by Scott Pratt
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
PART 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
PART 2
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
PART 3
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
PART 4
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Praise for the Novels of Scott Pratt
“Newcomer Scott Pratt brings a fresh voice to a crowded field in his stellar debut, An Innocent Client. Joe Dillard is the best defense lawyer in his small town in Tennessee. He’s also desperately trying to leave the practice of law. Tired of cutting deals for the guilty, Dillard hopes to end his career on a high note—by representing one innocent client. A murder at a local strip club may give him his chance. Artfully plotted, carefully nuanced, and immensely readable, An Innocent Client is a terrific debut novel. Joe Dillard is an engaging, complex character who is worth rooting for. We will be hearing much more from Scott Pratt. Highly recommended.”
—Sheldon Siegel, New York Times bestselling author
of Judgment Day
“A well-crafted, compelling debut, and Scott Pratt is a talent to watch.”
—Jeff Abbott, national bestselling author of Collision
“A smart, sophisticated legal thriller. Scott Pratt knows his stuff and it shows.”
—Alafair Burke, author of Angel’s Tip
“The most impressive first novel I’ve read in years. Think Harlan Coben meets John Grisham. Scott Pratt has written an unputdownable legal thriller, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.”
—Jason Starr, award-winning author of The Follower
“I’ve read An Innocent Client and am truly stunned. It’s Scott Turow and Grisham on meth. The opening chapter is maybe the most compelling I’ve read in a decade.”
—Ken Bruen, Shamus Award-winning author of Cross
“As polished and engrossing as any John Grisham or John Hart legal thriller, Scott Pratt’s stunning debut novel, An Innocent Client, sings with intrigue, crusty Tennessee characters, and gut-wrenching personal choices. To protagonist Joe Dillard’s wish for ‘just one innocent client,’ I’d say, ‘Watch what you ask for.’ To everyone else, I’d say, ‘Go buy this book now.’ ”
—Louise Ure, Shamus Award-winning author
of The Fault Tree
ALSO BY SCOTT PRATT
In Good Faith
An Innocent Client
eISBN : 978-1-101-18725-8
OBSIDIAN
Published by New American Library, a division of
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, May 2010
Copyright © Scott Pratt, 2010
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Injustice for All, my third novel, is dedicated
to Lil’ Smacks, the toughest girl I’ve ever known.
Acknowledgments
Thanks first of all to Shirley Pratt, my mom, for being my biggest fan. Thanks also to the gentlemen at the Philip Spitzer Literary Agency—Philip Spitzer, Lukas Ortiz, and Luc Hunt—for working so enthusiastically on my behalf. Thank you once again to Jon Ruetz, a man of many talents, who did a splendid job helping me get the manuscript into shape, and thank you to all the talented folks at Penguin, especially Kristen Weber and Brent Howard, who work so hard to put these projects together.
I’d also like to thank former assistant U.S. attorney Dan Smith, who took the time to explain to me how the feds allocate resources in certain situations, and Ian Harmon, who shared his computer expertise.
And finally, thank you to Kristy, Dylan, and Kody, my favorite peeps, for believing in me, for keeping me positive, and for being such a fruity bunch of human beings. I love you, I love you, I love you.
justice: the quality of being just, impartial, or fair.
—Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary
Prologue
May 2007
My name is Joe Dillard, and I’m leaning against a chain-link fence watching a baseball game at Daniel Boone High School in Gray, Tennessee, on a spectacular, sun-drenched evening in early May. The sky is a cloudless azure, a mild breeze is blowing out toward left field, and the pleasant smell of fresh-cut grass hangs in the air.
There are five of us watching the game from our spot near the right-field foul pole: me; my wife, Caroline; her best friend, Toni Miller; my buddy Ray Miller (Toni’s husband); and Rio, our German shepherd. The Dillards and the Millers have been watching our sons play baseball together for ten years, alternately rejoicing in their successes and agonizing over their failures. Rio is a relative newcomer—he’s been around for only three years—but he seems to enjoy the games as much as we do.
Ray Miller and I have much in common. We’re both lawyers. After many years of practicing criminal defense, I switched to prosecuting a few years back, while Ray remains on what I now call the “dark side.” I rib him on a regular basis about defending scumbags, but I know he does it for the right reasons and I respect him. He doesn’t cheat, doesn’t lie, doesn’t try to pull tricks. He tends to see things in black and white, much as I do. We both despise the misuse of power, especially on the part of judges, although Ray is a bit more venomous than I in that regard. We’re close to the same age, and we’re devoted to our families.
We watch the game from our position in the outfield, away from the players and the other parents, because none of us wishes to distract our sons. We don’t yell at them during games as other parents do. We don’t criticize the umpires or the coaches. We just watch and worry. If something good happens, we cheer. If something bad happens, we cringe.
My son, Jack, is the star hitter on the Boone team. Ray’s son, Tommy, is the star pitcher. Back in November, both of them signed national letters of intent to continue their baseball careers at the Division I collegiate level. Jack signed with Vanderbilt, and Tommy signed with Duke. It was one of the proudest moments of my life.
This evening’s game has been intense. It’s the finals of the district tournament, and if Boone beats Jefferson High, they move on to the regionals. If they lose, their season is over. Jack doubled off the left-center-field fence in the first inning with runners on second and third to put Boone up 2-0. Jefferson’s cleanup hitter hit a solo home run off Tommy Miller in the second. Jack came up again in the fourth and hit a home run, a long moon shot over the center field fence, to put Boone up 3-1. In the top of the fifth, Tommy walked the leadoff hitter, and the next guy laid down a bunt that Boone’s third baseman misplayed, leaving Jefferson with runners on second and third with nobody out and their cleanup hitter coming to the plate. Tommy threw two great pitches to get him down 0-2, but the next pitch got away from Tommy just a bit and hit the batter in the thigh. Jefferson’s coaches, players, and parents all started screaming, accusing Tommy of hitting the kid on purpose. It looked as though a fight might break out, but the umpires managed to calm things down. Jefferson scored two runs when the next batter hit a bloop single to right field, but then Tommy struck out three in a row. The game is tied, with Jack leading off for Boone in the bottom of the seventh, the final inning in a high school game.
“They’ll walk him,” Ray says. I turn and look at him incredulously. He’s wearing sunglasses that shield his dark eyes. He’s an inch shorter than I at six feet two, but he’s thicker through the chest and back. His long brown hair, beginning to gray, is pulled back into a ponytail, and his forearms, which are leaning against the fence, look as thick as telephone poles.
“You’re nuts,” I say. “They don’t want to walk the leadoff man in a tie game in the last inning. They’ll pitch to him.”
Jack digs into the batter’s box and takes his familiar wide, slightly open stance. He’s a big kid, six feet two inches and a rock- hard two hundred ten pounds. He has a strong jaw and a prominent, dimpled chin— a “good baseball face,” as the old-time scouts would say. He’s crowding the plate as he always does, daring the pitcher to throw him something inside.
The first pitch is a fastball, and it hits Jack between the eyes before he can get out of the way. I hear the awful thud of the baseball striking his head all the way from the outfield. Jack’s helmet flies off. He takes a step backward but doesn’t go down, and then starts staggering slowly toward first base. The umpire, as stunned as everyone else, jogs along beside him, trying to get him to stop. I sprint down the fence line toward the gate, watching Jack as his coaches scramble out of the dugout to his side. By the time he gets to first base, I can see blood pouring from his nose.
I make my way through the silent crowd and onto the field. Jack’s coaches have taken him into the dugout and sat him on the bench. One of them is holding a white towel over Jack’s face. I see immediately that the towel is already stained a deep red. The coaches step back as I approach.
“They did it on purpose,” the head coach, a thirty-year-old named Bill Dickson, says. “They haven’t come close to hitting anyone else.”
I bend over Jack and gently remove the towel. His head is leaned back, his mouth open, and he’s staring at the dugout roof. The area around both of his eyes is already swelling, and there’s a deep, nasty gash just above the bridge of his nose. He’s bleeding from the cut and from both nostrils.
I put the towel back over the wound.
“Jack, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Who am I?”
“Dad.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Boone High School. Dugout.”
“What’s the score in the game?”
“Three-three, bottom of the seventh.”
“Has anyone called an ambulance?” I say to Coach Dickson.
“They’re on the way, but it always takes them fifteen or twenty minutes to get here.”
I can sense someone beside me, and I turn my head. It’s Ray, Caroline, and Toni.
“He all right?” Ray asks.
“He’s coherent.”
“Let me see.”
I pull the towel back again. Caroline gasps, and a flash of anger runs through me like an electric current. How could they do this? Why would they do this? It’s just a baseball game, for God’s sake. Jack has been hit dozens of times in the past, but never in the face. And Coach Dickson is right; their pitcher displayed excellent control until Jack came to the plate in the seventh. They hit him intentionally.
I gently replace the towel and look at Ray. I’m thinking seriously about grabbing a bat from the rack and going after Jefferson’s coach.
“You don’t want to wait for an ambulance,” Ray says. “We need to take him now.”
“Why?”
“His pupils are different sizes. There’s already a lot of swelling. I’ve seen this before, Joe. He might be bleeding internally.” Ray was a medic in the navy for eight years, so he knows what he’s talking about. At that moment, Jack leans forward and vomits on the dugout floor.
“We have to go,” Ray says. “Right now.”
Caroline and Toni rush off to get the cars while Ray and I each drape one of Jack’s arms over our backs and lift. Coach Dickson holds the towel in place to try to slow the bleeding as we walk Jack out through the gate. Just before we reach the parking lot, he loses consciousness, and I feel a sense of dread so deep that I nearly pass out myself.
He regains consciousness after we put him in the backseat, but during the ride to the hospital, he’s in and out. He keeps saying his head feels like it’s going to explode. I call the emergency room on my cell phone along the way, and they’re waiting when we arrive. They take Jack immediately into a trauma room, and in less than ten minutes they’ve taken him to surgery. A doctor comes out to talk to us briefly. He says Jack is suffering from an acute epidural hematoma. In layman’s terms, he says, Jack’s brain is bleeding. A neurosurgeon is going to perform a
n emergency craniotomy to drain the blood, relieve the pressure, and repair the damage.
We wait for three agonizing hours before the neurosurgeon comes out. The waiting room is filled with Jack’s coaches and their wives, his teammates and their parents, plus dozens of his friends from school who were either at the game or heard about what happened. Everyone falls silent when the surgeon, a dark-haired, serious-looking, middle-aged man wearing scrubs, asks Caroline and me to step into a private room. My daughter, Lilly, who is a year younger than Jack and was sitting in the bleachers behind home plate when Jack was hit, grabs my hand and comes into the room with us.
“I’m told you didn’t wait for the ambulance,” the doctor says gravely as soon as the door closes behind us. “Whose idea was that?”
“Why?” I ask. “Was it a mistake?”
“Under some circumstances, it could have been. But this time, it was the right decision. If your son had bled for another ten or fifteen minutes, I don’t think he would have made it.”
“So he’s all right?”
“He’s in recovery. It’s a serious injury, but thankfully we got to it in time. We’ll keep him in intensive care for a day or two. He’s going to have a heckuva headache, but we can control the pain with medication. He’ll have to take it easy for a couple of months, but after that, he should be as good as new.”
“When can we see him?”
“He’ll wake up in about half an hour. He’ll be groggy, but you can talk to him for a few minutes.”
We thank the doctor, and Caroline, Lilly, and I embrace silently. Caroline and Lilly are crying, but I’m so relieved, I feel as if I could float on air. We walk back out to the crowded waiting room. Ray and Toni Miller, along with their son, Tommy, are standing just outside the door. When the group sees Caroline’s tears, I can sense they think the news is bad. Ray looks at me anxiously, and I smile.
