by Scott Pratt
“Did the police officer ask you any questions when he arrested you?” I said.
“He tried after we got here. He took me into a room like this. But Miss Erlene told me not to say a word to him, so I didn’t. I think he’s pretty mad at me.”
Either Angel and Erlene were two of the best liars I’d ever met, or the police had made a monumental blunder. I had no love for Agent Landers — he was a dishonest, womanizing sleaze with an ego the size of a skyscraper — but the TBI was known as a top-flight investigative agency. I found it hard to believe they’d arrest someone for first-degree murder unless they had a solid case.
“Have you ever been in any kind of trouble with the law, Miss Christian? Ever been arrested for anything?”
“No.”
“Not even a traffic ticket?”
“I don’t even know how to drive.”
She started sobbing again. She seemed so helpless, so utterly incapable of violence. My heart went out to her, and I kept asking myself why. Why would she murder some stranger? What could possibly have happened that would have turned this young girl into a killer?
As I sat there wondering, she looked over the tissue at me, her eyes shining with tears, and she said, “Help me, Mr. Dillard. Please, help me.”
Suddenly, the voice I was hearing wasn’t hers. It was a voice from the past, the voice of a defenseless little girl… “Get him off of me, Joey. He’s hurting me.”
I looked at her and nodded my head.
“Okay, Miss Christian,” I said. “I’ll help you. You’ve got yourself a lawyer.”
PART II
April 26
5:05 p.m.
When I called Erlene Barlowe and told her I was in, she asked me to meet her in the parking lot behind her club. I’d never been in the place, but I’d driven by it dozens of times. I got there a little after five and backed into a spot next to a black BMW. It had been a beautiful afternoon, clear and in the low seventies. The sun was starting to drop in the western sky, but as I looked to the northeast, I could see a massive dark thundercloud rolling across the tops of the mountains. I put the window down and could smell rain.
About five minutes later, I saw Erlene come out of the back door of the club carrying a gym bag. She had changed into a zebra-striped jumpsuit that was so tight I could see every crevice in her body. She walked carefully in her heels across the gravel lot, glancing from left to right, and stopped at the window. She leaned over and dropped the gym bag in my lap.
“Everything all right?” I said. “You look a little nervous.”
“Those TBI men have been following me around for a week. Makes me kind of jumpy. Your money’s in the bag, sugar. How’s Angel?”
“Scared.”
“Poor thing. I hate the thought of her being locked up in that terrible place. You have to promise me you’ll get her out of this.”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
“It would probably be best if you leave now. You need to get that money someplace safe. We’ll talk more later.”
She blew me a kiss and I pulled out. As I drove down the road, I started thinking about what I was carrying. I’d taken some big cash fees from people accused of dealing drugs in the past, but never anything near a quarter of a million. I kept looking in the rear-view mirror to make sure nobody was following me. If Landers had any idea what was going on, it would be just like him to make up a reason to stop me, search my truck, and seize the money.
About a mile from my house, I pulled into the parking lot of a small shopping strip, locked up the truck, and went into a liquor store to buy a bottle of good champagne. I didn’t take my eyes off of the truck the entire time I was in the store. After I finished I drove toward home and pulled onto a dirt road that led into the woods just across the street from my house. I wanted to count the money, and I knew if I pulled in the driveway Rio would make such a racket that Caroline was likely to come out. With the sun dropping toward the horizon to my left, I started to count — fifty bundles of hundred-dollar bills, fifty in each bundle. It took me almost an hour, and it was all there. I couldn’t believe it. I stuffed the cash in my own gym bag and headed for the house.
I found Caroline in the kitchen emptying the dishwasher. I walked up behind her and kissed her on the ear.
“Hi, baby,” she said. “Did Rio pee on your shoe?”
“I was too quick for him today.”
“I haven’t heard from you all afternoon. How did it go with Ms. Barlowe?”
Caroline had called, but I hadn’t returned the call. At first I wasn’t sure I was going to take Angel’s case, and later I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to resist spilling the beans. I set the bottle of champagne down on the counter.
“Where’s Lilly?” I said.
Caroline looked at me slyly. “At rehearsal. Mother’s going to pick her up and take her out to eat. She won’t be back for a couple of hours.”
“Sarah?”
“A friend of hers took her to an NA meeting.”
“Good. At least she’s trying.”
Caroline looked over at the champagne. “What’s the occasion?”
“Let’s go out to the deck. We need to talk.”
“Be there in a second.”
I took a couple of champagne glasses out of the cabinet, opened the bottle, and walked out onto the deck. I put the bottle and glasses on the table and stuck the gym bag underneath. The storm was moving closer and the wind had freshened, but we still had some time. It was just getting dark. The Big Dipper was barely visible to the south, and the approaching clouds had covered the rising moon. The reflection of running lights twinkled off the lake like fireflies as pontoon and bass boats made their way up and down the channel ahead of the storm.
I lit the two oil lamps that flanked the deck and sat down just as Caroline came out. She sat across from me. I poured the champagne and looked intently at her.
“What?” she said.
“I was just lusting,” I said. “Can’t help it.”
“I‘m sure you can’t.” The dimple high in her left cheek only showed when she smiled a certain way. She was smiling that way now.
“So it went okay,” I said, “with Ms. Barlowe.”
“I saw the girl’s picture on television. She sure is pretty.”
“She’s also very nice. And there’s a very strong possibility that she’s innocent. I talked to her today.”
Caroline gasped. “You talked to her? Is that where you’ve been all day? Are you going to represent her?”
“I don’t think I have much choice.”
Caroline’s eyes lit up. I knew exactly what she was thinking.
“How much?” she said.
“What do you think a first-degree murder, maybe a death penalty case, probably my last case, is worth?”
“I don’t know.” She took a sip of champagne and leaned forward. “How much is it worth?”
“Guess.”
“Fifty?”
“Higher.”
“Eeeeeh,” she said. “Sixty?”
“You’re way low. Jack it on up.”
“Stop it, Joe. Seventy-five? No, you look smug. I don’t even know if I can say it. A hundred?”
“You’re almost halfway.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re not serious,” she said. I don’t think she knew it, but she was bouncing in her chair like a schoolgirl.
“Dead serious. Half way.”
“T-t-two twenty?”
“Almost there. Add thirty more.”
“Two fifty?” She said the words as though she were dreaming.
“Bingo! And what do we have for the lady who guessed a quarter of a million dollars, Don Pardo?” I reached down, grabbed the bag, and slammed it on the table. Champagne spewed from Caroline’s mouth.
“Is that what I think it…? No, it couldn’t possibly…” She reached out and opened the bag. “Joe! Is this real?”
“Scout’s honor,” I said, holding my hand across my heart.
She began jumping around the deck like a cheerleader. She ran around the table and grabbed me by the neck. She hugged me so hard I almost choked.
“Ease up a little, Caroline. I’d like to live to spend it.”
She stopped in her tracks, walked back to her seat, and took a deep breath.
“I’m going to hyperventilate. I’m going to pee my pants. Tell me how this happened.”
“There isn’t that much to tell. The woman came in and I talked to her for a while, then I went down to the jail and talked to the girl for a while. I actually said the words, Caroline. I actually said, ‘A quarter of a million dollars, cash, up front,’ and she didn’t flinch. I called her after I went to the jail and she paid me.”
“I want to kiss your whole face right now,” Caroline said. “I want to gobble you up. I want to have your babies.”
“We have enough babies.”
“Oh, Joe, this is unbelievable. This takes so much pressure off of us.”
“It’s a double-edged sword. You know that.”
She was on me before I got the last syllable out of my mouth. She kissed my forehead, my lips, my eyebrows, my ears.
“I have to tell someone,” she said when she stopped kissing my whole face. “Where’s my phone? I have to tell my mother.”
“Don’t do that, you’ll be on the phone for an hour. Drink your champagne and let’s just enjoy it for a minute. I have a feeling I’m going to earn every dime of it.”
I watched her as she sat grinning in the flickering light of the lamps. She peeked into the bag again.
“Can I touch it?”
“Knock yourself out. It’s your money now.”
She was as pleased as I’d ever seen her, and nothing could have given me more satisfaction.
“Joe, what a relief. Now… what are we going to buy?”
“What are you talking about? You’re supposed to be the miser. We’re not buying anything. We have everything we need.”
“Let’s splurge just a little. We have to buy something.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do.” Her eyes were bright with mischief. “Then we have to go somewhere.”
“No.”
“We have to go to the Caymans or something when the trial’s over. You’ve always wanted to go there. Stop being such a killjoy.”
“Why don’t we worry about what we’re going to do with it tonight?”
“I know exactly what we’re going to do with it. We’re sleeping with it. It doesn’t leave my sight until I get it in the safety deposit box tomorrow morning. Then I’ll figure out what to do from there. Tell me about the girl. What’s she like?”
“She’s… sweet,” I said. “She seems like a really sweet kid.”
“Is she as pretty as me?”
“Not even close.”
“Good answer.”
She held out her empty champagne glass, and I refilled it. She raised the glass.
“Here’s to pretty girls with rich friends.”
“Cheers.” I took a big swallow of the champagne.
“When’s the arraignment?”
“Monday. Nine o’clock in Jonesborough. Let’s talk about something else. It’s a beautiful evening. I’m sitting on a candlelit deck overlooking the water with a beautiful, slightly intoxicated woman. I’ve just made more money in one day than most people make in five years. Law and disorder and murder do not seem to be appropriate topics of conversation.”
“You’re right.” Caroline rose from the table and reached for my hand. “Come with me.”
She led me inside to the bedroom.
“This is heavy,” she said, nodding toward the bag in her hand. “Delightfully heavy.”
She tossed the bag of money into a corner, pushed me onto the bed and began to slowly unbutton her blouse. Caroline is the only woman I’ve ever slept with. We’ve been together for so long that when it comes to making love, she knows exactly which buttons to push.
And for the next hour, she pushed every one of them.
April 27
6:00 p.m.
Agent Landers ran three miles a day, at least five days a week. It kept his body tight and helped with the hangovers. The day after he arrested the girl, he was running along Watauga Avenue in Johnson City thinking he would’ve much rather had sex with that kid than arrested her. Man, she was hot.
She was also smart enough not to talk. Landers spent an hour in the interrogation room with her after he arrested her. All she’d say was that she wanted to talk to a lawyer.
Deacon Baker, the district attorney, had called Landers down to his office a couple of days before the arrest. Baker was nothing but a fat, stupid little prude, but he’d somehow managed to get himself elected, so he was calling the shots. Deacon told Landers he was getting a lot of pressure to make an arrest. The victim’s son was a chaplain and deputy sheriff in another county and he’d been calling three times a day. The victim also had a cousin who lived in Carter County and was active in the Republican Women’s group over there, and she’d been calling. Big deal, Landers told Deacon, let them call.
Landers didn’t have much evidence. The night they raided the Mouse’s Tail, they’d interviewed forty people. Nine of them were employees, the rest were customers. Only one person said she recognized Tester, a stripper named Julie Hayes. She said Tester came in around nine, stayed until almost midnight, and got hammered in between. She said he was quoting scripture one minute and getting lap dances the next, and that he took a special interest in a waitress named Angel Christian. Hayes said the preacher and Erlene Barlowe had about a five-minute conversation around eleven-thirty. As soon as they were done talking, she said the preacher went out the front door and Barlowe and Angel went out the back. Neither Barlowe nor Angel came back to the club that night. She also said that up until the day the preacher was murdered, Barlowe drove a red Corvette. The next day, she was driving the black BMW.
Nobody else in the place gave them anything they could use, which made Landers wonder whether Julie Hayes was telling the truth. Maybe she had some kind of grudge against Barlowe, or the girl, or both. But Landers wrote out her statement and she signed it. She said she was willing to testify.
The forensics team found some hair on Tester’s shirt, so Landers took the Hayes girl’s statement and parlayed it into a search warrant for Erlene Barlowe’s house the next day. He also persuaded the judge to sign an order saying that both Erlene Barlowe and Angel Christian had to give him hair samples. They hadn’t found a thing in Barlowe’s house, not even so much as a porn video. Landers took a photograph of the girl, though. She had a nasty bruise on her face.
There was no sign of a red Corvette. Landers ran Erlene Barlowe’s name through every database the TBI had. No Corvette registered to her anywhere.
He got a call from the lab a few days later. Two hairs that were found on Tester’s shirt matched the girl. That was the best evidence they had, and as far as Landers was concerned, it wasn’t much. The lab also said the preacher had a date rape drug in his system — GHB, otherwise known as Georgia Home Boy. Whoever killed him drugged him. Everybody knows you can get drugs at a strip bar, but Landers couldn’t prove the drug in the preacher’s body came from the Mouse’s Tail.
So when he went down to the D.A.’s office, Landers laid the case out for Deacon Baker. Two witnesses, the stripper who might have a grudge, and a clerk from the motel who saw a Corvette pull in behind Tester around midnight and thought she saw a woman go up the stairs toward Tester’s room. All the other employees at the club denied Tester was there, or at least said they didn’t notice him, but he’d definitely withdrawn money from an ATM machine at the bar just after eleven-thirty. Erlene Barlowe had lied — Landers was sure about that — and the others were probably lying. He had a DNA match from the Christian girl, a nasty bruise on her face, a shriveled penis that belonged to Tester (the medical examiner said it had been removed post-mortem), no murder weapon, and a missing car. That was it. Oh yeah, they
also had a gem of a victim. A preacher at a strip club. An East Tennessee jury would love that.
“Let me keep up the surveillance on Erlene Barlowe for a while longer, see if she makes a mistake,” Landers said.
“Here’s the real deal, Phil,” Deacon had said, “just between you and me, all right? I don’t give a rat’s patooty about the victim’s son calling and I don’t care about that old hag over in Carter County. My secretary deals with the calls anyway. It’s no skin off my butt. But eight years ago, when I was running for D.A. for the first time against a powerful incumbent and I needed money the way a fat kid needs cake, that sorry SOB that owned the Mouse’s Tail gave my opponent five thousand in cash as a campaign contribution. Didn’t give me the first dime.”
“So?”
“I’ve been after him ever since. There have always been rumors that Gus Barlowe was running drugs out of the club, but we haven’t been able to catch them.”
“He’s dead, Deacon.”
“I know that, but his wife isn’t dead, is she?”
“We don’t have any evidence against her.”
Deacon waved his hand dismissively. “You know how these things go, Phil. You’ve got a pretty strong circumstantial case. We’ll take it in front of the grand jury, get an indictment, and go arrest the girl. She’ll most likely confess or roll on the Barlowe woman. If she doesn’t, I’ll file a death penalty notice and up the pressure on her. Don’t worry about it. Let’s go ahead and shake this tree and see what falls out. This is an election year. It’d be a real feather in my cap to put that Barlowe woman out of business before August.”
Before August. Election year. Put that Barlowe woman out of business. None of this has anything to do with getting a murder conviction. What Deacon was really saying was that he needed Landers to make an arrest. Didn’t matter whether the girl was guilty, as long as somebody got locked up for the murder. No way it would go to trial before the election, and if it turned out she didn’t do it, so what? At least Deacon would be assured of eating at the taxpayer’s trough for another eight years. Moron. Him and his tree.