The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (top 20 books to read TXT) 📕

the dialogue between us centered on the non-personal. But it’s hard to avoid history in a house like this. I reflect on my father, knowing full well that he would be aghast that I was sleeping with a witness in the same house that his great-grandfather built.

“Daddy was my hero. He was a lawyer, so I wanted to be a lawyer. He was the real-life Atticus Finch, the moral conscience of the community. His office was on the courthouse square. Seems like everyone in the town congregated there. I would go and hang out, soaking it all in. The town convinced him to go to the legislature. The folks in the legislature liked him so much they made him lieutenant governor. He was going to be governor, but he walked away.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t want it. He was being true to himself.”

“How did he die?”

“Cancer.”

That awful word. Daddy faced the end with calm equanimity—the same way he approached everything. Even as the disease ravaged his body, he would sit for hours on the porch, his marked-up Bible in his lap, looking at the trees and feeling the wind. Most people in his situation ask, “Why me?” He thought, “Why not me?” He reasoned he had lived a good life, better than most. It would be untoward to let the bad at the end drown out the overwhelming good. He died a contented man.

Lara asks, “Do you think your mom would like me?”

“Mom would love you. She would take you around to all the shops in town, show you off, and claim you as her best friend.”

The image amuses. Yet that meeting will have to wait. The trial dominates our relationship so thoroughly that I rarely allow myself to think about a post-trial life with Lara. Part of me worries that the clock will strike twelve once the verdict is read, and the fantasy will end.

I say, “Maybe you can meet her after the trial.”

“I would like that.”

Her words provide some solace, and that hope sustains for now. The trial is the thing. I just have to get through the trial.

I change the subject and ask, “What about your parents?”

She frowns and drifts away from me. I keep to myself and let her float in her memories. I’ve interviewed enough witnesses over the years to recognize that prolonged contemplation of this sort rarely precedes happy talk. I wait. It’s her story to tell.

“What can I say about Bill and Julia?”

The pain of the topic etches lines into her face. The beauty remains, even when hardened. Her feet rest in my lap and I rub them to show solidarity as she wrestles with the past. I can’t fix whatever hurt eats at her, but I can let her know that she doesn’t have to travel back in time alone. She readies herself to speak behind soft tears.

“Bill touched me in ways a father shouldn’t touch his daughter. He made me touch him. The first time was when I was seven. He didn’t stop until I was thirteen. Julia knew the whole time and did nothing. She let that monster rape her daughter. The day they both died in a car wreck is the happiest day of my life.”

I remove my hands from her feet. The action is instinctual, and I only realize I’m no longer touching her after the fact. Her sobs grow, but I fear holding her, afraid as a man to do anything that would violate her again. I belatedly go find a box of tissues. I can do that at least. Lara sits up and dries her eyes.

She goes on, “I’ll give Bill credit for one thing. He made me the actress I am today. I hid the abuse from my sister, my teachers, and other relatives. I tried to deceive myself, too, but I wasn’t that good.”

A bitter laugh follows her words. The tears stop, and a hungry rage takes over. She grasps her wine glass with a bear claw of a grip, and I wonder if it will up and shatter in her hands, never to be put together again. I hold fierce to my silence, convinced that anything I say will strike the wrong note.

“I’ll never understand one thing. He only touched me. Never Sara, only me. We look just alike. Why me instead of her?”

Man is a beast. In no other species will a parent use a child to satisfy his own perversion. The revulsion in me rises. Bill and Julia should’ve been sent away to prison to face the special brand of justice other inmates reserve for child abusers. Lara lays her head on my chest, and we marinate in the quiet for a spell.

I ask, “Did Sara know?”

“No.”

“Maybe your father was doing the same thing to her.”

“No. I knew what to look for. Sara suspected something was up from time to time, but she never knew. I hid it well. I’m good at that. Even after Bill and Julia died, I hid it well. It’s not like I wanted Bill to abuse her, too. She was my best friend. I would do anything to spare her that awfulness, the terrible smells, the gross violations. I didn’t wish it on her at all. I just want to know why he chose me. What did I do wrong?”

Her hostility to Barton takes on new dimensions. Barton is old enough to be Lara and Sara’s father. He married Sara when she was only twenty. One need not be a psychiatrist to see how Lara could easily transfer the horror of her own father-daughter experience to Sara and Barton. By going after Barton, I stand as the man who will deliver Lara from her childhood demons. I’m prosecuting Bill for his past crimes. I don’t feel much like a white knight and grimly realize that such a foundation for our relationship is doomed to crumble.

We sit in silence for a long time.

***

The phone rings and jars us out of the mournful stillness. It’s Scott.

“How’s your mom?”

“Tough as ever.