Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7) (28 page)

He pulled off the road on vacant pinewoods land across from the property, a thousand yards away from the main entrance. Jesse reached in his backseat, pulled the green Army blanket off his guns, found the .45 caliber pistol next to his shotgun. He set the bottle of vodka on the center console and held the pistol in his scarred hands. Lifting the end of the barrel to his nostrils,
he smelled the gun oil. Jesse looked to his left and then right. No traffic. He got out of his car, shoving the pistol under his belt, grabbing the bottle of liquor.

He sauntered across the street, walking up to the fence. He stood on the same property he hadn’t walked on in fifty years. His heart beat faster. Palms sweaty. He hiked along the outside of the fence for about one hundred feet, coming to a locked gate. It was a small entrance, barely large enough for a compact car to drive through if the gate was open.

Jesse stood there, looking at the buildings in the distance, remembering the long days and excruciating nights here. His breathing came quicker. He was back inside—transported through a keyhole he could never lock, back to the first night he was marched to the White House. At least five boys were forced to stand in line outside the door to the torture chamber. The fan started.
Whump – whump – whump
. Then the crack of the leather on flesh. The sound was like a firecracker. It was followed by the first scream. Always the loudest scream before the boys lost their voice during the begging, pleading and the crying. Smack of the whip.
Whump – whump – whump
. The screams faded as the crack of leather, chewing into bleeding flesh, seemed to move in sync with the turning of the fan blades.
Whump - whump – whack – scream
.

The boy standing in front of Jesse was probably ten years old. He stood rigid, tears trickling down his pink cheeks, legs shaking. He glanced back at Jesse. The boy turned around, not looking up at the fleshy man whose job it was to send them inside. One-by-one. The youngest boy’s shoulders trembled, urine staining his pajamas and pooling between his bare feet.

It was a week later, Jesse’s buttocks still covered with open lacerations, when the Preacher came into his bunk in the cottage. It was a hot summer night. No air moving through the screened in windows. The pulse of crickets chirping loud outside. Preacher smelled of
tobacco and bourbon. His body stank of sweat, testosterone and diesel grease. He grabbed Jesse by the back of his neck, his strong fingers digging into his tendons, the strength of his grip almost paralyzing. “It’s time for your next whupin’ boy. Lay across that bunk on your stomach. He pushed Jesse face down onto the cot. “Don’t you scream, hear me boy?”

The sound of a semi-truck moving through its gears brought Jesse back to the present. He looked at the bottle of vodka in his hand. It was at least three-quarters full. He held the neck of the bottle and smashed it against one of the steel fence posts, shattering the glass. Then Jesse pulled out the pistol, gripping it with both of his scarred hands, aiming and shooting the padlock off the gate. He picked up the lock and walked back to his car. He sat there, his heart hammering. Breathing hard. Trying to fill his lungs with air. Sweat beading on his brow. Nausea billowed from his stomach like sulfurous gas.

Jesse opened his car door, vomiting on the ground. He leaned back in his seat, his head on the headrest, the lock in one hand. He started his car and drove back toward the main entrance to the school. The pickup truck was still where he’d seen it. It looked like Johnny Hines was watching television. Jesse got out of his car and walked up to the guardhouse.

Hines opened the door, stepping outside, staring at Jesse approaching, not sure what to say. Hines rested one hand on his holstered pistol. “You again, Jesse? You’d think after spending time here as a kid this would be the last place you’d want to visit. Why you back here?”

Jesse said nothing. He looked down at the man’s hand on the butt of the pistol. He grinned and said, “What you gonna do, Hines, shoot me for walkin’ across the parking lot?”

“What’d you want?”

“From you, nothing. From Hack Johnson, a real sincere apology for being an asshole pedophile.”

Johnny Hines’ chin jutted out a half inch, his right hand still on the pistol butt. “You look like shit. You been drinkin’ or are you truly insane.”

“I know you’re tight with the Johnson clan. You told ‘em when I rolled into town.” Jesse reached for the lock in his jean’s pocket. “Found this on your south gate. Looks like you got a breach of a previously secure facility on your hands, Johnny. Could be all kinds of vandals on the property fornicating and writing graffiti on these hallowed buildings.” Jesse held the lock up to his eye, looking through the hole in the center. He stuck his index finger into the hole, handing the lock to Hines. “It’s a souvenir for Hack. Deliver it to him and let him know he’s not secure either.”

Johnny Hines held the lock in the palm of his hand, staring at it, cutting his eyes up to Jesse. “You did this?”

“I’m flatly denying it.”

“You damage state property and there will be consequences.”

“When the state damages and kills kids, there should be consequences.”

“I can’t arrest you, but the sheriff can. I’m calling this in.”

Jesse grinned. “Before you do, Johnny, remember this…I used to have fun with your brother Frank. We’d give each other noogies, horseplay, but then one day Frank and two of his buddies decided they wanted to jump me. I had a job. I worked. Made money. They didn’t. I’d
just cashed my check when they jumped me. Frank was in the hospital for two days. His buddies took a lickin’ and barely crawled away.”

Hines’ eyes narrowed, a vein jumping on the left side of his neck. “
You
did that to my brother?”

“And I’ll do it to you. So go on and call the law. It’s my word against yours. Nobody saw me shoot anything. I’m gonna turn around and head back into town. You be a good snitch and deliver that to Hack. Tell him to lock his doors and windows.”

Jesse turned around, got into his car and drove down the exit toward town. He stopped at the end of the drive, looking into his rearview mirror as Johnny Hines lifted a phone to his ear.

I sent a text to Carly Brown at the FBI, giving her the delivery address of the motel where I was staying. I hoped she’d have time to make an overnight delivery for the morning. I’d hit the send button when my phone buzzed. It was Dave Collins. “Sean, I’ve been doing some gentle poking and prodding, looking for what Jeff Carson did in the prosecutor’s office while he was in Miami-Dade.”

“What’d you find?”

“Probably the reason you didn’t see him in the state attorneys office is because he quit working for the state and went into private practice. He became a defense lawyer for three years before working his way back into the prosecutor’s office up in the Second District.”

“Who’d he defend?”

“I thought you might ask that. All very wealthy clients, of course. A couple of high stakes divorces. He did a tax evasion and fraud case. The client was Ronald St. Arnold, a guy who owns a cruise line based out of Miami. Looks like Carson saved him a bundle and possible jail time. One of Carson’s clients was James Winston. Winston’s wife had filed for divorce and hired a big time LA based lawyer to represent her. She was suing him for a substantial share of his assets, a beach house, along with enough alimony money to float a small town’s annual budget. Mrs. Winston and three other people, all well-heeled, were on a ninety-foot Ferretti yacht, en route from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas. About nine miles off the western coast of Bimini there was an explosion and fire. No one survived. They didn’t even have a chance to get off a distress signal. The channel in that part of the Atlantic is very deep. What’s left of the yacht is on the ocean floor, miles beneath the surface.”

“I remember that. It was investigated by a half dozen law enforcement agencies. They called it an ‘unfortunate mystery,’ if I recall correctly. Another casualty of the Bermuda Triangle.”

“Jeff Carson, as a defense attorney, is good at maritime law, too. He’s so good, in fact, he sued the yacht manufacturer. Nothing could be proved, of course. But the tactic dimmed the spotlight of suspicion as to a deliberate and intentional cause. It took the heat off Winston, and it quickly evolved into a tragic and freak accident to blame on someone else. James Winston collected two million dollars from his wife’s life insurance. None of the bodies, even so much as a finger, were ever found.”

“That explains a lot.”

“So now, fast forward a few years, James Winston and Jeff Carson are reunited. The assurance of a clean bill of sale on the reform school property represents millions to Winston’s company, and Jeff Carson is first in line to get a nice bonus for making it happen and for stopping anything to keep it from happening. That last part, Sean, is up to you.”

“And now I have a better hand of cards courtesy of my friend, Carly Brown, with the FBI. Her techs completed the electrostatic on the brass head of the shotgun shell. They found a pearl in that oyster. More than fifty years in the making. Nothing matched in their database. I have high hopes my new BFF, Deputy Ivan Parker, can find a match somewhere here in Jackson County.”

Dave grunted. “Well, that’s better news. Should you and the good deputy be successful—all a prosecutor has to do is prove the perp and the shotgun were at the crime scene the same night when the boy was killed. You’re getting closer, Sean. But you’re still heading into the woods, not coming out.”

“At least I know where the woods are now. I just have to help a deputy find a print.”

“Before you left, sitting here at the table with Nick and me, I suggested you’ll have to look under a mountain of hay to find the proverbial needle. You said if the hay’s burned, the needle will be left, a little charred, but there in the ashes somewhere. I hope you don’t have to result to arson to find it. Could be way too much collateral damage.”

“I also said a magnet is a good way to find it, to draw out the perp. I just have to get the magnet close enough to start the pull, to lure a spider out of a hole. Give Max a hug for me. Looks like I’ll be awhile. And Dave, I’m going to need you to overnight a GPS tracker to my motel.”

FIFTY-FIVE

I
had one minute to make the call. It was 4:59 on Friday afternoon. Maybe someone would answer the phone in the state attorney’s office before the magic hour of five o’clock when all calls were sent to a digital receptionist. I punched the number to Lana Halley’s office. The greeting kicked in and, again, it was the baritone voice of state attorney Jeff Carson telling us his office was closed for the day. He or a representative would be glad to help us the following business day.

Friday evening. The next business day—Monday. I didn’t have Lana’s cell phone number. At least I didn’t think I did. I drove through Marianna as fast as I could risk it, pulling into the courthouse parking lot a quarter past five. And, on a Friday evening, the lot was almost empty. Three cars. What were the chances one of those cars would be owned by Lana? Slim.

I parked and waited, taking the opportunity to see if I’d stored her number during or after the Pablo Gonzales trial. Lana wasn’t in my contacts. No indication of a phone number. Did she still have the same phone number? I had no choice but to wait.

A woman exited the building from one of three doors in the rear of the courthouse closest to the reserved area for employee parking. She was at least fifty, redhead, and making a fast beeline to a minivan. Two cars left and now it was 5:30 p.m. A man came from the same door. He wore a dark sports coat, jeans, carrying a brief case, a phone held to his ear.

The last car was a Subaru SUV. I tried to picture Lana driving a Subaru. I had no idea if she enjoyed the outdoors, going places an all-wheel-drive like the one in the lot could take her. As a matter of fact, I knew nothing about Lana with the exception of her courtroom performances. And that’s what they always were. Not a performance unique to Lana, but rather one unique to the profession of law. Some of the greatest actors aren’t trained in drama schools. They’re trained in law schools. A jury is a small audience selected to decide who has the better attorney.
If the glove doesn’t fit…

It was now almost six o’clock, the sun getting lower in the west, the Subaru still where someone had parked it when he or she came to work earlier this morning. The door opened and Lana Halley stepped out, purse over one shoulder, briefcase in the opposite hand. I started my Jeep and drove toward her car. She looked up, probably unable to identify me from the angle the sunset was reflecting off my windshield.

I pulled closer to her, my driver’s side window down. “I have a feeling you’re the last person out of your office.”

She stared at me for a moment, shook her head. “Are you stalking me?”

“I’m only wanting a brief and friendly visit with an assistant state attorney.”

“Make an appointment.”

She started to walk around my Jeep to her car. “Lana, wait a second, please. Just listen.” I shut off the engine and got out.

“Sean, just go take your conspiracy theories someplace else, okay? It’s been a long week. I’m going home.”