Page 118 of The Devil's Advocate

I had a mind to ask the judge to direct the jury to dismiss the case due to police and prosecutorial misconduct. But I knew it wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been proven. I decided I would save it for the speech to the jury.

‘Your Honor, we would request a recess to prepare our final witnesses for tomorrow,’ said Korn.

The court adjourned for the day. The look I got from Korn as he packed away his papers gave me the chills. He had been given a series of gut punches and he was ready to fight back. His gaze shifted to Andy, and it was then that smile played at his lips.

Something was coming.

Something bad.

Korn had some kind of ace. Some sort of insurance policy and he was about ready to cash in.

CHAPTER SIXTY

BLOCH

Sitting in the SUV with the AC off and the window cracked open an inch, Bloch watched for cars stopping outside the first-floor property she had broken into the day before.

She had driven around town and its outskirts for a couple of hours and hadn’t spotted Francis Edwards anywhere. His car wasn’t in the driveway, and she hadn’t seen it that day. After chasing her tail, she decided to wait outside the office where the White Camelia had their meetings.

Forty-five minutes she’d sat there, sweating in the sun, and watching the street. None of the vehicles she had seen yesterday were parked close by – no pick-ups with Confederate flags, and no vehicles on the street outside the property. The town was quiet in the noon sun. Almost peaceful. And yet, something lurked in the dank air. A feeling of malevolence that Bloch couldn’t shake. There was another side to small American towns like this. A dark side, soaked in bloody history and hate.

She popped the cap on a cold bottle of water she’d bought in the gas station and drank half of it. While she replaced it in the cup holder she saw something in her peripheral vision. Something she might have missed five seconds ago.

The door to the office opened. A man exited, closed the door behind him. He wore a panama hat, light-gray suit with a messenger bag slung over one shoulder. The hat kept his face hidden in shadow. This wasn’t Denvir, Francis Edwards or Gruber. She had not seen this man in the building before.

He didn’t stay on the street for long. A black SUV pulled up by the curb and he got into the front passenger seat. Bloch turned the key in the ignition and pulled out behind the SUV, keeping her distance. Tinted windows made it difficult to see inside, but she thought there was only the driver, the panama hat and no one else in the back.

The vehicle swung through the town, then headed into the more densely populated areas – the mostly white suburbs. Bloch had been all around Buckstown and the scars left by the Jim Crow laws were still clear. African Americans, Hispanic and the few Asian families she had seen were all on the other side of town in poor housing. There were very few in the bigger, more modern houses west of Main Street.

A tingle of electricity made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as the SUV turned left into Peachtree Avenue, then slowed and stopped up ahead, outside 491.

Francis Edwards’ house.

Bloch took her camera from the glove box, focused on the SUV and snapped a picture of the license plate. She would check it out soon as she had time. Bloch adjusted the zoom on the camera to get a good look at whoever got out of the passenger seat.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

THE PASTOR

The Pastor unbuttoned his suit jacket, took off his hat and placed it on top of one of the filing cabinets. There was no ventilation in the office, and he didn’t want to open the windows. He didn’t want to attract any attention from the street. He selected the files he wanted from the cabinet, closed it and then found the schematic for the governor’s mansion, put that in his bag along with the files.

He took a moment to look around.

His vision had been born in this room. The great things to come all started with conversations in this place. Secret conversations. And there were two men who would now bring his dreams to life. Everything he had worked for came down to the events that would unfold on this day.

He slung the bag over his shoulder, retrieved his hat and put it back on. A vicious heat threatened to crack the sidewalks today. It reminded him of those days in the box. The sun a burning God – peeling the black paint from the timbers of the box, cooking him in the darkness within as he begged his father to let him out.

‘Pray, boy. Pray for forgiveness and it shall set you free,’ was all his father ever said in response to his pleas for help.

And so the Pastor prayed. He prayed his father would die just like his mother, and give him some peace.

The Pastor’s father did die eventually. It was a hard death. The Pastor was home, visiting after his first summer of college. The full scholarship freed him of debt, but he didn’t have much to live on. There had been offers made on the farm, and the Pastor’s father had refused to sell – saying that he would die on the property, soon as let it go to a stranger.

When the police found the Pastor’s father he was out back, at the chopping block, which was nothing more than a wide, flat stump of an oak tree. The base of the stump was scarred where the axe had been buried after each session of chopping wood. The Pastor’s father was laying down beside the block, his left foot partially severed. The sheriff thought it clear that the man must’ve slipped, hit his ankle with the axe and bled out quite quickly.

The Pastor knew that wasn’t true. It had taken several hours for his father to die after he had hit him in the leg with the axe. He could’ve ended the suffering much sooner. One blow to the neck or head with the axe is all it would take. Instead, the Pastor had wrapped some fine wire around his father’s injured leg, and nailed the other end of the wire down to the stump. His father could crawl away, try to get to the phone in the house, or maybe even get to the front porch and cry for help there, but he would be doing that minus his foot.

Instead, he called out for help, and cried and begged his son to release him.