by Scott Pratt
It wasn’t until later that Dunwoody learned Mrs.
Barlowe had followed his advice to the letter. He told his closest friends at the country club that he was proud to have been a part of it.
July 9
10:50 a.m.
Four sleepless days after Maynard’s escape, I attended the funeral of the Bowers twins in Mountain City. I sat outside the church in my truck—the used one I’d bought to replace the truck that had been pushed into the lake—gargling mouthwash and waiting for everyone to get inside. Once they were all in, I slipped in the back. There were at least a hundred police officers there and I felt like they were all looking at me. As soon as it was over, I left without speaking to anyone.
An hour later, I went through the complicated process of visiting a maximum security inmate at Northeast Correctional Center just outside Mountain City.
Northeast is a bone tossed by the Tennessee legislature fifteen years ago to a rural county that found itself on the brink of economic ruin. The planners of Johnson County had missed an important prerequisite to modern economic survival. They failed to recognize that in order for people to trade in your county or your towns, they need to be able to drive there in less than a half day.
The roads leading to Mountain City are narrow and slow. You can’t get there from anywhere. As a result, nobody goes there. As a result of that, Johnson County couldn’t generate any tax revenue and therefore couldn’t hire enough police or fund their schools.
But in 1991, the great state of Tennessee was about to embark on a vast expansion of its prison system, and it was looking for victims. They lobbied economically depressed counties, and economically depressed counties lobbied them. With the political stars in perfect alignment, Johnson County, in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains and one of the most scenic places in the whole country, was rewarded with its very own two-thousand-bed medium security concrete prison. Their plans, they said, were to put the inmates to work in a public/private enterprise, a slick mixture of capitalism and communism.
As I passed through the front door of Northeast Correctional Facility, a grand total of eighty of the two thousand inmates were participating in the prison’s employment programs. I walked into the reception area and waited for a guard. He asked for my identification, frisked me, and took my photograph.
I signed the log book and he led me across a yard fenced in by twelve-foot chain link topped with concertina. The sky was a vivid blue, and the beauty of the surrounding mountains provided an ironic contrast to the razor wire and concrete.
Once I was in the communication center, a robotic guard in a black uniform spoke to me through bulletproof glass and demanded my identification. I slipped it into a stainless steel tray. It disappeared, and the guard ordered me to move on. I followed my guide back into the sunlight and down yet another fence-framed sidewalk to the maximum security unit, which primarily housed inmates who had attacked guards or other inmates.
Many of the hundred men inside the maximum security ward had killed after being imprisoned.
They were treated the way you’d treat a dangerous animal—with extreme caution. They were kept locked alone in their cells 24/7 except when they were escorted to the shower twice a week. If for any reason they went out, they were cuffed and shackled and trussed. The only way they had of communicating was to yell through the slots in the cell door that allowed food to be passed through.
And yell they did.
When I walked through the fourth security checkpoint and into the cell block, the cacophony began.
A man in a suit could only mean a few things to a maximum security inmate. Cop, lawyer, or prison administrator. They hated them all. By the time I made the thirty-foot walk into the office where I was to conduct my interview, I’d heard every mama, sister, wife, and daughter insult known to man.
The cell block was two-story, open, and oval-shaped. The guard who sat at the desk had a view of all twenty cells on the block, and they all had a view of him through the tiny windows in the cell doors. The guard, a sturdy young man who looked to be about twenty-five, led me into the office.
”I’ll go get him,” he said. ”Won’t take but a minute.”
He started to leave and then hesitated and turned back towards me.
”I feel sorry for you,” he said.
”Thanks,” I said. ”So do I.”
Maynard Bush had been recaptured four hours after his daring daylight escape from the Johnson County jail. Bonnie Tate’s body was found in her car in the parking lot at the Roane Valley golf club.
Maynard had apparently gotten what he wanted from her and then shot her to death as soon as she stopped the car and unlocked his cuffs.
After he killed Bonnie, Maynard headed straight for his mother, who’d kicked him out of her home when Maynard was fourteen years old. Mama Bush saw Maynard approaching the house and called the cops. The cops came running, guns drawn. When they got there, they heard a series of gunshots inside.
Maynard wouldn’t respond to them. The Tennessee Highway Patrol’s SWAT team lobbed tear gas and rushed in an hour later. They found Maynard sitting at the kitchen table, clutching his burned eyes, a half-eaten sandwich sitting on a plate in front of him. His mother’s bullet-riddled body was lying less than five feet away. When they asked Maynard why he didn’t fight, he said he used up all of his bullets on his mama.
I’d spoken to Bernice Bush—Maynard’s mother—
while preparing for Maynard’s trial back in May.
She’d been left to raise Maynard alone after his father was carted off to prison for shooting his neighbor during a property border dispute. The strange thing about it was that Maynard’s father was a tenant—he didn’t even own the property.
Bernice was a slight, feeble woman of fifty-five who lived in a four-room shack about two miles off Highway 67 in Carter County, not far from the Johnson County line. Her place was as run-down as she was. It smelled of dog shit and cigarette smoke.
There were plastic bags filled with Keystone beer cans all over the house and the tiny front yard.
Bernice existed on Social Security disability benefits, food stamps, and the prescription drugs provided to her by TennCare, the state’s noble but misguided effort at providing health care to indigents. She told me that by the age of fourteen, Maynard had become a drug addict. He kept stealing her nerve pills, she said, and had started experimenting with a street drug called ice. He stopped going to school and was running with what she described as a very rough crowd. Sitting there looking at her, I couldn’t imagine a rougher crowd than the one she belonged to.
Bernice said she had an old mutt she called Giggles because of its peculiar bark. When she mentioned the dog, ten years dropped off her face, and her harsh voice softened. One evening fourteen-year-old Maynard came home late and high and sat down on the couch. She went into the room to try to talk to him, but he was rambling and agitated, so she started to go back to bed. Giggles, she said, jumped onto the couch and licked Maynard on the face. Maynard picked the dog up by the scruff of the neck. He carried it, squealing, into the yard at the side of the house, pulled a pistol from his belt, and shot it in the head.
The next morning, after Maynard had sobered up, she gave him a choice: leave or go to jail. He’d been in trouble before and was on probation. They both knew that if she called the law, he’d be shipped off to a juvenile home somewhere. Maynard chose the road. She was glad, she said, because she was afraid if they locked him up she might lose some of her Social Security benefits. He packed up a few things in an old duffel bag and got into a car with some of his friends around three that afternoon. She hadn’t seen him since. She hated him, she said. He killed her dog.
About six hours after Maynard was arrested and hauled back in, Judge Glass had called my office.
”I want to go ahead and reschedule the first trial as soon as possible,” he said, ”and you might as well represent him on the new charges. He’s got an escape, four counts of first-degree mu
rder, two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and four counts of felony murder. You don’t mind, do you?”
Did I mind? It may have been the dumbest question ever uttered. Angel’s trial was bearing down on me, I was constantly on the lookout for Junior Tester, my mother was dying, my sister was in jail, and I felt at least partially responsible for David and Darren’s deaths. And to top things off, I knew if I represented Maynard after he’d killed two well-liked deputy sheriffs, I’d make a bunch of brand-new enemies in Johnson County and probably wind up practicing law for another two years. Did I mind?
”Judge, I told you I don’t want any more appointed cases. I’m getting out of this business.”
”We’ve all got problems, Mr. Dillard,” he said.
”And right now my biggest problem is dealing with this piece of shit. You’re already appointed on the first two. A few more won’t hurt you. Make a package deal. Get it over with.”
”You’re not hearing me, Judge.”
”The case law says I can appoint you to a case if I so choose. If you refuse, I can hold you in contempt.
Now you’ll either deal with this like a professional or I’ll cite you for contempt and throw you in jail.”
”Where are they holding him?” I said. He had me by the balls, and he knew it.
”My understanding is they’ve moved him up to Northeast, to the max block. We need to get him arraigned as soon as possible, unless you can get him to waive the rule. Do you think you can do that?”
”I have no idea. I’ll have to ask him.”
”Get up there by Friday.”
”I’ll go after the funerals,” I said.
The sturdy young guard, along with two of his sturdy young buddies, returned with Maynard Bush in tow. He was smirking. There were bruises on his face and arms, I assumed from the police. The guards sat him in a chair across the room from me. There was no way to secure him to the floor, so the guards ran chains through his shackles and around the legs of the chair. That way, if he decided to make a run at me, he’d have to drag the chair with him.
”Do you want us to stay in the room?” one of the guards said.
”No thanks. I’ve talked to Mr. Bush many times before.”
”If you have any problems at all, just holler,” he said. ”We’ll be right outside the door.”
I looked over at Maynard sitting there in his striped jumpsuit with MAXIMUM SECURITY emblazoned on the front and the back. He was staring at nothing in particular with that disgusting smirk on his face.
”You’ve been a busy boy,” I said.
”Appreciate the help,” he said.
”You sonofabitch. You used me.”
”You’re right about both things, counselor. My mama was a bitch, and I played you. Don’t worry about it, though. I played everybody. Why do you think I wanted that change of venue so bad? I knew them crackers in Mountain City wouldn’t have good security.”
”Why, Maynard?” I said. ”Why did you have to go and do something so goddamned stupid?”
”Been wanting to plug that worthless old hag for twenty years. I shoulda done it when I was a kid.
The only thing I regret is that I didn’t have more time with her. I was looking forward to seeing her suffer.”
”Is that the only reason you broke out? So you could kill your mother?”
He smiled.
”And the Tate woman? Why?”
He shrugged his shoulders. ”She got the drop on them deputies, handed me the gun, and then drove me out of there, just like I told her. She was as responsible as me for them getting killed. I didn’t figure she’d like it in jail, so I did her a favor. Besides, I didn’t need her no more.”
”So now you’ve got four more counts of murder,”
I said. ”The two deputies, Bonnie Tate, and your mother.”
”I know how many was killed. I can count.”
”The judge wants to try you for the teenagers first, then the police officers, then Bonnie, and then your mother, but they have a little problem. The law says they have to arraign you on these charges as soon as possible. Normally they do it within seventy-two hours of your arrest, but with your security situation, they have some leeway. I have a waiver here I need you to sign. It gives them up to thirty days to arraign you on the new charges, but they’ll probably do it in the next week or two. You don’t have to sign it, but you might as well. You’re eventually going to end up on death row anyway.”
I pulled the document from my briefcase and stood to approach him. He was trussed up like a chicken, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. I set my briefcase on his thighs and put the pen in his right hand. He scrawled his signature on the line.
”They can’t kill me but once, you know,” he said.
”Are you finished now, Maynard? You’ve killed your mother. Is that enough? Or are you going to kill anybody you can kill between now and the time they stick a needle in your arm?”
”You ain’t gonna have to worry about me much longer.”
”Why? You contemplating suicide?”
”Nah, I like myself too much for that. But they’ll get me in here, Dillard. You mark my words.”
”Who?”
”I killed two cops in this county. You think they’re about to let me live?”
”You’re in a max block, in case you haven’t noticed. Nobody can get to you in here.”
”The guards can. I won’t make it another week.
But that’s all right. I’ve lived my life, and now I got my revenge.”
I walked to the door and opened it, and the three sturdy young guards stepped in. They took Maynard back and I ran the gauntlet of catcalls again on my way out. Once I was clear of the max unit, I thought about what Maynard had said. The chances that Darren and David Bowers had friends and relatives working at the prison were good. For a moment, I thought I should do something, maybe file a motion and have Maynard transferred out of Johnson County for his own protection. Then I thought about the argument I’d have to assert—that it was likely the guards at Northeast would conspire to murder him. I imagined myself making that argument in front of Judge Glass. He’d throw me under the jail.
Maynard, I decided, was on his own.
July 10
9:45 a.m.
Agent Landers looked down at his ringing cell phone and then over at the naked blonde lying next to him.
His head was throbbing again. The woman wasn’t nearly as young as she looked last night. Must have been the bad lighting in the bar. Or the whiskey.
He was supposed to have the rest of the week off.
He and Bull Deakins were planning to drive down to Hotlanta for a couple of days. They were going to catch a Braves game and visit the Golden Pony, maybe round up a couple of fillies and ride them for a night or two.
The phone number on the caller ID was the district attorney’s. Fuck. He pulled a sheet up over the woman’s head so he didn’t have to look at her and answered the call.
”Landers.”
”Phil, it’s Frankie Martin. We have a serious problem. Our only witness against Angel Christian is dead.”
Deacon Baker had assigned the Angel Christian case to Martin, who was only four years out of law school and had never tried a murder case. Martin didn’t know it, but Deacon was setting him up to be a scapegoat. If the case went south, Martin might as well pack the suntan lotion, because he’d end up going south with it.
”Julie Hayes?” Landers said. ”How?”
”They found her at her place yesterday afternoon.
She didn’t show up for work, so Erlene Barlowe sent one of her gofers over to check on her. She was dead on the kitchen floor. The Washington County investigator who worked the scene said it looked like she might have been poisoned, so I asked the medical examiner to rush the preliminary autopsy. ME says she was full of cocaine and strychnine.”
Landers had heard of lacing cocaine with strychnine at a DEA seminar. It was a relatively simple pr
ocess that produced an agonizing death.
”Any ideas on who might have done it?” Landers said.
”I certainly have a candidate in mind.”
”You think it was Erlene Barlowe?”
”Damned right I do. Who else would kill her?”
”You think she killed her to keep her from testifying against Angel? I think you’re reaching, Frankie.
Why would she risk murdering somebody to help Angel out? The kid had only been around a couple of months when we arrested her. Barlowe barely knows her.”
”At this point, I think Barlowe probably murdered the preacher, too.”
”Then why would she kill a witness who was about to help us convict someone else? Doesn’t make any sense. And in case you haven’t looked close, we have less on Barlowe than we do on Angel.” Landers hated working with kid lawyers. They were too fucking dumb to live.
”Deacon told me this morning about the witness who saw Barlowe on the bridge,” Martin said.
”Do you know what Deacon told me about that witness? He said the guy was unreliable. He said there was no way he could have made an ID like that in the dark. He said for me to fucking ignore him.”
”What are we going to do, Phil? This case was weak enough with Hayes. Without her, I might as well dismiss it.”
”I wasn’t hot to take it to the grand jury in the first place. You can thank your boss for that. He said he wanted to shake the tree.”
”Him and his goddamned tree. Dillard’s going to kick my ass. I’m going to be a laughingstock. Every newspaper and television station within fifty miles is covering this case, and everybody around is going to be watching while I go down. There’s an election coming up, and in case you guys over there at the TBI don’t pay attention to stuff like that, losing a high-profile murder case a week before an election is not good politics. Baker will fire me over this.”