Franklin smiled. “Maybe you’re not so stupid after all.”
Will realized there was a wall behind him. He slid over so he could lean back against it. The rest did him good. He said, “Chief Gray’s son died recently.” Will remembered something Faith had told him yesterday morning. “You were handpicked by Gray to follow him to Macon when he took over the force.”
Franklin waited.
Will made a calculated guess. “Chief Gray is Big Whitey.”
Franklin didn’t acknowledge the revelation, but he told Will, “Lonnie was working in Jacksonville, but he lived in Folkston. Me, my baby sister, and my mama were up by the Funnel. Not many black kids around there, but Lonnie didn’t bat an eye when he found me sitting at his dinner table.”
“You should be glad he didn’t kidnap and rape you.”
The gun went up. Franklin pointed the muzzle at Will’s head again.
Will said, “You didn’t know Lonnie was into kids, did you?”
Franklin glared at him for a beat. Finally, he lowered the gun back to his knee. “He raised me more than my own daddy ever did.” Disgust showed on his face. “Never heard Lonnie say anything about kids. Never saw him looking at them, talking to them, nothing. I guess as good as Lonnie was at fooling strangers about one thing, he was really good at fooling his friends about the other.”
Will asked, “How’d it feel when you found out?”
Franklin let his silence answer the question.
Will said, “Being a badass drug dealer and a murderer is one thing. Raping kids is a whole other category.” He could tell Franklin agreed with him. “It crosses the line, doesn’t it? You put a cap in a junkie’s ass, that’s pretty much what he signed up for, but children are innocent. They didn’t sign up for anything.”
“I told you I didn’t know.”
“Denise Branson knew.”
“You think anybody listens to that stupid dyke?”
Will didn’t point out that the stupid dyke had been right all along.
“Lonnie was a God to me. To all of us. I had no idea he was …” Franklin couldn’t even say the words. “I’m glad Chuck didn’t live to find out. It would’ve killed him all over again.”
“How did you find out?”
“The house,” Franklin said. He meant the shooting gallery. “I sent my guy in before the raid to take out Waller and his crew.”
Will guessed Franklin’s guy was Tony Dell. There wasn’t another player in this thing who was so adept at killing.
Will asked, “What did your guy find?”
“What we expected. Three of them were in the front room watching TV. No problem, my guy takes them out quiet. He goes down into the basement looking for Waller and finds these two little kids instead.” Franklin shook his head, and Will could see his turmoil was real. “One of the boys was already dead. Just laid there, my guy said.”
Will thought of the boy back at Lila’s farm. Playing dead had saved him from countless more miseries.
Franklin continued, “The second kid was barely breathing. My guy brought him here for Cayla to look after.”
Will wondered if he knew how Cayla had looked after him. “The kid identified Big Whitey?” Franklin nodded, and Will tried not to think about Benjamin feeling safe because Franklin had a badge. “Your guy said Waller wasn’t in the basement?”
“Right. Only, he’s leaving out the back with the kid when he hears Waller bust in through the front.” Franklin shrugged. “Waller runs down into the basement to check on his stash. My guy braces the door, traps him down there, and walks away.”
“Why did you want to take out Waller’s team before the raid?”
Franklin was obviously reluctant, but he answered, “I was worried about Lena getting hurt.”
Will must’ve looked as dubious as he felt.
“I’m not an animal, man. I got two nieces. I helped raise up my sister after my daddy died.” Franklin said, “I knew Lee was pregnant. Cayla fills in at a lot of the doctors’ offices. She heard Jared telling Lena that he thought Lonnie was Big Whitey.”
Will replayed the words in his head, making sure he understood them. “Was Cayla eavesdropping?”
“Nope. Jared was standing in the open doorway. Half of the office heard him call out Lonnie.”
“And Cayla thought he was being serious, just tossing off that theory at the doctor’s office in front of everybody?”
“That’s what Cayla said.”
“What did you think?”
“That he was bullshitting.” Franklin shrugged. “Jared’s a talker. All those bike boys are. They think they can run with the big dogs, but they don’t know jack.”
Will had to take another moment to process the information. If what DeShawn said was true, then Lena was right. She hadn’t been the one to bring all of this down on them. Jared Long had. “Did Lena believe Jared?”
“I don’t think so. At least Lee never said anything to me or the guys,” DeShawn admitted. “But she’s smart when she latches onto something. Jared puts a thought into her head, maybe she starts paying attention to things she didn’t notice before. I had to keep her busy. She was all over the Waller thing. I knew she’d jump at the chance to take him out.”
Will felt everything finally coming together. “So, Cayla tells you about the conversation at the doctor’s office. You reach out to a pill pusher named Tony Dell. Tony gets arrested. He flips on Waller two hours later and gives Lena the evidence she needs to go into the shooting gallery.”
“I know you think I’m stone cold, but I was trying to protect her.” Franklin explained, “Lena busts Waller, she’s covered up in paperwork for the next six months. I figured that’d run out the clock while she’s pregnant, then maybe once she has the kid, she decides she wants to be a mommy and doesn’t come back to the job.”
Will wondered if there was a single man in Lena Adams’s life who’d ever avoided taking risks for her. “Lena lost the baby.”
“I know.” Franklin seemed regretful. “Cayla called her, tried to get her to take some time off. She wouldn’t listen. That girl never listens to nobody.”
Will couldn’t argue with that. “What about Jared?”
“What about him? He’s writing tickets and sweeping broken windshield glass off the road. He can’t start an investigation.”
“Lonnie Gray wouldn’t leave that loose end,” Will guessed. He’d seen with his own eyes what a hard-ass the man could be. “You didn’t tell him about the conversation at the doctor’s office, right? Cayla did. And Gray was a lot more convinced than you were.”
Franklin didn’t answer, but they both knew that Cayla was that malicious. Franklin put a nicer spin on it, saying, “Cay dated Chuck for six years. Stuck by him when he was dying. She got close to Lonnie at the end. She cares about him.”
Will bet she did. Cayla gravitated toward drama the way the tides gravitated toward the moon. “That’s why you’re here, as a favor to an old friend.”
“I can’t let her get locked up. I owe it to Chuck.”