by Scott Pratt
Erlene Barlowe was flitting around the courtroom like a socialite, hugging anyone who’d stand still long enough for her to get her arms around them. She even hugged one of the bailiffs. When she came up to me, she kissed me on the cheek and whispered a sincere thank you in my ear. I wanted to tell her what I knew about the Corvette and the blood, but at the time, it just didn’t seem like the thing to do.
Angel hugged me for at least a half a minute, then turned and walked out the door hand-in-hand with Erlene. My last image of her was of her smiling radiantly, but I knew the smile couldn’t last long. Life had already been unfair, even cruel, to her. I felt sure the events of the night Tester raped her, plus the knowledge that she’d gotten away with murder, would haunt her. I wondered where she’d go, and what would become of her.
Caroline had decided to come down to watch the trial after I told her what was going to happen with Sarah. She stood just beyond the bar while I slowly packed my files into my briefcase. Besides the two bailiffs, she and I were the only people in the courtroom. I took my time. I wanted to stay there long enough to allow everyone else to leave. The last thing I needed was a confrontation with Junior Tester or Landers.
When I was ready, I closed the briefcase and turned and winked at Caroline. She stepped through the bar and kissed me without saying a word, hooked her elbow around mine, and we walked out together through a side door. We took the back steps down to the ground floor.
“Man, it’s hot,” I said as we crossed a one-way street that ran parallel to the courthouse. It was almost a hundred degrees. As we walked toward the parking lot, I saw a figure step out from behind a small hedge at the corner of the building about thirty yards to my right. It was Junior Tester. He was holding his right arm tight against his side. There was something in his hand.
Tester was between us and the building. There was no way to go back inside where there were police officers and bailiffs with guns. I dropped my briefcase, grabbed Caroline’s hand and began to run.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Run, Caroline! Tester’s coming. I think he has a gun.”
I looked back over my shoulder and saw him. He was jogging and lifting his right arm.
The parking lot behind the courthouse was about an acre of asphalt. There was room for close to a hundred cars and it was always full. As Caroline and I approached the first line of cars, a gunshot shattered the peacefulness of the summer afternoon in Tennessee’s oldest town. I heard the bullet whiz past in front of me. It ricocheted off the fender of an old Buick and whistled away. Caroline screamed.
“He’s going to kill us, Joe!”
I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her between two rows of cars.
“Get down!” I yelled. “Stay low.” We ran another fifty feet and I looked back. Junior had stopped. His feet were spread and he was aiming the pistol with both hands. Another shot smashed into the passenger window of the car we were running past. I stopped and crouched beside the front fender. I had to figure out a way to get Caroline out of the line of fire.
“We can’t stay together,” I said. I was already sweating and breathing heavily. Caroline’s eyes were wild with fear. I took her face in my hands.
“Listen to me. I’m going to start running. He’ll follow me — I’m the one he’s after. When he does, you go in the opposite direction. They can probably hear the shots in the courthouse, but just in case, get on your phone and call the cavalry. Get me some help!”
“Joe! No…”
I didn’t wait for her to finish. I came up from behind the car and started sprinting toward the west end of the courthouse. I sprinted for maybe five seconds and looked back. Junior was jogging again, but he was lagging behind me. He raised the gun and fired. High. At least Caroline was safe. I kept running.
When I came to the end of the parking lot, I stopped and crouched beside a pick-up. I knew I couldn’t stay still for long, but I was trapped. The parking lot ended at a concrete retaining wall at least ten feet high. I would either have to run across an open space toward Main Street or go back in the direction from which I’d come. If I went back, I could try to stay behind the cars, but Tester would have a much closer shot at me and might be able to cut me off. And I wasn’t sure whether Caroline had made it out of the parking lot. If I went forward, I’d be exposed, but if I could make it to the corner of Main and get around the pharmacy…
I took off for the street.
I saw him in my peripheral vision as I cleared the truck. He was back in his shooting stance. The fourth shot buzzed past my ear and I started to zig-zag. A group of tourists was standing on the corner outside the courthouse, pointing and shouting. I thought I saw a flash of khaki. A deputy? Please be a deputy. Four shots. How many bullets did he have?
I was nearing the small pharmacy on the corner of Main. I thought about ducking inside, but I didn’t want to trap myself and I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger. If I could get around the building, put it between Junior and me, I might be able to find cover or duck into an alley and hide long enough for the police to show up. Just as I was starting to round the corner, the fifth shot ricocheted off of the brick beside me and tore into my left thigh. I didn’t feel any pain, but the impact of the bullet knocked me off balance and I went sprawling face first onto the brick sidewalk. I lay there dazed for a second and tried to get up. My left leg wouldn’t work. I started to crawl. The bricks were warm beneath my hands.
People were screaming and yelling across the street, and I knew he was getting close. I heard sirens. Please, God, make them hurry. There was a loose brick in the sidewalk. I pried it out with my fingers. I rolled onto my back just as Junior came around the corner, less than ten feet away. He was holding the gun at arm’s length. He saw me lying on the ground and slowed. Beads of sweat were glistening on his forehead. The corners of his lips curled slightly.
I threw the brick, but it missed him by inches. He took two more steps and was standing over me, just as I’d stood over him the night I went to his house. I looked at the gun. It was a revolver, six shots. I’d counted five. He had one left.
“Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers,” he said. “And I will execute judgment upon thee and the whole remnant of thee shall I scatter to the winds…”
I started crawling backward on my elbows, dragging my bleeding and useless left leg. I stared at Junior, waiting for the shot and the darkness. His eyes were wild and he was still talking, but the words had become nothing more than incoherent babble. He pulled the hammer back with his thumb. His hand was trembling. I froze.
The next few seconds seemed to run in slow motion. Junior jerked forward as though something had struck him from behind. A puzzled look came over his face, and the gun roared. The bullet screamed past my left ear so close I could feel the shock wave from the velocity. The gun clattered to the bricks by my feet. Suddenly a huge, liver-spotted hand come over the top of Junior’s head and covered his face. The fingers locked onto his chin and pulled straight up.
Junior went over onto his back. A man mounted him and started spraying something into his eyes, a gray-haired man in a uniform…
It was Sarge Hurley, the ancient courthouse security officer. I saw Sarge raise a massive fist and bring it downward toward Tester’s face and heard a loud thud as fist met jaw. More uniforms, some khaki, some blue. They descended on Junior like locusts.
And then, as quickly as it began, it was over. Sarge straightened and turned toward me. He stepped over and knelt beside me.
“You all right, Dillard?”
I looked into his eyes and for the first time, I noticed they were green, just like mine. I laid my head back on the bricks and smiled. Good old Sarge, my very own geriatric guardian angel. He wasn’t even sweating.
“What took you so long?” I said. “You let him shoot me.”
Sarge grunted. He leaned over and picked up Junior’s revolver and looked it over closely.
August 2
11:00 a.m.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation arrested Erlene Barlowe at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, the day before Deacon Baker went up against a former prosecutor named Lee Mooney in the election. The lab results had apparently confirmed that the blood in her Corvette was Reverend Tester’s. She called as soon as they finished booking her. She wanted me to come down to the jail.
The bullet that hit me had gone into my left quadriceps, grazed my femur, and exited through my groin muscle. The wound was what they called a through-and-through. It missed my femoral artery by only a few centimeters. Had it severed the artery, I’d have bled to death on the sidewalk. Instead, they cleaned out the wound at the hospital, wrapped it, and let me go home the next day. It throbbed continuously, but considering the alternative, I wasn’t complaining. I took plenty of aspirin, used crutches to walk, and Caroline helped me keep the wound clean.
Junior Tester was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He’d already been shipped down to Lakeshore Mental Health Institute in Knoxville. I had mixed feelings about Junior. While it was true that he’d tried twice to kill me and had very nearly succeeded both times, I couldn’t help thinking that he’d been a victim himself, a victim of a volatile mixture of fundamentalist extremism and parental hypocrisy. When he learned the circumstances of his father’s murder, something deep inside him had obviously snapped. And then having to sit through the trial and listen to it all again… I doubted very seriously that he would be held criminally liable for his actions. Like Angel, he’d been so traumatized that he probably no longer recognized the line between right and wrong.
I hobbled through the maze on my crutches to the attorneys’ room at the jail. Erlene Barlowe was already seated at the table. She was getting the Maynard Bush treatment — handcuffs, shackles, a chain around her waist. She made the orange jumpsuit look pretty good despite the color clash with her hair.
When I walked in, she was sitting in the same chair Angel sat in during our many talks. To my surprise, she was her usual upbeat self. It didn’t look like I’d need any tissue.
“Mr. Dillard,” she said as I sat down, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you, sugar. How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been shot.”
“I’m so sorry, baby doll. It must have been just awful. That man was even crazier than his daddy.”
“I’m sorry to see you here, Erlene.”
“You’ve got to get me out of this, sugar. I didn’t kill anybody.”
How many times had I heard that? This time, though, it was different.
“I know you didn’t.”
“Well, I swan. Did my sweet little Angel tell you?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t discuss that with you.”
She clutched her hands to her heart. “Well, bust my shiny buttons, honey. Angel told you and you got her out of it anyway. That’s why I hired you, you know. I knew you were the best.”
The best. Helping a guilty woman walk away from a murder made me the best at my profession. I wondered what I’d have to do to be the worst.
“Tell me something,” I said. “Angel had an opportunity to make an excellent deal a couple of weeks before the trial. She rejected it. You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you?”
Her smile turned from genuine to coy.
“They gave her another chance after the trial started. The district attorney was willing to dismiss the murder charge against her. All she would have had to do was tell them you committed the murder. But she wouldn’t.”
“That’s my sweet girl.”
“Convenient for us that Julie Hayes died when she did, huh?”
“It was a terrible tragedy. I can’t tell you how many times I begged that child to stay away from drugs. Turned out to be her undoing.”
“You wouldn’t have had anything to do with her death?”
“Why, sugar, I can’t believe you’d even ask me such a thing. But I will tell you this one teeny little secret. I may have suggested to someone that Julie was a problem, and that someone may have misinterpreted what I meant. I certainly didn’t mean for anyone to get killed.”
I decided to leave it at that. I didn’t want to take a chance on ending up as a witness against Erlene. “How do you think the cops found out about your car?”
“You know, I gave that a lot of thought myself,” she said. “And I came to the conclusion that one of my girls must have called that nasty TBI agent. As a matter of fact, I’m certain of it. I believe I told her exactly what to say. I might even have been standing right next to her when she called him.”
“You what?”
She put her hands on the table, laced her fingers, and leaned forward.
“I probably should explain something to you, baby doll. When you run a business like mine, you meet all different kinds of people. I try to be good to every one of them, so when I need something, I usually get it. Well, this time, what I needed was some real good legal advice, but it wasn’t the kind of legal advice I could get from you. So I talked to this wonderful man. He’s a lawyer, but not exactly the kind of lawyer you are. He used to help my husband out with his finances. He helped me understand some things about the law. Let’s see, what all were they? Things like double jeopardy, I believe is what he called it, and what was that other thing? Oh, yes, the fourth amendment.”
“Who was it?”
“I couldn’t betray his confidence, sugar pie. Let’s just say he’s a sweet, sweet man who likes to indulge in a little harmless sin on occasion. He and my Gus were real close.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I suspected Erlene had somehow been involved in Julie’s death, but I didn’t have any proof of it and doubted anybody on the planet would ever come up with any. But this was something else, something fascinating.
“Why would you want Landers to find the car?” I said.
“I couldn’t let Angel spend the rest of her life in prison or get the death penalty, sugar. The whole thing with that preacher man was my fault. When he came out to the club acting a fool and pawing Angel the way he did, it just flew all over me. Do you know what he said when I asked him nicely to leave? He said, ‘I want to rent your whore for the night. Who do I talk to about that?’ Why, that made me mad as fire, and I just figured right then and there that I’d teach him a little lesson. All Angel was supposed to do was go into the room and give him a drink. I was going to take care of the rest all by myself.”
“Didn’t quite work out the way you planned, did it?”
“It was awful. I should’ve known better than to send that child up to the motel room alone. I’ve been around the block a few times, and I knew the preacher was rotten to the core, but I swan, I was so mad I just wasn’t thinking straight. I never dreamed he’d do what he did. And I never dreamed Angel would react the way she did. When she came down those steps I thought I was going to have a stroke. I went back into the room and there was all that blood. I nearly passed out. But I told myself to calm down, and I set about trying to make things right for Angel. I picked up the bottle of scotch and her purse and the knife and his wallet and then I went-”
“Hold on a minute, Erlene. Why’d you cut his, his…what did you call it? His twigger or something like that?”
“His terwilliger?”
“Yeah, that. Why’d you cut it off? Angel told me she didn’t do it. It must have been you.”
“I saw this TV show where a man got convicted of rape because he had the girl’s DNA on his terwilliger. I got to thinking that Angel’s DNA might be on his terwilliger, and — well, you know, if the police did come around and start asking questions — I didn’t want her to have to explain something like that. Besides, he didn’t need it any more.”
I knew when I met Erlene that there was more to h
er than big boobs and batting eyes, but I never expected anything like this.
“What else did you do?” I said.
“Well, let’s see. Not a whole lot. I just got sweet little Virgil to do me a favor.”
“You mean he didn’t see you on the bridge?”
“Nobody saw me on the bridge, honey. I can promise you that. And I thought there was no way anyone would find the terwilliger. That was just a stroke of bad luck.”
It was almost brilliant. She’d managed to dupe the police into thinking she’d committed the murder to get Angel off, but she’d done such a masterful job of it, she might well be convicted.
“You’ve got some serious problems, Erlene. For starters, what’s Virgil going to do when the state subpoenas him to testify against you? If he gets up on the stand and lies, they’ll charge him with perjury.”
“Don’t you worry your handsome face about that. I won’t be going to trial.”
“You won’t? Why not?”
“It’s that other legal thing I was telling you about. That fourth amendment. You see, this lawyer, the one that likes to sin every now and then, he came out to the club one night and I asked him how I could lead a police officer to a piece of evidence and then make sure he couldn’t use the evidence later. So he told me all about searches, and he made a wonderful suggestion. He said if I’d wait until the very, very last minute and then have someone make an anonymous call to that nasty old TBI agent and tell him where my car was, he’d bet anything the policeman would go tearing up there without a search warrant or anything. And you know what? He was right as rain. That TBI man climbed over a locked gate and ignored a locked door on my barn and crawled right in through a window. The car was under a tarp in the barn, sweetie. It’s private property.”
She’d graduated from almost brilliant to brilliant. Still, she didn’t know who she was dealing with.
“Landers will lie,” I said. “He’ll say the gate wasn’t locked, the barn door was open, he was acting on a reliable tip, and the car was in plain view.”
