All Her Little Secrets, page 25
At least I was leaving on my own terms.
Sarah was away from her desk by the time I reached Nate’s office. His door stood open, but I tapped lightly anyway.
“Come in and shut the door behind you,” Nate commanded.
I stepped inside. Just as I thought, Nate was not alone. But it wasn’t Willow. Sitting in the chair across from Nate was Jonathan. I felt a small ping of trepidation. Jonathan sat in one of Nate’s guest chairs, legs crossed, wearing a pin-striped suit and the smug demeanor of a pompous jerk. He slid a thumb and forefinger along the crease of his pants. “Good morning, Ellice,” he said. “Did you do something different with your hair?”
Asshole.
Nate nodded toward the chair beside Jonathan. I chose to stand. “Ellice, Jonathan tells me you’ve been too busy to meet with him about the Libertad matter. Something about not preparing some paperwork.” Jonathan had left two messages for me yesterday, telling me I needed to draft some contracts for him. I ignored both messages.
“I have some very serious concerns about this deal.” I was talking to Nate, but I stared at Jonathan. “I believe Libertad is involved in laundering dirty money. That’s a violation of federal law. As a lawyer, I can’t ethically stand behind whatever deal you may be planning with Libertad.”
“I see.” Nate gave me a long unblinking stare. Jonathan didn’t say a word.
I thumbed the side of the folder. “Nate, I know that having me on your team . . . that the circumstances of my brother’s death . . . are . . . it can send the wrong message. The focus should be on running Houghton, not my personal problems. I’m resigning. I don’t want to bring any unnecessary attention to the company. Here’s my resignation.” I removed the paper and slid it across Nate’s desk.
Nate never looked at the paper; instead, he looked at Jonathan, then back at me with a sad plea in his eyes. “I’d rather you didn’t. Darlin’, that’s not what this is about.”
For a moment, I assumed he would try to convince me to stay on board. “I appreciate the support, Nate, but I think it’s best that I leave the company. I need some time to sort—”
“I’m sorry, but no. You can’t resign.” His voice was firm, but not harsh. This went beyond a supportive gesture. He was ordering me not to resign; I didn’t have a say in the matter. This would not be a repeat of my promotion to the executive suite. I was free to leave if I wanted.
“What do you mean I can’t resign?”
Nate stared back at me in confusion, then turned to Jonathan, eyes pleading again. He’d gotten himself lost in the conversation and was looking to Jonathan to rescue him. Nate needed medical attention, not corporate babysitters.
“What Nate is trying to say is that we need a top lawyer in place. And right now, that’s you. There’s a lot going on. So you need to go back to your office and draft several documents. We need an agreement that outlines—”
“You don’t get it, do you, Jonathan?” I turned to Nate, hoping to make a direct plea. “Nate, I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I would be complicit in illegal activity. I could get disbarred. All of us—me, you, and Jonathan—could go to jail. I can’t do that. So you really need to accept my resignation.” I pushed the paper a bit closer toward Nate. I glared at Jonathan, his expression still smug and confident.
Nate leaned forward and scratched his head.
Jonathan looked down at his Rolex, then piped up. “Take a seat, Ellice. You might want to hear us out for a minute.”
“I’m done here! You two can go to jail without me.” I headed for the door.
Jonathan cleared his throat before he spoke. “I was just telling Nate, there’ve been some developments in Sayles’s murder investigation. I understand the police have questioned you a couple of times about Sayles’s murder. They seem to think you might be involved in this thing with your brother and that other lawyer they found dead. What’s his name . . . Gallagher?”
I stopped and turned around. Tendrils of fear slithered through me.
Nate chimed in. “I know you couldn’t have done these heinous things. Jonathan tells me you may to go to prison for murder?”
“Nate, I had nothing to do with any of this.” I marched back toward Jonathan. “You did this! You set me up.”
Jonathan gave me a sly smile and threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender. It was when I looked at his raised hands that I saw it. The small little symbol of hate in the form of a lapel pin. The Brethren lapel pin. “Ellice, think about it. Losing your law license is going to be the least of your worries if this thing plays out the way the police have it down. Right now, your best option is to work with me on this.”
“And if I don’t?” A line of sweat trickled down the center of my back.
“Hmm . . . that wouldn’t be in your best interest. We talked about this before. My friends down in Savannah have given me a fulsome report. I don’t think it would bode well for you if details from that report were to land in the hands of the police or the media.” I watched an ugly grin slick across Jonathan’s face.
My eyes darted between the two men. I could feel a small, slow throb nibble at my left temple, my chest rising and falling with the mounting anxiety that Jonathan’s statement elicited. I wanted to bolt from this office, from this building, to run as fast and as far as I could from anything having to do with Houghton Transportation.
“So what exactly happened out there in . . . Chillicothe, is it?” Jonathan asked.
I blinked a few times, willing myself not to cry in this office. I turned to Nate.
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Jonathan thinks this is best for the company.”
“So why didn’t you go to jail back then?” Jonathan prodded with a crooked smile. “That hobgoblin band of thugs and misfits you call a family manage to save you? Or maybe that lady—Violet Richards . . . I mean Vera Henderson. Did she help you cover things up? Tough childhood, huh?”
I wanted to lunge over and throttle Jonathan with my bare hands. “Keep her name out of your mouth.”
“I think she’s had some legal troubles of her own. How’s she doin’ these days?” Jonathan winked. “Now do you really think the Atlanta police will be as gullible as some small-town redneck sheriff after they find out about the things that happened in Chillicothe?”
My knees buckled.
“I’ll bet the Disciplinary Committee of the State Bar of Georgia will want to launch an investigation too. Between the police, the state bar, and the media, you’ll be up to your ass in investigations. You’ll never practice law again—in Georgia or anywhere else,” Jonathan declared.
My intricate scaffold of deception and false persona was now falling into so many pieces around me. Everything was falling apart. I glared at Nate. “Like I said, Jonathan thinks this is best for the company,” Nate said weakly. “You don’t have to go to jail. No one does if we just work this thing out the way Jonathan says.” Nate gave me a fragile little smile. “You’re a part of the Houghton family now. We take care of each other. We just need ya help.”
Jonathan’s little plan was on the spectrum of genius: pluck the loner attorney from the Legal Department to replace the murdered general counsel, dig up all her dirty little secrets, and use them to keep her in line while the company engaged in a panoply of corporate fraud and criminal activity. Absolute genius.
Jonathan slid my resignation letter back across Nate’s desk to me. “You’re pretty smart. Michael’s hiring you was probably the best thing he’s ever done for this company. You don’t know this, but we have some friends in very high places. You stick with us and I’ll bet we can pull the police off your coattail.” He grinned as he adjusted the wristband of his Rolex.
Nate stared out the window, either too much of a coward or too cognitively incapacitated to understand the full picture of what Jonathan was doing. I couldn’t tell which and it didn’t matter anyway.
I lifted the paper. The tightly written paragraph lauding the opportunity to work and grow with such a dynamic company. My neatly curled signature. Just an hour ago, this piece of paper represented my escape from this whole hellish nightmare. I placed it back into the folder. And for the first time since I’d left Chillicothe, I felt like a shackled animal without the ability to run.
“Thanks, Ellice,” Jonathan beamed.
I headed to the door, resignation in hand. Thankfully, I managed to make it out of the office just before the first hot tear rolled down my cheek.
Chapter 35
I hustled back to my office and told Anita I had an outside appointment. I grabbed my coat and bag and I pulled out of Houghton’s garage, driving aimlessly through the streets of Atlanta trying to figure out how to put my life back together. All I’d ever wanted to be was a lawyer, ever since those Christmas and summer breaks I spent at Uncle B’s house, listening to his stories of helping to bring order and civility to the world through the law. And now the thought of never working as a lawyer was looming large. But I could never work for those racists at Houghton, people who’d killed my brother. And I’d probably never work anywhere else if Jonathan carried through with his threats.
I wove my way through the streets of downtown Atlanta and somehow wound up on Auburn Avenue. “Sweet Auburn” as it is affectionately called. At one time, this street was the economic, social justice, and religious spine of the Black community in Atlanta. Historical landmarks of the civil rights movement still towered along the street. Places like Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached. A 1960s-era storefront that housed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and, right around the corner, a six-stories-tall mural of civil rights icon John Lewis, all looming in the shadow of Atlanta’s gleaming skyline. How darkly fitting I should drive down this street on this particular day, the same day I ran from a couple of racist bigots who threatened to destroy me.
I pulled into a Texaco station. As I pumped gas into my car, I remembered Grace’s advice to give the police the things I found in Max’s office and Michael’s duffel bag. I should have gone to the police sooner instead of trying to protect Sam. As it all worked out, I hadn’t protected him at all. My stupidity caused his death. I topped off the tank, then quickly climbed back inside the car. The sky was heavy with the threat of snow, as the weatherman had predicted. I pulled out of the gas station and headed straight for the police station.
A few minutes later, my cell phone rang: Rudy. I thought about not answering but I did anyway.
“Look, Rudy, this isn’t a good time.”
“Anita told me you left the office. We didn’t finish talking yesterday.”
“I’m headed to the police station. We can talk after I’m done.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Maybe we should talk before you go there. Let’s talk in person. You know where to meet me.”
* * *
By the time I arrived at the playground in Piedmont Park, Rudy had staked out a bench. The temperature was barely above freezing now and largely accounted for the near empty playground. With the exception of the occasional beast runner, all of Piedmont Park was empty too.
“Aren’t you cold? Where’s your coat?” I asked.
Rudy cast a serious look at me before he tugged at his ear and stared back across the empty playground. Rudy always tugged at his ear when he was nervous. Something else was wrong. “C’mon, Rudy, what’s up?”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring into the playground. I could tell he was hesitant to speak at first. “You know I told you Kelly’s brother is a police officer? He told me something.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I . . . he didn’t want to tell me at first but—” Rudy looked at me, full of fear and sympathy.
“Wha-what is it?”
“Ellice, the police are going to issue a warrant for your arrest. I thought you should know before you go.” He lowered his voice. “You know, in case you need to take an attorney with you.”
I stared at Rudy, trying to grasp the words. A warrant. Your arrest.
Hearing my name associated with a criminal process was like an out-of-body experience. It was as if Rudy were gossiping to me about someone else we both knew. Ever since I’d left the police station, I knew I was being framed, but Rudy’s words somehow made it real.
“It’s time to come clean with the police,” Rudy concluded.
Rudy sounded like Detective Bradford. “Arrest me for what?”
“Murder . . . your brother.”
“What?! That makes absolutely no sense. Rudy, I didn’t kill my brother. What are they thinking?”
“I don’t know, but you have about twenty-four hours to convince them otherwise. My brother-in-law said something about your brother walking around Houghton before Michael was killed. Ell, I’ve known you for years. Until a few days ago, I didn’t even know you had a brother.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Between Grace and Rudy, I’d told so many lies that my friendship with them might not survive.
Rudy tugged at his ear again and looked away from me.
“What is it, Rudy?”
His voice was quiet, solemn. “My brother-in-law . . . he told me something else. Something about you and Michael.”
I stiffened. The lump in my throat was a rock. I just stared at Rudy. This could not be happening. I tried so hard to be so much—the consummate professional, upstanding attorney, the “good one”—and now it had come to this. One of the few close friends I had thought I was a liar and a whore. Why wouldn’t he make the next logical leap and believe I was a murderer, too? My world was slowly falling apart. The successful, well-crafted lie that used to be my life was now sitting in shambles around my feet. I thought about the Brethren and the Littlejohn dossier. Then, I thought about Sam. Why did they have to kill him? Sam’s murder was the one link in this horrific chain of events that I could not figure out.
“I saw you there, in the office early that morning. The morning Michael was killed. You have a brother nobody knows about, you show up at work with a black eye, and now this? Ell, why are you all caught up in this thing?”
I jumped up from the bench. “I gotta go.”
“Ell! Ell!” Rudy called behind me. I never looked back.
I might be arrested and charged with murder, and this time, I didn’t do it.
Chapter 36
Large fluffy snowflakes hit my windshield then melted before the wipers swooped across the glass and erased their watery residue. The swish-swish sound was like a mechanical lullaby as I mentally compiled a checklist of all the ways I’d been so stupid and naïve. Sam was dead and it was largely my fault. I should have trusted my instincts, my God sense, and never accepted the promotion to the executive suite. And now there was no way in hell I’d stay at Houghton and continue to work with the same people who killed Sam and threatened Vera. But if I left, they’d ruin my career. I’d never work as a lawyer in Atlanta or anywhere else. And even if I didn’t leave the company, I might be arrested depending on whether the Brethren reached the top of the Atlanta Police Department. If I were arrested, who would care for Vera? I was all she had.
Thinking of Vera made me think of Sam. Of course, it was hard not to. I’d been crying off and on ever since the police showed up at my door. Every time I thought about our last conversation at his house, it broke my heart. His talk of being tired of Atlanta and moving back to Chillicothe prompted me to honor his last wishes of sorts by having his services there. Besides, funeral services for Sam back in Atlanta might stir up the media or, worse, make Rudy and Grace feel compelled to attend. I could hardly afford to add pity to the already heavy baggage I dragged around with me. I’d only been back to Chillicothe a handful of times since I left for boarding school. The last time was to move Vera to Atlanta and the time before that was to attend Martha’s funeral.
Another wave of sadness engulfed me as I cruised into Chillicothe, Georgia. Things had changed since the last time I’d been here, nearly two years ago. The main strip was still anchored by the Tolliver County Courthouse on one end of Church Street and the VFW Hall at the other end. But in between them, little shops and cafés had sprung up, replacing the old country diners and dilapidated storefronts. And the hallmark of civilized convenience—a spanking brand-new Starbucks. The Piggly Wiggly, with a storefront refresh, still stood across from the VFW Hall, but the Greyhound bus now picked up and dropped off passengers at a small station a quarter mile past the grocery store. It was as if someone had given the town elders permission to dust off the grime of Chillicothe’s past and join everyone else in the twenty-first century.
Still standing just beyond the VFW Hall were the remnants of an old abandoned gazebo, a seventy-five-year-old fixture in the middle of Chillicothe’s Town Circle. The southern bars and stars of the Confederate flag had hung alongside the American flag from the gazebo arch until 1998 when a young Black woman, driving through town, spotted the flag. Witnesses say she pulled it down from the gazebo, set it on fire, and got back in her car yelling, “That’s what I think of your fucking white heritage!” No one knew who she was, and the Confederate flag was never replaced.
I rounded the circle, past the gazebo, before turning onto Pulliam Avenue, a narrow cobblestone street dotted with modest frame houses. I parked my car in front of the blue three-story Victorian house perched neatly behind a short black iron fence. The black-and-white sign in the yard read GRESHAM & SONS MORTUARY. For as small as the town was, Chillicothe had two funeral homes—one for white people and one for Black people. One of the last vestiges of the segregated South. Gresham & Sons handled all the Black funerals in town.
The solitude inside the funeral home was deafening. The heavy scent of floral sprays made me feel both calm and queasy. It creeped me out to stand in this building, ghoulishly filled with lifeless bodies. But Vera used to say, Don’t waste your time worrying about dead folks; it’s the crazy-ass living ones you need to worry about. I waited patiently, reading the plaques above the various viewing rooms off the foyer. The Slumber Room, the Rest Well Sanctuary, the Heavenly View Chapel, and the Cherubs Corner.
