"Hello, honey. I'm William Tucker."
She gave him her sexiest look and said, "I'm Dee Dee."
But he turned to the bartender to order a drink. The tramp behind the bar was wearing a red silky corset and garter belt and black stockings; she gave him a come-hither look and cooed, "Hi, William." Dee Dee now felt the heat of jealously wash over her lithe body. She fought the urge to strangle the bitch. No one was taking William Tucker from her. She saw his cell phone in his shirt pocket; she took the phone and input her phone number. Then she went to camera mode and held the phone out and snapped a sexy selfie. He turned back to her. She slid his phone back into his pocket.
"I put my number and photo on your phone. So you don't forget me."
He had a blank look on his face.
"What's your name again?"
The bartender bitch heard and giggled. Dee Dee gave her a look like she wanted to kill her. In fact, she did. But she smiled at William Tucker.
"Dee Dee."
"Oh, yeah."
"Here's your beer, William," the bartender-bitch-whore said.
When William turned her way for the beer, she gave Dee Dee a snotty little look. Dee Dee's fists clenched; the bartender-bitch-whore didn't know that Dee Dee Dunston had castrated calves. She wasn't going to let some city slut steal her bull. So she grabbed William Tucker's shirt and yanked him back to her. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and gave him a long, wet kiss. He needed no further invitation. His hands cupped her firm butt, and she sat suspended in air. He smelled fresh and manly, and she wanted him desperately. Dee Dee opened one eye to check on the bitch behind the bar; she just smiled and shook her head and walked off.
"Jesus, get a room," Cissy said from behind them.
Without unlocking his lips from hers, William carried her down a short hall past the restrooms and to a dark recess by the back door of the bar. He wedged her against the wall then slid his hand up under her Spandex shorts and around her bottom and between her legs. His fingers found her vagina; he slid one finger up inside her and she gasped and the heat now consumed her. She needed him inside her. She reached down to his waist and pushed her hand down inside his jeans until she found him. Oh, God, he was ready. He wanted her as much as she wanted him.
"Fuck me, William," she whispered.
She heard drunken male voices and laughter behind them.
"Coeds in heat."
"Man, get a video of this. That's William Tucker. We'll put this on YouTube, get a million hits."
William obviously heard them too because he reached over and opened the back door, and she was suddenly hit by the cool night air. He lifted her with his other hand, but she still had one hand inside his jeans; she started to fall backwards so she grabbed his arm with her free hand. He jerked.
"Shit, my stitches."
His left arm was bandaged. She hung on to his shirt as he stepped them outside. But either her grabbing his injured arm or the sudden change of temperature cooled his desire—and his erection. Must work like cold water. He lowered her to the ground. But she knew how to ramp up his desire again. She unzipped his jeans and released him and then squatted down and put him in her mouth. Guys went crazy when she did that.
"Hold on, honey," William said. "I left my beer inside. I'll be right back."
He turned and zipped up and walked back inside the bar without so much as a "Thank you, ma'am." She started to get mad, but the heat was all over her.
"Hurry back," she said.
She pushed her tight shorts down and stepped out of them. No sense making him fight his way through Spandex. Damn, where is he? She decided she'd better keep her body revving, so she leaned back against the brick wall of the building and slid her hand down between her legs. She knew how to please herself, something she often had to do with cowboys in Lubbock. She felt herself building to an orgasm when she heard footsteps coming close and saw his massive body in the shadows.
"You're just in time."
Her words came out breathless, but who could talk at a time like this? She wanted to scream.
"Come on, William, fuck me."
The next thing she knew, her face burned like fire from a big hand slapping her. She stumbled back and tasted her own blood, but she managed to stay on her feet.
"You fuckin' bitch! You want to get fucked, I'll fuck you."
She knew that voice and that stink.
"Bo Cantrell!"
He stepped into the vague light, and she saw his angry, ugly face. He unzipped his pants and pulled himself out.
"Shit, I better use a rubber, way you're fuckin' every swinging dick in Texas. You might give me a disease."
He tore open a condom packet and rolled the condom onto his erect penis. He had her boxed into a corner in the back alley. She couldn't run. But she could fight. Dee Dee Dunston had fought bulls and broncos and cowboys. She could sure as hell fight a coon-ass from the swamps. She spit blood and grabbed the nearest hard object—a small brick—and stepped toward Bo and swung the brick up and against his head as hard as she could. He groaned and stumbled back, and she bolted past him, but he grabbed her hair and yanked her back and flung her against the wall. He hit her again, this time a punch to her face, and her head slammed hard against the brick wall, and she felt her legs buckle. She fought to stay on her feet, and to think clearly, but her mind seemed hazy and his voice distant, and she felt his hand grasp her neck and his knee push her legs apart and then his stink suffocated her and pain enveloped her body as he rammed himself up inside her. He pushed his big body hard against her and her head pounded against the brick wall and she felt the air come out of her and now she gasped for air but his hand around her neck tightened with each thrust and she wanted to fight and she flung her arms at him but they seemed limp and had no effect and he thrust into her harder and harder and each time he drove her into the wall and he grunted like a feral hog rutting and Dee Dee Dunston closed her eyes to the pain and felt herself drifting off somewhere else and then she thought of her mom and dad and sister and she …
Chapter 50
"I didn't mean to kill her! She just fell to the ground. She was fuckin' dead!"
Bo Cantrell seemed utterly distraught. But he was also utterly drunk and heavily armed.
"Did you see William?" Frank asked.
"I saw them go outside, then he came back in for a beer but he puked, so some of his boys said they'd take him home. So I went out back."
"You killed her, Bo. You've got to answer for that."
"The hell I do! It was a fuckin' accident."
"It was rape. And murder. You're going to prison, Bo."
"Fuck you."
He aimed his dark eyes and the big gun at Frank.
"I didn't mean to kill her!"
He really didn't. Things got out of hand, is all. He was still raging on the 'roids from the game. He always injected a big dose a few hours before a game, still did, so he'd be mean, real mean. He knew mean. He lived mean from birth. He sucked the teat of mean. Life in the backwoods of Louisiana is mean. It's a mean place inhabited by mean men. His daddy prided himself on being the meanest son of a bitch in Beauregard Parish and he sure as hell was, at least to his boys, drinking home brew and beating the hell out of Bo and his younger brothers damn near every day, to make them tougher, he said, otherwise they wouldn't amount to a hill of fucking beans and would end up in the state penitentiary just as he had on several occasions. So by the time Bo Cantrell left the swamps, he was damn mean.
But the 'roids took him to a new and exciting level of mean. Out of fucking body mean. Mean that took full control of his body. Mean that made him one of the best linebackers in the country. He played with a mean rage. On a football field, that was a real good thing; off the field, it often resulted in run-ins with the law. People think you can just flip a switch—"mean" to "not mean"—but it doesn't work that way. It's not on/off. It's more like one of those dimmer switches. It takes time for the mean to retreat. And
the mean had made no retreat that night when he saw Dee Dee the stuck-up whore coming on to the UT players like a bitch in heat. The mean took control of his mind and body in that bar.
It was the mean that punched Dee Dee in the face. It was the mean that forced itself on her. It was the mean that choked her. When Bo had seen what the mean had done to her, he ran two blocks away and threw up. He went back to his hotel and cleaned up, sure the cops would bang on his door any moment. But they didn't. They never came. A week passed, then a month, then a year. No cops. No arrest. No prison. They said her murder was a cold case.
Bo was home free. And he meant to stay free. He couldn't give it all up now. He wouldn't give it up. The house, the vehicles, the stuff—he had amounted to something, sure as hell. He was a hero back in Beauregard Parish. How could he go home a murderer? How could he face the hometown folks and his drunk father? Course, he wouldn't go home. He would go to prison. How could he do that? How could he prove his daddy right after all these years? What if they gave him the death penalty? How could he let his drunk son of a bitch daddy sit on the other side of the glass when they stuck that needle in Bo and see him laugh and say, "I told you, boy, ain't never gonna amount to a hill of fuckin' beans."
He could not.
There was only one thing to do.
"Do it!" Frank said. "Go ahead, Bo, kill us. But it won't be an accident like Dee Dee. Now you'll just be a killer. A mean son of a bitch. Like your daddy."
Bo's face was clenched and red, his finger tight on the trigger … Frank waited for the gun to discharge and a bullet to slam into his chest … Bo's hand trembled, then shook as if the gun were too heavy to hold … and he took a step toward Frank.
"I'm not mean! I'm not like my daddy!"
Bo Cantrell swung the gun up, put the barrel to his own head, and pulled the trigger. He collapsed to the floor. They jumped up from the couch.
"Shit!" Chuck screamed. Then he smiled. "Hey, we didn't die."
He turned to Dwayne.
"Chest bump."
"I don't think so."
Dwayne stepped to Bo's body on the floor. One side of his head was gone, and blood oozed onto the carpet. Dwayne kicked the gun away just in case dead men could shoot.
"Three-fifty-seven Magnum," he said. "Makes a mess."
Chico stood over the body and made the sign of the cross.
"For him?" Chuck said.
"He was still a child of God."
"A mean, crazy, raping and killing child of God."
"True. And his soul will burn for eternity in hell for his sins."
"That sucks. Least we're still alive."
The four men stood over the body of Bo Cantrell, another victim in this tragedy called life.
"He confessed," Dwayne said.
"But he can't testify," Frank said.
"We can."
"Our testimony won't save William," Frank said. "I'm his father and you're my friends."
Chico held up William's cell phone. "This'll save him."
"His phone?" Frank said.
"I videotaped his confession."
"You can videotape on a cell phone?" Frank said.
"Man, you've got to get off that beach more."
Chico played the video. He had caught it all. Frank checked his watch.
"It's seven. He pleads at nine. How can we get that confession to the court?"
"Starbucks," Chico said.
"We got no time for frappuccinos."
"They got wireless. I can email this video to Billie Jean. She can take it to court, show the judge. Case closed."
Chuck grunted. "Not bad for four drunks."
Chapter 51
They called 911. Dwayne waited for the cops at Bo's house. Chico found the nearest Starbucks on the phone, and at seven-thirty Frank pulled the rental car into the parking lot of the coffee shop. They got out and ran inside. Chico fiddled with the phone.
"I'm in. I'm connected to the Net. What's her email address?"
"How should I know?" Frank said.
"You're sleeping with her."
"You know about that?"
"We're drunks, not blind. We need her email address."
"Hand me the phone."
He called Billie Jean's number.
Billie Jean Crawford sat in her candy apple red convertible Mustang on Interstate 35, the north-south thoroughfare that bisected Austin. She had been sitting right there for the last thirty minutes. Rush-hour traffic was always bumper-to-bumper, but seldom at a standstill. The radio said there was a multicar accident at Fifteenth Street. She was at Forty-sixth. She was driving to the courthouse to witness an American tragedy: an innocent man pleading guilty. Unless his father saved him. Her phone rang. She checked the caller ID: Frank. Last time he had called, he was flying to Omaha to find Bo Cantrell. She answered.
"Did you find Bo?"
"We did."
"Did he confess?"
"He did. Then he killed himself."
Frank filled her in on that morning's events.
"And Chico got it all on tape?"
"He did."
"We've got to get that tape to the court."
"We're in Omaha. You've got to get it to the court."
"Email the video to me, I'll watch it on my iPad."
"You can do that from your car?"
"Frank, you've got to get off that … yes, you can."
She gave Frank her email address.
"Have Chico email it. I'll call you back after I watch it."
Frank disconnected. She flipped the cover on the iPad and waited. Her heart pounded as if she had just run her five-mile loop around the lake.
William Tucker is innocent. And his father could prove it.
She was happy for William, perhaps happier for Frank. Now he could move forward with his life. Maybe with her.
The iPad pinged. An email had arrived. She opened the email and then the video file. She called Frank back.
Frank answered. "Did you get it?"
"Got it. Watching it now."
"Watch the traffic."
"We're at a dead stop. Accident up ahead."
She didn't speak for a few minutes, but Frank could hear Bo's voice and then a gunshot. Then he heard Billie Jean's voice.
"Ouch. That'll leave a mark."
"Billie Jean, get that video to the court."
Billie Jean disconnected and checked the clock on the dash. 8:07. She was sitting on I-35 at Forty-sixth Street. The court convened at nine on Eleventh Street. Not good. She pulled out her cell phone and called the jail. When the desk clerk answered, she identified herself and asked to speak to William.
"It's an emergency. I'm his lawyer."
"No can do," the clerk said.
"Why not?"
"A, according to our records, you're not his lawyer. Scotty Raines is. And B, they're transporting William Tucker to the Justice Center right now."
The desk clerk hung up without saying goodbye.
"And C, you're an asshole!" Billie Jean screamed at the phone.
William Tucker waddled down the long underground corridor leading from the jail to the Justice Center. His hands and feet were shackled in chains. Two deputies escorted him, one on either side grasping his arms. He could not stop the tears rolling down his face.
"Dead man walking," one deputy said.
They shared a laugh.
Travis County District Attorney Dick Dorkin gazed out the window of his first-floor office in the Justice Center. The media circus was setting up on the plaza outside. Soon all those cameras would be focused on him. Every cable sports channel in America, where the voters lived. He would take a big step that day to living in the Governor's Mansion.
He exited his office and walked to the elevator bank. He took an elevator to the third floor and walked down the corridor to Judge Rooney's courtroom. He entered as if he owned the place. He walked through the bar and shook hands with Scotty Raines standing there. The bailiff led them into the judge's chambers.
"This is Billie Jean Crawford. I need to talk to the judge."
"He's with the district attorney and Mr. Raines."
"Put me through."
The coordinator laughed. "You're a PD, and you want me to interrupt the judge? I don't think so."
"I'm instructing you to tell the judge not to let William Tucker plead."
"A, I don't work for you. B, you're not his lawyer. And C—"
"You're an idiot! William Tucker is innocent!"
"I thought he was pleading guilty today?"
"His father found the killer!"
"Where?"
"In Omaha."
"Omaha? What's he doing in Omaha?"
"What? How the hell do I know?"
"Did the police arrest him?"
"He's dead."
"Dead men can't testify."
"We have it on tape."
"Then his lawyer needs to bring that tape to the judge."
"That's what I'm trying to do!"
"You're not his lawyer."
She hung up on Billie Jean, and Billie Jean screamed.
"Everyone's an asshole!"
One deputy locked William's leg shackles to a floor ring in a holding cell outside the courtroom.
"Don't run off," he said.
The two deputies stepped to the door.
"It's only eight-twenty. Let's get a coffee."
Chapter 52
The cops had arrived at Bo's house by the time Frank, Chico, and Chuck returned from the Starbucks. Frank dialed Billie Jean's number. She answered. It was 8:24.
"Are you at the court?"
"No. I'm still stuck in traffic."
"Where?"
"Forty-sixth Street. Airport Boulevard is the next exit."
"Exit."
"The feeder road's backed up with traffic, too, everyone trying to get around the accident. Ten-car pileup."
"Billie Jean, get off the highway."
Billie Jean put her blinker on and motioned to the Mercedes Benz on her right that she needed to get over. The driver looked up from his texting and gave her the finger.
The Case Against William Page 28