Legacy of Lies (Bocephus Haynes, #1)

by Robert Bailey

She sighed. “I’ve seen a psychiatrist in Nashville off and on over the years, and I did tell her. Thought it might help.” “Did it?” “No.” She paused.

Bocephus Haynes had witnessed a brutal murder when he was five years old. He’d been beaten and kicked and abused by the men who had perpetuated this race crime. As an adult, he’d seen his wife gunned down by an assassin’s bullet and had been covered with her blood when she was pronounced. He’d also learned truths about his own background and heritage that would make most people go insane. This man, her attorney, knew pain. He rode in the cockpit with it. He bathed in it every morning and night.

“The only thing that’s ever helped me is to do my job. For a while—three and a half years—I decided to be a police officer. I thought arresting the evil in this world would help me ease the pain, but I knew my real talent was in the courtroom, and only as the district attorney general could I see to it that perps like the man who raped me would be given the maximum punishment under the law.”

“Not only that, but guess who is the new acting district attorney’s biggest financial contributor?”

The Yellow Deli was located in the historic Heritage House on Third Street in downtown Pulaski. Founded by the Twelve Tribes, a Christian cult organization that had originated in the early ’70s,

He’d already ordered his usual—the “Deli Rose,” which consisted of roast beef, corned beef, pepper jack and provolone cheeses, onions, a tomato, and spicy red sauce laid out on a homemade onion roll—

Zannick

“Mike, with all due respect, you had sex with a fifteen-year-old girl. Even if she begged you to screw her, it would still be statutory rape under the laws of the state of Tennessee.”

“I won’t testify, and a jury will be left with whether they believe the word of a sixteen-year-old tramp whose mother is a known road whore.”

Booker Taliaferro Washington Rowe Jr. was a mountain of a human being at six feet six inches tall and well over three hundred pounds. He was built in the box shape of a refrigerator, which had made him a ferocious offensive lineman for Giles County High and, later, Alabama A&M.

Bo gripped his cousin’s arm. “Look, I wasn’t there to help you when everything went crazy, and I can’t help you get your farm back.” He paused and squeezed Booker T.’s arm. “But I want to help now. How much do you need to get operational?”

Booker T. bit on his thumbnail again. “A hundred fifty?”

“I’m also going to pay you a fifty-thousand-dollar consultant’s fee for helping me with Walton Farm.”

“With all your dealings with Z Bank, did you have much contact with Butch?” Booker T. nodded, his eyes still lowered. “Yep.”

“He gave me my loan.” Booker T. raised his eyes to Bo’s. “And he wouldn’t give me an extension despite how many times I asked. I didn’t figure Michael Zannick would grant me any mercy, but I’d known Butch for a lot of years. I thought he’d help me, but he wouldn’t budge.”

“When was the last time yo...

“Thanks for your help, Bo.” “Booker T., we aren’t finished here!” He looked over his shoulder at Bo. “We are for now.”

On August 18, 2011, Andy Walton was murdered as he was leaving the Sundowners. Forty-five years to the day earlier, Bo had witnessed Andy and nine of his Klan brethren lynch Roosevelt Haynes at the clearing on Walton Farm.

She was a heavyset, buxom woman who was leaning over the stage and rubbing her breasts in the face of the Sundowners’ one spectator.

Bo saw that Zannick was about five foot nine inches tall, couldn’t weigh much over 150 pounds, and was wearing jeans and Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars.

For Helen Lewis and many other victims of hideous atrocities, survival depended more on denial. On manipulating the mind into thinking of the tragedy as if it had happened to someone else. Or that it hadn’t happened at all.

She gazed around the holding cell, and depression began to set in. She thought of the choice she had made in 1977. The lies she had told. The lives she had hurt. And then she lay down on her side and closed her eyes. I’m exactly where I should be.

“I’m the mole,” Gloria said, her voice unwavering. “What?” Frannie said, hanging up the phone without saying goodbye. Gloria could feel her heartbeat thundering in her chest as she took a step closer to the chief’s desk. “I’m the mole,” she repeated. “I leaked the press release to the Vine.”

“My sources told me that the leaders of this sex-for-pay operation were Butch, Terry, and Lou.” He licked his lips. “Lou helped line up the talent, Terry worked his political and business connections to drum up clients . . . and Butch handled the money and the paperwork.”

“Because I’d bet a gold nickel that Finn Pusser and Michael Zannick used the information I gave them to put pressure on Butch, Terry, and Lou. With Zannick charged with rape and that Japanese auto plant hanging in the balance, I think Zannick must have threatened to roll on the three stooges unless they got him out of this jam.”

“Coming from a man who participated in the lynching of a black man in front of a five-year-old boy, that doesn’t mean a whole lot.”

“I also didn’t dispose of my revolver.” Bo felt his whole body tense as he took the seat across from his client. “You admit to being in Butch’s house with a .44 Magnum revolver?” She nodded. “But I didn’t take it with me when I left.” “Why?” “Because Butch took it away from me. We fought. I wanted to shoot him, but I couldn’t do it. I hit him several times with the gun, but he finally wrestled it away from me.”

“Butch was Zannick’s corporate lawyer and was also running Z Bank for him. Maybe he found out some things he didn’t need to know.”

“To tell me that he’d investigated Butch Renfroe, Lou Horn, and Terry Grimes for being involved in a prostitution ring in the ’90s and 2000s. He could never prove it, so he didn’t involve you.” He paused. “But he did mention the ring to Finn Pusser when Finn visited him in prison.”

Helen gazed up at the ceiling and wrapped her hands around the back of her head. “That could explain why Butch was so desperate to have me dismiss the charges against Zannick.” She lowered her eyes to Bo. “Zannick could have been blackmailing him with the prostitution ring and threatening to disclose if he were convicted of Mandy Burks’s rape.” “Which would also account for why Lou was so nervous at the trial docket.” “Him getting sick never seemed right either,” Helen said. “It always felt like a stall tactic.”

The only contact he received was a cryptic phone call from his daughter on Christmas Eve. “Mae has cancer. A rare form of leukemia, and they aren’t sure how to treat it. Her medical expenses are already through the roof. I guess we all have to pay for your sins. Merry Christmas, Dad.”

When he thought of the other characters in the good book, it was hard not to see the hypocrisy. King David, having Bathsheba’s husband murdered so that he could sleep with her. Solomon and his horde of women. Jacob, who tricked his brother, Esau. The ridiculous rules and laws of Exodus and Numbers. It was so easy for a person to use a section or passage of the Bible for his or her own agenda.

“Really? Lona and I were never close. She did cocaine and meth, and that wasn’t my style. I nursed a drink for show when I danced, and I normally threw away the beverages that were bought for me by patrons.”

When the doors jarred closed, all the men turned to look at Bo. As a six-foot four-inch man practicing law in a predominantly white county where he was the only black trial attorney,

Lona came to an abrupt stop and put her hands on her hips. “Well, I can tell you exactly what happened. Bo showed up at Michael Zannick’s rape charge settlement docket today. Bo represented my daughter’s interests and made sure the judge didn’t approve the sweetheart deal that Sack Glover had proposed that would have dismissed the charges against Zannick. Then Bo gets attacked a couple of hours later, our cars get blown up, and his office nearly burns to the ground.” She glared at Frannie. “I’d say it’s pretty obvious who’s behind this. Same prick who raped my daughter.”

There were two other sandwiches on the table along with several bags of chips. The white bag that the food presumably had once been in said “Whitt’s Barbecue” in brown letters.

Bo

Things got even worse when, on September 17, 2015, the rape charge against Michael Zannick was dismissed pursuant to the same sweetheart plea agreement that Sack Glover had tried to push past Judge Page in June. This time, it wasn’t Sack who proposed the deal but Assistant District Attorney General Gloria Sanchez, who purported to Page that the state didn’t feel there was enough evidence to warrant a conviction for either forcible or statutory rape. Over Bo’s futile objections, Page entered the deal.

“Your

Bo felt an icy chill on the back of his neck. “Who did you pay?” Ennis looked him in the eye. “Butch Renfroe once. Lou Horn another time.” He paused. “I told Finn about my participation when he visited me in jail, and I think he got one of those guys—Terry would be my bet because he’s a loudmouth—admitting on tape to the scheme after being confronted with it.” He paused. “I also bet it was Butch who kept the paper trail of the scheme.”

“The computer,” Bo said out loud. “Butch’s laptop was stolen the night of the murder. The prosecution has argued that Helen was trying to get rid of any evidence of her abortion, but it could just as easily be Lou Horn or Terry Grimes disposing of the evidence of the prostitution ring.” “Bingo,” Ennis said.

Six hours after the not-guilty verdict was rendered, Chief Frannie Storm and a team of sheriff’s deputies located the computer stolen from Butch Renfroe’s house in the attic of a hunting cabin that Terry Grimes owned in Elkton, Tennessee. Though an attempt to erase the information on the computer had been made, an IT specialist inspected the computer and was able to recover several of the files, including a tape of Terry and Lou Horn having sex with several women in a hotel room and an Excel spreadsheet saved under the name “Ring” with a list of names and payments. Grimes was arrested on charges of first-degree murder, burglary, and prostitution. Horn was charged with prostitution.

Ennis Petrie took a seat next to her. “Congratulations, General.” Helen wiped tears from her eyes. Finally, she sighed. “You know I killed him, don’t you?” He nodded. “Yes.”

Helen gazed up at him. “OK, forget the gun. Why did you help Bo during the investigation and trial of the case?” He let out a ragged breath. “Because I believe that good people make terrible mistakes in this world. I . . . made an awful one that I’m still paying for. I didn’t want you to have to go through that.” “Why?” Ennis looked down at her with kind eyes. “Something tells me that you’ve been paying for something else for a long time.” She nodded. “Since 1977.”

He smiled. “And who was my mother, General?” “Patricia Zannick. She—” “—and Henry Zannick adopted me at five years old. After I’d been through three sets of foster parents.” He paused. “But whose womb did I come out of?” “Mine,” Helen said. Zannick started to clap his hands. “Very good, Mother. I was beginning to believe you were never going to figure it out. Bravo.”

“If that was your aim, then why didn’t you leave my gun somewhere that it could be found?” She gestured at the weapon on the table. “Discovery of the murder weapon would have cinched the prosecution’s case.” Zannick continued to gaze out the window. “Because my goal wasn’t simply to win. I wanted you to suffer.”