by Scott Pratt
He reached behind her neck and lifted her head.
No! No! Don’t move me!
Razor-sharp pain shot through Katie’s body.
“The others,” she whispered, and the blackness enveloped her again.
The next time Katie opened her eyes, the woman standing above her was a stranger. She was pretty, middle-aged, with sharp features and hazel eyes. Her black hair was pulled tightly into a bun, and she was wearing white. Katie thought she might be an angel. She was fiddling with a bag of liquid that hung from a stand next to the bed.
“Where am I?” Katie said. Her mouth was dry, her tongue like sandpaper, but she felt as relaxed as she’d ever felt in her life. “Am I in heaven?”
“You’re in the hospital, sweetie,” the nurse said. She moved next to the bed and took Katie’s hand. “But you’re going to be fine.”
Katie smiled at the nurse and looked at her name tag. It said her name was June.
“Am I sick?” Katie said. “How did I get here?”
“You don’t remember?”
Katie thought for a moment, but she couldn’t remember. Truth be known, she didn’t care. She felt as if she were floating. She shook her head slowly.
“You had a little accident,” Nurse June said. “Just go on back to sleep now. We’re going to take good care of you.”
“Do you know Aunt Mary?” Katie said. “She works at the hospital.”
The angel turned away for several seconds. When she turned back, Katie thought she saw a tear slip from her right eye and run down her cheek. She wondered why the woman was crying.
“Yes, honey, I know her.”
“Is she here?”
“You just rest now,” the nurse said. “Your aunt Mary will always be there for you.”
30
It’s after midnight. I’ve already told Caroline that Hannah is missing. She was so upset that I decided not to tell her about the information I’ve learned from Bates, and I didn’t say anything about Ramirez. She’s gone to bed, but I doubt she’s sleeping. Both of us are in a state of semishock, punch-drunk from the emotional and psychological battering we’ve taken over the past week. Ray’s suicide, the news about Judge Green and the possibility that Tommy may have been involved, Hannah’s disappearance, and Caroline’s continuing battle with cancer have left us wondering whether we’ve been infected with some sort of contagious, cosmic disease that we’ve unwittingly passed on to our closest friends.
I’m sitting in my study, flipping through the Tennessee Criminal Justice Handbook. I find the section of the Tennessee Code Annotated I’m looking for:
*Section 39-16-503. Tampering with or fabricating evidence.
It is unlawful for any person, knowing that an official investigation or official proceeding is pending or in progress, to:
(1) Alter, destroy, or conceal any record, document, or thing with intent to impair its verity, legibility, or availability as evidence in the investigation or official proceeding.
A violation of this section is a class C felony.
The statute is clear. By burning Tommy Miller’s clothing and shoes after knowing that he was a suspect in a murder investigation, Caroline has committed a crime. She doesn’t realize how serious it is. The penalty for a class C felony in Tennessee for a first-time offender is a minimum of three and a maximum of six years in prison. If Caroline is caught, there’s no doubt in my mind she’ll wind up in jail. She’ll receive the minimum sentence because she’s never been in any kind of trouble, but there isn’t a judge in the state who will grant her probation for destroying evidence in the investigation of a murdered colleague. Even if she gets the minimum sentence and makes parole as soon as she’s eligible, she’ll serve nearly a year in the Tennessee State Prison for Women.
I think about the sentence Caroline is still serving, the one imposed upon her by breast cancer. She’s survived, but she’s been through six months of chemotherapy, nearly two months of radiation therapy, and half a dozen surgeries stretched out over twenty-two months. I’m confident she’ll beat the cancer, but now she’s up against the laws of man and the people who enforce them. If she’s found out, she won’t get any sympathy.
I know she didn’t intend to do anything illegal when she collected Tommy’s clothes and loaned him some of Jack’s, and I’m sure she rationalizes burning the clothing later by telling herself she was merely eliminating the possibility that the clothing could somehow be used to frame Tommy. She believes he didn’t kill the judge. In fact, she’s so firm in her conviction that I wonder whether something else is at play here, perhaps intuition. Caroline has always been intuitive, and her judgments about people have always been spot-on. But even if she’s right about Tommy, it doesn’t change her having made herself vulnerable to the system. If the wrong person finds out what she’s done and can prove it, they’ll steamroll her.
The other problem I have, of course, is my own criminal liability. Now that Caroline’s told me about burning the clothes, because of my position as an assistant district attorney, I could be charged with official misconduct if I don’t report it. Official misconduct is also a felony, although not as serious as tampering with evidence. Then again, perhaps I enjoy the protection of spousal privilege. She’s my wife. They can’t force me to tell them anything she’s said to me, and I didn’t actually see the clothing.
As I sit in the lamplight, I commit to a decision. Right or wrong, legal or illegal, I’ll do whatever I have to do.
There’s no way in hell my wife is going to prison, and neither am I.
I walk up the stairs and lie down on the couch in the den. I keep an old blanket folded over the back of the couch because I sleep there—or just lie there—quite often. On nights when I know I won’t be able to sleep or if something has happened that I think might trigger a nightmare, I head for the couch. There’s no point in keeping Caroline awake while I toss and turn, and there’s no point in scaring her with my dream- induced cries and ramblings in the middle of the night.
Rio crawls onto the other end of the couch and curls up. I turn the television on to Sports Center and listen as the talking heads drone on mindlessly, for the millionth time, about the long-term effects that the use of steroids by cheaters like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will have on the game of baseball. I think of Jack and how hard he’s worked over the years, drug free, and hope that the pressure of competition at the highest level never leads him down that path.
Thoughts of Jack cause me to consider the predicament he’s in. My conversations with Caroline have led me to believe that Jack had no idea what was going on with Tommy this morning. Tommy woke up before Jack did. By the time Jack saw Tommy, Caroline had already collected Tommy’s clothes and shoes and provided him with replacements that belonged to Jack.
Still, I’m sure Anita White will want to talk to Jack. She’ll want to know if he saw Tommy or talked to him after the funeral, and if he did, she’ll want to know exactly what Tommy said and did. She’ll want to know whether Jack noticed anything unusual about him. She’ll ask Jack the same questions I asked him, and if he lies, he’ll be in the same boat as Caroline. Making a false statement to a police officer about a material fact in an investigation is a class C felony in Tennessee.
The key to all this, of course, is Tommy Miller. Will he go against everything he’s learned from his father and what I’m sure his mother has told him and talk to the police? Will the TBI agents—who are experts at getting people to talk to them—be able to coerce him or pressure him or simply outsmart him? Will they be able to bring enough pressure or guilt to bear to loosen his tongue? If they do, what will he say? Will he tell them he was at our house during the time of the murder, hoping to use us as an alibi? Will he confess and tell them he gave his clothes to Caroline? Is there evidence the police can use against him in his car? If there is, will he be shrewd enough to get rid of the car in a way the police can’t trace? What would I do in his position? Would I burn the car and report it stolen? Disable the engine
, tow it to a junkyard, and have it crushed for scrap metal?
My God, what a mess.
The last time I’m conscious of the clock, it’s three in the morning. I slip into sleep, and find myself running through a maze of mirrored walls, floors, and ceilings. Someone is chasing me. I come to a dead end and look at myself. I’m emaciated, nearly unrecognizable. Something has drained my body, perhaps even my soul. My skin is cracked, pale, and drawn so tightly against my bones that I resemble a skeleton. I shrink away from the image in horror and turn to run back in the direction from which I’ve come.
I take one step and see them. Anita White and Mike Norcross, guns up, come around the corner. I turn back and look into the mirror. I smash it with my fist.
On the other side of the mirror is a dark tunnel. I can see a dim light in the distance. I run toward it, but after only a few strides I feel myself falling, falling, falling through the darkness and down what I believe is a bottomless pit. Suddenly a parachute pops open above me. I land awkwardly and tumble, rolling onto my side as the parachute falls softly around me. I extricate myself from the chute and stand. I’m in complete darkness now, but I feel a weight on my shoulders. I run my hands up my abdomen, across my chest, and realize I’m wearing web gear now. I’m wearing boots and a Kevlar helmet. I have an M16 assault rifle strapped across my shoulders. A flashlight is attached to the strap on my web gear, and I flip it on. I’m in a cave. I hear a faint voice and cast the beam of the flashlight toward the sound.
“Fahhhhhh-eeee.”
I see an elongated mound. I bring the weapon around, pull the charging handle, and aim it toward the mound. I creep forward slowly. The floor of the cave begins to tremble beneath my feet. I shoulder the weapon. The sound grows louder.
“Faaaahhhh—eeeeee.”
It’s the voice of a female. I suddenly realize I recognize it.
The mound begins to erode as the tremors intensify. Suddenly, the clay that covers it splits, and I can make out what I believe is a face. It’s a body, slimy, in the early stages of decomposition. The lips are moving.
“Faaaahhhiiiinnnddd—mmmeeeee.”
The tremors stop; the body bends at the waist and sits up. The head turns toward me, and I find myself looking directly at what’s left of Hannah Mills’s sweet face.
“Find me,” she whispers. “Find me.”
31
Anita White’s plan was to execute the search warrants simultaneously, early in the morning, in Tennessee and North Carolina. Detective Rama from Durham had taken the documents Anita faxed him and drafted his own application. The primary difference in the two applications was that Rama had received information (from Anita, a fellow law enforcement officer) that Tommy Miller had returned to Durham because he was a student at Duke University, and that the vehicle was now in North Carolina. He’d called Anita late the previous afternoon and told her that the judge had issued the warrants for both Tommy’s car and his apartment, that he’d obtained an address for Tommy, and that he was personally staking out Tommy’s place at the Belmont complex near the Duke campus. Rama had called again around eleven at night to tell Anita that Tommy was in the apartment, but the car wasn’t in the lot. Anita told him that even if he couldn’t find the car in the morning, she wanted Tommy held for questioning.
Anita hung up her phone at seven a.m.
“Rama’s in place,” she said to Norcross. “He’s going in now.”
Anita pulled into Toni Miller’s driveway. Norcross was in the passenger seat, and two more agents were in a separate car right behind them. She threw the car into park, killed the engine, and got out. The other two agents went around to the back as Toni and Norcross strode to the front porch. Anita rapped sharply on the front door.
“Police! Search warrant!” she yelled. She banged on the door again.
A couple of minutes later, Anita heard a voice from the other side of the door. It was Toni Miller.
“What do you want?”
“Police, Mrs. Miller! We have a search warrant. Open the door.”
“Get the hell out of here!” The voice sounded tortured, as though Toni Miller had been horrifically wounded.
“Open the door, Mrs. Miller, or we’ll break it down!”
“There’s nothing you want here! Go away! Please! Go away!”
“Last chance, Mrs. Miller! Open the door!”
There was a long silence before Anita heard a loud click as Toni Miller slid the dead bolt. Anita pushed the door open and walked into the foyer. The ceiling in the foyer was nearly twenty feet high; the floor was marble. A large chandelier hung above Anita’s head.
Toni had backed up near a decorative rail that spiraled upward along a staircase. Anita gasped when she saw her. She was naked—her robe lay in a pile at her feet—and she was crying hysterically. She spread her arms wide and screamed, “Go ahead! Search me! I have nothing to hide!”
“Walk through and let the others in,” Anita said to Norcross, who had turned his back to Toni. Anita stepped toward Toni, reached down, and picked up the robe and nightgown off the floor. She wrapped the robe around Toni’s shoulders and led her silently into a den off the foyer. Toni was now sobbing quietly. Anita felt deep sympathy for this tortured woman, a woman who had probably done nothing wrong, a woman whose husband—and now her son—had put her through far more than Anita suspected she deserved.
Anita helped Toni sit on a couch and knelt in front of her.
“I’m sorry to have to put you through this, Mrs. Miller, but I have a job to do. We have a warrant that allows us to search the property, inside and out. We’ll do it as quickly and quietly as we can. And when we’re finished, I’d still like to ask you a few questions.”
Anita looked into Toni’s eyes. They’d taken on a faraway look, as though she’d transported herself mentally to some other place, some other time.
“Just do what you have to do and get out,” Toni whispered.
The search lasted four hours and encompassed three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, den, dining area, laundry room, game room, basement, and garage. The agents found nothing whatsoever that could be called evidence. When Anita examined Toni’s cell phone, she found that Toni hadn’t made a single call to Tommy in the past twenty four hours. There were several calls to and from someone named Caroline, however. Wasn’t that Dillard’s wife?
Anita had called Rama every half hour during the search to see how things were going with Tommy Miller, but Rama wasn’t answering his cell. Anita figured he was either searching the car or sweating Tommy.
She told the other agents to wait outside and walked back into the den where Toni Miller had been sitting during the entire search. She hadn’t said a word.
“We’re finished, Mrs. Miller,” Anita said. Toni didn’t respond.
“I’d like to talk to you for a minute, if you feel up to it,” Anita said.
“Get out of my house,” came the reply. The voice was cold, full of contempt.
Anita turned and walked out the front door. As she walked toward the car, her cell phone buzzed. It was Rama.
“Talk to me,” Anita said.
“Bad news,” Rama said. “He spotted us first thing when we pulled into the complex this morning. I don’t know what the hell he was doing out that early, but he ran like a rabbit. We’ve spent the whole morning looking for him. No luck so far.”
“The car?” Anita said.
“No sign of it yet. We’ll stay on it.”
Anita closed the phone. Her only viable suspect, a kid, was staying a step ahead of her. Now both he and his vehicle had disappeared. Anita had nothing solid to tie Tommy Miller to the judge’s murder. But if he had nothing to hide, why would he run?
As Anita got into the car, her cell phone rang. She looked at the number and turned to Norcross.
“It’s the boss.”
“Like I told you before,” Norcross said, “I’m glad he didn’t dump this case on me.”
32
Judge Green’s murder d
ominates the radio broadcasts as I drive through Boones Creek toward Jonesborough the next morning. Hannah’s disappearance merits a brief mention. I’ve left home later than usual because I’m too tired to work out. I decide to take a detour and stop by my sister’s house. It’s several miles out of the way, but I haven’t seen or heard from her since Christmas, when she suddenly announced to everyone that she was four months’ pregnant. Since she’s forty-four years old, unmarried, and hasn’t been exactly a model citizen, the news came as quite a surprise. We had a short discussion that resulted in her storming out of the house, and I haven’t spoken to her since.
Sarah lives in the house that belonged to my mother before she died of Alzheimer’s a few years back. She’s a year older than I, a beautiful, green-eyed, dark-haired woman who has never been able to get past my uncle raping her when she was a child. She’s spent most of her adult life addicted to booze, drugs, and rotten men. She’s been in jail a half dozen times.
After our mother died, Sarah pulled herself together for about a year, although she replaced her addiction to substances with a religious zeal worthy of the pope himself. During that time, she met a man named Robert Godsey and moved away with him to Crossville, Tennessee, which is about a hundred and fifty miles west of Johnson City. Godsey turned out to be a jerk and beat her terribly—twice. During the second beating, Sarah defended herself by hitting Godsey with a fireplace shovel and wound up being charged with attempted murder. The charge was eventually dropped and Sarah moved back, but I’ve seen very little of her since. She’s working at a deli in Johnson City, slinging sandwiches for the college lunch crowd.
As I pull into the driveway off Barton Street, I see a large chopper parked outside the garage door in the shade of an old sugar maple. The first thing that pops into my mind is that Sarah’s taken up a new hobby. The Harley is painted a glossy black, with shiny chrome wheels and leather saddlebags. It can’t be Sarah’s. She’s strong, but she’s eight months’ pregnant now, and the bike has to weigh more than half a ton. There’s no way she could handle it.
