Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(29)

“Damn,” I said. “Granny must have something on him that’s pretty embarrassing.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t have anything on him,” Claire said. “There’s still such a thing as loyalty, you know. My grandfather is extremely loyal to his old friends.”

“Whatever,” I said. “But like I said, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about as far as skeletons in my closet. I think I’m ready to go back now. Will you take me back to the park?”

“You’re as ungrateful as you are insolent,” she said.

“Not ungrateful, and I don’t mean to be insolent. I’m just extremely careful.”

She turned the car off I-40 and headed back in the direction of the park where she’d picked me up. We rode in silence for a while before she spoke again. Her tone was gentler, almost kind.

“I know you’ve been through some incredibly difficult things,” she said. “I’m genuinely sorry for your losses, all of them, and so is my grandfather. You’ve seen more than your share of pain.”

I didn’t quite know what to say, so I said nothing for several seconds.

“Why are you really helping me?” I said as she pulled into the parking lot at the park.

“Because my grandfather asked me to help you,” she said. “Because Ms. Tipton asked my grandfather to help you. And because I think it’ll be fun. I can’t wait to see the look on that weasel Stephen Morris’s face when he finds out Roger Tate is backing you and Claire Tate is your campaign manager.”

“You know Morris?” I said.

“Went to the University of Tennessee at the same time he did. We had a political science class together. One day, he got it into his head that it would somehow be a good idea to kiss my neck and pinch me on the posterior.”

“Really? And how did that go over?”

“He lost a tooth.”

She handed me a card and a prepaid phone as I opened the door to get out.

“My number’s on the back. Always call me from that phone. I have a prepaid, too. The number is already programmed into yours. I’ll return calls and call you from my prepaid. We’ll get new ones every couple of weeks. And get those papers back to me within two days.”

“Will do,” I said, and I climbed out of the car. To my surprise, she climbed out on the other side and walked around the car. It was the first time I’d seen her standing up, and it was an image I knew I wouldn’t ever forget.

“Mr. Street, just one more thing before you go. I think we should get this out of the way right now. I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. I’ve heard the circumstances and the allegations, and if they’re true, I want you to know I don’t judge you. I probably would have done the same things you did. There’s a part of me that admires you, not only for what you did but also for getting away with it.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said. I wondered whether what she’d just said was genuine. If so, I thought I could come to like her very much. If not, well, I’d deal with that when the time came. Still, she seemed genuine, and I’d developed a strong bullshit detector over the years.

“I know,” she said. “I just thought you needed to hear that.”

I stood there watching as the Cadillac drove away.

This woman is different from Grace, I thought to myself. I didn’t know whether that was good or bad.





CHAPTER 15

I called Granny Tipton the morning after I took a ride with Claire Tate. She told me vaguely what it was she knew about Senator Roger Tate that would allow her to get him on the phone and agree to help me win the district attorney general’s election in Knoxville.

I was right about it being something embarrassing. She told me Senator Tate had possessed an affinity for drinking moonshine whiskey and having sex with multiple women at the same time when he was building his wealth and political machine. With a young wife and baby at home, he’d needed a discreet place to indulge those affinities. Granny’s husband just happened to have opened a tavern outside Sevierville that the young senator—he was a state senator then—would drive all the way from Nashville to visit from time to time. It afforded him an opportunity to visit his parents and family and, while doing so, scratch an itch. She mentioned there might have been photographs involved.

Still, she said, their friendship was strong.

“Roger has a genuine affection for me,” she told me over the phone. “And he will have until he knows the photographs can no longer be used against him. Which means he will have a genuine affection for me until the day he dies, because I’ve told him that if I die, I’ll simply pass them along to my grandchildren with very specific instructions on how to use them. They’re in remarkably good condition. We’ve been extremely careful with them over all these years.”

“Have you ever asked him for anything else?” I said.

“I use the leverage very sparingly,” she said.

“Thank you for using it now,” I said.

“It isn’t all for you, Darren. It isn’t an act of generosity. We stand to make a great deal of money in Knox County once Roby Penn is gone and we can move in.”

“Is Penn really that bad?”

“A very unpleasant fellow. I’m sure you’ll meet him at some point. In the meantime, Senator Tate wants to meet with you. I haven’t told you this, but he does have some conditions for helping you. I think they’re reasonable, but they could put you in some danger.”