Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(97)

“And I’ve spent my whole life wanting revenge on you,” Maggie continued.

Bo forced himself to open his eyes. He turned his head and gazed up at Maggie Walton as she set the shotgun against her shoulder and squinted at Bo.

“I win,” she said, pulling the trigger.

Bo’s right shoulder erupted in pain as the buckshot entered just above the rotator cuff. As he began to sprawl backward into the pond, three more shots rang out, the last of which was deafening.

Bo closed his eyes, thinking it was only right for him to die here. In the same place where his mother’s ashes were spread. Near the tree where the only father he had ever known was lynched.

As his body began to slide into the pond, Bo lifted his head and gazed at the monster who had destroyed his life, expecting that the last thing he would see would be her smiling, satisfied face. But Maggie Walton was no longer standing.

She was lying facedown in the sand. Dead. Her chest was bleeding, and the right side of her face, the side that Bo could see, was all but gone.

Bo dug his hands into the pond’s sandy bottom, trying to stop his momentum. His eyes shot to the left, and he saw District Attorney General Helen Lewis crouched on one knee, pointing her pistol at the spot where Maggie Walton had been standing. But Helen’s eyes were not on Maggie. They were gazing at a spot behind her at the edge of the clearing. Bo followed her gaze, and his chest heaved when he saw the object of her focus.

Standing under the same tree where Roosevelt Haynes had been lynched in 1966 was an old man holding a Remington .30-06 deer rifle.

“Professor,” Bo cried.

Then everything went dark as Bo’s head dipped below the surface of the water.





EPILOGUE


Three weeks after the close of the trial of Bocephus Haynes, Rick Drake parked his Saturn on a curb next to the Maplewood Cemetery in Pulaski. Once he had turned the ignition off, Rick turned to his passenger. “We’re here, Professor.”

Thomas Jackson McMurtrie opened his eyes and rubbed them with the knuckles of his right hand. He had slept for most of the way from Tuscaloosa.

“Sure you’re up for this?” Rick asked.

Tom waved him off and opened the door. It was now early November in Pulaski, and the leaves on the trees in the cemetery were an array of yellow, brown, and orange. Beautiful, Tom thought as he breathed in the fresh air. The temperature was just over fifty degrees, but the sun was high in the sky, and Tom felt its warmth on the back of his neck. Gazing upward toward the cemetery, Tom was glad they had waited. Having the funeral right after the shooting would have been a circus. His friend deserved a better send-off than that. He had lived a tortured life. Tom would see to it that his burial was as smooth as it could be.

Tom and Rick walked up the hill, both holding small bouquets of flowers. As they passed the rows of headstones, Tom felt the depression that always set in when he went to pay his respects to a departed comrade. He knew it wouldn’t be too long before he was underneath one of these blocks of concrete, his bones decaying while his spirit hopefully ascended into heaven.

As they approached the tent under which the small ceremony would be held, it was hard not to think about the people he had loved who were now gone. His mother and father, whose lessons still shaped his life even now. His beautiful Julie, the one true love of his life. Coach Bryant, his teacher and mentor. And his fallen teammate, Pat Trammell, who had died too damn young from cancer. Tom wiped his eyes as he followed Rick into the tent. The mahogany casket had been placed at the far end of the tent, and a man wearing a black smock was standing beside it. Tom approached the coffin and placed the bouquet of flowers at the foot of it. Then, putting his hand on the casket, Tom closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. When he opened them, he noticed that another guest had entered the tent and was heading his way.

Helen Evangeline Lewis had a cast covering her left shoulder, which was black to match her black skirt, black blouse, and black hair. She smiled at Tom and put her own bouquet of flowers on top of those left by Tom and Rick.

“How are you?” Tom asked, kissing her cheek.

“Better,” Helen said. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

Helen had been shot in the left shoulder, just above the heart. The shell fired by Maggie Walton had missed killing her by inches. She had fallen over on her stomach and played dead until she sensed that Maggie was about to shoot Bo. Despite her dizziness from blood loss, Helen, using the skills she had learned from her early days as a police officer, had pushed herself up and turned to where her right knee was braced on the ground and her left knee was in a squat. She brought the pistol up and fired just before Maggie Walton pulled the trigger on her shotgun. Helen’s shot caught Maggie in the neck just as Maggie fired her weapon, and the shell intended for Bo’s forehead caught him in the right shoulder.

Maggie had wheeled toward Helen, and Helen had fired again, catching the crazed woman in the chest this time. It was her last bullet, and it wouldn’t have been enough. Despite her wounds, Maggie was able to point her gun at Helen.

But she never got another shot off. Helen watched in horror as the right side of Maggie Walton’s face was ripped off her head with the force from the rifle. The sound of the blast was so loud that Helen could hear nothing for several seconds afterwards. She had turned to her right and stared at Tom, who had started to say something to her when she had passed out.