The White Road-CP-4 by John Connolly Page B

usually. By the way, I found a nest of your peers at the bottom of my garden this morning.”
    “I won’t even ask. How you doing, Charlie?”
    “I’m good. It’s been a while, Elliot.”
    Elliot Norton had been an assistant attorney in the homicide bureau of the Brooklyn D.A.’s office when I was a detective. We had managed to get on pretty well together both professionally and personally on those occasions when our paths crossed, until he got married and moved back home to South Carolina, where he was now practicing law in Charleston. I still received a Christmas card from him each year. I’d met him the previous September for dinner in Boston when he was dealing with the sale of some property in the White Mountains, and had stayed in his house some years before when Susan, my late wife, and I were passing through South Carolina during the early months of our marriage. He was in his late thirties now, prematurely gray and divorced from his wife, a woman named Alicia who was pretty enough to stop traffic on rainy days. I didn’t know anything about the circumstances of the breakup, although I figured Elliot for the kind of guy who might have strayed from the marital fold on occasion. When we’d had dinner, at Sonsi on Newbury, the girls in their summer dresses passing by the open doors, his eyes had practically been out on stalks, like those of a character in a Tex Avery cartoon.
    “Well, we Southern folks tend to keep pretty much to ourselves,” he drawled. “Plus we’re kinda busy, what with keeping the coloreds in check and all.”
    “It’s good to have a hobby.”
    “That it is. You still private detecting?”
    The small talk had come to a pretty sudden end, I thought.
    “Some,” I confirmed.
    “You in the market for work?”
    “Depends upon the kind.”
    “I have a client due for trial. I could do with some help.”
    “Maine is a long way from South Carolina, Elliot.”
    “That’s why I’m calling you. This isn’t something that the local snoops are too interested in.”
    “Why?”
    “Because it’s bad.”
    “How bad?”
    “Nineteen-year-old male accused of raping his girlfriend, then beating her to death. His name is Atys Jones. He’s black. His girlfriend was white, and wealthy.”
    “That’s pretty bad.”
    “He says he didn’t do it.”
    “And you believe him?”
    “And I believe him.”
    “With respect, Elliot, the jails are full of guys who say they didn’t do it.”
    “I know. I helped to put some of them away, and I know they did it. But this one’s different. He’s innocent. I’ve bet the homestead on it. Literally: my house is security on his bail.”
    “What do you want from me?”
    “I need somebody to help me move him to a safe house then look around, check witness statements; someone who isn’t from around here and isn’t likely to be scared off too easy. It’s a week’s work, maybe a day or two more. Look, Charlie, this kid had a death sentence passed on him before he even set foot in a courtroom. As things stand, he may not live to see his trial.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “Richland County lockup, but I can’t leave him in there for too much longer. I took over the case from the public defender and now rumor is that some lowlifes from the Skinhead Riviera may try to make a name for themselves by shanking the kid in case I get him off. That’s why I’ve arranged bail. Atys Jones is a sitting duck in Richland.”
    I leaned back against the rail of my porch. Walter came out with a rubber bone in his mouth and pressed it into my hand. He wanted to play. I knew how he felt. It was a bright autumn day, my girlfriend was radiant with the knowledge that our first child was slowly growing inside her, and we were pretty comfortable financially. That kind of situation encourages you to kick back for a time and enjoy it while it lasts. I needed Elliot Norton’s client like I needed scorpions in my shoes.
    “I don’t know, Elliot. Every time you open your