The Summons (31 page)

“What were you gonna do with it?”

“Ease it into banks, a dozen of them, nine thousand dollars at a time, no paperwork that would alert the government, let it pile up over eighteen months, then invest it with a pro. I’m forty-three; in two years the money would be laundered and hard at work. It would double every five years. At the age of fifty, it would be six million. Fifty-five, twelve million. At the age of sixty, I’d have twenty-four million bucks. I had it all planned, Harry Rex. I could see the future.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. What you did was normal.”

“It doesn’t feel normal.”

“You’re a lousy crook.”

“I felt lousy, and I was already changing. I could see myself in an airplane and a fancier sports car and a nicer place to live. There’s a lot of money around Charlottesville, and I was thinking about making a splash. Country clubs, fox hunting—”

“Fox hunting?”

“Yep.”

“With those little britches and the hat?”

“Flying over fences on a wild horse, chasing a pack of hounds that are in hot pursuit of a thirty-pound fox that you’ll never see.”

“Why would you wanna do that?”

“Why would anyone?”

“I’ll stick to huntin’ birds.”

“Anyway, it was a burden, literally. I mean, I’ve been hauling the cash around for weeks.”

“You could’ve left some at my office.”

Ray finished a tamale and sipped a cola. “You think I’m stupid?”

“No, lucky. This guy plays for keeps.”

“Every time I closed my eyes, I could see a bullet coming at my forehead.”

“Look, Ray, you’ve done nothing wrong. The Judge didn’t want the money included in his estate. You took it because you thought you were protectin’ it, and also guardin’ his reputation. You had a crazy man who wanted it more than you. Lookin’ back, you’re lucky you didn’t get hurt in the whole episode. Forget it.”

“Thanks, Harry Rex.” Ray leaned forward and watched the volunteer fireman walk away. “What about the arson?”

“We’ll work it out. I’ll file a claim, and the insurance company will investigate. They’ll suspect arson and thangs’ll get ugly. Let a few months pass. If they don’t pay, then we’ll sue, in Ford County. They won’t risk a jury trial against the estate of Reuben Atlee right here in his own courthouse. I think they’ll settle before trial. We may have to compromise some, but we’ll get a nice settlement.”

Ray was on his feet. “I really want to go home,” he said.

The air was thick with heat and smoke as they
walked around the house. “I’ve had enough,” Ray said, and headed for the street.

______

He drove a perfect fifty-five through The Bottoms. Elmer Conway was nowhere to be seen. The Audi seemed lighter with the trunk empty. Indeed, life itself was shedding burdens. Ray longed for the normalcy of home.

He dreaded the meeting with Forrest. Their father’s estate had just been wiped out, and the arson issue would be difficult to explain. Perhaps he should wait. Rehab was going so smoothly, and Ray knew from experience that the slightest complication could derail Forrest. Let a month go by. Then another.

Forrest would not be going back to Clanton, and in his murky world he might never hear of the fire. It might be best if Harry Rex broke the news to him.

The receptionist at Alcorn Village gave him a curious look when he signed in. He read magazines for a long time in the dark lounge where the visitors waited. When Oscar Meave eased in with a gloomy look, Ray knew exactly what had happened.

“He walked away late yesterday afternoon,” Meave began as he crouched on the coffee table in front of Ray. “I’ve tried to reach you all morning.”

“I lost my cell phone last night,” Ray said. Of all the things he’d left behind when the rocks were falling, he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten his cell phone.

“He signed in for the ridge walk, a five-mile nature trail he’s been doing every day. It’s around the back of
the property, no fencing, but then Forrest was not a security risk. We didn’t think so, anyway. I can’t believe this.”

Ray certainly could. His brother had been walking away from detox units for almost twenty years.

“This is not really a lockdown facility,” Meave continued. “Our patients want to stay here, or it doesn’t work.”

“I understand,” Ray said softly.

“He was doing so well,” Meave went on, obviously more troubled than Ray. “Completely clean and very proud of it. He had sort of adopted two teenagers, both in rehab for the first time. Forrest worked with them every morning. I just don’t understand this one.”

“I thought you are an ex-addict.”

Meave was shaking his head. “I know, I know. The addict quits when the addict wants to, and not before.”

“Have you ever seen one who just couldn’t quit?” Ray asked.

“We can’t admit that.”

“I know you can’t. But, off the record, you and I both know that there are addicts who will never kick it.”

Meave shrugged, with reluctance.

“Forrest is one of those, Oscar. We’ve lived this for twenty years.”

“I take it as a personal failure.”

“Don’t.”

They walked outside and talked for a moment under a veranda. Meave could not stop apologizing. For Ray, it was nothing unexpected.

Along the winding road back to the main highway, Ray wondered how his brother could simply walk away from a facility eight miles from the nearest town. But then, he had fled more secluded places.

He would go back to Memphis, back to his room in Ellie’s basement, back to the streets where pushers were waiting for him. The next phone call might be the last, but then Ray had been half-expecting it for many years. As sick as he was, Forrest had shown an amazing ability to survive.

Ray was in Tennessee now. Virginia was next, seven hours away. With a clear sky and no wind, he thought of how nice it would be at five thousand feet, buzzing around in his favorite rented Cessna.

CHAPTER 37

Both doors were new, unpainted, and much heavier than the old ones. Ray silently thanked his landlord for the extra expense, though he knew that there would be no more break-ins. The pursuit had ended. No more quick looks over the shoulder. No more sneaking to Chaney’s to play hide-and-seek. No more hushed conversations with Corey Crawford. And no more illicit money to fret over, and dream about, and haul around, literally. The lifting of that burden made him smile and walk a bit faster.

Life would become normal again. Long runs in the heat. Long solo flights over the Piedmont. He even looked forward to his neglected research for the monopolies treatise he’d promised to deliver by either this Christmas or the one after. He had softened on the Kaley issue and was ready for one last attempt at dinner. She was legal now, a graduate, and she
simply looked too fine to write off without a decent effort.

His apartment was the same, its usual condition since no one else lived there. Other than the door, there was no evidence of a forced entry. He now knew that his burglar had not really been a thief after all, just a tormentor, an intimidator. Either Gordie or one of his brothers. He wasn’t sure how they had divided their labors, nor did he care.

It was almost 11 A.M. He made some strong coffee and began shuffling through the mail. No more anonymous letters. Nothing now but the usual bills and solicitations.

There were two faxes in the tray. The first was a note from a former student. The second was from Patton French. He’d been trying to call, but Ray’s cell phone wasn’t working. It was handwritten on the stationery from the
King of Torts
, no doubt faxed from the gray waters of the Gulf where French was still hiding his boat from his wife’s divorce lawyer.

Good news on the security front! Not long after Ray had left the coast, Gordie Priest had been “located,” along with both of his brothers. Could Ray please give him a call? His assistant would find him.

Ray worked the phone for two hours, until French called from a hotel in Fort Worth, where he was meeting with some Ryax and Kobril lawyers. “I’ll probably get a thousand cases up here,” he said, unable to control himself.

“Wonderful,” said Ray. He was determined not to
listen to any more crowing about mass torts and zillion-dollar settlements.

“Is your phone secure?” French asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, listen. Priest is no longer a threat. We found him shortly after you left, laid up drunk with an old gal he’s been seeing for a long time. Found both brothers too. Your money is safe.”

“Exactly when did you find them?” Ray asked. He was hovering over the kitchen table with a large calendar spread before him. Time was crucial here. He’d made notes in the margins as he’d waited for the call.

French thought for a second. “Uh, let’s see. What’s today?”

“Monday, June the fifth.”

“Monday. When did you leave the coast?”

“Ten o’clock Friday morning.”

“Then it was just after lunch on Friday.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

“And once you found him, there was no way they left the coast?”

“Trust me, Ray, they’ll never leave the coast again. They’ve, uh, found a permanent home there.”

“I don’t want those details.” Ray sat at the table and stared at the calendar.

“What’s the matter?” French asked. “Something wrong?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“What is it?”

“Somebody burned the house down.”

“Judge Atlee’s?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“After midnight, Saturday morning.”

A pause as French absorbed this, then, “Well, it wasn’t the Priest boys, I can promise you that.”

When Ray said nothing, French asked, “Where’s the money?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled.

A five-mile run did nothing to ease his tension. Though, as always, he was able to plot things, to rearrange his thoughts. The temperature was above ninety, and he was soaked with sweat when he returned to his apartment.

Now that Harry Rex had been told everything, it was comforting to have someone with whom to share the latest. He called his office in Clanton and was informed that he was in court over in Tupelo and wouldn’t be back until late. He called Ellie’s house in Memphis and no one bothered to answer. He called Oscar Meave at Alcorn Village, and, expecting to hear no news of his brother’s whereabouts, got exactly what he expected.

So much for the normal life.

______

After a tense morning of back-and-forth negotiations in the hallways of the Lee County Courthouse, bickering over such issues as who’d get the ski boat and who’d get the cabin on the lake, and how much he would pay in a lump-sum cash settlement, the divorce
was settled an hour after lunch. Harry Rex had the husband, an overheated cowboy on wife number three who thought he knew more divorce law than his lawyer. Wife number three was an aging bimbo in her late twenties who’d caught him with her best friend. It was the typical, sordid tale, and Harry Rex was sick of the whole mess when he walked to the bench and presented a hard-fought property settlement agreement.

The chancellor was a veteran who’d divorced thousands. “Very sorry about Judge Atlee,” he said softly as he began to review the papers. Harry Rex just nodded. He was tired and thirsty and already contemplating a cold one as he drove the backroad to Clanton. His favorite beer store in the Tupelo area was at the county line.

“We served together for twenty-two years,” the chancellor was saying.

“A fine man,” Harry Rex said.

“Are you doing the estate?”

“Yes sir.”

“Give my regards to Judge Farr over there.”

“I will.”

The paperwork was signed, the marriage mercifully terminated, the warring spouses sent to their neutral homes. Harry Rex was out of the courthouse and halfway to his car when a lawyer chased him down and stopped him on the sidewalk. He introduced himself as Jacob Spain, Attorney-at-Law, one of a thousand in Tupelo. He’d been in the courtroom and overheard the chancellor mention Judge Atlee.

“He has a son, right, Forrest?” Spain asked.

“Two sons, Ray and Forrest.” Harry Rex took a breath and settled in for a quick visit.

“I played high school football against Forrest; in fact he broke my collarbone with a late hit.”

“That sounds like Forrest.”

“I played at New Albany. Forrest was a junior when I was a senior. Did you see him play?”

“Yes, many times.”

“You remember the game over there against us when he threw for three hundred yards in the first half? Four or five touchdowns, I think.”

“I do,” Harry Rex said, and started to fidget. How long was this going to take?

“I was playing safety that night, and he was firing passes all over the place. I picked one off right before half-time, ran it out of bounds, and he speared me while I was on the ground.”

“That was one of his favorite plays.” Hit ’em hard and hit ’em late had been Forrest’s motto, especially those defensive backs unlucky enough to intercept one of his passes.

“I think he was arrested the next week,” Spain was saying. “What a waste. Anyway, I saw him just a few weeks ago, here in Tupelo, with Judge Atlee.”

The fidgeting stopped. Harry Rex forgot about a cold one, at least for the moment. “When was this?” he asked.

“Right before the Judge died. It was a strange scene.”

They took a few steps and found shade under a tree. “I’m listening,” Harry Rex said, loosening his tie. His wrinkled navy blazer was already off “My wife’s mother is being treated for breast cancer at the Taft Clinic. One Monday afternoon back in the spring I drove her over there for another round of chemo.”

“Judge Atlee went to Taft,” Harry Rex said. “I’ve seen the bills.”

“Yes, that’s where I saw him. I checked her in, there was a wait, so I went to my car to make a bunch of calls. While I was sitting there, I watched as Judge Atlee pulled up in a long black Lincoln driven by someone I didn’t recognize. They got the thing parked, just two cars down, and they got out. His driver then looked familiar—big guy, big frame, long hair, kind of a cocky swagger that I’ve seen before. It hit me that it was Forrest. I could tell by the way he walked and moved. He was wearing sunglasses and a cap pulled low. They went inside, and within seconds Forrest came back out.”