An Innocent Client jd-1

by Scott Pratt

  “A little over two ounces.”

  Erlene didn’t much like fooling with the candy trade, but Gus had made so much money doing it over the years, she’d have been a fool not to pick up right where he left off. It was an all-cash business, and since Ronnie handled the pick-ups and the deliveries and the inside sales, it wasn’t too much of a bother for Erlene. The problem she was having was that some of the people she bought the candy from were greedy and mean. They were always trying to pull one over on her, as if they thought she wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t do anything about it even if she did. She reckoned because Gus was gone, they thought they could get away with most anything. Confound it, why couldn’t they just play fair?

  “Do we have other folks we can use?” Erlene said.

  “Four besides these guys. One in Atlanta-”

  “Don’t tell me, babydoll. I don’t want to know where they are. I don’t want to know much of anything about them.”

  “Sorry,” Ronnie said. He was such a considerate boy.

  “I tell you what let’s do, then,” Erlene said. “First off, you go ahead and deal with your people in Atlanta or wherever you said. Can they give us the same price?”

  “The price will be the same and the quality will be better,” Ronnie said. “The only reason I was dealing with these fools was because they were so much closer and they were willing to meet me halfway. Saved me a lot of road time.”

  “I think it’s worth the inconvenience, don’t you?” Erlene looked up toward the ceiling and pursed her lips. “Now,” she said, “what to do about those others?”

  Erlene knew Ronnie had a mean streak in him as wide as the Tennessee River, but underneath all that meanness, he was really a good boy. He’d just hit a few bumps in the road was all, although Erlene had to admit that Ronnie hit the bumps a little harder than most boys. He’d spent several years down at the state penitentiary in Morgan County after he got into some trouble with the law. When he got out, he didn’t have a place to go and couldn’t get a job, so he called his Uncle Gus. Gus had always felt close to the boy and invited him to come up to work in the club. When Ronnie got there, Gus sat him down and told him that if he’d pay attention and be honest, Gus would see to it that his brother’s oldest son made a good living.

  Erlene had to give Ronnie credit, he took right to it. The first thing Gus told him was that people who sell candy have to stay out of the candy. One of Ronnie’s biggest problems when he was younger was that he snorted and smoked so much candy he couldn’t think straight, so Gus told him if he got so much as an inkling that Ronnie was using, he’d be gone. The second thing Gus told him was that he who steals pays the price. Ronnie had gone to prison for stealing, among other things, and Gus told him he wouldn’t tolerate his stealing a single dime.

  Ronnie went to work in the club, tending bar and selling candy. Gus kept a close eye on him the first year, and he did a wonderful job. Before long, he was pretty much running Gus’s whole candy business. Gus got to where he trusted Ronnie so much that if something went wrong, Gus just stepped back and let Ronnie take care of it. And from what Gus told Erlene, Ronnie was excellent at taking care of problems, especially if it involved Ronnie getting to hurt somebody.

  The best part, though, was that Ronnie never stole the first penny. Erlene was proud as punch of the boy, although she suspected his honesty was at least partly due to the fact that he was afraid his Uncle Gus would kill him if he took anything. Gus wasn’t a man to trifle with, especially when it came to money.

  After Gus died, Ronnie asked her whether he could keep doing what he’d been doing. Erlene thought about all the money Gus had made and said, “Sure, sugar. I’d be a fool to make you stop.” Ronnie paid Erlene every night, cash, like clockwork. Ronnie had turned out to be a real good boy, and Erlene kind of felt like she was at least partly responsible.

  “Tell you what,” Erlene said. “How about you just go ahead and do whatever you think Gus would have told you to do. I don’t even have to know about it.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Erlene said, “and speaking of dealing with bad people, I have another little problem I’m going to need you to help me with.”

  There was a certain girl named Julie needed tending to, and Ronnie was the right man for the job.

  July 1

  10:10 a.m.

  The Tate woman wrote to Maynard Bush out of the blue. Maynard figured killers must get her hot. He didn’t have nothing better to do, so Maynard wrote back. He wasn’t real good at writing, but so what? He knew enough to get by. She wrote again and he wrote again and before Maynard knew it, they were writing to each other every few days.

  Maynard laid it on thick as jelly on a biscuit. Played her like an old banjo. At first he was just screwing around, but then he got a bright idea. He didn’t know if it would work, but it was sure worth the try.

  First thing Maynard did was talk his lawyer, Joe Dillard, into fixing it so the Tate woman could visit him. Then he started working on her. He shoveled so much manure on her she should have turned brown. He told her he was lonesome and that he needed a friend. It was a lie. Maynard didn’t have friends and didn’t want none. They always just ended up pissing him off, and then they ended up dead. To Maynard, killing a human being wasn’t any different than killing a dog or a rabbit.

  When he told Bonnie Tate he needed a friend, Maynard could see it almost broke her heart, so he just kept pouring it on. He told Bonnie how when he was a boy his mama was a drug addict and his daddy got hauled off to prison. It was about the only thing Maynard told Bonnie that was true. He told her he went to bed hungry every night, which was a flat-out lie. He told her he didn’t have no shoes that fit. Another lie, good enough to make her cry. When she cried, it made Maynard think of how he used to make his baby cousin cry. When the girl’s mother turned her back, Maynard would pinch the doughy little pain-in-the-butt up under her arm as hard as he could and she’d wail like an ambulance passing in the night. Maynard never did get caught. He was too smart and too quick.

  Four days before Maynard’s trial was supposed to start, he made sure Bonnie came to visit. It was time to take his shot.

  “You’re my only visitor, you know,” Maynard said as he gazed across the table at the plump, homely brunette. “You’re the only person I trust.” He watched her close. She was eating it up.

  “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Bonnie,” Maynard said. “You gave me hope when there wasn’t none left.” Maynard had to concentrate as hard as he could to keep from gagging. He’d told a couple of his buddies at the jail that Bonnie Tate was ugly enough to puke a buzzard off a gut wagon.

  “I think about you all the time, Bonnie. I dream about you every night. I think maybe I love you.”

  She looked at him and he could see tears forming in her eyes. It was working.

  “Do you think maybe you love me too, Bonnie?”

  She nodded. “I think maybe I do, Maynard.”

  “If I was to ever get out of this place, would you stay with me, Bonnie? Please say you’d stay with me. It’d mean so much to me.”

  “I reckon I’d stay with you.”

  “I need to ask you something. It’s real important, and you can’t breathe a word of it. Can I trust you?”

  “You know you can trust me, Maynard.”

  “If I was to tell you I know a way out of here, would you help me? Would you, Bonnie? It’s the only chance I’ve got. They’ll kill me if you don’t help me.”

  It didn’t take long for her to say yes.

  “Okay then,” Maynard said. “You listen real close now. You gotta do exactly what I say.”

  July 2

  9:05 a.m.

  I walked into Judge Glass’s courtroom a little after nine and took a seat in the back behind a column where the judge couldn’t see me. Sarah and her appointed attorney had worked out an agreement with the assistant district attorney, and she was about to enter a plea. To my re
lief, there were no reporters in the jury box.

  I’d lost a lot of sleep thinking — and worrying — about Sarah. As time passed, I’d gotten over the anger. I still thought Sarah needed to pay for what she’d done, but I knew prison time wouldn’t do her any good. I’d never seen prison time do anyone any good.

  She’d agreed to plead guilty to two counts of felony theft, to accept the minimum sentence of three years on each count, and to forego a probation hearing. The two three-year sentences were to run concurrently. Under Tennessee law, she’d be eligible for parole after serving ten months, and I had every intention of speaking on her behalf at her first parole hearing. Because of the overcrowding in the state penitentiary system, inmates who were sentenced to less than three years served their time in the county jails. That meant Sarah wouldn’t be shipped off to the woman’s prison in Nashville but would stay in the Washington County Detention Center. I’d be able to visit and try again to patch things up. I should have already gone down to see her, but I was afraid we’d just end up in the same old place.

  Judge Glass was his usual cantankerous self, barking at defense attorneys and sniping at defendants. A woman in the audience had forgotten to turn her cell phone off, and when it rang, Glass ordered her to the front and castigated her so fiercely that she was reduced to tears.

  He called Sarah’s case twenty minutes after I sat down, and a bailiff brought her in. She looked small and frail in the baggy jumpsuit, and I thought the handcuffs and shackles were totally unnecessary. She shuffled to the podium and stood looking at the floor.

  “State of Tennessee versus Sarah Dillard,” Judge Glass said. He looked at Lisa Mays, the assistant district attorney. “Is this Mr. Dillard’s sister?”

  “She is, your Honor.”

  I hoped Glass wouldn’t use his dislike for me as a reason to reject the plea agreement and give Sarah a harsher sentence. I scooted down in my seat.

  “What did she do this time?” Glass said.

  “She stole Mr. Dillard’s daughter’s car and a necklace that belonged to Mr. Dillard’s wife,” Mays said. “She traded the necklace for cocaine and wrecked the car.”

  “So she’s an indiscriminate thief,” Glass said. “She steals from everybody in the family. How’d she get the keys to the car? She break in?”

  “No, your Honor. As I understand it, she had recently been released from jail and Mr. Dillard had taken her in. He was trying to help her. This is how she repaid him.”

  I was hoping Glass would just go through the motions and not ask any questions. It was a run-of-the-mill plea. He took hundreds of them every year.

  “This judgment form says she was charged with two Class C felonies,” Glass said. “I read her pre-sentence report last night. She’s been stealing and drugging for almost twenty years. Why are you agreeing to concurrent sentences?”

  “We agreed at the victim’s request, judge,” Lisa said. “We do it all the time.”

  “You mean to tell me Mr. Dillard requested that she only serve three years for this? After everything else she’s done?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s probably in court somewhere.”

  “Well, get him down here. I want to talk to him.”

  I stood, my face hot, and walked toward the front.

  “I’m here, judge.”

  “Well, well, Mr. Dillard, glad you could join us, especially since you’ve been so successful at manipulating the system.”

  “I haven’t manipulated anything,” I said. Lisa Mays seemed surprised to see me. Sarah looked at me hopefully. I stopped just to the right of the defense table. “I’m just not asking for blood, judge. This is her first felony.”

  “It’s her first felony conviction,” Judge Glass said. “She’s been charged with felonies three times in the past, but they’ve all been reduced to misdemeanors. I suppose you didn’t have anything to do with that, either — did you, Mr. Dillard?”

  “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “Of course I am. You’ve manipulated the legal system to gain favorable treatment for a member of your family.”

  “And you wouldn’t do the same?”

  “Watch your mouth, sir. I’m not in any mood to put up with any disrespect from you.”

  “This district attorney, the public defender, and my sister have apparently come to an agreement they think is fair,” I said. “I didn’t have anything to do with it. The only thing I told Miss Mays was that I wasn’t going to insist on the maximum punishment. She’ll serve almost a year as it is.”

  “Let me ask you a question, Mr. Dillard,” Judge Glass said. “If this young lady was a complete stranger to you and she’d stolen your daughter’s car and an expensive piece of jewelry that belonged to your wife, would you be in here asking me to accept a minimum sentence? Especially with her list of priors? Tell the truth for a change.”

  “She isn’t a complete stranger. She’s my sister, so the question is meaningless,” I said. “And I always tell the truth in this courtroom. You just don’t like to hear it sometimes.”

  “Watch your tone, Mr. Dillard. You’re on the verge of a contempt citation.” His voice was beginning to tremble, a sure sign that his anger was about to overcome his reason.

  “My tone is no different than yours,” I said. “Is this hearing about accepting a plea from my sister? Or is it about something else? Because if it’s about some personal animosity you hold for me, perhaps you should consider recusing yourself from this case and let her enter her plea in front of an impartial judge.”

  Glass was a bully, and like all bullies, he became angry and confused when people stood up to him. He certainly had the power to put me in jail, but I knew I hadn’t done anything to deserve it. If he ordered them to arrest me, I’d just embarrass him in front of the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “I save my personal animosity for important people. You’re certainly not in that category.”

  “Good. Then let’s get on with it,” I said.

  “I’m not accepting this plea as is,” Glass said. “She can plead to two consecutive three-year sentences, or she can plead to concurrent six-year sentences, or she can go to trial. She’s not walking out of my courtroom with less than six years.”

  “Why?” I said. That simple, three-letter word was the one I knew judges hated the most. Most of them didn’t feel like they had to explain themselves. They were judges, after all. They wore a robe, and the robe gave them the power to do pretty much whatever they pleased.

  “Why, Mr. Dillard? Why? Because I say so. Because your sister is the scum of the earth. She won’t work, she doesn’t pay taxes, she sucks up drugs like a vacuum cleaner, and she’s a thief. She’s a drain on society, and she belongs in jail. If you didn’t want her to go to jail, you shouldn’t have reported her crimes to the police. You did call the police, didn’t you?”

  As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. When I picked up the phone, I knew I was putting Sarah at risk of a long jail term. I’d wanted her to go to jail at the time. But my anger had subsided, and I’d convinced myself that what she’d agreed to was more than enough.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Dillard?” Glass said. “Cat got your tongue?”

  “This is between you and the district attorney and her lawyer,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

  “Have a nice day,” Glass said.

  I turned and walked out the door, angry and embarrassed. I called Lisa Mays an hour later. She said the public defender had taken Sarah into the back and explained that if she went to trial and was convicted, Judge Glass could, and probably would, sentence her to twelve years in prison.

  “She agreed to the six,” Mays said. “But the judge went into his routine again about you calling the police. She’s angry at him, but she’s really pissed off at you.”

  July 5

  8:20 a.m.

  I was sitting with Thomas Walker II, an assistant distric
t attorney named Fred Julian, and a couple of bailiffs in the judge’s office in Mountain City, getting ready to go to trial with Maynard Bush. The bailiffs were Darren and David Bowers, a pair of cheerful, inseparable identical twins in their late fifties. Every time I saw them, they were laughing. After graduating from high school in Mountain City in the late sixties and thinking they’d be drafted, Darren and David enlisted in the army so they could stay together. Darren, in his brown deputy’s uniform, was telling a war story. David, also in uniform, was sitting across the room red-faced.

  “We’re in this little bitty brothel in Saigon,” Darren was saying. His accent made Jeff Foxworthy sound like a city slicker. “Been out in the bush almost a month. Hornier than three-peckered billy goats, both of us. Davie’s drunker’n Cooter Brown, and he staggers up to this ol’ Vietnamese madame and puts his hands on his hips like John Wayne and says, ‘How much fer a roll in the hay thar, Miss Slanty Eyes?’

  “Now, I reckon that ol’ girl she knew a little more English than Davie figgered she did, ‘cause she give him a look that’d peel chrome off a bumper. Then she smiles at him all nice and says, ‘You beaucoup big boy?’ Davie didn’t know what she’s a-talkin’ about at first, but then she points down at his crotch and she says, ‘Show me. You big boy?’”

  Darren was giggling. He started to talk and then stopped and giggled some more. The memory was almost too much for him to take.

  “So Davie, he goes, ‘Ahh, so you want to take a gander at old G.I. Johnson, huh? You reckon it might be too big for your girls?’ So Davie, he… he…” Darren broke down again. He was laughing so hard tears were streaming down his cheeks.

  “Davie, he just drops his fly and pulls it out right there for everybody to see. And that madame, she looks down at it and then she looks back up at Davie’s face all serious, and I swear on my mama’s grave, this is what she says to him. She says, ‘Normal price ten dollah. But for little guy like you, I take five.’”

  Darren slapped his leg and roared. Laughter was bouncing off the walls as Judge Rollins walked in. Rollins was a no-nonsense guy who traveled the Second Judicial Circuit. He didn’t bother to ask what all the commotion was about.