The Last Trial Read online

  PRAISE FOR ROBERT BAILEY

  “The Professor is that rare combination of thrills, chills, and heart. Gripping from the first page to the last.”

  —Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump

  “Legal thrillers shouldn’t be this much fun and a new writer shouldn’t be this good at crafting a great twisty story. If you enjoy Grisham as much as I do, you’re going to love Bob Bailey.”

  —Brian Haig, author of The Night Crew and the Sean Drummond series

  “Robert Bailey is a thriller writer to reckon with. His debut novel has a tight and twisty plot, vivid characters, and a pleasantly down-home sensibility that will remind some readers of adventures in Grisham-land. Luckily, Robert Bailey is an original, and his skill as a writer makes the Alabama setting all his own. The Professor marks the beginning of a very promising career.”

  —Mark Childress, author of Georgia Bottoms and Crazy in Alabama

  “Taut, page turning, and smart, The Professor is a legal thriller that will keep readers up late as the twists and turns keep coming. Set in Alabama, it also includes that state’s greatest icon, one Coach Bear Bryant. In fact, the Bear gets things going with the energy of an Alabama kickoff to Auburn. Robert Bailey knows his state and he knows his law. He also knows how to write characters that are real, sympathetic, and surprising. If he keeps writing novels this good, he’s got quite a literary career before him.”

  —Homer Hickam, author of Rocket Boys/October Sky, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Robert Bailey is a Southern writer in the great Southern tradition, with a vivid sense of his environment, and characters that pop and crackle on the page. This book kept me hooked all the way through.”

  —William Bernhardt, author of the Ben Kincaid series

  “Bailey’s solid second McMurtrie and Drake legal thriller (after 2014’s The Professor) . . . provides enough twists and surprises to keep readers turning the pages.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A gripping legal suspense thriller of the first order, Between Black and White clearly displays author Robert Bailey’s impressive talents as a novelist. An absorbing and riveting read from beginning to end.”

  —Midwest Book Reviews

  ALSO BY ROBERT BAILEY

  McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers

  Between Black and White

  The Professor

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Robert Bailey

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503953147

  ISBN-10: 1503953149

  Cover design by Brian Zimmerman

  For my wife, Dixie Davis Bailey

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  PART TWO

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  PART THREE

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  PART FOUR

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  PART FIVE

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Boone’s Hill, Tennessee, June 2010

  Wilma got home about 8:00 p.m. All she wanted to do was kiss her girls on the forehead and go to bed, but when she pulled in the gravel driveway she was met by a surprise. Ms. Yost’s car was not there, and the house was pitch dark. Even the fluorescent bulb in the carport, which the old woman always left on at night so she could see when she went out for a smoke, was off. For several seconds, Wilma kept her headlights aimed at the clapboard siding of the tiny dwelling where her children and babysitter should be but which appeared, for all intents and purposes, abandoned. What’s going on?

  Heart pounding, she parked in the driveway and quickly walked to the front door, fumbling in her purse for the keys. She finally got the door open and turned the light on. There on the coffee table was a note. She ran to it, a sense of dread coming over her. When she picked up the paper, she held it for a split second. Please, God. Don’t let anything have happened to my babies. Please . . .

  She began to read.

  Dear Wilma,

  I have tried for some time now to find justification for your actions. But I can no longer stand by and watch you do this to your children. I knew you were a stripper. People talk, you know. I didn’t approve, but I wasn’t going to cast stones. A couple of weeks ago a lady from church said she’d heard you were a prostitute. I didn’t want to believe. Then I heard that message on your answering machine. I left it for you to hear.

  With a heavy heart I have reported you to DHR. Your kids are now in the custody of the county. Jackie doesn’t know. She thinks she’s on a field trip. But Laurie Ann is devastated. I’m sorry, but I had to tell her. I hope that you will change your ways.

  I know it doesn’t seem so, but I’m your friend, Wilma. I’m doing this for your children. I hope that one day you can be with them again.

  With love,

  Carla Yost

  Wilma was numb. No. It was all for them. Everything. All of it. For them. Not me. Them. She walked back to her bedroom and saw the blinking light on the answering machine. No.

  She pushed it. “You have one saved message,” the monotone voice said. “Received 10:30 p.m. Monday.”

  “Monday? What was I doing . . . ?” Wilma closed her eyes, thinking of all the roofies he had forced her to take. The long blackouts. No.

  The message began with static. Then his voice.

  “Ah, God, Wilma this is
so good. You. You are so good.”

  It was JimBone. She could hear panting in the background. Then a low moan. She recognized the sounds as her own. But she couldn’t remember. No. God . . . no.

  The entire message lasted forty-five seconds, and Wilma hung her head in shame as the monster’s sick voice filled the bedroom. When it was over, she lay on her bed for two hours without moving, crumpled in the fetal position, slowly whispering, “No. No. No. Nothing for me. Everything for them. Nothing for me. Everything for them.” At some point, she lost control and started sobbing, crying so hard she thought her heart would stop. She had been raped. The bastard had raped her. Repeatedly. But that was not how the message on the tape sounded. She couldn’t blame Ms. Yost for doing what she did.

  Wilma gazed across the bedroom to the closet in the corner. Through the open crack in the door, she could barely see the handle on top of the briefcase peeking out from under a pile of dirty clothes. Inside the case was the remainder of the $100,000 down payment they’d given her the night she made the deal. She was due another hundred grand after committing perjury at the trial in Henshaw, but JimBone said it might be a month before she’d get it.

  Wilma choked out another sob, feeling hollow. The money was for the girls. For Laurie Ann. For Jackie. She ground her teeth together. Nothing for me. Everything for them.

  Now they were gone. And deep down, Wilma knew they were better off without her. Glaring at the closet, she felt hate for herself burning inside her like an inferno.

  Everything is my fault. She let her eyes drift to the open bedroom door and out to the empty hallway. The house was normally bustling with the sounds of her girls. Laurie Ann, a teenager talking about boys and cheerleading, and Jackie, still in the “boys have cooties” stage of elementary school. She smiled at the memories, but her eyes clouded with tears. The house was silent as a morgue now.

  They’re gone, she knew. And I have nothing. Nothing . . .

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, got up, and walked over to her dresser. She pulled the pistol out of the top drawer and slowly loaded it.

  What comes around goes around.

  She took off all her clothes and turned on the overhead light in the bedroom. Then she looked in the mirror and pointed the pistol at her head.

  You deserve this.

  Then she closed her eyes.

  And pulled the trigger.

  PART ONE

  1

  Tuscaloosa, Alabama, May 8, 2012

  Raina Farrell probably wouldn’t have heard the gunshots if she hadn’t been so hyperaware of her surroundings. Even after the beers she’d had at Buffalo Phil’s and despite it being a Tuesday night and neither she nor Dr. Newell having seen anyone else on the Riverwalk, Raina was still on edge. As they sat next to each other on a wrought-iron bench at the Park at Manderson Landing and gazed out at the dark waters of the Black Warrior River, Raina whipped her head around to look behind her, to the side, and then back to the water. For early May, there was a slight chill in the air, but the cold had nothing to do with why she was shivering.

  “Relax,” Dr. Newell said, whispering in her ear as he moved his hand under her skirt. “Lift up a little.”

  Raina smelled beer mingled with the faint undertone of nicotine on his breath. She had never been with a smoker before, and the scent didn’t bother her as much as she thought it would. If anything, it added to the overall feeling of naughtiness, of crossing an ethical line, that made what they were doing so damn hot. Trying to calm herself, she took in a gulp of air and swallowed, tasting the afterburn of the shot of Fireball they’d done before leaving the restaurant. When she was nervous on the golf course, she had taught herself to concentrate on her breathing. She would also focus on objects in the distance as she waited to hit a shot. The green. The fairway. A clump of trees. Anything that took her mind off her score or how she was playing and let her engage in the moment. Trying this now, she drew in another deep breath and slowly exhaled. Then she looked across the river and trained her sight on a dock on the far shore about three hundred yards away. Inhale . . . The structure jutted out into the dark water at least fifty feet and was illuminated by a fog light shining down from an adjacent boathouse. Exhale . . . Keeping her eyes on the dock and feeling Dr. Newell’s breath again in her ear, she raised her hips, and her heart thudded as he slid off her underwear. The bench felt icy cold on her bare buttocks, and she giggled.

  “What?” he asked as he unclipped the belt buckle on his pants.

  “Nothing. Just thinking how crazy this is. What if we get caught?”

  “The risk is half the fun,” Dr. Newell said, and slid his hand up her thigh. Raina gasped, and she forgot about the cold as her body began to throb with the warmth of his touch. She gazed back across the river to the dock. Blinking her eyes, she noticed that a man was now standing at the edge of it.

  “Sean, there’s a guy on the dock across the river.” She pointed and then moaned with pleasure. “Do you think he can see what we’re doing?”

  “Sure,” he said, and he removed his hand and tapped the telescope stand that he had mounted by the railing. “Just an astronomy professor and his bright and inquisitive student out looking at the stars on a clear night.” Then he lowered his pants and lifted her into his lap, and she had the odd, perverse thought that she was about to tell a mall Santa Claus what she wanted for Christmas. He carefully raised her skirt and placed himself inside her, and Raina closed her eyes, all visions of St. Nicholas gone. She soaked up the sensation of the act with all her senses, the smell of his beer- and cigarette-laced breath on her face mingling with the intoxicating scents of sex and the river. The feel of the breeze coming off the water coupled with his hands moving under her blouse and caressing her breasts. And the sound of the waves breaking on the shore below.

  When she heard the first gunshot, her eyes flew open. The man on the dock was now on his knees and a figure was hovering above him, pointing something at him. This time she saw the fire from the barrel of the gun as it went off and heard the crackle of the weapon, which sounded like a truck backfiring. “No!” Raina raised off her lover and reached for a railing just as a third shot was fired. The man on the dock fell over on his back and then the shooter knelt beside him.

  “Raina, what are you . . . ?” Dr. Newell’s frustrated voice broke through her focus and she wheeled on him.

  “Did you see that?” she asked, hearing the excitement and panic in her voice as she pointed across the river to the dock. “That man was just shot. I think he’s dead.”

  Dr. Newell was pulling his pants up, his eyes darting back and forth across the park. “I didn’t see anything.” Then, cursing under his breath, he added, “I should’ve known this was going to be a cluster. Let’s get out of here.”

  Raina turned to watch the scene unfolding across the river. The shooter appeared to be looking under the dock for something. “Do you have a camera?”

  “A what? Have you lost your mind? Let’s get the hell out of here. If someone catches me with you, I can kiss my life goodbye. My job. My marriage. Everything.” He paused. “And you can forget about your golf scholarship.”

  Ignoring him, Raina dug through her purse and pulled out her phone, clicking on the camera function. Then she turned and focused on the dock. She started to enlarge the image when Dr. Newell snatched the phone away from her.

  “Are you crazy?” he said, spittle flying from his mouth. “You can’t take a picture. It’ll prove you were here.”

  “I’ll say I was alone.”

  “The whole class knows I run here every night, and you weren’t all that stealthy about flirting with me at Phil’s. Someone will put two and two together. You were never here.”

  “Then why did we bring the telescope?”

  “So if some random person did catch us out here, we’d have an excuse.” He sighed. “We need to go. Now.”

  Raina shot a glance across the Black Warrior. The figure was still on the dock. “Give me m
y phone back! I just witnessed a murder for Christ’s sake.” She pointed toward the dock, but the doctor didn’t move his eyes off her. Nor did he release the phone. Instead he picked Raina’s lace panties off the ground with his other hand and flung them at her.

  “Put these back on and let’s go.”

  She swatted the underwear away and ripped off her blouse. “Give me my phone or I scream bloody murder.”

  “Raina, are you—?”

  “Help!” she screamed. “Please, someone help me!” Then she squealed as loud as she could, and Dr. Newell dropped the phone and began to run.

  Ignoring him and her clothes, Raina lunged for the phone. She clicked it on, but nothing happened. The screen was cracked. Son of a bitch broke it. “Damnit,” she said. Then, turning back to the railing, she saw that the shooter was now standing on the edge of the dock and . . .

  . . . looking right at me. Raina hesitated for only a second. Then she pressed her right eye into the viewer of the telescope and adjusted the lens down until . . .

  “I see you,” she said. For a split second, she saw the killer in profile. Then the figure was running away from her, down the dock and up some steps leading to a house. “She’s gone,” Raina whispered.

  Raina Farrell backed away from the tripod. Her legs were trembling with fear, and she took no notice that she was naked from the waist up as she sat down and wrapped her arms around her knees.

  “I just witnessed a murder.”

  2

  At three o’clock in the morning, the silver Yukon pulled to a stop amid a sea of blue and red flashing lights. At least ten Sheriff’s cruisers were parked at the curb nearest the water’s edge. Wade Richey stepped out of the SUV and trudged toward the group of officers, his path lit by the beams coming off the headlights of the police vehicles.

  Wade wore black jeans and a black T-shirt and, with his thick salt-and-pepper hair and similarly colored mustache, he brought to mind comparisons to Sam Elliott in Road House. As he pressed his way through the hodgepodge of deputies, he came face-to-face with a man holding a clipboard in one hand and a megaphone in the other. From his uniform lapel, Wade saw the name “Lusk.”

  “Detective Richey.”

  Wade nodded. “One and the same. Is it him?”