Death to the Chief (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 2)

by Lance McMillian

  And then another thought strikes like a sudden lightning bolt: Amber would like Cate.

  I ask, “Do you want to go bowling?”

  The oddness of the question throws her. She spies me with bemused suspicion before responding, “There’s not a bowling alley within fifty miles of here.”

  “I know a place.”

  We access a near-hidden back staircase and go upstairs to the attic. Calling it an attic is actually a misnomer. The space is large with high ceilings, a generous-sized window, and an area that spans the house from end to end. The room is one of my favorite places in the entire world, yet I was the only member of the family to appreciate its greatness. As a result, the attic belonged to me alone growing up. Even today it reflects the decorating choices I made long ago.

  Cate asks, “What is this place?”

  “Something akin to my own private treehouse.”

  “How many girls did you bring up here when you were growing up?”

  “I plead the Fifth.”

  One of the more questionable uses of the attic was a doomed attempt to make a bowling alley. My parents nixed that plan with great haste, but I’m up for a second run. The pins and bowling balls remain where I left them decades earlier. I clear out a space that roughly approximates a bowling lane and set up the pins. A wary Eliza watches me from the couch. Cate finishes her wine and sets the glass on a table.

  “You’re crazy,” she says.

  “No doubt.”

  “If something breaks, it’s your fault. I don’t want your mother blaming me.”

  “My mother hasn’t been up here this century.”

  I hand her the lighter of the two bowling balls. Two drumsticks approximate the foul line. Cate squares up and strides toward the drumsticks, except the ball fails to make the trip with her. She loses it in her backswing, sending it flying in the wrong direction. The ball jars the table holding her wine glass. An inch before the glass hits the floor, I snatch it out of the air. I recently had to replace one of Mom’s wine glasses and feel relief at avoiding a repeat. When I look at Cate again, abject horror fills her face. But then she bursts out laughing.

  I conclude, “You’re the worst bowler I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  She doesn’t deny the charge. I move the wine glass to a safer location and retrieve the ball. I hand it to her, and she wonders, “Dare we try this again?”

  “I’ll help you.”

  Placing my hands on her hips, I straighten her toward the pins. As I stand behind her, our bodies touch slightly, but she nuzzles into me to make the fit closer. I put my left arm around her waist to keep her hips square. My right arm steadies her right arm, and we move the ball together in a swinging motion. I whisper in her ear.

  “Relaxed control. That is the key.”

  She releases the ball, and it meanders its way across the floor. Five pins fall.

  We remain in place, glued together at this point, thinking about things other than bowling. She half turns her head toward my face and juts out her mouth to be kissed. I oblige. We hold the position for a good while, until the rising intensity demands that she turn to face me. We paw each other all the way over to the couch and then stumble together onto it.

  I pant, “Move, dog!” Eliza scampers away. More intense kissing follows.

  We break apart for a second and stare at each other, assessing the situation, a step short from the part where clothes start to come off. I caress her face with a gentle hand and guide her close again for another kiss but don’t make it that far.

  Eliza jumps up and inserts herself between us, wedging her body into the tiny space nice and tight. I try to push her off, but she burrows into the couch as low as she can, the dead weight proving difficult for me to dislodge. Cate and I both laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

  I observe, “We should probably stop. I don’t think my brother would appreciate me deflowering a member of his flock the night before Sunday service.”

  “The deflowering occurred a long time ago, but you’re right. I don’t need the pastor getting the right idea from my morning after glow.”

  “I’m humbled by your confidence that being with me would produce such radiance.”

  “It wouldn’t take much. I haven’t had sex in so long I can barely stand it.”

  “We could skip church.”

  She glances at me to determine if I’m serious or just joking. I’m not sure, either.

  Having accomplished her mission, Eliza lays her head on my leg and rolls over on her back, the signal that I am to rub her belly.

  Cate says, “I grew up in the church, of course. Southern Fried Baptist, through and through. You know how it is. Didn’t pay it much mind once I went off to college. After the divorce, I felt the gravitational pull to go back, dusted off my Bible and tried to get to know Jesus again. I was slow to realize, though, that I’m now supposed to wait to get married again before having sex. Does any couple actually wait these days?”

  “My wife and I did.”

  “Really?”

  “She made me.”

  “You were a virgin when you got married?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Ah, I see. Did that bother her about you?”

  “She never asked me. We had a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy as it pertained to my sexual past.”

  “Why did you wait for her?”

  “Because my heart hurt when she wasn’t there.”

  Her head lies on the back of the couch and she turns it my way, studying what’s before her as if I were a bizarre exhibit in a museum. The probing agitates me, and I ask her about it.

  “Do you think I’m strange?”

  With Eliza still separating us, Cate comes around to the other side of the couch next to me. Her lips touch mine before she answers.

  “Not in a bad way. I think you’re a man who wouldn’t have an affair with his secretary.”

  “I don’t have a secretary.”

  “Even better.”

  We hold each other in a tight embrace. The intimacy is almost closer than if we had gone ahead and had sex. Almost. She breaks the silence after a long spell.

  “What about after what happened to your wife? With women, I mean.”

  “I became a workaholic to smother to death every other part of my life—grief, sex, God, my family, everything. Even gave up the family dog because she reminded me of Amber and Cale. I just plowed myself into my cases, started visiting crime scenes in the dead of night, willing the rest of it to go away. That method worked until it didn’t. I crashed and burned.”

  “Have you been with a woman since your wife died?”

  “One.”

  “Ella?”

  “No.”

  Her face registers surprise. She doesn’t ask who, which is just as well. I wouldn’t tell her anyway. But she still has more questions.

  “How did it happen?”

  I remember how I once described the situation to Ella and use the same explanation now, “She threw herself at me, and I caught her.”

  “How did it end?”

  “Badly.”

  30

  We head back to Atlanta right after lunch with our families. Scott and I are meeting at the courthouse in the late afternoon and need the building to ourselves. Cate decides to make conversation.

  “How’s the investigation going? You don’t talk much about it.”

  “I really don’t know, which is probably an answer in itself. A lot of different ways the situation can still break.”

  “The whole thing is crazy. I was there that night, you know?”

  “Where?”

  “In the building. Even went up to the law library on the fifth floor at one point.”

  The car strays off the road for a second before I guide it back into the lane.

  “You were in the building?”

  “Yeah, I was the emergency motions judge on the Court of Appeals and had to stay late ruling on a motion.”

  “Any
one with you?”

  “No. Only the emergency judge has to stay around for those things, and I sent my staff home at six.”

  I drive in stunned silence as my mind calculates the new math.

  “Security did a sweep of the courthouse before the reception. They said the building was empty.”

  “I’m a judge. Security isn’t going to come into my office to sweep me anywhere.”

  “And you say you were in the law library on the fifth floor at some point? Why?”

  “To research something.”

  The law library is on the same hallway as Warren Jackson’s chambers—two doors down, separated only by Adam Lumpkin’s space.

  “What time?”

  “Just after seven I think.”

  The distraction of operating the car helps me to maintain a veneer of normalcy that doesn’t exist below deck. Cate just dropped herself smack-dab right into the middle of my murder case. I want to throw up.

  “How long were you there?”

  “Ten minutes or so.”

  “See anyone?”

  “No. The back staircase between the floors comes out in the hall right next to the library. It’s not like I walked around.”

  “Hear anything?”

  “Did I hear anything?”

  “Like a gunshot?”

  “Oh. Didn’t consider that. But no. Didn’t hear anything. I thought he was killed later.”

  “What makes you think he was killed later?”

  “When I got back to my office, it took me five minutes to send out the order. I left right after, and everything seemed normal. The next day I learned that the Chief Justice had been murdered. I assumed it happened after I went home. News stories have been scant on details. Am I a witness?”

  “Maybe.”

  We both find that bit of news disagreeable and wallow together in uncomfortable silence. After a respectable period of deliberation, I dive back in.

  “How well do you know Tommy Dalton?”

  “That’s a peculiar question. Why?”

  I didn’t exactly finesse that takeoff. But I remember Cate talking to Tommy after Ella’s swearing-in ceremony and want to put out feelers. I try to put her mind at ease.

  “Let’s just say that I have a special interest in him.”

  She raises her eyebrows, catching at least part of my drift.

  “I mean, I know him obviously. The Court of Appeals shared the building with the Attorney General’s Office until we moved over to the new courthouse a few weeks ago. We’re pleasant acquaintances. I try to avoid talking to him too much because of the case involving his father’s company.”

  I snapped my head toward her and ask, “What case?”

  “The trucking accident involving his father’s business, Express Service Today. An EST driver hit a school bus and killed a bunch of kids. The jury awarded a verdict of $422 million against the company. The case is now before the Court of Appeals.”

  The day is turning out to be full of surprises. The accident was big news when it happened, but that was years ago now. I had no idea about the civil case. I ransack my memory for the recorded conversation between Gene Davis and Warren Jackson. Gene told him: “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.” But Jackson accused him of working for Daddy Dalton—rich guy Hank—and Gene didn’t refute it. The missing motive for why the Daltons might’ve wanted Jackson dead starts to crystalize.

  “How’s the appeal going?”

  “You know I can’t talk about any specifics, but the Court of Appeals is now considering the matter.”

  “But you guys aren’t the last word, right? That would be the Supreme Court.”

  “Sure.”

  “And just as a general ballpark prediction, what do you think the Supreme Court would do if they were to get it?”

  “I couldn’t begin to tell you.”

  “I promise not to hold you to it.”

  “No one knows.”

  “But if you had to guess?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. No one knows. It depends on who the Governor appoints to replace the Chief Justice.”

  The car slides a little bit off the road again.

  “How so?”

  “When it comes to big verdicts against businesses, the Supreme Court is typically split 5-4 against the business. The Chief Justice was known to be anti-business, almost to a legendary degree. Now, the split is 4-4. Everybody knows that.”

  Not everybody. That’s what I get for being a criminal lawyer. I know nothing about civil litigation, except that $422 million is a huge amount of money.

  “Then depending on who the Governor appoints, the Dalton family may save themselves over $400 million.”

  “Exactly.”

  31

  Scott and I meet in front of the judicial building later that afternoon. As we enter together, I explain, “Your closed-circle case just sprung a leak.”

  “How so?”

  I fill him in on the backstory about Cate being in the building at the time of the murder, including the information about the $422 million verdict against Hank Dalton’s company. He processes the new information during the ride up the elevator.

  “Cate Slattery was there that night? And you’re dating her? I’ll move her to the top of the suspect list.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.”

  The building is deserted, as intended. Scott aims to fire blanks from the approximate spot where the killer stood. My job is to walk around the fifth floor and listen. The test is not the type we wanted to run on a typical workday. The nerves of everyone in the building are already frayed because of the Chief Justice’s murder, and a lockdown followed by the arrival of a SWAT team is an outcome best avoided.

  Inside Jackson’s chambers, Scott dons ear protection and assumes the persona of the shooter. I leave the chambers, this time unlocking the door to the office suite from the inside to ensure that I can let myself back in. Once in the hall, I text Scott to fire the first blank. Seconds later, I hear a small pop—fairly discernable, but not enough to attract much attention from anyone not in the immediate vicinity.

  I then proceed to the Supreme Court’s conference room, where Beverly waited before allegedly discovering her husband’s dead body. The room and the murder scene share a common wall. I again notify Scott that I am in position. The bang this time is more forceful—not crazy loud, but enough of a noise to warrant healthy curiosity. If she were in the room at the time, Beverly must’ve heard it, even assuming a decent degree of intoxication.

  Next is the courtroom. Silence. The same for the landing.

  Retracing my steps back to Jackson’s office, I round the corner of the back hallway and spot Justice Adam Lumpkin standing outside the door to his chambers. He doesn’t flinch when he sees me but does allow a dour scowl to cloud his face.

  He snaps, “What are you doing here? I’m used to having the courthouse to myself on Sundays.”

  I decide to play nice and explain about our testing experiment, even asking for his permission to listen in his chambers. The change in his mood is immediate. Great amusement now alights his face, and he declares with genuine excitement, “That sounds like fun.”

  “Yeah.”

  We enter his chambers together, and I text Scott to fire another blank. Lumpkin shares a common wall with one of Jackson’s law clerks, meaning a few barrier walls separate us from Scott. But both Lumpkin and I recognize the crack of the gun. He exclaims, “I heard it!”

  “Did you hear it the night of the murder?”

  “I did not—which means the murder must’ve been after 7:10 p.m.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Unless I’m lying and went down the hall to kill him myself.”

  The smirk he wears stinks to high heaven. I wonder if he got punched in the face a lot as a kid.

  I scold him, “This isn’t a game.”

  “Let
me have my fun. Warren Jackson being murdered next door is the most exciting thing to happen to me in years. All day long, I sit around doing nothing but reading, writing, and thinking about law. That’s the life I love, the life I chose, but it’s intellectually draining, although I doubt you would know much about that.”

  Yes, he definitely got punched in the face a lot.

  I say, “Since we’re having fun and everything, why would you have killed the Chief Justice? Hypothetically speaking.”

  “To rule the court, of course.”

  “A little young to be Chief Justice, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not talking about having a title. Positions are meaningless in the long term, just a line on the resume. I’m talking about intellectual power, leaving my stamp on the law for centuries. Warren Jackson had a tight hold over how this court ruled, but now his grip is gone. Good for me, good for the state of Georgia. Of course, this job is merely a stepping stone toward leaving my stamp on the entire country. I’ll end up in D.C., and everyone will know my name.”

  “I lost interest thirty seconds ago.”

  The rebuke angers him, but the glare on my face dares him to do something about it. After a tense few seconds, I leave him to his games.

  Lastly, I enter the law library, just to be thorough. Cate told me that she arrived here shortly after seven and worked for roughly ten minutes on the night of the murder. I offer up a silent prayer that the library is too far away to hear anything—willing for Cate to be as far away from the case as possible. I give Scott the word and wait. A minute later, I follow up with him to ensure that he fired the blank. He did.

  I heard nothing.

  32

  Early Monday morning, I enter the squad room with a Starbucks coffee in my hand and a spring in my step, excited that I now know why the Daltons would’ve wanted Warren Jackson out of the way. Given the hour, I expect to be the first to arrive but instead see Scott and Taylor huddled close together in a corner. Real close. An embarrassed Taylor slips away from him, gives me a little hand wave, and disappears. Scott approaches with a sheepish, dilapidated grin.