by Allen Kent
“You wouldn’t consider something like that, would you Grace?”
She sniffed into the phone. “Well, I didn’t say no right away. I mean, you’re a young sheriff and seem to like the job. There’s not going to be any place for me to go in the department. I figured out the pay, and it would be better than I’m getting now by quite a bit.”
“But…but… I’ve been thinking you would want to apply for the chief’s job. Prater’s planning to retire in a few months, and you’d be perfect for it.”
“And stay in Crayton forever?” she countered. “What’s in Crayton for me?”
I almost let myself say it. Almost said “I am.” But I still felt that rush when I heard Joseph’s voice on the phone, and it wasn’t right to suggest more than I was ready to commit to.
“Family,” I said. “You’ve got family here and a community that loves and respects you. I was at the Parker funeral this morning and everyone asked about you. Plus, when I came back and took this job, I remember you telling me this is where you’d always wanted to live.”
There was a long pause. “I’m twenty-eight, Tate,” she said finally. “I’ve given a lot of years to family and community. More than anything right now, I need to find my brother and Miriam and get them home. Then I need to be thinking about what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”
“I understand,” I said. And I did. “But please don’t do anything until we have a chance to discuss this more.”
“They are looking for someone soon, Tate.”
“Please, Grace. Please give me a chance to talk this through with you.”
“We’ve had three years to talk.”
“You know it hasn’t been that simple.”
She was again quiet. “I know. That wasn’t fair. I need to think about this more. I’ll call again tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” I murmured and felt the jolt to my chest fade into a smothering fear about more than our two lost teens.
21
The table in the conference room was designed to seat eight, but all but four chairs were pushed back against the walls. Able had the court reporter stationed at one end, with two seats facing his across the table, one for Verl and one for his attorney. I had been consigned along with Allyson Penn to an end wall beneath smiling photos of the three county commissioners, Jim Bowman wearing his Stetson.
“Sheriff, you look preoccupied,” Able said when I entered the room, the first to arrive. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. Just sit quietly. I’ll do all the questioning.”
“I just got off the phone with Grace about an hour ago,” I said sourly. “Things in Scotland aren’t going too well.”
Able shook his head. “That’s the damnedest thing. You send someone to a place like Scotland and assume all will be safe and well. I guess you can’t assume anything anymore.”
“That is the truth,” I agreed, knowing we weren’t talking about the same thing at all.
Allyson Penn walked in a few steps behind Verl and a young guy who looked like he couldn’t be more than a year out of law school. He wore a jacket without a tie, adding to the air that this was to be a fact-finding session and not an interrogation.
Verl’s cleanly shaved head shined like a polished oak burl and his beard was a shade closer to looking trimmed than I had seen it before. The jeans and plaid shirt could be the same ones he’d worn the last time I’d visited the holler, but were recently washed. He glanced around nervously, gave me a curt nod, and frowned at Allyson Penn. His creased face relaxed visibly when he realized Mara Joseph was not in the room.
Able made introductions, steered us to our assigned places, and gave a quick overview of what was going to happen. He introduced Penn as a representative from the State Attorney General’s office with no mention of Joseph. He was clearly doing his best to keep Verl from getting agitated and knew any mention of the woman would set him off.
The court reporter swore Verl in and took her place. Able gave the pair facing him a comfortable smile, noted that everything said would be recorded, and asked the plaintiff to describe in as much detail as he wished the events of the morning LJ Greaves was shot.
Verl glanced uneasily at his attorney, got a reassuring nod, and muttered his way through an account of our visit to the holler that didn’t contain much more information than had been in the complaint. He had obviously been carefully schooled. I had to give the guy credit for staying on script.
Able asked a couple of clarifying questions about what the two men had been doing before we arrived, what time of day it was, and how they knew they had visitors.
“We got one of them drive alarms,” Verl explained. “It buzzes when someone comes past our No Trespassing sign.” Able nodded his appreciation as Verl filled in details.
“Did the sheriff call you before he came?” he asked.
“Couldn’t a called us. We got no regular phone, and there’s no reception down there for cell phones. We have to go up to the road to make a call.”
“Now, I know that hill,” Able said matter-of-factly. “If he didn’t call, how did you know it was Sheriff Tate coming down there through all those trees?”
Verl’s attorney’s eyes alerted and he leaned forward, reaching for his client’s arm. But Verl was into his answer before he could be cautioned.
“There are some breaks in the trees. We could see the patrol car.”
Able nodded as if that made perfect sense. “So, you were pretty sure when you fired your warning shot that you would be missing the sheriff’s car.”
The attorney was quicker to the punch this time, grabbing Greaves’ arm before Verl could answer. “My client does not recall firing any warning shot,” he said sharply.
Able frowned thoughtfully at the rookie lawyer. “I’ve known Verl since he was a kid in britches,” he said calmly. “He’s a bright guy, and I know he can answer these questions on his own. I’m sure you had an opportunity to consult before you came down here. Now, let the man speak. He’s the one who promised to tell the truth, and I know him and his father to be truth-telling people.”
He turned back to Verl. “Sorry about that interruption, Verl. But just for clarification, was your lawyer here saying you weren’t able to recall whether you knew it was the Sheriff you were shooting at, or whether you were trying to hit him?”
“I wasn’t trying to hit him,” Verl said defensively, shaking off his attorney’s hand. “If I’d been trying to hit him, I would have. I told him that.”
“I figured as much,” Able said as the young lawyer clenched his jaw and glared into the tabletop. Beside me, Allyson Penn adjusted in her seat. I glanced over to see a satisfied smile flicker across her lips, then disappear as quickly as it had come.
“And as I understand it,” Able continued, “once Tate told you what he wanted—to ask you if you knew anything about Nettie Suskey’s death—you told him to come on down.”
Verl nodded. “I did. He threatened to bring an army after us if he had to come back. But I didn’t tell him nobody else could come down with him.”
“Right,” Able murmured. “But I’m curious, since you told him to come on down, why you and LJ felt like you needed to greet him with a couple of guns. If I recall, it was that Marlin three-thirty-six you usually have in your truck. And your Pa had a twelve-gauge at the ready.”
His attorney again reached for Verl’s arm, but the man shook the hand away. “I can answer this,” he snapped. “It’s part of what this whole thing is about. Our place is sovereign land. We have a right to protect it.” The young lawyer sat back, his mouth a tight, grim line, while Verl continued.
“You never know what’s going to happen when the law comes,” he insisted. “We had to be ready.”
“Was Sheriff Tate armed?”
Verl looked over at me, his brow furrowed. “If I remember right, he was. Yes—I’m sure of it.”
“Did Tate draw his weapon on you?”
Verl shook his head. “No. Once he told us he wa
s suspecting us because we was cutting timber over on Nettie’s place, we told him to get out.”
“Did you threaten him if he didn’t?”
Verl’s attorney folded his arms and glared at his client.
“We did what we needed to do to make sure he knew we wasn’t joking,” the bald man said irritably.
“The sheriff remembers that as a threat from you.”
“I don’t remember exactly what was said.”
Able nodded again thoughtfully. “Sheriff Tate here also remembers LJ chambering a shell in his twelve-gauge. Does that sound right to you?”
“Might have. Like I say, I don’t remember. But we was serious about him leaving.”
“And that’s about when Officer Mara Joseph came up behind you?”
Verl’s face flushed under the beard. “Yep. Ambushed us from behind.”
“Now, the sheriff tells me you lowered your weapon when she ordered you to, Verl. Why do you think LJ didn’t?”
Verl’s attorney again tried to cut in, but his client was too quick for him.
“Like I say. She surprised us. We didn’t know there was no one else with Tate. He didn’t say nothin’ about nobody else being there. Especially no woman cop. You react when you’re being ambushed.”
“How far apart were they? Officer Joseph and LJ?”
“Maybe twice as far as you and me.”
“Ten or twelve feet?”
Verl nodded. “About that far.”
“Why do you think she only hit him in the side at that range?”
Verl scoffed. “The little bitch. She was probably scared shitless and probably ain’t that good a shot. But she was trying to kill him, and she did.”
Allyson Penn nudged me in the ribs with a sharp elbow but when I looked at her, kept her eyes on the men at the table without expression. Able walked Verl through our getting LJ to the hospital, the kind of treatment he received, and Verl’s decision to take him home.
“Did the hospital want to release him?”
“That weren’t their decision. I didn’t take him there in the first place.” He nodded in my direction. “They took him.”
“By ‘they,’ you mean Sheriff Tate and the state patrol officer?”
“Yeah. They took him up to Springfield and took me to that jail across the street.”
“Where they didn’t hold you, as I remember. Then you went up to get LJ. Why didn’t you leave him in the hospital?”
“I didn’t have the money to keep him there,” he growled. “They was tryin’ to charge me thousands of dollars a day to keep him there. I figured I could do as well at home for nothin.’ And I did, as long as he had the fight in him. I know he lasted a long time, but it was her bullet killed him.”
Verl’s attorney shook his head in disbelief.
Able’s nod was sympathetic. “I’m sure you did the best you could,” he agreed. “Wasn’t LJ old enough for Medicare?”
“He didn’t have no Medicare.”
“He didn’t ever apply?”
“That’s socialism,” Verl grumbled. “We don’t have nothing to do with socialism.”
“I see. But when the Sheriff and Deputy Torres came by several months ago when the dam got blown up, I believe Tate told you he thought LJ needed some additional medical care. Why didn’t you accept his offer to send Doc Waterman out to check him over? I think you know Doc well enough to know he’d have come for free if he needed to.”
Verl’s brow furrowed in frustration. “Like I told him,” he muttered. “I could take care of him myself.”
The elbow again nudged my side.
For the next half hour, Able led Verl through the months that had followed the shooting, the son’s various home remedies he hoped would keep the old man alive, then wrapped up with a statement from the son about what his father’s death certificate read. Verl looked over at me pointedly and said, “It said he died from complications resulting from a gunshot wound. The bitch killed him. And I can say this. If I ever see that cop down this way again, she may be the one who ain’t walking away.”
Able looked across at the attorney for the plaintiff, whose head had dropped into a glum stare into his lap. “I think that pretty well covers everything I wanted to ask,” he said. “If you plan to depose my client, please give us plenty of lead time.”
The attorney rose and waited for Verl to do the same. “I’ll give you what time I can,” he said and followed his client from the room.
“The Sheriff is involved in several major investigations right now and can’t be free on a moment’s notice,” Able called after them, then turned to Allyson Penn with a wink and a satisfied smile.
“Absolutely brilliant,” she said.
22
We spent the hour following Verl’s deposition in my office with Allyson Penn detailing Able’s brilliance while he silently basked in the glow of her praise.
“The best resolution for us,” she explained, “is to convince the judge to issue a summary judgment in our favor without this going to trial. For that to happen, he’ll have to be convinced that you and Officer Joseph were reasonably carrying out your lawful duties, are entitled to qualified immunity, or should be cleared because your actions were lawful and reasonable under the circumstances, even without qualified immunity.”
“Which they were,” I assured her.
She wagged her head uncertainly. “Verl’s attorney was clever enough to leave any detail out of the complaint that would support a summary judgment. But by doing so, he didn’t include any facts that we might choose to dispute. When facts are in dispute, the result is almost always a trial.”
“So . . . ?” I prodded.
“So today Mr. Pendergraft managed to get Verl to admit to a set of facts that are very helpful to us and now can’t be disputed.”
“Able described things pretty much as they happened,” I agreed. “And Verl didn’t challenge any of it.”
“I’m sure he hadn’t been advised to lie about facts,” Penn said, “but possibly to have some lapses in memory when it came to certain details. You noticed his attorney tried to stop him when Able asked how he knew it was you coming down the drive.”
“He did know it was me. He said so at the time.”
“That’s one of those important facts,” Penn noted. “A ‘No Trespassing’ sign can’t keep a law enforcement officer from coming onto private property to carry out his lawful duties—in this case, follow up on a murder investigation. Particularly when there was no other reasonable way to contact the person of interest, which Verl admitted. So, by saying he knew it was you coming down the hill, he admitted to firing a shot at a law officer.”
“But I think he was telling the truth when he said it was a warning shot.”
Penn sniffed. “Doesn’t make any difference. And you would have been justified, as you told him, to go back and bring an army down there after them. But because you know the guy, you told him what you wanted, and he let you come down.”
“Yes. But it is true that they didn’t know Officer Joseph was with me. And I didn’t say anything about it because I had no idea where she’d gone when she bailed from the car. My guess is that if they’d known she was there, they wouldn’t have agreed to talk to me.” I knew I was playing devil’s advocate, but I wanted all of this explained before I found myself facing a federal judge.
“Exactly,” Penn agreed. “Still, when you reached the men, they were both armed. That was another fact left out of the complaint, but important to our case. There was no justification under these circumstances for two men to confront an officer with weapons drawn. Able very skillfully got Verl to agree that they were holding their weapons without directly asking him. I was impressed.” She cast Able a professional smile and he acknowledged with an equally professional nod.
“And that’s important because . . .?” I asked.
She arched a brow to suggest this should all be pretty apparent. “Able also got the man to admit they threatened you, and that LJ did
whatever he did with his shotgun.”
“Chambered a round,” Able reminded her.
“Right. Chambered a round. So, it would make sense for Officer Joseph, who could hear this, to take up a defensive position when she came around the corner. In fact, it would be irresponsible for her to do otherwise. And when Mr. Greaves turned on her with the shotgun, she really had no option but to defend herself.”
“I agree with all that.”
“Well, your counsel managed to get the plaintiff to spell it all out for the court. And the facts that Verl admitted to taking his father from the hospital as soon as he did, that he refused later offers of medical help, and that LJ lived as long as he did, even with those home remedies, dispute any argument that this was a wrongful death.”
The weight of Verl’s lawsuit gradually began to lift from my shoulders.
“So in brief,” Penn continued, “this was a defensive action on Officer Joseph’s part, resulting from unprovoked aggression on their part, that would not have resulted in death had LJ received appropriate medical treatment.”
Able spoke again from his chair beside the door. “I’ve contacted Grace about sending a statement confirming your conversation with Verl about getting LJ treatment.”
“A conversation Verl didn’t dispute,” Penn added.
“No, he didn’t. We’ll get a statement from the hospital that Verl checked his father out against their medical advice. And one from Officer Joseph affirming that you did not know where she had gone after she left the car so had no reason to mention to the Greaves that there were two of you. She can also state that as she approached the corner, she heard the shotgun cock, heard verbal threats, and witnessed two weapons pointed at you. As Counselor Penn says, when LJ swung on her, she did the most responsible thing she could do. She disabled him without a fatal shot.”