An Innocent Client jd-1

by Scott Pratt

  “Did you and Erlene talk about it afterward?”

  “Not much,” she said. “She just told me she was sorry about everything but at least he wouldn’t ever hurt another girl, and she told me never to mention what happened — any of it — to anybody. Then when the police started coming around, she told me not to talk to them. She told everyone that worked at the club not to talk to them. When they came to arrest me, she told me to tell them I wanted a lawyer.”

  “You didn’t mention cutting off his penis, Angel. Do you remember doing that?”

  “I didn’t do it,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t do it. I’d tell you if I did.”

  I believed her.

  “Telling me what happened was the right thing to do,” I said.

  “Am I going to have to stay in jail for the rest of my life?”

  “I doubt it. This changes a few things, but it doesn’t change the fact that they don’t have much of a case against you.”

  “What about your sister? I never even talked to her.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “You have to trust me. I’ll figure something out. I just need a little time to think.”

  After the guards took her away, I sat at the table alone, unable to get up and walk out. The door buzzed twice, but I just sat there. I couldn’t move.

  In my mind, I kept seeing a beautiful, fragile young girl, naively walking up the steps in the rain to a motel room. She’s accompanied by a man more than twice her size, twice her age. She closes the door and offers the man a drink from a bottle. He takes the bottle from her hand, sets it down, and punches her viciously in the side of the face. She sees a bright light and falls backwards onto the bed, dazed by the blow. The giant hovers over her, his drunken breathing foul and labored. He grabs the girl and rolls her like a rag doll. He’s muttering, alternately calling her a slut and praising God for the opportunity to exact some righteous vengeance on a lowly whore. He rips off her panties. He’s excited, but too drunk to maintain an erection. He tries to force himself inside her rectum, but she’s small. He spits on his hand to lubricate her and tries again. She’s struggling but he’s much too strong. He slaps the back of her head and tells her to hold still. He gets inside her and grunts with satisfaction. The girl goes limp. Beads of sweat drop from the giant’s nose onto the girl’s back. He isn’t performing the way he wants, and he notices the bottle of scotch she offered him earlier. He shoves the girl down flat against the mattress and steps over to the bottle. He takes a long drink while the girl whimpers on the bed.

  I hear Sarah’s voice… “Get him off of me, Joey. He’s hurting me…

  When I was finally able to move, I pushed the button, waited for the door to buzz, and made my way slowly down the maze of hallways and steel gates. What Angel had described to me was a voluntary manslaughter, at worst. A Class C felony, maximum sentence of six years. But I couldn’t bring myself to recommend to her that we go to the district attorney and tell him what had happened. I couldn’t see her spending time in prison for retaliating against a man who had violated her in the most shameful of ways.

  As far as I was concerned, the hypocrite got what he deserved.

  July 24

  6:05 p.m.

  I drove straight home from the jail with Sarah’s voice and Angel’s confession alternately ringing in my ears. As soon as I got out of my truck Rio peed on me, and instead of laughing or gently pushing him away like always, I drew my foot back to kick him. I caught myself, but barely. For some reason, the thought of the dog pissing on me right then made me mad enough to want to hurt him. I swore at him and stepped over him as he cowered in the driveway.

  I walked into the kitchen. Caroline was standing over the stove. I could smell broccoli. I hate broccoli.

  “Hi, honey,” she said. “I heard they continued the trial. What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to wring that dog’s neck.”

  “I guess it isn’t good.”

  “I’m sick of him pissing all over me. I’m sick of everybody pissing all over me.”

  “What’s going on, Joe?”

  “Nothing.” I marched through the kitchen and into the bedroom to change my clothes. I could feel pressure, a lot of pressure, at each of my temples, and my field of vision was narrowing. I felt a hand on my shoulder, a touch that usually comforted me. It didn’t.

  “What’s wrong, Joe? Talk to me.”

  “It would probably be best if you’d just leave me alone right now.”

  “Leave you alone? Why? What have I done?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “That’s part of the problem.”

  I’d spent part of the drive home working up a healthy anger toward Caroline. I had to provide for her, which meant I had to keep working. But I was sick of busting my butt for people who neither deserved it nor appreciated it, sick of people using me and lying to me, sick of worrying about whether what I was doing was right or wrong. I was sick of everything.

  “I’m not the bad guy, baby. I love you, remember?” she said

  “A lot of good it does.”

  “You’ve been under a lot of strain. How about a hot bath?”

  “I don’t want to take a bath. Now why don’t you do what I asked you to do and leave me alone?”

  “How dare you talk to me like that!” Caroline said. “I know you hate your job. I know you hate yourself sometimes, but that doesn’t mean you get to take it out on me. I haven’t done a thing other than love you and try to help you through a difficult time, and I’m not going to stand here and listen to you degrade me. I’m not your whipping girl, Joe! ”

  All I could feel was the pressure in my head. I was losing it. I pushed past her and walked back into the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” She was right behind me. I headed for the door. “Where are you going?”

  “Out,” I said. “I’m going out.”

  And that’s what I did. I drove to a bar in Johnson City called Fritter’s. I sat alone at the bar and drank vodka for a while. Then I asked for a shot of Yagermeister. Then another. I was there for hours.

  It was raining when I left the bar, but I didn’t care. I’d convinced myself that I had somewhere I needed to go. I drove across town, holding a hand over my right eye to keep from seeing double. I pulled through the gate at the Veterans Administration complex. I turned into the cemetery toward the long rows of white grave markers and made my way slowly, drunkenly, to the section where my father was buried. I got out of the car and stumbled through the rain until I found him.

  Then I lay down on his grave and passed out.

  I dreamed I was lying in a thicket, above a path in the Grenada jungle. I had somehow become separated from my squad. My face was covered in camouflage paint, and I was aiming a machine gun at the path. A group of six Cuban soldiers was moving toward me. I’d set out claymore mines in a ditch beside the path and concealed the wires carefully.

  The point man moved into the kill zone. All that remained was for the rest of the group to get within range of the claymores. Once they were there, I’d open fire. When they hid in the ditch, I’d hit the clackers and detonate the mines. It would be a perfect massacre.

  The last man moved in, and I started blasting away with the M-60. I sprayed them with short bursts. The Cubans melted into the ditch line. I detonated the mines, and the earth shuddered. The Cuban guns went silent, and I moved in to mop up.

  I heard the sucking sound of a chest wound coming from the point man. He was lying on his stomach in the ditch; his left arm lay severed two feet away. I stuck my boot in his ribs and rolled him. He flopped onto his back, and I found myself staring into the bloodied face of a kid. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old, and he looked just like me.

  I began to scream.

  July 25

  1:00 a.m.

  Jerry Byrd found me out there in the rain. Jerry was a V.A. cop and army veteran I’d known for fifteen years. His wife had gone to m
y high school and his son had played ball with Jack. We had a good deal in common and we’d had some good times together over the years.

  When Jerry woke me up, I had absolutely no idea where I was or how I got there. It was pouring rain and my teeth were chattering. He helped me to my feet and took me by the arm.

  “Joe, what are you doing out here?”

  “No clue.”

  Jerry used his cell phone to call Caroline. He told her where I was and said we could pick up my truck the next day. Then he drove me home.

  “What’s going on?” Caroline said after Jerry had left. I’d managed to down two cups of black coffee strong enough to make my tongue curl. I could tell she’d been crying, but I hoped she wouldn’t start up again. I felt bad enough as it was. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I had a little meltdown.”

  I’d always kept Caroline at least a stone’s throw from the worst of my work and my past. It was ugly and frightening, and Caroline was beautiful and gentle and kind. I was afraid I’d somehow contaminate her if I told her the truth, but more than that, I was afraid she might begin to think of me as weak or flawed.

  “Talk to me,” she said. “Please.”

  “You don’t want me to. Believe me, you’re better off if I keep it to myself.”

  “Joe, do you really think anything you tell me would make me love you any less?”

  There was a long silence. She poured more coffee. I sat there sipping it slowly, trying to decide whether I wanted to tell my wife that for all these years, despite all the macho bravado, she’d really been married to a scared little boy trying to prove to himself he wasn’t a coward.

  “I don’t think I can tell you,” I said.

  “Does it have anything to do with this case?”

  “That’s part of it. It looks like they’re going to arrest Erlene Barlowe for Tester’s murder.” I was grateful for the opportunity to move the topic of conversation away from me.

  “Do you think she killed Tester?”

  “I know she didn’t kill Tester.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “How?”

  I looked at her, dead pan. I couldn’t tell her, but Caroline was an intelligent woman. I saw the look come over her face. She got it.

  “Angel told you she killed him?”

  I nodded.

  “And now you’re trying to decide what to do?”

  “I’m just trying to survive right now. You know I’m going to have to go after Sarah on the witness stand if the trial starts back up. I can’t tell you how much I dread it.”

  “Why is she doing this, Joe? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Do you really want to know? It’s not something you’re going to enjoy hearing about.”

  “Of course I want to know. I think I’ve earned the right.”

  She had. She’d earned the right to hear about all of it. I looked at her and thought about Ma, about the regret I’d felt because she wouldn’t let me into her heart and about the emptiness I felt because I’d never let her into mine. I thought about the nightmares, the anxiety, the depression, the nagging feeling that I was pathetic coward. I looked at Caroline, saw the longing in her eyes and knew I couldn’t shut my wife out any longer. I couldn’t be like my mother. It was time. It was time to open up.

  I told Caroline about what Tester had done to Angel and what Uncle Raymond had done to Sarah. When she heard what had happened to Sarah, Caroline scooted next to me and held me in her arms. As I felt her breath against my skin and smelled her familiar smell, I suddenly didn’t care whether she thought I was weak, because at that moment, I was. I needed to lean on the only person I’d ever really trusted. For the first time in my life, I gave myself completely. There were moments I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. I was ashamed and reluctant at first, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. After twenty years, I finally let Caroline all the way in.

  I talked about the frustration of being raised without a father. I told her about the brutal things I’d done and seen in Grenada. I told her about Billy Dockery. I told her about Maynard Bush and Bonnie Tate and how I felt the day the Bowers twins died in the sunshine. I told her how I felt about my mother. I talked deep into the morning. I’d never experienced anything like it, but when it was over, I understood the power of confession.

  “Do you know something?” Caroline said when I was finally too exhausted to talk any more. She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “If I was on trial, if I was in the same situation as Angel, there’s nobody in this world I’d rather have on my side than you. Do you know why?”

  “I’m sorry for the things I said when I came home earlier. I feel like a jackass and I’m sorry- ”

  “Hush. Do you know why there’s nobody in this world I’d rather have on my side than you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because you’re a good man, Joe. It’s as simple as that. That’s why I married you and why I’ve loved you for all these years. That’s why your children adore you. It’s why you’ve stuck by Sarah all this time and why you went up there and sat with your mother. It’s why you’ve spent your life trying to help people. I hope you’re always just like you are now.”

  Her words humbled me. I didn’t know what to say.

  “When did Angel tell you what really happened?” she said.

  “Not long before I came home.”

  “That’s what I thought. That’s what set this off. It put you back in that house with your sister. When you add it to everything else that’s been going on with you lately, it isn’t surprising. I’m just glad you didn’t hurt yourself.”

  So was I.

  “You’re going to get through this,” Caroline said. “You’re a survivor. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever met.”

  Caroline got up and walked over to the door that led to the garage. She opened it.

  “And here’s someone else that loves you,” she said.

  Rio trotted into the room, saw me, and stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Come here, big boy,” I said. His ears perked and his tail began to wag. “Come over here and take a leak on my shoe.”

  July 25

  11:00 a.m.

  For the first time in what seemed like forever, I slept well. There were no ambushes in the jungle to haunt me, no rapes or murders or flashes of dead children in the jungle, no raging rivers or deadly waterfalls.

  I woke to the smell of coffee brewing and the sound of rain tapping steadily on the roof. I walked into the kitchen and looked outside. The sky was low and slate gray. A thin mist hung above the lake, and I knew it would be a long day of summer rain, the kind of rain that seems to cleanse the whole world.

  Caroline was in the kitchen, wearing only a sports bra and a pair of biker shorts. When she hugged me, I lifted her off the floor and carried her to the bedroom. A half-hour later, we were lying in bed, pleasantly exhausted.

  “What are you going to do today?” she said.

  “Think,” I said. “I have to figure out what to do about Angel.”

  “What are your options?”

  “The first one would be to go to Deacon and tell him we’ve reconsidered and we want to make a deal. But as soon as I do that he’ll know she killed Tester and he’ll go hard-line on me. He’ll offer twenty years. The second option is to go back to trial on Monday and put Angel on the witness stand. If she tells the truth, I can argue self-defense or voluntary manslaughter because he sodomized her.”

  “What’s the worst case if you go that way?”

  “Worst case is they don’t believe her and find her guilty of first-degree murder. That means life. I don’t think there’s any way she gets the death penalty under these circumstances. They could find her guilty of second-degree murder. That would mean a minimum of fifteen years. If they go with voluntary manslaughter she’d be eligible for probation, but I doubt if Judge Green would grant it.

  �
��The problem I have with putting her on the stand now is that I can’t get any medical testimony in. Tom Short would have helped us out if she’d told me about this on the front end, but there’s no way Judge Green will let me use medical testimony this late. The prosecution has the right to have her examined by their own shrink, and they’re entitled to all of Tom Short’s reports. I didn’t give them anything because I didn’t intend to use him.”

  “What are the other options?”

  “She might get on the stand and tell them she didn’t do it. If she does that, I have to decide whether to tank her. The rules say that if she gets on a witness stand and lies, and I know she’s lying, I can’t question her and can’t present a closing argument on her behalf. The jury will figure that out pretty quickly. If she lies and I don’t tank her, then I’m suborning perjury and I could wind up in jail.”

  “You can’t do that,” Caroline said.

  “I can’t and I won’t. But I swear I think I’d do it if I knew I’d get away with it. The guy sodomized her. Punched her in the head, almost knocked her out, then rolled her over and sodomized her. A man of God. I don’t feel the least bit of sympathy for him. None. She should walk on this, Caroline. She should walk right out the door.”

  “I guess we both know where that comes from. Finally.”

  “I should have told you about Sarah a long time ago,” I said. “I’m sorry. I was ashamed.”

  “It’s out in the open now, and I don’t think any less of you.”

  I kissed her on the forehead.

  “This is so unfair,” I said. “The right thing would be for her to go home. Erlene set up the whole situation. She apparently intended to rob the preacher. It wasn’t Angel’s fault. She didn’t even have a weapon with her. She killed him with his own knife.”