Greg Iles - Turning Angel

Drew’s voice sounds like that of a man being sedated before an operation, a monotone fading into nothingness. “You can stop, Drew.”

He continues as though he can’t hear me over the print screaming from his computer monitor. “ ’…priest, physical therapist, chiropractor, legal guardian, parent, stepparent, aunt, uncle, scout leader or coach.‘ ”

“Drew, listen to me. Are you listening?”

Out of a deep well of silence comes a single sob.

“Drew, it’s all right. I know you’re feeling terrible guilt right now. Seeing it written down like that, you may feel for the first time that you’re guilty of a crime.”

“She’s dead,” he says in a shattered voice. “And if I hadn’t crossed this line with her, she’d be alive right now.”

“You don’t know that. You’re not God. Listen to me, buddy. I love you. I love you, and I respect you. You’re just human, like the rest of us.”

“Wait a minute,” he says wetly. “I’m looking for the penalty.”

“Don’t. Leave that for tomorrow.”

“I need to see it.”

No, you don’t, I say silently. It’s going to be thirty years-

“Jesus Christ. It’s thirty years.”

“That’s not going to happen, Drew. I promise you that.”

“Oh my God,” he says with fresh dread.

“What? What is it?”

“For a second offense, it’s forty years. Timmy would be-”

“Turn off that computer! That’s not the real world, Drew.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hell, yes. I was a prosecutor for fifteen years. That’s why you wanted my advice about all this, remember? And my advice is to go to sleep and let me do the worrying for you. That’s what you’re paying me for.”

“Twenty bucks doesn’t pay for much worrying.”

I don’t reply for some time. Then I say, “You saved my life. And you risked your own to do it. If you hadn’t, my daughter would never have been born. That buys you a lot of worrying.”

“You never asked for this.”

“No, but I can handle it. You’ve got to stay in control for me, though.”

“You’re not leaving town or anything tomorrow, are you?”

“No way. Now, what are you going to do about the blackmail issue? Are you going to come clean with the cops?”

“After what we just learned? I don’t know.”

“You’re a smart guy, Drew. Let’s talk about probability.”

“Okay.”

“How often did you see Kate? I don’t mean platonically. How often were you alone with her, intimate with her?”

“Every day. Or night, rather.”

Unbelievable. “For how long?”

“For the last seven months, I guess. Ever since the mission trip to Honduras. After that, we couldn’t stand to be apart.”

“Get out ahead of this thing, Drew. It’s your only chance.”

“I hear you.”

I let the silence do its work for a while. “Do you?”

“It’s Tim that’s holding me back. I don’t want him to have to know about this if he doesn’t have to. I don’t want him to have to go through the grief he’ll get at school because of it. I don’t even want Ellen to have to deal with it, now that Kate’s dead. There’s just no reason anymore.”

“Yes, there is. This thing is beyond your control now. No matter what you do, it’s eventually going to come out.”

“I’m not so sure. If Kate said she didn’t tell anybody, she didn’t.”

“Then who’s blackmailing you?”

“Kate’s killers.”

I grunt noncommittally. “ I’m not so sure.”

“I know. But I am.” He breathes steadily into the phone. “Thanks for tonight, Penn. I mean it.”

“Night, buddy.”

The open line hisses in my ear.

I hang up.

Drew’s blackmailers lost no time making him pay for his indecisiveness. At 11:10 the next morning, I was helping my mother paint some bookshelves in her garage when my cell phone rang. The screen showed Drew as the caller. I walked out of the garage under the pretext of getting better cell reception, then answered by saying, “Are you as sore as I am?”

“You were right,” he said. “I’m fucked.”

A current of anxiety shot through me, but experience kept my voice calm. “What’s happened?”

“I just got off the phone with Shad Johnson. He got an anonymous call this morning.”

“Let me guess. The caller said you were having an affair with Kate Townsend and that you might have killed her.”

“Yep.”

“Did he give any details?”

“Johnson didn’t say so.”

“What did Shad ask you during the call? Did he ask straight out if the accusation was true?”

“No. He basically said, ’Doc, I hate to have to call you about this, but I got this call with an accusation, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t ask you about it.‘ He was pretty friendly, actually.”

“Shad Johnson is not your friend.”

“I understand that. I was just giving you his tone. He said he wanted to give me a chance to deny it as soon as possible, so that it doesn’t become any kind of thing.”

“ ’Thing‘? That was his word?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s already a thing, Drew. You can bet your ass on that. Did you flat-out deny that you were seeing Kate?”

“No.”

I sighed with relief.

“I acted stunned,” he said, “which I was. I told him I was too shocked even to respond to such an outrageous accusation, that Kate was a close friend of our family, and that we’d been shattered by her death. Shad said he understood. He said he’d like to talk to me about it at his office. He said I might have information about Kate that could help them piece together a better picture of her than they have now.”

“What did you say to that?”

“What could I say? I told him I wanted to do everything I could to assist the investigation.”

“Okay. When is this meeting?”

“Lunch today. Fifty minutes from now.”

Shit. “Was it a short call? Long? What?”

“Short.”

“That’s because Shad got what he wanted. He thinks he’s going to question you on his territory.”

“He’s not?”

“Not unless you’re a complete moron-which, after last night, I’m starting to believe.”

“Penn-”

“Damn it, why didn’t you volunteer the information last night like I told you to?”

“You know why! I didn’t want Tim and Ellen to have to deal with it if they didn’t have to.”

“Well, now they have to.”

“What do I do, Penn?”

“You really need a lawyer now.”

“I told you that last night.”

“And I told you I wasn’t your guy. Not for this.”

“The meeting’s in fifty minutes!”

I bowed my head in resignation. The odds of finding a Natchez lawyer qualified to take that meeting were low, and the odds of adequately briefing one in time were nil. “Where are you now?”

“At my office. Seeing patients.”

“You’re off at twelve?”

“Yeah.”

“You just had an emergency.”

Drew was silent for a moment. “I’m skipping the meeting?”

“I’m going in your place.”

“Is that the best thing?”

“We need to get some idea of what Shad is thinking. I’d also like to know what the autopsy turned up. Shad probably has the pathologist’s report in hand by now.”

“I don’t want to think about that. This is Kate we’re talking about.”

You’d better get used to it. “Sorry. Now…we have a tricky little problem to deal with. Think before you answer me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“The first thing Shad is going to ask me is where you were when Kate was murdered. He won’t be obvious about it, but he’ll ask. And I happen to know you were at the murder scene. Where did you go after you left the creek?”