by Thomas Scott
“I’m asking you what happened next.”
The governor looked at nothing. “She told me she knew the baby was mine. She said she knew it to be true because Sid had been to the doctor. He had a low count or something. I asked her to divorce Sid so she could marry me, and she told me she would. My God, Jonesy, we were happy. That’s where we were when everything changed.
“My call sign that day was Voodoo. You know what’s funny? I remember almost every single detail of that day except the one that matters. The one where I picked up the phone and filed my flight plan. I had the option of going to Indy or Ft. Wayne first. For some reason I picked Indy. If I’d have picked Ft. Wayne…” He let it hang there.
“She might still be alive today?”
The governor pointed his finger at me. “Wrong. She would still be alive. I’d probably be flying for the airlines and we’d have a ton of kids. Instead, the woman I loved and my only child are dead because of me.”
“Governor…”
He held up his hand. What he said next didn’t surprise him, but it made Virgil’s stomach turn just the same. “I’m sorry about your father, Jonesy. I really am. But what’s done is done. I see no criminal involvement on my part in this matter. The Pate’s and the Wells’ are gone. I’ll consider the matter closed as soon as I have my daughter Sidney’s original birth certificate. You do have that, don’t you?”
Virgil did indeed have it. It was in his pocket.
He had two choices.
One, give the birth certificate to the governor and be complicit in hiding his secret, one that would all but destroy his political career if it ever came out, or two, include the birth certificate in the official file, and let the governor fend for himself.
Virgil stared at him for a long time.
The governor stared right back.
“You put me on Pate right out of the gate,” Virgil said. “Why?”
“That was Bradley’s doing, though I agreed to it. We knew he was being looked at by the FBI, but they were dragging their feet.”
“I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. In fact, with all due respect, it’s flat out wrong.”
“It’s neither right or wrong, Jonesy. It’s politics. How long do you think I would have lasted in my campaign against Sermon Sam once everyone found out that the woman I was sleeping with, the woman who just happened to be married to that idiot Wells was at work and in the hotel the morning I punched out of that plane? Not very long, I can tell you that.”
“And what about the shootings?”
The governor took another drink of his scotch. “What about them? Sidney Wells was a psychopath. He was trying to destroy me by murdering family members of anyone and everyone he thought was even remotely responsible for the crash that day. He knew all along I was Sidney, Jr.’s father. If Pate’s wife and my daughter were having some sort of illicit affair as you allege, then they must have put the plan together. Who knows?”
Virgil picked up a few more of the pictures and looked through them, but he didn’t try too hard to hide the contempt in his voice. “And who cares, right?” After a few minutes he reached into his pocket and gave the governor the document.
When he used his formal title, Virgil knew he’d made the wrong choice.
“Thank you, Detective Jones. That will be all.”
Virgil gave the governor a chance to correct himself. “Are you sure about that, Sir?”
When he looked away and didn’t answer, Virgil pulled himself from the chair and walked out of his office.
__________
Sandy touched his arm and pulled Virgil out of his thoughts. “Hey, you with me, big guy?” she said. They were next to the edge of the pond behind the house and when Virgil looked out across the water he saw it wrinkle in spots, the bluegill hungry, nicking at the surface.
“Why did you want to come out here?”
Just then, a landscape truck pulling a backhoe on a lowboy trailer turned off the road and came up the drive. They lost sight of it for a moment when it went around the side of the house, then reappeared and stopped next to the out building where Virgil kept his lawn equipment.
“You’re about to find out,” Sandy said. “We wanted to do something for you…Murton, Delroy, and me. ”
Murton hopped out of the truck, backed the tractor from the trailer and drove over to where they stood, about ten yards from the edge of the pond. He lowered the bucket on the backhoe and scooped out a pile of soil then placed it carefully in a mound a few feet away from the hole. He repeated the process two more times, then turned the tractor around, winked at Virgil like he may have just noticed his presence and drove back to the truck. When he returned the next time Delroy rode along with him. There was a Weeping Willow tree in the bucket of the tractor, its root ball enclosed with burlap and twine. Murton lowered the bucket next to the hole opposite the pile of dirt, shut down the engine and climbed from the operator’s seat, a small package in his hands.
“Hey Jonesy. Sandy,” he said, as he handed Virgil the package. It was wrapped in plain white paper, the kind a butcher would use at a meat market, and tied across both ends with brown string that knotted in the middle. The paper wrapping was stiff, but the contents of the package soft and pliable. Virgil let a question form on his face. “It’s the shirt your dad was wearing at the bar when he was shot,” Murton said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Virg. I spent a year undercover with the Pate’s and never once looked at Amanda. I could have prevented the whole damn thing.”
Sandy walked over and wrapped her arms around Murton.
“It’s all right,” Virgil said. “It’s time to let go of the past, Murt.”
Virgil held the package against his chest, his father’s blood wasted and dry under a wrap of string and paper. He looked at Sandy. “He was telling me he loved me,” Virgil said. “In the bar, when you came out of the bathroom. He didn’t say the words, but that’s what he was telling me.”
Murton walked over to the tractor and pulled a shovel from the side rack and stood next to the hole. Virgil got down on his knees and placed his father’s bloodied shirt at the bottom of the pit, then stood back and watched as Sandy and Murton and Delroy wrestled the willow tree into the hole and filled the remaining space from the pile of dirt.
“Willow trees use more water than just about any other tree,” Murton said to no one. “I don’t know how I know that.”
Delroy put his hand on Virgil’s chest. “The ground water will soak tru the paper and into dat shirt, mon. Your father’s blood, it will flow tru dat tree just like it do your own heart, Virgil Jones.” It was the first time Virgil had ever heard Delroy say his full name.
“It might not be much, but we had to do something,” Murton said.
Sandy sat down in the grass next to the tree, and after a few minutes, the rest of them did too. Sandy took Virgil’s hand. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said. If I had been just a little quicker….”
He cut her off. “We agreed we weren’t going to have this discussion anymore.”
The shine in her eyes sparkled a turquoise blue, the un-felled tears caught in her lashes. “I can’t help it, Virgil. I can’t get these thoughts out of my head. My father died saving your life, and I keep thinking that surely there must be some reason things turned out this way. I was supposed to save your dad, Virgil. But I didn’t. Don’t you see that?”
“No, I don’t. Amanda was after me. When dad yelled out, he took a bullet that was meant for me, and one that probably would have hit you. He not only saved my life, but he saved yours as well.”
“And how am I supposed to live with that, Virgil?”
“The same way I have all these years. The same way I’m still learning how to.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“I’ll teach you,” he said. “We’ll do it together.”
__________
That night, after Sandy was asleep, Virgil walked outside and stood on his back deck and wondered if maybe
their roles weren’t reversed, if maybe he was the one being taught and led, not just by Sandy, but by those people who’d held a place in his life and still rented pieces of his heart as tenants in perpetuity.
Sleep did not come easy. His leg was hurting more at a time when it should have been getting better. He took a couple of pain pills then watched the moon journey across the sky, its reflection set deep in the sheen of the black-watered pond at the back of his house. The sound of the wind as it hissed through the leaves of his father’s willow tree and the dull echo of semi tires as they snapped over the expansion joints out on the four-lane surrounded and comforted him, grounded him in some way.
A pair of headlights swung through the side yard and for a moment Virgil could have sworn he saw someone standing beneath his father’s willow tree. But the lights swept past then abruptly cut off. Someone in the drive. Virgil looked out at the tree for a long moment, then limped around to the front of his house and found Rosencrantz leaning against the side of his car. “It’s a little late, Rosie. Everything okay?”
Rosencrantz had a toe-in-the-dirt look on his face and a piece of paper in his hand. “Yeah. I’m sorry about this, Jonesy, I really am. Never mind. I’ll just go. I shouldn’t have come out here.”
“It’s okay. I’m not sleeping much these days anyway. What is it?”
“I know we’re already short-handed with your medical leave and all, but something’s come up and I was sort of hoping you’d sign off on some vacation time for me.”
“Ah, man. Now really isn’t the best time, Rosie. You know that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But like I said, something has come up.”
Virgil noticed a small bag that sat on the roof of Rosencrantz’s car. “What’s in the bag?”
“You remember Margery, right? From the bank?”
Virgil let his eyelids droop. “Yeah, the name rings a bell.”
“Well, she cashed it all in, man. The stocks, the bonds, the 401K, all of it. She’s set for life, man. She bought a place in Jamaica right on seven mile beach…based on your recommendation, is what she said.”
“We had a brief conversation about it a couple of months ago.”
“Well whatever you said stuck, because she’s headed down there tomorrow, and she wants me to tag along for a few weeks. If I’m being honest with you, I’m sort of in to it.”
“A few weeks?”
“Come on, Jonesy. What do you say?”
“You still haven’t answered me. What’s in the bag?”
“My luggage.”
“Excuse me?”
Rosencrantz reached into the bag and pulled out the skimpiest Speedo bathing suit Virgil had ever seen. “She said this was all I’d need. At first it sort of scared me, but now I’m thinking what the hell, you only live once, right?”
“Rosie…
“I tried it on. You ought to see it. The fucking thing’s so small I feel like I should get a wax or something. What do you think?”
Virgil held up his hands in surrender. “Ah, no no no. I don’t want to hear it. Just give me the form. Where do I sign? Where do I sign…?”
Thomas Scott lives with his wife and children in northern Indiana. You may connect with Thomas on his website http://thomasscottbooks.com
From the author:
Thank you for reading! If you’d like to be among the first to hear of new releases in the State Series of books featuring Virgil Jones, drop me an email at: [email protected] and I’ll put you on the list. Your email will never be sold, shared, or disclosed in any way.
I hope to hear from you. I really do mean that.
By the way, I’ve included a short sample of the next Virgil Jones Mystery, State of Betrayal, on the next page if you’d like to give it a look. It’s currently available exclusively at Amazon. Book 3 of the series, State of Control is scheduled for release in early 2016.
Thanks again.
Best,
Thomas
Preview of
State of Betrayal
Book #2 of the
Virgil Jones State Series
1
__________
It was the season of baked asphalt, dry hardpan backyards and boiled over tempers that flared red long after the sun would journey below the horizon. So much change for so many—that summer of heat and Boots—though Virgil Jones knew full well the one name they would never call him again, Boot, was a part of his past now. But the heat barreled on, an oppressive undertow that became the undoing of so many, the death of an unfortunate few.
Virgil was on patrol driving south on U.S. 31 about halfway between Kokomo and Indianapolis. He had the air conditioner set to maximum and that kept the temperature in his cruiser at about eighty degrees. A heat wave had stalled out over the middle of the country a few days ago and if you were outside for more than five minutes, even in the shade, the humidity landed on you like a water balloon tossed from a second-story balcony. It was so bad you could see the air. The blacktop a half-mile out shimmered in the heat and Virgil thought it looked as though at any moment he might drive headlong into a pool of Mercury.
His shift was scheduled to end in less than half an hour and he was only a mile away from the convenience store when he got the radio call of two males engaged in a verbal argument that threatened to turn into something much worse. He hit the switch for the light bar then punched the gas petal and when he did, the Police Interceptor engine in his Crown Victoria responded with ease. Traffic in the immediate area was light and he ran his speed up to over one hundred miles per hour, the tires gliding across the greasy, heat-soaked asphalt. He would be on scene in less than forty seconds. If he would have glanced at himself just then in the rear-view mirror he’d have seen the smile on his face.
The convenience store sat along an access road just off the highway. The entrance was at the far end of the lot and Virgil was forced to drive past the store along the perimeter road before he could turn back into the parking area. The cause of the altercation was clear. Two vehicles—one a clean, dark blue, mid-sized sedan, the other a dull red and rusted pickup—sat nose to tail, the rear bumper of the pickup firmly embedded into the headlight of the sedan. Two white males stood just to the side of the damaged vehicles. Virgil tried not to draw any conclusions as to which vehicle belonged to each driver, though it seemed obvious. One of the men wore a pair of cutoff jeans and a sleeveless shirt, the other a business suit. There were two small children in the cab of the pickup, their hands and faces pressed against the rear window, their expressions a mixture of both fear and familiarity. A small crowd had gather around the front door of the convenience store but no one was making any sort of attempt to curtail a situation that was rapidly escalating out of control as the men, both red faced and angry pointed their fingers at each other, though their words were lost to the road noise and air-conditioning of Virgil’s squad car.
Then, in an instant, it went from full throttle to fuck it when business suit shoved sleeveless in the chest, knocking him to the ground before turning to walk away. Virgil burped his siren to get their attention, but at the same time sleeveless jumped up, reached into the bed of his pickup and pulled out a piece of steel rebar. He hesitated for just a moment but the look on his face left little doubt about his intentions or his state of mind. Business suit faced Virgil as he approached, his back to his adversary, unaware of what was about to take place against his person and even though Virgil pointed at him and hit the siren again as a warning it had no effect.
Virgil braked to a stop just as sleeveless swung the rebar and hit business suit across the backs of his thighs. The suit dropped to his knees and his jaw unhinged with shock and pain. Virgil jumped out of the car, un-holstered his weapon and pointed it at sleeveless. “Drop the bar. Do it now. No, no, don’t even think about it. Just drop it.”
Sleeveless looked at him, but he was too far gone by then, the flat of his eyes a sign of what was to come. He raised the piece of rebar high above his head, his yellow tee
th bared, the tendons of his tattooed arms as tight as leaf springs and when he stood up on his toes and started to swing the bar again he left Virgil no choice at all. He fired two shots and they both hit their target. Sleeveless was dead before he hit the ground.
Virgil wasn’t smiling anymore.
That was twenty years ago and it was the only time he’d ever fired his weapon as a police officer. It was also his first day out of training—no longer a Boot—riding solo as an Indiana State Trooper.
__________
The man Virgil shot and killed was named James Pope. The two children in the truck with him were his five year-old twins, a boy, Nicholas, and his sister, Nichole. James Pope had just abducted his children from his ex-wife’s house only minutes before the altercation in the parking lot that led to his death. Virgil never knew what happened to the twins after that day, but he did get a thank-you card in the mail from their mother a few weeks after the shooting. Virgil had hopes that the children would somehow grow up trouble-free, even though they had witnessed the death of their father at the hands of a police officer. But when the thank-you card arrived in the mail from their mother, Virgil’s hope died just as quick as James Pope did. It is one thing to be glad that you are rid of someone. It is quite another to carry such hatred in your heart that you send a note of thanks to the man who killed your ex-husband. Virgil thought the Pope twins were in for a rough ride. He threw the note in the trash and got on with his life.
2
__________
Nicholas Pope sat in the darkness of his office, his face illuminated by the dim glow of his computer monitor. Pope was a programmer for the state’s lottery, though the job description was something of a sore spot for him. He was not a programmer. Programmers were about one step up from the I.T. guy who kept Excel from crashing every time someone tried to recover a missing file. No, Pope was a coder and a damned good one at that. The distinction was important to him. Programmers and coders did share some similarities—Nicky would grant you that—but it was a bit like comparing a couple of house painters with artists like Renoir, or Monet. They all used paints and brushes, but that was about as far as anyone could extend the comparison. Guys with names like Billie Bob and Monty D. painted houses, but they could hardly be called artists. They were simple laborers. Coders on the other hand, just like Renoir, or Monet, were true artists. One little splash of color here, one little bit of binary there and well, it made all the difference…whether anyone else noticed or not.
