When Men Betray (20 page)

He smiled the old Sam smile. “Fair enough. Hey, I haven't even asked about your leg. What in the hell were you doing in that part of town and at Butler Field no less?”

“Lots of memories, Sam, lots of great memories.” As my catcher, he'd been with me for many of those memories.

I could see through the glass that the press had set up a bank of microphones and a little makeshift podium. Clovis appeared, straightened my tie, and said, “Show time.”

I nodded and walked deliberately up to the podium, and looked out over a sea of waiting faces. “I'll make this short. I've met with Woody Cole, and I'm going now to see his mother. This is the only time I'll speak to the press until after the arraignment.”

“Why did he shoot the senator?”

I ignored that one.

“Is he sorry for what he did?”

“That's a question for Mr. Cole, and he's not available.”

“When will Les Butterman take over the defense?”

“Let me be clear,” I said for the second time in a matter of minutes: “Neither Mr. Butterman nor his office will be involved in Mr. Cole's defense.”

The reporter looked puzzled and shouted, “But—”

I cut him off. “I met with Mr. Butterman this morning. He's been told that he won't be hired. I have nothing further to say on this matter.”

“Have you engaged counsel?”

“Yes. Mr. Cole's counsel will appear with him Tuesday morning.”

“What's the defense? Will you claim Woody is insane?”

I glared at the questioner.

“What
can
you tell us? Why did you go to the senator's home this morning?”

“The senator's staff can answer that question however they choose.” I felt good, having said nothing of substance. “I promised I'd speak to you after my visit with Woody, so I have. But the truth is, I have nothing to say. Senator Robinson is dead, and that is a great tragedy. Everyone's thoughts should be on him and with his family. The best thing you can do is mourn with the people of this state and let our justice system work.”

O
N THE WAY
back to the hotel, I gave Clovis the gist of what had happened at the jail—specifically, that Woody thought Beth and I would be in danger if we stayed. Then I told him we were staying, at least through Tuesday's arraignment.

“No surprise there,” he drawled.

“I've got some extra work for your guys. I want someone watching Helen Cole night and day. If there
are
those who think I know something, they may think she does as well. Don't worry about the cost. We've discovered a little money we can use for her protection. I want Micki protected too. She'll balk, but I'm going to insist. I have no idea who or what's around the corner, but as they say, better safe … “

“Oh, she's going to balk. She's a wildcat, probably won't like the idea of anybody protecting her. Then again, you didn't think you needed protection at first either.”

I was amused by his reference to Micki as a wildcat. “Beth's where I'm vulnerable. I have no idea who
they
are, but I'll lose it if they even get close to her, and I'm sure they know that.”

“I'm on it. We'll do everything we can.”

“Good. Now there's one more thing, but nobody, not even my team, is to know anything about it.”

He waited patiently.

“Clovis, somehow, I want you to get into the rotunda and see if you
can locate a stray bullet in the wall or ceiling. I want you to check the crime scene for any evidence that there could have been a second shooter in the capitol that day.”

His mouth dropped open. “Holy shit. Is that even a possibility?”

“Probably not, but does it surprise you that no one has checked?”

“What would it mean if you're right?”

“There's probably less than a one-percent chance, but if any part of what I hope you'll find proves true, things will start to make sense where they don't right now. Can you manage it before anybody knows what you're doing? No special teams on this one. If you get caught, I'll take full responsibility.”

“It's a tall order, but I'm bettin' they've relaxed security over there by now. I'll give it a shot.”

C
LOVIS AND
I made it back to the hotel without incident and slipped in a side door. Paul joined us, which concerned me. I thought he was supposed to be outside the door to the suite. When we got off the elevator on our floor, I saw another security guy where Paul usually sat. I didn't recognize him, but Clovis and Paul seemed to know him.

“Who is this guy? I know he's security, but whose? Yours? Walter's? The hotel's?”

“Good catch, Jack. We'll make a security pro out of you yet.” When we walked up to the new guard, he stood and Paul introduced us. His name was Davis, and he was part of hotel security.

When we opened the door to the suite, I was swarmed by women. Beth and Maggie were concerned about my leg, and Micki wanted to know how things had gone with Woody. I told Micki we would all sit down and talk about it and assured Beth and Maggie that I was fine. That didn't keep them from bringing pillows from Beth's bedroom so I could sit sideways on the sofa and prop my leg up. A guy could get used to this.

Since I was taking up the whole sofa, Clovis and Paul brought over the chairs from the table, so we could sit in a circle of sorts. By the time everyone had found a seat, I had my thoughts organized.

“First things first. Micki, your sitting third chair is impossible. It won't work—sorry.” Micki looked confused. “If you're in agreement, we'll be partners or whatever you want to call it. I've never considered
Maggie a second chair, and I won't think of you as second or third chair either. I need you to set up shop right here, right now—not tomorrow. For the next thirty-six hours, we are under the gun—for reasons I'll explain in a minute.”

Micki jumped in: “Okay. Can do. I'll have my office handled by the time you return from Mrs. Cole's house.”

“Not so fast—I've got something for you all to think about, and I don't want any of you to make a snap judgment. He wouldn't tell me what it is, but Woody says he discovered something that could put us all in danger.” I turned the floor over to Clovis.

“Yesterday afternoon, I believe someone tried to run Jack over. He has also received credible threats. The fact he's still here doesn't take away from the gravity of what could happen; it just proves he doesn't scare easily.” He let the silence linger. “I've told him that I'll do my best, but we don't know what or who we're up against. You're all at risk. Jack says he's staying at least until Tuesday afternoon, but he wants you to decide for yourselves whether to stay or not. Maggie, I'll brief Mr. Matthews's security team about my concerns. Beth, you might want to talk to your father and Jeff. Micki, Jack insists that if you join the team, you get the same protection.”

“I don't need security,” she said, trying (and failing) to look nonchalant. “I've been dealing with drug pushers and thugs all my legal life. I can take care of myself.”

I quickly responded, “Micki, security isn't negotiable—it's the price of admission. If I'm worried about my safety, I'm no good to Woody. The same goes for if I'm worried about Beth, Maggie, or now, you. You probably can take care of yourself, but Clovis provides us all a certain level of protection, so we are comfortable enough to do our jobs. It's not up for discussion.”

Our eyes locked, and she was first to blink. “You know, you're pretty quick to pull rank, partner. But okay, I can live with it.”

Maggie said to me, “I've already spoken to Walter. If you're staying, so am I. Besides, I'm starting to enjoy the company of all these handsome men.”

No surprises from Beth. “You know
I'm
not going anywhere.”

Then it was Paul's turn. He told us that, from now on, each member of the various security teams would wear an identification pin and
would be given a new password each day, as would we. If we saw a security person we didn't recognize, we were to ask him for the password. If he didn't have the one that matched ours, or if we had any suspicions at all, we were to hit the little panic button he was handing out. It made a loud, piercing noise and sent a GPS signal to everyone on the security team. Today's password was
Delilah
.

We'd dealt with all the housekeeping—Micki was on board, Paul had given us all the security info, and Micki would bunk with Beth. It was time to give them the really bad news.

“The long and the short of it is that Woody wants to die. He wants to plead guilty and be executed. He doesn't want to put up a defense, says he's as sane as you and me, and refuses to tell me why he pointed the gun at Russell's head.”

“Well,
that's
a problem,” I heard Micki mutter.

“No kidding. I'm sure he's depressed. Who wouldn't be? But I don't think he's depressed enough to be insane or delusional. He says he had a plan to scare the shit out of Russell, and then kill himself. The fact that he had a plan doesn't help with the issue of premeditation, nor does the fact that he had his lawyer put all his assets in trust the day before the shooting.

“I have no idea what his plan was, other than to confront Russell about whatever had sent him over the edge. I went after him from every angle I could think of, trying to persuade him to explain what happened. Regardless, he takes full responsibility for Russell's death and wants to die for the crime. I couldn't convince him otherwise, so I bought time. He agreed to give me until Tuesday to convince him to change his mind.” I paused so all this could sink in.

“Micki, he agreed for you to be co-counsel. You're officially hired. I'll have your brood-mare check tonight. I'll give you more details, but this should be enough to keep your motor running. Now comes the hard part. I have to tell Helen that her only son wants to die.”

A
T
H
ELEN
'
S HOUSE
, I introduced Maggie to Mabel and the other die-hards who continued to man the kitchen, living room, and phones. I was pleased to see Beth give each of them a quick hug. Mabel said that Helen was waiting for us in the study.

She got up from her desk when we walked in and hurried over to me. “I heard on the news that someone almost ran over you. What in the world happened?” She looked at Beth. “Forgive me, child. If I'd known anything like this might happen, I'd never have asked your dad to come. Jack, take your beautiful daughter home and don't look back. I mean it. We'll manage.”

“Hold on, Helen. You shouldn't believe everything you hear on the news. We don't know exactly what happened, but I'm fine, and I'm staying until we can make some sense out of all this. I'm here this afternoon to give you a report, go over a few hurdles we face, and enlist your help. Let's sit down.”

I gave her a filtered version of my meeting with Woody, leaving out the trust-fund discussion and what he'd said about wanting to die.

Helen looked relieved. “Okay—he didn't mean to shoot Russell. And that bit about not cooperating and/or defending himself is just hogwash. I'll cure him of that notion.”

I hated to dampen her optimism. “It's not as simple as that. Woody
did
plan this. He says he only meant to frighten Russell, but he did
put a gun to his head, and the gun did go off. Convincing the jury it was an accident will be tough, even with evidence to back it up. I've got thirty-six hours to figure out why he wanted to scare Russell and somehow convince him to trust me.”

Helen asked, “Thirty-six hours? What happens then?”

I had no choice but to tell her. “The arraignment. Unless I can talk him out of it, your son intends to plead guilty to the first-degree murder of Russell Robinson.”

I could see the momentary look of disbelief in her eyes, yet she knew I was telling her the truth. She didn't say anything, and I let her come to grips with what I had just said.