The White Road

Apart from the prison and the prison craft shop there isn’t a whole lot to keep a casual visitor in Thomaston, but the town has a pretty good diner at its northern end, with homemade pies and bread pudding served piping hot to locals and those who come to talk after meeting their loved ones across a table or through a screen farther up the road. I bought another bottle of mouthwash at the drugstore and sluiced my mouth out in the parking lot before heading into the diner. The small eating area with its mismatched furniture was largely empty, with the exception of two old men who sat quietly, side by side, watching the traffic go by, and a younger man in an expensively tailored suit who sat in a wooden booth by the wall, his overcoat folded neatly beside him, a fork resting among the cream and crumbs on his plate, a copy of USA Today beside it. I ordered a coffee and took a seat across from him.

“You don’t look so good,” said the man.

I felt my gaze drawn toward the window. I could not see the prison from where I sat. I shook my head, clearing it of visions of dark creatures crowding on prison walls, waiting. They were not real. They were just ravens. I was ill, nauseated by Faulkner’s assault. They were not real.

“Stan,” I said, to distract myself. “Nice suit.”

He turned the jacket to show me the label inside. “Armani. Bought it in an outlet store. I keep the receipt in the inside pocket, just in case I get accused of corruption.”

My coffee arrived, and the waitress retreated behind the counter to read a magazine. Somewhere, a radio played sickly M.O.R. The Rush revival begins here.

Stan Ornstead was an assistant district attorney, part of the team assembled to prosecute the Faulkner case. It was Ornstead who had convinced me to face Faulkner, with the full knowledge of deputy D.A. Andrus, and who had arranged for the interview to be conducted at the cell so that I could see the conditions that he appeared to have created for himself. Stan was only a few years younger than I was and was considered a hot prospect for the future. He was going places; he just wasn’t going there fast enough for him. Faulkner, he had hoped, might have changed that situation, except, as the warden had indicated, the Faulkner case was turning into something very bad indeed, something that threatened to drag everyone involved down with it.

“You look kind of shaken up,” Stan said, after I’d taken a couple of fortifying sips from my coffee.

“He has that effect on people.”

“He didn’t give too much away.”

I froze, and he raised his palms in a what-you-gonna-do? gesture.

“They mike sub-acute cells?” I asked.

“They don’t, if you mean the prison authorities.”

“But somebody else has taken up the slack.”

“The cell has been lojacked. Officially, we know nothing about it.” “Lojacking” was the term used to describe a surveillance operation not endorsed by a court. More particularly, it was the term used by the FBI to describe any such operation.

“The Feebs?”

“The trenchcoats don’t have too much faith in us. They’re worried that Faulkner may walk on our beef so they want to get as much as they can, while they can, in case of federal charges or a double prosecution. All conversations with his lawyers, his doctors, his shrink, even his nemesis—that’s you, in case you didn’t know—are being recorded. The hope is that, at the very least, he’ll give something away that might lead them to others like him, or even give them a lead to other crimes he might have committed. All inadmissible, of course, but useful if it works.”

“And will he walk?”

Ornstead shrugged.

“You know what he’s claiming: he was kept a virtual prisoner for decades and had no part in, or knowledge of, any crimes committed by the Fellowship or those associated with it. There’s nothing to link him directly to any of the killings, and that underground nest of rooms he lived in had bolts on the outside.”

“He was at my house when they tried to kill me.”

“You say, but you were woozy. You told me yourself you couldn’t see straight.”

“Rachel saw him.”

“Yes, she did, but she’d just been hit on the head and had blood in her eyes. She herself admits that she can’t remember a lot of what was said, and he wasn’t there for what followed.”

“There’s a hole in the ground at Eagle Lake where seventeen bodies were found, the remains of his flock.”

“He says fighting broke out between the families. They turned on each other, then on his own family. They killed his wife. His children responded in kind. He claims he was over in Presque Isle on the day they were killed.”

“He assaulted Angel.”

“Faulkner denies it, says his kids did it and forced him to watch. Anyway, your friend says he won’t testify and even if we subpoena him any lawyer worth more than a dollar an hour would tear him apart. A credible witness he is not. And, with respect, you’re hardly an ideal witness either.”

“Why would that be?”

“You’ve been pretty free with that cannon of yours, but just because charges have been let slide doesn’t mean that they’ve disappeared off everybody’s radar. You can be damn sure that Faulkner’s legal team knows all about you. They’ll push the angle that you came tearing in there, shooting the place up and the old man was lucky to escape with his life.”

I pushed my coffee cup away. “Is that why you brought me here, to rip my story to shreds?”

“Do it here, do it in court, makes no difference. We’re in trouble. And maybe we have other worries.”

I waited.

“His lawyers have confirmed that they’re going to petition for a Supreme Court review of the bail decision within the next ten days. We think that the available judge may be Wilton Cooper, and that’s not good news.”

Wilton Cooper was only a few months shy of retirement, but he would continue to be a thorn in the side of the AG’s office until then. He was obstinate, unpredictable, and had a personal animosity toward the AG, the source of which was lost in the mists of time. He had also spoken out in the past against preventive bail and was quite capable of defending the rights of the accused at the cost of the rights of society in general.

“If Cooper takes the review, it could go either way,” said Ornstead. “Faulkner’s claims are bullshit, but we need time to amass the evidence to undermine them and it could be years before a trial. And you’ve seen his cell: we could keep him at the bottom of a volcano and it would still be cold. His lawyers have got independent experts who will claim that Faulkner’s continued incarceration is endangering his health, and that he will die if he remains in custody. If we move him to Augusta we could shoot ourselves in the foot in the event of an insanity plea. We don’t have the facilities for him at the Supermax, and where do we put him if we move him out of Thomaston? County? I don’t think so. So what we have right now is an upcoming trial with no reliable witnesses, insufficient evidence to make the case watertight, and a defendant who may be dead before we can even get him on the stand. Cooper would just be the icing on the cake.”

I found that I was clutching the handle of my coffee cup so tightly that it had left a mark on the palm of my hand. I released my grip and watched the blood flow back into the white areas. “If he’s bailed, he’ll flee,” I said. “He won’t wait around for a trial.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Yes, we do.”

We were both hunched over the table, and we both seemed to realize it simultaneously. Over near the window, the two old men had turned to watch us, their attention attracted by the tension between us. I leaned back, then looked at them. They returned to watching the traffic.

“Anyway,” said Ornstead, “even Cooper won’t set a bail below seven figures and we don’t believe that Faulkner has access to that level of funds.”

All of the Fellowship’s assets had been frozen, and the AG’s office was trying to follow the paper trail that might lead to other accounts undiscovered so far. But somebody was paying Faulkner’s lawyers, and a defense fund had been opened into which dispiriting numbers of rightwing crazies and religious nuts were pouring money.

“Do we know who’s organizing the defense fund?” I asked. Officially, the fund was the responsibility of a firm of lawyers, Muren & Associates, in Savannah, Georgia, but it was a pretty low-rent operation. There had to be more to it than a bunch of Southern shysters working out of an office with plastic chairs. Faulkner’s own legal team, led by Grim Jim Grimes, was separate from it. Stone features apart, Jim Grimes was one of the best lawyers in New England. He could talk his way out of cancer, and he didn’t come cheap.

Ornstead blew out a large breath. It smelled of coffee and nicotine.

“That’s the rest of the bad news. Muren had a visitor a couple of days back, a guy by the name of Edward Carlyle. Phone records show that the two of them have been in daily contact since this thing started, and Carlyle is a cosignatory on the fund checking account.”

I shrugged. “Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

Ornstead tapped his fingers lightly on the table in a delicate cadence.

“Edward Carlyle is Roger Bowen’s right-hand man. And Roger Bowen is—”

“A creep,” I finished. “And a racist.”

“And a neo-Nazi,” added Ornstead. “Yup, clock stopped sometime around 1939 for Bowen. He’s quite a guy. Probably has shares in gas ovens in the hope that things might pick up again on the old ‘final solution’ front. As far as we can tell, Bowen is the one behind the defense fund. He’s been keeping a low profile these last few years but something has drawn him out from under his rock. He’s making speeches, appearing at rallies, passing around the collection plate. Seems to me like he wants Faulkner back on the streets pretty bad.”

“Why?”

“Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“Bowen’s base is in South Carolina, isn’t it?”

“He moves between South Carolina and Georgia, but spends most of his time somewhere up by the Chattooga River. Why, you planning on visiting down there?”

“Maybe.”

“I ask why?”

“A friend in need.”

“The worst kind. Well, while you’re down there you could always ask Bowen why Faulkner is so important to him, though I wouldn’t recommend it. I don’t imagine you’re top of his wish list of friends he hasn’t met yet.”

“I’m not top of anybody’s wish list.”

Ornstead stood and patted me on the shoulder.

“You’re breaking my heart.”

I walked with him to the door. His car was parked right outside.

“You heard everything, right?” I asked. I assumed that Stan had been listening in to all that had passed between Faulkner and me.

“Yeah. We talking about the guard?”

“Anson.”

“Doesn’t concern me. You?”

“She’s underage. I don’t believe that Anson is going to be an influence for the better in her life.”

“No, I guess not. We can get someone to look into it.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“Done. Now I got a question for you. What happened in there? Sounded like there was a scuffle.”

Despite the coffee, I could still taste the mouthwash.

“Faulkner spit in my mouth.”

“Shit. You going to need a test?”

“I doubt it, but I feel like swallowing battery acid to burn it out of my mouth and insides.”

“Why’d he do it? To get you pissed at him?”

I shook my head.

“No, he told me it was a gift, to help me see more clearly.”

“See what?”

I didn’t answer, but I knew.

He wanted me to see what was waiting for him, and what was coming for me. He wanted me to see his kind.