Mark wasn’t present for the judge’s ruling. He was on a fishing charter out of Key West with his mentor and former employer, Jeff London. The fishing trip was London’s idea. Whatever happened in the appeal, he said, did not affect the case Mark was trying to build. Whether Garland Webb was in prison or out of prison, he still hadn’t been convicted of Lauren’s murder. That was the next step.
It all made good sense, but Mark knew the real reason that he’d been invited out on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico while Garland Webb learned his fate: He’d had a few too many conversations with Jeff on the topic and made a few too many promises. The promises involved bullets in Garland’s head, and Jeff believed them.
Upon winning appeal and earning his release, Garland Webb met one last time with his attorney, a young gun named John Graham who considered the case his most significant victory to date. The prosecutor had made a series of egregious errors en route to conviction, so Graham had always felt good about his legal argument, but you never could be sure of a win when the original conviction involved a heinous crime. At that point you needed more than the law on your side, you needed to be able to sell it, and John Graham had put all of his considerable powers of persuasion into the case. He also felt good about the appellate victory for the simple reason that it was right. His client had not been granted a fair trial, and John Graham believed deeply in the purity of the process.
All the same…
He was troubled by Garland Webb.
In their final meeting, John offered his best attempt at a warm smile and extended his hand to his client. “Sometimes, the system works,” he said. “How does it feel to be a free man, Garland?”
Webb regarded him with eyes so expressionless they seemed opaque. He was six four and weighed 230 pounds, and when he accepted the handshake, John felt a sick chill at the power in his grip.
“I guess you’re not the celebrating sort,” he said, because Garland still hadn’t uttered a word. “Do you have everything you need? There’s a release-assistance program that will-”
“I have everything I need.”
“All right. I’m sure it will be a relief to walk out of here.”
“Just back to business,” Garland Webb said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s time for me to get back to business. No more diversions.”
“Right,” John said, though he had no idea what Webb meant, and he was uncomfortable with what he might mean.
Webb fixed the flat-eyed stare on him and said, “I have a purpose, understand? This detour was unfortunate, but it did not remove my purpose.”
“Right,” John repeated. “I’m just supposed to let you know that if you need assistance finding a job or locating a-”
“I’m going back to the same job,” Webb said.
John fell silent. He’d spent several months on this case and he knew damn well that Garland Webb had been unemployed at the time of his arrest.
“Where will you be working?” he asked, and Garland Webb smiled. It was little more than a twitch of the lip, but it was more emotion than he’d displayed when the judge had announced the verdict in his favor.
“I’ve got opportunities,” he said. “Don’t you worry about that.”
“Great,” John said, and suddenly he was eager to get out of the room and away from this man. “Stay out of trouble, Garland.”
“You too, John.”
John Graham left before Garland did, although he’d initially intended to stay with him through the process all the way up to the point of escorting him out of the prison. That no longer felt right. In fact, winning the freedom of Garland Webb suddenly didn’t feel like much of a victory at all.
On the day Webb collected his belongings and walked to a bus station, before he left, he bribed a guard to send a message to another inmate at Coleman. The message got through, and the inmate requested a phone call. Seven miles off the southernmost shore of the United States, Markus Novak’s cell rang.
They’d been having a good day of it, but in the afternoon the fishing had slowed; the Gulf of Mexico began churning with high swells, and Jeff London turned a shade of green that matched the water.
“Bad sandwich,” he said, and Mark smiled and nodded.
“Bad sandwich, eh?”
“I don’t get seasick.”
“Of course not.”
When Jeff put his head in his hands, Mark laughed and set his rod down and moved to the bow, where he stood and stared at the horizon line, the endless expanse of water broken only by whitecapped waves. All of his memories of the sea were good, because all of them involved Lauren. Sometimes, though, when the light and the wind were right, the sea reminded him of other endless places. Expansive plains of the West; windblown wheat instead of water; storm-blasted buttes.
Not so many of those memories were good.
He’d been watching the water for a while when he heard the ring, a soft chime, and the charter captain, who was lounging with his feet up and a cigar in his mouth, said, “That’s yours, bud.”
Mark found the phone in his jacket pocket, and he remained relaxed, warm and comfortable and with his mind on this boat and this day, until he saw the caller ID: COLEMAN CORRECTIONAL.
For an instant he just stared, but then he realized he was about to lose the call to voice mail, so he hit Accept and put the phone to his ear.
He knew the voice on the other end. It was a man he’d spoken to many times, a snitch who’d contacted Mark for legal help, which Mark provided in exchange for a tip on who killed his wife. The police didn’t believe the story; the snitch held to it.
“He sent me a note, Novak. For you. For both of us. Here’s what it says: ‘Please tell Mr. Novak that his efforts were a disappointment, and every threat was only so much wasted breath. I’d hoped for more. Let him know that I’ll think of him outside this prison just as I thought of him inside it, and, more important, that I’ll think of her. The way she felt at the end. I’ll treasure that moment. It’s a shame he wasn’t there for it. She was so beautiful at the end.’”
The man on the phone had once beaten someone to death with an aluminum baseball bat, but his voice wavered as he read the last words. When he was done, he waited, and Mark didn’t speak. The silence built as the boat rose and fell on the waves, and finally the other man said, “I thought you’d want to know.”
“Yes,” Mark said. “I want to know. It is important that I know.” His voice was hollow, and Jeff London lifted his head with a concerned expression. “Is that all he had to say?”
“That’s all. He’s made some threats to me, you know that, but ain’t shit happened, so maybe he’s all talk. Maybe about…about this too, you know? Just one of them that likes to claim shit to make themselves feel hard. I’ve known them before.”
“You told me you didn’t think he was that kind,” Mark said. “You said you knew better. You said he was telling the truth.”
A pause; then: “I remember what I said.”
“Anything changed your opinion?”
“No.”
“All right. Thanks for the call. I’ll send money to your commissary account.”
“Don’t need to, not for this. I just thought…well, you needed to hear it.”
“I’ll send money,” Mark repeated, and then he hung up. Jeff was staring at him, and the charter captain was making a show of working with his tackle, his back to them.
“That was about Webb?” Jeff said.
Mark nodded. He found the horizon line again but couldn’t focus on it.
“He’s taunting me. He killed her, he knows that I know it, and he’s a free man. He wanted to let me know that he’ll be thinking of me, and her. From outside of a cell now.”
“It’s a dumb play. He’ll go back to prison.”