by Scott Pratt
Pappy stood over me, smiling. He was carrying a sheaf of papers in his right hand.
“You did it,” he said. “You did it, Darren. Check this out.”
He handed me a forty-page opinion written by the federal magistrate who had heard the evidence that was presented when he’d gone back to Georgia a couple of months earlier. The judge had found that Ronnie Ray, the police officer, had perjured himself during the trial and that the video of the informant being debriefed revealed dozens of inconsistencies that could have been used by Pappy’s lawyer at trial to impeach the informant. The judge wrote that Pappy had been denied a fair trial and ordered a new trial in the federal district court.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” I said. “It means you’re out of here. There’s no way they’re going to retry you on something like this. They could appeal, but they’d be beating a dead horse. Your ticket is punched, big guy. You’re as good as gone.”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say, man. I can’t believe it.”
He sat down across from me and took a deep breath. I’d come in late and was one of only four guys in the chow hall. Pappy made five. The other three were sitting together across the room.
“I wonder how long it will take them to process you out of here and get you back to Georgia,” I said.
“You’d think they’d move pretty quick, right? I mean, this judge practically says I was railroaded and shouldn’t be here. I’ll bet I’m gone inside a month.”
“Congratulations, Pappy,” I said. “I’m happy for you.”
“And I owe you,” he said. “I mean it. I owe you. What can I do?”
I’d actually thought about having this conversation many times since Pappy had told me what happened at the hearing when he went back to Georgia. The cop had admitted to perjury, so I knew the opinion would come fairly soon, and I knew it would be favorable. I’d also been thinking about my own situation. Finding James Tipton was the only hope I had of getting out of prison, and nobody on the outside was having any luck. Grace was trying. She wrote to me often, so I knew she’d been talking to agents from the FBI and DEA and that she’d tried to locate Tipton on her own, but her resources and her time were limited. If Tipton was going to be found, someone would have to make it their mission, and I knew I was the only person who would do it. I placed my hands on the table, leaned forward, and lowered my voice.
“Can you get me out?” I said.
He blinked slowly a few times before he responded.
“You mean get you out of here, I assume. You’re talking about helping you escape.”
“I don’t belong in here,” I said. “I’m not going to make it much longer.”
“You’ll make it as long as you want to,” he said, “because you’re smart and you’re tough, but you’re right when you say you don’t belong in here. You don’t.”
“Do you think it could be done?” I said.
“Yeah, it could be done. As a matter of fact, I’ve had something in mind for a few years now. Never tried it, but I think it could work. It’d cost some money. Ten, maybe twenty grand.”
“I have money,” I said, “which is ironic because I didn’t have any when I was a lawyer on the outside. But I’ve been saving pretty much every dime I’ve earned in here.”
“What would you do if you got out?” Pappy said. “I mean if you got out and got away from the prison clean. Where would you go?”
“Back to Tennessee. I need to find a guy who testified against me at my trial. I’m not sure where he is, but I’d start in Tennessee.”
“So you’ll need to get outside the walls and then get a ride back to Tennessee. You’ll need clothes and traveling money, a vehicle, a prepaid cell phone or two and some sort of fake identification in case you get stopped by a cop. You know that’s the first place they’re going to look for you. You’re from Knoxville, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Knoxville will be crawling with feds looking for you. They’ll be all over your mom and your boy. You won’t be able to go near them. And they’ll pop you with an escape charge if they catch you.”
“And do what? Give me life plus ten years?”
“They’ll probably diesel you for a year and then throw you in the hole for another year.”
“If you help me get out, I’m not coming back,” I said. “I’ll shoot myself before I’ll come back here.”
I’d spent so much time alone that I felt I knew myself better than ever before, and I knew that if I got out, I would never willingly come back. After being a part of and seeing so much brutality and cruelty and injustice, I knew that if I got away and was about to be caught, I would put a bullet in my brain before I allowed them to subject me to the kind of mental and physical abuse I’d endured for the past two years. I wouldn’t let them do it to me for the rest of my life.
“Speaking of, will you need a gun?”
“Yeah, if you can do it.”
“I can do anything, Darren. I’m the shot caller on this yard, and I’ve made enough money to buy an island.”
“Why haven’t you escaped, then?”
“I’m not really sure, except I’ve always had a feeling that Ronnie Ray would eventually be exposed for the lying piece of shit he really is and I’d get out. I believed in the system.”
“That’s a load of crap, Pappy.”
“You’re right. Sue me.”
“So how would it work?”
“Pretty simple, really, if my guy is willing to do it.”
“Your guy? Who’s that?”
“A cowboy I know. Crazy as hell. Not afraid of anything. We did three years together at Lewisburg when I first came in. He can get you past the gates if everything goes well. Then I’ll hook you up with a cowgirl I know. She’s crazier than the cowboy. I guess she’s my woman now. She also works for me on the outside.”
“Works for you? Doing what?”
“I run a legit trucking company on the outside. Got two eighteen-wheelers. She drives one of them. We’ll get you from him to her and put you in the sleeper of her truck. She can drive you across the country.”
“How is your cowboy going to get me past the gates?”
“It’ll be a hoot, Darren. You’ll love it. Timing will be everything.”
“How long will it take you to set it up?”
“Not long. If I know the cowboy like I think I do, he’ll drop everything and come as soon as we want him to. I’ll get in touch with the woman, too, and have her head this way. Maybe a week. When do you want to go?”
“The sooner the better. What happens if you get transferred back to Georgia in the meantime?”
“I could make it happen from the outside, but I’d rather be here when it goes down. I want to watch.”
“You’d really do all this for me?”
“Yeah, man. You realize you’re already a legend in this place, don’t you?”
“You’re crazy. Ninety-nine percent of the guys in here don’t even know I’m alive.”
“You’re wrong. Guys talk about you all the time. Think about it. You’re a lawyer who went down on a charge of killing a child-molesting murderer. You put in a bunch of work on the guards and got dieseled for months. That’s legendary stuff right there, but then you come in here and start taking up cases for people, doing good work, and you kicked that redneck’s ass in front of God and everybody on the yard. Then you take him on again in your cell, get popped eleven times with twelve inches of steel, live through it, and won’t talk to the police about it. That’s powerful, man, and it gets around. Plus you don’t have any vices, which shows everybody you’re mentally strong. You have as much respect as any man on this yard, including me.”
“And here I sit talking about leaving all of it. How selfish of me.”
“And now you’re going to escape? I’m getting chills thinking
about it. You’ll be like a god. If you ever get caught—which you probably will—and you don’t shoot yourself—which you probably won’t—you’ll go straight to the top of the class when you come back inside. You’ll be a shot caller as soon as you walk on a yard.”
“That’s great, Pappy,” I said. “It gives me great comfort knowing I have so much to look forward to if I don’t manage to kill myself and get sent back here.”
“You won’t get sent back here, Darren, now that I think about it. Prison administrators hate guys like you, guys that gain so much respect. They’ll think you have too much power, so they’ll neutralize you. They’ll send you to Marion or Florence for at least three years, probably five. If you escape and then get caught, you’re going straight to super max.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Just the thought of getting out of Rosewood and getting back to the world made me feel weightless over the next week. I was terrified, too, because I had no idea what would happen during the escape attempt and because I wasn’t sure what I’d do even if I made it out and got back to Tennessee. I knew where I was going to start, but I didn’t know where it would lead. Still, the worst thing that could happen, as far as I was concerned, was being captured and returned to prison. The thought of getting killed—which was entirely possible—didn’t really bother me.
Big Pappy set everything up. We had several conversations, usually in his cell. We kept them short so we wouldn’t arouse undue suspicion, but by that time Pappy and I had become close enough friends that it wasn’t unusual for us to be seen talking to each other. During one of the conversations, I learned how Pappy communicated so easily with the outside world. He bought prepaid cell phones that one of the guards smuggled in. They cost him $1,000 apiece, but he was able to use them to run the various businesses he’d set up during his prison tenure. He told me he’d made $4 million during his eleven years in prison off tobacco and gambling and he’d been able to turn it into $10 million. The woman who would be driving me back to Tennessee, whom Pappy described as a hellcat named Linda Lacy, was responsible for running the day-to-day operations of Pappy’s trucking company. She had been his girlfriend when he was arrested and had stayed loyal to him throughout his incarceration.
He wouldn’t tell me much about the cowboy other than he was “the craziest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.” Two days before I was supposed to go, I said, “You haven’t even told me how I’m getting past the walls.”
“You’re going to fly,” Pappy said. “All you have to do is be where I tell you to be when I tell you to be there. The cowboy was a drug mule back in the day. The army taught him to fly helicopters, and as soon as he got out, he started moving cocaine for some dudes in Philadelphia. He wound up getting popped and served three years. That’s how we met. He got his pilot’s license back a year after he got out and wound up starting a charter service in Phoenix.”
“And he’s willing to risk everything to help me get out of here?”
“He isn’t doing it for free,” Pappy said, “but I think he might have if I’d asked him. This is just something that appeals to his flair for the outrageous and dramatic. Besides, he says he’s bored. We’re going to set the exact time tomorrow. It looks like the weather is going to be good. He’s going to come screaming in here, scoop you up, and get out. There won’t be any ID numbers on the helo, and it’ll be painted a different color within twenty-four hours of the escape. If everything goes right, it shouldn’t take more than ten, fifteen seconds to get in and out. The guards might get off a shot or two, but they might not. Nobody’s ever tried to escape from this place by helicopter, so it’ll take them by surprise. Maybe they’ll think the director of the Bureau of Prisons has come to visit. Once you’re out, he’s going to fly you to meet Linda on Highway 41 about forty-five miles from here. He’ll drop you off and then fly straight to a cabin in the Sierra Nevadas. Then he’s flying straight back to Phoenix the next morning. It’s risky, but if anybody can pull it off, it’s Cowboy.”
Forty-eight hours later, I was on the yard at 6:45 p.m. It was mid-April, almost two years to the day since I’d been arrested for Jalen Jordan’s murder. The sky had been clear all day. I’d said thank you one last time to Big Pappy Donovan and told him I’d see him again someday—on the outside. I hoped I was right. I’d jogged around the perimeter fence for a while like I always did, but at 6:49 p.m. I walked to the middle of the soccer field and looked to the west.
Thirty seconds later, I thought I heard the whop-whop-whop of helicopter blades. I looked to the west again but was blinded by the setting sun. Suddenly, I saw it, and within seconds I was engulfed in a cloud of dust and deafening noise as the helicopter came out of the sun, cleared the outer wall, and appeared to stand on its legs like a rearing horse. It touched down thirty feet from where I was standing and I made a break for it. The door opened, and I dived inside onto one of two seats in the cockpit. The pilot was wearing a ski mask. He reached over me and pulled the door shut, pulled the stick, and we were off the ground and over the concertina-wire-topped wall. I looked at the guard tower in the center of the prison yard and could see two guards scrambling onto the catwalk with weapons. We were gone before they could get off a shot.
The man in the seat next to me pulled the ski mask off his head. He looked to be in his early thirties and had light-brown hair cut like a marine’s. He was grinning widely and turned and winked at me. He motioned toward a pair of headphones that were hanging over the seat behind me. I picked them up and put them on.
“Hot damn!” he said. “What a rush! I’m Cowboy. You must be Darren.”
“Yeah, I’m Darren. I appreciate the ride.”
“You did great,” he said. “You were on board less than five seconds after I hit the deck. I was afraid we might end up with a straggler or two, but you got on so fast nobody could react quick enough to cause us a problem.”
“So what now?” I said.
“I’m going to head north for another two minutes so they think that’s the direction we’re heading in, then I’m going to head east and double back to the south. We’re going into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Pappy’s woman is driving an eighteen-wheeler on Highway 41. I know exactly where she’s supposed to be. It’s a curvy mountain road, and there isn’t much traffic. As soon as it’s clear, we’re gonna do the same thing we did back at the prison, only this time you’re getting out of the helicopter instead of into it. You jump out of the chopper and into the truck. I’ll fly away, and she’ll take it from there.”
“Every cop in this part of the country is going to be looking for you,” I said.
“Yeah, ain’t it cool as hell? Don’t worry about it. It’s desert and mountains around here. Very few people, very few cops. Besides, I’ve got a pretty good plan. I’ll make it back home tomorrow, and nobody’ll know a thing.”
He was right about the terrain. It was barren and rugged. The sun was still up, barely, and we were close to the ground.
“How fast are we going?” I said.
“A little over a hundred knots. About a hundred and twenty miles an hour.”
We flew for another thirty seconds before he turned the helicopter to the east and then to the south. We flew for about ten minutes before he turned east again and started into the mountains. About three minutes later, he pointed down and I spotted a truck snaking through a switchback.
“That’s gonna be her,” Cowboy said.
He flipped a switch on a radio and said some things I couldn’t hear. The next thing I knew the earth was coming up quickly. I saw the truck slow to a stop and Cowboy landed the helicopter in the middle of the road about fifty yards away.
“Good luck, brother man,” Cowboy yelled.
He reached across me, opened the door, and gave me a shove. I hit the ground running and climbed into the cab of the truck.
PART III
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
I climbed into the cab of
Linda Lacy’s eighteen-wheeler and watched Cowboy climb away in his helicopter just as darkness was beginning to fall.
“Hey, baby, you made it!” she said as I looked at her stupidly. She was a striking woman, with long sandy-blonde hair that fell out from beneath a straw cowboy hat. Her face was pretty, dominated by cool-blue eyes and a sharp nose, and she seemed to dwarf me in the cab. Unfolded, I’d have bet she was well over six feet tall. I supposed it was one of the attractions to Big Pappy, who was one of the largest human beings I’d ever met in my life.
“What’s the matter? Did they numb your brain in prison?” she said as the truck rolled forward. There hadn’t been a single vehicle in sight when Cowboy set the helicopter down on the road. I had to give them credit. They’d planned my escape thoroughly, although we still had a long way to go.
“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m still in shock a little. I was in a maximum security federal penitentiary fifteen minutes ago.”
“And now you’re out,” Linda said. “On the road to sweet freedom. And before we go any further, I just want to say thank you for what you’ve done for Michael. He was beginning to lose hope.”
“Michael?” I said.
“My Michael. His big-shot name in prison is Big Pappy, but to me he’s just plain ol’ Michael. Listen, you need to crawl up into this sleeper here behind me and change clothes. I think they’ll fit.”
She pulled a curtain back and I climbed through an opening and onto a bed. Sitting on the bed was a small pile of neatly folded clothes—black jeans, a white T-shirt, and a light-blue denim work shirt, a belt, a pair of underwear, a pair of white socks, and a pair of Nike running shoes.
“There’s a false wall back there,” Linda said when I was finished. “If you’ll just reach down behind the mattress toward where the pillow is. No, sweetie, on the other wall, yeah, there, feel it? Pull that latch. Now just push the back wall up. See? If we get stopped, you crawl back in there and stay quiet. For now, put your jail clothes in there. We’ll burn them first chance we get.”