by Scott Pratt
“What happened to your arm?” she said casually.
“Big Pappy Donovan shot me,” I said. I’d decided I wasn’t going to lie to her anymore.
She turned and looked me in the eye. The smile was gone. “He shot you? With a real gun?”
“Do you want to hear the whole story, Grace? Because I’ll lay it all out for you. It will put you in a difficult position, but if you want to know, I’ll tell you. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over these past few weeks. I know I went off the deep end for a little while. I know I was crazy. But there were reasons: the two years in prison, Mom getting murdered, Clancy getting acquitted, Sean moving away. I let those things overtake me and I became irrational. I did some things I’m not proud of, but I think I can forgive myself and move forward. I think I’ve learned a lot, Grace. I’ve learned a lot about life and I’ve learned a lot about myself. I also learned that you had become the very best thing in my life and I turned my back on you in so many different ways. I even convinced myself that you were one of the things that triggered my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. All I can do at this point is say I’m sorry. I’d love to try again if you’ll have me.”
She shook her head slowly and looked at the floor. “I don’t know, Darren. I mean, I think you may have killed some people.”
“I did kill some people. And then I lied to you about it. I killed the two men who bombed my mother’s house, I helped kill Ben Clancy, and I killed Big Pappy. I killed four people, but two of them killed my mother, and one of them sent my uncle to prison for two decades on a bogus charge, framed me for a murder, drove James Tipton to suicide, and walked away from all of it. I killed Big Pappy because he was trying to kill me. Straight-up self-defense. The police will never, ever prove anything I’ve done. They won’t ever have enough to arrest me, let alone try me and convict me. I probably shouldn’t be telling you all this, but if we’re going to ever be together again, if we’re going to try, I want you to know that I’ve been honest with you. You understand why I did what I did. I know you do. The question is: Can you forgive me?”
I was on a limb, and I knew it. Grace could go straight to the police and tell them I’d confessed to four murders, but I didn’t think she was anything like Katherine. She had substance and character, and I thought she still might love me. She’d also been to hell and back with me, and not all that long ago, she’d agreed to marry me.
“We can take it slow,” I said. “We can make it work.”
She began to sniffle, and I started toward her. She put her hand up and said, “No, please. I need to think.”
I stopped and took a step back. “Okay. I just put a lot on your shoulders. Let’s go back to the beginning. Why did you want to see me?”
“I’m not sure what to do now,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.” Her sniffling had become more intense, and tears were flowing down both of her cheeks. “What do you say to a man who has just told you he’s committed four murders? Justified or not? What do you say? How am I supposed to feel about that? What would it be like knowing that the man I’m with every day is capable of that kind of violence?”
“I think we’re all capable if we get pushed far enough,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said, “but right now, at this moment, I don’t understand it. I’ve never been pushed that far, and I’ve always been taught that when the law is broken, we have a system in place to address injustices and injuries suffered by innocent people. It’s called the criminal justice system, Darren. You believed in it once. You’re still a part of it, aren’t you? Aren’t you still practicing criminal defense law?”
“I’ve been a little preoccupied, but yes.”
“Then you’re a hypocrite.”
“I guess I am, but look what the system did to me. It took two years of my life, twenty of my uncle’s. It didn’t offer to compensate me in any way, didn’t offer me any help or counseling when I was released. The system can be cruel. Not just cruel, it can be downright barbaric.”
“I know it isn’t perfect, but what if family members of murder victims reacted the same way you did in every case? We’d have blood everywhere. Chaos. You’re asking me to realign my entire sense of what justice is. You’re asking me to accept that vigilantism has a place in our system of criminal justice, and I can’t agree with you. I just can’t.”
“I didn’t ask you to agree with me. I asked you to forgive me.”
“I need some time to think about it.”
She’d calmed down, and she pulled some paper towels off a roll on the counter and dried her face and wiped her nose. “I have something to tell you.”
Something about the tone in her voice put me on alert. I knew what she was going to say before the words actually passed her lips.
“Do you remember the night when you came back and told me you’d been fishing? That you’d caught two big ones and left them where you caught them? And then you came home and all you wanted to do was have sex and have sex and have sex?”
I nodded, waiting for the two words I knew I was going to hear.
“I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER 63
Will Grimes stepped into the temporary office used by prosecutors during trials at the courthouse in Webster Springs, West Virginia. He’d just finished testifying in a year-old murder case involving a woman who had hired two teenagers to shoot and kill her husband for insurance money, and the prosecutor, District Attorney James Hellerman, had rested his case. The judge had taken a brief recess before the defense began telling its side of the story. Hellerman was already behind his desk, stuffing a dip of Skoal into his lower lip. Grimes sat down across from him.
“You did a fine job,” Hellerman said.
“Thank you,” Grimes said.
“You never know what a jury will do, but this is as close to a slam dunk as I’ve had in a while.”
“So you think it’ll be over today?”
Hellerman nodded and spit into a cup. “Bet we’ll have a verdict by six o’clock.”
“Wish they were all this cut-and-dried,” Grimes said.
“Speaking of, did you ever find that guy you were looking for that killed those three folks in Charleston?”
“He disappeared into thin air,” Grimes said.
“Where in the world do you think he ran off to?” Hellerman said.
“Who knows? Maybe he’s dead.”
“Any idea who might have killed him?”
“I have my suspicions.”
“You think it might be that lawyer you were after, don’t you?”
“He’d be my prime suspect.”
“Are you still working that double murder in Cowen? The one where you think that same lawyer killed those two boys in a bar?”
Grimes shook his head. “No point. It’s over. The lawyer was smart enough to put enough layers between himself and his crime that I couldn’t get to him. Then one important layer wound up dead, and the other has vanished.”
“The one that vanished, he’s the man that killed the three in Charleston, right?”
“Right.”
“Maybe he’ll turn up one day.”
“And maybe pigs will fly.”
“Well, like I always say to you, Will, just keep grinding. That’s what you do best.”
Grimes leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his neck. He’d been doing this long enough to check his emotions at the door, but the feeling of frustration of not having solved a brutal double murder, plus the murders in Charleston, frustrated him nonetheless.
“There’s always something to grind on, that’s for sure,” he said. “People just keep on killing each other.”
There was a soft knock at the door, and a bailiff stuck his head in. “Judge is ready to go.”
“That one may have gotten away,” Hellerman said, “but this one isn’t going to. Let’s go chalk up another one for the good guys.”
CHAPTER 64
Two months later, Dr. Benton smiled at me from across the ro
om. It was mid-March, and the signs of spring—my favorite time of year—were beginning to show. Daffodils bloomed outside in her garden. Bradford pear trees were covered in white petals. What was going on outside the windows of the room made me feel good, but what was going on inside the room grated on my nerves more than a little.
Dr. Benton just seemed so self-assured, so all-knowing. She had every answer, whether it be in the form of a platitude, a coping technique, or a prescribed medication. I was talking to her on a weekly basis now, part of an agreement with Grace to help me get past my mental struggles. The problem was, I no longer seemed to be having serious mental struggles. I’d killed or maimed everyone who had tormented me. I’d accepted what I’d done, and I’d forgiven myself. It still bothered me that Sean was so far away, but I’d gotten into the habit of staying in touch with him on a regular basis, so that anxiety had eased. My mother’s will had finally gone through probate, so I had about $400,000 stashed in stock index funds. I was sleeping pretty well with the help of the same drug Katherine Davis said got her arrested for DUI.
Grace and I still weren’t living together, and I hadn’t given her ring back and asked her to marry me, but we were talking every day and getting along better and better. We laughed a lot, and she’d even started doing some good-natured needling. She’d called me Al Capone a couple of times, which, at some level, was probably pretty damned healthy. She hadn’t pressed me for details about the shootings, but if she had, I would have given her second-by-second accounts. I also would have told her about having Rupert Lattimore’s face melted, but I don’t think that would have gone over too well. I’d heard Rupert had undergone several terribly painful surgeries and that more were planned. I’d also heard he looked like he’d been tossed straight into hell. As far as I was concerned, getting oiled up couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.
The cops had quit bothering me. Word of the fake DUI charge had gotten around pretty quickly once Katherine Davis caught a legitimate DUI. I’d called my friend Bob Ridge and told him what they’d done, and he’d talked to Earl Anderson, the patrol officer they’d conned into filing the charge. Bob told me the department was doing an internal investigation, but that nothing would ever come of it. Katherine Davis’s real DUI charge was dismissed when the arresting officer failed to show up to court three times. I was certain that was arranged by her aunt Dawn. I was actually in the courtroom the day they dismissed the charge against her. I smiled at her and waved as she turned to walk out of the courtroom. And as for the state trooper in West Virginia, I knew I’d never hear from him again. By killing Rex Fairchild, Pappy had pretty much destroyed his case. I’d killed Pappy, and I thought my call to Sammy Raft had cemented things.
“Are you dreaming?” Dr. Benton asked me. Our hour was almost up, and I was grateful for that.
“Right now?”
“When you sleep. You told me you’ve been sleeping better. Have you been having nightmares?”
The truth was that yes, I still had nightmares, but they were less frequent and less intense than they had been in the past.
“It’s been quite a while,” I lied.
“That’s remarkable, Darren,” Dr. Benton said. “You must be extremely strong mentally.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“Yes, yes, you have, unfortunately. But you’re still dealing with the triggers every day, correct? You’re still going to court, still going into jails, still dealing with judges and clients and policemen and prison guards and all that.”
“I’m pretty choosy about what I take right now because I’ve come into some money, but yes, I still have to deal with all those things on occasion.”
“Amazing. When I first saw you, I honestly didn’t think you’d be able to continue to practice law, especially criminal defense. You have to have developed some coping mechanisms subconsciously, some things you probably don’t even understand.”
I didn’t want to mention killing people to her. Doing so had lightened my psychological load considerably. “I guess I have. And you’re right. I can’t really identify or articulate anything I’m doing, but I just seem to be getting along better.”
“How are things with Grace?”
“Coming along. I think she’s trusting me more every day.”
“You’ve never mentioned what caused her to have trust issues in the first place, and she hasn’t said a word. Would you be comfortable sharing what caused her not to trust you?”
“It was a combination of things,” I said. “After my mother was killed, I became unavailable emotionally to her. I shut her out. She tried to help me, but the more she tried, the more I resisted. It just deteriorated to the point where she returned the engagement ring I’d given her and asked me to leave.”
“That had to be difficult.”
“It was. For both of us.”
“But you stayed true to her and she stayed true to you, and now it appears your relationship is back on the mend.”
Grace was hiding her pregnancy by wearing loose clothing. It wouldn’t be long, though, before anyone who really knew her would point and say, “Is that a baby bump?” I found myself largely ambivalent about her pregnancy, mostly because I didn’t know how things would turn out between the two of us. If we got back together and got along, I’d embrace the child. If things went south, though, I honestly didn’t think I’d have much room for a baby. I hadn’t told Dr. Benton about the pregnancy yet, mostly because I didn’t think it was any of her business, and I certainly hadn’t told her about my brief affair with the rat, Katherine Davis.
“Love is a powerful force,” I said, because it seemed like the right thing to say at the time. I’d learned to work Dr. Benton.
“Maybe the most powerful force,” she said. “How are you feeling about the future, Darren? Are you optimistic? Pessimistic? Afraid?”
“I’m uncertain,” I said. “Optimism is a choice, and I’ve made that choice, but I’ve learned that I can’t know what’s coming. I know bad things happen. They’ve already happened to me, and I feel sure more bad things will happen before it’s over. But I’ll be able to handle the bad times better in the future. I feel fairly certain of that.”
“Because you’ve developed coping mechanisms,” she said.
Because I’ve learned that I’m not afraid to blow somebody’s brains out when they deserve it; because my rule of law and your rule of law are two entirely different sets of principles.
But I kept my thoughts to myself. “I guess you could say that,” I responded. “I guess you could say I’ve developed my own way of coping.”
“Good for you, Darren,” she said. “I wish I had more patients like you.”
I chuckled. I couldn’t help it.
“What’s funny?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t think you really want more patients like me.”
“Why is that?”
Because you’re a lousy shrink, and you’d probably eventually wind up dead and stuffed in that closet over there.
“I’m not anything special,” I said. “A little different, maybe, but nothing special.”
She rose from her overstuffed chair, indicating our session was over. “So I’ll see you next week? Same time?”
I handed her $200 in cash and nodded.
“I don’t know where I’d be without you,” I lied. “Thanks.”
“You give me too much credit,” she said. “Your mental health really comes down to the decisions you make.”
Damn straight.
I smiled and walked out the door.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Jacque Ben-Zekry, who shepherded me through this novel and cut me some slack during a very difficult time in my life. I wish her nothing but the best. Thank you, David Hale Smith and the folks at Inkwell Management for looking out for my best interests. Thank you to my son, Dylan, for helping me build a strong and loyal base of readers. And thank you to those readers for allowing me to do somet
hing I love to do and to make a great living while I’m doing it. And thank you to the rest of the Thomas & Mercer team—and when I say team, I mean it. There are just too many of them to name, but they work tirelessly together to help ensure the success of each book they publish, and I appreciate both their commitment to excellence and how good they’ve been to me. And finally, thank you to my Kristy, the love of my life, to whom I dedicate all of my novels. She inspires me each and every day, and after thirty-one years together, I still think she’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2015 Dwain Rowe
Scott Pratt was born in South Haven, Michigan, and grew up in Jonesborough, Tennessee. He is a veteran of the United States Air Force and earned a bachelor of arts degree in English from East Tennessee State University and a doctor of jurisprudence degree from the University of Tennessee. Pratt’s first novel, An Innocent Client—the first book in his Joe Dillard series—was chosen as a finalist for the Mystery Readers International’s Macavity Award. Justice Burning is the second book in his Darren Street series, following Justice Redeemed. Pratt resides in northeast Tennessee with his wife, two dogs, and a parrot.