Old School Ch. 04: The Weight

Susan doesn't come cheap. But, as I told Kass hours earlier, she's earned the best I've got.

Good, I texted back to Kass. Hope you stay clear of this, angel.

She texted a thumbs up. I smiled and put the phone face-down on my desk, and just as I did, it buzzed again. Another text from Kass.

A ♥ emoji.

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A woman in dirty jeans and a Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt got out of a camouflage-painted Ford Bronco parked on the curb of the eastbound lane of East Main Street in Danville. She jogged across the street and entered Felson's on Main. A gray, plastic Walmart shopping bag was in her left hand.

She pretended to be looking over the merchandise but her eyes were darting everywhere. Her tension showed on her lips, tightened into a severe, unsmiling line. Millie was the first to spot her.

"Can I help you, ma'am," Millie asked in her soft southern accent.

"You Miss Felson, the owner," the woman asked tersely.

"I'm not. I can get her if you want."

"Please."

Millie walked behind the counter into the glorified windowless mop closet that doubled as an office and a break room. A mini fridge sat next to a heavy, black, steel safe nearly a century old that Lou and Emma used when they ran the place, and that Kass still used.

"Kass, there's a lady out front in a t-shirt with a rock band and rebel flags on it asking for you. Never seen her before but something's off about her."

Kass looked up from her lunch of celery stalks and peppery pimento cheese. "Did she say what it's about?"

"Nope. Just wants to see you is all," Millie said. "Careful, Kass."

She put down her half-eaten stalk, wiped her fingers and mouth on a napkin and walked into the store where the thin, dark-haired woman stood beside a display of scarves and knit caps.

"I'm Kass, the owner. How can I help you today?" she said.

"Act like you're showing me merchandise. They're watching us."

Kass's jaw dropped momentarily and her eyes began darting.

"They? They who?"

"Shhh. You've got to act normal. They're in that camo-painted SUV across the street," the woman said. Kass played along, pretending to show scarves as she cut her eyes to the muddy four-wheel vehicle.

"Listen close. Don't have much time. Your man's life is in danger — that lawyer from Cincinnati," the woman said, pretending to look at the plaid, tan and brown cashmere garment Kass was holding. "Stay cool. I'm on your side."

Now Kass's hands were shaking and her mouth was suddenly dry. She put down the garment she was holding and picked up another one in a solid shade of teal and showed it off. "Why are you ..."

The woman cut her off. "No time. Those goons across the street call themselves a sleeper cell of that Ebenezer church that's been in the news. I've known Elder Brewer and most of them they arrested for a long time, but the way it's organized, it's hard to round up all the lone-wolf cells like these guys."

Kass was staring at the woman, listening in amazement and terror, still holding the teal scarf for the woman to examine.

"They think I might be a government informant. They ain't wrong. They've taken my cell phone and they've got my two grandbabies, and if I don't do what they say to prove myself ...," she said, struggling to retain her composure.

"In a few seconds, I'm going to start screaming a bunch of crazy shit. I'm going to spray some paint on some of your stuff in here and spray a big X on your front door, then run over to that Bronco, get in and we're going to haul ass," she said.

"Soon as we do, you immediately call the number on this envelope I just put under this scarf. You ask for Sandy Corder. Tell her the Apostle was here and tell her everything I just told you. Everything. Got it, miss?" The woman nodded toward the envelope. "What little cash I could scrape up to cover some of the damage I'm about to cause is in there."

The name Sandy Corder registered instantly with Kass. She was the FBI agent driving her car the afternoon Trooper Poynter pulled it over. It confirmed for Kass that this Apostle woman wasn't some lunatic, that this was serious. Kass could feel panic welling up within her.

"Every second counts, Miss Felson. Mr. Walker's life depends on it," the Apostle said. Kass saw her terror when their eyes met momentarily. The Apostle nodded and swallowed hard. "K, here goes."

The Apostle pulled a can of spray paint from the Walmart bag and uncapped it. She shook it a couple of times, aimed it at the flawless woolen garments before her and painted neon-bright pink streaks across them.

"Goddamn the groomers and fags and pedos!" she screamed as she ruined the hats and scarves before her with the paint. "You want to defend faggots and the abomination they are, then wear their damn color. The Lord's will be done!"

She sprayed the glass top to a display case of jewelry and watches, sparing the merchandise inside, and continued yelling as she moved toward the door. As soon as she was outside, she did as she promised and painted a massive X, taller than she was, on the front door.

"You remember this, you godless sodomites," the Apostle screamed, pivoting the middle of Main Street, facing back toward Felsons. Then she scurried back to the getaway vehicle. Once she got in, the Bronco peeled away, tires squealing, before she had even fully closed her door. At full throttle, the Bronco didn't bother to heed stoplights or speed zones.

Millie, who knew none of the back story, had watched the last part of the exchange between Kass and the Apostle with a growing sense of dread. When the strange intruder began damaging merchandise, she dialed 9-1-1 to alert the police.

Kass, however, grabbed the envelope containing several twenty-dollar bills, saw a number written on its back in pencil, ran to her office, grabbed her cell phone and keyed the number in. When she hit send, it came up as the FBI number she had added to her contacts that afternoon agent Will Gustin showed up at the door to Les's brownstone.

A woman answered on the first ring. "FBI, Corder."

"Hi, Miss Corder, this is Kass Felson. I just got a very disturbing visit at my store from the Apostle."

Kass could hear the agent turn away from the phone and yell to others near her, "Will, the Apostle surfaced at Kass Felson's store in Danville! Pick up line three!"

"Miss Felson, are you OK. Were you attacked?"

"I'm fine, but this Apostle woman says that Les Walker's life is in danger, that some so-called lone-wolf sleeper cell people from that Ebenezer cult plan to kill him. She said to tell you immediately," Kass said in a high, jittery voice.

A man's voice came on the line.

"Kass, this is agent Gustin. We met. Did the Apostle give any indication of the timeline or where this attack might occur?"

"No, sir. She was real nervous. There were some guys waiting in a truck across the street from my store and she said they were watching her. She said they'd taken her cell phone and that they were holding her grandkids and she had to do what they said to prove she wasn't working with y'all," Kass said.

"Goddammit," Sandy Corder said. "We gotta move fast."

"After she told me all of that, she gave me this number and a bunch of cash to cover the damage, then she started spray-painting merchandise in my store pink. She started screaming a bunch of stuff about groomers, and then ran across the street, got in the camouflage SUV and they took off at a high rate of speed."

"Do you know where Mr. Walker is, Kass?" Corder said.

"I don't. Things haven't been very good between us since that day you drove my car and got stopped. I'd assume he's at his law firm," she said.

"Will, have your team work with the locals to locate Walker and set up a security perimeter around him," Corder said.

"Shouldn't I call Les and warn him?" Kass said.

"We're doing that. We have to put a plan in place and he's got to be in on it. We will be in contact with you as needed," the agent said.

"Please don't let anything happen to Les, Miss Corder. Please."

"We'll do our best."

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This was the day my client, Sheila Moffett had been both dreading and anticipating for months, since the day her cuckolded husband returned early from a business trip to California to catch her in their marital bed riding a cock that would have seemed better proportioned to a giraffe.

The deeper we dived into the claims and counterclaims of infidelity, mental cruelty, loss of consortium, alienation of affection and the like, it became clear that the overwhelming weight of the evidence was on the side of the plaintiff — her estranged and still very vengeful ex. Her expectations of cleaning out his considerable assets, including an equity stake in the $2 billion-a-year company where he was a C-suite executive, crumbled before her eyes. Against all odds, I was able to negotiate the couple's sprawling, eight-bedroom home in Cincinnati's exclusive Above-the-Rhine neighborhood as hers and half the value of their Martha's Vineyard summer house. It took time to convince her that, given the weight of the plaintiff's proof against her, no judge would to grant her spousal support. And because both of their children were over the age of 18, child support was off the table, too.

So while she was deeply disappointed that she wouldn't enjoy an easy flow of massive amounts of cash each month, she was looking forward to having the ordeal behind her pondering which of the three wealthy, much older sugar daddies she was concurrently bedding she would pressure into marrying her and beginning her parasitic cycle anew.

Mercifully, she and her ex had finally agreed to an out-of-court settlement. I was dreading the tawdry tales that would feed salacious national headlines about Sheila Moffett for weeks had Moffett v. Moffett gone to trial. And this was the afternoon it all ended, in a whimper, with nearly a dozen highly paid lawyers superintending the signature of some 38 different documents by both primary litigants around a conference table on the 16th floor of our building.

It was an overcast Friday afternoon, two days after Mason Burnley's suicide had unleashed a flood of media calls to my office and, increasingly, to my cell phone. How my private number got into the hands of the press, I don't know. I wasn't answering calls from any numbers that weren't in my contact book, and certainly not returning any calls or commenting. I had been clear on that with Sal D'Amucci, the firm's PR guy, and with Susan Fleming, the New York-based PR hired gun I had contracted to help Kass should the media turn its attention to her.

But my phone buzzing continuously on the conference table was annoying and something that neither my client nor others around the table appreciated. So I turned it off until the settlement conference on the Moffett matter was over.

The last order of business was to hand Sheila Moffett the one piece of paper she would take with her from the office: the final bill for Gladney & Watson's services. Donita handed it to her on her way out of the conference room near my office, and I could hear her scream, "What the fuck?" through the closed door to my office. It did little to assuage her anger over the five-figure invoice when Donita helpfully reassured her that she had 30 days to send a check before late fees were added.

After the coast was clear, I was ready to sneak out a tad early and treat myself to an end-of-the-week drink at a favored bar across the street with a few lawyers from the firm who were part of the Moffett v Moffett team.

Today's overcast skies notwithstanding, the world had seemed sunnier since Wednesday, the day I called Kass immediately after learning of Burnley's death to give her a heads up to the development and the prospect of a media onslaught. She appreciated that plus my securing the services of a PR pro to help her if she needed it. By the end of the day, through several text exchanges, I got what I treasured more than gold: a heart emoji from Kass, the first sign that maybe our romance still had a pulse.

"I'm skipping out to meet Aaron, Charlie and the Moffett team at Froggy's for a drink ... or four ... or five ...," I told Donita on my way out. I did a quick inventory of what I needed to carry with me. Car keys? Check. Parking deck gate security card? Check. Cell phone? Check. My camelhair topcoat? Draped over my right forearm, check. My bulging soft-leather attaché case was in my left hand.

"Get home safe. Uber if you have two or three too many," Donita said.

I gave her a thumbs up. "Will do. You and Denny have a great weekend."

The elevator door opened and I pushed the button for basement parking level two. I'd leave the topcoat and the briefcase locked in my Tahoe, then walk over to Froggy's. I pressed the key fob unlocking the doors remotely and had almost reached the rear of the vehicle when I heard footsteps closing fast behind me. Before I could turn around, someone shoved me against the back hatch of the Tahoe. Instantly, two sets of hands seized my arms.

"You Lawyer Walker?" a gruff voice said.

"Who wants to know," I growled, struggling to wriggle free.

That's the last thing I remember. There was a thundering pain on the right side of my head just above my ear and the world went black.

▼ ▼ ▼

"We haven't been able to reach him either," Sandrine Corder told Kass. "Calls to his cell go directly to voicemail, meaning his phone isn't on. Calls to his office roll over to Gladney & Watson's switchboard. We try to ping his mobile to locate it and get nothing."

Kass got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach beginning in the middle of the afternoon even before she disregarded agent Corder's advice not to call Les herself, to let the FBI handle things. When she did call Les, it rang several times before going to voicemail on her first try. When she did it again a few minutes later, it went instantly to voicemail. Her texts weren't going through either. She tried several more times before she told Millie, a little before 4 p.m. that she had to get to Cincinnati immediately, not even pausing to explain.

Sandy Corder called Cass just as she was nearing Lexington, wantonly disregarding the speed limit for the first time in her law-abiding life. She knew when the FBI's number showed up on her car's Bluetooth monitor that the news couldn't be good. Not even the FBI, with its matchless resources, had been able to contact Les Walker.

"There's no way you can locate where his cell phone is," Kass asked.

"Not if it's turned off ... or otherwise destroyed or disabled," the agent said, her voice subdued. That sent an icewater chill down Kass's spine.

"Where are your agents? Are they watching his home and at they at his firm?"

When they were not able to immediately reach Les by phone, agent Corder said, Will Gustin asked the Cincinnati Police Department to rush officers to his law firm office and his home. Gustin's FBI team also raced to Gladney & Watson's offices in a downtown Cincinnati high rise. After establishing their credentials, firm security escorted the feds to the 12th floor just after 4:20 to find Walker's office locked, empty and its lights off, and his secretary gone for the day.

"Oh dear God," Kass said. "Now what do we do?"

"We keep our cool. Years of handling situations like this informs me that nothing good comes from freaking out and jumping to conclusions. We're on it, doing the right things, and I'll keep you looped in. Promise."

Kass took deep breaths and exhaled slowly.

"If it helps, I'm on my way to the office tower, too. We know that's the last place he was seen. That's our best lead, OK Kass?"

"Sure," Kass said. "I have no other choice."

She kept dialing Les's cell number over and over, using her car's hands-free system. Each time, instant voicemail. With darkness overtaking northern Kentucky on the overcast afternoon, she found it even harder to see through tears clouding her eyes. Nevertheless, she pressed the accelerator further. Her speedometer crept past 80.

Her heart sank as she pondered the afternoon rush congestion she knew she would encounter beginning in Kenton County but reasoned that the worst of it would be in the outbound lanes, headed south, not the inbound northward lanes she would use. She had never been to Les's office but had gotten Google Maps directions to it. The calculation on the screen on her dashboard monitor estimated she would be there in about 40 minutes given her current speed and traffic conditions. That would be about 6:15.

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A county road gives way to a gravel path about two miles southeast of Milan, Indiana. Where the gravel turns into a dirt road sits a trailer home surrounded on three sides by thickets of trees, all barren in midwinter. It's that part of America that would be totally out of the national conscience but for a blockbuster movie "Hoosiers" about the city's underdog high school basketball team. Viewed from a jetliner's window seat during a night flight, it's part of the black, lightless mass of rural America, a jarring contrast to the profusion of illumination in Cincinnati, about an hour's drive away.

Inside the manufactured home, which stunk of rotting lunchmeat, spilled beer and mold, Tony Moorefield watched a college basketball game when the satellite receiver flimsily affixed to the trailer's roof and rocking in the occasional breeze permitted.

Behind him, in a locked bedroom, were Kendall and Kylie Rothermel, ages 7 and 5 years, respectively. They had been in there since Thursday evening, when Moorefield's accomplices persuaded them to get into their dingy, old Toyota minivan on the false pretext that their grandmother, Ruth Mae Rothermel, was busy and had asked them to pick them up at their after-school daycare in Francisville, Kentucky, northwest of Covington. The children were told they would be taken to the windshield repair and replacement shop in Francisville where Ruth Mae was a parttime bookkeeper.

After 24 hours in the dark, stuffy bedroom of the trailer 50 miles away in the Indiana backwoods, the only food the children were given was a couple of slices of cold pepperoni pizza, leftovers from what Moorefield had bought at a convenience store for his Thursday night supper.

The children were considered collateral. Moorefield along with his henchmen, Billy Joe Heddley and Markus "Doo" Dooley, considered themselves a "sleeper cell" of the Eyes of Ebenezer Holiness Tabernacle and their now-jailed leader, Elder Elmer Brewer.

Ruth Mae Rothermel, was the siblings' legal guardian while their father — her son, Zeke — served seven to ten years in the Kentucky State Prison at Eddyville for trafficking in opioids, his second conviction in five years. She had come under suspicion by many in the church after federal and state police fanned out with arrest warrants a few weeks earlier and effectively decapitated the leadership of the Ebenezer's Eyes movement.

There was nothing in writing connecting the men to the church. They occasionally sent a few dollars — always cash — by mail with no return address to the church in Henry County, Kentucky. They fervently supported Brewer's virulent teachings against same-sex unions and stood ready at any moment to carry out his church's mission, by violence if necessary. After all, that was about their only demonstrated skill. Their rap sheets, filled with arrests for misdemeanor assault, vandalism and petty theft that stood as their only real record of achievement. The only real job any of them had held was as unskilled wage laborers, never for more than a few weeks at a time, just to keep their unemployment benefits flowing. Inevitably they were fired either for not showing up or were caught stealing materials from job sites.