by Scott Pratt
“But when I first mentioned the deal, you didn’t say anything about refunding the fee for the murder case. I was under the impression it wouldn’t be an issue.”
“You were wrong.”
Stinnett sat back in the booth and ran his hands through his curly hair. The truth was that he no longer had the money. He’d used it for a down payment on a used Cessna Skyhawk. He’d been flying for most of his adult life and had had his eye on the plane for a long time. Ramirez had given him the means to go ahead with the purchase.
“This isn’t right,” Stinnett said. “What if I refuse?”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“What if I told you I don’t have it? That I’ve already spent it?”
“I’d think you’re either a liar or very stupid. I want my money, and I want it in the next twenty-four hours.”
“But that’s impossible! I’m telling you I don’t have it.”
“What if your life depended on it?”
“So now you’re threatening me? I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with. I’m not some criminal you can kill and nobody will care. If you do anything to me, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Ramirez began to laugh.
“Did you hear that, muchachos? There’ll be hell to pay!”
Stinnett squirmed in the booth as the laughter continued. He started to get up, but Ramirez’s hand caught his forearm.
“Relax, my friend. Relax. I should have known better than to try to get money back from a lawyer.”
“You don’t understand,” Stinnett said nervously. His leg was beginning to shake uncontrollably. He suddenly felt nauseated. “It’s just that we had a contract. A contract, you see?”
“Yes, yes, a contract,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez reached beneath the table, and Stinnett suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol equipped with a silencer.
“Speaking of contracts,” Ramirez said, “I’m afraid you’re the only person who might be able to tie me to the contract on the girl. The only person I don’t trust, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” Stinnett said. He felt his bladder give. Warm urine was running down the inside of his thigh. “I’d never do that. Think about it. If I ever said anything about you, I’d be right in the middle of it, too. It would be professional suicide. I’d wind up in jail.”
“This friend of yours, this friend from the district attorney’s office who gave you the money for the contract,” Ramirez said. “He knows who I am, that I arranged the murder.”
“So what? You didn’t touch the money. You didn’t talk to the people who actually killed the girl. You’re clean on this, Rafael.”
“I don’t like loose ends.”
“Will you please get that gun out of my face?” Stinnett was trying to remain calm, but he felt himself on the verge of tears.
“I’ll give you the money back,” Stinnett blurted.
“No, you won’t. You’re lying.” Ramirez pulled the hammer back on the pistol.
The last words Roscoe Stinnett heard were, “You’re all the same. Fucking lawyers.”
47
Special Agent Mo Rider felt his adrenaline surge as the UH-60 Black Hawk banked and began its descent into the valley below. It was just before dawn. There was enough light to see, but the sun hadn’t yet climbed over the mountain peaks to the east. As the wind whistled and the blades beat like war drums, Rider was thankful that someone up the chain at the Department of Justice had finally listened.
Through the network of informants he’d developed in more than twenty years with the DEA, Rider had been able to gather enough information to convince his superiors that if they committed the assets, they’d get their man. Satellite time had been approved, which was a rarity in the mountains of East Tennessee, and the images they relayed had confirmed the informants’ information. The patch was there. Their man was there.
Two helicopters had been assigned and had arrived from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, at five that morning. They were equipped with state-of-the-art thermal-imaging capabilities. And now nineteen men—seven FBI agents, eleven DEA agents, and Sheriff Bates from Washington County—were about to rock Rafael Ramirez’s world. Each of them wore a black Kevlar helmet and vest, black utilities, and black boots. Each carried the weapon of his choice.
Rider had both planned the mission and conducted the preraid briefing. He was confident every man knew his job. They knew exactly where the Mexicans were sleeping. Rider even knew which space on the tent floor was occupied by Ramirez.
The choppers came in low and fast, one on each side of the small campsite. The Mexicans were just beginning to scramble from the tents when the pilot pulled the nose into the air and dropped the skids onto the deck. Rider launched himself from the door and ran straight toward Ramirez’s tent. He was carrying a sawed-off Beretta semiautomatic twelve-gauge shotgun. There was no time for taking careful aim on this mission. If he had to use the weapon, it’d be point and shoot.
Rider could hear the agents behind him shouting, ordering the Mexicans to get on the ground. A man ran from Ramirez’s tent, tripped, and fell to the ground. Two agents were on him before he could get back to his feet. Another man suddenly appeared in the opening of Ramirez’s tent. He was carrying a pistol in his right hand.
Rider stopped in his tracks. It was Ramirez. The scar was unmistakable.
“Drop it!” Rider screamed. The Mexican hesitated.
“Drop the weapon!”
Ramirez’s eyes tightened. The pistol started to come up, and Rider pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared, Ramirez’s right leg jerked backward, and he fell to the ground on his face. Rider stepped quickly to Ramirez and tossed the pistol away while two more agents entered the tent. Rider pulled Ramirez’s hands behind his back, pulled a pair of handcuffs from a pouch on his web belt, and tightened them securely on the Mexican’s wrists.
“I should have blown your fucking head off,” Rider said, and he meant it. Rider knew Ramirez was a violent sociopath, and he believed him to be directly or indirectly responsible for at least a dozen murders, but the two that stuck in Rider’s craw were the murders of Katie Dean’s aunt and her son. And now, according to Sheriff Bates, Ramirez had been involved in Katie’s murder. Bates had only circumstantial proof and had told Rider he didn’t think Ramirez would ever be convicted of the murder, but Ramirez didn’t know that. Ramirez also didn’t know how far Rider was willing to go to get him to talk. He was about to find out.
Rider moved to Ramirez’s side and knelt. He placed his boot on the bloody crater in Ramirez’s thigh. The Mexican moaned.
“It looks like you’ll live,” Rider said. “That is unless you don’t talk to me.” He leaned close to Ramirez’s ear. “Now I swear to God, asshole, if you don’t tell me exactly what I want to know, I’ll stake you out over there and leave you for the animals.”
48
I’m dreaming of sitting in an electric chair with a hood over my head and Brian Gant standing with his hand on the switch, laughing maniacally, when my cell phone awakens me. I pick it up and see that it’s 4:12 a.m. The caller ID tells me Anita White is on the other end of the line.
“I need to talk to you,” she says when I answer.
“Now?”
“Yes. Can you meet me?”
I crawl out of bed, throw on some clothes, and drive to Perkins restaurant in Johnson City. Anita is sitting at a booth in the corner, alone. She’s drinking coffee, looking haggard and exhausted.
“I didn’t want you to hear this on the news,” she says after I’ve sat down and ordered coffee and ice water. “Tommy Miller confessed a little while ago to killing Judge Green.”
The words stun me, as though I’ve just been hit in the face with a shovel. I stare at Anita, unable to speak. When my senses begin to return, I’m left with feelings of betrayal and confusion. How could I have misjudged him so fundamentally? Why did he have to drag my family into this mess? I think of Toni Miller, and wo
nder just how much more emotional devastation she can take.
“Tell me about it,” I say, barely able to speak. “Tell me everything.”
Anita spends nearly an hour telling me about Tommy’s interrogation. She goes into great detail about Harmon taking over and the tactics he used, which included planting the details of the crime scene in Tommy’s mind. She tells me that Harmon wrote out the confession himself, and that Tommy initialed each page and signed it. By the time she’s finished, I’ve become angry.
“It sounds to me like this confession was coerced,” I snap.
The tone of my voice surprises her, and she folds her arms defensively.
“Maybe,” she says.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“What do you mean? What can I do about it? I’m sure Harmon has contacted every media outlet within a hundred miles by now to let them know we’ve made an arrest and have obtained a signed confession. The bosses in Nashville will know as soon as they show up for work. What’s done is done.”
“What’s done is done? That’s all you can say? You should have done something to stop it.”
“Like what? Harmon didn’t beat him. He didn’t threaten him. He didn’t deprive him of food or water.”
“What about sleep? You said you guys picked him up at six in the morning and were still interrogating him at three the next morning. That’s twenty-one hours straight. It’s over the line.”
“Harmon took breaks. He could have slept during the breaks.”
“You said Harmon lied to Tommy. That’s coercion.”
“No, it isn’t, and you know it. Courts have held time and again that the police can lie to a suspect during interrogation.”
“And I suppose none of this is on videotape.” The TBI doesn’t use video or audio tape during interrogations. Neither does the FBI. It gives the agents more leeway during questioning. It also allows them to deny that they’ve stepped across lines. If a suspect claims coercion, it’s his word against the police.
“Harmon is a pro,” Anita says. “He did what he’s trained to do.”
“Really? When did the TBI start training agents to sweat confessions out of innocent boys?”
“Maybe he did it and really doesn’t remember. His alibi didn’t check out. Norcross went to the convenience store on Oakland where he said he woke up that morning. Nobody there remembers him.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Norcross wouldn’t lie.”
“What did Tommy say about his clothing?”
“He said he must have spilled gasoline on himself when he was pumping gas. He said he gave the clothes to your wife so she could wash them.”
“Which means Caroline will wind up getting a subpoena if Tommy goes to trial. She’ll be a witness against him.”
Anita nods her head slowly. I suddenly find her unattractive, almost nauseating. She’s given me the distinct impression that she doesn’t believe sincerely that Tommy is guilty; yet she stood by and did nothing while her boss browbeat him into a confession. Tommy is in a nearly impossible position now. Nothing is harder to defend than a false confession, because jurors have a hard time believing that anyone would confess to a crime they didn’t commit, especially a murder. But jurors don’t understand the extreme psychological pressure the police can bring to bear during an interrogation. They don’t understand that a person’s psyche can be systematically broken down to the point where the accused begins to believe he must have committed the crime, even though he’s completely innocent.
“Where’s Tommy now?” I ask.
“Probably being booked into the jail.”
I lean forward and look into Anita’s eyes.
“Why did you call me and ask me to come down here, Anita? And don’t say you wanted me to hear the bad news from you instead of reading it in the paper or hearing it on the radio. Why did you really call me?”
She looks down at the table and starts running her finger around the top of the coffee cup. She doesn’t seem to have an answer.
“You don’t think Tommy did it, do you? You wanted to tell me because you want me to do something. You want me to help him.”
Her eyes remain on the table, and I stand.
“You should have spoken up,” I say. “He needed you in that interrogation room, and you should have helped him. But keeping your precious job means more to you than doing the right thing. I misjudged you, Anita. I thought you were one of the good guys.”
I turn and walk out of the restaurant. As I’m walking by the front of the building toward my truck, I look through the window. She’s still sitting at the table, her head in her hands. She appears to be crying.
Several hours later, I’m knocking on the cheap aluminum front door of a small trailer in Cash Hollow. I’ve already broken the bad news to Caroline and been to the jail to see Tommy. Caroline is with Toni Miller now. The TBI held Toni for more than twenty hours on a bogus obstruction of justice charge. As soon as Tommy confessed, they released her.
My conversation with Tommy at the jail confirmed my belief that he’d been coerced. At first I couldn’t believe he’d talked to Harmon, but I soon became convinced his decision was a mixture of fatigue and confusion caused by being on the run, coupled with a young man’s naïve belief that if he told the officers the truth, everything would turn out okay.
Anita had told me that Harmon lied to Tommy about witnesses seeing him near the crime scene, but she failed to mention that Harmon broke Tommy when he told him that Toni said she believed Tommy committed the crime. After visiting with Tommy and offering whatever comfort I could, I drove straight to the convenience store on Oakland and was directed to this trailer. I feel certain that Norcross has been here earlier, but Tommy was so adamant about waking up in his car at the convenience store, I feel obligated to be here.
An overweight young woman holding a baby answers the door. She wears the hopeless, defeated look of the impoverished. I introduce myself and ask to speak to Ellis Holmes.
“The police have already been here,” she says hatefully.
“I’m not the police, ma’am, and I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s extremely important.”
She turns away from the door. “Ellis! Get your ass out here!”
A young man, mid-twenties, appears in the doorway a few seconds later. He’s short, less than five and a half feet, and extremely thin. He’s wearing orange shorts, a white tank top, and flip-flops. His hair is thinning, stringy, and dirty blond. He looks like an orphan, an emaciated, unkempt child of the streets.
“Mr. Holmes?” I say.
“Yeah. What do you want?” His voice is nasal and unpleasant, and I find myself feeling sympathy for him. Life can be cruel in so many ways, and in the few seconds that I’ve known Ellis Holmes, it appears that there isn’t a single attractive thing about him.
I’m holding a photograph of Tommy Miller in my hand, and I show it to him.
“Have you ever seen this young man?” I say.
“Another cop already asked me that.”
“I’m not a cop. I know they’ve already been by here. But I want you to take a closer look and think. Did the officer who came by yesterday tell you why he was asking about this?”
“Nah. He just wanted to know if I’d ever seen him before. Said something about him maybe being outside the store where I work a few weeks ago.”
“Do you keep up with the news, Mr. Holmes?”
“Not really. Don’t care for it much.”
“Did you hear anything about a judge being murdered a little while back? He was hanged and burned in his front yard.”
“Oh yeah, yeah, I heard about that.”
“This young man right here—his name is Tommy Miller—has been arrested and charged with murdering the judge. I’ve know Tommy for most of his life, and I don’t think he could kill anybody. Tommy’s father committed suicide about a week before this happened. He buried his father the day before it happened. He says he got drunk that n
ight and wound up parked outside the store where you were working. He doesn’t remember driving there. He says he spilled gasoline all over himself, but he doesn’t remember that, either. If he was there, it means he’s telling the truth and could go a long way toward proving that he’s innocent. So take a close look at this photo, and I’ll ask you one more time. Did you see Tommy Miller that night?”
Holmes looks nervously over his shoulder into the trailer.
“Let’s talk out in the yard,” he says, and he closes the door and starts down the steps. We walk over to my truck, about thirty feet away.
“I might have seen him,” Holmes says, “but I can’t be getting involved in no murder.”
“Please. His life could depend on it.”
“I could lose my job.”
“Why would you lose your job for telling the truth?”
“I need my job, man. It don’t pay shit, but it’s all I got, and I have to take care of that baby in there.”
“I’m a lawyer, Mr. Holmes, and I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help you keep your job. If you get fired because of this, I’ll give you a job. You can work out at my place. I have ten acres, and there’s always something that needs to be done. And I’ll pay you more than you’re making at the convenience store.”
He looks at me suspiciously. “No joke? You swear on your life?”
“I give you my word.”
“Okay,” he says. “I don’t want to see nobody get hung for a murder if he didn’t do it. Your boy showed up at the store about eleven o’clock that night. Business was slow as hell, so I was taking a bag of trash out to the Dumpster. I’m walking back around the building, and I see this little white Civic pull in, but it stops about three, four feet from the pump. I’m wondering whether the hose will even reach that far. Then your boy gets out, and he’s wobbling all over the damned place. I see plenty of drunks during my shift, but this dude was really shit-faced. I walk on back into the store and turn the pump on, and I’m telling myself that he ain’t gonna be able to pump no gas. So I’m standing there watching him, laughing, you know? He gets the nozzle off the pump, but it takes him a while to figure out which grade he wants. He finally pushes the button and staggers over to the car. He opens the lid where the gas cap is, but then he loses his balance and starts backing up like a crab. He runs into the pump and gets his balance back. About this time, I decide I’d better go on out there and help him. So I’m coming out the door, when I see him start pumping gas. But he forgot to take the damned gas cap off, so gas goes flying all over the place. By the time I get to him, he’s freaking soaked. I’m afraid he’s gonna blow the whole damned place up. I get the nozzle away from him and lean him up against the side of the car. He’s so drunk he can barely talk. I ask him if he has any money, and he can’t even answer me. So I pull his wallet out of his back pocket. He’s got about fifty dollars, so I fill his car up. Twenty-five dollars’ worth. I take the money out of his wallet and stick it back in his pocket. By this time, he’s leaned over the hood and passed out. So I open the back door and wrestle him into the backseat, and I’ll tell you something—it wasn’t no easy task. He’s a pretty big dude. Then I park his car next to the building, take his keys, and leave him out there to sleep it off. I check on him every hour or so to make sure he ain’t choking in his own puke or something. Along about four in the morning, I see him stirring in the backseat. I figure he’s sober enough to drive by that time, so I take the keys out and put them in the ignition.”