For some reason, this made me feel slightly better.
The comfort didn’t last long. “So, do you smoke?” Briggs asked. “Or pop oxy?” He didn’t think I was selling drugs to Blackburne students, just that I might be getting high in my apartment.
“I—no,” I said. “No. I mean, I have before—I’ve smoked pot—but not now. And not at Blackburne.” I took a breath and made a quick decision. “Somebody put that in my desk to set me up.” And I told him about finding the pot in Terence Jarrar’s lava lamp, about holding on to it instead of turning it in immediately, and about my half-assed plan to let whoever was selling at Blackburne know that I knew. Briggs’s eyebrows rose fractionally higher.
“That was stupid,” he said.
“Obviously.”
He tilted his head to the side, like a bird considering whether to stay or fly off. “You haven’t asked me why I’m here,” he said.
“My apologies. Why are you here?”
“I wanted to ask you if you’d learned anything about the series of events we discussed last fall.”
My heart gave an odd squeeze. “You want to know if I’ve learned anything about the Davenports,” I said.
Briggs glanced at the couple at the far end, who had quit looking at us and were back to droning quietly at each other. The fat deputy in the corner was pointedly looking away from us. Briggs leaned forward. “Have you? Found out anything?”
“Can you get me out of here?” I asked. “I’ll tell you what I’ve found out.”
Briggs twisted his mouth—it could have been the beginnings of a smile—and then put his hands together briefly so that he appeared ready to fall on his knees and pray. “First things first,” he said. “You need to get a lawyer. Then you need to call somebody about making bail. Family, friends, a bail bondsman, whatever. Then you’ll need to go to your arraignment.”
As he continued outlining the steps I needed to take, something lifted in my chest. The shame and humiliation of having been arrested, of finding myself removed from society and placed in a jail cell, were astounding. A sodden darkness had fallen on me, momentarily extinguishing any thoughts about how I had ended up in here, or what I would do once I got out. But Briggs was a lantern in a coal mine. His gruff, businesslike manner, plus the fact that he understood the criminal justice system far better than I did and apparently knew all the deputies in the jail, rekindled something in me. It was less like hope and more like anger.
“Someone planted that stuff in my classroom,” I said aloud, cutting across whatever Briggs was saying. “Someone at Blackburne.”
Briggs watched me patiently. I found myself wanting to pace back and forth, but instead I sat in the chair in front of the window and drummed my fingers on the countertop.
“It’s got to be whoever’s behind selling drugs at Blackburne,” I continued. I had two ideas about this, too. Either some of Paul Simmons’s friends were in on the drugs and were pissed that he’d been sent to Utah, or Ren Middleton was involved in more than wanting to avoid a lawsuit and had decided that waiting until the end of the school year to get rid of me was no longer an option.
Briggs nodded slowly. “Makes sense,” he said. “Getting you arrested gets you out of the way. Although my guess is whoever did this won’t stick around.”
I frowned. “Why not?” I asked. “I mean, he’s winning, right? I’m in here.”
Briggs snorted. “You won’t be in here for long,” he said, shaking his head. “They arrested you because of what they found in a desk in the classroom where you teach. They didn’t find it under your pillow or in your underwear. It’s a weak bust.”
“But it’s my classroom.”
“You the only one who teaches in there?”
I had to think for a minute. Matt McGuire taught a Spanish class in there—classroom space was tight in Huber Hall due to ongoing renovations. “No, there’s another teacher who has a class in there. But I’m not gonna say that he—”
“You’re not going to say anything—your lawyer is. Have you got one yet?”
“Kinda hoped you might have a suggestion.”
He actually grinned at this, and again I saw the sudden warmth of his smile, banishing at least for the moment whatever dark clouds had still been hanging over my head. “I’ve got a cousin who’s a lawyer. He’s not cheap, but he won’t cheat you. Now, this classroom where you teach. You said someone else teaches in there, too. There a lock on the desk?”
“No.”
“Classroom door locked?”
“No.”
Briggs held out his hands, palms up, as if presenting me with an answer. “Like I said, it’s a weak bust. I’m almost surprised they arrested you.”
“They found traces of pot in my apartment.”
Briggs waved a hand. “From last fall. You turned those buds in to Middleton, right? So we get him to testify.” He must have seen the look on my face, because he sat forward, serious again. “Look, whoever got you stuck in here, he’ll have had time to think about it by tomorrow. It’s a questionable bust. That classroom is open to anyone who wants to stash something in that desk. You didn’t murder anyone or run a cartel, so you’ll make bail. And if it goes to trial, it’s likely a judge would see that you didn’t do anything.” I opened my mouth after that last comment, feeling especially troubled by the likely part, but Briggs ignored me and plowed straight on. “If our perp is smart, he’ll figure all this out, which means he’ll probably do one of two things. He’ll try to ride off into the night in case anyone takes a second look at whoever might be selling dope to the Blackburne boys. Or he’ll try to get rid of any evidence linking him to selling dope.”
“So what do we do?”
“We get you the hell out of here.” Briggs smiled grimly. “And then you’ll tell me what you’ve learned about Davenport.” He stood up and, after a moment, so did I.
“Why do you care about Davenport?” I asked quickly—the deputy behind me had stirred and was coming forward to escort me back to the cell.
“I’ve got my reasons,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. By the way,” he added suddenly, the shadow of a smile on his lips as he looked over his shoulder on the way to the door, “you’re a little too young to be quoting Say Anything.”
BRIGGS’S LAWYER COUSIN TURNED out to be a tall, reed-thin man named Clarence Stuart who wore a brown three-piece suit and blew his nose delicately and continuously into a white handkerchief. As Stuart sat across from me the next morning in a separate room for lawyers and their clients and had me repeat my story to him, I caught him peeking into his handkerchief before he folded it and put it back into his jacket pocket. He carefully went over what would happen at the arraignment later that morning and how I was to arrange bail, assuming that the judge would allow bail in this case. “Which he will,” Stuart said, punctuating this by removing his handkerchief and blowing his nose again. He saw me glance at the handkerchief. “Allergies,” he said, tucking it away again. He suggested that if I needed help arranging bail, I should tell him whom to call; then he folded his hands on top of the table and looked placidly at me. I gritted my teeth and gave him my parents’ names and phone numbers, which he jotted down on a notepad.
The hearing itself was anticlimactic. I was escorted upstairs from the jail to a courtroom, where Stuart was waiting for me. Lester Briggs sat in the back of the court and nodded as I passed him. The judge sat in black robes at a dais, presiding over a series of arraignments. I was third in line. Stuart and another lawyer, who must have been an assistant district attorney, discussed my case in clipped legalese as if negotiating a car sale. The ADA spoke about my possession of marijuana and Oxycontin with a clear intent to sell, and Stuart calmly described my lack of criminal record and the “tenuous” nature of the evidence against me. I stood there with the odd, disembodied feeling you have when people are talking about you as if you are not standing right in front of them. I said nothing until prompted to enter a plea, and my “not guilty” seemed to fall
flat in the air. The ADA and Stuart haggled over bail, which the judge set at twenty thousand dollars before he perfunctorily rapped his gavel and the bailiff announced the next case in line. The entire hearing took three minutes and was both boring and oddly reassuring.
Within an hour, I was walking out of jail with Briggs and Stuart, my bail having been secured by my father. That was a conversation I was not looking forward to, but for now it felt good to draw breath outside of a jail cell and feel the sunshine, even if the air was chilly and snow still covered the ground. Stuart shook my hand on the courthouse steps, saying he would be in touch, and hurried back inside. I turned to Briggs. “That’s it?” I said.
“That’s it until your court date next month,” he said.
I hesitated to bring the next point up but had little choice. “I don’t know where to go,” I said. “I mean, all my stuff is at Blackburne. My clothes, my car—”
“Your car’s in a parking lot in town,” Briggs said. “And your stuff. Sam Hodges and Grayden Smith drove it out here.” When I stared at him, he added, “Officially the school doesn’t want you back on campus. But I think Sam and Grayden don’t feel too good about it.”
As I struggled to take this in, someone called my name. We both turned, looking back up the steps. Sheriff Townsend bore down on us, a flat expression on his face.
“Shit,” Briggs muttered.
Townsend stopped two steps above us. Ignoring Briggs, he said to me, “You got lucky, Mr. Glass.”
I looked up at him, trying not to be intimidated by his bulk and his sheriff’s star. “I was set up, Sheriff. I’ve lost my job, and I’m being charged with drug dealing. I’d hardly call that lucky.”
Townsend spread his hands as if revealing a banquet of riches. “You’re out, though. Got representation, bail, et cetera. I’d call that lucky for someone selling drugs to children.”
Anger rose in me like a quick tide. “I didn’t sell—”
“Shut up, Matthias,” Briggs said.
“I know what you did,” Townsend said. “Ren Middleton told me all about it.”
I laughed bitterly. “I’m sure he did. He tell you he’s covering up Terence Jarrar’s death, too?”
“Matthias,” Briggs said. “Let’s go.”
Townsend gave a hard smile. “I’d be careful about making wild accusations,” he said softly. “And I’d be careful who you’re friends with.” He nodded toward Briggs while his gaze remained focused on me. “Corrupt ex-cops don’t usually do the Good Samaritan bit for nothing.”
I looked at Briggs. His face turned gray and then flushed brick red. I thought he was either going to have an aneurysm or take a swing at Townsend. Instead, he took me by the elbow. “Let’s go,” he repeated more forcibly, and we walked down the steps, leaving Townsend behind, watching us walk away.
WE GOT MY CAR out of a parking lot downtown, after making sure my meager belongings were in the trunk—I felt both disturbed and grateful that Sam and Gray had packed my things into boxes for me—and I followed Briggs in his truck to the Fir Tree to get lunch. The diner seemed an appropriate place to regroup. I realized I was starving, so I ordered a hamburger and fries while Briggs got a Cobb salad, which he picked at with his fork as if grudgingly searching for something in it worth eating.
“So what was that about?” I asked him finally. “With the sheriff?”
Briggs sat back, an ugly look on his face as if he were revolted by his lunch. “He wanted to piss me off, that’s all,” he said.
I took a bite of hamburger, chewed, and swallowed. “Come on,” I said. “He didn’t just make some random comment. So what did you do?”
And then Briggs seemed to slowly deflate. He stared down at his salad. “My wife,” he began, and then grimaced, picked up his glass of iced tea, drank, put it back down. “Emma was sick,” he said. “Breast cancer. It got into her bones. Ate her up, along with all our savings. She was a nurse, but she had to quit when she got sick, and we had other bills . . .” He shifted in his seat, still looking down at his salad. “By the time . . . that night, when Fritz Davenport disappeared . . . she was at home in bed, down to about ninety pounds. I couldn’t stand to see her like that. We had talked about hospice, but I was stubborn at first about . . . letting strangers in to help. I didn’t want her in a hospital. She didn’t want to be in a hospital. I thought having her home would be better.” He looked up at me then, a world of anguish and shame in his eyes that made me sit back. “When I got the call to go out to Blackburne, I was glad to get out of the house. Emma’s sister was over, so she could watch her. I just—needed a break.” He laughed then, a hard, bleak sound. Stop, I wanted to say, but I sat there unable to speak, drawn along in Briggs’s story. He glanced out the window, his eyes restless. Then with a force of will, he turned his gaze on me and held it there. “Doing my job was something I could control, something I could direct. So I focused on Fritz and argued with Ricky Townsend and followed leads and just—turned my life over to it, almost. Because I was scared to sit at home and watch my wife die.”
He stopped. Dimly I could hear forks clink on plates in the diner, other customers enjoying their lunches and having their own conversations. Briggs paused for so long that I said, “How does that . . . I mean, I’m so sorry, but . . . what does that have to do with—”
Briggs took a deep breath. “Frank Davenport came to me after the FBI quit. Met me at the station. Said he wanted to thank me for everything I’d done to help find his son. I told him that wasn’t necessary and that we were still looking. He could tell I had my suspicions about him. But he just thanked me again and left.” Briggs took another breath. “The next morning, two nurses from a hospice agency were on my doorstep. They said they’d been hired to help take care of my wife. I told them there must be a mistake, but they said no, it was an anonymous gesture, everything was paid for privately, wouldn’t even be on my insurance. I almost said no, but they insisted. They had already been paid, they said, so it would be a waste. While I stood there trying to figure out what to do, Emma called out from the bedroom. She was frightened. I . . . The hospice folks came in with me, and I let them. Emma was—she was in a diaper at that point, couldn’t get to the bathroom, and she needed it changed. The hospice people started cleaning her and talking to her and Emma just—she just looked at them so gratefully, and then at me.
“Then the phone rang. It was the bank calling, saying they had approved the refinance on our mortgage. I’d called about that three months earlier and no dice, and now someone was calling and said no problem, it’s all taken care of. Meanwhile the hospice people are in my bedroom, cleaning up Emma and talking to her and . . . It was like a dream, like a lottery or a fairy godmother. I knew what it was, who it was who had done it all, but I stood there in my kitchen holding the phone and listening to the banker on the other end talk about papers to sign, and I just—I gave in. I let it happen and just . . . pretended it wasn’t happening.”
He stopped and closed his eyes, a man in need of benediction, and I stared at him for a long moment. “But,” I said, “did you ever—I mean, it was Davenport? You’re sure?”
Briggs opened his eyes, which looked dull, clouded over. “A week later, I called someone at NorthPoint, following up a lead about some new contracts they had, couple of people who got fired a few months earlier. Thought there might be a kidnapping angle.” Startled, I remembered what Wat had told me about the two NorthPoint employees selling secrets to the Chinese. Briggs continued, not noticing my reaction. “The assistant I’d spoken with had been very helpful up until then, but that day she said she’d have to check with Mr. Davenport before getting back to me. An hour later, the bank called me. There might be problems with the refinance after all, they said. I argued with them, and then hung up and went home for lunch to see Emma like I usually did, intending to head over to the bank right afterward. When I got home, the hospice worker who was there was all upset and wringing her hands because her boss had called and said that they might
have to terminate services immediately due to lack of funding.” Briggs took another drink from his iced tea. “So I called Davenport’s assistant back and told her never mind. Next day, everything with hospice and the bank was fine again. Emma lived another couple of weeks, comfortably. Died with a smile on her face while I lay next to her in the bed, holding her.” Briggs set his glass down deliberately and gave me a wasted, haunted look.
“You lied to me,” I said, thinking it and uttering it aloud at the same moment.
“I told you to look at Fritz’s family.”
“You told me this wasn’t personal.”
Briggs considered this. “True. Score one for you. Now tell me what you learned about Davenport.”
I stared at him. “This is—what? Revenge?” He said nothing. A new thought struck me. “How does Sheriff Townsend know about this?”
Briggs actually smirked. “You think Davenport didn’t do the same with him?”
I sat in the booth, trying to take all this in. Davenport had paid off two officers, probably more besides, to keep them from investigating his son’s disappearance. Or was it to keep them from investigating NorthPoint? Everything kept coming back to that. It was like a locked door in my own house that I couldn’t open, couldn’t find the key to.
Briggs was saying something, pulling me out of my thoughts. “What?” I said.
“You ever read Moby-Dick?”
“What? Yes, I’ve read it. A long time ago, in college. Why?”
“Melville wrote that Ahab chose the white whale as his enemy and swore vengeance on it. Everything evil, everything wrong in the universe, Ahab puts on that whale, and he seeks it out to destroy it.” Briggs took another sip from his glass of tea. He seemed calmer now, focused, as if telling his story had strengthened him somehow.
“You’re telling me Davenport is your white whale?”
Briggs leaned forward. “Everything I understood about honor I compromised because of what he offered me. I know you can understand that—they teach you about honor up at that school. I’ve dealt with my own faults and lived with them for ten years, and I will take whatever punishment comes to me. But he did something wrong and needs to take responsibility for it. Not for bribing me—that’s my fault for accepting it. He kept people from finding his son. How can that be justified?”
Shadow of the Lions Page 26
