by Scott Pratt
“It must have come from under that bush,” she was saying, pointing to a nearby laurel. “I didn’t even see it until it knocked me down.”
Terrible thoughts were racing through my head. The dog is rabid. Lilly’s been infected. She could die. Then I thought of the morning at Marie Davis’s house, the look on the TBI agent’s face after he’d seen the Dobermans out back. Natasha. Could she be lurking out here in the woods somewhere? Did she sic her dog on my daughter?
“We need to get you to a hospital,” I said as I quickly tried to examine the bite marks. Her forehead was streaked with red. “Did it bite you on the head?”
She nodded. I parted her hair and could see a gash in her scalp.
“Where else?”
She pointed to her shoulder, about three inches from her neck. There were at least two puncture wounds near her collarbone and more on her forearm.
“You did good fighting him off,” I said. “You did good, honey. You’re going to be fine now.”
I picked her up off the trail and put her arm around my neck.
“Can you walk?”
She nodded.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Sunday, November 2
The lights were bright, the floors clean, and the smell antiseptic as the doctor in the white coat looked at us sympathetically. His name tag dubbed him Ajeet Kalam. He looked to be in his late thirties, very slightly built, with a roundish face, small teeth, and suspicious dark eyes. His accent told me he was born in India.
I was standing next to a gurney on which my daughter was lying. She’d been sedated, but she was awake. We’d been in the emergency room for three hours, and I was afraid the Indian doctor was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.
“It’s good that you brought the dog with you,” he said.
“It wasn’t much fun going back there and dragging him out,” I said.
“It was a female, actually.” I hadn’t bothered to look, and I really didn’t care. “How did you kill her?”
“I bashed her head in with a tree limb.”
“A violent way to die,” he said wistfully.
“I didn’t exactly have the time or the means to do it more humanely.”
“Rabid dogs are a terrible problem where I come from. They kill tens of thousands of people every year. Especially in the poorer provinces.”
Another time, under different circumstances, I might have been sympathetic to the public health problems in India, but at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less.
“Do you have the test results?”
He nodded his head.
“And?”
“The dog wasn’t rabid,” he said. “Lucky for you.”
There was a collective sigh of relief as Caroline, Lilly, and I realized that Lilly wouldn’t have to undergo the painful treatment for rabies.
“So what’s the plan?” I said.
“You look familiar to me,” the doctor said. “Have we met?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I can’t put my finger on it. It seems I’ve seen you recently. Perhaps on television?”
I shook my head, but he looked at me more closely. I could see he was about to put it together.
“Can we get back to my daughter?” I said.
“The crazy woman!” he said triumphantly. He pointed at me. “The crazy woman! You are the lawyer the crazy woman yelled at on the television!”
“Please,” I said.
“Do you know what she was saying? It sounded like a bunch of babble.”
“I think she was trying to put a curse on me,” I said, immediately wishing I could grab the words out of the air before they reached his ears.
His voice lowered and his eyes widened. He spoke slowly. “Ah, a curse. Very dangerous. Very scary for you, no?”
“No. Not scary. Now, if you don’t mind—”
“Right.” He looked as though he’d just awakened from a dream to find a young girl lying on a gurney. “How did you come across the animal?”
“We were jogging,” I said. “We were going to race. She went out first, and I heard her scream… .”
He looked down at Lilly, then back at me.
“Perhaps it is the curse,” he said. “Perhaps you should be more vigilant.”
“Is there anything else you should be doing?” I snapped. The look on my face must have told him not to mention the curse again, because he quickly got back to the matter at hand.
“I’ll give her an injection that will help fight infection,” he said. “And I’ll prescribe some pain medication. The stitches will dissolve, but you need to take her to her doctor in ten days or so, just to make sure everything is healing properly.”
“Can we take her home now?”
“You can. The test is very reliable, but I want you to keep a close eye on her for a few weeks. If there is any sign of headache, fever, irritability, restlessness, or anxiety, you must bring her to the emergency room immediately.”
I patted Lilly on the hand and reached down and kissed her on the forehead.
“You’re gonna be fine,” I said, as much for me as for her. “You’re gonna be fine.”
“If you will excuse us, the nurse and I will go ahead and give her the injection. You can come back in about ten minutes.”
I winked at Lilly, took Caroline’s hand, and walked out of the room, down the hall, and through the automatic doors that led into the sunshine.
“What’s this about a curse?” Caroline said after we stood in silence for several minutes. “I thought you didn’t know what she was saying.”
“It’s nothing. Really. Don’t worry about it.”
“What ever happened to being open and honest?” she said. “I thought you weren’t going to hide things from me anymore.”
In years past, I’d made a habit of keeping things from Caroline, things I didn’t think she needed or wanted to know. But last year, shortly after my mother’s death, I’d finally opened up to her. I told her about Sarah being raped when we were children and about my shame in being unable to defend her, about my terrifying experiences in the military, about the mayhem I witnessed every day at work, about the frustration I felt at being raised without a father. The conversation seemed to lift a psychological burden I’d been carrying for years, and I’d promised to tell her everything in the future.
“I’m not hiding anything,” I said. “I just thought you had enough on your mind. Besides, I’m not taking it seriously.”
“Who told you she put a curse on you?”
“It was just some old guy who came into the coffee shop the other day.”
“So tell me about it.”
“I’ll tell you on the way home. Let’s go get Lilly.”
A nurse brought me a wheelchair, and I rolled Lilly out to the car. During the drive home, I told Caroline and Lilly about the old man who came into the coffee shop Friday morning. I left out the part about one of us having to die, and I didn’t say anything about Natasha’s Dobermans.
“Did he tell you his name?” Caroline said.
“I didn’t want to know his name.”
“Do you think he was some kind of Satanist?”
“I got the impression that he used to be. I guess he’s seen the light.”
“Doesn’t it scare you?”
“No. It doesn’t scare me. And it shouldn’t scare you either. Don’t even think about it.”
As we pulled into the driveway, it was strange not to be greeted by an overly excited German shepherd. Rio had been gone for only two days, but already I missed him. Since Jack had moved out, Rio had become my closest male companion.
I parked Caroline’s car in the garage and helped Lilly out of the backseat and upstairs to her room. Caroline walked back towards our bedroom. Just as we got to the top of the stairs, I heard Caroline yelling my name. The urgency in her voice told me that whatever had alarmed her was serious. I told Lilly to go on to bed and that I’d check on her in a few minutes.
I took the steps two at a time and walked quickly through the house. Caroline was just coming through the bedroom door. All of the color had drained from her face. Her left hand was covering her mouth, and with her right she was pointing towards the bedroom.
“What is it?” I said.
“The bathroom.”
I walked through the bedroom and into the bathroom. I saw it as soon as I stepped through the door. On the mirror above Caroline’s vanity, scrawled in what appeared to be red lipstick, was, “Ah Satan.”
There was only one explanation.
Natasha had been in my house.
Sunday, November 2
I called Fraley, who came over immediately. While I was waiting for him, I searched every nook and cranny of the house. Outside of the message in the bathroom, there was no sign of Natasha. Fraley dusted the vanity and the mirror for prints but found nothing, took a few photographs, and then the two of us searched the house again. When we were finished, we stood in the driveway beneath the bright sun.
“What are you going to do?” Fraley said.
“I don’t know. At least the dog will be back tomorrow. No way she gets in the house if Rio’s here.”
“She’s just trying to scare you.”
“Yeah? Well, she’s doing a pretty good job of it. I don’t know why in the hell I got back into this business. I should have gotten a nice, safe teaching job somewhere.”
“And miss all this fun?” Fraley said. “Relax. We get through the hearing, you go see Boyer and make your deal, and then we’ll get her psychotic ass off the streets for good.”
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Sit up every night with a shotgun?”
“You’ve got some options. Your daughter’s going back to school, right? You and your wife can move in with her mother until things calm down, or maybe you could ask the sheriff to put some guys out here until we can get her picked up.”
“I’m not going to my mother-in-law’s,” I said. “I’ll call Bates.”
I called the sheriff, who had become my biggest admirer since the court hearing with Judge Glass. He agreed to post two deputies, in two cruisers, at my house until Natasha was arrested. I was still scared, but at least I breathed a little easier.
Monday, November 3
First thing Monday morning, I waited for Alexander Dunn in the parking lot in back of the courthouse. It was chilly, the sky fast moving and slate gray. He got out of his black 700-series BMW wearing a navy blue suit covered by a tan, calf-length trench coat. His hair was slicked back, as always. His gloved right hand held an expensive black leather briefcase.
“You’ve got diarrhea of the mouth,” I said as soon as he shut the door. “Do you have any idea how much damage you’ve caused? How could you be so fucking stupid?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dunn said as he pushed past me and started towards the courthouse.
“I’m talking about running your mouth to the media. I’m talking about interfering with a murder investigation. I’m talking about obstruction of justice.”
He stopped and turned, a smug look on his face.
“Are you referring to the story in the paper yesterday morning about your proposed deal with a murderer?”
“What do you get in exchange for doing something like that? Brownie points? Will she make you look good somewhere down the road? Do a feature on you? Will she turn her back if you make a mistake? Tell me, Alexander, what’s the trade?”
“You obviously said something to someone you shouldn’t have,” Dunn said.
“I didn’t say a word to anybody. The only people who knew what was going on were you, Lee, Jim Beaumont, and me.”
“Then Beaumont said something to someone, or he leaked it himself.”
“It wasn’t Beaumont.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because Beaumont’s a decent human being, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for you.”
“Fuck you, Dillard.” Dunn turned and started walking away.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said, catching up to him and leaning against him with my shoulder. “What’s the price for betrayal? Did she give you thirty pieces of silver? A blow job? I swear, if you weren’t Lee’s nephew, I’d kick your ass all over this parking lot.”
“Speaking of kicking ass, Lee got a call from the Crossville district attorney’s office late Friday,” Dunn said as he continued to walk. “Have you been to Crossville recently, by any chance?”
He caught me totally off guard. After a long silence, I said, “What I do outside the office is none of your business.”
“It seems that one of the probation officers down there—I believe he’s dating your sister—got beaten up pretty badly. He had to be hospitalized overnight.”
“Is that a fact?” I said stupidly, unable to think of anything else.
“Yeah, it’s a fact. You know what else is a fact? He told them you did it. He doesn’t want to press charges for some reason, but why would he tell them something like that?”
“I guess he doesn’t like me.”
“Imagine that. Lee isn’t very happy about it. And who can blame him? A member of his office, an assistant district attorney, going into another district and committing a crime. It’s embarrassing. It’s disgusting. It’s … it’s downright shameful, is what it is.”
We reached the door to go upstairs to the office, and I broke away from him and headed for the front of the courthouse. He was having entirely too much fun at my expense; I didn’t want to listen to any more of it.
“He also said you had someone else with you,” Alexander called as I walked away. “My guess is it was your buddy Fraley.”
I ignored him and walked up the sidewalk to the corner and turned left towards the front steps. As I walked through the front door of the courthouse, I saw Sarge Hurley, the seventy-something security officer who’d saved my life a year and a half earlier. I’d stopped by to talk to Sarge a couple of times since I started working for the district attorney’s office. He hadn’t changed a bit. Still tall and lean with thinning silver hair, liver spots, and hands as big as country hams. Still had the youthful sparkle in his eye. Still carried his can of pepper spray, and he was still a living, breathing oracle of courthouse gossip. He started smiling as soon as he saw me.
“Well, I’ll be damned, if it ain’t Mike Tyson,” he said. “Or since your first name’s Joe, maybe I should call you Joe Louis.”
I was horrified. How could he possibly know? Had Alexander Dunn broadcast news of my trip to Crossville over some private law enforcement network?
“What are you talking about?”
He was frisking a skinny teenager. “I hear you got a right hand like a jackhammer and you’re mean as a goddamned badger.”
“Who told you that?”
“Little birdie in a tree. No, that’s a damned lie. It was a fat birdie; ain’t no way he could sit in a tree. You didn’t think you could do something like that and the news not get out, did you?”
Fat birdie. Fraley. It had to be Fraley.
“I have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about, Sarge.”
He released the teenager and walked over and put his arm around my shoulders as I headed for the steps.
“Hell, son, I’m proud of you,” he said. “Any man that would beat on a woman deserves exactly what you gave him. I wish I coulda been there to help you, though the way I hear it, you didn’t need help.”
“Do me a favor, will you? Don’t spread it around.”
He let out a rich laugh. “Too late for that, counselor. Word’s already spread like jelly on a biscuit.”
On the way up the stairs I dialed Fraley’s number.
“Thanks a lot,” I said when he answered.
“For what?”
“How many people have you told about what happened the other night?”
There was a long silence. “Just a couple.”
“Great. In ca
se you didn’t know it, what I did was against the law. It’s called battery.”
“What you did was karma,” he said. “What goes around comes around. Eye for an eye, all that shit. It was justice. And you did it with such conviction. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would’ve never believed it.”
“You need to tone it down. Mooney already knows about it. He’ll probably fire me as soon as I walk in the door.”
“Shit, I didn’t mean to cause you any—”
“Not your fault,” I said. “Somebody from the Crossville DA’s office called him.”
“Are they going to prosecute you?”
“I don’t think so. Just let it die down, okay? No more stories.”
Rita Jones was at her post in the reception area, smacking a piece of gum and wearing a turquoise sweater that clung to her like cellophane.
“Mr. Mooney would like you to come to his office,” she said. I noticed Alexander Dunn standing by the coffee pot, acting as though he weren’t paying attention.
I walked straight back to Lee’s office. His assistant waved me through without saying a word. I found him sitting at his desk, framed by the American and Tennessee flags, reading the newspaper. It seemed that every time I went into his office, he was reading the newspaper. Did he do anything else?
“Close the door and have a seat,” he said without looking up. His tone was firm and businesslike, unfriendly.
I set my briefcase on the floor and took a seat across from him. He folded his paper, removed his reading glasses, and sat there pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“Alexander was just in here,” he said. “He says you accused him of leaking information to the newspaper.”