Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(98)
When her eyes had opened again, she was in a dark hospital room, and Tom was sitting in the corner. They had spoken for several minutes before Deputy Springfield had entered the room to question Helen on the events at the clearing.
They had not seen each other again until now. As they sat down in the plastic seats, Helen elbowed Tom softly under the rib cage. “Why didn’t you come back to see me?”
Tom smiled at her. “You needed your rest, and . . .” He paused, sighing and gesturing toward the coffin. “I had some things I had to do.”
She nodded and then gave her head a quick jerk. “Such a shame,” she said. “Such a damn shame.” Then, cocking her head at him, she leaned toward his neck and whispered, “You never told me how you figured it out.”
Tom smiled and whispered back into her ear. “When you weren’t at the station after Curtis’s suicide, I started thinking about where you could be. I remembered what we had been talking about before Ray Ray’s death, and I found the visitation log in my briefcase.” He paused. “This time I read every word.”
She smiled. “You saw?”
Tom nodded. “On August 11, 2011, Andy Walton came to visit Jack Willistone at the St. Clair Correctional Facility. Mrs. Andy Walton. We had never paid any attention to the title column, only focusing on the name. Since the signature looked the same as the other times Andy had visited Jack, it didn’t even register to check the title column.” He paused, shaking his head. “But there it was. On all the prior visits, the title read ‘Mr.’ This time it read ‘Mrs.’, though the writing was a bit of a scribble, and the s on the end was hard to see because it ran up against the black column line.”
“But if you look hard, you can tell,” Helen offered.
“You can,” Tom said. “I’d say I can’t believe I missed it, but actually I can totally believe I missed it. The signature was spot-on. Frankly, I can’t believe that you caught it.”
Helen smiled again. “You have to remember that I have lived in this town for two decades. Andy Walton hadn’t written a personal check in years. Like a lot of wives, Mrs. Walton had learned to forge his signature on things. Hell, she probably could write like him better than he could. And as a woman of the old South, it wasn’t entirely unusual for her to call herself ‘Mrs. Andy Walton.’”
Tom shook his head. “We spoke with Jack Willistone again, and he confirmed that it was Maggie who came to see him, though he said he couldn’t remember what they had discussed.” He paused. “Jack had told us when we went to see him in prison that the answer we were looking for was right under our nose.”
“And he was right,” Helen said. “Mrs. Andy Walton visited Jack Willistone on August 11, and he gave her JimBone Wheeler’s name and contact information. We never got to the specifics, but Maggie admitted that she was the one who hired Wheeler at the clearing. And the visitation log was the tell.”
“What’s the latest with Wheeler?” Tom asked.
“We’re going to keep him here for now, and I think that’s where he’ll stay. We have him dead-to-rights guilty for the murder of Ray Ray—there are six eyewitnesses—and with Booher coming forward, we also have him for the attack on you.”
“Booher turned herself in?”
Maggie nodded. “Two days after Wheeler’s arrest, she walked into the sheriff’s office. Wheeler had given her an exit strategy if he was caught—she was supposed to go to the Caymans with a fake passport—but she didn’t want it. Said she didn’t want to run. She gave us enough information to nail Cappy Limbaugh, the hotel owner in Lawrenceburg, on a conspiracy to commit murder charge. She’ll do some time—probably two years—but she should be out on parole before she’s thirty.”
“A good deal,” Tom agreed. “What about Sheriff Petrie?”
Helen grimaced. “He’s pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing. I suspect he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.” She started to say more, but the preacher raised up his hands and spoke in a loud authoritative voice. “Let us pray.”
Tom bowed his head.
“We come here today not to mourn a death but to celebrate a life well lived,” the minister began, his voice rising so it would reach the back of the tent. “To celebrate the life of a man who lived in this town amongst us almost all of his years on earth. A man who everyone in this tent knew and loved. We come today to celebrate the life of . . .”
Tom closed his eyes, thinking of his tortured friend.
“. . . Raymond James Pickalew.”
“. . . and we ask, dear Lord, that you wrap the spirit of Ray Ray into your loving arms so that he may know the eternal life promised through your son, Christ Jesus. Amen.”
Tom opened his eyes and glanced to his right. Helen gazed forward at the casket, also lost in thought. To his left, Rick Drake’s eyes were moist with tears. Rick had grown fond of Ray Ray during the trial and had watched him die from just two feet away. He was still having frequent nightmares. Behind them in the second row of chairs were a couple of folks from the nursing home where Ray Ray’s wife, Doris, was a resident, including Jennifer Eisel, Doris’s regular nurse. It had been decided by the nursing staff and Tom that Doris, who was in the last stages of Alzheimer’s, should not attend the funeral, as it would only serve to upset her. Also seated, but without showing her customary cleavage, was Ray Ray’s redheaded secretary, Bonnie. To Tom’s knowledge, Ray Ray had no family who weren’t deceased, and Doris’s only living relative, a cousin in Maryland, had decided not to come.