Between Black and White (15 page)

“What?” Tom pressed.

“I got the feeling he was worried he might end up here. In prison I mean.”

Tom glanced at Powell. Now they were getting somewhere. Based on the documents, “the last couple times” would be August 1 and August 11, 2011, less than a month from Andy’s murder. Powell nodded for Tom to continue the questioning.

“Did he ever say why or what he had done that might make him so curious about prison life?”

“Nope. He never said anything at all about that. It was just . . .
weird
that Andy would take so much interest in my predicament.” Jack laughed and took a quick drag on the cigarette. “I mean, I’d known Andy for thirty years. He was a hard-ass like me. Cared first and foremost about his business. About making money. When we were together, we talked business, and that’s the way we both liked it. After the first visit about freight hauler recommendations, there was no reason for him to come see me. It wasn’t in his interests to visit me and ask a bunch of questions about prison life unless . . .”

“Unless he was worried about ending up in the same place,” Tom offered.

Jack nodded. “Nothing else makes sense.”

“Did he ever say anything to you about his days as the Imperial Wizard of the Tennessee Knights of the KKK?”

Jack shook his head. “Never. I think that was a part of Andy’s life that he’d just as soon forget. But I knew about it.”

“Did he mention anything to you about the killing of a black man named Franklin Roosevelt Haynes in 1966?”

Jack looked down at the table. “Nothing specific.” Then, looking up, he squinted at Tom. “I do remember him saying on one of his visits that ‘your bad decisions in life have a way of catching up to you.’” Jack laughed. “Course I knew all about that, and I agreed with him.”

“To your knowledge, did Andy know JimBone Wheeler?” Tom asked.

Jack smiled, his eyes mean. “Andy knew everyone.”

Tom glared back at him once more, fed up with Jack’s song and dance. “We are
really
not in the mood to play, Mr. Willistone.”

“I don’t give a shit about your mood, McMurtrie. And let me tell you something, you sumbitch. When I get out of this hellhole, I am going to make it
all
back. Every last cent. You didn’t break Jack Willistone. You just slowed me down a little.”

“And when you get out of here,
you sumbitch
, don’t you think JimBone is going to come looking for his payday?” Tom asked, his voice low. “How much did he charge you to trip Mule Morris’s brakes? How about trying to kill Dawn Murphy? Did he do that for free, or did he charge you a fee?” Tom pulled himself up from the wheelchair and leaned his hands on the table, bringing his face to within an inch of Willistone’s. He could smell the inmate’s stale scent. “I’m betting he charged you, and I’m also betting that your financial difficulties have kept you from paying.” Tom lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m betting that the first person you see when you get out of this ‘hellhole’”—Tom made the quotation symbol with his fingers—“is going to be JimBone, and I bet you’re going to look a hell of a lot worse than me when he’s through with you.”

“Now that’s enough,” Greg Zorn said, placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder and pointing at Tom. “Prof. McMurtrie, please sit down and stop harassing my client.”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Greg,” Powell said, his eyes on Jack. “Mr. Willistone, we think it is in your best interests to cooperate,” Powell said, still sitting in his chair, his voice matter-of-fact.

Jack Willistone slowly rose from his seat. He smiled, then chuckled. “You boys think you’re so goddamned smart.” He paused, turning to Tom, the smile gone. “You aren’t paying attention, old man. The answers you want are right under your nose. You’re just not looking.” He sighed. “I have to say I’m disappointed in you, McMurtrie. Fucking Yoda, letting a storm trooper like Bone get the best of you.”

“Mr. Willistone—” Powell started.

“Get me out of here, Zorn,” Jack interrupted. “These turds have upset my stomach.”

As Zorn stood to usher Jack from the conference room, Tom held up his hand. “Not yet, Jack. Just a couple more questions. We need to finish going through that list.” Tom pointed at the visitor log on the table.

“My client is done here, Mr.—”

“We’ll be quick, Greg,” Tom interrupted. “Now, the visitor log lists a grand total of five people who have come to see you since you were incarcerated.”

“What can I say?” Jack said, grunting. “I’m a popular guy.”

“Your wife, Barbara, son, Barton, Larry Tucker, Andy Walton, and . . . one name we didn’t recognize.”

Jack shrugged. “Just spit it out, McMurtrie.”

Tom reached across the table and flipped the log to the page he was looking for. Holding his finger on the name, Tom eyed Jack Willistone. “On June 10, 2011 a lady came to you see around 10:30 in the morning. Check-in time is 10:32. Checkout time is 10:45.” Tom tapped the times with his finger. “See that?”

“I do.”

“It’s right under your nose, isn’t it?” Tom said, smiling at Jack.

“Strong in the Force, are you,” Jack said.

“Who is she?” Powell asked. Then, stealing a glance at Tom, who nodded, Powell leaned across the table and put his finger on the highlighted name: “Who is Martha Booher?”

33

The Boathouse is an oyster bar that sits on Destin Harbor. As he and Burns waited for a table on the wooden deck outside the establishment, Rick gazed across the water to Holiday Isle, which was the last stretch of beach before the bridge to Okaloosa Island.
Beautiful,
he thought, watching a yacht slowly make its way through the harbor to the gap that led to the Gulf of Mexico.

Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turned to see Burns holding two longneck Coronas. “Ask and ye shall receive,” he said, passing the cold beer to Rick and looking out at the harbor.

The trip hadn’t been too bad, Rick had to admit. The Saturn stayed in one piece, and they had only made two pit stops, one just outside of Birmingham and another in Andalusia. In Andalusia, at Burns’s urging, Rick bought a six-pack, and Burns took down five of them before they hit the Mid-Bay Bridge, which took them into Destin. Rick had only had one and didn’t finish it. He knew he needed to keep his wits about him.

They had parked a few doors down from The Boathouse at a place called The Fisherman’s Wharf. After a beer at the outside bar there, they’d left the car in the parking lot and walked the hundred yards down Highway 98 to The Boathouse.

“Where’s Darla?” Rick asked Burns. They were both leaning their elbows on the wooden railing, eyes fixed on the dark water in front of them. In the daylight Rick knew the water would be emerald green. But at 10:30 p.m. it was dark and foreboding.

“Coming,” Peter said. “Just be patient.” He took a sip of his beer. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Rick nodded. Last fall he had taken Dawn on a weekend getaway to Destin. They had stayed at a place on Holiday Isle and had eaten dinner at The Fisherman’s Wharf. Their waitress at the Wharf had recommended they have a beer and listen to the band at The Boathouse and told them they’d be better off leaving their car at the Wharf and walking. So they had, just as Rick and Burns had done tonight. Rick and Dawn had actually stood right where Rick now stood with Burns, holding hands and talking about nothing in particular.

“Hey, man. You OK?” Peter asked.

Rick blinked and turned to his unexpected traveling companion, seeming to see him for the first time. Burns had a three-day growth of brown stubble, with messy dirty-blond hair thinning at the temples and in the back. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and tattered khaki shorts with flip-flops. Rick, who had not had time to change or even pack a suitcase, was wearing gray slacks and a white button-down, no tie, with his sleeves rolled up.

“Yeah, fine. Just thinking about my girlfriend.”

“Gotcha,” Peter said, nodding his head as if he understood. “Well, listen, dude. I really appreciate the ride. That was a lifesaver.”

“When is Darla going to be here?” Rick asked, growing impatient.

Burns started to say something, but his words were drowned out by loud screams inside and outside the restaurant as the band struck the opening riff of “Sweet Home Alabama.”

“Yeah!” Peter said, whooping and slapping Rick on the back, forcing him to turn around and look inside the restaurant. Rick saw several nice-looking college-age women swaying back and forth in front of the stage. As if on cue a waitress came up to the two men holding a tray with two shot glasses, a salt shaker, and two limes.

With no hesitation Burns shook some salt on his wrist, sucked it, and then turned the shot glass up. He took it down in one swig, then shook his head and put the lime in his mouth. “Ah, tequila!” he yelled, putting the other shot glass in Rick’s hand and shaking salt on Rick’s wrist. “Come on, dude, you’re paying for all this. At least do a shot with me.”

Thinking what the hell, Rick licked his wrist, turned up the shot glass, and then sucked the lime.

“That a boy,” Peter said. Then, leaning into him, “Now, let’s forget about that girlfriend of yours, and let’s find us a wife for the night. What do you say?”

“Darla,” Rick managed, coughing the words out, his throat burning with the taste of the tequila.

“She’ll be here,” Peter said, his words a bit slurred. “But until she arrives . . .” He gestured toward a group of girls wearing bikini tops and blue jean cutoffs. If they were twenty-one years old, they had just turned it. “Let’s be social. What do you say?”

Thirty minutes later the men were seated inside the restaurant at the table closest to the band. Burns had ordered two dozen oysters, but he wasn’t eating them, having moved his chair to the neighboring table, where the group of bikini-clad college girls—four sorority sisters from Jacksonville State on a last trip to the beach before classes started—reveled in Peter’s stories from the Sundowners Club. Either that or they were just putting up with him because he kept buying them beers and shots and charging them to Rick’s credit card.

I’m going to have a three-hundred-dollar bill,
Rick thought, putting an oyster drenched with cocktail sauce on a cracker and popping it in his mouth. He washed the concoction down with the remains of another Corona, his second, and leaned back in his seat. Taking out his phone, he went to check his e-mail and see if he’d missed any calls, but his phone was now dead.

Damnit.
In his haste to leave Pulaski, he’d forgotten to juice up his phone and had left the charger on the dresser at the bed and breakfast. Stealing a glance at Burns, he made his way to the restroom, wondering if Darla Ford was really going to show, or if this was just one big hoax. A con played by a strip club bartender who had spent his whole life playing folks like Rick.
Maybe,
he thought,
but what are my other options?

When he returned to his seat, the band was playing John Anderson’s “Straight Tequila Night,” but Rick wasn’t hearing anything. He looked at the barely touched plate of oysters, and he wasn’t hungry.

“Another beer?” the waitress yelled from behind him, and Rick gave her the thumbs-up sign. Blinking his eyes, he realized that the table of bikini-clad girls was gone, and there was no sign of Burns.

Rick turned all the way around in his chair, his eyes frantically scanning the crowd. Where the hell was Burns?

He stood and did a sweep of the bar with his eyes, still not seeing him, and then began to walk around the place, which was packed, his eyes darting to every corner, nook, and cranny. Nothing.

Rick lumbered back to his seat in a daze. “Have you seen the guy that came in with me? Hawaiian shirt, shorts, stubble?” he asked the waitress, who was setting a Corona down at his place at the table.

“The guy talking with the table of girls?” she asked, pointing to the now-empty table.

“Yes,” Rick said, nodding. “Did you see—?”

“I’m pretty sure he left.”

Rick just stood there, unbelieving, as the waitress walked away from him. He slunk down in his seat. Burns was gone. He’d driven the bastard to Destin, Florida, and now he was gone. And Rick had no idea where. Had he left with one of the girls at the adjacent table? Or had he just split the minute he saw Rick head to the bathroom?

Damnit.
Rick held the cold longneck to his forehead and closed his eyes. The band started in on “Whiskey River,” by Willie Nelson, and Rick couldn’t think of a more appropriate song. He drained half the beer in one gulp and slammed the drink on the table.

All for nothing,
he thought. The whole trip. He’d been played a fool. He should’ve known Burns would split the minute Rick let him out of his sight.

Rick drained the beer with two more sips and gave the signal to the waitress as she passed by to bring him another. For an instant he thought of Bocephus Haynes, alone in his cold jail cell, and guilt washed over him. Bo had put so much faith in the Professor and Rick. And the Professor had been beaten up and . . .

. . .
I’m getting drunk in an oyster bar on the Gulf Coast.

Rick took the beer out of the waitress’s hand before she could set it down and took a quick sip. Too quick, in fact, as most of the drink went straight up his nose. He set the bottle down and it bubbled over, making a mess.

“That won’t do you any good,” a voice said from behind him, and Rick spun around to see a smiling woman. She was short, maybe five foot two, if that, and was wearing a black tank top and khaki low-cut shorts. Her skin was tanned golden brown, and her eyes, also brown, gave him a curious glance. “The lawyer, right?” she asked, and Rick nodded as she took the seat across from him.

“Are you—?”

“Darla Ford,” she interrupted, extending her small hand.

Rick blinked at her in disbelief. Then as relief flooded his veins, he wiped his right hand on his pants and reached across the table.

“Rick Drake.” When his hand clasped Darla’s, she held on to it for a second.

“Well, Mr. Drake, if you don’t mind me saying so . . . you look like you could use a friend.”