by Scott Pratt
“You should have seen the look on his face when I plopped those photographs down on his desk.” Beaumont chortles. “He thought I was there to beg for mercy or to try to make some kind of deal. I made a deal, all right! The deal of the century!”
His laughter is infectious, and my diaphragm begins to cramp slightly as I pound the table. I’ve heard the story at least a half dozen times, but each time he tells it he enhances it a little, and I can’t get enough.
“The one with his thumb up that girl’s ass was my favorite. I nearly pissed myself when I saw it! Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!”
Prostitutes, and the younger the better.
That was the secret his retired FBI guys unearthed in Cumberland County. It took them just over two weeks to find out what was beneath Freeley Sells’s skirt, another three days to set him up and get their video and photographs. The girl cost me five thousand dollars, but I considered it money well spent.
“He wilted like an orchid in a blizzard!” Beaumont says. “I thought he was gonna run over to the jail and let Sarah out himself!”
“I surrender,” I say, holding up my hands and trying to catch my breath. “You’re killing me.”
His mood changes suddenly as something catches his eye. It takes only a second before I realize what it is. I’d taken my jacket off when we entered the room and hung it on the back of my chair. I’m wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and Beaumont is looking at the scars on my forearms.
“They’re fading,” he says.
I put my arms on the table, embarrassed. “Yeah. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“You’ve been through a lot, you and your wife.”
“We’re still standing.”
“I admire both of you.”
I passed out in the ambulance on the way to the hospital the night Natasha met her demise, and when I woke up almost twenty-four hours later, Caroline, Lilly, and Jack were all standing over me. Caroline’s white cell count had risen during the early-morning hours as quickly as it had fallen a couple of days before, and although the doctors attributed her miraculous recovery to their regimen of antibiotics, I wondered whether the true explanation was something far beyond their—and my—understanding.
Caroline has since endured a breast reconstruction and another round of chemotherapy. She still faces six weeks of radiation, but her hair is starting to come back in, and during the entire ordeal, she’s missed less than two weeks of work. I’ve loved and respected Caroline since I was a teenager, but as I watch her deal so bravely with the calamity of cancer, my respect for her grows exponentially with each passing day.
Hank Fraley’s daughter took him to Nashville to be buried less than a week after he was killed. I was still a little woozy from the blow to my head, but the family and I made it to the funeral. I was amazed at how much Fraley’s daughter, whose name is Jessica, resembled the photograph of Fraley’s wife that he’d shown me in his office. Jessica was a beautiful young woman, very gracious. I cried when they put him in the ground. He’d become a good friend, and I miss him.
Sarah was released the same day Jim Beaumont had his meeting with Freeley Sells. She’s stopped going to church. I drop by to see her at least three times a week, but she’s withdrawn and sullen. She says she hasn’t heard from Robert Godsey. I suspect she might be drinking again.
Leon Bates convinced every law enforcement agency in the region—and the media—that he killed Natasha in self-defense. A Johnson City detective came and questioned me in the hospital, but the questions were cursory and he didn’t stay long. I lied to him, but I don’t regret it. What’s right isn’t always what’s legal. Bates has since become a folk hero. He’s appeared on a half dozen national talk shows and has let the news leak that he’s thinking about running for state senator when his term as sheriff expires. He told me a couple of weeks ago he might even consider a run for the United States Senate.
I agreed to a plea deal with Alexander Dunn’s attorney. Alexander pleaded guilty to one count of accepting a bribe as a public official and agreed to serve six months in jail and another two years on probation. Despite the fact that Leon Bates told me Lee Mooney wasn’t involved in the extortion scheme, Alexander’s attorney convinced me otherwise. After that, I couldn’t bring myself to drop the hammer on Alexander, and I find it difficult to look Mooney in the eye every day.
I haven’t seen or heard from Alisha, but my experience with her and Natasha has changed me in a fundamental way. Although I still don’t believe I know the answers to questions of eternity, I’ve become much more reverent, and instead of just gazing at the rising sun each morning, which has long been my habit, I take a little time to pray.
A bailiff sticks his head through the door.
“The judge is ready for you,” he says.
I stand and put on my jacket as Beaumont does the same.
“This is certainly unusual, isn’t it?” he says.
“I guess it is.”
We walk out to the courtroom, and I take my seat at the prosecution table. Beaumont goes straight to the podium as his client steps through the bar and walks up to be arraigned.
The elderly woman Billy Dockery has attacked and robbed is in a coma, but this time he cut his hand breaking into her house and left his blood at the scene. Dockery is charged with attempted first-degree murder, burglary, and theft of over five thousand dollars.
He’s looking at forty years in prison.
I intend to make sure he gets what he deserves.
Acknowledgments
I want to sincerely thank all of the lawyers who remained my friends when it wasn’t in their best interest to do so: Jim Bowman, Bob Green, Mike LaGuardia, Jim and Debbie Lonon, Gene Scott, and especially Collins Landstreet, the guy who actually had the nerve to take up the fight. And thanks to my lifelong friend Mark Greenwell, who had the courage to sit in front of a judge and tell him the truth.
Heartfelt thanks to my mother-in-law, Ann Hodge, who propped us up when the advance money was thin but the future looked bright.
To Jon Ruetz, the wonderful, talented man who edited the first couple of drafts of this book and who has provided immeasurable help to Kristy and me through so many hard times—I’ll never be able to repay you, but I love you dearly and respect you immensely.
Thank you to Phillip Spitzer, Lukas Ortiz, and Luc Hunt for working so diligently on my behalf, and thanks to Renni and Ross Browne at “The Editorial Department” for helping me get up and running and getting me through Phillip Spitzer’s door.
Humble thanks to Kristen Weber and the crew at NAL, all of whom have been wonderful to work with. I’ve learned so much, and hope to continue.
And finally, I’d like to thank the two district attorneys and the criminal court judge who collectively railroaded me out of the legal profession. Were it not for the distinctly vindictive manner in which they conducted themselves, I would never have pursued my dream.
Good things can come from bad times. Believe it.