Between Black and White by Robert Bailey Page A

the couch and slowly walked to his bedroom. He opened the closet door and retrieved his gun case from the shelf below, where his suits hung. He brought the case over to his bed and flipped the latches.
    Inside there were only three guns.
    A .30-30 deer rifle. A .38-caliber pistol. And, of course, a twelve-gauge shotgun. Dove season was just around the corner, but George wasn’t thinking about doves. He removed the twelve-gauge and aimed it at the mirror across the room, seeing Andy in his mind. Handsome, cocksure, luckier-than-smart Andy. He flipped the safety off the gun and squinted, looking down the barrel. He tensed when he saw someone else’s reflection in the mirror.
    “Never know when one of those is going to come in handy,” the familiar voice said.
    George smiled at the other face staring back at him in the mirror.
    His guest had arrived.

14
    As the sun set over the Strip in Tuscaloosa, Rick Drake and Powell Conrad sat in wrought-iron chairs on the outside patio of Buffalo Phil’s, devouring a plate of wings and splitting a pitcher of Bud Light. “Jack Willistone is serving a three-year sentence at the state pen in Springville for blackmail and witness tampering,” Powell said, dipping a wing into a plastic container of ranch sauce and taking a bite. “Eligible for parole in eighteen months for good behavior.”
    “What about the bastard that tried to kill Dawn?”
    “James Robert Wheeler,” Powell said. “Goes by the name of JimBone. He left his El Camino behind after his failed attempt to murder Dawn, and we took some prints off the steering wheel. After a couple of weeks we got a match in the army database.”
    Rick raised his eyebrows.
    “Yes, sir, James Robert Wheeler was in the US Army from 1992 to 2000. His specialty was explosives. In 2000 he quit, and there is really no official record of him since. It’s like he dropped off the face of the earth. But remember Mule Morris?”
    “How could I forget?” Rick asked, feeling goose bumps break out on his arm. Mule Morris, a key witness in the Willistone case, had died two months prior to trial when he lost control of his truck on Highway 25 in Faunsdale. The official cause of the accident had been brake failure, but Mule’s cousin Doolittle had swore up and down that Mule kept his truck in mint condition. “What about him?”
    “There wasn’t much of Mule’s truck left after the accident, but the forensics team in Faunsdale did find a few stray fingerprints on the wreckage.”
    “No way,” Rick said, anticipating where Powell was going. “Wheeler?”
    “Bingo,” Powell said. “Doo was right all along. Wheeler messed with the brakes on that car. We ran the artist sketch by several folks at Ca-John’s, and a waitress remembers seeing a man who meets his description sitting in the restaurant that night. In fact, she remembers that he was sitting alone very close to where Mule was talking to a young man and an attractive young lady.”
    “Jesus,” Rick said. He and Dawn had met with Mule at Ca-John’s just a few hours before his wreck. He hadn’t remembered seeing any strange people at the tables nearby, but he was so focused on Mule he probably hadn’t paid any attention. “So he killed Mule?”
    “There’s not a doubt in my mind,” Powell said. “And we know he tried to kill Dawn.”
    “You think he’s still alive?”
    “They never pulled him from the Black Warrior, so we have to assume so. From Bo’s investigation in the Willistone case, we knew Wheeler had spent some time at that strip joint outside of Pulaski, so we contacted the sheriff of Giles County, Ennis Petrie, and put out an APB on him. Now every county sheriff’s office in Alabama and Tennessee has him on their ‘Most Wanted’ list.” Powell shrugged. “So far nothing has turned up.”
    “How did you hear he goes by JimBone?”
    Powell smiled. “That came from Jack Willistone. After we got the prints back from the army, me and Wade went over to Springville