business, and despite putting real effort into being a father, he had seen them mostly in passing. But with Jamie, he'd had endless hours to spend with the boy. Jim had taught him to hunt and fish, to water-ski, to fly kites, and not just to throw a baseball but to pitch one for real. Jamie Fennell could throw a curveball when he was eight years old. Jim had spent all this time with Jamie despite the fact that Jim and Bill Fennell did not get along. In Alex's eyes, her father had proved his manhood for all time by compromising as much as was required to keep close contact with his grandson.
One thing Alex knew in her bones, though: if her father had been alive to hear Grace's deathbed accusation of murder, the events of the past weeks would have unfolded differently. That very night, Bill Fennell would have been hauled into an empty room, slammed against a wall, and made to cough up all the sediment at the bottom of his soul. Had that treatment not proved sufficient to dredge up the truth, Bill would have been taken on an involuntary boat ride with Jim Morse, Will Kilmer, and some of the other ex-cops who worked for their detective agency. One way or another, Bill would have spilled all he knew about Grace's death. And Jamie would not be living in Bill's ugly mansion on the edge of the Ross Barnett Reservoir in Jackson. If the courts didn't save Jamie, his grandfather would have taken him somewhere safe to be raised by people who loved him. And Alex would have gone with them. She wouldn't have thought twice about it.
None of that had happened, of course. Because like his daughter Grace, Jim Morse was dead. Alex had studied all the eyewitness accounts, but none of them ever dovetailed exactly—unlike the accounts of her own act of lunacy at the bank, when Broadbent was killed. Everybody had seen exactly the same thing on that day. But with her father's death it was different. At age sixty, Jim had walked into a dry cleaner's late on a Friday afternoon. He normally used the drive-through window, but that day he chose to go inside. Two female clerks stood behind the counter. A young black man wearing a three-piece suit was waiting in the store, but he was no customer. The real customers were lying flat on their stomachs behind the counter, beside a grocery bag filled with cash from the register.
Jim didn't know that when he walked in, but Alex figured it had taken him about six seconds to realize something was wrong. No one was going to bluff Jim Morse out of a robbery in progress, no matter how old he was. The girls behind the counter were so scared they could hardly speak when Jim walked up to the counter and started a monologue about the weather: how warm the fall had been, and how it used to snow once or twice a year in Mississippi, but nowadays almost never. One clerk saw Jim glance behind the counter without moving his head, but the other didn't. What she did see was Jim take his wife's clothes from the hanging rod and turn to leave the store. As he passed the waiting "customer," Jim flattened him with a savage blow to the throat. The clerk was shocked that "an old gray-haired dude" had attacked a muscular man in his early twenties. No one who knew Jim Morse was surprised. He'd often carried a gun after retirement, but he hadn't on that day, not for a short run to the cleaner's. Jim was digging in the fallen robber's jacket when the plate-glass window of the store exploded. One clerk screamed, then fell silent as a bullet punctured her left cheek. The other dived behind the counter. After that, few facts were known.
The medical examiner believed that the shot that killed Alex's father had been fired from behind the counter, not from the getaway car parked out front. Not that it mattered. After a lifetime spent courting danger, Jim Morse had simply run out of luck. And despite relentless efforts by the police department, by his old partner, and even a large reward offered by the Police Benevolent Association, his
One thing Alex knew in her bones, though: if her father had been alive to hear Grace's deathbed accusation of murder, the events of the past weeks would have unfolded differently. That very night, Bill Fennell would have been hauled into an empty room, slammed against a wall, and made to cough up all the sediment at the bottom of his soul. Had that treatment not proved sufficient to dredge up the truth, Bill would have been taken on an involuntary boat ride with Jim Morse, Will Kilmer, and some of the other ex-cops who worked for their detective agency. One way or another, Bill would have spilled all he knew about Grace's death. And Jamie would not be living in Bill's ugly mansion on the edge of the Ross Barnett Reservoir in Jackson. If the courts didn't save Jamie, his grandfather would have taken him somewhere safe to be raised by people who loved him. And Alex would have gone with them. She wouldn't have thought twice about it.
None of that had happened, of course. Because like his daughter Grace, Jim Morse was dead. Alex had studied all the eyewitness accounts, but none of them ever dovetailed exactly—unlike the accounts of her own act of lunacy at the bank, when Broadbent was killed. Everybody had seen exactly the same thing on that day. But with her father's death it was different. At age sixty, Jim had walked into a dry cleaner's late on a Friday afternoon. He normally used the drive-through window, but that day he chose to go inside. Two female clerks stood behind the counter. A young black man wearing a three-piece suit was waiting in the store, but he was no customer. The real customers were lying flat on their stomachs behind the counter, beside a grocery bag filled with cash from the register.
Jim didn't know that when he walked in, but Alex figured it had taken him about six seconds to realize something was wrong. No one was going to bluff Jim Morse out of a robbery in progress, no matter how old he was. The girls behind the counter were so scared they could hardly speak when Jim walked up to the counter and started a monologue about the weather: how warm the fall had been, and how it used to snow once or twice a year in Mississippi, but nowadays almost never. One clerk saw Jim glance behind the counter without moving his head, but the other didn't. What she did see was Jim take his wife's clothes from the hanging rod and turn to leave the store. As he passed the waiting "customer," Jim flattened him with a savage blow to the throat. The clerk was shocked that "an old gray-haired dude" had attacked a muscular man in his early twenties. No one who knew Jim Morse was surprised. He'd often carried a gun after retirement, but he hadn't on that day, not for a short run to the cleaner's. Jim was digging in the fallen robber's jacket when the plate-glass window of the store exploded. One clerk screamed, then fell silent as a bullet punctured her left cheek. The other dived behind the counter. After that, few facts were known.
The medical examiner believed that the shot that killed Alex's father had been fired from behind the counter, not from the getaway car parked out front. Not that it mattered. After a lifetime spent courting danger, Jim Morse had simply run out of luck. And despite relentless efforts by the police department, by his old partner, and even a large reward offered by the Police Benevolent Association, his
Similar Books
