Southern Justice, Part 51
I’m Fixin’ To present part 51 of Southern Justice:
Roland James, a full partner in the law firm of Dees, Dees and McGariety, who was also a deacon in his church and the president of the property owners association where he and his family lived, had also read the front page story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the Wednesday past while he was having breakfast. The moment he had seen the picture of Shanna Martin in the story about the FBI raiding the Gentlemen’s Club, he had choked on his drink of orange juice and spewed it across the table.
His wife was up and around the table in a flash to pat him on the back, while the kids were making ugly faces and wiping orange juice off of their little faces.
Roland was a founding member and a preferred customer of the Gentlemen’s Club, and also one of Joey Sitka’s legal advisers. He had been busy rounding up various individuals whom he would pay for suborning in the charges the FBI had placed against the club on Thursday morning when Jones had phoned and insisted they take care of this business about contesting a will by the close of the day on Monday morning.
He was not happy about changing his immediate attention from the Gentlemen’s Club to Pic-Ric Products, but he knew that they were a legitimate client and weren’t likely to be locked away and be unable to pay his fees.
So Roland called a staff meeting late Thursday afternoon, and as suspected, found out that no work had been done on the Pic-Rik file.
He revealed a portion of his dark side when he stood up and very forcibly said, “I don’t care if all of you have to work all weekend, even if your grandmother’s funeral is scheduled for this weekend!
At two o’clock this coming Monday afternoon I intend to walk out of this office, go to the court house and personally file a petition of behalf of Pic-Ric Products. If everything is not in order and that doesn’t happen, then all of you can walk out of here and I couldn’t care less where you go. Now, drop whatever the hell you’re doing and get with it. I’ll be looking for a progress report tomorrow!”
If there was one thing Roland enjoyed more than being surrounded by beautiful young women, it was beating up his staff in order to keep his clients satisfied.
He stomped out of the meeting room, descended to the parking lot and drove directly to the Gentlemen’s Club.
The next day, about mid-afternoon on Friday, Chris and Patty were well out of the city before they stopped to purchase groceries for the weekend. They arrived at Jones’ lake house, unpacked and were grilling on the deck as the setting sun turned the water into quicksilver.
The next morning Patty worked at the dining room table while Chris tried his hand at fishing. He returned after a couple of hours and went upstairs to the bedroom, which overlooked the main room with a guardrail along the overhang.
Patty heard clicking and snapping sounds on the overhang, but couldn’t see what Chris was doing from her seat below. “What’s going on up there?” she called out.
“I’m setting my telescope up on the tripod,” he answered.
Patty stood up from the table and asked, “Is there someone out on the lake in a bikini this early?”
“No, but someone is out on their deck. Come up and take a look.”
Patty climbed the stairs and saw the telescope pointed towards the window with Chris making adjustments. He got up out of his chair when she arrived and said, “Here, sit down and take a look.”
“I don’t want someone to see me spying on them.”
“They can’t see you through the tinted glass,” Chris informed her. “Take a real good look at the person on the deck.”
Patty placed her eye on the scope and said, “It’s just a woman having a cup of coffee on her deck.”
“Take a real good look at her face,” Chris requested.
“Oh my God,” Patty squealed, “that’s Jackie Payne! What the Devil is she doing here?”
“That’s your ex-boss’ lake house. I discovered it by accident,” Chris told her.
Patty looked up at him and asked, “Do they know likewise—that we’re in this house?”
“No, and it might be to our advantage to keep it that way. Who knows what we might see. I’m going back out and catch us some fish for dinner. Every once in a while, take a look and see what’s happening over there.”
Patty got up from her work to stretch an hour later and thought about the telescope. She climbed back up the stairs and looked through the scope. The deck was empty. She slowly panned the telescope and caught movement in the driveway. It was Jackie taking something out of her car. There was a large suitcase and then another one. Inside the car she could see a rack of hanging clothes.
After unloading the clothes she observed as Jackie unloaded several bags of groceries from the trunk. It was obvious the woman was there to stay for awhile.