Alex Cross: Cross Justice Part 5

"Family-tree stuff. Did Nana Mama come from Starksville?"

I nodded. "She grew up here. And the Hopes, her family, they go way back. Nana Mama's grandmother was a slave somewhere in the area."

"Okay, so she met her husband here?"

"Reggie Cross. My grandfather was in the merchant marines. They got married young and had my dad. You'd have to ask Nana, but because of all the time he spent at sea, it wasn't a very good marriage. She divorced Reggie when my dad was seven or eight and took him up to Was.h.i.+ngton. She worked to put herself through Howard University to become a teacher, but the time required cost her with her son. When he was fifteen, he rebelled and came back down to Starksville to live with my grandfather."

"Reggie."

"Correct," I said, looking up at the spinning ceiling fan. "I can't imagine there was much supervision, which led to a lot of my dad's excesses. I think it kills Nana Mama that she never had a good relations.h.i.+p with her son after that. When he died, I think in some ways she was looking to make things right by taking care of me and my brothers."

"She did a fine job," Bree said.

"I like to think so. Any other genealogical mysteries I can help with?"

"Just one. Who's Pinkie?"

I smiled. "Pinkie Parks. Aunt Connie's only son. He lives in Florida and works on offsh.o.r.e oil rigs. Evidently makes a lot of money doing it too."

"That's his real name? Pinkie?"

"No, Brock. Brock Jr.," I said. "Pinkie's just his nickname."

"Why Pinkie?"

"He lost his right one to a car door when he was a kid."

Bree got up on her elbow, stared at me. "So they nicknamed him Pinkie?"

I laughed. "I knew you were going to say that. It's just how small towns work. I remember there was a guy named Barry, a friend of my dad's, who ran the wrong way at some big football game, so everyone called him Bonehead."

"Bonehead Barry?" She snorted.

"Isn't that awful?"

"What'd they call you?"

"Alex."

"Too boring for a small-town nickname?" she said.

"That's me," I said, climbing out of bed. "Boring Alex Cross."

"That'll be the day."

Pausing in the bathroom doorway, I said, "Thanks, I think."

"I'm saying I love you in my own special way."

"I know you are, Beautiful Bree," I said and blew her a kiss.

"Better than Bonehead Bree," she said with a laugh and blew it right back.

It felt good to laugh and kid each other like that again. We'd been through a rough patch in the spring and it had taken time for us to see the humor in anything.

I shaved and showered, feeling cheery that first morning in Starksville, like life was taking a turn for the better for the Cross family. Isn't it funny how just changing your location changes your perspective? The last couple of months in DC had been claustrophobic, but being back on Loupe Street, I felt like I was on the edge of wide-open country, familiar but unexplored.

Then I thought of Stefan Tate, my cousin, and the charges against him. And the way forward suddenly looked dark again.

CHAPTER 10.

AN HOUR LATER, I left Bree and Nana Mama putting together our lives in the bungalow and went with Naomi to the jail where Stefan Tate was being held. As we drove, I reviewed the highlights of the eighteen-page grand jury indictment against my cousin.

About a year and a half prior to his arrest, Stefan Tate joined the Starksville School District as a gym teacher at both the middle and high schools. He had a history of drug and alcohol abuse that he did not reveal on his applications. He met a middle-schooler named Rashawn Turnbull and eventually became the boy's mentor. My cousin led a secret life selling drugs, including the heroin that was believed to be responsible for two overdoses before Christmas last year.

Stefan's personal drug use spiraled out of control. He raped one of his older female students and threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Then he made advances toward Rashawn Turnbull and was rejected. In response, my cousin raped, tortured, and killed the boy.

At least, according to the indictment. It took everything in my power to remember that an indictment was not a conviction. It was just the state's version of events, only one side of the story.

Still, when I finished reading it, I looked up at Naomi and said, "They have hard evidence here."

"I know," my niece said.

"Did Stefan do it?"

"He swears he didn't. And I believe him. He's being framed."

"By who?"

"I'm open to suggestions at this point," she said, turning into a public parking lot near the city hall, the county courthouse, and the jail, all of which were brick-faced and in desperate need of repointing.

Across the street, the police and fire stations looked much newer, and I remarked on it as I climbed out.

"They built them with state and federal grants a few years ago," Naomi said. "The Caine family donated the land."

"Caine, as in the fertilizer company?"

"And the maiden name of the boy's mother, Cece Caine Turnbull."

We started toward the jail. "She credible? The mom?"

"She's a piece of work, that one," my niece replied. "Got a sheet going back ten years. Real wild child and definitely the black sheep of the Caines. But on this, she comes across as more than credible. The murder has ravaged her. There's no denying that."

"The dad?"

"In and out of the picture, recently mostly out," Naomi said. "And he's got about as strong an alibi as you can have."

"He was in prison?"

"Jail down in Biloxi. Doing eight weeks for a.s.sault."

"So he wasn't a good role model in the boy's life."

"Nope. That was supposed to be Stefan's job."

We arrived at the jail, went inside. A sheriff's deputy looked up from behind a bulletproof window.

"Attorney Naomi Cross and Alex Cross to see Stefan Tate, please," my niece said, rummaging in her pocketbook for her ID. Mine was already out.

"Not today, I'm afraid," the deputy said.

"What does that mean, not today?" Naomi demanded.

"It means that, from what I was told, your client has been a less than cooperative inmate-downright belligerent, as a matter of fact. So his visitation privileges have been revoked for forty-eight hours."

"Forty-eight hours?" my niece cried. "We go to trial in three days! I have to have access to my client."

"Sorry, Counselor," she said. "But I don't make the rules. I just follow them."

"Who made the call?" I asked. "Police chief or district attorney?"

"Neither. Judge Varney made that decision."

CHAPTER 11.

WE WAITED TWO hours on the second floor of the Starksville courthouse, stewing on a bench outside the chambers of Judge Erasmus P. Varney, before his clerk said he was ready to see us.

Judge Varney looked up at us from behind several stacks of legal files and a pair of horn-rimmed reading gla.s.ses. His steel-colored hair was brushed back in a low pompadour, and his steel-colored beard was close cropped. He wore a rep tie and thin leather suspenders over a starched white s.h.i.+rt, and he studied each of us in turn with sharp intelligent eyes.

"Judge Varney, this is Dr. Alex Cross, my uncle and Stefan Tate's cousin," Naomi said, trying to control her fury. "He's helping me with the case."

"A real family affair," Varney remarked before setting down his reading gla.s.ses and standing to shake my hand firmly. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Cross. Your reputation precedes you. I read a Was.h.i.+ngton Post story about the terrible ordeal you and your family went through with that maniac Marcus Sunday. Terrible thing. Miracle you all survived."

"It was, sir," I said. "And I thank G.o.d for that miracle every day."

"I bet you do," Judge Varney said, holding my gaze. Then he turned to Naomi. "So, what can I do for you, Counselor?"

"Allow me to see my client, sir."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"With all due respect, sir," Naomi said, "we are less than seventy-two hours from trial. You can't limit my time like this without jeopardizing his right to a vigorous defense."

The door opened behind us. I looked over to find four people coming in: a burly, sixtyish, fair-skinned man in a blue Starksville Police Department uniform; a lanky guy, also in his sixties, in the khaki uniform of the Stark County Sheriff's Office; a tall, whippet-thin woman in a gray business suit; and Matt Brady, the a.s.sistant prosecutor I'd met with Naomi the day before.

"My men have rights too, Judge Varney," said the man in khaki. "Sheriff Nathan Bean," Naomi whispered.

"And Mr. Tate has infringed upon those rights," said the woman, who turned out to be district attorney Delilah Strong. "a.s.saulting two jailers is not something we want to be rewarding."

"Since when is due process a reward?" Naomi demanded. "It's a right guaranteed every citizen under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments."

The blue-uniformed man-"Police chief Randy Sherman," Naomi informed me-said, "Your client put two deputies in the ER."

"So put him in chains," I said. "Put him in solitary, but you're obligated to let him be seen by counsel."

"We know who you are, Dr. Cross," said Strong. "But you have no jurisdiction here."

"No, I don't," I said. "I came down here as a private citizen to lend a family member a hand. But from the day I started as a police officer and through all my years with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, I've known that you can't deny someone the right to a fair trial. If you push this, you might as well send this case straight to an appeals court. So put him in chains or in a straitjacket and let us see him, or, as a concerned citizen, I will contact friends of mine at the Bureau who investigate civil rights violations."

Sheriff Bean looked ready to blow a fuse and started to sputter, but Varney cut him off.

"Do it," he said.

"Your Honor," the sheriff said. "This sends a-"

"It sends the right message," the judge said. "Though I didn't see it that way at first, Dr. and Ms. Cross are correct. Mr. Tate's right to a fair trial supersedes your right to maintain a safe jail. Restrain him as you see fit, but I want him made available to counsel within the hour."

"What that sonofab.i.t.c.h did to that boy?" Chief Sherman snarled at me as he left. "You ask me, your cousin lost all his d.a.m.n rights that night."

CHAPTER 12.

THE PRETTY LITTLE four-year-old girl with the golden curls wore a pink princess outfit and knelt on one side of a low table. She picked up a pot.

"Do you want some tea with your cookie?" she sweetly asked the older man sitting cross-legged on the floor across from her.