Chapter 44
Birmingham
Criminal Justice Center
Carson sat down behind his desk. He surveyed the files and notes he’d left yesterday . . . or had it been the day before that? Damn, he was so tired he couldn’t remember.
“Let’s do a sound check.”
“Loud and clear,” Carson said, answering Schaffer’s voice coming across the tiny communication piece in his ear.
The clear device stuck to his lapel would pick up his voice as well as any sound in the room. Schaffer and Davis were monitoring the communication link from the Bureau’s van down the block from the Criminal Justice Center.
“Heads up, Tanner,” Davis said, “Wainwright has entered the parking garage.”
Carson prepared for the confrontation. He’d spent five years admiring Donald Wainwright. Wanting to be just like the man. Wainwright had been like a father to him. Far more than a mentor and boss.
The idea that Wainwright had anything to do with this cover-up tore at Carson’s insides. How could he do that to Carson? He’d watched Carson go through hell all those years. How could he have done it to Carson’s family?
And Drake. How the hell could he have known what he apparently knew and look Carson in the eye? Have him to dinner?
The idea that Dane had been involved felt wrong. Dane had never been a fighter. Never a bully. He’d been harmless. That part just didn’t make sense.
Carson’s office door flew open. Wainwright barged in. Maybe now Carson would know the whole truth.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Carson?”
The DA’s face was rage red, the veins in his neck bulging with fury. Otherwise he looked exactly as he did every day. Classic suit, crisp shirt, and red power tie.
“You might want to have a seat,” Carson suggested, working hard to keep his tone calm.
Wainwright loomed over Carson’s desk, refused to take a seat.
“Where is this evidence you’ve supposedly discovered?
” He leaned down, braced his fists on the desktop.
“I hope you know this is going to cost you everything. I’ll have you up before the bar by week’s end.
” He moved his head firmly from side to side.
“No one threatens me, and this feels exactly like a threat.”
Carson opened the small box he’d placed on his desk and slid it toward Wainwright, then gestured to a chair. “As I said, you might want to have a seat.”
Wainwright glanced at the contents of the box, then leveled a glower on Carson.
“You called Aidan Moore, you called me, for this?” He pointed at the evidence.
“So what, you found the missing rings. What does that prove? Nothing. What the hell did you think you were doing turning this into some kind of goddamned conspiracy?”
“It’s not just the wedding bands.” Carson closed the box, met that enraged glare without so much as a blink. “It’s the statement given to me by Stokes.”
“Fuck Stokes.” Wainwright laughed outright. “Who’s going to believe him?”
Carson kept his cool, not an easy feat considering he wanted to make this man pay more than he wanted to take his next breath. “There’s also the statement from Dane Drake about the night my family was murdered.”
Surprise flared in Wainwright’s eyes. He recovered quickly and shrugged. “Dane’s a drug addict. You can’t believe anything he says.”
Carson shook his head. “No. He was quite specific about details.” He allowed Wainwright to see the victory in his eyes. No way was Carson going to be beaten, not even by the man who had mentored him. “He told me everything. He’s willing to testify against everyone involved.”
Wainwright straightened, his unrelenting gaze proof that he did not intend to give an inch despite the mounting evidence against him. “You don’t really think you can get away with this, do you?”
Oh the man was good. He was choosing his words so very carefully. Manipulating him into incriminating himself wasn’t going to be easy.
“Get away with what? Exposing that you worked a deal with Stokes to get him to say what you wanted him to say before he’d even been arrested for anything.
” Carson stood, matching the older man’s stance.
“You lied to me and everyone involved in the investigation of this case. You concealed information relevant to a triple homicide. I think you’re the one who’s not going to get away with it. ”
“Sometimes we do what we have to, Carson,” Wainwright argued without the slightest remorse.
“We’re lawyers. We lie, skirt the boundaries of the rules.
Whatever we have to do to get the job done.
I’ve watched you do it in the courtroom.
So don’t hand me that holier-than-thou bullshit.
” He adjusted his tie. “Clean out your desk. You’re finished. ”
“Tell him I’ve interviewed your witness,” Schaffer whispered in Carson’s earpiece.
Schaffer was turning out to be a real team player. “There’s just one other thing,” Carson said when Wainwright would have turned away.
Wainwright rested his smoldering fury on Carson once more.
“Dane Drake has confessed to his part in the murder of my family. He insists you were involved in the cover-up.”
Okay, he was really reaching now. “Agent Schaffer is going over his statement, as we speak.”
The color of outrage drained away, leaving Wainwright looking a little pale. “Why would Schaffer believe anything that pathetic piece of shit says?”
“I guess you’ll have to ask her.”
Wainwright leaned over the desk once more, going nose-to-nose with Carson.
“Stokes is in prison. Let it go, Carson. Nothing you do now is going to change the fact that your family is dead. Stop now before it’s too late.
” This time Wainwright turned around and walked all the way to the door before Carson decided on his next move.
“I just can’t get the images out of my head,” he said, stopping Wainwright in his departing tracks. Now he was going out on a real limb. “He kept going over and over how the whole plan had been your idea.”
Wainwright spun around. “That’s a lie. It was Drake’s idea. He called Lynch and Holderfield . . .”
That was the moment. Carson saw it on his mentor’s face. Wainwright realized he’d been had.
Carson held on to the final vestiges of his composure. “You, Holderfield, and Drake. You helped cover up what Dane had done.” Fury bellowed inside him, made him want to jump across his desk and kill the man he had admired and respected for so damned long.
Wainwright shook his head. “I have nothing else to say.” He turned toward the door but hesitated. His gaze connected with Carson’s once more. “I will tell you, since it’ll probably come out anyway as soon as Dane gets it right in that scrambled brain of his, he wasn’t the one.”
Tension vibrated inside Carson, had his heart thundering.
“It was Patricia. She dragged Dane into the whole mess. She knew Drake would protect his children no matter what.” Wainwright shrugged, defeated.
“Drake had been protecting Patricia since college. He just didn’t comprehend back then what he was getting himself into.
His mistake”—Wainwright strained out a pathetic attempt at a laugh—“destroyed him and everything else he cared about. No one can control her. God knows I’ve tried. ”
“Why my family?” Carson heard himself ask. He’d wanted the answer to that question for so long. The problem was, he’d asked the wrong man last time.
Wainwright shook his head. “That’s the most pathetic part.
” He made another of those defeated sounds that couldn’t be called a laugh.
“Drake discovered that his daughter had some of the same psychotic tendencies as her mother. Sick, Carson.” Wainwright pressed Carson with a look of desperation.
“Those two women are seriously sick. When Elizabeth pushed one of her classmates down the stairs, Drake knew he had to do something.”
Carson vaguely remembered the incident but didn’t recall any talk about it being anything other than an accident. The girl, Suzy or Cindy something or other, and her family had moved away the next year.
When Carson started to question Wainwright, he held up a hand to indicate he wasn’t finished yet.
“Drake thought with the right treatment his daughter could be helped since she was so young, but the plan backfired. Your mother, Olivia, promised to do what she could to help Elizabeth. Of course Drake didn’t tell her the whole story, just little things he’d noticed about his daughter’s behavior when no one else was looking.
Your mother started seeing Elizabeth privately, completely off the record.
When Olivia realized the extent of the problem, she urged Drake to send Elizabeth to a specialized clinic for intensive, long-term treatment. ”
Carson was the one holding up his hands this time.
He’d heard enough of this. It didn’t make sense.
“What the hell are you talking about? Elizabeth is”—he shook his head, uncertain how to explain—“sweet and kind. You know that. Look at all she does for the community.” This was insane.
Moments he’d put completely out of his mind abruptly intruded.
Little things Elizabeth had said or done that seemed out of character or odd at the time.
But that wasn’t enough evidence to point to the sort of disorder Wainwright was alleging.
Wainwright shook his head again, his expression resigned. “Poor Carson. You always want to believe the best in people. You have no idea.”
Fury bolted through Carson. “How the hell did Elizabeth’s so-called mental illness get my family murdered?” Just like before, twice the number of questions arose.
“Patricia learned of Olivia’s plan so she took matters into her own hands.
She wasn’t about to let anyone send her daughter away.
” Wainwright’s gaze bored into Carson’s with a certainty that couldn’t be feigned.
“She wasn’t about to let Olivia take you away from Elizabeth, either.
So she eliminated the threat. She dragged us all into the cover-up.
” Wainwright shook his head. “Ultimately it was all about Elizabeth and you.”
That said, Wainwright opened the door to walk out. Two Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department deputies were waiting.
Carson’s heart bumped erratically against his sternum. The truth was all he’d ever wanted. Now he knew. Agony swelled inside him.
. . . it was all about Elizabeth and you.
“Tanner,” Schaffer said via the communication link.
Carson jerked at the sound of the agent’s voice. “Yeah.”
“We have to get you to Eighth Avenue. Your uncle is there.”
Carson blinked. Had to pull himself together. Wait. Annette had gone to help Max. “Where’s Annette?” The irregular thudding in Carson’s chest slowed to a near stop as he waited for a response.
“She’s there. Elizabeth Drake, too. Lieutenant Lynch is singing like the proverbial canary. Looks like we’ve got a wrap, Tanner.”
As painful as it was, as ugly as it was, Carson could finally put the past to rest.