by Scott Pratt
“I found James Tipton.”
There was a pause as Grace processed the tidbit.
“You found him? Where?”
“They don’t record your phone calls there, do they?”
“No,” Grace said. “We’re defense lawyers. I mean, we have a way to record if we want to, but as far as some Big Brother thing, no. I would be incredibly surprised.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Is he alive?” she said.
“Tipton? Yes, and he has something you need to see. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you need to come out and meet me, Grace. What Tipton has could change everything for me.”
“Where?”
“Give me your cell number.”
It occurred to me that I’d known Grace for more than two years, had had dozens of conversations with her, felt genuinely close to her—in fact, I was fairly certain I was in love with her—and I didn’t even know her cell phone number. How rare was that in the twenty-first century?
“You’re on a secure phone, I assume,” she said.
“As secure as it gets in this day and age. This is the only time I’m going to use it. As soon as I hang up, I’m destroying it.”
She gave me the number, and I wrote it down on a pad Granny had given me.
“So I have your number,” I said. “Does this mean we’re official? How does it work now? Are we talking? Dating? In a relationship?”
“I can’t believe you’re being so flippant. My chest is about to explode.”
“Drive to Gatlinburg and make sure you aren’t followed. When can you be there?”
“I have a couple of things to do here. Give me two hours.”
“Eleven o’clock, then?”
“Will I be breaking a bunch of federal laws by meeting you? Shit, never mind. I don’t even care. Eleven o’clock will work.”
“What will you be driving?”
“A blue Ford Fusion hybrid.”
“Figures. I’m going to call you again at eleven. Be in the parking lot at the Space Needle.”
“I’ll be there.”
Grace’s cell phone rang at precisely eleven o’clock. She looked down at the caller ID and it was blocked. It had to be him. Her heart started racing again and her finger trembled as she pushed the button to answer. What could he possibly have discovered? And why did the prospect of seeing Darren making her tremble?
“Hello?”
“Don’t freak out.” It was Darren’s voice. “In about thirty seconds, an old black Jeep is going to pull up right next to your door. Driving that Jeep is going to be a very scary looking guy named Eugene. As soon as he pulls up, just get out of your car and get in the Jeep.”
“Are you with him?”
“No, but I’m not far away. One of Eugene’s brothers and I are in another vehicle. We’re going to—”
“Oh my God, he’s here.”
“Get in the Jeep. Don’t be afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid? I’m about to pee on myself, Darren.”
“Are you getting in the Jeep?”
“Yes.”
Grace climbed into the Jeep and found herself staring into the gleaming blue eyes of one of the fiercest-looking men she’d ever seen. He nodded at her, gunned the accelerator, and they pulled out of the parking lot.
“We’re on the road,” Grace said.
“You’re about to go into the mountains. It’s about a half-hour drive to where you’re going. I’m behind you. Like I started to say a second ago, we’re going to make sure nobody is following you.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you soon, Grace. I can’t believe I’m really saying that, but I’ll see you soon.”
The idea of seeing Darren outside a jail cell or courtroom was almost unnerving. She’d come to admire his strength and courage during the time they’d known each other and she’d developed a strong affection for him, but she hadn’t really given a real relationship any thought because of Darren’s situation. He’d been in prison every day since she’d known him, and she hadn’t allowed herself to believe he’d ever get out. Now he was a fugitive, a wanted man on the run. Grace wondered again what Tipton would have to offer. It would have to be something explosive, something that would practically knock the socks off a federal judge. Otherwise, Darren would be headed straight back to prison, if they didn’t kill him first.
The man named Eugene was silent as they wound through forest and mountain laurels, beside creeks and up steep inclines. The road was full of switchbacks. After twenty minutes of steady climbing, the asphalt ended and the road became gravel. Eventually, the road ended and they pulled onto what appeared to be a driveway of clay and chat.
“Are we close?” Grace said uncertainly, wondering whether the driver would answer.
“This is our land,” Eugene said. “Two hundred acres. Been in our family for a hundred years. My granny owns the biggest share of it now. Me and my two brothers own equal shares of the rest.”
“What about your parents?”
“Gone. Both of them.”
“I’m sorry,” Grace said as the Jeep bumped along. “Are you farmers?”
Grace saw Eugene’s head turn toward her out of the corner of her eye, and she looked at him. He turned his face back toward the road again and smiled.
“Among other things,” he said.
At the end of the driveway was a clearing, and in the clearing were three homes arranged in a triangle. Two of them were large log cabins and the other was a white-frame house. There was a large barn behind the house, a split-rail fence, and a couple of outbuildings, one of which Grace recognized as a smokehouse. Grace had expected redneck poverty, but this place was actually quite beautiful.
As Eugene parked the Jeep and shut off the engine, she looked up to see a white-haired woman standing on the front porch of the house.
“Is that your grandmother?” she said.
“That’s her. C’mon.”
“Where’s Darren?”
“He’ll be along directly.”
Grace and Eugene walked onto the porch. The woman nodded and said, “I’m Luanne Tipton. Welcome to my home.”
“Grace Alexander. Thank you. I assume you’re related to James Tipton?”
“He’s my grandson.”
“Is he here?”
“He’s inside. You’ll meet him in a minute.”
Grace had never felt quite like she did in that moment. There was incredible anticipation, both in seeing Darren and in finding out what Tipton had to say. Was he ready to recant? Would he be able to provide some kind of corroboration if he was?
Grace heard an engine and looked down the driveway. A red pickup was coming. It pulled up next to the Jeep and Darren climbed out of the passenger side. Before she realized what she was doing, Grace was down the steps and running across the front yard. She jumped into Darren’s arms, buried her face in his neck, and felt his arms wrap around her.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. “I was afraid I might never see you again.”
His arms tightened even more, and he lifted her from the ground.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Darren said.
They held each other for a full minute before Darren set her back on the ground and loosened his grip. She stepped back and looked at him.
“You’re blond,” she said.
“Yeah, like it?”
“Not really.” She looked at his swollen nose and jaw. “What happened to your face? What is it with you? Every time I see you, you look like somebody’s beaten the crap out of you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Come on, let’s go inside. James is in there, and he has a hell of a story to tell you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Grace had been through mock
trials in law school, plea negotiations in the real world, and jury trials in federal court, but she’d never been through anything like this. She’d called and insisted on a meeting with United States Attorney Stephen Blackburn and, after a half hour of wrangling, had finally been granted an audience.
But she hadn’t expected Ben Clancy to be there.
It was the morning after she’d gone to the Tipton farm and talked with James and Darren. What she’d seen and heard had made her stomach turn. To think that a man of Ben Clancy’s power and position would use it for such evil purposes shook her faith in the justice system, a system she had believed in fervently when she first came out of law school. She had a copy of the file Gary DuBose had given to her sitting on her lap, along with a copy of a flash drive James Tipton had provided.
James had told Grace that after he’d killed Jalen Jordan, he knew he was doomed. Yet even in his drug-addled state, he had tried desperately to figure out some way to get some leverage over Clancy on the slim chance he would ever be able to actually use it. Clancy had contacted him immediately after Darren Street was arrested, and the coaching had begun. Clancy always patted him down carefully and inspected him closely, but James had noticed early that Clancy never looked at his shoes. He’d gone online and found a $300 pair of shoes that looked, for all the world, like an ordinary pair of running shoes. He wore them every time he met Clancy. In the tongue of one of the shoes was a digital camera with audio capability, and in the tongue of the other was a tiny transmitter that sent a signal through a Bluetooth connection to a receiver in James’s laptop in the trunk of his Dodge Charger, which was always nearby since Clancy always wanted to meet in some hastily arranged fashion.
The quality of the video was poor because the angles were always odd and the audio wasn’t great, but the shoes had served their purpose. Each time he met Clancy, immediately following the visit, James would check to make sure he’d captured the meeting, then he would burn copies onto flash drives and compact discs and take them to his bank, where he had a safety deposit box. He’d also buried copies of the drives and discs in the barrels where his cash was hidden.
Grace had given backup copies to her boss in the federal defender’s office, an intelligent but timid fifty-year-old bureaucrat named Roy Seaton. Seaton had listened to what she had to say, briefly glanced at the paper evidence she’d gathered, shaken his head when she asked whether he wanted to watch the video, and politely declined her invitation to accompany her to the US Attorney’s Office.
“Let me know how it turns out,” Seaton had said.
Now Grace sat alone in a room with two men thirty years her senior, men she knew to be close friends, both veterans of legal and political wars. Blackburn was behind his massive desk and Clancy was sitting to her left. They looked like clones in their navy-blue suits, white shirts, and red-white-and-blue-striped ties. When she’d first walked into the room she’d been intimidated. She’d felt her hands begin to tremble slightly and had briefly considered telling Blackburn she was feeling ill and would like to reschedule, but then she’d forced herself to look hard at Ben Clancy and the slow burn had begun. She was a lawyer. Her job was to stand up to people like Clancy. She thought about Darren and the innumerable humiliations he’d faced, the beatings he’d taken, the immeasurable losses he’d endured.
“I was hoping we could speak privately,” Grace said to Blackburn.
“You said this was about Darren Street,” Blackburn said. “Anything that concerns Darren Street concerns Ben. Do you know where he is?”
“No,” Grace said. She turned her head toward Clancy. “But I know where James Tipton is.”
Clancy’s flinch was barely perceptible.
“Who?” Blackburn said. “James Tipton? Who is James Tipton?”
“He was Mr. Clancy’s star witness against Darren Street.”
“So you know where he is,” Blackburn said. “Is that supposed to mean something? How is that important?”
“Mr. Clancy blackmailed him into killing Jalen Jordan, the man Darren was convicted of killing, and then lying at the trial. Every bit of Tipton’s testimony was a lie, and every bit of it was coached by Mr. Clancy. But that wasn’t enough. After the trial was over and Darren had been convicted, Mr. Clancy had him sent on a long diesel therapy session. You’re familiar with diesel therapy, I assume?”
“My understanding is that diesel therapy is more of a legend than anything else,” Blackburn said.
“Oh, no, it’s very real,” Grace said. “Isn’t it, Mr. Clancy?”
“I have no idea,” Clancy said.
“He didn’t stop there,” Grace said. “According to James Tipton, Mr. Clancy tried to kill him, I suppose to clean up loose ends. Then he burned Tipton’s home to the ground.”
Blackburn’s eyebrows raised, but a burst of laughter came from Clancy.
“These are the most outrageous things I’ve ever heard,” Clancy said. “I’ve been accused of a lot during my years as a prosecutor, Miss Alexander, but this takes the cake. I’m hearing conspiracy to commit murder, subornation of perjury, attempted murder, and arson. Please tell me you haven’t come in here making these accusations without some kind of proof.”
Grace refused to respond to him.
“Mr. Clancy also made a drug case against Mr. Tipton disappear,” Grace said to Blackburn. “My understanding is that all of the digital records of the case have been deleted, but I have this.”
Grace leaned forward and set the file Gary DuBose had given her in front of Blackburn. He picked it up, thumbed through it for a couple of minutes, and closed it. He looked at Clancy.
“Well?” he said.
“Where did you allegedly get whatever it is you just gave to Stephen?” Clancy said to Grace, who again refused to respond directly to him.
“The file was provided to me by a DEA agent who is as appalled as I am, and as everyone else will be, by what Mr. Clancy did,” Grace said to Blackburn. “When I asked Mr. Clancy’s witness in court whether he had been offered anything by the government in exchange for his testimony, the witness said no. That in itself is enough to get Darren Street a new trial. Mr. Clancy, of course, knew he was committing perjury. As a matter of fact, Mr. Clancy was the one who went to the DEA supervisor and convinced him to make Mr. Tipton’s drug case disappear from the computer.”
“Who is the agent?” Clancy said.
“Be quiet, Ben,” Blackburn said. “Do you have anything else, Miss Alexander?”
Grace reached into the pocket of the jacket she was wearing and produced a flash drive. She opened her briefcase and removed her laptop, turned it on, and inserted the device.
“I’m just going to show you a few examples,” she said. “There are hours and hours of video and audio on this drive. I’ll leave it with you. I have plenty of copies.”
Grace began showing snippets—a sort of highlight film she’d put together the previous night—of the video and audio for Blackburn and Clancy. She would hear the occasional snort and chuckle from Clancy, but Blackburn watched intently and without comment. After about twenty minutes, Blackburn raised his hand and said, “That’s enough.” He looked at Clancy and said, “Ben, thank you for your time. Miss Alexander and I will take it from here.”
“But she’s making unsubstantiated allegations against me,” Clancy said. “She’s assassinating my character. I’m entitled to defend myself.”
“She isn’t the first person to come to me with concerns about the way you conducted yourself on this case,” Blackburn said. “Now, for the last time, get up and leave the room.”
Grace breathed a sigh of relief as Clancy closed the door behind him.
“What do you want, Miss Alexander?” Blackburn said.
Grace looked at him curiously. “What do I want? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You’ve obviously come here to make some kind of deal,” Blackb
urn said. “I’m asking you what you want. What are your terms, your objectives?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious,” Grace said. “He needs to go straight to prison.”
“Not going to happen,” Blackburn said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Ben Clancy isn’t going to prison. You can remove that from your list before we go another step.”
“But why? How can you . . . after what I’ve just shown you, how could you possibly—”
“What you just showed me were some papers that could easily and simply have been made up. They don’t prove a thing, and I can promise you won’t get any corroboration from anyone in the DEA.”
“But they made a case disappear. There will be a supervisor, other agents.”
“No, Miss Alexander, there won’t. Do you know what happens to whistle-blowers in the federal system? Especially in law enforcement? They’re turned into outcasts, they’re sent to Boise and assigned to minutiae, or they’re investigated closely and charged with crimes themselves. They don’t become heroes. The agent who decided to provide you with this file made a mistake in judgment. I don’t know who he is, but I could find out very easily. I’m willing to forgive his indiscretion, however, provided you’re willing to be reasonable.”
“I’ll go straight to the press,” Grace said.
“Ah, yes, take it to the tattletales. The whiny voyeurs. All you’d accomplish would be to embarrass yourself. This paper file? Forged. Made up by a troubled agent looking for some kind of validation. Not a scrap of corroboration. At best, you might get some congressional committee to appoint a former FBI assistant director or a retired US attorney to conduct an independent investigation, which will ultimately, two or three years down the road, conclude that there isn’t enough proof to take any meaningful action. In the meantime, your client, Mr. Street, will most likely be caught or killed. And your video? You have nothing that was taped prior to Jalen Jordan’s murder. You have images and recordings of very poor quality that may or may not be Ben Clancy talking about a case he is prosecuting. Even if I was willing to agree that it’s Ben on those recordings—and I’m not—prosecutors talk to their witnesses all the time, just like defense lawyers talk to their witnesses all the time.”