Cross Justice (Alex Cross 23)

I flashed on an image of him as a little boy, running around Nana Mama’s yard during one of Aunt Hattie’s infrequent trips to Washington. He’d had this infectious laugh, and it seemed like he thought everything was a mystery and an adventure.

“Alex,” Stefan said thickly as he sat down. “Glad you came.”

I nodded, said nothing.

“Leave his wrists cuffed, but release them from the belt,” Naomi said. “He may need to use his hands. And turn off all cameras and microphones.”

“Already done on the cameras and mikes,” an officer said. “But there is zero chance we’re letting him use his hands.”

Ignoring her protests, they chained Stefan’s legs and the belt to a stout eyebolt in the cement floor and left.

Leaning toward us, Stefan said quietly, “I’d sweep the room for bugs.”

I wondered if he was serious or just being melodramatic. But Naomi thought enough of the idea to pull out her iPhone and call up a white-noise app that she turned on high.

“That works,” Stefan said. “And thank you again, Alex, for coming. You don’t know what it means to have you believe that I did not do these things.”

“I don’t believe one way or the other,” I replied evenly, studying him for signs that he was capable of doing the things he’d been accused of.

“I’m being framed,” he said.

“Listen carefully,” I said. “I am your cousin, but I do not represent you. Ultimately I’m here representing Rashawn Turnbull. I find out anything that says you killed that boy, I will help the prosecution put you in the chair, or whatever they use here.”

“Lethal injection,” Stefan said. “I will not lie to you. I did not kill Rashawn.”

“Why’d you assault the guards?” Naomi asked.

“Other way around, Counselor. They assaulted me.”

“We’ll get back to that,” I said. “You’ve read the indictment?”

“More times than you can count. Look, I’m telling you. This case? These circumstances? They’re manufactured, Alex.”

“You didn’t do any of it?”

“Some of it,” he admitted. “But nothing illegal. They’ve twisted things, taken them totally out of context.”

“Convince me like you’ve convinced Naomi,” I said, crossing my arms. “Start at the beginning.”

“‘A very good place to start,’” Stefan sang, and he tried to smile.

According to the particulars of the indictment, two months earlier, Rashawn Turnbull had been found dead in an abandoned limestone quarry, a piece of land undergoing annexation by the city of Starksville. The teenager had been drugged and forcibly sodomized, and his neck had been slashed with a saw. Semen and other evidence found at the scene pegged Stefan Tate, Rashawn’s eighth-grade gym teacher, as the killer. DNA also linked Stefan to the drugging and rape of seventeen-year-old Sharon Lawrence, a student at Starksville High School, and she had agreed to testify against him.

So I didn’t smile when my cousin sang that line from “Do-Re-Mi.”

Instead, for the next hour and a half, I listened closely to his side of the terrible crimes described in the indictment, interrupting only to clarify verifiable facts, names, and times. Otherwise, I followed the adage that if you really want to learn about someone, you should just shut up and listen.

Chapter

15

“The day after Rashawn was found, they put the handcuffs on me, Alex,” my cousin said at the end of his version of events. “Ever since, I’ve been in here. No bail. Limited visitation, even with Patty and Naomi. I’m telling you, Alex, I’m being railroaded.”

I said nothing, still trying to absorb his story in light of the information given in the indictment.

He leaned forward. “You believe me, don’t you?”

?