Page 13 of The Devil's Advocate

‘I sure haven’t,’ she said, softly.

Every morning and evening, Lomax carefully laid out Lucy’s pills. A dozen of them. Some she couldn’t swallow. The larger pills he would crush between two spoons, or the flat blade of a kitchen knife. The others he cut in half. Swallowing was becoming a bigger problem.

‘You should take the pills. Lucy, the doc said—’

‘The doc said six months, Colt. That was six months ago. I’ve had my time,’ she said, running her fingers over her scalp. Some threads of hair remained, drawn back over her pale skull, failing to hide the worms of blue veins that now stood out against her skin.

‘We talked about this,’ said Lomax.

‘We did. It’s my decision. We tried the chemo. It didn’t work, and I ain’t going through that again. The pills are making me dumb and sicker than I already am. I want to knit. I can’t when the drugs make me shake so. Either I’m stumbling around, or I’m being sick or sleeping. The pain ain’t so bad. It lets me know I’m still alive.’

She reached out, touched his hand, lightly. It was as if a breeze fell on his skin, her touch was so soft and cold.

‘I want to be a wife again. For a little while at least.’

‘But there are always new drugs, new treatments. We could get another opinion—’

‘No,’ said Lucy, louder than he’d heard her say anything for a long time. ‘We’ve spent too much money already. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, and what for? I’m dying, Colt. It’s my time. And it’s time you understood that. And accepted that. For me, please?’

Lomax didn’t hear his glass of lemonade fall from his grasp and smash on the porch boards. He heard his wife’s soft voice, and felt her touch. He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. Not in front of her. He’d sworn that he would not do that. Not ever. It only made it harder for her. He gulped back the loss that was coming for him.

He had always known this day would come.

He knew the bad things he’d done had caused this. That God was punishing him for his sins. That the lies he’d told in his job and the people he had hurt, and the money he’d taken from Korn, which had paid for the house, had also made Lucy sick. It then paid for her treatment. It wasn’t Karma, that was some Buddhist bullshit to Lomax. No, this was God sending him a message. And he hated him for it.

Lomax wished he’d kept to the road. Used his rabbit’s foot to get home safe every night, like he should’ve done. Looked after his wife in their old house in Buckstown, and never taken a dime from Randal Korn.

The wind blew, and he caught the scent of death on the air. It reminded him of Cody Warren. A .22 Smyth and Wesson had done the job. He’d pressed the muzzle to the lawyer’s skull, caught the look of fear in his eyes, then pulled the trigger, locking that expression of terror on Warren’s face forever. It was the hardest thing Lomax had ever done. He’d been sick afterwards. And he had not slept well since.

When Korn decided to proceed with the prosecution of Andy Dubois, it put in motion a series of events. Each one following on, inevitably, from the other. The forensics undermined the case against Dubois, and so Korn altered the reports. Lomax couldn’t let Dubois go after beating a confession out of him, either. And when Cody Warren got too close to the truth, he had to be dealt with too.

Unlike other cases, the murder of Skylar Edwards haunted Lomax. The brutality and the strangeness of the killing unnerved him. And so he had ignored Korn’s suggestion to stick with Dubois for the murder. Unknown to Korn, Lomax had continued his investigation.

He knew what would’ve happened if he had brought the results of those investigations to Korn. It would be buried, possibly along with Lomax himself for disobeying Korn’s order. He couldn’t risk taking his investigation results to the US Attorney’s office either. Korn had enough dirt on Lomax to put him away for a long time, and then who would look after Lucy? He was trapped in this lie, and it caused him to take the life of a lawyer. Andy Dubois would soon be another dead body weighing on Lomax’s heart. Another consequence of a simple cover-up. Because that’s what happens when you make one compromise. It’s never about the first time evidence goes missing. It’s the efforts to cover up that original sin that will corrupt your soul, utterly.

He knew the guilt and the shame of what he’d done would ease eventually. Just like it had done last time, and the time before that. Until then he would live with it. He had no choice but to follow the path. Even if that meant, down the line, more lawyers would have to die.

CHAPTER FIVE

EDDIE

I hate flying.

I hate airports. It’s the AC, and the overpricing, and the rattle of luggage wheels on tile.

It was two hours from LaGuardia to Charlotte, North Carolina, a short layover and then another two-hour flight to Mobile. I read the case during the flights. Soon as the doors on the plane closed and the cabin started to pressurize, I opened the files, and Harry’s head began to nod. By the time the wheels were up, he was snoring.

Berlin had given me the files from the trunk of his car. Harry had read them yesterday while I passed some cases to Kate to look after while we were gone.

Altogether there were around five hundred pages. There were a number of depositions and as I read, I built up a picture of Andy Dubois in Sunville County.

Andy was the son of Patricia and Franco Dubois, but not for long. By the time Andy was walking and talking, Franco was out of his life. Andy’s father had tried to turn over a gas station in Tucson and got a shoulder full of buckshot and fifteen years in the state penn for his trouble. Inside, Franco’s fortunes didn’t fare any better. He was found, a year into his sentence, partially beheaded in the exercise yard. The other inmates had given himthe weight. Four guys held Franco down on the weight bench, while at least another two maneuvered a barbell loaded with three hundred pounds over him and dropped it on his throat.

The state paid for Franco’s burial, in the grounds of the penitentiary. Patricia refused to take his body. She had cut ties with him and didn’t want the man costing her a dime more. Patricia believed the best thing Franco ever did for his son was get himself killed. She didn’t want Andy growing up around alcohol, drugs and all the lies, bitterness and pain that came with them.

She knew, from the day he was born, Andy would be a good boy.

Reading Patricia’s extensive deposition, prepared by Andy’s attorney, Cody Warren, I knew this case would take something from me. Some cases just cost a piece of you, something you won’t ever get back. Sometimes it’s a little piece. Sometimes it’s a big piece. The more I read, the more I was willing to pay the price.