Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (i can read books TXT) 📕

Wally Ray’s death, one of many behind bars in recent years, would be investigated before it was declared a suicide. Unsure if I cared how he had died, I wondered if he had hanged himself because without Carpenter’s brains he saw no way out. I wanted to hate him for his poisonous soul, for the rage I’d felt and what he’d done to Drea. Then I thought of Bobby. If Tucker and his ilk could push the best man I knew to the edge of his capacity for forgiveness, their toxicity must be resisted, not fed by emulation. I resolved to feel nothing until my memory scabbed over and my objectivity returned. If I read the articles at all, it would be later, after I dropped Drea at the airport and went to Phoenix’s for dinner.

Phoenix and Betty, both dressed in jeans and casual tops, joined us for brunch. So did the Bishop family, in church clothes. When I reached the two tables pushed together, Drea was on her feet, holding a newspaper and glaring like a school librarian at restless fourth graders. “No cell phones either,” she said, looking down at Phoenix, in the chair beside hers. “Wally Ray Tucker has taken enough from me. I refuse to let him take this day, this beautiful day. We’re here to celebrate life, hope, and new friendships. Let him burn quietly.” Everyone applauded and presently we joined the buffet line. After forty minutes we were stuffed. The Bishop boys—Logan, nine, and Charles, ten—seemed to consume more than anyone. They were ready to make another trip to the trough when their father said it was time for church. Drea had one too many mimosas and though not drunk wobbled when we all stood. My arm caught her waist as the bill came. She took it from me, intending to pay. Again, zero.

“Courtesy of Mr. Torrance,” I said, without revealing it was an apology for his son’s attempt on her life.

“I wanted to hear Liberty Storm’s death rattle. You gave me that, Gideon,” she said as we walked to the parking ramp elevator. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just ask.”

“Keep speaking the truth,” I said as Phoenix, beside me, smiled. “Somebody has to.”

After handshakes and hugs and promises to call, the group parted company in the ramp. Lucy strapped her boys into the back of her champagne-colored Malibu, her husband Tillman slid behind the wheel, and all four waved as the car rolled away.

Having come in Phoenix’s RAV4, Betty climbed into the van with Pete as I stood shaking his hand through the open window.

“Thanks, Pete,” I said. “I’m glad we had each other’s back.”

“Good to work with somebody who knows how to step up when the shit hits the fan and when to keep a secret.” He grinned. “Call you soon for darts, maybe a ball game.”

After Cissy got into the back of her sister’s red Corolla so Ramos could stretch his legs in front, Yvonne hugged Drea for a long time and then Phoenix before she sank into the driver’s seat.

“If you talk to LJ, tell him how fucking good I was on this gig,” she said.

“He knows you’re good,” I said.

“Course he does.” She grinned. “But you’re my bold italics.”

After the Corolla left, Phoenix embraced Drea, edging her away from me and whispering in her ear. When they stepped apart, she took a business card from her jeans and handed it to Drea, who nodded. Then Phoenix pulled me in for a long kiss. “I’ll see you when you get back from the airport.” Waving, she climbed into her RAV4 and was gone.

My first stop with Drea was Buffalo General, where she sat holding Sam’s hand for half an hour. His injuries from the water glass he had been holding at the moment of the blast were severe enough that he would need even thicker special glasses when he healed. But he was grateful he could still see. Drea asked what he wanted to do during his visit to DC, after the dressing was removed and he could travel. “Up to you, baby girl,” he said. “Surprise me.”

Soon we were back in my CRV.

“Your plane isn’t till seven, which means you check in around five-thirty,” I said. “How would you like to spend the day? We could try the Falls and the Underground Railroad Museum. Or the Buffalo History Museum. Or get Bobby and do a tour of historic sites. He knows city history the way a spoken word poet knows his lines.”

“I want to go to Attica,” she said.

42

The general population visitation room hadn’t changed since my earlier visit—the tables, the mix of visitors and prisoners, the line for Instax photographs, the toys and wall paintings to make things kid-friendly, even the fading Donald Duck. But the wait was shorter as if we had been expected.

Drea and I were at a table for only fifteen minutes before Jasper Hellman shuffled in, supervised by a different CO—older and white, with a brown mustache. Grinning, Hellman sat and looked at us for a long time before he laughed, exposing his wretched teeth.

“How you doing, Bag Man?” I said.

“You know, I thought it might be you.” He had not shaved today and still looked too thin, almost lost in his greens. “I don’t get many second visits. Reporters or book-writers who never tell my story the way it should be told. Lawyers who don’t know jack shit. Sometimes I just say no. But something told me to say yes today, and I’m glad I did.” The eyes behind his dirty lenses narrowed into slits. “So what brings old Mr. Sorry-but-I-had-to-shoot-your-ass here today?”

“I was here visiting somebody else.” I smiled. “But I wanted you to meet my friend.”

“Your friend? Why the f—why would I wanna meet your friend?” He studied Drea more intently now. She looked calm and composed in her modest peach-colored summer dress and offered him an unbroken smile that seemed to annoy him. “You got