Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(2)

Roosevelt knelt and gently removed the boy’s hands, holding them in his own. “Bo . . .”

The boy looked up into his father’s eyes.

“I love you, son.”

“Three! . . . Two! . . .”

“I . . . I love you too, Daddy.” The boy choked the words out as snot began to run out of his nose and his eyes clouded over with tears. “Please . . . don’t . . .”

His father grabbed the doorknob and turned it. “All right now, I’m coming out!” Before he shut the door behind him, Roosevelt Haynes looked at the boy one last time.

“Don’t watch this, Bocephus. Whatever you do, don’t watch this.”

If only the boy had listened . . .





PART ONE





1


Pulaski, Tennessee, August 18, 2011

By 10:30 p.m. the front parlor of Kathy’s Tavern was almost deserted. The four tables were empty, and there were only two men sitting on opposite ends of the long rectangular bar.

One of the men was Clete Sartain, who had just finished his evening shift as a salesclerk at the Johnson’s Foodtown grocery store. At seventy-four years old, Clete had a snow-white beard and weighed close to three hundred pounds. Every year for the past two decades he’d played Santa Claus during the Christmas festival downtown. When he wasn’t sacking groceries or playing Kris Kringle, Clete liked to down a few Natural Lights and listen to country music, both of which were readily available at Kathy’s on Thursday nights.

In the back, a 1980s country cover band was playing “I Love a Rainy Night” by Eddie Rabbitt, and Clete tapped his foot to the music and took a long swallow of beer. The back room at Kathy’s had several tables and a stage in the rear, and based on the squeals and Bo Duke–style yee-haws from the crowd, the song choice was a popular one. Live music always drew a good turnout at Kathy’s, and from Clete’s perch at the end of the bar closest to the back he counted at least fifteen, maybe twenty folks.

Taking another sip of beer, Clete let his eyes drift toward the man seated at the other end of the bar.

With dark-brown skin and a smoothly shaven head, Bocephus Aurulius Haynes had always reminded Clete of that boxer from the ’80s, “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler. Of course, Hagler had been a middleweight, and Bocephus Haynes stood six feet four inches tall and weighed well over two hundred pounds—a heavyweight if there ever was one. And though he’d blown his knee out playing football for Bear Bryant at Alabama, Bo still carried the athletic frame of a middle linebacker. Even now, pushing fifty years old and wearing khaki suit pants with a blue shirt, tie undone, and smoking a cigar, Bo was an intimidating sight.

Seeming to sense that someone was staring at him, Bo shifted in his stool and glared toward the other end of the bar.

“Something on your mind, dog?”

Clete held up his hands and smiled, though his entire body had tensed. “Naw, Bo. Just got tired of looking at my ugly reflection in the mirror. You doing all right? How’s the law practice? Did you sue anyone today?” Clete smiled, but his heart had begun to thump harder in his chest under the heat of Bo’s gaze.

For a couple seconds Bo said nothing, ignoring the questions and just staring at Clete. Then: “You know what day today is, Clete?”

Clete blinked. “Uh, it’s Thursday I think.” When Bo didn’t answer him, Clete shot a glance at the bartender, a cute brunette named Cassie Dugan. “Right, Cassie?”

Cassie was washing a pint glass with a rag. She met Clete’s gaze and gave him a concerned look, shaking her head.

“It’s not Thursday?” Clete asked, now confused. How many beers had he drunk?

“It is Thursday,” Bo said, his voice reeking with bitterness. “Thursday, August the eighteenth.” Bo paused, turning in his stool so he could face Clete. “You know what happened forty-five years ago on this very day?”

Clete’s eyes narrowed and his stomach tightened. Sweat beads began to break out on his forehead. He got it now.

“You were there, weren’t you, Clete?” Bo said, sliding off the stool and walking the fifteen feet down the bar. “You were in the Klan then, weren’t you? One of Andy Walton’s boys?”

Bo leaned close to Clete and blew a cloud of cigar smoke into his face. “Answer me.”

Clete pushed back his stool and threw a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “Keep the change, Cassie.”

When he tried to leave, Bo stepped in front of him.

“Bo, I . . . didn’t . . . mean to cause no trouble,” Clete said, his voice shaking.

“Did you see my daddy’s neck stretch, Clete?” Bo leaned in close, and Clete smelled the strong scent of bourbon and cigar on his breath. “Could you hear him gasping for breath?”

“That’s enough, Bo,” Cassie said from behind the bar. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you don’t stop.”

“I could, Clete,” Bo said, speaking through clenched teeth. “I was five years old and I saw it all . . . and I heard it all.”

Clete lowered his eyes, unable to stand the intensity of Bo’s glare anymore. “Bo, I just want to—”

“What’s going on up here?” The voice, rough and gravel-like, came from the back, and Clete had to blink his eyes to see who it was. The music had stopped, and a man was walking toward him. When he saw who it was, his bladder almost gave.