But I love the work and wouldn’t give up being an appellate judge for anything. Every day is filled with purpose.”
Sally chimes in, “It’s great to have more women up in Atlanta running things for a change.”
“Thank you. Feels like there are more of us all the time. Susan Benson was the pioneer—the first female statewide judge—and she has been generous to me in sharing the secrets of her success.”
The mention of that name causes me to hold my breath and wait for the bomb to drop. Mom fumes, “Did she tell you how she spread her legs wide open to climb up the political ladder?”
All movement in the room suspends itself in mid-air, and no one dares to be the first one to breathe. Mom then storms out. Scott had it wrong. I wasn’t the only person in Atlanta not to know about Daddy and Susan Benson.
The wake of her exit is filled with awkward silence, the rest of us stunned at the speed of what just happened. A horrified Cate sits there flushed with embarrassment, unsure of what she did to cause such a reaction. I whisper to her, “Mom and Justice Benson have an unpleasant backstory. You didn’t know. I didn’t even know until a few days ago. None of what just happened is your fault.”
Ben says to me, “One of us should go to talk to her.”
“You were always her favorite.”
“I’ll flip you for it. Heads—you talk to her. Tails—me.”
He removes a 1901 Morgan Silver Dollar that he always carries with him from his front pocket. The coin rises high in the air, rattles on the table, and stops with Lady Liberty facing upwards to the sky. Heads.
I complain, “Have you ever lost a flip with that blasted coin?”
“Not yet.”
Heaving myself up, I go look for my mother.
***
She stews on the edge of a pond at the back of Ben’s property. I stand next to her and stare into the murky water, thankful that it’s wintertime. In summer, the pond is a veritable mosquito farm capable of producing blotches of red welts on the skin in seconds. Mom looks at me, surprised.
“I thought it would be Ben.”
“I
lost the coin flip.”
We ponder the pond in silence for some time. The deadness of the water reminds me of the unrelenting cycle of nature’s ways. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven. Now is the moment for me to play the thoughtful son.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really. It is what it is. Ancient history. The hurt comes from hearing that name in my own son’s house. But I shouldn’t have said what I said, especially in front of my grandchildren. Should’ve choked on it instead. Lord knows, I’ve had enough practice.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Have you known all along? I thought you were supposed to be kept out of the loop.”
“I only recently came into knowledge. Minton let something slip by accident.”
“That dumb ass.”
Minton has always been a little scared of my mother. Most people are.
She continues, “Don’t go thinking ill of your father. He loved you something mighty. Those were dark days for the two of us. I forgave him. You forgive him, too. Men are weak anyway. I blame her.”
Amazing—the mental compromises we make to live with ourselves. She defends him even now. That said, I see the logic. Blaming Daddy for her profound disappointments may have made their life together going forward unlivable. The narrative required another villain, and Susan Benson fit the bill. Except I cannot so easily write off my father’s role. He made a choice—exercised his free will and made a choice.
But maybe Mom has it right. Forgive and move on. Otherwise, you end up a bitter alcoholic like Beverly Jackson.
***
The appetite I arrived with left and never returned. The rest of the meal is a charade of tense, fake friendliness. Afterwards, I skip dessert in favor of strolling back out to the pond by myself. I bend down to touch the water, the coldness sending a reinvigorating jolt throughout my body. I stand there for a spell thinking of nothing and enjoying the break from my troubles. When I turn around, Cate watches me from a respectful distance away. She smiles.
Death to the Chief (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 2) Page 6
