The Wrong Side (Bocephus Haynes), page 17
Very Truly Yours,
Helen Evangeline Lewis
After taking a few moments to read and reread the letter, Frannie walked out of the office, still holding it in her hand. “Is this for real?” she asked Trish.
The veteran staff member nodded. “She cleaned out her office this morning. I’ve sent the original of that letter to Judge Page.” Harold Page was the dean of the judges in the Twenty-Second Judicial Circuit, and it would be up to him to appoint an acting district attorney general.
“Do you expect him to select Gloria as the General recommended?”
She handed Frannie another piece of paper. “He already has.”
Frannie snatched the page and held it up—an administrative order issued by the Honorable Harold Page, appointing assistant prosecutor, Gloria Sanchez, as the interim district attorney general for the Twenty-Second Judicial District.
Frannie looked from the page to Trish, whose face was pale, her eyes red. “This come as a shock to you?”
“I still can’t believe it,” the secretary managed, her voice shaky.
“Did she tell you anything else besides what’s in her letter?”
Trish clasped her hands together. “She said she was exhausted. That she’d been tired since the election and that the last couple of days had taken too much of a toll. That the Crutcher case deserved better than what she could offer.”
Frannie stared at Trish but saw no sign that the assistant was lying to her. She looked again at Helen’s letter. This is crazy. She started to walk back into the General’s office but hesitated when she heard footsteps entering the reception area behind her. She turned and saw Gloria Sanchez striding toward her. The young prosecutor had an olive complexion, brown hair, and a wiry frame. She stopped when she was a couple of feet away from Frannie. For a long moment, the two women sized each other up. Gloria had started in the DA’s office around the same time Frannie had joined the sheriff’s department. Though Frannie wasn’t friends with many of her colleagues, she had always liked Gloria, and they’d sometimes worked out together at the Curry Center after hours.
“Hell of a day you’re having . . . General,” Frannie said, a slight tease in her voice.
“I could say the same about your weekend,” Gloria fired back, a tired smile forming on her face. “We have a lot of work to do.”
44
At 9:00 p.m., Helen sat in the front seat of her Crown Vic, gazing up at the mansion on the hill. Her phone rang several times. She looked down at the screen, seeing the digits she knew by heart. This time, she didn’t answer. She didn’t want to talk with him, didn’t want to talk with anyone. Eventually, she pulled back onto Highway 31 and drove back toward town, parking near Maplewood Cemetery.
Earlier today, Brittany Crutcher had been laid to rest right here. Helen hadn’t gone to the funeral service at Bickland Creek Baptist Church. After boxing up her things and drafting her leave of absence letter, she’d fled downtown Pulaski and driven to her house. After unloading all the boxes, she’d packed her suitcase without much conscious thought. She didn’t want to stick around for the onslaught of questions. If they wanted to talk with her, they could call.
Then, after leaving her house, she’d driven the back roads of Giles County for hours, thinking everything through one last time, always coming to the same conclusion.
She knew she had done the right thing. There was no way she could prosecute Odell Champagne for murder. Not with Bo possibly serving as his attorney. And not with . . . my son as a person of interest.
Helen stared out at the two and a half acres of land that marked the final resting place for thousands of sons and daughters of Pulaski. Many times over the past three and a half months, Helen had climbed over the fence that enclosed the cemetery and sat beside her dead ex-husband’s grave. She would apologize to Butch and ask God to forgive her. And, many times, she’d gotten drunk.
Tonight, she wouldn’t go inside. Though Brittany’s burial had been several hours ago and Helen didn’t see any people or cars around, she couldn’t take the chance of being seen here at night. After all, it was a crime to be at the cemetery after dark.
Helen managed a bitter laugh. Given what she’d done and gotten away with, it was ludicrous for her to worry about a trespassing-after-dark charge. And yet she did. Her whole life had become an ironic farce.
She said one last prayer for forgiveness.
Then, hating herself and who she had become, Helen Evangeline Lewis left Pulaski.
45
Bo stared at the woman on the bed, who drifted in and out of consciousness. “Sabrina,” he whispered. “It’s me, Bo. I’m here.”
When she didn’t look up, he moved his eyes around the small room, glancing at the different monitors that kept track of her blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and heart rate. A nurse came in and placed a cold washcloth on Sabrina’s forehead.
Bo stood to allow more room. The number that Sabrina had given Lona was to the hospital. She’d been admitted to the detox unit of Southern Tennessee Regional Health System, formerly known as Hillside Hospital, on Saturday evening after Frannie had brought her to the emergency room. The only visitors she’d given permission to see her were her son and Bo.
As the nurse was leaving, Bo saw that Sabrina’s eyes were now open. He sat down and took her hand. “Hey, you OK?”
“Bo?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“You came.” Tears formed in the corners of Sabrina’s eyes.
“You called me.” He paused, again glancing around the hospital room. “How are you feeling?”
“Shaky. Very shaky.”
“What happened to you on Friday? I called and texted you at the game.”
She grimaced. “The game . . . I missed the game.”
“That’s not all you’ve missed,” Bo said.
“He didn’t do it,” she said, closing her eyes. “He couldn’t have hurt that girl.”
“How do you know about it?”
“Chief Storm has been up here a couple times. She asked me some questions about Odell and said they’d searched my apartment.” She pointed toward the door. “Plus, there’s a TV room they let us go to. Seems like there’s a news story about that girl’s murder every time I go in there.”
“Did the sheriff’s office find anything at your place?”
“Chief Storm didn’t say.”
Bo pushed his chair back and crossed his legs. The room had a sour stink to it, a mixture of sweat and vomit and unwashed bodies. He didn’t want to be here any longer than he had to be.
“What have the doctors said?” Bo asked.
“Pancreatitis,” she said, coughing the last syllable out. “And alcohol addiction. They want me to go to rehab.”
“You should.”
“Can’t afford it,” Sabrina said. “My insurance won’t cover it. Besides, rehab ain’t gonna work on me.”
“You won’t know unless you try.”
“Easy for you to say. Everyone thinks they can fix me. All I got to do is go to rehab and listen to some shrinks. Group therapy.” She chuckled. “My name is Sabrina Champagne, and I’m an addict.”
“Treatment has worked for a lot of people.”
She coughed. “Not me. Tried it three years ago when we were in Town Creek. Bradford for ninety days. All I got out of that was three months’ worth of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. So now I’m addicted to that too.”
“What did Odell do while you were gone?”
“Stayed with his aunt in Trinity, Alabama.”
Bo crossed his arms. “Does Odell know you’re here?”
Her lip began to tremble again. “Yes. I called the jail and left my number, and he called me here yesterday. He told me that he’d asked you to represent him but that he hadn’t heard from you yet.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Bo said. “I’ve known the Crutcher family all my life.”
“He didn’t kill that girl, Bo,” she whined. “He’s innocent. You have to know that.”
“Whether I represent him or not, he’ll get a fair trial.”
She snickered. “Will he? A Black transient from Town Creek? You’re smarter than that, Bocephus Haynes.”
“Why did you ask me to come here?”
She leaned over the bed and grabbed his hand. “Help my baby, Bo. Please. Help him.”
Bo wriggled out of her grasp, trying not to gag from the smell. “I told Odell I would think about it, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“Thinking ain’t going to help my boy.”
“You think you’re helping him, Sabrina? Have they told you why you have pancreatitis?”
Her eyes again went misty.
“Because you’re drinking yourself to death, right? How is that helping your boy? You’re addicted to alcohol and drugs, but you won’t get help.”
“Bo, my husband abandoned me when Odell was five years old. I’ve raised him entirely on my own.”
“And you carry that badge with you wherever you go. It doesn’t excuse your drinking and drug use. You can’t use that as a crutch your whole life.” Bo gritted his teeth. “I know that times were hard. I mean, I can only imagine. But Billy leaving you is no excuse for throwing your whole life away.”
Sabrina began to sob. Bo swiveled and headed for the door. He couldn’t take any more.
“Please, Bo. I’ll get help, I promise. I’ll try. I’ll fight the insurance company and find somewhere to go. Please represent Odell.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, opening the door and hesitating for several seconds. “But for Odell’s sake, I hope you prove me wrong.”
46
Have you decided yet?
Bo peered at his phone and shook his head. Booker T. had sent him several similar texts since Saturday. Bo had answered them all the same. He started to type out No again but then stopped himself. He took another sip of beer and looked up at the TV screen, where a rerun of Cheers was playing.
After leaving the hospital, Bo had gotten fast food for the kids and asked T. J. to watch Lila, saying he needed some time to clear his head. He’d gone for a long walk, eventually ending up at Kathy’s Tavern, one of downtown Pulaski’s oldest, most successful watering holes.
He’d ordered a Yuengling in a bottle and a cheeseburger, the house specialty. For the past hour, he’d been lost in his thoughts as the Monday Night Football crowd began to filter out after the game was over. Other than Bo himself, the only other person in the place now was Clete Sartain, who sat on a barstool in the corner, stroking his white Santa Claus beard and sipping Natural Light from a can. Bo and Clete went way back, but they’d already exchanged pleasantries and both were happy to drink alone. Finally, Clete patted Bo on the back and headed for the door himself. “Hope you figure it out, Bo.”
Bo called to him over his shoulder. “Figure what out?”
“Whatever the hell is on your mind,” Clete said, not turning back to look at him.
Bo couldn’t help but smile, and looking over the bar, he saw that the bartender was also smiling. “Old Clete is something else, isn’t he, Cassie?”
Cassie Dugan was a thirtysomething-year-old woman who’d been tending the bar at Kathy’s ever since she turned twenty-one. She wore her customary football season outfit, which consisted of cutoff jeans, a UT Vols number 19 jersey with the name “Manning” on the back of it, and a Tennessee Titans cap covering her brown hair. She was an attractive woman whose good-natured personality made her a favorite of patrons. She was also a great source of information and had aided Bo with key nuggets over the years. More importantly, she was the de facto manager of Fizz, and Bo had watched her sing at Brittany’s funeral earlier today. As he finished his third beer, he admitted to himself that Cassie was the real reason he was here. Even trying to clear his mind, he was, in actuality, working the case.
“They broke the mold when they made him,” Cassie agreed. “Another beer, Bo?” She grabbed the empty Yuengling and flung it into a garbage can.
“No, Cassie. Maybe some ice water if that’s OK.”
“Coming right up.”
Cassie took a Styrofoam cup out of a box and filled it with ice. Then she poured the water while peering at Bo. “Haven’t seen you in here in a while.”
“Too long,” Bo said. “Kids seem to have something every night.”
“So what brings you this way? Not our famous cheeseburger, I presume.”
“The burger was awesome as always, but . . . no. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Big surprise,” she said, her voice oozing pleasant sarcasm. “But I don’t know of any big local cases of yours. Everything you had going that I’m aware of since the General’s trial has settled, hasn’t it?”
Before he could agree, she leaned over the table and whispered, “Did you hear that she left today?”
Bo creased her eyebrows. “Who?”
“The General. She quit the DA’s office. Boxed up all her things. Said she was taking a leave of absence for personal reasons.”
Bo could hardly believe his ears. He considered the General a friend, and she hadn’t mentioned that she was leaving. Two days ago, when she’d found Bo on the farm, she had been very much still working. What the hell happened? “So who’s going to—”
“Gloria Sanchez was appointed this afternoon. You like her?”
Bo suppressed a smile. He was always amazed at how quickly news traveled in Pulaski and, specifically, how fast that Cassie accumulated it. She was like a human sponge.
“Gloria is OK. Smart and fair from what I’ve found.”
“I’ve heard she’s a bitch,” Cassie said, taking another Yuengling out of the cooler and popping the top.
“I said I didn’t—” He stopped when he saw her take a sip of the beverage.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Cassie said, taking three dollars out of her wallet and putting it in the cash register. “Wouldn’t want you to think I was filching.”
“I would never think that.”
“Been a long day.”
Bo nodded. “You sang beautifully at the funeral.”
Cassie took a sip and looked away. “Thank you. I . . . still can’t believe she’s gone, you know?”
“You knew her well, didn’t you?”
Cassie shrugged. “Thought I did.”
Bo felt the hair on his arms tingle. “What do you mean?”
Cassie took another sip of beer. “Don’t get me wrong. I loved Brittany like a younger sister, but she was doing things that she wasn’t telling me and the band about.”
“Like?”
“Like signing a solo recording contract with ELEKTRIK HI and using Michael Zannick as her manager.”
Bo raised his eyebrows. This wasn’t new information, but he acted like it was. “Solo?”
“Yep. I’d been shopping the band to record labels for months. I was positive that Fizz was going to land somewhere soon. Especially after ‘Tomorrow’s Gone’ got some play on the radio. I wrote that song, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, I did. I also named the band.” She took a sip of beer and gave her head a jerk. “We always played our best. Never took a night off. If we were a soda, we were never flat. We always had—”
“Fizz,” Bo said. “Clever.”
“I thought so. Some folks said it was cheesy, but for me, it was perfect. And when we found Brittany, everything seemed in reach. She was our X factor.” Cassie paused, and a sad smile appeared on her face. “I almost had my own record deal, did you know that? I tried out for American Idol. I made it past the first few cuts, and there was some interest from a couple labels, but nothing ever developed. I didn’t have the vocal range that Brittany did.” She drank some more of her beer. “Hell, no one did. She was . . .” Cassie’s eyes watered, and she looked down at the bar. “. . . incredible.”
“I’m sorry,” Bo said, running a thumb over the rim of his cup. “When did you learn about her solo recording deal and that Zannick was managing her?”
“Here,” Cassie said. “Friday night a couple hours before Fizz played the Brickyard. She came here and told me in person.”
“Were you mad?”
Cassie took a long pull from the bottle. “I was furious. I felt like she had pulled the rug out from under us.”
Bo took a sip of water, watching the bartender. What she was describing would have provided a healthy motive for murder. He thought about asking whether the sheriff’s office had questioned her but decided against it. “Did anyone else in the band know what she’d done? How about your brother, Ian?”
Cassie scratched her head. “I’m sure Ian knew something was up. After the concert was over, I texted him and told him not to leave the stadium without getting our grandmother’s necklace from Brittany. I explained that I’d told Brittany I wanted it back and to make damn sure he got it and that I would explain everything over the weekend. I’m sure he thought that was weird, because I’d given that piece of jewelry to Brittany to wear for good luck before America’s Got Talent, and it had been on her neck almost every second since.”
“What did he say?”
“That he’d get it.”
“Did he?”
Cassie finished the remains of her beer and threw the bottle in the trash can. Then she turned toward the cash register and opened a drawer, pulling out a thin chain with a purple stone. She held it out for Bo to see.
“Beautiful,” he said.
She stuck out her chin. “Brittany was born in February, same as my nana. The birthstone is amethyst, which, for my money, is the most striking purple you’ll ever see. I gave it to her for luck,” she said, her voice quaking. “She died a few hours after giving it back. I know this is crazy, but I can’t help but think the necklace would have somehow protected her if I hadn’t asked . . .”
