76

On Thursday afternoon, Mace James sat face to face with Rashad Reed, inmate number 34721 in the Milton County Correctional Facility. Like most inmates, Rashad and two others shared a jail cell that was designed for two men, not three. The overcrowded conditions had spawned a rash of federal lawsuits. Rashad was sure he would be a rich man before he left jail. If he left jail.

Rashad was thin with a goatee and close-cropped hair and tattoos everywhere. He had a gold tooth and a left eye that didn’t seem to open all the way. He reminded Mace of the little brother who constantly tried to hang with the big kids and would get beat up occasionally and sent home but would always come back. Rashad had a kind of nervous energy going, his eyes darting back and forth, leg constantly bouncing.

He’d been charged with multiple counts of carjacking, and he was looking at a sentence of up to eighty years behind bars if convicted. He had paid a big retainer to Caleb Tate nearly nine months ago, and his trial date was fast approaching. Like certain other Tate clients who had paid big retainers, Rashad had passed a polygraph test.

Mace had now spent nearly an hour with Rashad, urging him to fire Tate and hire him. He told Rashad the plain, hard truth—that a lie detector wouldn’t be admissible in court. But if Rashad agreed to take this new brain-scan test and the results turned out the way Mace expected, Mace thought he could work Rashad a sweet deal. He might have to serve eighteen months or two years, but he could do it in solitary confinement in a different prison.

Rashad shook his head. “No way, man. I seen what they did to those other dudes. Man, they’ll find me and slice out my tongue or something. Nobody in here deals anymore.”

Mace could see the fear in the inmate’s eyes, and it was hard to blame him. In the last few months, cutting a deal had been like signing a death warrant for yourself or your family. But eighty years in jail was a long time.

“What if I could get you into the witness protection program?” Mace asked. “The Feds never lose anybody. They’d move you to the other side of the country, give you a new ID, a new start on life.” Mace didn’t know if he could really make it happen, but right now, he would promise anything.

Rashad’s leg bounced faster. He blinked a few times, and Mace could tell the man was interested.

“You’re looking at eighty years, and you’ll have to serve at least twenty,” Mace reminded him. “You’ll never get a chance like this again.”

“I don’t know, man.”

“Just do the test,” Mace persisted. “What can that hurt? It’s all protected by the attorney-client privilege. At least then we’ll know.”

Rashad fidgeted and leaned back in his chair as if he could distance himself from the whole proposal. He snuck a glance over his shoulder and then leaned toward Mace again. “You sure no one will know?”

“They’ll know you’re taking the test. But nobody has to know we’re talking plea bargain until you’re out of here.”

Rashad studied the floor.

“Look,” Mace said, “I lost my job because of what I did for my last client, and I might lose my bar license before it’s all over. Once you hire me, I’ll do anything to get you out of this mess. Or you can stay with Caleb Tate, who’s more concerned with saving his own butt than he is with yours. When’s the last time he came to see you?”

Rashad looked up and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Which means never,” Mace said. “If I walk out that door and you don’t hire me, I’m never coming back. I’ll get this deal for somebody else, and you can sit here and rot for eighty years. You like it in jail? Looks to me like you get knocked around pretty good.”

Rashad stared at Mace and shook his head a little. It was torture for this kid to decide.

Mace stood up to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“To find somebody with guts,” Mace said.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Rashad said. He held out his hands, palms toward the floor, trying to slow things down. “Sit back down, Mr. James. Tell me again how this witness protection thing works.”

I spent the first part of Thursday evening meeting with Bill Masterson and Rafael Rivera in our conference room, trying to get our star witness ready to testify. When Rivera left, Masterson shook his head. “He’s our witness, and even I don’t believe him.”

I rubbed my temple, a raging headache spreading across my scalp. “I know what you mean. But how did he find out about the morphine? How did he know about the six-month time frame?”

“He’s either telling the truth or we’ve got bigger problems,” Masterson said.

Bill and I had been through this line of reasoning before. There were only a few people who knew about the fingernail results when Rivera came to us. The state toxicologist, Dr. O’Leary, LA, and the two other detectives working the case. A few staff members in our own office. Neither Bill nor I wanted to believe any of them would have leaked the results.

But every time we discussed this issue, I thought about the Peachtree Road Race and the note somebody had slipped me. I had told no one about it at the time, and it seemed too late to bring it up now. It was another one of those Jamie Brock secrets, my failure to divulge something that might get in the way of the result I wanted on the case.

I got home just before eight o’clock to prepare my second witness of the night. LA was waiting on my front steps and broke into a big smile when he saw me. “Justice has been going crazy in there,” he said. “I almost decided to break into your house, but I didn’t want you to worry about how insecure it was.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel a lot better.”

When we opened the door, Justice went straight for LA. They wrestled around a little bit, and I tried not to feel jealous.

Before I knew it, the two were in the family room playing tug-of-war and causing a big ruckus. I told LA I would be with him in a few minutes and went upstairs to change.

When I came back down, there were two plates of Chinese food on the kitchen table. I had skipped supper, and the broccoli and chicken smelled incredible.

“Where did this come from?”

“Been cooking all afternoon,” LA said.

I was too antsy to relax during dinner, so I got out my list of questions and grilled LA as we ate. Afterward we moved into the war room and spent another three hours going over details of the case. By eleven thirty, I could see LA beginning to fade. The eyelids were getting heavy, despite his third cup of coffee.

“Do you ever take a break?” he asked.

“No. Now, what are you going to say when he asks about the fingerprint evidence on the pill bottles?”

LA shook his head. “We’ve been over this twice already. I’ll probably say the same thing I told you last time.”

Justice pawed at the back door, and I got up to let him out. LA followed and stood behind me as I waited for Justice to finish. My favorite detective put his hands on my shoulders and began rubbing my neck.

“Man, you are wound tight,” he said. His strong fingers started kneading the muscles.

“Mmm, that feels great.”

“You must have a wicked headache,” he said. “These muscles are about to snap.”

This time I didn’t talk. I just put my head down and leaned back into it a little bit. This guy knew what he was doing. The fingers did their work up and down my neck and along the tops of my shoulders. I took a deep breath and tried to relax, focusing on the techniques I had learned from Gillespie. Neither one of us spoke, and in the stillness I could hear the soft, rhythmic breathing of my lead detective.

I wished Justice would have stayed out all night, but he eventually returned, and I had to break the trance to let him in. I gave him a treat and headed back toward the war room.

“I wasn’t done,” LA said.

I turned to face him and knew what my decision would be. He held out his hand and led me to the couch. I kicked off my shoes, and he sat behind me, massaging my shoulders and back as I felt the tension leaving my body. After several minutes, I leaned against him and pulled my knees up on the couch. He put his arm around me and I just burrowed in, listening to him breathe, feeling the beat of his heart.

Within minutes, I had dozed into that zone between consciousness and unconsciousness, disjointed thoughts floating through my mind in a last-ditch effort to worry about the day ahead. LA had succeeded where Gillespie had failed. I felt secure, relaxed, needed. I sat against him with my eyes closed, and the world seemed to be a safe place for the first time in months. I curled my knees toward my chest and snuggled in a little tighter. I fidgeted to get comfortable, leaning my head against his chest. It all felt so natural that I don’t even remember falling asleep.

I woke up at 2 a.m. in the darkness with a blanket over me and a pillow under my head. It took me a minute to get oriented, but then I sat up and looked around. LA was gone. The house was dark. Justice was sleeping on the floor next to the couch. I got up and staggered to my bedroom, not even bothering with the sleeping pills. I was so relaxed that I felt like I had already taken them.

I brushed my teeth, changed into my sleepshirt, and climbed into bed. I set the alarm for six. And as I dozed off for the second time that night, I pretended I was in the arms of my favorite Milton County detective.