Cold Winter Rain Read Online Free PDF Page B

background on the relator in the qui tam matter and why he’d placed the notes in a sealed envelope.  I returned to the hotel, spent the afternoon reviewing my notes and reading the file, and ate a passable dinner of broiled red snapper and steamed vegetables downstairs in the hotel restaurant.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
    Tuesday, January 24
     
    By midnight the rain had slowed to a drizzle.  The streets of the city were wet, and in the weak light from the streetlights three stories down from my hotel room, they looked almost clean.
    I took the little bronze Buddha out of my suitcase and placed it on the nightstand, lit a stick of incense, unrolled my zabuton, placed my bolster in the center, and just sat, astride the bolster in seiza posture, for fifteen minutes.  Thoughts came, and I acknowledged them, then allowed them to float away.
    For a year after the accident, when I meditated, all the images and thoughts floating up to consciousness were of Anna or David, their faces, a phrase, how they moved and breathed; or sometimes of twisted metal and smoking airbags.  Then an occasional thought of work or chores or a conversation with someone else would come.  By now the mix of images and thoughts approached fifty-fifty.
    I rolled off the bolster, stretched my stiff legs, then tossed the bolster and the mat onto a chair and went to bed.
     
     
     
    At two in the morning, my cell phone rang.  I was in that half-sleep when dreams begin, and I lay still for a moment to let the jangle of the bell clear my head.
    I answered on the sixth ring.
    “ Slate,” the caller said.
    “ Yeah,” I said.
    “ It’s Grubbs.  Not asleep, were you?”
    “ Of course not.  I was evaluating my investment strategy for the transition to the renminbi as the world’s reserve currency.”
    Leon Grubbs’s little sister Tasha had worked for me at my old law firm as a paralegal in the early nineties.  From eighty-three to eighty-five Grubbs had started at weakside linebacker at Grambling and made second-team All-Southern conference three consecutive times.
    Grubbs had also majored in criminal justice and made academic All-American twice.
    I knew a couple of people who’d seen Grubbs play football.  Running backs didn’t get to Grubbs’ corner, and he didn’t need support from the defensive backs.  When Grubbs hit a ball carrier, the guy stayed hit.
    Back home after school, Grubbs made one of the highest scores ever recorded on the Birmingham police entrance exam and rose up the ranks like an ebony rocket.
    Eighteen months ago he’d made captain and the same day got appointed to his dream job, at least until he made chief – Deputy Chief of the Investigative Operations Bureau of the Birmingham Police Department.  Chief of Detectives.
    Middle-of-the-night calls from Leon Grubbs were not likely to convey good news.  “What’s up?” I said.
    “ You and me.  I’m down in the railroad yard.  Morris Avenue and Twenty-First.  Not far from your hotel.”
    In the background I heard static from what could only be a police radio approach closer to Grubbs and his cell phone, then Grubbs’ muffled voice mingled with more radio static and the voice of another man.
    “Just a second,” Grubbs said.  The line went silent while I wondered how Grubbs knew I was in town.
    When he came back on the line, he seemed to have heard my thought.
    “Yeah, I know where you are.  Get your butt down here now.  I’ve got a murder victim in an expensive suit.  He’s carrying one of your business cards in his shirt pocket.”
    I told Grubbs I’d get there when I could, went into the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and rubbed the skin hard with a clean white towel.
    I pulled on a red Marines sweatshirt and a rain suit with a hood, strapped on the Glock, and walked the six plus blocks in the cold rain down to the rail yards that divided the north side of Birmingham from the south side.
    Most Birmingham citizens