“Courtesy of the Bone.”
20
After Tom hadn’t said a word for the first thirty minutes of the trip back to Pulaski, Helen finally nudged his elbow. “Hey, you OK? Your face is white as a sheet. What did that crazy bastard say to you before we left?”
Tom gazed out the window at the rolling Tennessee hills that dotted both sides of I-65. “Just crazy talk,” Tom said, still thinking about what JimBone had said about Rick’s father. He shivered and rolled down the window for air. Was it possible that the story JimBone Wheeler had just shared was true? Tom’s heart was racing and he felt sick to his stomach, giving him his answer. He’d call the Henshaw County sheriff in the morning and he’d eventually have to tell Rick. Tom cringed as he envisioned his partner’s reaction to this news. How much more can he take?
“Hey, stranger,” Helen said, nudging Tom a little harder. When she did, he felt a ripple of agony run down his back and he winced. “I’m sorry. Are you OK?”
“Fine,” Tom said, his teeth clenched in pain. “Just got a bulging disc or something.”
“Well, what did you make of that back there? I was impressed that you got him to talk.”
“Don’t be,” Tom said. “I didn’t do anything special. He wanted to talk.” Tom sighed, forcing his thoughts away from Billy Drake’s death and back to the defense of Wilma. “But he did give us a few things. He confirmed that we should look at Bully Calhoun as an alternative killer, and, if Kathryn Willistone is in fact the beneficiary of the life insurance policy, then Bully would have motive to do the deed.” He exhaled. “It was definitely worth the trip.” Tom leaned his body against the passenger-side door, trying to get in a position where his back didn’t hurt.
“Are you OK, Tom?” Helen repeated, and Tom glanced at her.
“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
She focused her eyes over the steering wheel. “I don’t know. This case just doesn’t seem right for you. I mean, I understood why you took on Bo’s defense last year, but why represent Ms. Newton?”
“I think she’s innocent,” Tom said. “And my actions during the case in Henshaw hurt her and I want to make things right.” He thought of JimBone’s words from the prison. “Balance the scales.”
“You just represented the victim’s family in an awful trucking accident. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know, but Wilma Newton and her daughters were victims of that accident too. I want to help them.”
“Is that it?”
Tom thought of his last encounter with Judge Braxton Poe and all of the case files in his office that would never end with a jury verdict. “Pretty much.”
“Come on.” She touched his shoulder. “Tell me.”
Tom rolled up the window and then peered at Helen. “I don’t know how many trials I have left in me, and . . . I’m a trial lawyer.”
Helen slowly nodded. “OK, I get it now.”
As she turned her blinker to get off on the Highway 64 exit, she spoke softly. “There’s still something I don’t get.”
“What?” Tom asked.
“Why didn’t you ask me out after Bo’s trial last year?”
As she turned right onto Highway 64, Helen shot a look at Tom, whose face had turned a bright shade of red.
“Counselor, there is a question on the floor,” Helen pressed, but her voice had a singsong tease to it.
Tom sighed. “I don’t know. Do you think the Legends Steakhouse is still open?”
“Maybe,” Helen said, her voice remaining playful.
“Can I buy you dinner?”
Helen chuckled and grasped Tom’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “I thought you’d never ask.”
21
Highway 69 is a curvy, mostly two-lane stretch of asphalt that runs through the Alabama towns of Tuscaloosa, Jasper, and Cullman. Though portions of the fifty-two miles from Tuscaloosa to Jasper are beautiful—especially the part that borders the river—other stretches exist where a person is glad to be in a moving vehicle with a gun in the glove compartment. As he passed a collection of single-wide and double-wide trailers, several of which proudly flew the Confederate flag in their yards, Bocephus Haynes was grateful that he’d decided to make the trek during the day. As a black man living in Pulaski, Tennessee, the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, Bo was used to seeing the battle flag of the Confederacy, and he thought the scenery on Highway 69 wasn’t much different than Highway 31 going north toward Nashville. But Pulaski was his home and he knew the terrain. He very much felt like an outsider as he passed a green sign indicating “Walker County.”
An African American law school classmate of his once said that either in Cullman or Walker County—he couldn’t remember which—there used to be a handwritten sign next to the county line that read, “Nigger, don’t let the sun set on your back.” Bo wasn’t sure if that was true or just some hocus-pocus, but either way he planned to be on I-65 once darkness descended on Jasper.
It was Wednesday morning and he was expecting a call from the Professor any minute. Despite Bo’s advice to the contrary, Tom had visited JimBone Wheeler on death row in Nashville yesterday. Bo doubted the killer would talk to anyone, much less Tom, but he was curious nonetheless. If he were honest, he was also still trying to get a read on why the Professor would want to get involved in Wilma’s case. He hadn’t met Laurie Ann Newton, nor had he spoken with her mother, as Tom had done, but the whole affair still didn’t make much sense to him. Regardless, Bo was grateful to have a job to do. He had been so restless since his license was suspended that he had forgotten what it felt like to have a mission. As his Sequoia hurtled down Highway 69, his body hummed with excitement, as it had on so many cases over the past twenty-five years practicing law. Wide ass open, he thought, his mantra when a case began to heat up.
While Tom was in Nashville yesterday, Bo had driven in the opposite direction to Tuscaloosa, where he’d met with Detective Wade Richey at the Sheriff’s Office. The meeting was tense and awkward, as Wade was none too thrilled with his friends’ involvement in the Wilma Newton matter. Nonetheless, consistent with Powell’s open-door policy with defense counsel, Wade made a copy of the state’s file on Wilma and also provided Bo with a copy of the surveillance tape from the Oasis Bar & Grill in Cottondale.
As he passed through the tiny town of Oakman, Bo remembered Wade’s last warning: “I’ve been a detective for over three decades, and it doesn’t get more open and shut than this one, Bo. It was her gun, and she threatened to kill him less than six hours before he bought the farm.” He had then placed one of his palms on Bo’s shoulder. “We all went through a lot in Pulaski last year,” he said. “Try to talk him out of this.”
Bo had holed up at the Hotel Capstone on Paul W. Bryant Drive last night and reviewed the investigative report, all of the witness statements, and watched the Oasis video on his laptop. If he were a jury of one, Wilma Newton would ride the needle based on what he had seen so far.
But while Wade Richey had spent his life on the prosecution side, Bocephus Haynes had taken quite a few murder cases to a jury verdict and come out victorious on the other end. Things weren’t always as black and white as prosecutors and detectives made them out to be. Based on his review of the evidence, Wilma Newton looked almost too guilty. The gun being dropped under the dock with only her prints rang hollow to him. If she had killed Jack Willistone, as the evidence suggested, with three shots from a handgun at a close distance, and then dumped his body into the Black Warrior, would she really have just dropped the weapon for the police to find? He could already hear Wade’s response. “Murderers do stupid things. That’s why most of them end up being caught and sent to prison.” Still . . . it didn’t fit to Bo. There were also the aggravators that made the case a capital one and not just first degree. Jack Willistone’s pockets had been emptied, his wallet pilfered, and his vehicle, which was left parked in Greg Zorn’s garage, had been looted. All of this screamed that the killer had been looking for something. That it wasn’
t just a revenge killing.
Again, Bo tried to play devil’s advocate. The tape at the Oasis clearly showed Wilma demanding “her money” from Jack. Therefore, the cleaning out of Jack’s pockets, wallets, and glove compartment all fit. Wilma was searching for the money he owed her. Her motive for murder was dual. Revenge and greed. She had sat at the Oasis for an hour and worked up the courage to murder Jack and take whatever she found on him.
Bo sighed, still not buying it. The murder looked more like a hit to him. Or more like a threatened hit gone wrong, since in a true mafia operation he doubted the body would have just been lazily rolled into the river. But . . . perhaps the whole idea was for the body to be found.
Bo had a whole lot more questions than answers, but one thing was clear from reading the file: if Wilma Newton didn’t kill Jack Willistone, then whoever did had likely framed her. Who would have the ability to do that? he asked himself, already knowing the answer.
All roads lead to Jasper, Bo thought, feeling a sense of dread come over him as he put on his right-turn blinker to stay on Highway 69. Wade’s investigative report contained a brief summary of the detective and Powell’s interview of Kathryn “Kat” Willistone, Jack’s widow. Though the report concluded that Kat had a stone-cold alibi for the time of her husband’s murder, two sentences nonetheless held Bo’s attention. “Mrs. Willistone is the presumed beneficiary of a three-million-dollar life insurance policy owned by the victim. Mrs. Willistone is the daughter of Marcellus Calhoun.” Bo quoted the words from the report out loud. Then he reflected again on the part of the report that was missing.
There was no interview with Kat Willistone’s father.
Bo figured Marcellus Calhoun wasn’t likely to just drive up to Tuscaloosa for an interview. Especially if he ordered the hit . . .
There was also the matter of the overwhelming physical evidence connecting Wilma Newton to the crime. Why fool with a trip to Jasper to interview a mob boss if there was no need? But such reasoning didn’t feel right to Bo. He figured that a seasoned detective like Wade Richey and a talented prosecutor such as Powell Conrad would know that any defense theory would eventually put Bully Calhoun in its crosshairs. They just haven’t gotten around to it, he concluded, clicking his right-turn blinker on as the yellow and black colors of the Waffle House became visible ahead. As he slowed the Sequoia for the turn, Bo’s cell phone began to buzz in the passenger-side seat. Seeing “Professor” pop up on the screen, he clicked the answer button. “How did it go?”
“He talked,” Tom said, his voice hoarse from sleep.
“And?”
“It was just like I thought. Wheeler fingered Bully Calhoun for it. He called Wilma a ‘doe’ and said that this type of job was something Bully could do with no sweat. Especially if he had a good reason.”
“How about three million reasons?”
“You’ve seen the life insurance policy?”
“No, but Wade’s report indicates that Willistone had a three-million-dollar policy and Kat Willistone is the ‘presumed beneficiary.’”
Silence for several seconds, and then Tom’s voice came through strong and clear, but the trepidation in his tone was palpable. “I need you to go to Jasper.”
As he turned into the Waffle House on Highway 69, Bocephus Haynes smiled. “I’m already here.” Then before the Professor could go into a “be careful” rant, Bo added, “I’m about to meet with someone that may have an angle on Bully. I’ll report back at the end of the day,” and clicked off the phone.
As he made his way toward the entrance, the dread that he’d felt back in the car began to set back in.
All roads lead to Jasper . . .
22
Santonio “Rel” Jennings sat in the corner booth of the Waffle House chewing on a toothpick. An almost empty plate of what looked to have once been several waffles, eggs, and bacon lay in front of him. The only thing left was a film of syrup in the middle of the plate.
“Forgive me, brother, but I started without you,” Rel said, standing and shaking Bo’s hand.
There were few people in the world that a man of Bo’s physical size had to look up to, but Rel Jennings was one of them. At six feet, seven inches tall and a shade under two hundred pounds, Rel was, as the saying goes, “skinny as a rail.” During his basketball-playing days at Shelton State Community College, in Tuscaloosa, Rel had been what today’s broadcasters would have called a point forward, routinely dribbling the ball up the court and setting the offense from the wing. He’d averaged twenty-five points a game during his senior year in 1979, good enough to get him invited to work out for several teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers. Unfortunately, the Lakers were about to be good at the point for the next decade, as they had their eyes on a six-foot, ten-inch prodigy from Michigan State named Earvin “Magic” Johnson. After bouncing around Europe for a couple years with several teams, Rel played for six weeks with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1982. Though he only logged a few minutes of actual game time backing up Maurice Cheeks, Rel did get in five games, and his favorite memory was throwing an alley-oop from half-court to Julius Erving. Doctor J. caught the ball midway up the backboard with one of his enormous hands and brought down a thunderous jam. Rel thought he’d played his way on the team, but he was let go right before the playoffs. After that, he’d returned home to Jasper, because that’s where his momma was, and took some private investigator classes at Bevill State. For the next twenty years, he was one of the best private investigators in Walker County. Along the way, he’d married and divorced his high school sweetheart and had a couple of kids, who had now flown the coop.
Bo took the seat across from his old friend. Rel had a lighter skin tone than Bo’s, and his once-dark beard was now solid white. Though mostly bald, he had close-cut white hair on his sides. Grinning, he looked Bo up and down and scratched his beard. “You dressed down today, Counselor? I thought all you attorney types had to wear coats and ties.”
Bo smirked and assessed his clothing, a black T-shirt over dark jeans and combat boots. A crimson cap with the script A covered his bald head, and he hadn’t bothered to shave. “Just trying to blend in,” he said.
Rel belly-laughed. “In this county? Good luck with that, brother. Last census I heard, Walker County was over ninety percent cracker. Don’t look now, but we’re the only two brothers in this fine establishment.”
Bo smiled. He hadn’t seen Rel in at least five years—not since he’d represented him on his last DUI charge in Birmingham and got the sentence reduced to reckless driving. Some friends existed in the world who, regardless of the passage of time, you just picked right up with as if you hadn’t been away from them for more than a few days. Rel Jennings was like that. Bo knew he could shoot the bull with Rel all day long and not get tired. Unfortunately, there was business to discuss and time was limited.
“I need your help,” Bo said, motioning for the waitress to bring him some coffee.
“So you said on the phone.” Rel’s voice had a playful catch to it. “But you wouldn’t tell me what you needed. Why all the secrecy? I feel like I’m on Law & Order.”
Bo ignored the joke. “You ever hear of Marcellus ‘Bully’ Calhoun?”
The smile immediately evaporated from Rel’s face and he slid the plate in front of him out of the way. Jutting forward on his elbows, Rel swept his eyes around the restaurant before returning them to Bo. “What do you want with Bully?”
Before Bo could respond, the waitress set a cup of steaming coffee in front of him. “Something to eat, sugar?”
“No, ma’am,” Bo said. “Just the coffee is fine.”
She gave a thumbs-up and walked away. Ignoring the mug and taking Rel’s cue, Bo edged forward so that their heads were only a few inches apart. “I’m helping a friend investigate a murder case in Tuscaloosa. The victim was Bully’s son-in-law.”
Rel furrowed his eyebrows and gazed down at the table. “Heard about that. Jack Willistone, right?”
Bo nodded.
“I remember seeing his trucks run through here all the time. Highway 69 and 78.” Rel paused. “Aren’t you suspended from practicing law?”
Bo hadn’t told Rel this little nugget of information and he was impressed by his friend’s knowledge. He knew he shouldn’t be. Despite being an average student through high school and college, Rel Jennings was one of the smartest people he’d ever met. He absorbed information like a sponge, regardless of whether it was online, in a newspaper, or from the street, making him a superb private eye. And that was why Bo was here.
“Yes, but I’m not acting as a lawyer right now. Just being an investigator for an old friend.”
“That old friend wouldn’t be Professor McMurtrie, would it?”
“Yes, it would.”
“Guess you owe him big-time after that trial last year in Pulaski, huh?”
Bo squinted at Rel, but he didn’t lean back. “He’s my best friend in the world. I would have walked through hell and back for him before he represented me in that trial. But yeah, I owe him. Just like you owe me.”
Rel lowered his eyes. “Fair enough. What do you need?”
“You still got your PI license?”
Rel smirked. “I do, but I never use it anymore. I don’t even keep it in my wallet. Make more money managing McDonald’s, and it’s a lot less stressful.”
“Well, I may need you to dig it out. Jack Willistone got out of jail on Monday, May 7 at nine o’clock in the morning. He was murdered on Tuesday, May 8 between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and midnight.” Bo took a sip of coffee and winced as the hot liquid burned his throat. “I need to know what Bully Calhoun was doing during that stretch of time.”
Rel raised his head and scratched his beard. “The Professor is representing the lady accused of killing Willistone, right?”
Bo nodded.
“The articles online don’t sound too good for her. Convicted prostitute whose husband died driving trucks for Willistone.” He grunted.
The Last Trial Page 13
