by Jill Orr
“I’m leaving,” I whispered. “Just wanted to say goodbye.”
“Stay,” Holman whispered back. His face looked serious as he returned to his phone conversation. “Yes, yes, okay. I understand.”
Something about his tone told me he didn’t like what he was hearing. I set down my bag and sat in the chair across from his desk.
“Okay, thank you, Lindsey,” he said. “Yes. I’ll tell her.” He pressed end and lowered the phone from his ear.
“What is it?”
Holman blinked, looked at me, then blinked again. “That was Lindsey Davis.” Lindsey Davis was the Tuttle County prosecutor. “Joe Tackett says he has information about a cold case and would be willing to trade it for a reduction in his sentence or a prison transfer.”
I knew even before Holman finished his sentence what case he was talking about. My heartbeat suddenly felt bigger inside my chest. I held my breath as Holman said the words.
“He says he knows who killed your grandfather.”
Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. I’d always suspected Joe Tackett had been involved in my granddaddy’s death—or at the very least, in covering it up. Tackett had been the sheriff of Tuttle County at the time, and I always thought he’d been too quick to close the case out as a suicide. Plus, he was a mean sonofabitch. I didn’t like to use the word hate, but my feelings for Joe Tackett came close. Then a few months ago my suspicions about him were confirmed when it came to light that Tackett had gotten in deep with a Mexican drug cartel and was looking the other way as they distributed their product in the region. My childhood best friend and Holman’s co-worker at the Times, Jordan James, figured out what was going on, and Tackett and the cartel had her killed. Holman and I worked the story together, and partly due to some good reporting (but mostly due to some ridiculously good luck), we managed to bring Tackett to justice without getting ourselves killed.
Just hearing his name filled me with a restless kind of rage. Tackett was as crooked as a barrel of fishhooks. He was all about selling his power to the highest bidder, and my gut told me—had been telling me for years—that his handling of Granddaddy’s death had been bought and paid for. This was the validation I’d been searching for.
“Let’s go see him. Tomorrow—no, tonight! We could leave right now.” I stood up, adrenaline coursing through my veins. “I wonder why he decided to talk now after all this time? Do you think it has something to do with Flick’s death? Wait—but no—he might not even have heard about that. I mean, he’s in prison, after all. Do they have access to newspapers? TV? Do you think he’ll talk to us? I’d think if he’s planning to give the authorities the information anyway, surely he’ll at least give us something…” My mind felt like it was filled with firecrackers.
Holman sat motionless and said nothing.
“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go! If we leave now, we could get to Greensville Correctional before…well, okay, maybe you’re right—maybe it’s too late tonight. We’d better wait until the morning. Do you mind driving? I know I already owe you like a million dollars in gas, but I’ll pay you back, I promise. Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Holman gave me a look that could only be described as pity. “Riley…”
“What? What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you freaking out—this is a huge deal, Holman.”
“Riley,” he repeated, his voice soft and gentle. “They’re not going to give him the deal.”
For a split second, the entire world stopped turning. “What?”
“Sit down, please.”
I sat.
“The DEA has been after Tackett to flip on members of the cartel, but he won’t cooperate. He says he might as well sign his death certificate if he does that.”
“So, what does that have to do with anything?”
“The feds aren’t interested in your grandfather’s case. They want the cartel. They’ve been in touch with Lindsey and have ‘encouraged’ her not to make a deal with him. They want to keep pressure on him.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Holman shook his head. “Lindsey thought you had a right to know.”
To say I was gobsmacked would have been an understatement. The federal government didn’t care about the murder of one of its citizens, a man who fought in the Korean War, a man who served his country as both a soldier and a journalist covering war zones? Albert Ellison was in many ways a hero—and not just to me. The fact that some asshat in the DEA would so flippantly reject information about his death was unacceptable.
“I want to talk to her.”
“It won’t do any good. It’s out of her hands,” Holman said.
“Still.”
“She said she was leaving for the day—”
“Then I’ll catch her,” I said. I grabbed my coat and was out of Holman’s office in three seconds flat.
CHAPTER 4
One of the benefits of living in a town the size of Tuttle Corner was that the majority of our businesses were distributed in a single square block around Memorial Park. On the south end of the park was the largest of the municipal buildings, the Tuttle County courthouse. From the Times newsroom on the east side of the square to the courthouse, it was about a four-minute walk. Three, if you were fueled by righteous indignation. I caught Lindsey Davis just as she was walking up to her car.
“Riley.” She did not seem surprised to see me.
“Can we talk?”
“There’s not much to talk about. I already told Holman everything I know. I’m sorry,” she said.
I believed her. Lindsey Davis had moved to Tuttle to take over the District Attorney spot after Kevin Monroe had been arrested for taking bribes in the Tackett corruption scandal. She agreed to move here from Washington, DC, as part of an American Bar Association program that helps pay down school debt if lawyers agree to practice in an underserved area for at least five years. She was young, probably under thirty, but was hardworking and had already earned the respect of the community.
“Please,” I said. “I need to understand.”
She sighed and was about to say no, I could feel it.
“I’m not asking as a reporter,” I said, lowering my voice. “I’m asking as a granddaughter.”
She opened her car door, chucked her briefcase inside, and closed it again. “Fine, but let’s do this over a drink.”
We sat upstairs at James Madison’s Fish Shack, Lindsey on the distressed-leather loveseat and me across from her on the chintz club chair. The fireplace in the corner crackled and hissed and sent out a warm glow into the converted attic space. They still had their holiday decorations up, which added to the cozy feel. There was a handful of other people there, but Lindsey and I were tucked away into a corner so no one would hear us.
“This is off the record,” Lindsey said, holding her mug of mulled wine with two hands. “And just to be clear, I mean way off the record. You cannot print any of this—not even without a source.”
Lindsey Davis had thick, dark hair, which she wore in a pin-straight, blunt-cut bob, the left side always tucked behind her ear. Her dark brown eyes were wide set with long lashes, giving her face a doe-like quality, which I think was what the no-nonsense hair was supposed to counteract. I could only imagine how tough it was to be a woman in her field in this part of the country, especially a young African-American woman.
I nodded. “Understood.”
“Okay, well, I really don’t know a whole lot more than what I told Will on the phone,” she said. “The federal agent in charge of the case against Tackett has been trying to persuade him to give up information about the Romero family’s drug operations. But Tackett has been locked up tighter than Fort Knox. He says if he utters one word against the cartel, he’ll be dead before breakfast. Then about a week ago, he tells this agent that he has some information about a crime that took place in Tuttle County when he was sheriff. He said he’d be willing to tell the state what he knows about that crime in exchange for ‘helping him out.’”
She paused. “The agent naturally asked what crime he was referring to, and Tackett said, quote, ‘Albert Ellison’s supposed suicide.’”
“I knew it,” I said automatically. “I knew he didn’t kill himself.” Before I could stop it, a bubble of emotion crept up on me. I tried to bite it back but only succeeded in looking like someone who had just swallowed a frog. “I’m sorry…”
Lindsey looked down, giving me some privacy as I fought to collect myself. After a minute she said, “I can only imagine how painful this must be.”
I took a deep breath in and blew it out slowly. “I’ve been searching for answers since I was eighteen years old.” I paused, shaking my head. “I knew it couldn’t have been suicide, but no one believed me. Tackett made sure of that…but now—”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Riley,” she said, firmly cutting me off. “The feds were clear with me: They want to hold out for information about the cartel.”
“Who cares about the feds?” I leaned forward. “My grandfather was killed in Tuttle Corner, that’s your jurisdiction, right? Can’t you make a deal with Tackett? Recommend a transfer to Judge Giancarlo in exchange for the information?”
She started shaking her head before I had even finished talking. “It’s not that simple. They’ve warned me not to step on their toes. I could face a lot of static for doing it anyway.”
I sat, openmouthed, silenced by the injustice of the situation.
“I know,” Lindsey said, her large brown eyes filled with compassion. “I’m frustrated too.”
“I don’t understand.” I slumped back in my chair. “How can the government not care about who killed my grandfather? Do we all of a sudden not care about apprehending murderers?”
“As of now, the official cause of death in your grandfather’s case is a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In the eyes of the law there’s been no crime. There’s no case. And the government is looking at it through the lens of the DEA. If they can get to the leadership of the Romero cartel, they can potentially save thousands of lives.”
“But…”
“It’s also possible that Tackett’s lying. He’s certainly not above that,” Lindsey added.
I hadn’t considered for a second that Tackett was lying, probably because I knew in my heart all these years that he knew what happened to my grandfather. Flick knew it too. Flick. The thought hit me like lightning.
“Lindsey,” I said, scooting to the edge of the chair. “I’ve been working on the theory that my grandfather’s and Hal Flick’s deaths might be connected. What if the information Tackett has would do more than just shed light on an old case? What if it could help solve a murder that just happened?”
“Connected? How?”
I explained everything to her about the file and Flick’s unofficial investigation, the trip to Chincoteague, his cryptic phone calls, Granddad’s missing research.
“Have you told the Brunswick County sheriff about your suspicions?”
“I tried, but Sheriff Clark said there is literally almost nothing to go on in the investigation. No witnesses, no cameras—”
“Yeah, but this could provide a motive,” she said. “Sometimes that’s as effective as a witness in tracking down who committed a crime.”
“I guess, but I don’t have any hard evidence of the connection.”
She arched one eyebrow. “Then I suggest you get some.”
“Do you think that’d make a difference? If I could prove that the two deaths were related, could Tackett be forced to give testimony in that case?”
“No one can compel him, but if he has information about a person who has killed twice and is still at large? That might give me more leverage in defying the feds. I’m not saying it’s a slam dunk, but it’s better than what we have now.”
“Thank you, Lindsey,” I said, feeling as close to hopeful as I had in a long time.
She held up her mug. “To catching the bad guys.”
“And taking them down.” I held up mine and clinked it against hers.
We hung out for a little while longer and talked mostly about how she liked living in Tuttle. “It’s different from DC for sure,” she said, “but the people here are really nice, and the cost of living is great. I just wish I could meet more people our age. That’s been the hardest part.”
I could see Tuttle being a hard place to meet friends if you hadn’t grown up around here. Most Tuttleans in the sub-thirty-five age group were either lifelong residents who all knew one other or had married young and already had kids.
“We don’t exactly have a killer social scene around here, do we?”
Lindsey laughed. “Honestly, it’s fine. I work so much, I barely have time for a life, but there are moments when I miss going out to bars or concerts or whatever. That’s actually how I met Will.”
This surprised me. “You met Holman at a bar?”
She nodded. “Karaoke Night at Lipton’s Books & Brew.”
“I’m sorry—hold up.” I almost spit out my drink. “Holman sang karaoke?”
“Yeah, he was really good, too! He did a haunting rendition of ‘Blank Space.’”
That time, I really did spit a little of my Revolutionary Rum Runner out of my mouth. “Holman sang Taylor Swift?”
“He did this really slow, sexy version of it. Everyone went nuts. I mean, granted there were only like nine of us there, but it was amazing. He’s really talented.”
It was like she was describing a completely different person than the Will Holman I knew. I’d never so much as heard him sing along to the radio in the car, let alone belt out a pop anthem in front of a crowd. And to describe him as sexy? I was dying! Dying.
“What?” she asked. “Is that out of character or something?”
“No, it’s just you never know what you’re gonna get with Holman. He’s full of surprises.”
“So, um, are you two like…?”
“Oh God no!” Lindsey flinched and I felt badly, like maybe I’d reacted too strongly to the question. “Don’t get me wrong, Holman’s great, but we’re more like brother and sister.” An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment. “Why do you ask?” I was pretty sure I knew why she was asking.
Two scarlet patches came into focus on her cheeks, confirming my suspicions. “I was just wondering, that’s all.”
“You like him!” I said, a smile spreading across my face. This was big news. Holman had been devastated when Rosalee, on whom he’d had a major crush, used him, literally, to try to get away with murder. I was giddy thinking about how flattered he’d be to know a woman like Lindsey Davis thought he was, um, sexy. (I had trouble using that word even in my own mind in relation to Holman.)
“Let’s just say that I’d be interested in getting to know him a little better.”
“We can definitely arrange that,” I said, waggling my eyebrows.
“Oh no.” She held up a finger at me. “No setups.”
“Not a setup exactly—we can just engineer a situation in which you are both in the same place at the same time.”
“That is the definition of a setup.” Lindsey gave me crocodile eyes that I imagined worked very well on uncooperative witnesses.
“Actually,” I said, a new thought rolling around in my mind. “I just found out about a New Year’s Eve party that a friend of a friend is having. Do you have plans?”
“Not unless you count a Gilmore Girls marathon as plans.”
“Perfect!” I said. “I’ll see if I can wrangle you an invite and one for Holman too. Trust me—it’ll be fun!” I didn’t dare mention that it was a themed party. I didn’t know Lindsey well enough to know her stance on costume parties. I was pretty sure Holman could be persuaded to play along, especially if it meant getting to spend the evening in the company of a smart, accomplished woman who just happened to think he was, um, sexy.
CHAPTER 5
I was wired after my meeting with Lindsey, as much about her interest in Holman as with the possibility of finding a connection bet
ween Flick’s and Granddaddy’s deaths, so Coltrane got an extra-long walk when I got home. Being a large, long-haired German shepherd, Coltrane did not mind the near-freezing temperatures half as much as I did. He trotted happily along the sidewalks in my neighborhood, ears up, tail aswish. Sometimes I imagined that Coltrane was the king of the four-block radius around my house, and our daily constitutionals were like visiting his royal subjects. Nice to see you again, Elm Tree. How’s it going today, Magnolia Bush? I shall pee on you now, Crabgrass.
“What’re you smiling about?” The voice came out of the darkness and made me jump about three feet in the air.
“Ryan, you scared me half to death!” I said once I’d caught my breath.
“Sorry.” He set down the bag of trash he’d been carrying to the curb and bent down to greet his canine soul mate. He then proceeded through several rounds of Who’s a good doggie?
“How’s the house?” I asked, finally interrupting the lovefest. “You guys getting settled?”
In a somewhat uncomfortable move, Ryan had recently purchased the house that backed up to mine. It was only uncomfortable because as recently as six months ago, Ryan declared his undying love for me, before mentioning Oh-yeah-I-got-another-girl-pregnant-and-she’s-moving-to-Tuttle-to-raise-the-baby-but-we’re-not-together-and-I-love-you-let’s-make-out. I declined his invitation for obvious reasons.
The pregnant girl in question was Ridley, and the three of us had mostly worked through whatever weirdness there had been between us. The fact is that I liked Ridley a lot. I liked Ryan a lot too, for that matter (when he wasn’t being a clueless idiot), and their baby Lizzie was just about the most adorable thing I’d ever seen, not to mention my goddaughter. After telling Ryan in no uncertain terms that we would never, ever, get back together, Ryan decided that he wanted to give things another try with Ridley. I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on with them lately. Mostly because I hadn’t asked.
