by Scott Pratt
He began to breathe heavily and his blue eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his head.
He was like a volcano, about to explode with fury.
”You took my daddy from me!” he yelled.
What? Took your daddy? The strange comment surprised me.
”Bullshit,” I said. ”I didn’t do a damned thing to your daddy.”
”You told people he went to that terrible place!
You told people he was drowning in sin! I heard you in the courtroom.”
”I told people the truth. Your father took money from a revival and spent it at a strip club.”
”Liar! Blasphemer!” He tried to rise but I shoved down hard on the stick, cutting off his breath. He froze again, and a sudden realization came to me.
The look on his face, the outlandish comment, the pain in his voice, told me I’d shattered a powerful image, the image of a father held by a son. What was it Diane had said? ” He idolized his daddy. ” The words I’d spoken in court had apparently opened a gaping wound in his soul, and the wound was festering.
I kept the pressure on with the stick and leaned closer to him.
”Your daddy wasn’t the man you thought he was,” I said. ”That’s not my fault. I didn’t take him away from you—he did that all by himself. You remember what I said. If you come anywhere near me again, you’ll be joining your daddy. I’ll shoot you on sight.”
His eyes narrowed and bored into me. ”Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” he said, ”I shall fear no evil—”
”Shut your fucking mouth!” The words came out of me with such force that I sprayed him with spit.
I grabbed his chin with my left hand, rolled his head to the side, and pressed the stick down hard on his carotid artery. Fifteen seconds later, he was unconscious again. For a moment, I envisioned myself smashing his head to a pulp with the stick. If you kill him, you won’t have to worry about him anymore. But I couldn’t do it. I stood up, turned around, and took off running.
A half hour later, driving along in the dark silence, the anger and bravado I’d felt earlier started to subside. In my mind, I envisioned Junior’s head exploding as I beat him with the stick and relived the fleeting feeling of satisfaction the fantasy had given me. I smelled the urine and felt his labored breath on my face. I began to shake, and before long I was trembling so badly I had to pull to the side of the road.
What the hell had I just done? I’d gone to a man’s home in the middle of the night, attacked him, threatened him, and even fantasized about killing him.
But he tried to kill you.
That doesn’t matter and you know it. You’re not a goddamned vigilante. How many people have you defended who did something stupid and violent because they thought it was right? You’re rationalizing.
I thought about the look in his eyes while I was straddling him. My intention had been to scare him so badly that he’d leave me and my family alone, but that look—that angry, pained, insane look—told me I’d failed. He wasn’t afraid of me. He either hated me too much to be afraid or he was just too crazy to care. As I tried to control the trembling, I looked at myself in the rearview mirror.
”Caroline was right,” I said aloud. ”You’re as crazy as he is.”
June 23
9:20 a.m.
Agent Landers’s head was pounding, his back and shoulders aching. The little college cheerleader he’d laid hold of last night must have been more athletic than he thought. Not that he remembered much about her. He drank almost a fifth of Jim Beam.
Landers was sitting at his desk going through a box of physical evidence from the Angel Christian case. He had to meet with Joe Dillard later. Dillard had a right to inspect the physical evidence. Landers wouldn’t go to Dillard’s office and Dillard wouldn’t come to his, so they were going to meet in a conference room at the courthouse in the afternoon.
Landers was worried about the case. Deacon Baker had indicted the Christian girl without much evidence, hoping she’d either confess or roll on Erlene Barlowe. She hadn’t done either one, and now Dillard was representing her. Dillard was a prick, but he knew how to try a case. Landers knew there was a good possibility that they might lose, and to make things even worse, Judge Green had scheduled the trial a couple of weeks before the August election. If Deacon lost this case, he could very well find his ass on the outside looking in the day after the election.
Landers didn’t give a damn about Deacon, but he’d been around long enough to know that shit flows downhill. If the case was lost, Deacon would immediately start looking around for someone to blame. Since Landers was the case agent, Deacon would look in his direction first. Deacon would tell anyone who’d listen that it was Landers’s fault, that Landers had been sloppy or that Landers had talked Deacon into indicting Angel without enough evidence for a conviction. If that happened, Landers knew he could kiss his chances at a promotion goodbye when his boss finally retired.
Landers had just picked up the photograph of Angel with the bruise on her face when the secretary buzzed.
”There’s a man on the phone says he has information about the Tester murder,” she said.
Landers punched the flashing button.
”Who is this?”
”My name is Virgil Watterson. I have some information you may be able to use.”
”What information is that?”
”My understanding is that a body part was found out near Pickens Bridge?”
A crank call. Some pervert wanting to talk about the dead preacher’s dick.
”That’s right. What about it?”
”I crossed the bridge the night of the murder, around one in the morning. When I got onto the bridge, I noticed there was a car stopped right in the middle. As I got closer, I saw a woman standing outside the car near the railing. She could have thrown something in the water.”
What the fuck? A witness? Where had this guy been?
”Did you get a look at her?”
”Sure did. Her car was facing me in the other lane and she was walking back towards it. Caught her full in my headlights. Middle-aged woman, wearing some kind of animal-print jacket and the tightest pants I ever saw. Bright red hair.”
Erlene Barlowe. It had to be her. Landers started scratching notes on a pad. ”Would you recognize her if you saw her again?”
”Probably.”
”What about the car? You get a look at it?”
”Yes, sir. The bridge is narrow so I had to slow way down to get past her. It was a Corvette. A nice one.”
”Get a plate number?”
”No. Sorry.”
”What about the color?”
”It was dark out there, but I’m pretty sure it was red.”
”Was anyone else with her on the bridge?”
”I didn’t see a soul.”
”Anyone else in the car?”
”Not that I saw.”
”Why’d you wait so long to call and tell us about this, Mr. . . . did you say your name is Watterson?”
”Yes. Virgil Watterson. I’m afraid it’s a little embarrassing.”
”Embarrassing?”
”I wouldn’t want this to get out.”
”Wouldn’t want what to get out?”
The man’s voice got quieter, as though he was trying to keep someone nearby from hearing what he was saying.
”It’s my wife, you see. I’m a married man.”
”So?”
”I’d been on a business trip and came back a little early. I was on my way to someone’s house.”
”Who’s house?”
”I’d rather not say.”
The light came on in Landers’s mind.
”So you came back early from your trip and were going to visit someone besides your wife?”
”That’s possible.”
”And you didn’t go home until the next day?”
”That’s right.”
”And then you heard about the murder and pu
t two and two together?”
”Exactly.”
”I understand,” Landers said. ”So why have you suddenly changed your mind? Why are you coming forward now?”
”I can’t stop thinking about it. I dream about that woman on the bridge every night. I’m afraid you may have arrested the wrong person. My conscience just can’t bear it.”
Landers sat back and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. A steady pressure was beginning to build just beneath his temples.
”Is there anything else you want to tell me, Mr.
Watterson?”
”Not that I can think of.”
”Would you be willing to give me a written statement if I need one?”
”I guess I could if I have to.”
”Would you be willing to testify in court?”
”I’d rather not.”
Landers wrote down Watterson’s address and phone number and told him he’d be back in touch.
If Watterson was telling the truth, Erlene Barlowe could well have tossed Reverend Tester’s dick into the lake. Maybe even the murder weapon. Landers wrote himself a note to have the sheriff’s department drag the lake under the bridge again. They’d already done it once, after the cat found the reverend’s dick, but they hadn’t come up with anything.
Since Watterson said the woman on the bridge was alone, either Angel Christian had still been at the club or Erlene had taken her home. Either way, it probably took Angel out of the picture so far as the murder was concerned. Deacon Baker—that stupid fuck. Landers told him he was pulling the trigger too early. He told him the case was thin. Now it looked like Watterson might be right—they arrested the wrong fucking person.
Landers sat there trying to decide what to do. He could go out and take a written statement from Watterson and add it to the district attorney’s file, but if he did that, Dillard would be entitled to a copy of the statement and Deacon would accuse Landers of sabotaging the case. Payback would be a bitch. Landers figured the better option would be to tell Deacon about Watterson’s call and force him to decide what to do. Landers had a pretty good idea what Deacon would say. He wasn’t one to openly admit a mistake.
Landers called Deacon’s office, and for once, he was in. Landers told him about Watterson and the woman on the bridge.
”Doesn’t sound like a very reliable witness to me,”
Deacon said. Landers knew it. He knew Deacon would say something like that.
”You know what this means, don’t you?” Landers said. ”If Erlene Barlowe was standing in the middle of the bridge that night and she was alone, we probably arrested the wrong person.”
”I don’t recall any of the Barlowe woman’s DNA being found on the victim,” Deacon said, ”and it had to be dark out there. No way this guy could make a positive ID.”
”You didn’t hear his description. It was her.”
”So? What do you want me to do, Phil? You want me to publicly announce that we charged the wrong person with first-degree murder? What do I say?
Oops? Gee, we’re sorry? Six weeks before an election? You’re out of your damned mind.”
”So you’re asking me to ignore a material witness in a murder investigation.”
”I’m asking you to ignore an unreliable and irrelevant witness who will do nothing but muddy the water and give Dillard more ammunition when we go to trial. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve got the right person. Her DNA was found on the body, she had contact with the victim earlier that evening, we have a witness who says she left the club at the same time as the victim, and she’s refused to talk to us. And what if we did dismiss on the girl and arrest Barlowe? What evidence do we have that she committed the murder?”
”She lied to me from the start, and I can’t quit thinking about that car. Watterson said he saw a red Corvette on the bridge.”
”Then find the goddamned thing! But until you do, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop trying to help the other side!”
With that, Deacon hung up. Landers wadded up his notes and tossed them in the trash.
June 23
3:30 p.m.
On Monday, I called Phil Landers’s office to set up a time when I could take a look at the physical evidence they intended to present at Angel Christian’s trial. It was my right as a defense attorney and I was always diligent about doing it, but the meeting loomed like a dentist’s appointment for a root canal.
The bad blood between us went back more than ten years, to when I first began practicing criminal defense law in Washington County. Landers had been sleeping with a woman who’d just gone through an acrimonious divorce. The woman told Landers her ex-husband was a small-time pot dealer and asked Landers to arrest the guy as a favor to her. She gave Landers the make and model of her ex’s car and told him which bar her ex was likely to be hanging out in. She said if Landers would just wait in the parking lot outside the bar for her ex-husband to leave, he’d be sure to get a DUI arrest and probably find more than a little marijuana.
So Landers did what she asked. He waited in the parking lot until the ex left, and when the guy didn’t give him a legitimate reason to stop his vehicle, Landers made one up. He arrested the man for DUI, searched the car, and found an ounce of marijuana.
The ex-husband, a man named Shane Boyd, hired me to represent him. He had no idea he’d been set up until his ex-wife grounded their teenage daughter for staying out too late on a Saturday night two weeks after he was arrested. The girl was pissed off, so she called Shane and told him that both she and her boyfriend had heard her mother and Landers talk about the setup. The teenagers came into my office and signed sworn affidavits. I filed a motion to suppress all of the evidence based on Landers having had no legitimate reason to stop the vehicle.
When it came time for the hearing, Landers got on the witness stand and lied. He denied he even knew Shane Boyd’s ex-wife. He said he stopped my client’s vehicle ”because he failed to activate his turn signal before making a left turn.” I knew TBI agents didn’t routinely make traffic stops, and so did the judge. I called the daughter and boyfriend to the stand and subpoenaed Shane’s ex-wife. She was afraid of getting charged with perjury, so she admitted the affair with Landers, admitted she’d asked him to arrest her ex, but swore she never dreamed he’d do it.
The judge was so outraged that Landers had committed perjury in his courtroom that he dismissed the case and wrote a letter to Landers’s supervisor at the TBI, but nothing happened. It was my first reality check when it came to cops committing perjury. Since then, I’d questioned everything Landers did in every case I had that involved him. I didn’t trust him, and I didn’t have any problem letting him know it.
We set our evidence meeting for three fifteen, but knowing Landers would enjoy making me wait, I didn’t show up until three thirty. He wasn’t there, so I sat down at the table and fumed for a little while.
I was about to leave when he finally walked through the door in his expensive gray suit, carrying a cardboard box under his arm. Landers is around my age, a couple of inches shorter than me, in pretty good shape, and has blue eyes and short brown hair. I suppose he’s handsome—he certainly thinks he is—but there were dark circles under his eyes and I could smell booze on him. It was the kind of smell you can’t shower off, the kind that comes from your pores.
”You’re a half hour late,” I said as I stood up.
”Yeah,” he said with a smirk.
He started taking things out of his cardboard box, the last item being a photograph of Angel. She was sitting at a table looking up at the camera, and she had what appeared to be a nasty bruise on her left cheek. The photograph was dated two days after Tester’s murder. Angel hadn’t mentioned anything to me about the police taking her picture, and the photograph wasn’t in the initial packet of discovery material I’d picked up from the DA’s office. As soon as I saw the photo, I knew I’d need to file a motion to keep them from being able to use it at trial. Unless they had some concrete proof of how Ange
l got the bruise, the photo could unfairly prejudice a jury.
”So I hear Bill Wright’s about to retire,” I said, trying to keep things civil. ”Who’s next in line?”
”No such thing as next in line,” Landers said. ”The job will go to whoever the suits think is best.”
”Who do you think it will be?”
”What do you care?” He looked at me as if I were a fly on his wrist, nothing more than a nuisance.
”Just trying to make a little friendly small talk. No point in us being at each other’s throats all the time.”
He raised his nose in the air like he was sniffing me. It wrinkled, as though he found the scent repugnant.
”Hate to disappoint you,” he said, ”but I don’t think me and you will ever be friends. I don’t like lawyers, especially defense lawyers who do everything they can to get criminals off on bullshit technicalities.”
”You misunderstand my role,” I said. ”I just try to make sure you guys follow your own rules. If you were in the same boat as my clients, you’d want everybody to play fair, wouldn’t you?”
”If I were in the same boat as your clients, I’d sink the goddamned thing and swim away. Now are you going to look at this stuff, or did you get me down here to chitchat? Because to be honest with you, I’m not in a real chatty mood today.”
I slid the items across the table and looked them over.
”Why’d you take this picture?” I said, holding up the photo of Angel. ”And what’s it doing in your evidence file?”
”Why the fuck do you think I took it? Look at her.
Somebody cracked her in the face. We’re gonna show it to the jury.”
”Any proof of how she got the bruise? What if she slipped on a banana peel?”
”She can explain it on the witness stand.”
” If the judge lets it in.” I tossed the photo back onto the table. ”I’m going to file a motion to keep it out.”
”You see?” Landers said. ”That’s exactly what I’m talking about. This photograph was taken two days after the murder. Her hair was found on the dead guy, and she just happens to have a bruise on her face. The logical conclusion is that she got the bruise during a struggle with the victim. But then some asshole like you comes along and wants to keep the jury from finding out about it.”
