Scott Pratt - [Joe Dillard 02]

by In Good Faith (mobi)

  “If we don’t come through for him, it sounded to me like the ax is going to fall on somebody’s neck, and I’ll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that somebody will be me.”

  Fraley reached out and patted me on the shoulder and I saw the glint in his eye.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Ol’ Fraley’s got you covered.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Back when I first got out of the academy, an old buddy of mine told me that if I was going to last in this business, I’d need to learn to deal with bosses and politicians who were looking for fall guys. He taught me to cover my ass. So when we were walking back towards Mooney’s office, I turned on my cover-your-ass gadget.”

  Fraley reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a device that was thin and shiny.

  “What is that? An iPod?” I said.

  “No, no, no. This, my friend, is a digital voice-activated recording device. Top of the line. I never leave home without it.”

  “And it was on while Mooney was ranting?”

  Fraley pushed a button, and I could hear Mooney’s voice.

  “Wait, let me find my favorite part.” He searched through the diatribe for a few minutes.

  “Here it is,” he said, and Mooney’s voice came through loud and clear: “Then find some! Plant some! Manufacture some! Do whatever the hell you have to! I want her locked up by the end of the week.” Fraley looked at me and grinned.

  “I love you, man,” I said, and I grabbed his neck and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  Monday, November 10

  “Y’all better be careful,” a deep voice said from behind me. “People will say you’re in love.”

  I turned around to see the face of Wild Bill Hickok, back from the dead in the form of Jim Beaumont. Beaumont bowed stiffly and tipped his hat. Today’s string tie was made of rawhide with a round piece of polished turquoise mounted on the platinum clasp at his neck.

  “I hate to interrupt your affair, Mr. Dillard, but I have a very important matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

  I told Fraley I’d catch up with him later to form a strategy for dealing with Natasha, and turned back to Beaumont.

  “Let’s walk,” he said.

  We started walking leisurely up the brick sidewalk, past the International Storytelling Center and the Eureka Hotel towards the west end of Main Street. The unpredictable November weather had changed yet again, and the past few days had been warm and pleasant.

  “News from the investigators already?” I said.

  “No, not yet. There are some things I need to tell you. I wish I could have done it sooner, but I was bound by the rules of ethical conduct and client privilege. I hope you’ll understand.”

  “Of course.”

  “Now that Mr. Boyer has expired, I believe I’m no longer bound by privilege,” Beaumont said. “I’ll start by telling you that you were right about Miss Natasha Davis. She was deeply involved in all six murders.”

  “Then why can’t we find any evidence?” I said.

  “Being mad doesn’t make her stupid. She wasn’t at the first crime scene, but she ordered Boyer and Barnett to commit the murders because Mr. Beck attempted to share his faith in God with her.”

  “What were they doing down on Marbleton Road?”

  “It started at a rest stop on the interstate. They’d been to Knoxville for some kind of Goth festival. On the way back, their car started overheating, so they pulled into the rest stop to let it cool down. Mr. Beck approached Natasha; she became angry and gave the other two the order to kill the family. She drove the car back to town and the boys took the Becks down to Marbleton, shot them, and drove their van back to Johnson City.”

  “You said she ordered them. Why did she have so much control?”

  “Boyer said she controlled them in a variety of ways, but I think it was primarily with two things: she was generous with sex, and she was generous with drugs. She’s also an attractive young lady, or at least Boyer believed she was. Beyond that, she put the two of them in a position where they were competing for her attention and affection. She played them against each other. She introduced them to Satanic rituals and philosophy and used that as a means to gain further control. Boyer believed the first murders, the Becks, were a test. She was testing their loyalty. He said shooting everyone in the right eye was Barnett’s idea. Apparently there’s some kind of painting or print of the eye of providence in Natasha’s home. She hated it, so Barnett shot everyone in the right eye as a symbolic gesture to Natasha.”

  “And the inverted crosses and running over their legs?”

  “Boyer’s way of keeping up in the competition.”

  “What about the Brockwells?” I said. “Why did they kill them?”

  “Natasha allowed Boyer to pick their next victim. Boyer said he hated Mr. Brockwell because Brockwell humiliated him when he expelled him from school. They did surveillance on the house for a couple of days and then went in and did the deed.”

  “Was Natasha there?”

  “She killed Mrs. Brockwell with an ice pick.”

  “Boyer saw her do it?”

  “Yes. She also accompanied them to the woods where Mr. Brockwell was shot. She gave the order.”

  “Any chance Boyer told you where Natasha hid the ice pick?”

  “I asked him. He said he didn’t know. Don’t you have any other physical evidence?”

  “Nothing solid,” I said, “but with what you’ve told me, if you’ll sign a sworn affidavit, I might be able to get a warrant to get a DNA sample from her. We’ve got some hairs from the Brockwells’ place that we haven’t been able to match up with anyone.”

  “I’ll have to make an inquiry with the Board of Professional Responsibility first, but I’ll do it no matter what they say,” Beaumont said.

  “Screw the BPR. They’re nothing but a waste of space and oxygen.”

  “I agree, but I’ll give them the courtesy of a call anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me if they tell me I have to remain silent, even if it allows a murderer to go free.”

  “All right, just let me see if I’ve got this straight,” I said. “Natasha manipulates Boyer and Barnett into forming a sort of mini-Satanic cult. She shoves the dogma and ritual down their throats in what appears to be a successful effort to gain control of them. They run into the Becks randomly at a rest stop, where Mr. Beck approaches Natasha and wants to talk to her about God. She gets angry and orders her boys to kill them. A couple of weeks later, they decide they liked it and they kill the Brockwells. Is that pretty much it in a nutshell?”

  “Almost,” Beaumont said.

  “What did I miss?”

  “There are two other things I need to tell you. First, Boyer said Natasha took a necklace from Mrs. Brockwell after she killed her. It was a twenty-four-karat-gold cross on a gold chain.”

  “We searched her house. Didn’t find it,” I said.

  “Maybe she’s wearing it.”

  I tried to picture Natasha in my mind the day I confronted her in the courtroom, but I couldn’t remember whether she was wearing a cross. Mrs. Brockwell’s family hadn’t said anything about a missing necklace, which meant it was either new or she didn’t wear it often. If it was relatively new, and if she purchased it with a credit card, we might be able to identify it. If Natasha was wearing it, which I doubted.

  “Thanks, we’ll check it out,” I said. “And what’s the last thing?”

  “Do you remember the article in the paper after the Brockwells were killed in which you referred to the killers as cowards?”

  “There were a lot of articles. I said a lot of things.”

  “Well, apparently the comment didn’t sit well with Mr. Barnett. Boyer said the night they were arrested at the motel, Natasha told Barnett it was his turn to pick the victim. They were on their way to your house.”

  Monday, November 10

  As I was walking back up the steps towards the office my cell phone rang. I looked down and reco
gnized my mother-in-law’s cell phone number.

  “Her fever’s getting worse,” Melinda said. “And she’s talking like she doesn’t know where she is. I’m taking her to the emergency room.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I turned and ran back down the stairs and out to my truck. I called Rita Jones on the way to the hospital and told her where I’d be, and I called Fraley and told him everything Jim Beaumont had shared with me. Fraley said he’d get hold of Beaumont, draft an affidavit, and take care of the warrant himself. I was glad to be free of it for a while, because suddenly I didn’t care about Boyer or Barnett or Natasha. All I cared about was Caroline.

  I raced to the hospital, breaking nearly every traffic law ever written along the way. I saw Melinda’s car in the emergency room parking lot, got out, and rushed inside. I found Melinda pacing in the waiting room.

  “Where is she?”

  “They took her back as soon as we got here,” Melinda said. Her face was drained of color, her eyes darting nervously around the room.

  “Can’t we go with her?”

  “They told me to wait out here. I think it’s serious. They mentioned something about an infection.”

  Over the next hour and a half, I paced constantly around the waiting room, to the parking lot, back to the waiting room, to the nurses’ station, where I was told at least five times that a doctor would be out to talk to me as soon as Caroline was stabilized. They wouldn’t give me any information about what was wrong with her or how she was doing. The only thing the nurse would tell me was that they were “treating her.” I didn’t want to call Jack or Lilly until I knew more, and Melinda had turned stone-faced and silent. All I could do was pace and think.

  As I paced, thoughts kept flashing through my mind: Sarah being beaten, Lilly being attacked by a Doberman, Boyer dead on the floor. Barnett sitting in the chair: “I’m going to hell with you.” I walked back in from the parking lot and glanced across the emergency room lobby. An elderly man in a long sweater was making his way to a chair with the aid of a wooden cane. He reminded me of the old man who warned me of the curse.

  Oh, my God. Caroline … this is my fault. I’m so sorry.

  I remembered the old man’s voice as I was walking out of the coffee shop: “One of you has to die.” Had I been wrong to ignore the warning? Had I been too cavalier? Too full of hubris to recognize the threat to my family? And if the old man was right, and the curse was real, what was I going to do? I couldn’t just go to Natasha’s and kill her. What would I tell the police? That I was defending myself from a Satanic curse? Good luck selling that to a jury.

  Finally, a doctor I recognized came into the waiting room. Collins Reid was the oncologist who was overseeing Caroline’s chemotherapy program. He wore a white medical coat and had thick, longish black hair and a beard that covered a pale, round face.

  “How is she?”

  “Let’s go back into the private area,” the doctor said, and he led Melinda and me down a short hallway into a large room that was furnished with three brown overstuffed chairs and a matching couch. As I looked around the room, I realized that it must be a place for families to grieve. There were prints of Jesus with the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm beneath them. My throat tightened.

  “I really don’t understand this,” Dr. Reid said when we all sat down. “Her white cell count was fine when we drew blood before her last chemo treatment. Her count has dropped, which is normal with chemotherapy, but the problem is that it dropped so low that she became what we call neutropenic, which in turn made her vulnerable to a variety of infections. She’s now developed a condition known as sepsis, which basically means her bloodstream has become filled with bacteria. I’m afraid it’s quite serious.”

  “What does ‘quite serious’ mean?” I asked. “Is this life-threatening?”

  He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. I could tell from his demeanor, and from the way he was avoiding eye contact with me, that he was extremely concerned about Caroline.

  “I’m afraid it is. She’s going to be in isolation for a while. We’ll treat her with antibiotics. Her survival depends on how she reacts to the antibiotics. And I’ll tell you this up front: patients often develop further complications from the antibiotics.”

  “Isolation?” I said. “Does that mean I can’t see her?”

  “I’m sorry. She has to be in a sterile environment. We can’t risk having anything, or anyone, around her until we get the infection under control.”

  “How long?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “How long before I can see her?”

  “Please, Mr. Dillard, take it easy. This type of thing happens rarely, but unfortunately, it happens. I’ve seen patients recover in a short amount of time, and I’ve seen them require months of hospitalization. But Caroline is relatively young and, up until the cancer diagnosis, she’d been healthy. All we can do is follow the treatment plan and hope her youth and strength get her through this.”

  “Is she in pain?”

  “She’s sedated now. She shouldn’t be feeling any pain… .”

  As the doctor continued to talk, I felt myself slipping into a deep psychological void. I could hear him, but his words sounded distant and muffled. Time suddenly seemed to slow, and I found myself contemplating particles of dust that were illuminated by sunlight pouring in through a window. By the time the doctor left, I’d entered into what must have been emotional shock. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even think. Melinda said something to me before she left, but I had no idea what it was.

  I don’t know how long I sat on the couch, but I eventually forced myself to get up and walk over to admissions. My legs felt as though they were dragging a ball and chain as I made my way through the bustle of people coming and going through the main lobby. I sat down in front of the clerk and somehow managed to give her my insurance card and the information she needed. Caroline, she said, had been moved to an isolated room near the intensive care ward.

  I got up and wandered back through the lobby, not knowing what to do or where to go. I’d never felt so helpless. Thoughts of Caroline lying alone in a hospital bed, hooked to tubes and monitors and fighting for her life, caused my throat to constrict so tightly that I had to stop, lean against the wall, and gather myself. As I walked down the hallway towards the cafeteria, I caught a glimpse of a small cross on a sign just to my right. It was the hospital chapel, and I felt myself being pulled towards it as though by force of gravity. I opened the door and looked inside. The chapel was empty. There were eight pews, four on my right and four on my left, and a simple altar at the front of the room.

  I took a deep breath and walked in. It was quiet, the air perfectly still. As I moved slowly towards the altar, tears began to stream down my face. I tried to control them, but there were so many emotions running through me: sorrow, pain, fear, sympathy, anxiety… . by the time I reached the altar I was sobbing.

  And then I did something I hadn’t done since my mother told me there was no God. I got down on my knees, bowed my head, and prayed.

  PART IV

  Tuesday, November 11

  Hank Fraley drove towards Natasha’s with a feeling of excitement mixed with anxiety. It had taken him only half a day to secure a search warrant for Natasha’s DNA sample and the necklace, and now, after a night of tossing and turning, he, Norcross, and two other agents were heading to Natasha’s to execute the warrants at seven a.m. A cold, overcast dawn was breaking, and Fraley flipped on the windshield wipers as a light rain began to fall.

  Norcross sat in the passenger seat. He was wearing a brown suit covered by a black overcoat and a tan, button-down shirt that was too tight for his muscular neck.

  “Hey, Thor,” Fraley said, “I’ve been thinking about this crazy little bitch, and I’m betting she’s got something special planned.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Think about it. She goes down to the juvenile
detention center and meets with Barnett three days before the hearing. She knows that Boyer is about to rat her out. She knows their little train has come to the end of the tracks. So she talks Barnett into killing Boyer and then himself. He goes out in a blaze of glory, gets a whole bunch of press. But I don’t think she’s the type to let Barnett steal the spotlight for long.”

  “What do you think she’s planning?” Norcross asked.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’m thinking it’ll be some kind of mass murder-suicide thing. Maybe a shopping mall, maybe a school. That seems to be a popular way of going out these days.”

  “Let’s hope we can arrest her and lock her up before she does it.”

  “I doubt it. Once we show up and get the DNA sample, she’s going to think the bomb’s about to drop. She’ll do something.”

  Fraley was tired, still haunted by nightmares of the two children on Marbleton Road. He wanted this case to be finished. He wanted to get back to working stolen car rings and chop shops, maybe a nice white-collar embezzling case.

  “I hate dealing with people like her,” Fraley said, “because the chances are we won’t be able to get rid of her.”

  “What do you mean?” Norcross said.

  “I mean she’s probably crazy enough to stay out of prison. They’ll send her to a mental institution, put her back on her meds, keep her five or ten or twenty years, and turn her loose. And as soon as they let her out, she’ll go back off her meds and start killing people again. I swear to God, people like her are the same as cancer. The only way to really get rid of them is to kill them.”

  Norris rounded a bend and the white frame house came into view. Sitting outside was Marie’s powder blue Chevy sedan that looked to be at least twenty years old. Fraley had seen the car and run the tag back when he was doing surveillance on Natasha. As Fraley pulled up behind the car, he took a closer look. The paint was faded and cracking and the vinyl top was peeling. The tires looked like they wouldn’t make it around the block.

  Fraley led the way up the steps to the front door, flipping off the safety on his pistol as he climbed. When he reached the top, he moved to the right and unholstered the gun. Norcross banged on the door with his fist and stepped to the side while the other two agents moved around to cover the back. A dog started to bark immediately.