by Scott Pratt
“Why?” she said.
“Because the police have a witness who told them you owned a red Corvette and that it disappeared the day after Tester was murdered. That same witness also told them you and Angel left the club right after Tester left that night and neither of you came back. And they have another witness who saw a woman get out of a Corvette around midnight at Tester’s motel.”
“Well, I swan, honey pot. Who would say a thing like that?” She knew exactly who it had to be. Little Miss Julie.
“Is there any truth to it?”
“Is this conversation just between the two of us, sugar?”
“You’re not my client, Erlene. The privilege doesn’t apply, so be careful what you say.” Erlene sat back and took a deep breath, like she was nervous. “Can you tell me who the witnesses are?” she said.
“One is a night clerk at the motel named Sheila Hunt. She says she saw a Corvette pull in behind Tester around midnight and saw a woman get out of the passenger side and go up the steps with him. It was raining pretty hard and the woman was apparently wearing some kind of hooded poncho or cape, so she didn’t get a good look at her. And she didn’t see her leave. She didn’t get a tag number and couldn’t tell the cops anything about the driver.”
“That doesn’t sound like much to me.”
“It isn’t, unless the Corvette shows up somewhere down the road. Will it?”
“Who told them I owned a Corvette?” Erlene said.
“One of your employees. The night they raided your place. She said you’d been driving a red Corvette prior to Tester’s murder and that it disappeared the day after he was killed.”
“It was Julie Hayes, wasn’t it?”
Mr. Dillard nodded.
“Did anybody else at the club tell the police anything like that?” Erlene said.
“No ma’am. She was the only one.”
“What does that tell you, sugar?”
“It tells me that either she’s lying or everyone else is lying.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think I want to hear you tell me she’s lying.”
Erlene smiled. Mr. Dillard was so handsome and she could just feel goodness oozing out of him.
“She’s the one who’s lying, baby doll.”
Erlene told him about Julie and her drug problem and her crush on Gus. She told him how Julie came back on a bus from Texas with Angel after they’d met in the bus station down there. Julie had noticed that Angel didn’t have any luggage, not even a purse, so Julie knew right off that Angel was probably a runaway. Since Angel was so pretty, Julie asked her if she’d like to tag along and maybe work in the club. When Erlene picked Julie up at the bus station in Johnson City, Angel was with her.
“So you think Julie’s setting you and Angel up for a murder because she’s jealous?” Mr. Dillard said.
“I wouldn’t put anything past her. She’s a troubled girl. I’ve heard her talk about her arrest record. She bragged about it. She used to tell Gus she had a record as long as his terwilliger.”
“As long as his what?”
“Terwilliger. It’s what I call a man’s thingy. You know…” Erlene pointed between her legs, and Mr. Dillard’s face turned red as her lipstick.
“What else do you know about Julie?”
“Just what she’s told me. She said her mother’s boyfriend tried to rape her when she was sixteen. When she told her mother about it, her mother accused her of lying and beat her up pretty bad. She took off and has been on the road ever since. I think her life has been pretty much nothing but drugs and prostitution. That’s one of the reasons she likes to work here. The money’s good enough that the girls don’t have to sell themselves. But Julie just can’t seem to stay away from the drugs. She has to know I’m about to fire her again.”
“Okay,” Mr. Dillard said. “That helps. It looks like we can impeach Julie if she testifies. But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“What question is that?”
“Is a red Corvette going to jump up and bite us on the backside sometime between now and the trial?”
“I just don’t see how it could, sugar.”
“Good. I’ll put an investigator on Julie Hayes and gather all the background information we can on her. From what you’ve told me, we shouldn’t have much trouble helping her make herself look bad in front of a jury.”
Mr. Dillard didn’t know it and Erlene wasn’t about to tell him, but Julie Hayes wouldn’t be going in front of any jury.
“We have another problem,” he said. “Two hairs they found on Tester’s shirt match Angel’s DNA.”
“Is that bad, sugar?”
“It’s a problem, but I don’t think it’s insurmountable. I’m going to suggest a couple of Angel’s hairs could have passed to Tester while he was at the club.”
“He was all over her,” Erlene said.
“That’s not what you told the TBI.”
Dang it again! “That TBI man scared me to death, honey. I didn’t know what to say to him.”
“From now on, Erlene, I’d suggest you just stick to the truth. In this case, it looks like the truth may set Angel free.”
He was so cute and noble. Erlene just wanted to pinch his cheeks.
June 6
5:45 a.m.
I liked to watch the sun rise on Sunday mornings. The Sunday after they arraigned Angel Christian, I got up around five-thirty, made a pot of coffee, and wandered up the driveway in the darkness in my bare feet and boxers to get the newspaper. As I got to the end of the driveway, I noticed a silver pick-up truck, one of those macho Dodges with tinted windows, illuminated by our security light, backed into the dirt road that led into the woods across the street from the mailbox. It was the same place where I’d counted Erlene’s money. The headlights weren’t on and I couldn’t hear the engine running. The property where the truck was sitting belonged to me. It wasn’t hunting season, and no one had asked me about camping, so I decided to check it out.
I got the paper out of the box and started walking toward the truck. Just as I got to within ten feet, the engine roared to life and the lights came on. I thought it was probably one of Jack’s friends, so I started to wave and say hello, but the thing started coming right for me. I jumped out of the way before it hit me, but it couldn’t have missed by more than a couple of feet. When I landed, my foot caught on a small bush and I ended up flat on my back. The truck came off of the dirt road and squealed off down the road. I didn’t get a look at the driver over the headlights, and my clumsy leap kept me from seeing the license plate.
I cursed and picked myself up off the ground and walked back down the driveway toward the house, wondering who could have been in the truck. I thought about the look Tester’s son had given me and made a mental note to call Diane Frye, a retired state trooper who was now a private investigator. I’d already talked to her about working the Angel Christian case for me, but now I needed to know whether Tester’s son had a silver Dodge truck registered in his name, and if he did, I needed to know anything and everything she could find out about him.
That’s when I noticed Lilly’s car was gone. We had room for only two cars in the garage, so Lilly’s was always parked just outside, off to the side of the driveway. I knew it had been there the night before, because Lilly had driven it to Knoxville and hadn’t gotten home until midnight. I’d waited up for her.
I went back into the house and upstairs to Lilly’s room. She wasn’t the kind of kid to sneak out, but I was hoping against hope that she had. I found her sleeping the dead-zone sleep of a teenager.
As I walked to Sarah’s room, I was hoping the car had been stolen by some stranger, knowing it hadn’t. Sarah’s bed was unmade and empty.
She’d been doing relatively well under the circumstances. Caroline and Lilly had taken her to town to buy her some clothes a couple of days after she showed up, and I’d brought her a catalogue from Northeast State Community College. She’d talked about enrolling
in the fall and studying computer graphics. She spent a lot of time wandering through the woods down by the lake and watching television, and she’d been attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings four days a week.
But then I made a mistake. I took her up to see Ma on Saturday. Ma didn’t recognize either one of us and was unusually belligerent. She told us to get out of her room and never come back. She made such a fuss that one of the nurses suggested we leave and come back another time. The visit obviously upset Sarah, who was hoping to make some kind of peace before Ma died. Sarah hadn’t given any indication on Saturday night that she was about to do something stupid, but she was more quiet than usual and had gone to bed early.
I walked back through the house to our bedroom and touched Caroline on the shoulder. She came out of sleep slowly.
“Mmm…what? Is something wrong?”
“Sarah’s gone,” I said. “In Lilly’s car.”
She didn’t seem to understand for a moment. Then she sat straight up. “Oh no,” she said. “I dreamed last night that she ran away.”
“We better take a look around and make sure nothing’s missing.”
“What do you think she took besides the car?”
“I don’t know, but you better make sure she didn’t steal anything out of your purse, and you should check your jewelry. Lilly’s, too. I’ll check the electronics and the guns.”
It was hard to think of my sister as a thief, but that’s exactly what she’d been in the past. She’d stolen money from me, and Ma had been a favorite target. I wandered around the house for the next fifteen minutes, checking to make sure she hadn’t hauled off a computer or a television or a stereo system. When I was finished, I walked back into the kitchen. Caroline was sitting at the table drinking a bottled water. She looked at me, and I knew the news was going to be bad.
“My diamond necklace is gone.” I’d given Caroline the necklace for Christmas five years ago. She’d never owned anything expensive, and seeing the look on her face when she opened the box had given me great pleasure. She kept it in a jewelry box in a drawer in the bedroom. If it was gone, Sarah must have snuck in there and stolen it during the night.
“Dammit,” I said. “ Damm it! How could she do this?”
“I guess we were expecting too much,” Caroline said.
“I thought she might be ready to change. I thought I might be able to help her.”
“When she’s ready to change, if she’s ever ready to change, she’ll do it on her own. We can’t force it on her. What do you think we should do?”
“She’s taken a ten-thousand- dollar car and a five-thousand-dollar necklace. What do you think I should do?”
Caroline sighed. “I don’t know, babe. Maybe you should go out and try to find her.”
“I’ve been down that road before. You know she’s high by now. I guarantee she’s already sold the necklace for peanuts or traded it for coke. If I found her at some dealer’s house I’d end up defending myself in court after I killed the somebody. I guess I’ll just call Johnson City’s finest and see if they can pick her up before she sells the car to some chop-shopper.”
The phone rang. Maybe it was Sarah, ready to turn back before she crossed the line.
“Mr. Dillard?” a male voice said when I answered.
“Yes.”
“Hi, this is Matthew Miller with the Johnson City Police Department. Haven’t seen you in a while. You okay these days?”
I knew Matthew Miller. I knew most of the cops in Johnson City. Matthew was a good guy.
“I’m fine, Officer Miller. Tell me you found my daughter’s car.”
“A Chrysler Sebring, maroon in color, Washington County plate number QRS-433?”
“It was stolen last night.”
“Well, sir, I’m afraid I have some more bad news. We found it wrecked this morning off of Knob Creek Road. Went down an embankment and rolled across a creek. Ended up against a tree. I’d say it’s totaled, and-”
“What about the driver?”
“No driver,” Miller said. “No trace. Any idea who was behind the wheel?”
“It was probably my sister. She disappeared sometime last night.”
“I thought she was locked up.” Sarah was infamous. Everybody knew her.
“She got out a couple of weeks ago. She was staying here.”
“I guess no good deed goes unpunished,” Miller said. “We’re pretty much finished up here. I’m going to have the car towed down to Brown’s Mill Chevron, you can take it from there. The air bags inflated and there’s no blood, so if it was your sister, she probably made it out okay.”
“Thanks. Can you send somebody out here to take a report? She took some jewelry, too.”
“Probably be best if you just call 9-1-1,” he said. “They’ll send the right people.”
I thanked Miller and hung up.
“She wrecked it,” I said to Caroline. “She wrecked Lilly’s car. I’m calling the cops. I’m through with her.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“I’m serious. She committed two felonies under my roof. She stole and wrecked my daughter’s car and stole your necklace. With her record, they’ll ship her off to the penitentiary where she belongs. She won’t see the light of day again for at least four years, maybe longer.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Caroline said. “I don’t want you beating yourself up about it later.”
I picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.
June 9
10 a.m.
Two days later I got a call from a drug enforcement agent I’d known for ten years. He said they’d picked Sarah up in a crack house on Wilson Avenue around midnight on Monday. He thought I might like to know.
I drove straight to the jail. On the way, my cell phone rang. It was Diane Frye.
“The answer is yes,” she said when I picked up the phone. “John Paul Tester Junior owns a silver Dodge Ram pick-up.” It was the same color, make, and model of the truck that had almost run over me.
“So what else did you find out about him?”
“Born December 1, 1972, to John Paul and Debra Jean Tester in Newport. His mother died of ovarian cancer when the boy was only two. Raised by his father, who was a journeyman welder when he wasn’t preaching the gospel. When he was on the road, which was often, Junior stayed with an aunt. Talked to the aunt, nice lady named Wanda Smithers who has since moved to Ocala, Florida. She said Junior idolized his daddy. She said the boy’s favorite thing to do when he was a boy was to go to church and listen to his daddy preach. Said he’d sit on the front row and hang on every word.
“By the time Junior was ten years old, he was already studying the bible and ‘testifying’ for his father. Started preaching when he was a teenager. When he wasn’t preaching, he spent almost all of his time in his room. Never had a girlfriend, didn’t show any interest in any school activities or sports. The gospel was his whole life. The aunt says that after he got out of high school, Junior and his father started traveling together. They preached all over the southeast. She says they’re somewhat of a legend among the fundamentalists.”
“You’re amazing, Diane. You learned all that in two days?”
“It’s my charm and personality. That and the fact that the aunt talked my ear off.”
“Anything else?”
“The aunt said she visited last year for a weekend. Said Junior stayed in his room and studied, just like when he was a boy. She also said Daddy Tester wasn’t as committed to the faith as Junior. She said he tended to drink heavily every so often and that he liked the ladies.”
“I wonder if the son knew about that,” I said.
“Probably. Be kind of hard to hide for an entire lifetime. I also talked to a couple of people down at the Cocke County sheriff’s department. Daddy Tester apparently had some political clout and got Junior his job. He’s been there for more than ten years as a chaplain. He counsels the officers, works with inmates at the jail, that sort of stuf
f. The people I talked to said everybody down there thinks Junior’s a nut job. He apparently won’t talk about anything but the gospel, and since his daddy was killed, he hardly talks at all.”
“Anything violent?”
“No criminal record. The aunt said he’s gentle. Doesn’t remember him ever even getting into a fist fight. But she said he’s changed since his father’s death. She came up for the funeral and said he acted awfully strange.”
“Thanks. Send me a bill.”
“It’s already in the mail.”
A half-hour after I got off the phone with Diane, a guard brought Sarah into the interview room. She looked like she’d aged fifteen years. When she saw I was there, she didn’t bother to sit at the table, she just put her hands over her face and slid down the wall onto the floor. The sight of her no longer made me sad. All I felt was anger.
“Have a good time?” I said.
“Go to hell.”
“Go to hell? That’s great. You did a nice job on Lilly’s car. I really appreciate that.”
“Yeah, well, tell her I’m sorry. I haven’t driven in a while.”
“Where’s Caroline’s necklace?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where? Who’d you sell it to?”
“Like I’d tell you.”
“Did you sell it or trade it?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I’d like to get it back.”
“Not a chance.”
“Are you really that far gone, Sarah? Do you really not care at all about anything any more? That necklace may mean nothing but a quick fix to you, but it meant a lot to Caroline, and I’d like to have it back.”
She uncovered her face and glared at me.
“The only person that necklace meant anything to was you. It was just you showing everyone what a successful big shot you were, buying an expensive trinket. Do you really think it meant anything to her? You tried the same crap with me. Oh, come live with us, Sarah. Come stay with my perfect little family. We’ll buy you stuff if you don’t get high. We’ll take care of you. What a crock. You can’t buy people, Joey. You’re so pathetic.”
