Jonathon King - Shadow Men

"Why would he do such a thing, Mr. Freeman. The Lord would have long ago forgiven what his grandfather had done."

I helped Mayes to his feet and backed him out of the barn and into the sunlight.

When we got back to the front of the house, I sat him down on the steps of the porch, opened my cell phone and called O. J. Wilson. Mayes didn't flinch when he heard me ask the dispatcher to send the sheriff to the Jefferson home.

"You know, after Mr. Manchester told me about my great-grandfather's watch being found, it was like everything in my head just fell together," Mayes started.

"He hadn't run out on his family. He had been true to his beliefs. Ever since I was a kid I had this ache to believe in God, and I wondered where it had come from, how it had gotten inside me. I guess I wanted to know it was him, Cyrus Mayes.

"Then, when Mr. Manchester told me about the Jefferson in the letters and what you'd found, Mr. Freeman, I couldn't get it out of my head. The grandson of Cyrus Mayes's killer chose this, the ministry? How? I looked up the address of the church and drove over. I talked with his wife and asked her if I could talk with him, to maybe, I don't know, maybe offer some kind of forgiveness."

The silver crucifix he wore around his neck was out of his shirt. He had been handling it while he sat quietly in the barn and prayed. The glow of his innocence bothered me. Maybe I was jealous.

"Yeah, maybe you did," I said.

Wilson showed up with a squad car following him into the driveway. He greeted me coldly.

We stood in the shadow of the big oaks. Mayes deliberately avoided looking back at the open barn door, and the uniformed cops, one with sergeant stripes on his arm, seemed at a loss as to what to do with the bristle they carried into the place. The sheriff's face held a look of tight-lipped resolve.

"Hank, keep these two separated, please, until I can get their independent statements," he said, and then spun on his heel and headed for the barn. I went to sit in my truck while one of the deputies took Mayes to the squad car. The sergeant started over to me but when I looked up and met his eyes, he saw something in them that made him stop short, and he took up a position about fifteen feet away. I didn't say a word. After a time I watched Wilson step out of the barn door and head back our way. He bypassed us and went to the trunk of his Crown Victoria and popped the trunk. He came up with what I recognized as a fingerprint kit and I watched him return to the barn. He was gone several minutes more and then came out with the kit and again disappeared into the trunk of his car, concentrating on something there. When he was finished, he called me over and my guard came with me.

"I am not a man who likes to be wrong, Mr. Freeman, but my daddy taught me to at least admit it when you are." There was no question in the statement, so I did not feel compelled to say anything in return.

"I have taken enough latent print courses at the FBI to make a good guess that the fingerprints of the now-deceased Mr. Jefferson appear to match those on the.405 casing that we found at the first murder scene," he said. "We'll have to get them over to the expert in Orlando, but I'm guessing we've got some shaking out to do with all this, Mr. Freeman. So why don't you and I sit down and talk a bit."

Wilson used his cell phone to call the county medical examiner's office. When he was through he gave his deputies instructions on how he wanted the scene sealed off, and then turned to me.

"Come take a knee with me, sir."

He led me over into the shade of the oak, and when the sergeant started to follow, he waved him off.

"It's OK, Hank," the sheriff said.

"If you don't mind, Mr. Freeman, I'd like to leave your friend there in the car."

I looked over at Mayes, and when I turned back, the sheriff read the confusion in my face.

"Gotta do this one by the book, sir."

We settled under the tree and I told him how I had arrived at the church at 6:10 and found Mrs. Jefferson there. I described where and how I had found Mayes and how I had left the scene out back just as he found it, except for my adjustment of the front door.

He nodded, and then it was his turn.

"You must have left the church just before we got there, son. Mrs. Jefferson called Judy down to dispatch and told her she'd found her husband hanging dead in the barn when she got up. She said she didn't know what to do but to go to the church and pray."

She had known he was dead before I had arrived. I tried to rerun her words and wondered why I hadn't caught it.

Wilson then gave me a short version of his own ten-year investigation into the Highlands County murders. The facts weren't much different from those that Billy had come up with in his research, but from the lawman who had lived the cases and had obviously let them burn in his head for so many years, it was painful to see him try to accept the truth. The reverend had carried out the killings as some kind of warped retribution against evil. The twitch of violence in his bloodline had surfaced in a way he could somehow justify.

While we spoke a van from the medical examiner's office arrived with another county squad car. Wilson's sergeant spoke to the driver and he backed down the driveway to the front of the barn. The van emitted a piercing beep for as long as the transmission was in reverse. I cringed with each beat, and saw Mark Mayes squeeze his eyes closed.

"I have seen Reverand Jefferson two or three times a week for a decade. Attended many a prayer meeting at his church," Wilson said, looking off in the direction of the van. "I'm having a hard time with all this, Mr. Freeman. What possesses a man?"

I wasn't qualified to answer such a question, and when I remained silent, he stood and put his hand on my shoulder.

"I need to speak to Mr. Mayes, and then you two can go. I will eventually need that rifle that the reverend gave you."

"I'm sure the ballistics reports on the weapon will be extremely thorough, Sheriff."

While Mayes was being interviewed I called Billy's office and home before finally reaching him on his cell. The connection was bad.

"I'm down in Miami-Dade," he said. "The lawyers for PalmCo are trying to get an injunction to block any excavation of the site that we put in the probable cause filing. They're trying to use some angle about sacred Indian burial grounds through the name of some Miccosuki tribesman they dug up, excuse the expression."

"Christ," I said. "Lawyers."

"It's a stalling tactic," Billy replied. We've already got a Collier County sheriff's detail out there securing the site, and I've warned the PalmCo boys that if they play us on this, we'll be glad to get the media involved."

"We built Florida on the bones of our workers."

"Exactly," Billy said.

I told Billy about Reverend Jefferson's suicide and the sheriff's preliminary fingerprint analysis.

"Is Mayes all right?"

I looked over to the patrol car where Wilson was still talking with the kid. Mayes was nodding his head, being deferential and polite.

"The kid's got some faith," I said. "And finally some answers."

"And more to use it on than he bargained for," Billy said.

When the sheriff was done talking to Mayes he escorted him over to where I was standing and shook my hand.

"I'll have to have both of you come in later to make official statements. I hope that won't put you out much. I know you'll have some pressing engagements down south," he said.

Mayes climbed into his car just as another squad car was pulling in. I could see Mrs. Jefferson's profile through the backseat window.

"May we go back to the church for a few minutes, Mr. Freeman?" Mayes said, watching the car through his window. I nodded and he pulled out ahead of me without waiting.