Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(55)

“The truth?”

“About what he had done.”

They were going in a circle. “What had he done? Did he tell you about the bad things?”

This time Darla did shiver. “He said he done them when he was in the Klan, and a man got killed.” She stopped and squeezed her knees together with her arms. “He said it was his fault. He was responsible.”

“Did he say who he was talking about?”

Darla shook her head. “No, he didn’t. But I’ve lived in Pulaski a long time. You hear things, and I knew the rumors about Bocephus Haynes’s father being lynched on Mr. Walton’s farm. So I asked him about it.”

“How . . . did you ask him?” Rick asked, involuntarily scooting closer to her on the bench.

“I just blurted it out—not subtle at all. I said, ‘Mr. Walton, is Bo Haynes’s father the man that was killed while you were leading the Klan’?”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say nothing at first,” Darla said. “He just got the saddest look on his face I’d ever seen. Then he just started nodding.” Darla paused, shaking her head. “It was weird, like I wasn’t even in the room. Then . . .” She trailed off and stood from the bench.

“Then what?” Rick asked.

She wiped her eyes, and Rick realized that she had begun to cry. “Then he said he was going to confess.”

Rick felt the blood almost go out of his body. “What?”

Darla turned to him, fresh tears running down her cheeks. “He told me that he was going to confess. That he wasn’t going to let the truth die with him. Then”—she choked the words out—“he told me that he’d done something for me. Something special that would help me move down to the coast.” She paused. “I had told him many times about my dream to move down here and open up an oyster bar. Anyway, sure enough the Monday after he died I got a call from his lawyer. Said I needed to come down to his law office and pick something up. When I got there, the lawyer gave me a manila envelope. He said, ‘Mr. Walton asked that I personally deliver this to you.’ When I got back to my car, I opened it, and there was were ten smaller envelopes inside of it. I opened them one by one when I was back in my apartment, and they all had ten thousand dollars in them.” She paused. “A hundred thousand dollars.” She stopped and looked at Rick. “I left for Destin the next morning.”

For a moment Rick didn’t say anything. Andy Walton had bequeathed a stripper one hundred thousand dollars. Probably just pocket change for a guy like that, but still . . . It was a noble act, Rick thought. Inconsistent with the view he held in his mind of the man. “Going back to the night he said he was going to confess,” Rick began. “When did this conversation take place?”

Darla shrugged. “A couple weeks before he died.”

“Did he say anything else to you?”

She nodded, and fresh tears formed in her eyes. “He gave me the same warning the last few times I saw him.”

“Which was?”

“To not . . . tell . . . anyone.” Her lip quivered with emotion, and Rick felt gooseflesh break out on his arm.

“Did you?” Rick asked.

Darla Ford crossed her arms tight around her chest and bit her lip, looking down at the ground.

“Ms. Ford, did you tell anyone that Andy Walton was going to confess to killing Roosevelt Haynes?”

Slowly, she nodded.

“Who?” Rick asked.

“Larry,” Darla said, sniffling and leaning her head on his shoulder. “I told my boss. Larry Tucker.”





37


Bone watched them from the deck of The Boathouse. He held a Bud Light bottle that he had barely touched and was dressed in a “Fisherman’s Wharf” T-shirt he’d bought while Rick and Burns were having a drink at the place next door, a tattered red cap with the cursive A of Alabama’s Crimson Tide on the front, khaki shorts he kept in a duffel bag in the back of the truck, and a pair of old flip-flops. With his scraggly beard and his hat pulled down low over his eyes, he blended into the crowd perfectly.

This can’t be good, he thought. Drake had talked with the stripper for at least forty-five minutes now, and the conversation had turned heated. For a while Drake had paced in front of the bench, asking her questions.

He’s getting something out of this, Bone knew. He had placed calls and sent texts to his benefactor on a regular basis, and so far the instructions had been to follow and report what he saw. He took the cell phone out of his left pocket and texted, They’ve talked for forty-five minutes, and the kid seems to be excited. Bone returned the phone to his pocket and waited.

When Burns had snuck out of the restaurant alone while Drake was in the bathroom, Bone had thought for a moment that the kid had been taken for a ride. Burns had scampered off down the dock a ways, so Bone wasn’t sure where he had gone. His orders were to stay with Drake.

He figured the night was probably over—a wasted trip no different than Drake’s—until he saw Nikita emerge from the shadows of the front parking lot a few minutes after Burns had left.

Bone recognized her right off from his nights at The Sundowners Club. Nikita—Bone did not know her real name—had always dressed relatively conservative as far as strippers went, and this contrast made her stand out at the club. It also made her easy to recognize now.