The Closing: A Whippoorwill Hollow novel (The Whippoorwill Hollow novels) (24 page)

Two weeks later, Judge Wigfield granted Nate’s motion to withdraw from the Deatherage case. The change in counsel forced a postponement of the trial, and Deatherage remained incarcerated in the Starkey County jail during the delay.

A few days after Nate’s withdrawal from the case, Wiley Rea, Nate’s successor as Selk County commonwealth’s attorney, called Nate and asked him to meet at Sally’s Diner the next morning. Nate asked Rea what the meeting was about. He said he’d prefer to discuss the matter face-to-face.

The next morning when Nate arrived at Sally’s Diner at the appointed time, Wiley Rea sat in a booth in the back away from the other customers. He was a slim middle-aged man with neatly combed, thinning gray hair parted down the middle. He wore a seersucker suit and one of his trademark bowties, this one navy blue. When he looked up at Nate, light glanced off the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses. Nate slid into the booth and a waitress brought them coffee.

“I took the liberty of ordering coffee for both of us,” Rea said. “I assume coffee is the strongest drink you imbibe these days.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“No need to be sensitive about it. It’s common knowledge you’re a former drunk. I stress the word former.”

“Get to the point. Why did you want to see me?”

Rea took a pack of Parliaments from his suit pocket and lit one. “When I was appointed acting commonwealth’s attorney, Harry Blackwell met with me. He told me his recommendation was the reason I was given the job and he would require me to clean up the mess you left behind. He explained in detail your abuses of your power as a prosecutor and he handed me the files of five cases I would be required to retry. He then ordered me not to indict you for your crimes and not to tell anyone what you did.”

“You’re the commonwealth’s attorney. You have the discretion to indict anyone you please.”

A wry smile crossed Rea’s face. “Many years ago, when I was a young man, I made mistakes. Harry Blackwell is the only person who knows about them.”

“What sort of mistakes?”

“Big mistakes. Stupid mistakes. Mistakes only an inveterate drunk could make. Mistakes only a judge can forgive. As a result of my mistakes, coffee is the strongest drink I imbibe these days.”

“Your issues with Harry are no concern of mine.”

“Ah, but you’re wrong about that. You see, Harry made clear to me that my mistakes would become public knowledge if I indicted you for yours.”

Nate leaned back, surprised. Extortion was a felony. The judge had taken greater risks to protect Nate than Nate realized. He wondered again why. He lifted his cup to his lips and looked around the room. A young couple sat on the same side of a booth near the door, their heads close together, the boy whispering to the girl, the girl giggling.

Rea pointed his cigarette at Nate. “I’ve honored the judge’s demands. You’re a free man because of me. You owe me.”

“I owe you nothing. I didn’t ask you to do anything.”

“You used Judge Blackwell to force me to refrain from prosecuting you. I’ve done what you wanted. I waded through the swamp of corrupt prosecutions you created and I drained it dry so no one will discover it in the future. But make no mistake. I know every detail of your crimes. I have all the evidence neatly organized and summarized and stored in my files. The statute of limitations hasn’t run on your felonies, but the statute has long since expired on my peccadilloes. I could file an indictment against you tomorrow, and you would go to jail and I would not be prosecuted no matter what Harry told the world about my past. If Harry fulfilled his threat to expose me, I’d lose my reputation but not my freedom.”

“Why destroy your reputation over me?”

“Harry Blackwell is a harsh master. I want freedom from the lash of his whip.”

“I can’t help you with that.”

“You can help me a great deal. You hold the key to my release.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Information. I want information.”

“About what?”

“I want the reason Harry Blackwell spared you. I want the secret that drove him to commit felonies to protect you.”

“Ask Harry.”

Rea scoffed. “Harry’s too shrewd to tell me his secret. He knows I’d use it to my advantage against him. For decades I searched high and low for compromising information about him that would provide the key to unlock my chains, but I found nothing substantive. You would think at the very least that an eighty-year-old lifelong bachelor would have yielded to temptation over the many years—consorted with a prostitute, preferred the company of a man, engaged in an illicit relationship—but all I found were wisps of gossip that he had an affair with a married woman when he was a young man and was jilted by his lover, an ancient rumor that his heart was broken and it never mended and he never married because of it. There were no details about his tryst, no name, no description, no dates of engagement, no stories about what they did together.” Rea took a sip of coffee, swallowed, and grimaced. He looked out the window beside their booth. Nate looked outside, too. It was a warm fall day. The wind blew. Golden and auburn leaves floated out of the oak trees in Beauregard Park, fell into Lee Street, and skittered across it to pile against the curb.

Rea turned back to Nate. The lines in his face relaxed a bit. “Look. All I want is the information required to make Harry back off. I won’t go public with it. I just want him to let up on me. That’s all.”

“There’s nothing I can do for you.”

Rea’s eyes blazed. “Don’t lie to me. When Harry convinced the board to appoint me as commonwealth’s attorney and told me I couldn’t prosecute you, I knew you knew his secret and you used it against him. I pressed Harry hard about it when he met with me about you, and I learned a lot from the fear in his eyes. His secret is old and deep inside him and he’s mortally afraid of its exposure. Indeed, I’m certain what you know about him is exactly what I need to be free from him, but he’ll never tell me.” Rea jabbed his cigarette at Nate. “You must tell me. That’s my price for my continued silence about your crimes. I want Harry’s secret. I want to know why he protects you. I want you to tell me what you’re holding over his head. If you don’t tell me, I’ll take you down even if I go down with you.”

They fell silent when a waitress appeared at their table with a pot of coffee and refilled their cups. She was a stout redhead with a scar over her eye. She glanced at Nate’s scar and moved to another table. When she was out of earshot, Nate said, “I can’t pay your price. I don’t know the reason Harry protects me.”

Rea scooted up on the edge of his bench seat. “Don’t play games with me. You must know. You’ve used it for years to advance your career as a prosecutor and lately to shield you from disbarment and prosecution.”

“I didn’t ask Harry to help me. He acted on my behalf of his own volition. I’m as mystified by it as you are.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Nate stood and tossed a dollar bill on the table. “Then file your indictment.”

As Nate walked to the door, he glanced at a television above the counter. A still picture of Kenneth Deatherage stared back at him. He stopped cold. Video images of the Starkey County jail followed.

Nate sat on a stool at the counter and asked a waitress to turn up the volume on the television. “Breaking News” flashed across the screen. A reporter said Deatherage escaped from the Starkey County jail the previous night. Videotape of the sheriff’s press conference rolled forward. The sheriff said Deatherage had complained of an upset stomach after dinner. He vomited. A deputy called the hospital while another deputy went into Deatherage’s cell to help him. Deatherage stabbed the deputy with a makeshift knife, a ball-point pen filed down to a sharp point. The deputy died from the wound to his throat. A photograph appeared on the screen and below it “Deputy Elwood P. Morris, age 28.”

Nate instinctively reached for his pen in his inside coat pocket. It wasn’t there. He remembered handing Deatherage a pen to sign the plea agreement, but he didn’t remember retrieving it before he left the jail.

The sheriff’s press conference continued. He said Deatherage stole the disabled deputy’s service revolver and keys and unlocked the cell door. He shot a second deputy in the lobby. Another photograph appeared on the screen of a deputy Nate did not recognize. The sheriff said Deatherage stole a shotgun from a gun case in the lobby and fled. The second deputy survived the gunshot wound and called for help. The Starkey County sheriff’s office and the state police launched a massive manhunt, but no sign of Deatherage had turned up. He had been free for twelve hours. The photograph of him reappeared on the screen while the reporter read a description of him.

Wiley Rea appeared at Nate’s side. “Isn’t that man your client?”

“My ex-client. I withdrew from representing him.”

“Apparently a wise decision.” Rea stared at the screen as the reporter launched into an explanation of the history of the Deatherage case and Nate’s role in bringing down Judge Herring and securing a new trial for Deatherage. A photograph of Nate flashed on the screen.

“That picture must be ten years old,” Rea said. “You’ve got a lot more mileage on you now.” He turned to Nate. “This news report is timely. Think about what I said. You have a lot to lose. Your reputation has been restored by this Buck County affair, but I can destroy it with the flick of a pen. I’ll give you until the end of the week to tell me what you have on Harry Blackwell. If I have no word from you by Monday morning, I’ll file an indictment against you and call a press conference.” Rea walked off.

Nate turned back to the television. The reporter moved on to a weather report. Nate asked the waitress for a telephone. She pointed to the end of the counter. He dialed the Selk County sheriff’s office.

“Where are you?” Sheriff Coleman Grundy said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I’m at Sally’s Diner. I just saw the news. Do they have any idea where Deatherage is?”

“We know he fled Starkey County. He stole a car in Hayesboro last night. This morning we found the car at a motel in Pocahontas in Tazewell County. He attacked a man in the motel parking lot and stole the man’s ’61 blue Ford pickup truck. We’re assuming he’s still driving that Ford pickup, but we have no clues about his location.”

“Call Sheriff Feedlow. Tell him Deatherage might be headed to his wife’s house. Deatherage threatened to kill her.”

“I talked to Feedlow. He put armed guards on her house last night. There are road blocks on all the state roads into Buck County.”

“Tell Feedlow to guard Deatherage’s mother and a man named Willis Odoms.”

“Feedlow’s got men guarding the mother. I don’t know about Odoms. I’ll call Feedlow again. Can you think of any other place he might go?”

Nate thought about his conversations with Deatherage. “He’s angry with everybody connected with his trial. They all live in Buck County, but he’s smart enough to know law enforcement will be waiting for him there. I don’t think he’ll risk it.”

“You should join me here. I’ll brief you on what we know. Maybe you’ll remember something he said that will help us find him.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Nate hung up the phone and went to his car. He drove down Lee Street toward the sheriff’s office, recalling his conversations with Deatherage. His last words to Nate came to mind—“I’ll find a way to pay you back”—and it dawned on Nate that he might be Deatherage’s next target.

Nate pulled to the curb and thought about his contacts with Deatherage. He didn’t think Deatherage knew where he lived or worked. His office address was on letters he sent to Deatherage, but Deatherage said the guards wouldn’t give him the mail because he wouldn’t sign for it. Nate was certain he never gave Deatherage his home or business addresses during their meetings. Then Jimmy Deeks flashed through Nate’s mind. Deatherage talked with Deeks about Nate in the state penitentiary. Deeks knew where Nate lived when he was commonwealth’s attorney, on the farm in Whippoorwill Hollow.

Nate spun the car into a U-turn and raced the ten miles from Jeetersburg through Whippoorwill Hollow to the farm. After what seemed like an eternity, he slid to a stop in front of the house. A blue Ford pickup truck sat in the driveway. He ran toward the house. The mare whinnied from the corral. He stopped and looked down there. Chloe was saddled and bridled, the reins dangling to the ground. She trotted from the barn to the fence-line, tossing her head. Foam drooled from her mouth. Nate saw no sign of Christine or Deatherage around the barn. He ran to the fence-line to get a closer look at Chloe. He saw a spot of blood on her saddle. He turned and looked at the house. He saw a spatter of blood on the grass ahead of him. Nate ran up the hill to the house. The front door stood open. He crept up the porch steps and looked inside.

Deatherage was across the room at the dining table in front of a row of windows. He sat in a chair facing the front door with his feet propped on the table, smiling at Nate. “No need to sneak around. Come on in. It’s your house.”

Nate stepped inside and looked around the room and up the stairs toward the bedroom. “Where is she?”

Deatherage rocked on the back legs of the chair. “She’s takin a rest. Might be a pretty long rest.” He chuckled.

Nate scanned the area around Deatherage. There was no weapon out in the open.

“We seem to like the same kinda women,” Deatherage said. “Your wife’s little, like Claire. Darlene Updike was little, too. I like em little. It’s easier to make em do what you want when they’re little. It was easy to snatch Darlene outta her bed in the motel and drag her into the warehouse. It was easy to snatch your wife off that horse and drag her up to your bedroom. They fight like hell and yell and scream at first, but you hit em hard and they quiet down and stop fightin. Yes, sir. I like em little. Course, your wife’s a bit long in the tooth for my taste, but she ain’t bad for an old lady.”

Nate’s throat was tight, his mouth dry. He looked at the upstairs landing, at the door to the bedroom, imagining the hell Christine had suffered at Deatherage’s hands.