attacker’s head. Got some skin and hair under his nails. My first lawyer tried to use that at trial. He asked the jury, Why no scratch on top of my client’s head if the victim had skin and hair under his nails? Too bad for me that I wasn’t arrested and examined by a doctor until seven months after the crime. Scratch could have healed in all that time. At least that’s what the prosecutor made the jury believe. But it all worked out in the end. The scrapings of skin and hair gave us a nice DNA sample. DNA wasn’t used that much at the time of my trial. Four years later, it was. When Jack came in to handle my habeas corpus petitions, he got the test, got me off death row.”

“And the only one happier than you was me,” said Tatum.

“Yeah, now I know why. I don’t understand all the details, but, Jack, help me out here. Once there’s a DNA test, the cops keep that shit around, don’t they?”

“You’re talking about CODIS,” said Jack.

“Tell him, Jack. Tell Tatum what he already knows, and what I just figured out.”

It was strange, the way this was coming off as if Jack and Theo had rehearsed it. But Jack had wondered about the real killer for almost as many years as Theo had, and now that Theo was on a roll, Jack was right with him, step for step. “CODIS is the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System,” said Jack. “If a DNA test is performed on a specimen sample taken from a crime scene, that DNA profile is entered into the forensic files of CODIS. Once I was finally able to get the test done to compare Theo’s DNA to the hair and skin sample taken from the victim, the DNA profile of the unknown killer would, as a matter of course, have been entered into the CODIS forensic database.”

“Which is exactly the reason my brother didn’t want to give his DNA profile. Even though his DNA would have proved that he didn’t kill Gerry Colletti, a simple run through the FBI’s database would have proved that he did kill the store clerk.”

A tense silence filled the room as the two brothers stared each other down.

“That wasn’t the way it was supposed to go down,” Tatum said quietly.

“Oh, man,” said Jack, his response involuntary.

Tatum continued, “It was my next step up in the Grove Lords. I had to take someone out, you know, if I ever wanted to have my own turf. So Lionel, he picks out this clerk at Shelby’s. No real reason, just picked him. So, I did him.”

Theo looked ready to explode. Jack knew he had to say something before he had another homicide on his hands. “Why’d you pin it on Theo?”

“Wasn’t supposed to be no one else in the store. But when I came out, I ran past some guy on the sidewalk. I was afraid he could ID me. I had to think fast, man. I was scared, you know? So when I get back to the car, that’s when me and Lionel come up with the plan.”

“What plan?” asked Jack.

“We had to get someone else, you know. Someone else to go in that store.”

Theo’s voice shook with anger. “Someone who looked like you.”

He shook his head, his voice filled with regret. “I didn’t want it to be you, Theo. That’s what I told Lionel. All the Grove Lords dressed alike. Black pants, Miami Heat jerseys, gold chains, backward baseball caps. We could have picked almost anyone. But Lionel picked Theo.”

“And you didn’t fight him?”

“At first, yeah. I said no way. But it made sense for it to be you.”

“Bullshit, Tatum. It was dark, we all dressed alike. There were ten other Grove Lords that could have looked like you.”

“We didn’t pick you just because we looked alike. It was smarter than that.”

“Smart?” he said, almost screeching.

“You was fifteen, man. Lionel said no way you’d be charged as an adult. I was almost eighteen. No question I was looking at adult charges. So that’s how we picked you.”

Jack could hear Theo breathing in and out, the anger scorching his lungs and throat, taking his words away. Jack spoke for him. “So you served up your little brother thinking he’d get off on a juvenile charge, serving time in detention until his record was expunged at age eighteen.”

“That was the plan.”

Jack kept probing. “That guy on the sidewalk who you nearly ran over on your way out of the store-he was the eyewitness who mistakenly picked Theo out of the lineup.”

“That’s right.”

“And with a solid eyewitness, the state attorney started feeling pretty good about the case. They charged Theo as an adult, not a juvenile. And the jury nailed him for murder one.”

“Next thing I know he’s on death row,” said Tatum. “It was like a nightmare for me.”

“For you!” Theo shouted. “Fuck you, Tatum!”

“Don’t you think it was killing me, too?”

“No! You would have let me die.”

“No way was I gonna let that happen.”

“I always knew I was set up by the Grove Lords. How many conversations did you and me have between the prison glass, Tatum? The two of us wracking our brains trying to figure out who the scumbag was. We never was able to narrow it down to less than about fifty. Not once did you even hint it was you who was the killer. The whole time, you was just pretending to stand by me when I was on death row. But you would have just stood silent right to the end, let me die for something you did.”

“You know that ain’t true. What about that night I offered to confess, remember? I said I would confess if that’s what it took to get you off death row.”

“That wasn’t real, man. That was guilt talking.”

“It was real.”

Theo glared at him, then looked to his lawyer. “Tell me something, Jacko. Last time you got me a stay of execution, how close was I to getting fried?”

“Seventeen minutes.”

“You get any last-minute phone call from my brother saying, ‘Hold everything, they got the wrong man, I’m guilty, it’s me, Tatum-I’m the killer!’”

They all knew the answer, but Jack said it anyway. “No.”

Theo stepped closer, his eyes filled with hatred. “Just how fucking close were you going to cut it, brother?”

Tatum wouldn’t look at him, his gaze cast downward to his shoes. “You’re my brother,” he said, “I can make good, man.”

“Too late,” said Theo.

“No, listen to me,” he said, his voice quickening. “I’m gonna get this money, this forty-six million from Sally Fenning.”

“What, you want to buy me back, now?”

“Just give me a chance to do right by you.”

“Give me back my four years.”

“I would if I could, but I can’t.”

“That’s your problem, isn’t it?”

“I’m doing all I can. It’s a lot of money, Theo.”

“Don’t want your money.”

“A shitload of money, even split three ways.”

“Leave me out of this,” said Jack.

“I wasn’t talking about you, fool!” said Tatum.

At that moment, it was as if everything came to a halt. Jack had heard it. Theo had heard it, too. And from the look on Tatum’s face, he clearly wished he hadn’t said it.

“Three ways?” said Jack.

“Did I say three?” said Tatum. “I meant to say two.”

“No,” said Jack. “You said three, and you meant three. If I’m not the third, who is?”

Tatum’s eyes darted from Theo to Jack several times. He looked as if he wanted to say something but knew there was nothing he could say. It was out there, the words had fallen from his own lips, and now it was a known fact: Tatum already had a deal to split the money with someone. He had a partner.

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