“So what brings you out here so early in the morning?” I said.
“Afraid I’ve got some bad news.”
“How bad? The way things have been going lately, I’m not sure I can handle much more.”
“There’s a problem in your office. A serious problem. I need to be sure I can count on you before I make another move.”
“Count on me for what?”
“To carry the prosecution through. To do what’s right. It ain’t gonna be easy.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what it is?”
“You give me your word you won’t say anything to anybody?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good enough for me. I’ve got Alexander Dunn on tape and on video collecting two thousand dollars in extortion money from a man who runs a little gambling operation out in the county.”
I stopped in my tracks, stunned. Alexander? He was an asshole, but I didn’t think he was a criminal. And I didn’t think he needed money.
“Sorry to drop it on you like this,” Bates said. “I need to move on Alexander while it’s fresh, but I ain’t gonna do nothing unless I know you’re with me.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m having a little trouble wrapping my mind around this. You say you’ve got Alexander on tape? You set him up?”
“Yeah,” Bates said with a slight chuckle. “He walked right into it. He’s got no idea.”
“How did this come about?”
“About a year ago I busted a bookie named Powers, big operation, especially for this part of the country. He was booking around fifty thousand a week. About a month after that I popped a casino that was set up in a big boat out on the lake. They’d run up and down the lake all night, gambling. Busted the operator and all the players.”
“I remember both of them,” I said. “It was all over the news. That’s when I knew you were either crazy or serious about what you were doing. The cops and the prosecutors around here have always left the gamblers alone.”
“What you didn’t hear about was that three or four months after the arrests, after the cases went to criminal court, they wound up getting dismissed at the recommendation of the district attorney’s office. The first case, the bookie, walked because Alexander Dunn told the judge that the sheriff’s department had illegally wire-tapped the bookie’s phone.”
“Did you?”
“Maybe, but we weren’t gonna use any of it in court. We got enough information from the tap that we started putting pressure on some of the players and went at him that way. Then we set up a sting and popped him when he paid off a winner. I don’t even know how Alexander found out about the tap.
“Then the second case got dismissed because Alexander told the judge we’d illegally obtained a search warrant for the boat and that the boat may have been in another county when we did the raid. Hell, I didn’t know the county line ran right down the middle of the goddamned lake, but it seemed to me like Alexander was looking for ways to get the cases dismissed instead of helping us put these guys in jail, where they belonged. Even the customers walked.”
“So you started looking at Alexander?” I said.
“Let’s just say I was suspicious. A couple of weeks ago, I arrested this ol’ boy who lives on a farm out in the county and ran a little casino in what used to be the hayloft of his barn. Not real big-time, but big enough. So I got him into interrogation and started threatening him. I threatened to bring the feds in, which I’d never do, but he didn’t know it. I threatened to arrest his wife. Told him I knew she was in on it, too. Finally, after three or four hours, he told me he had some information that I might be interested in. Said it was big stuff. So I agreed to make a little trade with him if the information turned out to be useful. Turned out to be damned useful.”
We started walking again, slowly. I was having trouble believing what I was hearing, but Bates had no reason to lie to me.
“This boy said most of the people who run gambling operations around here—card games, bingo, video slots, tip boards, bookies, craps, roulette, you name it—used to make campaign contributions to the district attorney and the sheriff. Always in cash, even in years when there wasn’t an election. They had sort of an unspoken understanding. I’ve never taken any of their filthy money and never will, but a few months after Mooney got elected, Alexander started making the rounds. He told everybody there was a new deal. Monthly payments, cash, and he raised the stakes on them. My informant says they were all pissed about it, but what were they gonna do? Call me?”
“So how’d you set him up?”
“I just waited for him to make his regular monthly pickup. Had cameras inside and outside of the house, and the informant wore a wire.”
We turned a corner on the trail and started walking back towards the house. The quickly rising temperature had caused the air near the cool ground to condense, and a shroud of gray mist hung motionless among the trees. The thought of Alexander extorting money from gamblers blew my mind. He put forth such a polished public image, and he was so damned smug. Still, I took no pleasure in what Bates was telling me. It could only lead to a huge public scandal, with the district attorney’s office at its center.
“Have you talked to Mooney about this?” I said.
“Not yet,” Bates said, “but I’m going to. He’s got a tough row to hoe ahead of him, being that Alexander’s his nephew and Lee hired him and put him in charge of a bunch of big cases, at least until you came along.”
“Maybe that’s why he hired me,” I said. “Maybe he suspected something.”
“Maybe, but if he suspected something he should have told somebody about it. This is gonna cause him some real problems.”
“Any evidence that Mooney might be involved?”
“Nope. Not a bit.”
“So why are you telling me all of this, Leon? Why don’t you just turn it over to the feds and let them do their thing?”
“I don’t trust the feds. Lee Mooney and his wife both have a lot of political connections. We turn this over to the U.S. Attorney and there’s a good chance it goes away the same way my gambling cases did in state court. I want you to prosecute Alexander, and I want you to make sure the case is handled the way it should be handled.”
“That won’t be up to me, and you know it. That’ll be Mooney’s call.”
“Trust me,” Bates said, “you’ll catch the case.”
We made our way up the hill and back up the driveway to his Crown Vic. As he opened the door, he turned towards me and his eyes narrowed.
“Honest injun, Dillard,” he said, “you up for this? All I’m asking you to do is what’s right.”
I nodded my head.
“That’s all I need then. I’ll have a little chat with the district attorney when the time is right.”
Bates climbed into the car and started the engine.
“Hey, Leon,” I said, tapping on the window. He rolled it down. “You said you made a little trade for the information your informant gave you. What was it?”
He took off his cowboy hat and set it on the seat beside him. “You didn’t hear this from me,” he said, “but I told him I’d make sure he didn’t get no more than a year’s probation, and I told him he could keep his equipment and keep right on doing what he’s been doing for one more year. After that, I figure me and him will be even and all bets are off. You okay with that?”
I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. What could I say? It was just the high sheriff of Washington County, doing business the same way it had been done for decades.
Friday, November 7
I looked around the room at the portraits of the generals and presidents hanging on the oak-paneled wall: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln. Sandwiched between them was a framed law degree from the University of Tennessee and certificates that said Jim Beaumont was licensed to practice law in Tennessee and in the federal courts.
Beaumont walked in a minute later c
arrying two cups of coffee, his graying brown hair still wet from his morning shower. I’d called him right after Bates left and told him about Sarah’s case in Crossville, and he’d agreed to meet me at his office. He handed me a cup of coffee and sat down next to his antique mahogany rolltop desk. He was wearing a tweed vest over a white shirt with a string tie. He looked at me with his clear blue eyes, and I could see compassion.
“Never thought you and I would be talking under these circumstances,” he said in his syrupy drawl. “I’m truly sorry about what happened to your sister.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Can you work it into your schedule? I know it’ll be a pain driving back and forth to Crossville, but you’re the only guy around here I’d trust to handle it.”
“Appreciate the confidence,” Beaumont said, “but I’ve been thinking about this ever since you called, and there might be a better way to handle it than going into unfamiliar territory and trying a criminal case where the odds are likely to be stacked against us.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“This district attorney, Freeley Sells, I know a little about him. A friend of mine from law school’s been practicing down there for more than thirty years. We’ve stayed in relatively close contact over the years. We talk on the phone every six months or so, take in a Tennessee football game once or twice a year, that sort of thing. He’s told me quite a bit about Mr. Sells.”
“Good or bad?”
“Let’s just say he holds an extremely low opinion of the district attorney.”
“We share the same opinion,” I said. “I had the distinct displeasure of speaking to him face-to-face.”
“Did you now?” Lines formed ridges across his forehead as he raised his eyebrows. “And how did that conversation go?”
“Not well. I’m afraid I made things even worse. I called him a corrupt hick.”
Beaumont laughed richly. His laugh always reminded me of Santa Claus, a throaty “ho, ho, ho.”
“You’ll be pleased to know that from everything I’ve heard about Mr. Sells, you were right on both counts,” he said.
“You said something about another way to handle it. What do you have in mind?”
“A little trick I learned a few years back dealing with another politician whose name I can’t reveal. I know it’s hard to believe, but politicians are human, and humans have secrets. I found that the key to getting a politician to do what you want him to do is to find his secrets and threaten to reveal them.”
Beaumont was an intriguing character, with his mixture of Western outfits, country charm, and genteel mannerisms. On the surface, he was the perfect Southern gentleman. But he’d been playing the game, and playing it well, for three decades and I knew from experience that a person couldn’t be effective for long in criminal defense without a willingness to act ruthlessly when the situation called for it. He apparently was of the opinion that this was the right situation. What he was suggesting was clearly blackmail.
“So how does one go about finding the secrets?” I said. “Hire a private investigator?”
“Exactly, but not just any private investigator. We need experience, we need professionalism, we need discretion, but more than anything we need results.”
“From the look on your face, I’m assuming you have someone in mind.”
He nodded slowly, the dimples in his cheeks barely showing as his lips curved upwards into a shrewd smile.
“There are a couple of gentlemen I met after doing some very thorough research. Both are retired FBI agents who spent most of their careers in Washington, D.C., and both are very skilled in every phase of investigation. One lives in Atlanta; the other is in Boca Raton. I haven’t spoken to them in a couple of years, but I can tell you this: The work they did far exceeded my expectations.”
“Expensive?” I said.
“Very, but compared to the cost of a trial two hundred miles away, it’s a drop in the bucket.”
“How much?”
“I’d say fifty thousand will cover everything, including my fee.”
“How long will it take?”
“If they’re able to get to it right away, probably less than a month. Would you like me to call them?”
“Absolutely.”
He pushed himself up stiffly from the chair. “Please don’t take this personally, but they’re extremely particular about the people they deal with. So with your permission, I’ll make the call from the library.”
“By all means.”
Beaumont walked out of the room, leaving me there to ponder the portraits and think about the world in which I worked each day. Nothing was as it seemed. Nothing was real. Virtually everyone I dealt with, be it judge, victim, defendant, defense counsel, sheriff, boss, even coworker, had an agenda that had little to do with a quest for justice. When I went to work for the district attorney’s office, I thought I’d be doing something right, something worthwhile, something I could feel good about. But I’d found the game was the same; the side I was on was of no real consequence.
Beaumont returned twenty minutes later, a mischievous grin on his face.
“They’re in,” he said.
“When?”
“As soon as I wire them a twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer.”
“You’ll have it tomorrow.”
I stood and offered my hand to Beaumont.
“Do you think this will work?” I said.
“I have every confidence that these gentlemen will lift Mr. Sells’s skirt up over his head, and by the time they’re finished we’ll be intimately familiar with everything that’s underneath.”
I thanked him and turned to leave, but before I got to the door a question popped into my head.
“Hey, Jim,” I said, turning around. He’d already taken his seat behind the desk. “I’ve known you for a long time. Why haven’t you ever told me about these guys? I probably would have used them a couple of times.”
He reached up and started stroking his goatee, rocking slowly back and forth in the chair. His eyes locked onto mine, and I knew that, for once, I was about to get an honest answer from someone.
“Because you were my competitor,” he said. “You still are.”
Friday, November 7
She showed up out of nowhere, just like the first time. Fraley had been frantically searching for Alisha, because without her, we had very little chance of winning the motion hearing that was scheduled for Monday. Fraley said he believed Alisha’s foster parents knew where she was, but they weren’t telling him. He’d canvassed the downtown area, leaving his card at craft shops and with the lone art dealer in town. He’d gone to the university, where he left notes for her on bulletin boards with instructions on how to contact him or me. He’d gone to the local arts center, asked around, and left another note on a bulletin board. For the last two days, he’d been cruising the mall, restaurants, the shopping centers—anyplace where there were a lot of people—approaching anyone he described as “earthy-looking,” showing them her photograph and leaving his card.
I worked late Friday evening. I’d spent the last few days making sure everything was ready. Our witnesses were lined up—all but Alisha—and I’d read case after case, scrounging for anything that would help me with the arguments I’d have to make in front of Judge Glass. I was the last one out of the office, and by the time I stepped through the door into the crisp evening air, it was dark. A cold front had rolled in over the mountains, bringing with it the first snow of the year. Tiny flakes danced on the wind, brushing lightly against my cheeks as I walked through the empty parking lot.
I started my truck and was just reaching up to put it in gear when the passenger door opened. I turned my head and nearly jumped out. When she opened the door, the interior light hit her face and good eye, and I thought Natasha was climbing into my truck.
“You’re looking for me,” Alisha said. She was wearing a long black overcoat and gloves, her head covered by a tan knit stocking cap. The long, flowing red hair I
remembered from the park was tucked inside the coat. She turned her face towards me, and the same flesh-colored patch covered her right eye. Her left eye sparkled like a gemstone, and she smelled of pine-scented incense.
“Yes,” I said, feeling a mixture of shock, relief, and fear. “Yes, I am. Do you want to go back in the office and talk?”
“I’d rather just ride, if you don’t mind.”
She was the same size as Natasha, had the same face and hair. The only difference I could discern was the eye patch, but anyone could put on an eye patch. I needed to be sure. I had no intention of winding up dead by the roadside like the Becks.
“Do you have any identification?” I said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Please forgive me, but I’m going to have to ask you to prove to me that you’re not your sister. You look just like her.”
She turned towards me and smiled. She took her gloves off and reached up slowly with her right hand. Her long, slim fingers slid underneath the eye patch and lifted it, revealing a yellowed orb covered by what appeared to be a milky cataract. I dropped my eyes immediately, feeling like a jackass.
“Thank you,” I said. “I hope you understand.”
I pulled out past the courthouse and turned left on Main Street, heading towards the rural community of Lamar and the Nolichucky River. Now that she was there, I didn’t quite know where to start. I found myself wondering whether she knew what I was thinking.
“You were right about Boyer and Barnett,” I said as we made our way slowly down Main, “but we have to go into court on Monday and tell the judge how you knew.”
“Do I have to testify?”
“I’m afraid so. If you don’t, there’s a chance that the judge will exclude all of our evidence. If that happens, Boyer and Barnett will walk away.”
She sat there in silence for a moment, the streetlights causing a strobelike effect across her face.
“Why hasn’t Natasha been arrested?” she said.
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