The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (primary phonics txt) 📗

the funeral presents a valuable opportunity to gather information. The exercise may prove useless, but that’s the thing about an investigation. You never know which avenue of inquiry will bear the most fruit.

The hostility between Lara and Barton underlies a tense atmosphere. She shoots daggers of pure hatred his way. He avoids all eye contact with her and stands off from the crowd, excreting the sense that being here is a distasteful chore. I fail to detect in him a single hint of grief.

Scott gives me a nudge and directs his head across the aisle. I fix upon the object of his gaze and spy Monica Haywood for the first time in the flesh. I recognize her from the Marsh & McCabe website. Incredulous, I say, “The mistress?”

“Alleged,” Scott reminds me.

“Sure.”

Monica wastes little time making her way toward Barton. They give each other a quick hug. Barton allows his hand to lightly rest on the top of her thigh with the familiarity of someone who has placed his hand there many times. His dead wife’s coffin is only a few feet away.

A furious Lara absorbs the spectacle before charging straight for them. She whispers to Barton with force. Monica’s nerve falters, and she averts her eyes from Lara’s withering scowl. The scene attracts the attention of everyone in the room.

I notice Jack Millwood out of the corner of my eye. I point him out to Scott, whose surprise matches mine.

He asks, “Why is he here?”

His presence is curious. Millwood is my former boss—a giant in the Atlanta criminal bar. I pegged him as a prosecutor for life, but Bobby’s ascension to District Attorney changed the plan. The two never saw eye to eye, and Millwood switched to the world of criminal defense. He asked me to join him. Coming from a father figure whom I greatly admired, the offer was tempting. More autonomy and more money would’ve followed. Amber urged me to take the job and never look back.

I said no. Bobby offered me Millwood’s position as the head of all homicide prosecutions, which helped. But the promotion wasn’t the decision point. The work itself bothered me. Nearly all defendants are guilty, and being a criminal defense lawyer means representing a lot of bad people—an uncomfortable truth that I could never get comfortable with. That Millwood made such a smooth transition surprised me. Scott, evincing a cop’s contempt for defense lawyers, felt personally betrayed when one of his favorite prosecutors went over to the bad guys. He has barely talked to Millwood since. And now Millwood sits across the way at Sara Barton’s funeral.

Scott’s next question shows that he and I share the same thought, “Do you think that he is representing Barton?”

The explanation makes the most sense. Millwood and Barton might have some sort of personal association, but interaction between the criminal bar and the civil lawyers who populate Atlanta’s biggest law firms tends to be limited. The two worlds occupy separate solar systems. As the service begins, I text Millwood to ask why he is here. I watch him shift, glance at his phone, and look around until our eyes meet. He types a reply, and the incoming text reads: “We’ll talk later.”

The response does nothing to quell my interest. I answer back and ask if he is representing Barton. The return text reads: “We’ll talk later.”

Millwood’s greatest strength as a trial lawyer is his extraordinary patience. He reveals information only on his own terms. Like a great general, he plans out every detail, saving his strongest move for the precise instant when it will have its maximum impact. Disclosing whether he represents Barton is apparently of the same cloth. He’ll tell me when he is ready and not before.

We have never opposed one another in the courtroom—the teacher versus the student. Given the work we do, the confrontation is inevitable. The possibility fills me with nervous excitement. Millwood holds a place second only to my father in teaching me how to be a trial lawyer. With Daddy gone, no one’s approval means more to me.

One of Sara’s friends—a tennis partner—shares some remembrances of their time together. The lack of a personal connection is obvious, and I lose interest. I scan the crowd. A shaken Brice Tanner—Sara Barton’s sex tape co-star—sits near the front. Lara told us that Brice was in love with her sister. I wonder if he knew that Sara was also making time for Sam on the side. It would give Brice a motive. Murder can originate from love as easily as from hate.

I search for Sam and find him in the back of the sanctuary. The eyes are tired, the face withdrawn. He stares ahead as if hypnotized. I follow his line of sight to the object of his focus—Lara Landrum. Whatever spell he is under continues for some time. I have yet to follow up on the traffic cam evidence about Sam’s minivan from the night of the murder. I could ask Sam, but his wife Liesa seems the better bet. Sam cannot drive two cars at once, which means that Liesa is the witness holding the information we need. Sam figures to be livid—betrayed even—if I go behind his back to interview his wife. That’s unfortunate, but the man lied to police during a murder investigation. I’ll go talk to Liesa, and Sam can deal with the fallout.

***

The bishop delivers a perfunctory message about the meaning of death. I get no sense that the bishop actually believes anything that he says. The scene plays out every hour across the world. People perish. We attend their funerals, fake listening to the worn sayings of the tired religious leaders who speak at such events. We go home and push away the gnawing sense of unease about what happens when we die. The next morning we wake up one day closer to the end, always with the foreboding that death’s march proceeds unabated.

I used to be afraid of the grave. Not because I lacked