Dead River (38 page)

“Mr. Goudy didn’t tell me that.”

“Mr. Goudy?” the man said laughingly, apparently amused by the formality. “Call that old fart Arno … Say, I didn’t get your name.”

“It’s Adam.”

“Good to meet you, Adam,” the man said, holding out his hand. “My name’s Bill. I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”

“You haven’t. Today’s my first time.”

“I shoot in their indoor range every now and then. I enjoy the drive up from Sebastian. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Sure. Thanks for the information about the gun.”

“My pleasure.”

Adam caught a glimpse of Arno out of the corner of his eye. He was pulling the receiver away from his ear, laughing and shaking his head, the ponytail dancing behind his head.

“So what do you think?” Arno blurted out.

He wobbled back in Adam’s direction, occasionally slapping down a hand on the edge of the showcase to steady his large frame.

“Think I’ll take it,” Adam said, holding up the Glock.

“Very good.” Arno took a final step and stopped then wheeled around. “You know there’s a three-day waiting period before you can pick it up, right?”

“Yes, I know that.”

“All right then. You got some paperwork to fill out, and I’ll need to see your driver’s license.”

 82

AT TEN MONDAY MORNING the two motions were filed with the Brevard County Clerk of Courts. Harley sat in a wonderstruck trance at his desk. Reaching underneath the seat of the overstuffed brown-leather executive chair, he tugged on the tilt lever until the back started to smoothly recline. He had too much legal experience under his belt to sail off on a premature victory cruise. But this one felt too good, too alluring, too … oh hell, this one felt incredible.

He tried to extinguish the swarm of thoughts that buzzed around in his mind, the glorious battles that could be won, the brilliant conquests, especially those that featured Mr. Slick, squirming and sweating under the oppressive media lights, answering rapid-fire questions about corruption and incompetence.

He didn’t want to think about any of this right now, but he was lost, drifting …

“Mr. Buckwald,” a soft voice called out.

“Mr. Buckwald.”

There it is again, Harley thought. His eyes were still open and fixed on the churning ceiling fan.

“Mr. Buckwald, you all right?”

Harley’s head cleared slowly. His eyes finally lowered and focused across the desk. He leaned forward in the chair and smiled. “Maureen. Yes, I’m fine.”

“You looked like you’d been hypnotized,” Maureen said, with a hint of concern.

“Just trying to clear my mind.”

“You have a one o’clock with Mr. Allison in the main conference room.”

Harley checked his watch. It was exactly one. “Thanks.”

Harley slapped his old friend and law partner, George Allison, on the back as he strolled into the conference room. Maureen already had a thermos filled with piping hot coffee sitting on the conference table. Beside it were two white porcelain mugs imprinted with the University of Georgia bulldog.

“Coffee?” Harley asked.

“Sure.”

Harley streamed the steamy coffee from the thermos, filling the tall mugs, then offered one to his partner.

“Thank you, counselor,” Allison said, smiling as he reached for the coffee.

The two sat silent for a few moments.

“The motions were filed this morning, George,” Harley said confidently.

“Getting a little cocky about now, are we?” Allison asked, grinning extensively. His wide smile accentuated the abrupt crevices in his cheeks. Three on the right side and two on the left ran from his jawbone to his filmy, steel-gray eyes. Two years from his planned retirement at sixty-two, he looked more like he was ten years into it.

“Trying not to,” Harley said, reflectively, “but I can’t resist thinking about shoving this one up Jacobson’s ass.”

“Yeah, I think Sam Weber’s already done that for you.”

Harley let out a burst of laughter that reddened his cheeks. His barrel chest shook, stressing the buttons on his vest. “I … guess he did.”

“When do you think you’ll hear something?”

“Next week, some time after the Thanksgiving break. Jacobson’s going to be completely stressed out over this because the week after next the case is scheduled to go before the grand jury.”

“Shit, that’s right. No prosecutor in his right mind would take this to a grand jury right now. He’ll have to request a postponement.”

“You’d think,” Harley agreed.

“Christ, the publicity’s going to kill our wannabe state attorney general.”

“I know, and that’s why the asshole’s not going to make it easy for us.”

“Well, if he’s smart, he’d let this one go. Hell, without the lab report he doesn’t have a case. He should give it up and cut his losses, and bank on the media moving on to something else.”

“Smart, that’s the key word, George. Anybody else would do that, but not him. He’s truly his own worst enemy.”

“That’s for sure,” Allison said, snorting out a laugh.

Then Harley watched Allison’s eyes morph into a solemn gaze.

“How do you think this is all going to play out, Harley?”

Harley slowly sipped the last of his coffee then set the mug down on the porcelain coaster in front of him.

“I think the first thing that’s going to happen is Judge Vetter will strongly suggest that Mr. Slick depose Sam Weber and Garrett Townsend. But that will prove interesting.”

“Why?”

“Because Weber’s retained an attorney. You know Rufus Cline?”

“Isn’t he with Bowersox, Green, and Bernstein in Winter Park?”

“That’s the one. Ole Rufus will have Weber spitting out fifth-amendments to every damn question.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Hell yes, I would. The point is that the grand jury hearing will have to be delayed, whether Mr. Slick requests it or not. But what’s really important is when Vetter reviews Garrett Townsend’s deposition testimony, he’ll have no choice but to insist the state attorney throw out the hair sample evidence.”

“You think Jacobson will still want to go forward with prosecuting Sikes?”

“I’m sure of it. At least initially he will, but I’m also sure the good judge will tell him to give it up. A nasty, high-profile trial, with a low probability of conviction and high probability of making him look very bad, oh yes, the judge is going to help us out here. I guarantee it.”

“I hope you’re right,” Allison offered.

Harley pulled back his left shirt sleeve and checked his watch. “Got to go. I’m meeting with David Sikes in little over an hour.”

 83

HIS ONLY WAY of telling time was the delivery of trays of food shoved through the narrow slit in the cell door. Breakfast at seven, lunch at twelve, and dinner at five. A couple of times Sikes didn’t make it to the door in time and the tray was left for gravity, splattering the food on the slick concrete floor, leaving a heap of garbage that was beyond anyone’s desire for sustenance. This added to the stench that seemed to grow worse with each passing day.

The dim bulb overhead had burned out, and no one would listen to his reasonable request for a replacement. Now the days were as dark as the nights. There was only that narrow stream of light cutting its way through the slot in the stone-gray metal door, casting haunting shadows inside the cold cell. By now Sikes figured a transfer to another cell would be the only way he would see light again.

When sleep didn’t come, Sikes kept busy by meticulously scraping the chalky green paint from the concrete-block wall opposite his bed with his fingernails. He formed a neat pile in the far corner of the cell by the toilet, where the stream of light from the slit in the door hit at its fullest extent. The pile was growing and so was his understanding of what needed to be done.

He scratched and scraped at the paint, the flecks floating almost weightlessly to the floor, the beam of light flickering off the pieces as they fluttered down.

“I’m doing the best I can, Mother,” he said, breathing heavily. “I always do my best.”

He scratched harder at the wall with his right index finger, catching only a few of the paint flecks in his left hand as they floated downward.

“But you expect too much of me. You know that, right?”

He scraped even harder, feeling the skin beginning to tear loose. He finally stopped then guided his finger into the beam of light. Rich crimson blood flowed from his fingertip down his hand.

“Look what you’ve done, Mother,” he snarled through clenched teeth.

He thrust his hand upward and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling for several moments. Droplets of blood splattered on his forehead like paint from a brush.

“Goddamn it, look what you’ve done to me,” he shouted.

“Hey, Sikes, who the fuck you talkin’ to in there?” a guard barked through the slot in the cell door.

Sikes lowered his arm and stood in silence.

“Your attorney’s here,” the guard growled.

Still no reply.

“You hear me in there, you crazy shit?”

“Yes,” Sikes answered in a deep, throaty tone. “I hear you.”

“You are one weird fuck. Okay, you know the routine. Back to the wall with your hands on your head.”

 84

THE TWO GUARDS were nearly dragging Sikes down the long corridor that snaked through the west end of cell block B. To both men he didn’t seem to be consciously resisting them, instead the feeling was more like trying to move along a drunken friend that had finally reached a pathetic, torpid state after too many beers.

As they approached a gray metal door, Sikes suddenly straightened up from the waist, his extremities stiffening.

“You’re one freaky dude,” one of the guards said only inches from Sikes’s face. “Anyone in there?” he asked, giving Sikes’s brow a light knuckle rap.

Sikes didn’t wince. He stared straight ahead as the other guard pulled the door open.

Inside the room, Harley was poised in a thoughtful moment, his hands buried deep in his front pockets. He watched as his client was led to a metal table. They were in the maximum security sector of the jail, and Sikes’s handcuffs had to be secured to an eyelet welded crudely to the top of the table, according to regulations.

“Just beat on the door when you’re done,” one of the guards said to Harley as he shut the heavy metal door.

The door creaked to a close, followed by the dull thud of the lock engaging, which echoed in the musty, windowless room.

Harley loosened his tie and pulled a chair up to the table. As he dropped into it he noted his client’s distant gaze. Sikes’s eyes were sunken into his skull, black circles painted their perimeters.

“You all right, son?” Harley asked.

Sikes was silent, seemingly staring at something over Harley’s head. His dark-brown hair was greasy and uncombed, matted wisps hung on his forehead. Blood stained the right shoulder of his county-issued orange jumpsuit.

“Where’d the blood come from?”

Still no response.

Harley leaned sideways and reached for his briefcase, slamming it down hard on the table. He retrieved a manila folder, pushed the briefcase to the side, and spread out the contents from the folder in front of him.

“You see these, son?” Harley asked. He held up two documents in his right hand. “They are two motions that were filed this morning with the clerk of courts.”

Every muscle in Sikes’s face was frozen, his eyes unblinking and detached. To Harley he seemed like a department-store mannequin, rigid and vacant of life.

“You going to talk, or should I leave?”

The room seemed to swell with the heavy air rushing across the ventilation louvers caked with dusty mold. The two naked incandescent bulbs overhead added to the heat of the moment. Harley undid the top button on his shirt then loosened his tie further.