Beyond Reach

A tripod with a digital camera on top stood outside the small conference room. Nick rapped his knuckles on the door as he opened it.

  “Finally,” Bart said, as if he was glad to see them.

  Jeffrey threw the file Nick had given him on the table, then he held out his hand, introducing himself to Bart’s lawyer. The man didn’t offer his name, and Jeffrey guessed from his expensive suit and fancy haircut that he was more at home in Atlanta than Elawah County.

  Nick indicated the camera. “Just let me get this set up.” He whistled under his breath as he placed the tripod at the head of the table, moving it just so, acting like he had all the time in the world. Jeffrey knew he was just trying to make the dentist antsy, but the technique was working on Jeffrey, too. By the time Nick was finished, Jeffrey was almost squirming in his chair.

  Nick sat down beside Jeffrey, opposite Fred Bart and his lawyer. For the sake of the camera, he said, “I’m Nick Shelton with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Beside me is Grant County Chief of Police Jeffrey Tolliver, who will be leading this interview. That okay with you boys?”

  The lawyer nodded. He was a burly man, his hair shaved close to his head. Jeffrey wondered if he had something tattooed on his scalp.

  Bart said, “Can we get this over with?”

  Jeffrey opened the file on the table. He fanned out the photographs they had found in a folder on Jake Valentine’s desk. Judging from the charred debris in his wastebasket, there had been more photographs, but Valentine had taken care to make sure it was only Fred Bart and Boyd Gibson implicated in the surveillance photos. The sheriff had been telling Jeffrey the truth when he said he’d called the GBI. Nick’s office had logged a call on his voice mail about an hour before Jeffrey and Sara had gotten to the jail. Valentine had sounded giddy as he laid out the case of the drug-pin dentist.

  Fred Bart barely glanced at the photographs. The pictures were grainy, but they still managed to tell a story. Jeffrey tapped his finger on the top one, which showed Fred Bart with Boyd Gibson smoking cigarettes outside an abandoned-looking warehouse. Behind them, a drug transaction was taking place. Another photo showed Bart in his Jag passing off a stack of money to Boyd Gibson. All the photos pointed the finger at Fred Bart as being the meth mastermind in town with Gibson as his muscle.

  Bart blustered, “Obviously, those have been doctored.”

  “I’m sure you can find an expert to tell that to a jury,” Jeffrey admitted. Jake Valentine had done a good job setting up the dentist. If Lena hadn’t seen the tattoo under the sheriff’s arm, no one would have questioned Valentine’s evidence—or Bart’s death in his own home-grown meth lab, courtesy of Clint Jones.

  Jeffrey told him, “Your bank account shows a cash deposit of over two hundred thousand dollars Friday morning.”

  “I was in my office with patients. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You mean your office where they found enough meth to powder a ski slope?” He paused. “Jake was ready to hand the GBI the bust of a lifetime.”

  Bart shook his head slowly from side to side. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Jeffrey laid it out for the man. “You’re looking at the death penalty.”

  The lawyer interjected, “My client is cooperating in every way he knows how.”

  “He shot a man in cold blood in front of a police detective.”

  “She was high,” Bart protested, much as Nick had predicted. “With the amount of chemicals in that room, I’m surprised she even remembers she was there. You know what she did to Jake. She cut off his hand! That’s not the action of a thinking person.”

  Jeffrey thought it was the action of somebody who didn’t want to die. “You injected my wife with a sedative.”

  “Jake would’ve hurt her if I hadn’t knocked her out. Mark my words. He was a violent man.”

  The lawyer stiffened. Jeffrey would have missed it if he hadn’t been watching.

  Jeffrey asked Bart, “How were you protecting Charlotte Gibson in the back of that Escalade?”

  “I’ve already told your friend here that wasn’t me,” Bart insisted. “I was at home watching TV that night.”

  “Lena’s willing to make a positive ID.”

  Bart flashed a smile. “It’s my understanding that the perpetrator of that crime was masked.”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey agreed. “But it’s hard to hide behind a mask when you’ve got little ferret teeth.”

  Bart covered his mouth with his hand before he could stop himself.

  Jeffrey said, “Tell me about Boyd Gibson.”

  The lawyer seemed to perk up at the sound of Gibson’s name. Was Fred Bart the only person in the room who didn’t realize the guy was working the other side? Jeffrey would’ve loved to roll up the man’s sleeves, look for any tattoos he might have.

  Jeffrey repeated, “Boyd Gibson?”

  Bart talked slowly, moving his lips as little as possible as if he could hide his teeth. “Jake told me what happened,” he said. “Clint and Boyd never got along, but Jake kept them in line. He told them to burn down Hank’s bar. Lena had spent some time there and Jake didn’t like her poking around. He was trying to scare her off.”

  “So?” Jeffrey prompted.

  “So, Jake said that they poured gasoline around the outside of the bar. Clint threw a match on it, but then Boyd started yelling about how Hank kept some money inside, stuffed under a floorboard or something.”

  “He ran into a burning building to get cash?” Jeffrey asked, thinking that if Bart was telling the truth, Jeffrey had risked his life to save one of the stupidest bastards on earth.

  Bart nodded. “At that point, you came along. Boyd got away and he met up with Clint in the woods. They had some kind of argument. I told you these men were hotheaded.” Bart paused for effect. “At any rate, Clint ended up stabbing Boyd.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then he had to tell Jake.”

  “What about the knife?”

  “Clint didn’t want to lose his knife—it was expensive—so he used one he’d…found.” The man held out his hands in an open shrug. “Mind you, I got this story secondhand from Jake, so I can’t confirm the veracity.”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “I understand that.” He crossed his arms. “Did Jake say whose idea it was to throw Boyd’s body into my hotel room?”

  “His. Jake thought if your wife got scared enough, you’d leave town.”

  Jeffrey asked, “What about Charlotte Gibson?”

  “Jake got worried because she was talking to Lena.”

  “So Jake torched her?”

  “Yes. Jake liked to send messages.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Jeffrey remembered what Lena had said about Bart’s last words to Valentine, the anger that had boiled up between the two men. The dentist had been supplementing his income with meth since Valentine was in diapers. He’d been the big man in town until Myra had married her college sweetheart.

  “Lemme get this straight.” Jeffrey summarized, counting off the dead bodies on his fingers as he said, “Clint Jones killed Boyd Gibson, Jake killed Charlotte and of course you were kind enough to shoot Clint in—what—self-defense? I guess leaving Lena and Sara in the house to die was some kind of oversight on your part?”

  “I know I shouldn’t have left those women there, but I was terrified. Jake has some powerful friends. I ran away because I was frightened. I take full responsibility for that.”

  “I’m happy to hear you take responsibility for something.”

  He tried to defend himself, saying, “I called the sheriff’s office and gave an anonymous tip.”

  Nick had obviously heard this before. “We listened to the nine-one-one tapes from Friday, Fred. We haven’t found anything.”

  “Then you need to keep looking,” Bart insisted. “I called from a pay phone at the Stop ’n’ Save. It should have my fingerprints on it.”

  Jeffrey didn’t doubt
the phone had Bart’s prints on it. He’d had plenty of time to think up an alibi while Lena and Sara were fighting for their lives.

  “What about the other body?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Other body?” Bart echoed. “What other body?”

  He seemed as surprised as Sara and Lena had been. Both women swore they hadn’t seen anyone else in Hank’s house, but the remains of a man’s body had been found somewhere in the vicinity of the back bedroom.

  Jeffrey told him, “There was another set of bones in Hank Norton’s house. The state coroner says he was an older man, maybe in his sixties.”

  Bart looked at his hands. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “You don’t know anything about a lot of things,” Jeffrey challenged. “I think you’re just sitting there with your little mind spinning, trying to come up with quick answers for every question, but the thing is you’ve got no idea how deep this hole is you’re standing in.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Jeffrey looked at Nick. Both men knew that Bart was either too arrogant or too stupid to see that his life was pretty much over the minute he shot Clint Jones and told Jake Valentine to get under the sink.

  “All righty.” Nick sighed, pressing his palms against the table as he stood up.

  Bart yelped, “What are you doing?”

  “Packing up,” Nick told him, collapsing the tripod. “You don’t know doodly squat, Tonto, and I have a feeling any second now the Lone Ranger there’s gonna be heading back up to the corral to get along with his little doggies.”

  The lawyer chuckled. “Well put.”

  Nick told him, “No offense, buddy, but we’re really hoping none of this goes any farther than it has to.”

  “I think we’ve had enough collateral damage to last us for a while.” The lawyer pushed Valentine’s photos of Fred Bart across the table. “It seems to me you have an overwhelming amount of evidence here. Surely enough to charge the guilty party.” He stood, telling Jeffrey, “I’m very sorry that your wife was in harm’s way.” As an afterthought, he added, “And your detective, too, of course.”

  Jeffrey took the man’s meaning, but he wanted to be clear. “Just so long as they’re safe now.”

  “They are.”

  The lawyer turned to leave, but Bart clawed his arm, screaming, “You said they’d work a deal! You said they would—”

  “Get your hands off me,” he barked, jerking his arm away.

  Bart finally seemed to understand that the lawyer wasn’t on his side, that the only reason the man was here was so he could make sure Bart wasn’t a threat to the people who were really paying his fees.

  For his part, the lawyer seemed relieved that the masquerade was over. He gave Nick a nod, then Jeffrey. “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “What are you doing?” Bart demanded. “You’re my lawyer! Where are you going?”

  The man left the room without looking back.

  Bart stood by the table, wringing his hands like a woman.

  Nick told him, “Sit down, Fred.”

  Bart sagged into his chair. “I want to cut a deal,” he muttered. “I need to cut a deal.”

  “Welcome to the State of Getting Your Head Out of Your Ass.” Nick clapped his hands in mock congratulations. “What kind of deal you think you can make, Freddy boy?”

  “Any kind,” Bart pleaded. “Just tell me what you want me to say.”

  Nick shook his head. “We want you to say some names, Fred. Only problem is, you don’t know ’em.”

  “I know them!” Bart screeched. “I know all of them!”

  “Like?”

  “Like…” His mouth worked as he tried to come up with something. “Just tell me. Tell me who you want and I’ll say it!”

  “Rhymes with Spitzpatrick.”

  He paled. “No,” he said. “I can’t do that.”

  Nick shrugged. “Lookit, hoss, we’re giving you enough rope here to hang a snake. Not my fault you can’t tie the knot.”

  “They’ll kill me,” Bart said. “They’ll…worse than that. They don’t just kill people…they…” His words stopped as he gulped for air. “Please…” he cried.

  Jeffrey stood up and Nick opened the door.

  “No!” Bart begged. “You can’t just leave me here.”

  Nick couldn’t help himself. “Don’t worry, hoss. We’ll go by the Stop ’n’ Save and call nine-one-one on our way out of town.”

  JEFFREY HAD A BAD TASTE in his mouth as he drove past the Elawah County High School. He should feel good about leaving Fred Bart to the wolves, but instead he felt dirty. Fred Bart had left Sara to burn, and Jeffrey was a firm believer in an eye for an eye. He was also a cop, and he knew the state had a process for taking care of its most deserving criminals. What was the difference between waiting ten years for appeals to fall through and letting the Brotherhood take care of him?

  The difference was that the Brotherhood got stronger with every life they took. They wouldn’t roll Bart into a sterile room and slip a needle in his arm. They would make him beg for his life. They would beat him, torture him—make it so that death was the only thing he had to look forward to. Fred Bart would be a lesson for every other thug and moron out there: you did not cross the Brotherhood without paying the ultimate price.

  Still, Ethan Green’s words kept coming back into his head, and Jeffrey couldn’t help but wonder if the young man had seen the real Jeffrey, the one who hid behind his badge while he looked the other way. Jeffrey had taken an oath to protect and defend everybody, not just the people he thought deserved it. He was supposed to work within the system, not make up the rules as he went along.

  He was supposed to take care of the weak and protect them from the strong. Fred Bart sure hadn’t looked strong when Jeffrey and Nick had left him crying in the interrogation room. He had fallen to the floor on his knees, begging for help.

  Jeffrey realized he’d passed the motel and made a U-turn. He pulled up in front of the office as the maid was coming out of one of the rooms. She stood there, watching him get out of the car.

  Jeffrey told her, “I need to get the things out of room fourteen.”

  “They’re packed up,” the woman said, walking away.

  Jeffrey guessed he was expected to follow her. He caught the office door before she let it slam in his face.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She went behind the front counter, scratching her arms through her long-sleeved shirt. She told him, “There’s a balance on the room.”

  Jeffrey glanced at the keys hanging on the board behind her and figured maybe three rooms were checked out. “Been busy lately?”

  “Listen, asshole. I don’t make the rules.”

  He laughed, taking out his wallet. “How much is it?”

  She scratched her neck, calculating how much she could get off him. “A hundred bucks.”

  “How about twenty?”

  “How about fifty?”

  Jeffrey paid her the money, though he seriously doubted the cash would ever make its way into the register. Judging by the woman’s appearance, he guessed he was looking at one of those rare things: a meth addict who had made it past her thirties.

  The woman asked, “How’s the girl doing?”

  “Lena?”

  “Yeah, her.”

  “She’s okay.”

  “Right,” the woman said. She took out a bag from under the counter and pushed it toward Jeffrey. “Here’s her shit. Go on and get the fuck out of here.”

  He studied her face for a moment, the arrogant tilt of her chin. Slowly, he said, “She’s at St. Ignatius for a few more days.”

  “Great. My tax dollars at work.”

  “You pay taxes?” She gave him an eat-shit look that he should have been used to by now. “You know, your daughter looks at me the same way sometimes.”

  “I ain’t got a daughter.”

  “Lena looks just like you.”

  Angela Adams grunted, giving
up. She had fifty bucks in her pocket and a need in her veins. “Got her head up her ass just like me. Didn’t recognize her own mother standing right in front of her.”

  Jeffrey had barely made the connection himself between the oil painting that he’d seen hanging over Hank Norton’s living room couch and the woman standing in front of him. Something about the tilt of her chin had given it away—even after all these years, she had that arrogant challenge in her eyes. Angela had been beautiful once, but meth had taken that from her, just like it had taken her away from her young daughters.

  Still, Jeffrey tried to be kind. “Sometimes you don’t see what you’re not looking for.”

  “You think I don’t know what I look like?” She picked at the edge of the laminate. “Hank doing okay?”

  Jeffrey felt another piece of the puzzle click into place. “Hank was with you the whole time he was missing. Wasn’t he?”

  “Stupid fucker should’ve known better. Didn’t last no more than a coupl’er three days before we were ready to kill each other.” She picked at the sore on her neck. “Bastard just walked off one morning. I guess he turned up at his house.”

  “He’s cleaning up,” Jeffrey told the woman. “All the meth is out of his system.”

  “He’s always looked after them.” She caught herself. “Her.”

  “We found the birth certificate you filled out with Hank’s name on it.”

  “Did she see it?”

  “No,” Jeffrey said. “It got lost in the shuffle.”

  She gave a rueful laugh. “Dumb fuck that I was—I figured it’d make it easier for him to take the girls, keep them safe. I nearly got him arrested.” She started picking at the sore again. Blood trickled out. “I was the one who got Hank hooked. Did he tell you that?”

  “We’ve never really talked about it.”

  “When Cal was killed—that’s their father—I just couldn’t take it. Pregnant, fat, miserable, alone. Then, I had a toothache on top of every-thing else. I went to that stupid bald fuck Fred Bart. He told me he had something that could take the edge off.” She glared at Jeffrey as if he’d challenged her. “I made my choice.”

  “Lena would want to see you.”

  “I been in and out of jail the last twenty years. You think a cop wants a con for a mother?”