by Scott Pratt
“We’ve only recently become aware of the extent of the corruption in Knox County involving the sheriff and the district attorney. We were hoping that you might be able to develop some sources and expose what’s going on.”
“Just in time to get your candidate elected,” Janie said.
Claire’s eyes flashed, and I saw Janie cringe. Claire was definitely the more formidable of the two women.
“My candidate will be elected by a landslide whether you do this or not,” she said.
“Then why are you telling me this? Why don’t you get the TBI or the FBI involved?”
“The TBI is tricky,” Claire said. “They work very closely with the district attorney. As a matter of fact, they won’t even investigate a case unless the district attorney asks them to, and obviously, Morris hasn’t asked them. If we tried to go around him, we’re afraid someone close to Morris might tip him off and he’ll shut everything down before we can prove anything.
“The current presidential administration has changed the FBI’s mandate. Their primary task is counterterrorism. They don’t care much about whether a redneck sheriff and a DA in Nowhere, Tennessee, are shaking down vice peddlers and drug dealers. So that leaves it to someone like you. You can work quietly, be cautious and inconspicuous, but you’ll have to work pretty quickly. We’ll help any way we can. When the time is right, pounce on them and print your story.”
“And wind up in a landfill somewhere,” Janie said as she drained the second can of beer and tossed it at me. I pulled another out of the cooler and handed it to her.
“You certainly don’t have to do a thing,” Claire said. “I’m just making you aware of a situation. You can do what you wish with the information. If you think some harm might come to you, then by all means, stay away from it. Darren, of course, will do everything he can to put a stop to the corruption on his end after he takes office. Perhaps, down the road, he can deal with the sheriff.”
“Maybe he ought to just kill him,” Janie said. She was taking large gulps of the beer.
“Beg your pardon?” Claire said.
“The word around the cop campfire is that your candidate has bagged a few,” she said.
“Not true,” I said.
It was the first time I’d opened my mouth. Claire had told me to let her do the talking, and up until that moment, I’d done so. I had often heard that criminal defendants, after telling themselves and everyone else they didn’t commit a crime over an extended period of time, actually began to believe it. I knew exactly what I’d done, but it had become instinctive to deny I’d killed anyone.
“How much more beer you got in there?” Janie said as she took a long drink from the can.
“There’s one left.” I looked at Claire. “You want to head upriver and get some more? I only brought six.”
“I like beer,” Janie said.
“I don’t think we’ll need any more,” Claire said. “Why don’t you pull up the anchor and let’s start back? Janie can drink the last one on the way.”
I did as Claire requested and started the boat back toward the dock.
“So you’ve never killed anybody?” Janie said.
“No,” I said.
“Swear?”
“I swear.” She obviously didn’t drink much.
“Pinkie swear?”
“I’ve never killed anyone. The questions you should be asking are why nobody was ever arrested for my mother’s death, why Ben Clancy has never been found, and what happened to the doctor who killed my daughter and girlfriend. All of those things happened under Morris’s watch.”
“I don’t let people tell me what questions to ask, thank you very much,” she said. Her words were becoming slurred now, and she was getting louder.
“Sorry,” I said. “No offense.”
“I don’t suppose you know anything about that marine that went missing recently,” she said. “I wrote a story about it a few days ago. Did you read it?”
“I did read your story, and, no, I don’t know anything about what happened to him.”
“You’re responsible for everyone that goes missing around here, you know,” she said. “Just ask the Knoxville cops. I know a bunch of them. It’s a standing joke with them. Somebody disappears, they say it must’ve been you that made them go away. They call you The Reaper.”
“Is that right?” I said. I said the words silently a couple of times and imagined myself in a black hooded robe, carrying a scythe. I wouldn’t have admitted it, but I liked the image.
“You’re not planning to print that, are you?” Claire said.
“No, I think that might be borderline libelous since I’ve never seen a shred of concrete evidence that Mr. Street has ever harmed a soul.”
“That’s good to know,” Claire said.
“It’s strange, though,” Janie said. She was looking at Claire, but she sounded as though she might be talking to herself. “Nobody even seems mad at him. I’ve heard a lot of cops say if he did kill those two guys in West Virginia, they deserved it, and if he killed Clancy, he deserved it, too. This doctor? He’s a hot topic of conversation right now. Nobody knows all the details, so nobody knows quite what to think. Our so-called medical reporter has been looking into it, but he’s an idiot. He won’t come up with anything. What happened at the birthing center, Mr. Street, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I don’t think he should answer that question,” Claire said. “I’m sure there will be litigation. The court file will be public record. You’ll be able to find all the information you need there.”
We cruised back to the dock at a much faster speed than we’d cruised out. I tied the boat off while Claire and Janie gathered their purses and towels. I picked up the cooler and climbed off the boat. Janie was already walking to her car.
“What just happened?” I said to Claire. “Was that a disaster?”
“Not at all,” Claire said. “Let me deal with it.”
“I thought the plan was for me to get into office and then take down the sheriff. When did you decide to bring her into the picture?”
“After you left Ms. Tipton’s. My grandfather and I stayed and talked some more with Ms. Tipton. We decided it might be best to change the plan then.”
“By bringing a reporter in? Why?”
“Because Granny thinks if the sheriff presses you, if he backs you into a corner, if he tries to do harm to you somehow, you’ll kill him. And we don’t want you killing anyone, especially the sheriff.”
I was a little surprised that Granny would express such an opinion to the senator and Claire, but given my history of showing up at her house with bodies, I could understand to some degree.
“I promise I’ll try not to kill anyone,” I said.
“Don’t let it hurt your feelings. We can use this woman.”
“She appears to be a drunk, which makes her unpredictable.”
“Again, I’m sorry to say this, but we think that even though she drinks too much, she’s not as unpredictable as you. She’s been working at that paper for twenty-five years. I knew she was a boozer, but it doesn’t affect her work.”
“Are you going to talk to her again?”
“Of course. I’ll be at her front door this evening. We’ll have a chat. She doesn’t have a husband, so it’ll just be us girls and her cats.”
“You know she has cats?”
“I do my homework, Mr. Street.”
“And what will you chat about?”
“Her future. Or rather, her lack thereof if she doesn’t treat us fairly. We have a lot of friends in the newspaper business, including the company that owns the paper she works for. Try to behave yourself, Mr. Street. I’ll call you tonight.”
CHAPTER 20
The press conference was an interesting experience. Claire organized it, and it was held in a meeting room at a hotel in downtown Knoxville. Three television stations showed up—all the major networks that still did evening newscasts—and three print reporters. Janie Sch
ofield was one of them. Claire had coached me for hours the day before, and I did fine.
It was a blonde from one of the network TV affiliates who asked the question: “Mr. Street, I’m sure you’re aware that there have been allegations that you’ve committed at least one, and perhaps several, murders over the past two years,” she said. “Would you care to comment?”
I did what I’d always done. I denied the allegations. I also went on the offensive, hammering on the fact that there was absolutely no evidence against me and not a single witness had come forward. I questioned Stephen Morris’s abilities, given the fact that he had several unsolved murders in his district (the ones I’d committed weren’t the only killings that had gone unsolved during his tenure). I also cited some facts Claire had given me about the unusually large number of cases pending in the criminal courts of Knox County because the district attorney’s office was unorganized and continued cases on a regular basis. I told people that I had been on the wrong side of the criminal justice system, that I had been falsely accused and convicted, and that I wanted to do everything in my power to see that false accusations and imprisonments became a thing of the past. I ended by pointing out that the murderer or murderers of my mother had never been brought to justice. I never said a word about Ben Clancy other than to deny I had anything to do with his disappearance.
They seemed to buy it, and the whole thing lasted less than a half hour. The resulting stories were generally positive, and Claire seemed pleased.
Then, over the next several weeks, I learned the true meaning of humility. Not humiliation—I’d suffered plenty of that at the hands of Ben Clancy and the many prison guards I’d known—but humility. I learned to be humble. And I did it visiting with groups like the Ruritan Club, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Rotary Club, and the dozens of other community organizations in and around Knoxville. I would usually speak briefly after we’d eaten chicken or spaghetti or lasagna or whatever the group happened to be serving that evening, but I quickly found that the most valuable part of the interaction was listening. I’d always been a fairly good listener, but when I was hearing stories of children throwing their lives away to methamphetamine or opioids, stories of children and old people neglected and beaten and treated like animals, it affected me deeply. I heard stories of victims of rape and murder and armed robbery and how those incidents traumatized not only their victims but also spread through entire families like the ripples from a rock being thrown into a calm country pond. Those stories changed my perspective on the nature of crimes and those who commit them. It also made me want to help protect people. Even if I didn’t get elected, I knew I would never again defend a criminal.
As September rolled into October and the election grew ever closer, I found myself walking in the door at night, exhausted, thinking about the families of the people I’d killed. I knew one of the boys in West Virginia, Donnie Frazier, had had a girlfriend. He’d probably had other family as well. I didn’t know whether his mother and father were alive, whether he had aunts or uncles or cousins or nieces or nephews who may have been affected by his death, but he probably had. It was the same with Tommy Beane, the other man I’d killed in West Virginia, and Ben Clancy and Big Pappy Donovan and now Dr. Nicolas Fraturra. How had my committing the ultimate crime—the taking of another human being’s life—affected those around my victims?
It was the first time I’d ever thought in those terms, and the only reason those thoughts entered my mind was because of the stories I’d heard while campaigning. I’d really never given a damn about the families or friends of my own victims. They had done terrible things to me or to people I loved, I’d made the decision to kill them, and I’d done it and moved on without reflection. I couldn’t exactly describe the feelings I was experiencing as guilt, but for the first time there were at least the beginnings of some regret.
On a Wednesday evening, I’d just settled in at my apartment after meeting with a group of particularly cantankerous members of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Many had had loved ones killed or maimed by drunk drivers, and some had been seriously injured themselves. They’d wanted to make damned sure that I knew how they felt about prosecuting drunk-driving cases. Claire was standing in the back while I was peppered with questions.
I told them the truth. I told them I’d prosecute drunk drivers to the extent the law would allow. There were always new laws being proposed in the state legislature to make the penalties for DUI harsher. Tennessee, in fact, had some of the toughest laws in the United States, but some of the members of the group would be satisfied with nothing short of the death penalty.
The doorbell rang around ten, and I immediately popped off the couch and headed into the bedroom, where I pulled my Walther P22 pistol from beneath the mattress. I held the pistol in my hand as I walked toward the door. There was a small foyer and a short hallway leading away from my front door. I didn’t want someone to shoot me through the door, so I stopped where the hallway opened onto the kitchen and said loudly, “Who is it?”
“It’s Claire.”
“One second,” I said, and I jogged back to the bedroom and put the pistol back under the mattress. I walked back quickly and opened the door.
“Catch you at a bad time?” she said.
“Nope. Just had to put my gun away. Figured you wouldn’t appreciate being greeted that way.”
“How considerate of you. Why do you have a gun?”
“For protection.”
“From whom?”
“People who might want to do me harm.”
“Can you give me an example of someone who might want to do you harm?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The sheriff, maybe, or one of his cronies. The sheriff’s nephew. Stephen Morris or one of his cronies. Family members of people who may have heard ugly rumors about me. Old friends from federal prison.”
“I see,” she said. “Long list. Have I come at a bad time? Can you talk?”
“No, not at all. It’s fine. I was just unwinding. Tonight was pretty intense.”
“I don’t see any alcohol anywhere. How do you unwind?”
“I was just sitting on the couch thinking. I have a couple of beers in the fridge, maybe a bottle of wine in the cupboard. Can I offer you something?”
“A glass of wine would be nice,” she said.
I rarely drank wine and didn’t even know what I had in the cupboard. As it turned out, there were two decent bottles in there, one of them Grace’s favorite.
“Grace loved this stuff,” I said, holding it up. “Will this do for you?”
“Perfectly,” Claire said.
I uncorked the bottle and poured two glasses. Claire took one and sat down on the couch. I sat at the other end.
“You did a good job tonight,” she said. “That was a tough crowd and you handled them beautifully.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m trying to get better at it.”
“You’re a natural. You’ve gotten some confidence and people are drawn to you.”
“So how do you think things are going?” I said. “Do I have a chance?”
“All of our information shows that you’re going to beat him by at least five thousand votes. And we’re not even finished with him yet. Do you know he bullies the principals at the schools his children attend? He threatens to sue them if they so much as breathe in the direction of one of his children. And his children, from everything I’ve gathered, are entitled brats. His wife slapped a male teacher across the face a month ago, and he refused to allow the police to do anything about it. He has a thirteen-year-old girl who was texting in class. The teacher took her phone, gave it back to her at the end of class, and within an hour, Mrs. Morris was in this teacher’s face, screaming at him. When he told her he understood why her daughter acted the way she does, she slapped him. He had a handprint on his face for three days. Once that gets out, along with a couple of other things we have planned, you’ll be home free. And that doesn
’t even take into account my grandfather’s endorsement. That will be a spectacle. Wait and see.”
“This is all great. Thank you. I really appreciate everything you’re doing. I mean that. The only problem is that I’ll have absolutely no idea what I’m doing when I go into the office. I mean, I wonder how many of the lawyers will quit, how many of them will give me a hard time, how many of them will have had problems with Morris and expect me to remedy them immediately.”
“He’s run a pretty loose ship,” Claire said. “You’ll have some work to do. Have you been studying how other district attorneys organize?”
“I have. I think I’ll figure it out pretty quickly. I just don’t think that part of it is going to be much fun.”
“Delegate, delegate, delegate,” she said.
“Need a job?” I said. “I’m going to fire the bagman the first day if he doesn’t quit. You can take his place and get things organized.”
“Thanks,” she said. She had a beautiful smile. “I think I’ll head back to Washington when I’m finished here. I miss the swamp. Listen, Darren, there’s something we need to talk about.”
I set the glass down on the table and looked at her.
“Do you realize that’s the first time your stuffy ass has managed to chill out enough to call me Darren?” I said.
“I think it’s time we can become a bit more familiar,” she said. “Not too familiar, of course. And I don’t appreciate you calling me a stuffy ass.”
Not that I wanted to become too familiar with her. Grace was still too close, her memory too fresh. Claire was attractive, though. Damned attractive.
“I apologize,” I said, “but I’m glad you’ve decided to call me Darren. Mr. Street makes me feel old. What do we need to talk about?”
“Gary Brewer.”
“The marine? I thought I had been deemed too unstable for that assignment.”