Justice Lost

by Scott Pratt

  It was a little after eight o’clock, and the sun was dropping steadily toward the rounded humps to the west. I stood on the porch while she retrieved a white shawl and came back out. We walked down the steps, crossed the driveway, and began to follow a path that skirted a creek and a tree line. It led back toward the road, away from her house and the two large, beautiful log cabins on either side. The cabins belonged to her grandsons, Eugene and Ronnie.

  “Haven’t heard from you in a while, Darren,” she said as we walked slowly along the path. “How have you been?”

  “I have another favor to ask,” I said quietly. My hands were folded behind my back, and I was looking at the ground.

  “So you haven’t been doing well,” she said. “What kind of favor?”

  “Very similar to two I’ve asked in the past.”

  I had a long history with the Tipton family. One of them, a grandson named James, became entangled in the murder trial in which Ben Clancy framed me. James was a witness against me and later recanted and helped get me out of prison, but the psychological and emotional damage inflicted upon him by Ben Clancy eventually drove him to shoot himself in the head. I was there, trying to talk him out of it, when he pulled the trigger.

  Eugene, Ronnie, Granny, and Big Pappy Donovan later helped me hang Ben Clancy in their barn after Big Pappy and I kidnapped him. When I killed Donovan during our duel, I also disposed of him at the Tiptons’.

  “So something has gone wrong,” Granny said.

  “You haven’t heard what happened to Grace?”

  Granny looked at me, puzzled, and said, “No, Darren. What happened to her?”

  I told her about the night Grace and the baby died. I told her I’d tried to take it to the district attorney, but that he and the doctor were connected somehow and he wasn’t going to help.

  “So you’re going to kill the doctor,” she said.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I am. I don’t feel like I have a choice. If I don’t kill him, it’s almost like Grace’s death, the baby’s death, didn’t happen. There is no consequence to the doctor’s actions. It all just seems so unfinished. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, Darren. The question is: when does it stop for you?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it stops when people stop killing those I love, and since there really isn’t anyone I love left except my son, Sean, maybe it stops after this one.”

  “When do you want to do it?” Granny said.

  “Soon. I think the district attorney warned him I might be coming after him and told him to hire some security. It’ll probably be off-duty cops or retired cops. If the doctor really thinks he needs protection, I think it’ll take him at least a week to get his act together. He’s a drunk, isn’t exactly on top of things.”

  “How do you plan to kill him?” she said.

  “I was thinking about that on the drive up here,” I said. “From everything I read about what happened in the operating room, my daughter suffocated, so I thought about strangling him. But Grace bled to death from a hemorrhage, so I think I’d like to look into his eyes while he bleeds out.”

  “Which means you’re going to gut-shoot him or cut his throat,” Granny said.

  “I was thinking more toward the throat.”

  “You’ve become a cold-blooded killer, Darren. Do you know that? Is that something you’re ready to concede?”

  A coyote howled in the distance as the sun continued to sink. I looked in the direction of the coyote and thought about what Granny had just said. It was a big statement. Me, Darren Street, son of a violent, alcoholic father whom I eventually threw out of the house when I was thirteen, leaving me to be raised by a single mother. I was a young man who had done my best to get by, to make my mother proud. I’d gone to law school, had become a good lawyer, and was making a decent living before Ben Clancy came along and upended my world by putting me in prison. Had that been the catalyst? Had the two years in prison hardened me that much? I didn’t think so, but they’d certainly prepared me for what was to come. I’d become a killer when my mother was murdered. When I went to West Virginia and murdered those first two, I’d enjoyed it. Killing gave me a tremendous sense of power, and the power was like an addictive drug. I’d lost no sleep over killing those two, just as I’d lost no sleep over Ben Clancy or Big Pappy Donovan.

  “I suppose I am a killer, Granny,” I said. “It isn’t something I consciously think about. It wasn’t something I intended and I don’t really regard myself as some kind of assassin, but I guess life doesn’t always lead us where we intend to go.”

  “You obviously don’t believe in the old adage that revenge is a dish best served cold.”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t. I like mine hot.”

  There was an ornamental bridge over the creek just ahead of us. On the other side of the creek was a small clearing where someone had placed a picnic table. Granny walked across the bridge, and I followed.

  “The boys built this bridge for me and cleared this little spot. I like to sit here and think sometimes.”

  She sat down, made a motion with her hand. “Take a load off.”

  “I will as soon as this is done,” I said as I sat down across from her.

  She smiled and shook her head. “I remember when I first met you. I thought you were as straitlaced as they come. And you were. But life has a way of taking a toll on people, and you’ve sure seen more than your share of sadness.”

  “I think about the Holocaust survivors sometimes,” I said, “and I wonder if what I’ve been through is similar to what some of them went through. Being uprooted, hauled off to prison, losing everything, including my child, having loved ones killed. The difference between so many of them and me is that I’ve been able to strike back against those who have wronged me. Maybe some of them could have killed a few Nazis here or there but chose not to because they wanted to survive. Maybe some of them did kill a few Nazis and paid the price. Me? I’m in the second group. I don’t care if I survive at this point. I want revenge, and I’m willing to die to get it. I don’t necessarily want to die, but I’m not willing to go back into a cage. I’ll die before I’ll do that.”

  “What can we do?” Granny said.

  “A few things,” I said. “First off, I need a clean car, an SUV, one that can’t be traced to anyone. Nothing fancy, around a 2008 model, but not so beat-up that it stands out. I can pay, so don’t worry about that. Can you come up with something?”

  Granny nodded. “Not a problem.”

  “I need a couple of clean IDs, different names, just in case I need to rent cars or whatever I have to do. I want the photos to have beards on my face. I also need a cop uniform, one that looks like a Knoxville patrolman. I could buy the stuff online, but that would leave a trail. Know any good seamstresses?”

  “You’re looking at a woman who has made more clothes than the fanciest New York designer, dead or alive.”

  “Good. You’re hired. I also need a badge, a cop hat, and a cop blue light. The badge doesn’t have to be perfect, but the hat needs to be pretty spot-on. I’m going to put the blue light on my dashboard. You can buy one of those at Walmart.”

  “We’ll figure out where to get everything and send Eugene’s oldest boy.”

  “I was also wondering whether you have some kind of tranquilizer you use on the hogs that I could inject him with. I’ll get him unconscious, bring him up here, and spend a little time with him.”

  “You don’t want Ronnie and Eugene to help you get him here?”

  “I feel like they’ve done enough. No sense putting them in harm’s way again. You guys had a reason to be involved with Clancy because of James, but this is my fight. What he did caused my girl and my baby to die. I’d like to handle it myself. What about the tranquilizers? Do you have anything like that?”

  She nodded. “We have a couple of tranquilizers around I’ve gotten from vets over the years. One in particular might work for you, I think, but I need to tell you up front it might kill him.
The drug works fine on hogs, but they don’t use it on humans anymore. It’s called ACP, acepromazine. Strong medicine. The vet told me it was developed as an antipsychotic drug for humans, but they’ve come up with better drugs since. It’ll put a pig down in a hurry, though, I can tell you that.”

  “Do you inject it?”

  “In a muscle. You could stick it in his backside or his shoulder.”

  “How long does it take the pig to go to sleep?”

  “Seconds.”

  “Could you figure out the dose for a hundred-and-eighty-pound man and sell me a syringe full?”

  “I suppose I can do that,” she said.

  Granny reached across the table and put her hand on my arm.

  “Darren, after you do this thing, where will you go from there? This will be five people. Are you going to stay in Knoxville and practice law and act like nothing ever happened?”

  I shook my head. “I’m getting out of Knoxville. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m not staying. Just too much pain everywhere I look. I only have a couple of cases going, but I’ll just give them their money back and tell them to find another lawyer. I mean, what are they going to do? They can’t force me to stay. They can threaten to disbar me, but I don’t care if they do.”

  Granny took a deep breath. “We don’t want them to disbar you.”

  “Why? What difference does it make?”

  “Listen, Darren, I know I told you we went legit with the moonshine business, and we tried, but we couldn’t make any money. With all the regulations and the competition, it’s damned near impossible to get ahead legally. So we’ve picked up a few other sources of revenue, went back to some old ones, and I’ve been thinking about expanding. I’ve thought about you a couple of times in that regard, and I’ve come up with something that would involve you if you’re interested. It would be a complete turnaround for you, an about-face, but in exchange for us helping you out with this doctor, I’d like you to give it some serious thought. It’s a big ask, but you’ve made some big asks of us, too. That last man you brought up, here, the one you called Big Pappy? That was a mess. And then I had to get the doctor to patch you up.”

  “I remember,” I said. “And again, I thank you. You guys have been so good to me and done so much for me, I’d consider anything you ask me to do.”

  “Thank you, Darren.”

  “What is it? Do you need a lawyer?”

  “I need to make a few phone calls first, work some things out. But if you’re agreeable, I have some old friends who will be extremely helpful.”

  “I don’t understand, Granny.”

  “Let’s deal with your doctor first. If that works out, and I’m sure it will, then we’ll talk about my idea. I think you’re going to love it. It’ll appeal to your sense of irony.”

  “I love irony.”

  “I know. This will be irony at its best.”

  “You’re killing me, Granny. What do you want me to do?”

  She sighed and tapped me on the arm.

  “You’re a persistent devil,” she said. “Stephen Morris is up for reelection in November, correct? Didn’t the legislature change the law and make the district attorney’s term seven years?”

  “Yeah, I believe that’s right.”

  “I want you to run against him, Darren. And if you do, you’ll beat him. I’m going to get you elected as the next district attorney general of Knox County.”

  I looked at her, stunned. “What’s in it for you?”

  “More than you know,” she said as she stood up from the table and hooked her arm around mine. We crossed the bridge as my mind raced. District attorney general? Me? I was a murderer.

  “The irony is blowing your mind right now, isn’t it?” Granny said.

  I chuckled. “I don’t know if the irony of me becoming the district attorney general is blowing my mind as much as the fact that you just used the phrase ‘blowing your mind.’”

  “We’re going to make a lot of money together, Darren,” she said as we made our way back toward the house, “and we might even have some fun while we’re at it.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Granny had a car and my uniform in three days. They’d also gathered IDs, the hat, the badge, and the blue light. I went to a magic shop in the Old City, a place I’d visited more than a year earlier, and bought a fake mustache, a beard, and a small bottle of adhesive. I’d used them before, and along with a baseball cap and some sunglasses, the fake beard altered my appearance considerably.

  During the three days it took Granny to make the uniform, I walked around the Portal’s parking lot each evening at dusk, mapping out security cameras and looking to see whether Dr. Fraturra’s silver Porsche was in the lot. It was always there, even on Sunday. I followed him home each of those evenings. My plan was to eventually follow him and then blue-light him right before he got to his house. I figured he’d pull into his driveway, thinking I was a cop, and I’d drug him and grab him up.

  But something kept eating at me. It just wouldn’t work. Fraturra lived on a fairly busy street in a wealthy area that overlooked the Tennessee River. His house was gated. The reason he drank so often at the Portal in Turkey Creek was that it was pretty much a straight shot from the bar to his house. The street was all four lane or five lane, and it was well lit. On the weekends, there was a lot of traffic until after midnight. I started thinking that if I blue-lighted him, the first thing he would do would be to call 9-1-1 and have them on the phone when I walked up to the car because Morris had warned him I might be coming after him. The dispatcher would know immediately that no real police officer in the area had called in a suspected DUI, and they’d be on me in a heartbeat. I was also afraid, because of the lights in the street, that the car I was driving might be noticed by someone. I might be noticed, even though whoever saw me might not be able to identify me. It was just too risky.

  Besides all those things, there were other problems. From the limited time I’d observed Fraturra, he left the bar anytime between nine and midnight, depending on how the hunting was going, I supposed. He wasn’t much of a hunter, though, because I’d only seen him leave with one woman. He took the same route home each evening, went through the gate, and then into the garage. Both the gate and the garage closed within thirty seconds of him pulling in. I needed to rethink the entire plan. I’d have to go back to Granny for more help. I needed a boat and three throwaway cell phones, and I needed Eugene and Ronnie.

  In the meantime, I continued to watch and gather information. Fraturra’s massive brick-and-stone home wasn’t far from the Cherokee Country Club. If you were anybody in Knoxville, if you wanted to show you had status, you bought an overpriced house on the river. Fraturra’s backyard led to the water, which was roughly two hundred yards wide at the spot where he lived. It was about fifty yards from his garage to his boat dock on the river. He’d ensured his privacy by lining each side of his yard with Leyland cypress trees that had grown to about thirty feet.

  On the night we decided to make our move, which was ten days after my initial meeting with Granny, Ronnie and I pulled into Sequoyah Hills Park and backed up to the boat ramp. At sundown we unloaded a twelve-foot jon boat with a three-horsepower motor into the river. Eugene was outside the Portal, waiting for Fraturra to come out. Ronnie and I acted like we were fishing and floated on the current, making our way slowly downriver toward Fraturra’s, which was just over a mile away from the park. When we got to Fraturra’s house, it was dark, and Ronnie eased the jon boat up next to Fraturra’s dock. I got out of the boat, sprinted for the cypress trees, and made my way along the trees in the darkness up to the house, about fifteen feet from the garage. I pulled a ski mask out of my pocket, Ronnie let the jon boat drift back out to the middle of the river, and we waited.

  About ten thirty, my throwaway cell buzzed.

  “He’s coming,” Eugene said when I answered, and I moved a little deeper into the tree branches.

  Nearly fifteen minutes later, I heard the gate b
uzz, and it began to open. The garage door opened at the same time, and within thirty seconds, Fraturra’s Porsche came rolling in. I sprinted through the opening in the garage door and slid beneath the back bumper like I was stealing second in a baseball game. I was wearing loose, black workout clothes, a pair of gloves, and the mask. The garage door closed immediately.

  The engine cut off, and the car rocked as he opened the door and climbed out. I had the syringe in my hand. The cap to the needle was in my pocket. As soon as Fraturra closed the car door and started walking toward the door that entered the house, I came out from behind the car, took three quick steps, and jammed the syringe into his right hip before he knew what happened. He squealed like one of the pigs he would soon be meeting, turned, and tried to take a swing at me. I ducked it and backed away. I couldn’t take a chance on him scratching me or punching me or pulling my hair. I simply couldn’t leave any trace evidence behind. I knew the cops would most likely find footprints near the shrubbery outside, but they’d never find the shoes to match them. Even if they manufactured something and tried to claim they found the shoes, they were a size and a half too big for me.

  Fraturra looked at me with a mixture of rage, confusion, and fear. He started toward the door leading to the house, then turned back and staggered wildly toward his car. Granny had been right. The pig tranquilizer worked quickly. Within ten seconds or so, he fell in a heap onto the concrete garage floor. I put the cap back over the needle and put the syringe in my pocket.

  I stood over him until the automatic light that had come on when the garage door opened went off and I found myself shrouded in darkness. There was a locked door that led to the outside about ten feet from the garage door. It faced the backyard and the river. I called Ronnie and said, “Coming now.”

  I walked over, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. The warm night air was barely moving and smelled of freshly cut grass. I turned back and patted Fraturra’s pockets until I found his cell phone and his car keys. I took them out and tossed them across the floor. Then I wrestled him onto my back in a fireman’s carry. He was bulky and heavy, but I managed to get him out the door. I laid him down on the ground and relocked and closed the door. Then I knelt over him for a few minutes, gathering myself and listening for traffic, dogs, kids, anything. There was nothing but the sound of leaves rustling mildly in the trees and bushes.