Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(4)
“I don’t care what you’re in the mood for, Bo. I’m going to say what I have to say and then I’m going to leave.”
Bo said nothing, waiting. Since he had moved back to Pulaski after law school in 1985, Maggie Walton had approached him on numerous occasions, asking him to leave her family alone, and he figured this would be no different. He would be respectful and polite, but he would not grant her request. He would never leave Andy Walton alone.
“He’s dying, Bo,” Maggie said, her voice solemn.
The words hit him like a bolt of lightning. He raised his eyes and met Maggie’s gaze through the reflection in the glass.
“That was the real reason why we came here tonight—not my birthday. I wanted him to be around some of his friends. Do something normal. He . . . doesn’t have long.” She choked back a sob. “He has pancreatic cancer. Stage four. The oncologist says he’s probably got about a month, but it could be less.” She paused, and Bo saw her grit her teeth in the mirror. “I want you to let him die in peace, Bo. Do you hear me?”
Bo said nothing, still shocked by the news.
“You’ve spent every day of your life trying to make Andy’s miserable, and it’s time to let it go.” She paused and crossed her arms. When Bo remained silent, she slammed her right fist onto the bar next to him and spoke through clenched teeth. “Hasn’t this crusade cost you enough, Bo? Jasmine and the kids couldn’t take it anymore, could they?”
Bo wheeled off his stool, his body shaking with anger. “Leave me alone, Ms. Maggie.”
Maggie Walton had taken two steps back, but her eyes remained locked on Bo. “Could they?”
When Bo didn’t answer, Maggie spoke in a calm, pitying voice. “You’ve lost your whole family, Bo. Has it been worth it?” She turned and walked to the door. Grabbing the knob, she spoke without looking at him. “I want my husband to die in peace.”
2
Birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan . . .
It is the first thing anyone thinks of when Pulaski, Tennessee is mentioned. Google “Pulaski” on your computer, and the initial hits will show images of white-robed and hooded Klansmen marching on the Giles County Courthouse Square and carrying Confederate battle flags. Within the first few paragraphs of any newspaper article written on or about the town, you will see the words “birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan.” It is an inescapable and unavoidable part of Pulaski’s past.
On Christmas Eve, 1865, just eight months after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, six Confederate veterans met at a building on West Madison Street in downtown Pulaski and formed what they called a “social club.” Diversion and amusement were intended to be the club’s aims—not vigilante justice and terrorism. “Ku Klux Klan” was chosen as the name, because it came from the Greek word kyklos, meaning circle of brothers.
Most white citizens of current-day Pulaski avoid talking about the Klan. However, if pressed, the standard reply is that the Ku Klux Klan of the 1950s and ’60s, which used violence and terrorism to fight the civil rights movement, was not the group envisioned by the Pulaski founding fathers.
Bo chuckled bitterly as he peered at the commemorative plaque attached to the building on West Madison. After finally being cut off by Cassie, he’d left Kathy’s Tavern and walked down First Street to his office, got a pint of Jim Beam out of the bottom drawer of his desk, and headed back into the night. He was shaken by the conversation with Ms. Maggie. Andy Walton had a month to live. Maybe less . . .
Bo needed to think, and his brain worked best on the move. He hadn’t really planned on walking anywhere specific, but his legs had taken him here.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, he thought, taking a sip of bourbon from the pint and spitting it on the plaque. Historians could spin the past however they wished. Bo had seen the Ku Klux Klan up close and personal through five-year-old eyes as they murdered his father.
And he’d spent a lifetime trying to put the men who did it in jail.
Bo had opened his law practice in September 1985, just a few months after graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law, and three weeks after his marriage to the lovely Jasmine Desiree Henderson. He’d done well in school, graduating in the top 10 percent of his class. Due to that success and his notoriety from being an Alabama football player with Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s 1978 and ’79 national champions, Bo had offers from numerous Birmingham, Huntsville, and Nashville law firms. Jazz had all but begged Bo to accept an offer in Huntsville, where she had grown up and where her parents still lived.
But Bo would have none of it. From the moment he was accepted to law school, he’d known where he would practice.
Home.
Reluctantly, Jazz had agreed. Pulaski was only forty-five minutes from Huntsville, and despite being the birthplace of the KKK it was also the home of Martin Methodist College, an outstanding liberal arts school, where Jazz eventually accepted a position as an art history professor.
Bo had never lied to his wife about his motives for going home. “I have to bring the men that killed my father to justice.”
Jazz said she understood and, at least in the early years, grew to embrace Pulaski.
The 1980s were a tumultuous time in Giles County, and Bo and Jazz moved back right when things were heating up. In 1985 the United States government declared that the third Monday in January would be celebrated as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In the South the same day had historically been known as Robert E. Lee Day or Lee–Jackson Day in honor of the two famous Confederate generals.