James Patterson - Cross Justice

“Reggie.”

“Correct,” I said, looking up at the spinning ceiling fan. “I can’t imagine there was much supervision, which led to a lot of my dad’s excesses. I think it kills Nana Mama that she never had a good relationship with her son after that. When he died, I think in some ways she was looking to make things right by taking care of me and my brothers.”

“She did a fine job,” Bree said.

“I like to think so. Any other genealogical mysteries I can help with?”

“Just one. Who’s Pinkie?”

I smiled. “Pinkie Parks. Aunt Connie’s only son. He lives in Florida and works on offshore oil rigs. Evidently makes a lot of money doing it too.”

“That’s his real name? Pinkie?”

“No, Brock. Brock Jr.,” I said. “Pinkie’s just his nickname.”

“Why Pinkie?”

“He lost his right one to a car door when he was a kid.”

Bree got up on her elbow, stared at me. “So they nicknamed him Pinkie?”

I laughed. “I knew you were going to say that. It’s just how small towns work. I remember there was a guy named Barry, a friend of my dad’s, who ran the wrong way at some big football game, so everyone called him Bonehead.”

“Bonehead Barry?” She snorted.

“Isn’t that awful?”

“What’d they call you?”

“Alex.”

“Too boring for a small-town nickname?” she said.

“That’s me,” I said, climbing out of bed. “Boring Alex Cross.”

“That’ll be the day.”

Pausing in the bathroom doorway, I said, “Thanks, I think.”

“I’m saying I love you in my own special way.”

“I know you are, Beautiful Bree,” I said and blew her a kiss.

“Better than Bonehead Bree,” she said with a laugh and blew it right back.

It felt good to laugh and kid each other like that again. We’d been through a rough patch in the spring and it had taken time for us to see the humor in anything.

I shaved and showered, feeling cheery that first morning in Starksville, like life was taking a turn for the better for the Cross family. Isn’t it funny how just changing your location changes your perspective? The last couple of months in DC had been claustrophobic, but being back on Loupe Street, I felt like I was on the edge of wide-open country, familiar but unexplored.

Then I thought of Stefan Tate, my cousin, and the charges against him. And the way forward suddenly looked dark again.

An hour later, I left Bree and Nana Mama putting together our lives in the bungalow and went with Naomi to the jail where Stefan Tate was being held. As we drove, I reviewed the highlights of the eighteen-page grand jury indictment against my cousin.

About a year and a half prior to his arrest, Stefan Tate joined the Starksville School District as a gym teacher at both the middle and high schools. He had a history of drug and alcohol abuse that he did not reveal on his applications. He met a middle-schooler named Rashawn Turnbull and eventually became the boy’s mentor. My cousin led a secret life selling drugs, including the heroin that was believed to be responsible for two overdoses before Christmas last year.

Stefan’s personal drug use spiraled out of control. He raped one of his older female students and threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Then he made advances toward Rashawn Turnbull and was rejected. In response, my cousin raped, tortured, and killed the boy.

At least, according to the indictment. It took everything in my power to remember that an indictment was not a conviction. It was just the state’s version of events, only one side of the story.

Still, when I finished reading it, I looked up at Naomi and said, “They have hard evidence here.”

“I know,” my niece said.

“Did Stefan do it?”

“He swears he didn’t. And I believe him. He’s being framed.”

“By who?”

“I’m open to suggestions at this point,” she said, turning into a public parking lot near the city hall, the county courthouse, and the jail, all of which were brick-faced and in desperate need of repointing.

Across the street, the police and fire stations looked much newer, and I remarked on it as I climbed out.

“They built them with state and federal grants a few years ago,” Naomi said. “The Caine family donated the land.”

“Caine, as in the fertilizer company?”

“And the maiden name of the boy’s mother, Cece Caine Turnbull.”

We started toward the jail. “She credible? The mom?”

“She’s a piece of work, that one,” my niece replied. “Got a sheet going back ten years. Real wild child and definitely the black sheep of the Caines. But on this, she comes across as more than credible. The murder has ravaged her. There’s no denying that.”

“The dad?”

“In and out of the picture, recently mostly out,” Naomi said. “And he’s got about as strong an alibi as you can have.”

“He was in prison?”

“Jail down in Biloxi. Doing eight weeks for assault.”

“So he wasn’t a good role model in the boy’s life.”

“Nope. That was supposed to be Stefan’s job.”

We arrived at the jail, went inside. A sheriff’s deputy looked up from behind a bulletproof window.

“Attorney Naomi Cross and Alex Cross to see Stefan Tate, please,” my niece said, rummaging in her pocketbook for her ID. Mine was already out.

“Not today, I’m afraid,” the deputy said.

“What does that mean, not today?” Naomi demanded.

“It means that, from what I was told, your client has been a less than cooperative inmate — downright belligerent, as a matter of fact. So his visitation privileges have been revoked for forty-eight hours.”

“Forty-eight hours?” my niece cried. “We go to trial in three days! I have to have access to my client.”

“Sorry, Counselor,” she said. “But I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.”

“Who made the call?” I asked. “Police chief or district attorney?”

“Neither. Judge Varney made that decision.”

We waited two hours on the second floor of the Starksville courthouse, stewing on a bench outside the chambers of Judge Erasmus P. Varney, before his clerk said he was ready to see us.

Judge Varney looked up at us from behind several stacks of legal files and a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses. His steel-colored hair was brushed back in a low pompadour, and his steel-colored beard was close cropped. He wore a rep tie and thin leather suspenders over a starched white shirt, and he studied each of us in turn with sharp intelligent eyes.

“Judge Varney, this is Dr. Alex Cross, my uncle and Stefan Tate’s cousin,” Naomi said, trying to control her fury. “He’s helping me with the case.”

“A real family affair,” Varney remarked before setting down his reading glasses and standing to shake my hand firmly. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Cross. Your reputation precedes you. I read a Washington Post story about the terrible ordeal you and your family went through with that maniac Marcus Sunday. Terrible thing. Miracle you all survived.”

“It was, sir,” I said. “And I thank God for that miracle every day.”

“I bet you do,” Judge Varney said, holding my gaze. Then he turned to Naomi. “So, what can I do for you, Counselor?”

“Allow me to see my client, sir.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Naomi said, “we are less than seventy-two hours from trial. You can’t limit my time like this without jeopardizing his right to a vigorous defense.”

The door opened behind us. I looked over to find four people coming in: a burly, sixtyish, fair-skinned man in a blue Starksville Police Department uniform; a lanky guy, also in his sixties, in the khaki uniform of the Stark County Sheriff’s Office; a tall, whippet-thin woman in a gray business suit; and Matt Brady, the assistant prosecutor I’d met with Naomi the day before.