JD05 - Conflict of Interest

by Scott Pratt

  Tom stuck his pipe between his teeth and sat back.

  “You’ll have a much better chance of finding him if you can control that kind of anger,” he said. “You’re going to have to approach this systematically, the same way the police would if they were thinking along the same lines as you are. It becomes a process of eliminating suspects until you’re left with only one.”

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you over the phone,” I said. “He took the money yesterday.”

  Tom removed his pipe from between his lips and raised his eyebrows while I gave him a quick explanation of what happened. When I was finished, I said, “He’s going to kill her, isn’t he?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes, I suspect he is.”

  “When?”

  “If he thinks he’s about to be caught, he’ll kill her immediately. Otherwise, he’ll wait until he’s exhausted his fantasies.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “Maybe a week. Maybe a month.”

  “It’s already been three-and-a-half days, which doesn’t leave much time for a systematic approach. What are the chances that he’s one of those people who wants to keep her and raise her as his own?”

  “I’d say zero. The ransom note, the texts, taking the money, all of those things are taunts. Have you ever heard the term malignant narcissist?”

  “Is that some sort of sociopath on steroids?”

  “Worse. A psychopath on steroids,” Tom said. “Clinical symptoms are typical of narcissists: an extremely inflated sense of self-importance, grandiosity, lack of empathy, that kind of thing, but with one very important and very disturbing difference. Malignant narcissists are also sadistic. This man is obviously taking pleasure in the parents’ pain. He’s probably inflicting pain on the child as well.”

  “I’m starting to wish I hadn’t called you,” I said.

  “The fact that he may be a malignant narcissist could be a good thing, at least in one way. If you’re able to identify any suspects from the list your client gave you based on the other criteria we’ve talked about, I can almost guarantee you a clincher.”

  He paused for dramatic effect, as had always been his habit when he was about to offer a revealing insight. The pipe went back into his mouth.

  “Malignant narcissists have a great deal of trouble controlling their impulses from an early age,” Tom said. “He’ll have a criminal record dating back to his teens, and it will be violent.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Blaire Reed looked better in person than she did in the photographs I’d seen. Her long, wavy hair was the color of a maraschino cherry, her eyes aquamarine. Her face was angular Irish, her skin creamy. Her teeth were perfect and ivory white beneath a set of collagen filled lips and her body was one that said, “touch me if you dare.” She oozed sexuality the way a maple tree oozes sap.

  We’d just sat down in a booth at Pappy’s, a dingy, cigarette smoke-filled honky tonk in Johnson City that claimed to be the oldest bar in town. It had a reputation as a redneck paradise, a place frequented by blue collar construction laborers, assembly line workers from a nearby water heater factory, alcoholic veterans who lived at the Veterans Administration and low-rent hookers. I’d chosen it because I didn’t think any of the other reporters who’d descended on the area would dare go in there.

  I’d been in Pappy’s twice in my life, both times to interview reluctant witnesses in criminal cases I was involved in. I hadn’t run into any trouble, but from the look of the clientele, it didn’t seem far-fetched that a person with a smart mouth or a bad attitude could easily get himself cut or bludgeoned, and it didn’t help that Blaire Reed and I looked as out of place as a Jewish rabbi at a Newport cockfight. I wasn’t wearing a tie, but the gray dress slacks, navy blue button down and black loafers didn’t fit in with the jeans, Harley T-shirts and work boots, and Blaire’s low-cut, red silk blouse and high-cut, black skirt had drawn plenty of stares when she walked in. A fifty-something waitress wearing tight Capri pants and a T-shirt that was tied into a knot above her fleshy navel asked us what we wanted to drink. I asked for a Budweiser and when Blaire asked for a Red Stripe the woman rolled her eyes and said, “We ain’t got none of that. We sell American beer.”

  “Coors,” Blaire said with a catty smile. She looked me over like I was a piece of meat in a butcher’s window and said, “So you’re the infamous Joe Dillard.”

  “And you’re the famous Blaire Reed.”

  “What was it like?”

  “What was what like?”

  “Killing those men. Did you get a rush from it?”

  “Maybe I should go outside and come back in so we can start over.”

  “Ah, so we’re a little touchy about it, are we?”

  “It was a long time ago, and as far as I’m concerned it didn’t happen. Do you want to talk about Richard and Mary and Lindsay Monroe or do you want to waste our time rehashing old news?”

  “You’re handsome, you know, especially for an older guy.”

  “That’s what my wife tells me.”

  “How is your wife? I heard she went through some rough times.”

  “Beautiful as ever. Tough as nails.”

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I did some research on you after you called.”

  “I thought you might.”

  She picked a smart phone up off the table, pushed a few buttons, and started to read.

  “This is some of what I learned. Joseph Jackson Dillard, forty-five. Native of Johnson City, Tennessee, graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law. Excellent criminal defense lawyer who became jaded and went to work for the district attorney. Excellent prosecutor who eventually wound up being appointed by the governor to fill the vacancy created when his boss was arrested. Lousy D.A. who resigned after what became a very public shootout with Columbian assassins at his house. Married to Caroline, who owns and operates a dance studio. Two children named Jack and Lilly, both early twenties and out of the nest. Two dogs. Honorable discharge from the Army back in the day. Saw combat in Grenada, won a Silver Star. Pays taxes on time, no debt. Long on principle but sometimes short on emotional control. Lives on Lakeview Road near Boones Creek. How am I doing so far?”

  “How did you find out about the dogs?”

  She smirked and poured her Coors into a glass.

  “And now you’ve been hired to represent the parents of a kidnapped child who are suspected of being involved. How much are they paying you?”

  “A lot. Who were your sources for the story you wrote that came out this morning?”

  “My sources are reliable and anonymous.”

  “It isn’t true, if that matters to you. They didn’t have anything to do with their daughter’s kidnapping.”

  “Who cares? It’s great entertainment.”

  “By printing something like that, all you’re doing is putting pressure on the police to continue investigating a falsehood when they could be looking for a missing girl and a kidnapper.”

  “Is that why you wanted to meet with me? So you could give me a lecture on responsible journalism?”

  Blaire glanced up and to her right as I became aware of a presence over my left shoulder. I turned my head and recognized the man immediately. He’d put on about twenty pounds since I’d last seen him five years earlier. His hair was longer and he’d grown a short beard, but there was no mistaking that leer.

  “Who’s your lady friend, Dillard?” he said. He was holding a half-empty mug of draft beer in his right hand and a pool cue in his left.

  “Explain to me how that would be any of your business.”

  “Come on, now,” he said. “Can’t we let bygones be bygones? Introduce me.”

  I slid to my right a little so I could see him better. I wasn’t about to take my eyes off him, especially with him carrying the mug and the pool cue.

  “You want to be introduced? Fine. Blaire Reed, meet Phil Landers, a former TBI agent who was fired after I trapped him in a lie on the witness sta
nd five years ago. He’s an alcoholic, a hopeless womanizer, a prolific liar, and the worst cop I ever met.”

  Landers bowed dramatically. “It’s always a pleasure to meet a beautiful woman, although I can’t say much for your choice of company.”

  “We were in the middle of a conversation,” I said.

  “Is that right? What were you talking about?”

  “The price of eggs in China. Feel free to slither back over to the pool table any time you like.”

  Landers took a couple of steps forward so that he was right next to the booth. He looked down at Blaire.

  “Old Dillard here thinks his dung is odorless,” he said. His speech was slurred and I noticed he was swaying slightly. “He’s one of those hypocrite idealists. You know the type. One of those people who thinks he’s better than everybody else, who thinks he knows what’s right and wrong better than everybody else. But when it comes down to nut cutting time, he can lie and cheat with the best of them. Has he been telling you stories about all the criminals he helped walk away from justice? He’d do anything to win a court case. If it was a crime for a lawyer to lie, he’d be serving a life sentence.”

  The slow boil that had started when I recognized Landers had turned to something bordering on rage. When Landers was still a TBI agent, I’d grown to despise him. I regarded him as the antithesis of everything a police officer should be, and when I finally got a clear shot at him, I took him out of the game. I hadn’t heard a word about him since, but as I sat there looking at him, listening to his self-righteous sarcasm, smelling his foul breath from three feet away, I felt a strong urge to beat him to a bloody pulp. At the same time, I knew I should just get up and walk out of the bar, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I looked across the table at Blaire.

  “You should leave now,” I said to her.

  She smiled wickedly. “Not a chance.”

  “Seriously, you should leave before—”

  I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and barely got my left arm up in time to keep the beer mug from hitting me in the head. I heard Blaire shriek as the mug shattered against the wall. The next thing I knew, Landers, who was a good-sized man, had stepped back and raised the pool cue over his head, intending to bring it down on me like a sledge hammer. I launched myself out of the booth and hit him in the chest with my right shoulder. I managed to get both of my hands beneath his hips and lifted as I drove him backward. We smashed into a table and wound up on the floor among spilled beer and broken shards of glass. I rolled away from him, got to my feet, and was about to go after him again when I felt hands grabbing both of my arms and shoulders. I struggled against them as I saw three more men grab Landers. A huge, bald man wearing an apron and carrying a blackjack stepped between us as the men who had grabbed me pulled me backward.

  “Let us go!” Landers bellowed. “I’ve been waiting years for this!”

  The man with the blackjack pointed it in my direction.

  “Don’t let me see you in my place of business again,” he said.

  He jerked his head toward the door and I felt myself being half-carried, half-dragged in that direction. I kept an eye on Landers, who was being dragged in the opposite direction, back toward the pool tables. He was bellowing at the top of his lungs about the things he planned to do to me.

  The three men who were dragging me shoved me through the front door into the parking lot. I turned and started walking toward my truck when I saw a flash of light. Blaire Reed was standing ten feet away, pointing a camera at me. I’d forgotten all about her.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said. “I can’t wait to tell all the other kids about it.”

  CHAPTER 18

  There was a red moon rising over Boone Lake as I pulled into the driveway just after ten o’clock. I stopped and got out of my truck and walked to the edge of the driveway about fifty feet from the garage, looking out over the bluff at the light reflecting off the water. I was reluctant to go inside because I knew Caroline would be disappointed in me. I wasn’t injured other than a couple of bruises and a small cut beneath my eye from a piece of shattered glass. My shirt was torn, though, and three buttons were missing. I felt like a kid coming home from school after getting into a fight on the playground and having to face his mother.

  I heard the garage door opener buzz and the door began to lift. Rio, our German shepherd, came streaking under it like a rocket with the yappy little poodle at his heels. Rio was five years old, a sleek, muscular, hundred-pound mass of frenetic energy. He buzzed my legs, swatting me with his tail as he passed, yelping his welcome. He stopped ten feet away, turned, and buzzed me again. The teacup poodle, Chico, started jumping up and down like he was on a pogo stick. So much for a quiet entrance.

  “What are you doing out there?” Caroline called from inside the garage.

  “I’m coming.” I got back into the truck and pulled it in while the dogs circled at a dead run. Caroline was standing in the doorway that led from the garage into the kitchen. I knew she was waiting to kiss me and say hello.

  “I ran into Phil Landers,” I said as I stepped inside. “And before you start on me, it wasn’t my fault.”

  Her hands were already on her hips. “You got into a fight with him?”

  “Sort of. It was more of a brief wrestling match. Only lasted a few seconds.”

  “Where?”

  “A bar in Johnson City. Pappy’s.”

  “And what were you doing at Pappy’s?”

  “It gets worse. I was meeting a woman.”

  I walked past her, around the kitchen counter, down a short hallway into the bedroom. I could hear her footsteps right behind me.

  “What woman?”

  “A reporter from The World. You know The World? One of those supermarket tabloids? I had this half-baked notion that I could make a deal with her to try to keep the coverage about Mary Monroe balanced. Turned out to be a bad idea.”

  “And where does Phil Landers fit into this?”

  “He was playing pool at the bar and he saw me.” I started unbuttoning my shirt and turned to face her. I shrugged my shoulders. “I didn’t know he hangs out there.”

  “And you started a fight with him?”

  “No. He started a fight with me.”

  “How? What did he do?”

  “Do you really want to hear all the gory details?”

  “Did he insult the woman? Did you feel compelled to defend her honor?”

  “Look, the guy tried to hit me in the head with a beer mug, okay?”

  “Why didn’t you just walk away as soon as you found out he was there?”

  “I had as much right to be there as he did.”

  Her hands were no longer on her hips. Instead, her arms were folded across her chest and her face had taken on the demeanor of a block of ice.

  “I know you’re dying to lecture me,” I said, “but there’s something else we need to discuss. Something much more important.”

  “What could possibly be more important than you regaling me with tales of your manhood? I can’t believe this, Joe. Out fighting in a bar like a common redneck.”

  “I like being common, and we’ve all got a little redneck in us. Let’s go sit on the deck.”

  I finished changing into my grunge clothes, walked past her again, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, went into the den, took the old photo of my father off the shelf, and went out on the deck. Caroline came out a few minutes later carrying a bottle of water.

  “You’re too old to fight,” she said.

  There wasn’t any point in replying. She was going have her say. She rattled on for a few minutes about the possibilities of injury, arrest and embarrassment, about how such things would impact her and the kids, about how my temper had always been a burden to me and that at some point I was going to have to learn to control myself. I sipped the beer and looked out over the water while she talked, sort of half-listening. When she finally took a breath, I said, “Guess what? I met my father today.”r />
  “Don’t change the subject. What?”

  “I met my father today. Remember the guy at lunch yesterday? He came back this morning. He wanted to talk to Sarah and me. Turns out he’s my father.”

  She stared at me for a bit, wide-eyed. “How is that possible?”

  I told her about the ambush, the dog-tag switch, the desertion, the family in Malaysia, the identification and the photographs. I told her about the body lying in his grave.

  “He says he was too ashamed to face up to it,” I said.

  “Too ashamed? But… but… why now?”

  “I think he’s dying. He said he wants to be buried next to Ma.”

  By this time, her demeanor had changed completely. She’d moved around the table and taken my hand.

  “How do you feel about that?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think Ma would want him there. She wasn’t exactly the forgiving type.”

  “She loved him.”

  “She thought he was dead. She loved a ghost. If she’d known he abandoned us she would have hated him.”

  “How did Sarah take it?”

  “Better than I thought she would, but I’m worried about her. I tried to call her on my way home and she didn’t answer. I’d hate to see this push her off the wagon. She’s been doing so well.”

  “How did you leave it with him?”

  “Not great. I told him to get out. He gave me a phone number and a room number at the hotel where he’s staying.”

  “Are you planning to contact him?”

  “I was hoping you’d help me decide what to do.”

  “You’re positive it’s him?”

  “As sure as I can be without a DNA test. When you think about it, it has to be him. I mean, besides all the identification and the fact that I’m a younger clone of him, why would he claim to be our father if he isn’t? What would be in it for him? It just wouldn’t make any sense for someone to run that kind of con on us.”