by Greg Iles
I pull out onto Highway 61 and head into town. The first order of the day is getting the assault charge against Drew dismissed. As I pass the hospital, my cell phone rings. It’s Don Logan, chief of the Natchez Police Department.
“Are you getting your buddy out of jail this morning?” he asks.
“I’m on my down there now.”
“Well, his situation has worsened a bit since last night.”
My pulse quickens; something serious has happened. “How so?”
“This morning we searched the woods upstream from where we found the Townsend girl. We started at dawn, and we moved pretty fast along both banks. We had a little dispute with the sheriff’s department, but I won’t go into that now. The point for you is that when we reached the woods between Pinehaven and the creek, we found Kate’s cell phone.”
There’s a hitch in my breathing. “And?”
“It’s one of those camera phones. She had some pictures stored inside it. One of those pictures shows Dr. Elliott asleep on a bed. In the nude.”
Even though I’m driving, I waver like a man losing his balance. “Does the district attorney know about that picture?”
“Yes, sir. He does.”
While I work through the implications of this development, Chief Logan speaks again. “Penn, between you and me, I’ve got a source over at the sheriff’s department. She tells me that Dr. Elliott is going to be arrested by a couple of deputies as soon as he leaves this building.”
Jesus. “On what charge?”
“Sexual battery is what I heard. But I’m thinking murder.”
“If the D.A. wants Drew charged with another crime, why doesn’t he just have you charge him?”
There’s a long silence before Logan answers. “The D.A. would tell you it’s because murder is a state crime, and a defendant accused of it has to be held in state custody. But if you ask me, it’s because Billy Byrd is a lot deeper in Shad Johnson’s pocket than I am or ever will be.”
This leaves me both angry and uncertain about what to do. “Has Drew been scheduled for arraignment?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“I may let him attend that proceeding after all. I’ll let you know well before then what I’m going to do.”
“I’d appreciate it. Things are getting mighty interesting down here.”
“Don, have you turned up anything on Cyrus White?”
“Nothing at all. It’s like he’s vanished off the face of the earth.”
“I’d say that makes him look more than a little guilty.”
“I agree. But maybe he’s just paranoid. Maybe he doesn’t believe Shad Johnson’s promises of fair treatment for blacks in the judicial system.”
“Was that humor, Don?”
“Don’t forget to call me.”
Chief Logan hangs up.
Even before I lay my phone on the seat, one certainty settles into my bones. Despite what I told Shad and Sheriff Byrd about Cyrus White last night, Drew is going to be charged with capital murder. It seems unbelievable, but worse has been done in this town in the name of politics. Another certainty quickly follows the first: Drew needs a real lawyer, not a former prosecutor-turned-novelist who’s too close to the case. He needs a top-flight defense attorney with years of experience, one with the credentials to neutralize the subliminal cards that Shad Johnson will bring to the table. That means a local attorney who is black and preferably female. Several black attorneys practice in Natchez, but the only one I know well practices civil law. I need a wise counselor to help me choose my candidate.
I slow down and make a U-turn, then head back south. My father’s office is less than a mile away. For forty years, he has treated more black patients than any white doctor in town, and he knows many of them like family. If anyone can tell me about the black lawyers in town, it’s my dad. I call ahead and ask for Esther Ford, his physician’s assistant. Esther has very little formal training, but after forty years of working at my father’s side she knows more about primary care medicine than many interns. When she comes on the line, I ask if Dad can spare me fifteen minutes. She laughs and simply hands the phone to him.
“What’s up, Penn?” Dad asks in his resonant baritone.
“I need to see you for a minute. I’ve got an emergency.”
“A medical emergency?”
“No, but almost as bad.”
“Does it have to do with Drew Elliott?”
“How’d you know?”
“When I made rounds this morning, that’s all anybody was talking about in the doctors’ lounge.”
“What were they saying?”
“That Drew’s been screwing the Townsend girl. That she got pregnant, and he snapped and killed her.”
“Great.”
“I figure if any of that’s true, it’s the first part. The rest I can’t see. Drew Elliott is the best young doc I’ve seen in my career, and I’m not talking about technical skills. He cares about people. Any man can be led astray by his willie, but Drew Elliott committing murder? No way.”
“I wish more people felt that way.”
“People turn on you fast. It’s human nature.”
My father once learned this lesson in a very painful and public way. It took me almost twenty years to pay back the man who tried to ruin him. “Dad, I need some advice, and I need it fast.”
“Shoot.”
“I need the best black lawyer you know.”
“To defend Drew?”
“You got it.”
“You’re the hotshot lawyer. Why ask me?”
“You know why. I want him local, and I’d actually rather have a her. Does anybody in town fit the bill?”
“Hang on, I’m thinking.”
“Take your time.” I hear Esther talking in the background.
“I only know of three black female lawyers in town. I’ve heard good things about two of them, but that’s not who I’d hire if Shad Johnson was trying to nail me to the barn door.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure. You asked my opinion, I’m giving it to you.”
“Fair enough. What about men?”
“We ought to ask Esther.”
“I’d go to her if I was sick, but not for this.”
More silence. Dad calls out a medication and dosage to someone. “Penn, I’m at a loss here. When I think of local lawyers—black or white—and then I think of the situation Drew is facing, I just come up blank.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Sorry I can’t be more help.”
“It’s okay. I’ll just—”
“Wait a minute!” Dad says in an excited voice. “Hell, I should have thought of that first thing.”
“What?”
“Not what—who.”
“You have someone in mind?”
“The smartest lawyer for a thousand miles around, if you ask me. No offense.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Quentin Avery.”
Images of a tall black man in a black suit arguing before the Supreme Court fill my mind. In some of those old news photographs, the “Negro lawyer”—as the captions referred to him then—stands beside Thurgood Marshall. In others, beside Robert Carter and Charles Huston. I even remember Quentin Avery standing shoulder to shoulder with an angry-looking Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Quentin Avery,” I echo. “I knew he owned a house out near the county line. But I didn’t think he spent much time there.”
“Quentin travels a lot, but he’s been staying out there most of this past year. He’s sort of a recluse now. I’ve been treating him for diabetes and hypertension.”
“How old is he?”
“Mm, two or three years older than I am. Seventy-four?”
“What kind of shape is he in?”
“Mentally? He’s writing a law textbook. And in conversation, he’s so quick I can barely keep up with him.”
“What about physically?”
“He lost a foot a couple of months ago�
��diabetes—but he still gets around better than I do. He’s like a spry old hound dog.”
“What made you mention him? I mean, Avery is a legend. Why would he take a case like this?”
Even as I ask this question, a possible answer comes to me. Quentin Avery might be a legend of the civil rights movement, but time has not increased his stature. The moral leadership he demonstrated in the sixties and seventies seemed to vanish in the 1980s, when he began handling personal injury cases and class action lawsuits against drug companies. This giant who argued landmark cases before the highest court in the land was suddenly trying accident cases in Jefferson County, Mississippi, the predominantly black county famed for its record-breaking punitive damages awards, most of them based on the prejudices of the African-Americans who filled the jury box each week. Recently, federal prosecutors began reviewing many of those awards, and initiating action against both jury members and the attorneys involved.
“Oh, I don’t think he’d take the case,” Dad replies. “Although you never know what will interest Quentin. But you can bet he knows the perfect lawyer to get Drew out of this jam.”
“Does Avery know who I am?”
“Sure he does. Quentin wasn’t in town when you solved the Del Payton murder, but he followed it from New Haven. He was teaching law at Yale then. He said he admired you for bringing Leo Marston to justice after all those years. I think he’s read a couple of your books as well. Maybe he was just being nice, but that’s not Quentin’s style.”
“Should I just call him out of the blue?”
“You could, but he probably wouldn’t answer. Why don’t you let me call first? I’ve got a good idea of your situation. If Quentin’s willing to help, he’ll call you.”
“Good enough. But time is critical.”
“I got that, son.”
Someone is beeping in on my phone. It’s Chief Logan again. “I’ve got to run, Dad.”
“Go. Bring Annie by to see us soon.”
“I will.” I click the phone to take the incoming call. “Chief?”
“Penn, somebody just told Billy Byrd that he saw Dr. Elliott’s car parked in a vacant lot in Pinehaven on the afternoon of the murder. That lot’s adjacent to St. Catherine’s Creek, and not a quarter mile from where we found Kate Townsend’s cell phone.”
“Mother fucker.” Drew’s recklessness is going to damn him in the end. “Is that the worst of it?”
“Afraid not. This witness says he saw Drew’s car at about three forty-five p.m. Kate Townsend’s cell phone records show that she answered a text message from a girlfriend at three twenty-two p.m. We found her cell phone in the woods less than two hundred yards from where Drew’s car was parked. That means they were in very close proximity to one another within twenty-three minutes. That’s provable, Penn. What a jury would read into that, you know better than I.”
I can’t believe this. “Is there anything else, Don?”
“My source says Sheriff Byrd’s planning to arrest your man for capital murder. She even heard that with the D.A.’s help, Byrd might try to take Drew right out of my custody.”
Astonishment paralyzes me.
“Penn, are you Drew’s lawyer or not? He doesn’t seem too sure himself.”
“I guess I am for the moment.”
“What do you want me to do if Byrd shows up and tries to take him out of here? I’ve called the attorney general in Jackson for an opinion, but all I got was the same old runaround. Goddamn lawyers…pick any dozen of them and you won’t find a pair of balls in the bunch. No offense.”
“None taken,” I mutter, searching desperately for a solution.
“What do you want me to do?”
Desperate times, desperate measures…
“Penn?”
“Charge Drew with capital murder.”
The silence on the other end of the line is absolute. “On my own authority?”
“You know what the evidence is. You’ve got the girl’s cell phone. Charge him with murder right now. Don’t wait. Do it the second you hang up.”
“I take back what I said before. You’ve got a pair of balls on you, all right.”
“Will you do it, Don?”
“I’ll do it. But you’d better get your ass down here in a hurry.”
Chapter
17
Drew is a sobering sight today. Gone are the Ralph Lauren khakis and Charles Tyrwhitt button-down he wore to work yesterday morning. Now he wears the orange-striped prison garb I usually see on inmates picking up trash around the city. His handsome face is shadowed by thirty hours’ growth of beard, but it’s his eyes that unsettle me most. They’re no longer the eyes of an accomplished physician in command of his surroundings; they’re the haunted eyes of a man who realizes that the world he once bestrode with confidence may soon contract to an eight-by-ten-foot cell.
“Tell me you have some good news,” he says.
“I do. But it’s not all good. You’d better put your game-face on.”
He blinks slowly. “Give me the bad first.”
“The police found Kate’s cell phone in the woods not far from her house.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “Also not far from where you told me you found her body.”
He watches me without speaking for a while. “What’s so bad about that? Had she tried to call me or something?”
“I don’t know. But she had some pictures stored in her phone. Explicit pictures.”
Another slow blink. “Pictures of what?”
“You. Unclothed.”
Drew closes his eyes but says nothing.
“I saw them. One looks like your penis, another looks like your ass. What I remember from the high school dressing room, anyway.”
“Do any show my face?”
“Yes. In one you’re sleeping naked.”
“Goddamn it. I told her to erase that stuff.” He grits his teeth and shakes his head, but it’s hard to be angry at a dead girl. “Is that all the bad news?”
“No. Someone saw you park your car in that vacant lot near the creek after all. Honestly, that’s the most damning piece of evidence they have, because unlike the rest, which only prove an affair, that puts you close to what they may eventually prove was the crime scene.”
Drew lays his elbows on the narrow ledge on his side of the visiting window. “What about the good news?”
“We’re not done with the bad yet.”
“Shit.”
“The semen that the serology tests say is yours wasn’t swabbed from Kate’s vagina. It came from her rectum.”
Drew looks at me like a man offended by a personal question. “What are you asking me, Penn?”
“Is your DNA going to match that semen when the big test comes back?”
He looks away, then back at me. “Kate liked to finish that way sometimes, okay? I don’t know why, but she got a lot of pleasure from that. I did, too, obviously. We probably did that…one out of every four times.”
I don’t speak for a while. I’m trying to judge his honesty about a subject on which Drew is the only living authority.
“Why?” he asks. “Did somebody make a big deal of that?”
“Kate was in high school, Drew. Everybody’s going to make a big deal out of that. It’s going to make you look a lot more guilty of rape to a lot of people.”
“That’s crazy. It was her idea. Ellen and I never had anal sex.”
“Because you never asked, or because Ellen refused?”
He stares at me with wide eyes, then hangs his head. “I see what you mean.”
“The autopsy report says Kate had both vaginal and anal trauma indicative of rape. Would you have traumatized her back there?”
“No way. She relaxed totally during that act. If she was traumatized back there, whoever raped her did it.”
I think about this for a while. “Did Kate ever ask you to choke her during sex?”
His head pops up. “No. Why?”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “Did you k
now Kate kept a journal?”
Drew glances at the door behind him, then turns back to me and nods.
“Kate’s mother brought that to me, with some of her other personal things. She didn’t want the police to find them.”
“That’s good. I told you Jenny understood.”
“Kate wrote in her journal about wanting you to choke her. Apparently Steve Sayers used to do that to her, and at her request.”
Bewilderment. “She never told me that. And she never asked me to do it.”
I’m almost afraid to ask the next question. “Did you two ever bring anyone else into your bed?”
“Did she write that we did?”
I’m tempted to lie and try to trap him, but I don’t. “She wrote about wanting to do it.”
Drew looks like he might be about to ask me what she wrote about that subject. But then he says, “She did want to. We might have done it in the future, but…no, we never did.”
“Kate had three miniature flash drives in the box with her journal. The USB type. Lexar.”
“Did you open them?”
“I couldn’t. They’re password-protected.”
He looks intrigued but offers nothing.
“Do you know the passwords to those disks?”
“No.”
“They’re high-capacity drives—five hundred twelve meg. I’m thinking they have digital photos on them. If it turned out that she had some pictures of other men—even one other man—that might really help you.”
Drew is no longer looking at me. “I don’t know her password,” he says. “Not even for her e-mail account. She was private about stuff like that.”
“Okay. Let’s try a little good news—although on a personal level, you may see it as bad. Have you seen the morning paper?”
“No.”
“Have you ever heard the name Cyrus White?”
Drew looks blank. “No. Who is he?”
“A black drug dealer.”
No reaction.
“Kate had some contact with this guy,” I go on. “Regular contact. She visited Cyrus every month or so at the Brightside Manor Apartments.”
“Brightside Manor?” Shock now. “What the hell was she doing there?”
“Nobody knows. I got this from Sonny Cross, the narcotics agent. Keep that to yourself, by the way. Sonny says it’s unlikely that Kate went there to buy drugs, because girls like Kate don’t need to buy drugs. Guys will give them whatever they want. Did you ever see Kate get high?”
