by Scott Pratt
Each time we do this I ask her whether she’s okay, and each time her answer is running down her cheeks. I reach over and pull a tissue out of a box on the mini- trauma center I’ve set up next to the bed and wipe the tears away.
“Just a few more minutes, baby.”
I irrigate the wound with sterile sodium chloride and then unwrap a long, cotton-tipped applicator and dip it into a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water. I insert the applicator into the wound and begin to swab. The applicator reaches a full four inches beneath the skin.
“It’s getting smaller, Caroline. It really is.”
At its worst, the hole beneath the skin was as large as my fist. It’s healing now, but the progress is painfully slow. I finish swabbing, pack it with fresh gauze tape, and fashion a new bandage out of gauze pads. I tape the bandage in place and rub Caroline’s forehead.
“Are you ready?”
She nods, and I begin the difficult task of massaging the reconstructed breast, or at least what’s left of it, with my fingertips. The tissue around the scars left by the incisions is as hard as packed clay. The massage is necessary, the doctor says, to try to soften the tissue and improve the range of motion of Caroline’s left arm, which she can no longer lift above her head. She winces several times but doesn’t complain. This is the worst part of it for me, knowing that I’m inflicting pain on her, but the doctor says it has to be done and she refuses to do it herself.
After several minutes of massage, I stop and put away the supplies.
“All done. Can I get you anything?”
Caroline gets up and heads toward the bathroom. I remove my clothes, hang them in the closet, put on a pair of pajama bottoms, and crawl into bed. Caroline comes in a few minutes later and turns out the light. I retreat into the comfort of my wife’s arms and stay there deep into the night.
12
I’m out of bed early the next morning. It’s Monday, and I want to get to the gym by six and get in a decent workout before I go back to the grind. It always makes me feel sharper and fresher, helps me to better cope with the insanity I deal with on a daily basis.
As I back out of the garage, I see an unfamiliar car parked in the yard off the driveway. It’s a white Honda Civic, an old one that’s beginning to be consumed by rust. I get out of my pickup and look inside the car, but there’s nothing that tells me who the owner might be.
I walk around the house and see nothing out of place. I walk back into the house and go upstairs. Lilly’s sound asleep, and I don’t see any of her friends crashed on the floor or anywhere else. I head downstairs to Jack’s room and as soon as I get to the bottom step, I know who owns the car. Tommy Miller is on the couch, fast asleep. The car outside is symbolic of the family’s financial collapse. The last time I saw Tommy, he was driving a new Jeep. I creep back up the stairs and head off to the gym.
A couple of hours later, I’m standing in the doorway of my boss’s office. Lee Mooney has just returned from yet another of his frequent weeklong vacations, one he decided to take immediately after the conference he attended in Charleston. Between the vacations and the time he spends at conferences and seminars, he’s out of the office at least two and a half months a year.
I find it difficult to look Mooney in the eye these days because I’ve come to know he isn’t what he seems to be. Not long ago, I sent his nephew-a fellow prosecutor named Alexander Dunn-to prison for extorting money from gamblers. Alexander said Mooney was involved. I believed him, but I couldn’t prove it.
Then there’s the progressive alcoholism. I’ve seen Mooney drink himself into stupors at two office functions in the past six months, and I smell the lingering odor of vodka on him often. There are persistent rumors that his marriage is failing. I’m certain he stands to lose a great deal if his wealthy wife divorces him, but his lechery has become legendary. He believes himself to be a gift that must be generously bestowed upon women of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. He pursues women at office parties and bar association meetings with both a dogged determination and a complete lack of discretion. His behavior has become increasingly erratic, and his life seems to be spinning out of control; yet he seems totally oblivious.
Mooney is sitting behind his desk, bracketed by the American and Tennessee flags. There’s a large, framed photograph of former president George W. Bush behind him. He has handsome features, with a strong jaw that outlines a lean face, but large, dark bags have formed beneath his eyes, and there’s a hint of purple in his cheeks. He has salt-and-pepper hair and a handlebar mustache that he fiddles with constantly. He’s wearing a brown tweed jacket over a white shirt and beige tie. His gray eyes are angry.
“What the hell’s going on with you?” he barks disdainfully. “I go away for a little while, and you dismiss a case outright after you’ve gotten your ass kicked in a hearing. Have you no sense of the public’s perception of this office?”
He’s talking about my case against Buddy Carver, the pedophile Judge Green allowed to walk away. He’s Monday-morning quarterbacking, and I don’t appreciate it.
“I’m taking Carver to the feds,” I say. “The federal laws are tougher, the jail terms are longer, and they don’t have a judge down there who sympathizes with pedophiles.”
“We need to make sure the public knows it when the federal grand jury issues an indictment,” Mooney says. “I’ll put out a press release.”
“Do you remember Brian Gant?” I say, changing the subject. “He was convicted of killing his mother-in-law and his niece a long time ago. I guess it was before you moved here.”
“What about him?”
“He’s about to be executed, and I think he’s innocent. I was wondering whether you might be interested in taking a look at the case. Maybe we should get involved.”
Mooney starts to answer, but is interrupted by the buzz of his intercom. He speaks in muffled tones, then looks back up at me.
“Let’s go,” Mooney says.
“Where?”
“I said let’s go!”
I shrug my shoulders and walk out the door behind him. When we get to the parking lot, he tells me to follow him in my truck. He’s tense and upset, more so than usual. He leads me to a wooded lot in an exclusive subdivision called Lake Harbor near Boones Creek. The driveway is asphalt and winds nearly a quarter of a mile through a stand of sugar maple trees toward a massive colonial-style brick house. We round a curve and top a small hill, and as we descend into a shallow valley about halfway to the house, I see it-the unmistakable activity of a crime scene. Vehicles, flashing lights, yellow tape, uniformed men moving slowly about. Mooney pulls over into the grass about a hundred yards short of the tape, and I do the same. As soon as I get out of the truck the smell hits me-the unique, acrid smell of burned flesh, and I jog to catch up to Mooney as he hurries toward the group of officers and paramedics.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Mooney mutters, and I follow his gaze toward one of the trees.
A blackened body is hanging by its neck from a rope, which has been wrapped around a branch about eight feet from the ground and tied off around the maple’s trunk. The body appears to be a male, but beyond that, it’s virtually unrecognizable. Chunks of charred flesh cling to the limbs and torso. The lips and most of the face have been burned away, leaving only a garish snarl.
Ten feet to my right, a smaller tree-a Bradford pear-is lying across the driveway. A black Mercedes is parked perhaps five feet from the tree. A TBI agent is photographing the car. I recognize him and walk over.
“Agent Norcross,” I say. “Long time, no see.” I’d gotten to know Norcross when he worked a murder case with me a little more than a year ago-the Natasha Davis case.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Norcross says. He straightens to his full height, around six feet seven, and reaches out to shake my hand. “Joe Dillard.”
“Good to see you again. What can you tell me?”
There’s a large lump in Norcross’s left cheek-chewing tobacco-and he steps off to th
e side and spits a stream of brown juice onto the ground.
“This your case?” Norcross asks.
“Will be as soon as you catch the killer.”
“Looks like somebody hid out in the tree line over there for a while.” Norcross motions to a spot where two other agents are walking a grid. “Not really sure how long he was here, but from the look of it, he moved around quite a bit before he decided where he was going to set his little trap.”
“Trap?”
“The tree. The perp cut it down-looks like he used a saw of some kind-and it falls across the driveway. He waits back in the trees. When the victim leaves, he has to stop right here. He lives alone, and he’s far enough away from everyone else that nobody sees or hears a thing-at least we haven’t found anybody yet. The victim walks around to the trunk of the tree, starts tugging on it, and he gets whacked. There’s some blood on the tree trunk and scuff marks where the body was dragged across the lawn to the other tree over there. Then the perp douses him with kerosene or gasoline, strings him up, and sets him on fire.”
“Who’s the victim?” I ask.
Norcross grins. “You don’t know?”
“No. Why should I?”
“You’re serious? Nobody’s told you yet? He’s almost as famous as you.”
I shrug my shoulders.
“His name’s Green,” Norcross says, and a chill immediately goes down my spine. “As in Leonard Green. Judge Leonard Green.”
PART 2
13
I hate to admit it even to myself, but as I stand watching the paramedics untie the rope and slowly lower what’s left of Judge Leonard Green to the ground, I feel no sympathy for him. I’ve practiced law as both a defense lawyer and a prosecutor in front of Green for fifteen years. I’ve seen him at the gym almost every weekday morning-where he has invariably ignored me-for at least eight years. I should feel something, especially considering the horrible death he’s experienced, but I don’t. His destruction of Ray Miller’s life and career was simply the latest in a long line of cruel acts I’ve seen him commit from his perch of power, and I’m almost relieved to know he won’t be doing it again.
Lee Mooney has been scurrying around the crime scene like an ant. I can sense that he’s angry as he approaches me. His cheeks are flushed with pink, and there are small beads of sweat on his forehead. He stands next to me as the coroner begins to look at the body.
“I’ve been screwed,” Mooney says.
“How so?”
“They assigned it to her. ” Mooney jerks his head to his right and shoots a glance toward a black woman wearing a black baseball cap and a navy blue jacket, both with “TBI” emblazoned across the front. Her name is Anita White.
“So? She’s smart. She’s tough. She’s experienced. Seems like a pretty good choice to me.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Why?”
“Look around, Dillard. What do you see? Swinging dicks, that’s what. White swinging dicks. I’ve got a dead judge in my district, and the TBI assigns a black woman to lead the investigation.”
“It’s a new age, boss.”
“New age, my ass. I don’t give a damn if a black man got himself elected president, a murder investigation requires cooperation between agencies, especially when the TBI is involved. How many cops around here do you think are going to cooperate with a black woman?”
“I think you’d be surprised.”
Mooney looks at me in disgust and stomps away. I’ve seen glimpses of racism in his behavior before, but this is the first time he’s been blatant about it. As I watch him walk away, I wonder whether the reason he’s been able to hide it so well is because he rarely, if ever, interacts with people of different races. The county where I live has a very small number of African Americans, less than 3 percent of the population. There are no black lawyers, no black office holders, only a couple of black police officers in Johnson City, and no black person works for the sheriff’s department. The world in which we both work is staffed by whites.
Anita White is in her late thirties. She was transferred to the Johnson City field office about a year ago. She’s medium height and slim, her smooth skin is the color of cocoa powder, her ebony hair is touched with red highlights, and her eyes are a clear green. She has an easy, dimpled smile with a barely noticeable gap between her front teeth and a small mole on her left cheek. She’s truly stunning, almost to the point of being intimidating.
I’ve worked only one case with her so far, a prison murder in Mountain City shortly after she arrived. It was a particularly gory stabbing and all of the witnesses were cons, but working with Anita was a pleasure. I found her to be extremely intelligent. I learned that she loves to read and once dreamed of being a concert pianist. She has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a law degree from what used to be Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis.
As the coroner continues to gingerly look over Judge Green’s body, Anita walks up. I, too, step toward the gurney.
“Morning, Counselor,” Anita says.
“Agent White.”
“Unpleasant way to go out, huh?”
“I can give you a time of death.”
“Really?”
“He got to the gym every morning at five. He worked out until six, took a shower, and was out the door by six fifteen. I saw him in the locker room almost every day.”
“Were you there this morning?” Anita says.
“Sure was.”
“I take it you didn’t see him.”
“Nope.”
“Which gym?”
“The one on State of Franklin Road.”
“Which is about ten minutes from here, give or take a few?”
I nod.
“So he leaves here around ten minutes to five, and that should be pretty close to the time of death?”
“Should be.”
“I’d like to hear your thoughts on who might have done this,” Anita says. “You’ve known the judge a lot longer than I have.”
Something pops to the front of my mind, but I push it back quickly. Could it be possible? No. No way.
“Who found him?” I ask.
“A man he hired to trim some shrubbery. He showed up about eight this morning.”
I take a moment and think back on the judge’s career on the bench. When it came to making enemies, he was truly an artist.
“Your list of suspects is probably pretty long,” I say.
“Green sent thousands of people to prison over the past thirty years. His decisions were emotional more often than they were rational, and he couldn’t restrain himself from sticking a knife into anyone who gave him an opening. Add the fact that I think he was a sexual deviant, and the list gets even longer.”
“What makes you think he was a sexual deviant?”
“Things he’s said over the years, things he’s done, the way he acted. He was always talking about staying up until three or four in the morning reading legal opinions on the Internet. Used it as an excuse for being grouchy. But since he didn’t know very much about the law, he was either lying or just plain stupid. Plus, he’s always been soft on sentencing sexual offenders. He let a pedophile walk last week on a legal technicality.”
“I heard about that,” Anita says. “Didn’t some witness come all the way from Canada?”
“Yeah, Vancouver, and Green made him look like a fool. I guess he just couldn’t help it. But as far as suspects go, maybe Green molested someone and the victim decided to get even. Maybe someone was trying to blackmail him and he resisted. This is personal. Beaten, hanged, burned. Whoever did this was extremely pissed off.”
“Anyone in particular come to mind?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Like I said, long list. I guess you could start by finding out if anyone he sent to the penitentiary has been paroled lately.”
“We’re already working on that. What about this Ray Miller? How well did you know him?”
“He’s dead. I don’t
think he killed the judge from beyond the grave.”
“Quite a coincidence, though, don’t you think? Green suspends Miller. Then Miller commits suicide in his courtroom after taking a couple of shots at Green. Miller is buried yesterday, and the judge is found this morning.”
“Ray Miller’s gone, Anita. That story is over.”
“So how well did you say you knew him?”
I look directly at her and her eyes narrow slightly. She’s testing me.
“Forgive me, but I’m really not in the mood to be jerked around right now.”
“Really? It was an innocuous question. I just thought you might be able to help.”
I smile inwardly for a brief second. She may be the first cop I’ve ever heard use the word innocuous.
“Sorry,” I say. “Mooney’s had his foot up my butt for the past hour and a half. I guess I’m a little touchy. I knew Ray well. His son and mine played baseball together for years. We were friends.”
Anita looks toward the sky. “Storm’s coming,” she says. “We’d better button this up.”
I follow her gaze toward a thunderhead over Buffalo Mountain. It’s moving steadily toward us. The newly sprouting leaves on the trees that cover the mountain are a dull gold against the blackening sky. The breeze stiffens, and I shove my hands into my pockets.
“How old is Miller’s son?” Anita asks.
“Another innocuous question?”
“Feel free to regard it any way you’d like.”
I look down and start digging at the grass with my shoe. I realize Tommy has to be a suspect, but I just can’t wrap my mind around the idea that he’d be capable of killing anyone, even the judge. I could tell Anita about finding him sound asleep on the couch earlier, but I know the drill. If I tell her, I drag myself and my son smack into the middle of a murder investigation. They’ll probably even want to talk to Caroline and Lilly. The TBI agents will separate us and interrogate us. Anyone who refuses to talk to them will be deemed to be hiding something. If there’s any small discrepancy in any of our stories, they’ll all think we’re lying.