A Thousand Lies (42 page)

Father Patrick was praying quietly, his lips barely moving, his words purposefully muted.

“Why did you sell your daughter?” Faro asked.

Anson shuddered, then again grabbed his hair with both hands, pulling fistfuls of it up and away from his head, as if trying to alleviate some kind of weight.

“Things were going wrong. I needed money and none was coming in. Family was getting away from me. I was losing control. I always had control. Had to get it back.”

“How did you maintain control before?” Faro asked.

Anson crawled back into the corner then curled himself up as small as he could get. “Pain and fear. Pain and fear. That’s power. That’s how you maintain control.”

“You hurt your family?”

Anson sat up and laughed and then slapped himself violently, as if in remorse for the sacrilege.

“Sorry, sorry. Not funny. Bad. I did bad things. They were afraid to disobey. That’s control.”

Faro glanced at his partner and mouthed the word,
wife
. They’d just gotten confirmation as to what the whole family kept claiming. LaDelle Poe said she was afraid to leave. He’d just confirmed it without knowing anything about what she’d said to them.

“Your sons worked with you growing and selling marijuana,” Faro said.

Anson slapped his knee with the flat of his hand, punctuating every word with a slap.

“Those fields were mine, not theirs. They did the bamboo. I did the pot. I made them work it, but the money was mine—all mine. They did what I said to keep their mama safe. She was the pawn in my games. Always the pawn. Always the goody-two-shoes trying to change me. Fuck her!”

And then the moment those two words were spoken he threw his head back and screamed. “Make it stop. The fire is hot. Make it stop. I take it back. I’m sorry.”

The priest’s pallor was as white as the collar around his neck.

“Dear Jesus,” he whispered and prayed harder and faster.

White frowned. “What’s the matter?”

The priest shook his head and kept praying.

Faro moved closer to the cell. “Anson Poe, why would you want to sell your little girl into a life of prostitution? She’s just a child.”

“Someone stole my marijuana and set the fields on fire. I needed money.”

“Your son, Chance, confessed to burning the fields,” Faro said.

Anson gasped. His face contorted into an angry grimace as he jumped upright. “The bastard! I should’ve cut this throat a long time ago.”

The vehemence in Anson’s voice was so strong that White shuddered, and seeing the man upright, muscles flexed and fists doubled, punctuated the strength of the statement.

“So you sold your daughter to Riordan because you needed money. Is that right?” Faro said.

Anson started toward the cell bars, then stopped and very quickly backed up, pointing at the floor in front of him until he could go no farther.

“It’s smoking. Can’t you see it? I’m sorry. God has to forgive me. I’m sorry.”

“Why did you choose Riordan?” Faro asked.

Anson’s hands were cupped over his genitals, his eyes wide and glassy.

“He always bought my pot. He said he would buy my kid, too. I didn’t want her. Easy decision,” Anson whispered.

Faro felt sick to his stomach. He’d heard plenty of confessions coming out of the mouths of criminals, and probably just as many lies, but he’d never heard anyone speak of his crimes in such a cold, emotionless manner before.

“Is there anything else you want to confess?” Faro asked.

Anson wiped his face with both hands, stared straight into the camera, and spoke without a trace of emotion.

“I planned to kill my wife, LaDelle, for revenge. It would have been payback to my son Brendan for challenging me. He knocked me down. He shot the hat off my head in my own house. By God, nobody does that to me. But, I decided she was worth more to me alive than the revenge I would’ve gotten. I like to fuck and I like good cooking. That’s what she was for. So selling the kid hurt all of them. I showed them it wasn’t smart to go against me.”

There was a bitter taste in Faro’s mouth, and White’s hands were trembling.

The priest made the sign of the cross.

Feinstein swallowed past a knot in his throat then breathed a quick sigh of relief. He didn’t want to be this man’s lawyer, and he damn sure didn’t want to try this case in a court of law. The confession had just relieved him of a jury trial. Poe would be convicted according to the laws of the state for each separate charge against him, which basically meant he would never live as a free man again.

Anson leaned back against the wall, his shoulders slumping. He was as relieved as his lawyer, but for a different reason.

“I told it all. I confessed to my crimes. I admitted to my sins. This means God has to take away the curse, right, Father?”

The priest hardly knew where to begin. “God doesn’t make deals, Mr. Poe. He is the Almighty and his ways are not always clear to us, although you have done right to ask His forgiveness.”

Anson looked like he’d just been slapped. “But I told the truth.”

“That’s how you should have been living all along, not a thing to be rewarded,” the priest said.

Anson shook his head and began counting things off on his fingers. “No, I confessed my sins. I confessed my crimes. I confessed to what I planned to do, even though I didn’t do it. I am now guilt-free, right? God has to fix the curse.”

Father Patrick clutched his cross as he moved a little closer to the cell. “God may forgive you, but the law will not. You’re still guilty. The lies you told were harmful and caused people to die.”

“I’m not lying anymore,” Anson shrieked.

The priest took a step forward. “So you say, but you have lived your life on lies, have you not? And the longer truth is buried, the more powerful lies become.”

Anson started to argue and then dropped to his knees and pointed at the floor. “I didn’t lie to you today and the fire still burns. I told my secrets, but it didn’t go away.”

“He’s crazy,” Faro muttered.

“What happens if a judge sees this and decides he needs to be hospitalized, instead of incarcerated?” Feinstein mumbled.

“Hell if I know,” White said. “It’s our job to catch them. It’s the court’s job to put them away.”

All of a sudden, Anson began moaning and pointing at the concrete floor.

They all turned and then stared in disbelief at the curls of smoke that appeared out of nowhere and began moving toward the man in the corner.

“Do you see that?” Faro cried.

White’s belly rolled. He felt like he was going to be sick.

Anson was as far back in the corner of the cell as he could get, and yet it continued to move toward him.

“Do something!” Feinstein shrieked.

The jailer jerked as if he’d been slapped, then ran for the fire extinguisher at the far end of the hall.

Anson began weeping, shaking his head in mute denial and trying to climb the walls, but this time there was no stopping the smoke.

“Wait, wait, I forgot the cops. I paid off the cops, too,” he screamed.

The priest dropped to his knees and began praying in earnest.

The prisoner directly across from Anson’s cell saw the smoke and started yelling, “Fire!”

It started a chain reaction of panic from the prisoners in the other cells, until the whole place was alive with shouts and screams.

“Who were the cops you paid off?” Faro asked.

Anson couldn’t hear the question. His focus was on the smoke at his feet. When it began to curl around his ankles, he began screaming as if he already felt the heat. Then the smoke went higher, wrapping around his legs and his body, then crawling along the lengths of his arms and up his neck. His cry was one continuous shriek as the smoke reached his head. When his hair began to smoke, he threw up his arms in supplication and burst into flames.

“Oh my God!” Faro shouted and jumped back.

White was in shock, still standing beside the camera, unaware that it was still filming.

By the time the jailer reached the cell with the fire extinguisher, Anson was dead, his body curled up on the floor, his limbs contorting as the skin on his body bubbled and burst.

Father Patrick was sobbing now, prostrate on the floor in front of the cell, praying loudly to his God for protection.

The jailer dropped the fire extinguisher and threw up.

Word quickly spread from cell to cell what had happened. The men inside them were silent. Some curled up on their cots with their faces to the wall. Some were on their knees in prayer when the door to the cellblock opened and police began pouring into the area. Unfortunately, it was a case of too little, too late.

White finally realized the camera was still running and reached up with shaking hands to turn it off.

Faro seemed to be in shock and hadn’t moved since Poe went down.

Feinstein helped the priest to his feet as Sumter Henry pushed his way through the crowd.

“What happened? What the hell happened here?” the sheriff yelled, and then he saw the blackened corpse in the corner of the cell. “Who is that?”

“My client,” Feinstein muttered.

Henry gasped. “Poe? Is that Anson Poe?”

“Yes, sir,” Feinstein said.

Henry kept staring. “Who did this? How did that happen?”

Faro shoved a hand through his hair. “I’d tell you, but you wouldn’t believe it.”

“We were filming his confession when he burst into flames,” Agent White said.

“What do you mean, ‘burst into flames?’”

“Spontaneous combustion. I saw it with my own eyes,” Father Patrick said.

“There’s no such thing,” Henry muttered.

“He said he was cursed,” Feinstein said. “He said it was voodoo.”

Henry flinched. “Like hell.” Then he took out his handkerchief and covered his face against the stench of burned flesh. “Get the crime scene crew in here, ASAP. The rest of you, out! I want statements from everyone here and—”

White held up his hand. “Like I said, we were taping his confession. You can see it for yourself.”

“In my office,” Henry said. “All of you! Now! And bring that camera.”

****

Linny was sitting on the sofa watching Juliette paint her toenails. She had Tracker in her lap; Julie’s bear, Merlin, tucked under one arm; and a bowl of popcorn near the other. She was fascinated by the fact Julie had a bear named Merlin. She knew all about Merlin. He was the powerful magician who helped King Arthur and his knights. Just knowing
her
faithful knight, Sir Brendan, had given him to Julie made the bear more special, and she liked the pale green color Julie was putting on her toenails. It was almost the same color as the grass down by her throne in the swamp.

“When you’re done, are we doing my fingernails, next?”

Julie paused and looked up. “I think we should, don’t you?”

Linny eyed the assortment of nail polish on the coffee table. “I like pink, too. It’s my favorite color.”

Julie paused and looked up. “Well, then we should use pink on your fingernails, I think. What do you say?”

“I say yes,” Linny said and leaned over Tracker for a closer look, then reached for the popcorn, chewing thoughtfully as she eyed the healing wounds on Julie’s skin.

“Can I ask you something?” Linny asked.

“You can ask me anything,” Julie said.

“You said the marks don’t hurt, but are they going to go away?”

“They did hurt but not so much anymore, and yes, the doctor said they’ll go away. Mama Lou gave me some special medicine to make them heal faster.”

Linny gasped. “She gave Brendan the telephone I used to call Brendan when... when Daddy...”

Julie’s heart hurt for the child. She didn’t even have the words in her vocabulary to explain she’d been sold into sexual slavery by her own father. She patted Linny on the knee.

“Then that makes us twins all over again, doesn’t it? First we both get kidnapped, and Mama Lou helps save both of us, and Brendan buys us very special stuffed animals to help us get well. What are the odds of that ever happening?”

Linny eyes were suddenly shiny with fresh tears. “I’ll bet we made Brendan worry a lot.”

“We didn’t cause it, but I know he was worried. He’s a very good man. You know that, don’t you?”

“He’s not afraid of Daddy,” she said.

“No one should ever be afraid of their father. I’m sorry that you are.”

Linny shrugged. “I’m not afraid anymore.”

Julie finished the last toenail on Linny’s little foot, then screwed the brush back into the bottle.

“Because he’s in jail now, right?”

“No, because he’s dead now,” Linny said.

Julie frowned. “No, he’s not dead, honey. He’s in jail.”

“Yes, but he’s dead now, too.”

Julie was shocked. She didn’t know if this was a break from reality because of what she’d gone through or if something more was going on.

“How do you know he’s dead?” she asked.

Linny shrugged. “I just do.”

“Okay,” Julie said. “So, are you ready for something to drink? Popcorn makes me thirsty. Are you thirsty? I have lemonade.”

“Yes, and I like lemonade.”

“Good. You sit really still so your nails will dry without getting messed up, and I’ll go get the lemonade. We can do your fingernails later. Here, you can watch TV while I’m gone. My cable works the same way Brendan’s does.”

She left the remote with Linny and headed for the kitchen, but instead of pouring the lemonade, she called Brendan.

****

LaDelle was catching Brendan up on her interrogation as well as Grayson March’s generosity in getting them a lawyer. Brendan didn’t know how he felt about that personally, but was grateful for anything that kept the rest of his family out of jail.

“Grayson said you were amazing, and that he’d seriously misjudged you,” Delle said.

“He talks out of both sides of his mouth,” Brendan said.

Delle frowned. “He said since we were going to be in-laws, and that it would be good to get along.”

Brendan’s eyes widened. “He said that?”

She nodded, but before she could say more, there was a knock at the door and then Sheriff Henry walked in.