Chapter 22

More than two weeks after the shooting, SLED still had no solid leads. Or at least nothing Burdette had shared with Connor, other than the basics about Lyle Hicks. Willis Ronson had already been cremated, and Cherine Dupree was set to be released from rehab in just a few days. Jimmy Brinks hadn’t made another cryptic appearance at the bar, and Clooney maintained his habit of lying in the corner of the drinking deck, watching lizards scurry across the floorboards.

On a Tuesday afternoon Connor was using the dumbwaiter to haul cases of beer upstairs from the street-level storage room when his phone rang. It was Caitlin Thomas, who said, “You still looking into the Willis Ronson hit?”

Truth was, with Lyle Hicks on the loose, Connor’s priorities had shifted. And multiplied. Yes, the gunmen who had killed Ronson remained in the wind, and he considered them a very real threat. But Hicks had made a grisly statement by murdering his former attorney and making threats against his wife. Given Connor’s unprovoked attack on him, a return visit was only a matter of time.

“Among other things,” he said.

“Things like Liz Morgan?”

“I’m thinking she’s probably a dead end,” he told her.

“You might want to think again,” Caitlin said. “I’ve been doing a little more digging and came up with something.”

“Something like what?” he asked.

“A real name, for starters. I can’t prove it, but I think she’s actually an ATF agent named Brenda Buckner working out of the field office in Columbia.”

“Seriously?” he said. “You’ve spoken with her?”

“Not directly. But someone who shouldn’t have been talking to me said Ms. Buckner had been working undercover on the theft of weapons from Camp Lejeune north of Wilmington. Thing is, she hasn’t been seen or heard from in weeks—not since around the time Ronson was killed—and a lot of people are getting nervous.”

“Brenda Buckner,” Connor said, running the name through his brain so he wouldn’t forget it. “Have you tried finding her?”

“Please,” Caitlin replied, in such a way that he could sense her rolling her eyes. “I’ve already located her house up in Chapin, ran what I could of her credit records, checked the DMV database. Found an email address and two phone numbers, but when I called them all I got was squat.”

“You think Willis Ronson was in cahoots with her?” he asked.

“Makes more sense than an old flame trying to hop in the sack with him. Did Mrs. Ronson say when they met?”

Connor thought back to what Donna had mentioned, something about how Liz Morgan —possibly Brenda Buckner—had written to Willis when he was doing time in Bennettsville. Six, seven years ago. A sicko inmate pen pal thing, was how she’d described it.

“The first time he was in prison,” Connor said. “Two years for B and E, sentence chopped almost in half.”

“Think Buckner could’ve dangled a carrot, convinced him to become a confidential informant?”

“It’s as good a theory as any,” he replied. “If we can find her, we also might find out why she squirreled him away to that motel up in Andrews.”

Caitlin nodded slowly, then frowned as a look of confusion crept into her eyes. “You know what I don’t get?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“Wise-ass.” She made the sound of someone passing gas, then said, “The thing is, if Ronson was working with the ATF on something, and it meant he had to jump bail, why didn’t this Buckner woman work with his lawyer and the judge to get his court date postponed? That way he wouldn’t have violated the terms of his bail, could have saved a lot of time and effort. And he might be alive today.”

“Good point,” Connor agreed. He was almost one hundred percent certain Liz Morgan had paid for Ronson’s motel room, and had ordered mushrooms on her half of the take-out pizza. If Ronson had been working as a C.I. for the feds, was the attempted theft of copper wire from the transformer plant part of the original play? What role did Joey Barber have in the set-up, if anything? And, as Caitlin had suggested, why had the judge in the case not been informed of what the ATF was up to so he—or she—could issue a postponement?

“Don’t suppose you can find out who presided over the case,” he said.

“It’s all public records,” Caitlin replied. “You’ll know as soon as I do.”

The judge’s name turned out to be Charles Huger, pronounced the Charleston way: You-gee.

Since it was a Tuesday, he was holding court at the J. Waties Waring Judicial Center in downtown Charleston. The building was named for the son of a Confederate soldier and early hero of the civil rights movement, a federal judge who’d had the audacity to denounce segregation as an “evil that must be eradicated.” His strident—and unexpected—views helped pave the way years later for Brown v. Board of Education, a perspective that didn’t go over very well with much of the local populace. Years later, however, when state lawmakers realized desegregation had become a de facto part of American life, the building was named in his honor. Much to the dismay of a full coterie of voters who remained torn by the rocks and bottles they and their parents has hurled at Black kids whose only sin was to try to get a good education.

Judge Huger was overseeing jury selection for a criminal trial, and was not available for a quick conversation. Not today and, as a bailiff made clear, he likely wouldn’t be available tomorrow, either. Not until the case was over and done, and probably not even then. Connor was certainly welcome to come back any day—the courtroom was a public venue, and anyone could watch a trial from the gallery—but the odds of him getting a word with the Honorable Charles Huger were slim to none.

Connor considered waiting the judge out, maybe try to catch him in the hallway, but eventually figured it would be a waste of time. Ronson must have been one of dozens of cases on Huger’s docket at the time, and it wasn’t his job to keep track of each and every defendant. That’s what court clerks and prosecutors were for, and if Ronson had been a no-show because he was involved with some sort of government sting, that was his problem, not the judge’s. It was a loose end Connor couldn’t ignore, like something stuck between his teeth that he just couldn’t get at.

On the way home he called Cherine Dupree at Sea Island Rehab. She was making a remarkable recovery, and hoped to be home by the end of the week. No complications from the surgery, and her occupational therapy was progressing as well as could be hoped.

“I feel like a new woman, except I have the same old bills to pay,” she’d told him. “What’s up?”

“What can you tell me about the judge who presided over the Ronson matter?” Connor asked her, getting right to it.

She hesitated a second, then said, “Remind me who it was?”

“Charles Huger.”

“Good ‘ol Dixie boy and a real windbag,” she said. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because something came up that doesn’t make sense.” He explained about Liz Morgan/Brenda Buckner’s involvement with the ATF, and the theory that Ronson may have been a CI in some sort of government operation. “I thought maybe you had a line on Huger, might know something that could explain why he didn’t postpone Ronson’s hearing.”

“Wait…back up a sec. You’re saying my client was working with the feds?”

“Looks that way,” Connor replied.

There was a stunned silence, and then Cherine started giggling. “Well, if that don’t beat all,” she said. “Willis Ronson, a jailhouse snitch. Just doesn’t seem the type.”

“You had no idea?”

“Like every other client, he got dropped in my lap,” Cherine replied. “Luck of the draw. And he never said a word to me, not about that. But it could explain a lot of things, including the ambush.”

“You think someone found out he was a C.I. and went gunning for him?”

“All of us,” she reminded him. “But yeah…it’s as good an explanation as any. Any idea what they had him working on?”

“No, and it’s just conjecture at this point. But I suspect it could lead back to your guy, Joey Barber.”

Cherine fell silent again, and Connor figured she was thinking this through, trying to make sense of what he was telling her. Eventually she said, “I can’t help but think there’s more to this than a stupid attempt to steal copper wire. That was just the tip of something a lot bigger.”

Connor was already way out ahead of her, but kept his thoughts to himself. Instead, he said, “If Ronson was a snitch, wouldn’t someone have alerted the judge on the down-low that he wasn’t going to be able to make his court date?”

“One would think. Seems to me, someone dropped the ball.”

The evening started off fast, especially for a Tuesday, but hit a lull a little after ten. Connor closed the bar not long after midnight, and was in bed an hour later.

The night was unseasonably chilly, with a steady wind from the southeast and low humidity. Perfect sleeping weather, so he left the windows open to let the cool breeze in. Clooney had no trouble quickly dropping into dreamland, but there were too many random anxieties colliding in Connor’s head for him to do the same.

They began with the old chestnut: who shot Willis Ronson? Followed closely by, what had Liz Morgan/Brenda Buckner gotten him involved with? What was Joey Barber’s involvement, and how did he fit in with the copper theft? Was it all part of a munitions operation, making homegrown bullets that couldn’t be traced? Also, what was up with Barber’s copycat plot to blow up a federal building? How did that play into this, if at all?

Topped off with, where the hell was Lyle Hicks?

All intertwined with misty images of Danielle Simmons, lovingly caressing her horses in a billowing swirl of a thick lowcountry fog.

Sleep eventually came, but it was fitful and fleeting, involving much tossing and turning and crazy visions that caused Connor’s brain to come to a rolling boil. But sleep was sleep, and he took what he could get, until his phone abruptly rang on the nightstand beside the bed. His first thought was that good news never called at 2:47 in the morning, which was what the clock was signaling. Nor did he recognize the out-of-state number on the screen.

“What’s wrong?” were the first words out of his mouth.

“Mr. Connor? This is Claire Windham. I’m Cherine’s wife—”

Connor blinked the last thread of a dream from his brain and thought, where did she get my number? “Oh, yeah…I remember,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Well, the thing is, I’m out of town,” Claire replied. He sensed her trembling, a thick fear in her voice. “Down in Birmingham, working on a Law Center thing. I just got a call from Cherie, and she said something was going on.”

“What do you mean, going on?”

“At the rehab place. Loud noises, fighting down the hall. Alarms ringing, that sort of thing. She’s afraid. Scared for her life.”

“She told you that?”

“She didn’t have to; I heard it in her voice. Look, if I were home, I’d drive over there, see what was going on. But I’m stuck down here—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Connor said. “I’ll get over there as soon as I can.”

“I hate to call you like this—”

“No worries,” he told her. “I’m on my way, and I’ll call you when I find out something.”

“I…I thank you so much, Mr. Connor. I know it’s late—”

“Right. And I need to hang up now so I can throw some clothes on.”

“Got it. Please hurry.”

“On my way.”

There was no traffic and Connor drove as fast as he could, figuring the only cops on duty at this hour would be booking the drunk drivers they’d pulled over earlier. But there were no cop cars lying in wait for him, although he did pass one just as it was leaving Sea Island Rehab thirty minutes later as he was pulling in. Definitely an indication there’d been some kind of commotion that, whatever it was, appeared to have been subdued. He pulled into a parking space near the front entrance and cut the engine, then hobbled toward the front door.

He leaned on the buzzer, kept his finger pressed to it until a man in a guard’s uniform eventually came lumbering around the corner into the lobby. He waved his arms at Connor as he approached, indicating he couldn’t come in.

“No visitors,” he said into a speaker mounted just inside the door. He was white, a little under six feet, buzz-cut with gray eyes and King Charles ears. Not the guy named Quinn, with whom he’d spoken a couple days before. “Come back in the morning.”

“A friend of mine is a patient here,” Connor said into a pinhole microphone on his side of the glass. “She called me, said there was a brawl.” A bit of a stretch, but the guard didn’t need to know about Claire Windham.

“Nothing to worry about, sir,” the guard tried to convince him.

It didn’t work. “The police were called. I just saw them leave. So I’ll ask again: what’s going on?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. Like I said, come back in the morning.”

“It is the morning,” Connor pointed out, gesturing toward an analog clock with hands on the lobby wall. Three-twenty-two.

“Just a misunderstanding, is all,” the guard insisted. “Rest assured, the place is secure.”

“Secure from what?”

“Everyone. Now go home.”

Connor stood there, powerless to do anything, not sure there was anything to be done. The grounds around Sea Island Rehab appeared to be quiet. No police, not now. No one trying to get in, no one causing a commotion. Whatever Cherine Dupree had called Claire about seemed to either have subsided, or had been a non-starter.

“I’m on my way,” he told the guard. “Appreciate your help.”

He slowly trudged back to his car, where he keyed the engine to life. In the rearview mirror he saw the sentry studying him through the glass, before eventually retreating further inside the building. Once Connor was sure he was no longer watching, he pulled through the parking space as if he were leaving.

Instead of driving home, however, he circled through the lot, then backed to the far edge of the parking lot and slipped into a dark space beneath the weeping branches of a willow. Same one as the other day when he visited the security manager named Quinn. If he was lucky, the rest of the night would remain quiet and he might be able to snag a few hours of much-needed sleep before the sun began filtering through the surrounding pines a couple hours from now.

He tilted his seat back until he could barely see over the dashboard, then hit the redial function on his phone. Claire Windham picked it up on the first ring and said, “Mr. Connor… what’s the word?”

“Nothing, at least not now,” he told her. “The cops were here earlier, but they’re all gone. Everything seems nice and quiet.”

“Where are you?”

“Parked under a tree, keeping an eye on things. Just in case.”

“Just in case of what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever. You want me to call Cherine, tell her everything’s okay?”

“No…let me do that,” Claire said.

“She doesn’t know you called me, does she?”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I asked her for your number, but didn’t tell her why I wanted it. How long are you going to stay parked under that tree?”

“As long as I have to.”

“Okay. Good. And thanks. I wasn’t too sure about you, first time we met.”

“And now?”

“First impressions are made to be changed.”

About thirty minutes later Connor was awakened from a light sleep when a vehicle thumped over a speed bump at the street entrance, its headlights suspiciously off. It slowly cruised on a lazy arc through the lot, past the cluster of cars belonging to the skeleton crew. It was a pick-up truck, make and model not immediately discernible in the night, but as it circled around toward the double doors, he recognized the ribbed tailgate of a newer model Ford F-150.

It slowed to a halt just shy of the portico roof that protected visitors from the weather, and sat there with its engine running. Tinted glass and the prevailing darkness obscured whoever was inside, and the angle at which Connor had parked his car eliminated any chance of making out even a single digit of the license number. He’d planned on sleep, not surveillance.

The truck—black or dark gray—sat there for a good five minutes, not moving. Then it began to inch forward, through the porte cochere, and made an abrupt turn that, if it kept moving, would bring it within a few yards of where Connor was hunkered down. He lowered himself even further in his seat and studied the pick-up as it slowly edged past, and this time he could see the silhouette of a man in the truck cab. The guy was facing forward, keeping one hand on the wheel while glancing at something that seemed to glow in the other.

A cellphone.

He didn’t appear to notice Connor as he rolled toward the exit. Still no lights, but just before he disappeared from view the moon peeked through a gap in the clouds, casting a sliver of light across the tailgate. Not sufficient to give him anything from the license plate, but more than enough to illuminate the vinyl sticker affixed to the bumper:

Same logo as on the ragged patch Connor had found at the crash site out on Indigo Road, same as on every page of the Lomax Industries website. Every package of Lomax chicken that rolled off the production line. And now here, on a truck prowling through the dark parking lot at the rehab facility where Willis Ronson’s attorney was recovering from a gunshot that had almost killed her.

Right above another sticker with the now-familiar black oval outline: