Turning Angel

  St. Catherine’s Creek.

  I close my eyes and breathe something very like a prayer of thanks. Though Brightside Manor is several miles from where Drew found Kate’s body—and even farther from where Kate’s corpse was discovered by the fishermen—the apartments stand a mere forty yards from the creek into which her body was dumped. This is something that will sway a jury, if not the district attorney. One glance at this map shows that Cyrus White could easily have raped and murdered Kate Townsend in his apartment, then dumped her body into the flooded torrent behind it with the near certainty that she would be swept far downstream from the crime scene, if not all the way to the Mississippi River.

  “Daddy?” Annie calls faintly.

  Remembering the nude photo lying on my bed, I leave the map and sprint back up the stairs. From the reverberation of Annie’s voice, I can tell she’s still in the bathroom. “I’ll be here in a minute, baby,” I promise, looking in through the steam. “I’m doing something.”

  Annie smiles up from the tub. “I’m fine. I just wanted to know where you were. I heard you running.”

  “Everything’s okay.”

  I hurry back to the bedroom and pick up the photo of Drew and Kate. What were you doing at Cyrus White’s apartment? I ask silently.

  It takes a few moments for my ringing cell phone to register. When I pick it up, the caller ID says MIA. I’m almost afraid to answer and find out what new tragedy she’s discovered. “Hello?”

  “Nancy Drew here,” she says in a deadpan voice. “Remember I told you I wanted to do what I could to help Dr. Elliott?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I got to thinking about what you told me about Shad Johnson hijacking the grand jury.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So I decided to take a ride down to his office.”

  “You knew where it was?”

  “I figured it would either be in the courthouse or in Lawyer’s Alley. I didn’t have to look very hard. Except for the bars and Pearl Street Pasta, the waterworks building was the only one downtown with lights blazing inside.”

  “That’s the D.A.’s office, all right,” I say, not interested enough by Mia’s amateur detective work to remove my gaze from Kate’s body or my mind from the juxtaposition of Brightside Manor and St. Catherine’s Creek.

  “Well, that’s not all I saw,” she says.

  “No?”

  “You sound distracted. What are you doing, watching soft porn on Cinemax?”

  “Sorry. What else did you see?”

  “Two people walking into the first floor of the waterworks building. They used the D.A.’s door, and they looked pretty friendly.”

  “Did you recognize them?”

  “Sure did. One was the sheriff, Billy Byrd.”

  My chest tightens. “And the other?”

  “Judge Minor.”

  Holy shit. Kate’s nude body is forgotten.

  “Got your attention now?”

  “You do indeed.” Arthel Minor is one of Natchez’s two circuit court judges. He was among the first African-Americans in Mississippi to be elected to the position after Reconstruction. As a circuit court judge, he has a 50 percent chance of handling the Kate Townsend murder case when it comes to trial. And like both Shad Johnson and Billy Byrd, Arthel Minor is known to have higher political aspirations.

  “How did you recognize Judge Minor, Mia?”

  She laughs. “I served on the Mayor’s Youth Council this year. I spent a couple of hours talking to him. He had me rolling on the floor with his jokes.”

  This girl is good. “Can you see what they’re doing now?”

  “Not from where I’m sitting, which is at the malt shop drinking a Parrot Ice. But I can get back there in about a minute.”

  “Hang on a second. I need to think.”

  “Don’t strain yourself.”

  The image of Shadrach Johnson, Sheriff Billy Byrd, and Judge Arthel Minor meeting together after business hours sends a cold shot of fear through my veins. It might seem natural that these people should meet and discuss an investigation in progress. But in fact, this kind of meeting never happens. Contrary to what we see on television, the investigation of a crime is handled almost solely by police officers. After adequate evidence has been obtained, the case is then handed over to the district attorney, who takes it to a grand jury. If the grand jury binds the accused over for trial, there’s a preliminary hearing before a municipal court judge. Only then does a circuit judge enter the picture. What Mia has described is a meeting that, while legal by the strict letter of the law, is very dangerous to the integrity of the legal system, and more particularly, I fear, to my friend Drew Elliott. Together, those three men could investigate Drew’s life, try him for murder, and sentence him to death.

  “Mia, can you come back here and watch Annie for an hour? I know I’m taking advantage, but can you do that?”

  “I guess I’d better. The Ivy League isn’t cheap, you know.”

  “You’re two minutes away, if you punch it.”

  She laughs. “More like one.”

  “Annie’s still in the bathtub. I’ll meet you at the front door.”

  Chapter

  13

  There’s an empty parking space in front of the D.A.’s private entrance. I park and ring the bell, but no one answers. Banging on the door produces no response, either. I call Shad’s office from my cell phone, but all I get is a recording saying that the office is closed.

  Even angrier than when I left the house, I walk around to the alley behind the waterworks. In the shadows between the buildings, I can hardly see my hand in front of my face. But on the third floor, bright fluorescent light spills from a row of casement windows.

  Shad’s office.

  A ladder dangles from a landing on the building across the alley. Fire escape. One minute of careful climbing puts me on a third-floor landing, where I smell the aroma of seafood cooking in the restaurant on the next block. I can also see directly into the office of the district attorney. What I see brings acid into my throat.

  Shad Johnson is pacing around his office in a brilliant blue suit, while seated at his desk is Arthel Minor. To ensure impartiality, circuit judges are supposed to be assigned cases by a simple system of rotation, but in practice cases are often steered to certain judges by crafty lawyers. It’s pretty clear to me which judge will be assigned Kate Townsend’s murder case. Beyond Judge Minor, leaning against a filing cabinet on the far wall, stands Billy Byrd, the redneck sheriff of Adams County. This is the most unlikely lynch mob I ever heard of, but there’s no doubt in my mind about their intended function.

  Two bricks lie on the landing at my feet. I’m tempted to hurl one through Shad’s window, but that would probably put me in jail for the night. Instead, I pick one up and start banging the metal railing of the fire escape. The clanging echoes through the alley like hammer blows in a blacksmith’s shop.

  Shad soon comes to his window. I keep banging, and Sheriff Byrd appears at the next window in the row. Then Judge Minor materializes behind him. The sheriff motions angrily for me to stop.

  I don’t.

  Sheriff Byrd clearly does not recognize me. But now that I have the group’s attention, I hold up my cell phone, shake it theatrically, then dial Shad’s office again. They all turn away from the windows. Finally, Shad answers his phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Who’s making that goddamn racket?” I yell.

  “What?” Shad asks in a flabbergasted voice. “Who is this?”

  “Penn Cage, you unethical prick. Go downstairs and let me in.”

  “Is that you banging on that fire escape across the alley?”

  “You bet it is. And now that I’ve caught you three in the act, there’s no point trying to hide. Open up.”

  Shad slams down the phone.

  I scramble down the ladder and race around to the D.A.’s door. Sheriff Byrd stands waiting for me, one hand on the gun in his belt and a seething anger tightening his
jaw muscles.

  “What the Sam D. Hell do you think you’re doing?” he growls.

  “I’d like you to answer the same question.” I push past him and take the stairs two at a time, preferring to confront the judge before the others. But when I reach Shad’s office, Judge Minor is nowhere in sight.

  Now Shad sits behind his antique desk, watching me like someone looking at a dangerous mental patient.

  “Where’s Judge Minor?” I demand.

  The district attorney doesn’t answer.

  “He didn’t make it downstairs that fast unless he sprinted, and that’s a little undignified for a judge—even one of questionable integrity. Is he hiding in another office?”

  “What are you doing here at this hour?” Shad asks, slowly getting himself under control. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the third co-conspirator in this little lynch mob.”

  Shad’s mouth drops open. “You’d better choose your words with more care, Counselor.”

  “I said exactly what I meant to say.”

  “Did you now?” Sheriff Byrd asks from behind me, huffing from the exertion of climbing stairs.

  “What else did I see through those windows?” I ask. “The circuit judge, the sheriff, and the district attorney all huddled in a room after dark. The irony is exquisite.”

  “What irony’s that?” asks the sheriff, who wouldn’t know irony if it hit him over the head.

  “If Shad and Judge Minor weren’t black—and if this were forty years ago—what else could I conclude but that I was seeing a lynching in the making?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shad says finally.

  “Do you deny that you three were discussing Drew Elliott before I showed up?”

  Sheriff Byrd starts to deny it, but Shad holds up a hand to silence him. “Why should I deny that?”

  “Because it isn’t exactly standard procedure for a murder investigation.”

  “Dr. Elliott isn’t a standard murder suspect. Neither was Kate Townsend a standard victim. She was practically a celebrity around here. And that’s what we were discussing. The whole town’s turned upside down from the rumors going around, and we wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.”

  “That’s called collusion, Shad.”

  “It’s none of your damn business what we’re doing up here,” says the sheriff.

  I focus on Shad. “You know a meeting like that borders on being unethical. Drew hasn’t even been charged with murder. The circuit judge has no place whatever in this matter. Not at this time.”

  “Borders on,” Shad echoes, tilting his head to indicate the equivocal nature of this point. “This is a special case, Penn. And we all agree that it needs to be expedited as quickly as possible.”

  “That’s exactly the wrong thing to do. You need to proceed methodically, follow precedent, and leave no stone unturned in your investigation.”

  Sheriff Byrd leans against the filing cabinet again and regards me with disdain. “My mama always told me the worst vice is ad-vice.”

  “I know your mama,” I tell him. “I think most people would agree she could have used a little advice herself along the way.”

  Byrd comes off the file cabinet with stunning speed, one fist clenched and the other hand on his gun.

  “Billy!” Shad yells. “He’s just trying to bait you.”

  “You smug son of a bitch,” Byrd says in a murderous tone. “Just keep on with your shit. See what happens.”

  Shad lays his palms flat on his desk. “Penn, you’ll get your chance to weigh in on these issues during the trial. But for now—”

  “The trial? You’ve found nothing so far that indicates Drew should even be indicted. You’ve hijacked the grand jury to question minors without their parents present. You’ve started rumors that have already gone a long way toward ruining Dr. Elliott’s career. Half the town already thinks he’s guilty of murder, and he hasn’t even been charged. And what do you have, really? A rumor that he was having sex with Kate Townsend. That’s light-years away from capital murder!”

  Shad seems unfazed by my impassioned outburst. “Are you finished?”

  “For the moment.”

  “Then why don’t you try listening for a change?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Dr. Elliott is in deep trouble, and it has nothing to do with the meeting you just witnessed. Let me review the evidence for you. First, the anonymous call that started this thing.”

  I start to argue, but Shad silences me with a shake of his head.

  “That call was too strange to ignore. If you were the D.A., you would have handled it just as I did. You’d have called Dr. Elliott into your office. In any case, that anonymous call certainly led somewhere, didn’t it?”

  “Damned straight,” agrees Sheriff Byrd.

  Shad looks embarrassed to have Byrd’s support. “Second,” Shad goes on, “the preliminary serology on the semen samples. Based on the lab findings, one of those two samples is very likely to be confirmed as belonging to Dr. Elliot when the DNA analysis comes back—which won’t be as long as you think. Third, that particular semen sample wasn’t taken from the Townsend girl’s vagina, but from her rectum.”

  The hair along my forearms stands up. When Shad told me yesterday that Kate had semen “in both holes,” I naturally assumed that the unknown sample—the one unknown to me, that is—was the one swabbed from her rectum.

  “That rather prurient fact,” Shad says with authority, “bolsters my theory that Dr. Elliot’s intercourse with the victim was an act of vengeance if not outright rape. A ‘grudge-fuck,’ I believe it’s called.”

  I can’t even begin to deal with the implications of this new information in this room. “But at our first meeting, you told me the trauma was vaginal, didn’t you?”

  “I believe I said ‘genital.’” Shad looks down at some papers on his desk. “There was labial swelling, some vaginal abrasions, but also anorectal swelling with small tears inside the anus.”

  I take a moment to process this. “Which semen was deposited first? That found in the vagina? Or the anal sample? Even if you assume Drew had anal sex with Kate, he could have deposited that semen up to seventy-two hours before she was swabbed, while the sperm found in her vagina could have been deposited just prior to death.”

  Shad shakes his head, and I detect something like smugness in his eyes. “We’ll never know that,” he says. “Since the girl was DOA, she wasn’t swabbed until the next morning during the autopsy in Jackson. The sperm in both samples were dead. One of the disadvantages of investigating crime in a small town.”

  “What else do you have?” I ask quietly.

  “Fourth,” Shad enumerates. “Fingerprints. Sheriff Byrd’s detectives found Dr. Elliot’s fingerprints all over Kate Townsend’s bedroom and private bathroom.”

  Drew, you stupid bastard, I curse silently. “How do you know those prints are Dr. Elliot’s?” I ask the sheriff. “Given your relationship with the PD, I can’t believe you went to the city jail to print him, or even that you asked the police to fax theirs over to you.”

  Sheriff Byrd gives me a superior smile. “One of my deputies took some prints from the doc’s private bathroom when they went to his office to collect his blood.”

  Now I remember. The short, unpleasant deputy excused himself to “use the restroom” while Susan Salter pulled Drew’s blood. The little son of a bitch.

  “What else?” I ask, working hard to hide my dismay.

  “Phone records,” Shad says. “We’ve got Kate Townsend’s cell phone records for the past year. The past few months are clean, but if you go back to this past summer, it gives Dr. Elliott some problems.”

  “Of course she called Drew,” I say. “She was the family babysitter.”

  Shad grins good-naturedly. “You’re going to dig the hole deeper if you don’t keep your mouth shut. Why don’t you listen to what I have to say?”

  He
’s right. If Drew were a normal client, I’d stand here with my mouth shut. But I feel compelled to defend my friend, even when I don’t know exactly what he has or hasn’t done.

  Shad dons a pair of reading glasses and examines a piece of paper with tiny type on it. “I wouldn’t have found it odd if the girl called Dr. Elliott’s home a few times, or even more than a few. But she didn’t do that. She called his medical office and his cell phone almost exclusively. She did it often and at very odd times. Like three o’clock in the morning. And the calls lasted a very long time.” Shad looks at me over the lenses of his glasses. “Hours.”

  I struggle to hold my poker face.

  “But the real kicker,” Shad says with obvious relish, “is that she didn’t just call him direct. She bought third-party phone cards at Wal-Mart and dialed into an 800-number switchboard before calling his cell phone. That’s a standard method of trying to disguise phone calls—particularly in extramarital affairs.” He glances at Sheriff Byrd. “Computers are a wonderful thing, aren’t they?”

  Byrd chuckles.

  The only positive I can see is that they seem to have no record of Kate using computers to text-message Drew. Certainly they’ve checked his records by now. Perhaps those digital connections are not so easily traced. “What else?”

  Shad removes his reading glasses and meets my gaze. “A classmate of Kate Townsend’s saw her changing cars with Dr. Elliott in a public parking lot.”

  “What do you mean, ‘changing cars’?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. Both of them parked their cars in a public lot, and when they thought no one was looking, Kate climbed into Dr. Elliot’s car and they drove away. A female St. Stephen’s student told that to the grand jury this afternoon.”

  My stomach rolls over.

  “This girl also said that it looked like Dr. Elliott and the girl were fighting.”

  “How long ago did this supposedly happen? And where?”

  Shad shakes his head, his eyes twinkling. “Sorry, Counselor. Can’t tell you everything. That wouldn’t be right.”