Founder

Chapter 3-1

3

Deputy Luther Beck figured the only thing worse than dealing with a lawyer was dealing with two lawyers over some hours-old coffee. And the only thing worse than that, without multiplying the number of lawyers, was dealing with said lawyers about Virgil Rutledge.

They should’ve seen the backside of Virgil by now. He definitely shouldn’t still be in their jail, which wasn’t much more than a glorified holding area. The county facility, larger and appropriate for longer-term detainment, was in Plattsville. But there’d been some kind of hearing here in Cold Springs, and then the judge or psychologist or some damn body wanted Virgil’s competency evaluation to be here as well. The problem was, Virgil didn’t. The man refused to speak to anyone.

That was fine by Luther. He’d looked in on Adam’s father from time to time, when he was dozing, or pretending to. No wonder Virgil was crazy, sleeping at odd times and never more than an hour or two at a stretch. And he was crazy—Luther had no doubt of that, evaluation or not. Once when Virgil was lying on a bunk, face to the wall, he’d turned to look at Luther over his shoulder, as if he’d felt the deputy’s eyes on him. Little hairs had prickled on the back of Luther’s neck, like they had on the mountain in the dark, not so long ago.

Multiple agencies were still processing the crime scenes at the rock pinnacle. Days after Luther froze his ass off while hoping he wasn’t watching Adam Rutledge die, they’d found the first set of human remains. These had been preliminarily identified as young Sarah Edmunds, a girl who’d disappeared from Beecham County twenty years ago, within months of Danny Carpenter’s kidnapping. They were still waiting for additional forensic analysis, but so far, there was no physical evidence linking Virgil Rutledge to the girl’s abduction or death.

A few days ago, they’d uncovered a second set of remains: a young male, probably a teenager and probably of more recent vintage than Sarah Edmunds. Tracking down Danny Carpenter’s archived records had proved challenging, and the experts hadn’t examined the remains yet, so law enforcement refused to speculate on identity. And there wasn’t as much of that—speculation—as you might expect, even among the community at large. It’s as if people were too superstitious to speak of it.

In the meantime, Luther was stuck babysitting one of the local prosecutors and Virgil’s assigned public defender. Grant had called to say he was on his way but running late. The Sheriff had sounded flustered and hadn’t given an explanation, both of which were so uncharacteristic of him that Luther had spent the past ten minutes wondering what was going on with his boss. It beat listening to the lawyers (he couldn’t remember either of their damn names) yammer at each other about timelines and motions and whatnot.

Luther shouldered his way to the counter, muttering a pardon when he inadvertently bumped Virgil’s lawyer. (Defense attorney or not, she was a woman, and not bad looking at all if she’d stop scowling.) Pouring fresh water from a gallon jug, he flipped the switch, listened to the coffee maker pop with promise, and tried to think of a justification for leaving the room. Let the two suits (both navy blue) cross-examine the refrigerator for a while.

“Luther!” Deputy Beth Marshall called out from the front desk, and he latched onto her voice like a lifeline.

Although certain neither attorney would notice his absence, he excused himself and went to thank Beth on two counts.

“Good idea on the bottled water,” he said, leaning against her desk. Minus the tap water’s heavy sulfur and iron content, the coffee he made now was almost palatable. “And thanks for—”

Getting me out of there, he nearly said, but the deputy interrupted him with a pointing finger.

“Hello, Luther,” said Iris Rutledge, the object of the pointing finger.

Luther had the feeling Iris Rutledge didn’t much care for him. He wasn’t sure why she wouldn’t, other than general antipathy toward the Beck family. He couldn’t hold that against her—hell, he didn’t like his relatives, either. Still, dealing with her invariably made him uncomfortable.

“Ms. Rutledge, what brings you in?” he asked. She simply stared, and he felt a fool when his brain caught up to his mouth, as she’d likely intended. “Ah, so you’re here to see your son?”

Virgil’s attorney must have heard them from the other room, and she nudged Luther aside. Light brown hair in a simple bob with bangs, she didn’t wear much makeup, and she’d entirely missed the mascara on her left eye this morning. It made Luther smile.

“Mrs. Rutledge,” the woman said.

Iris flinched slightly as the lawyer took her by the arm toward a set of chairs pushed against the white walls. Luther always addressed Iris as Ms., and the woman did not abide being coddled.

“Should we be talking in front of him?” Iris asked, ignoring Luther but indicating the assistant district attorney. The prosecutor smiled back at her, as much as the man was capable of smiling.

“It’s okay for this,” the public defender said, hunched over Iris, neither sitting nor standing. “But later, when we talk about your son’s mental state in more detail, we’ll do it confidentially.”

“Sit down. You make my neck hurt,” Iris told her, and the woman complied. “I haven’t seen my son in at least twenty years, so at this point I’d say you know more about his mental state than I do. I take it from the way you lawyers are mincing around, it’s not good.”

“Miss Rutledge,” the prosecutor said. Luther almost snorted when Iris glared at the man’s intrusive knee as he sat on the arm of the chair next to her. “It’s not often my colleague and I agree.”

“How trying for you,” Iris observed.

The man’s lip twisted, as if he couldn’t decide on the appropriate expression. “Yes, well, the fact is—”

“The fact is the judge has ordered a competency evaluation to decide if your son can understand the charges against him and assist me with his defense,” the public defender cut in. “Unfortunately, he’s been unwilling to cooperate.”

“Unwilling or unable?” Iris asked.

Virgil’s attorney raised her brows and shrugged lightly padded shoulders. “Either way, if the psychologist can’t do the evaluation, the court can have your son committed.”

Iris’s eyes closed briefly, before she asked, “For how long?”

“According to statute, initially fifteen days. But he’d still need to be evaluated—and the judge would still have to decide if he’s competent—before his case can move forward. With transport back and forth, and scheduling hearings… the timeline starts getting complicated.”

Things were about to get complicated where Virgil Rutledge was concerned all right, but Luther wasn’t sure the man’s attorney grasped the magnitude about to rain down on her. No doubt the woman had spent a lot of hours over the past week with her nose in heavy law books and endlessly scrolling computer screens, trying to get a handle on the procedures involved with Virgil’s kind of crazy. She’d probably even made a flow chart on a big sheet of paper and taped it up in her office. The problem was, Virgil’s kind of crazy didn’t much abide by flow charts.

Iris stared at the public defender, Luther suspected mirroring his own train of thought. Iris at least had an inkling of which way the tracks were running. “Is he on medication?” she asked.

Virgil’s attorney pressed her lips together, then asked in a flat tone, “To treat a mental health condition?”

Iris almost laughed. “I guess he wouldn’t be able to tell you about his history, would he? If he’s not cooperating.”

And crazy as a f*****g loon, Luther thought.

The defense attorney frowned at the prosecutor, still leaning against Iris’s chair. He raised his hands and retreated behind the reception desk while the woman escorted Iris to the far corner of the room, saying, “Let’s discuss this in private.”