Joe Dillard - 03 - Injustice for All

by Scott Pratt

  “You promise you love me the way I am?” she says. “Mutilated …”

  I step toward her and take her in my arms.

  “I love you just like you are, baby. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  52

  Anita White walked quickly through the front door of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s forensic laboratory in Knoxville. The same day Tommy Miller was arrested, Dillard had left her a message on her cell phone saying he’d talked to the night clerk at the convenience store. The clerk had identified Tommy. He also said Tommy slept off a drunk in the parking lot that night and didn’t leave until after five in the morning. The next day, Anita learned that the DNA sample they obtained from Tommy Miller didn’t match the DNA the lab technicians had taken from the cigarette butts found near Judge Green’s body. With each passing hour, Anita’s belief that they’d arrested the wrong person intensified.

  She’d been hurt and angry following her conversation with Dillard at the restaurant, but after hearing his message, reading the DNA report, and spending a sleepless night deep in thought, she realized Dillard was right. She should have voiced her concerns over Harmon’s tactics during the interrogation. She should have helped the boy. But as she told Dillard, what was done was done. She couldn’t undo the confession, but she could keep on working, keep on digging. If someone else killed the judge, Anita intended to find him.

  She walked into a small office on the third floor. The office was occupied by Harold Teller, a forensic computer analyst. Teller had called Anita early that morning to say he was finished with his analysis of Judge Green’s computer and would be mailing a hard copy of his report. When Anita asked him whether there was anything interesting in the report, his reply was, “Several things,” so Anita asked Teller if she could meet with him later in the day. She’d driven the ninety miles to Knoxville in just over an hour.

  “Agent White, I presume,” Teller said from behind a stack of reports on his desk.

  Teller was in his late twenties, much younger than he sounded over the phone. His light brown hair was cut neatly and parted on the side, his eyes were the clearest blue Anita had ever seen, and he wore a pleasant smile on his angular face.

  “Have a seat,” Teller said as he rolled in his chair to the corner, picked up a bound stack of papers, and rolled back to his desk. “Why are you so interested in the report? Don’t you already have a confession in this case?”

  “Let’s just say I’m not totally convinced by the confession and leave it at that,” Anita said.

  “Ah, you suspect a false confession. How intriguing.”

  Teller’s eyes were gleaming mischievously, and Anita smiled. She’d been expecting a geek, a nerd with acne and thick glasses, someone so smart he would have difficulty talking to a mere mortal. But this was a good-looking young man who apparently had a sense of humor—a nice surprise.

  Teller slid the report across the table, and Anita picked it up.

  “There are some pretty disturbing images in there,” Teller said. “The judge had eclectic tastes in pornography. He favored prepubescent boys and adult gay sadomasochism.”

  Anita set the report back on the desk. She had no desire to view lurid images of pornography.

  “You said you found several interesting things on the computer,” Anita said. “What kind of things?”

  “He visited a lot of pornographic Web sites, and there were some bizarre e-mails,” Teller said. “But the thing you’re probably most interested in, especially since you’re still on the hunt, is that someone hacked into his computer five days before he was killed. Someone who knew what he was doing. He used four different proxies.”

  “What are proxies?” Anita said.

  “It’s complicated,” Teller said, “but basically, a proxy is what hackers use to hide their identities. Every PC on the Internet has an identification number, called an IP, which stands for Internet Protocol number. Each one is unique, like a fingerprint. Typically, a hacker sends a virus or tries to find an IP address. Then he finds a way to exploit the computer’s security program. Once he does that, he’s got full control. Now he’ll use that computer to hack into another by doing the same thing. They call them proxies.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that this person hacked into four different computers before he got to the judge?”

  “Right. He was pretty good.”

  “So it had to be somebody who knew the judge, or at least someone he corresponded with by e mail?”

  “Normally, yes. But the county maintains a Web site that has e-mail addresses for all of the judges. The judge checked that e-mail address regularly from his home computer. That’s how the hacker got in.”

  “And once he got in, what did he do?”

  “Nothing, which is strange. He didn’t download any viruses. He didn’t copy or destroy any files. He didn’t use the computer as a proxy. It appears that he just looked around and left.”

  “I still want to talk to him,” Anita said. “Do you know who he is?”

  “Assuming it’s a he, I know where his computer is,” Teller said. “I didn’t bother to track down the owner of the address since I knew you’d already made an arrest.”

  Teller opened the report, found the page he was looking for, and set it down in front of Anita. “Here it is,” he said, pointing.

  Anita felt the familiar surge of adrenaline that occurred whenever she got a break in a case.

  “Thank you,” Anita said as she stood and picked up the report.

  “What? You’re leaving?” Teller said. “Just like that? We were getting along so well.”

  “Gotta go. I have work to do.”

  PART 4

  53

  “Stay, boy. Stay.”

  It’s nearly nine o’clock and darkness has fallen. I step onto the deck and close the door behind me. Rio is standing on the other side, eyes bright, tail wagging. He loves this nightly ritual of ours. I’m holding a ragged tennis ball, and I throw it as far as I can into the backyard. I open the door, and he leaps out.

  “Go get it, Rio.”

  He races down the steps, and I lean on the rail and watch. I can barely see him as he begins his search for the ball. He trots back and forth across the yard, nose to the ground, instinctively creating a grid. He’s invariably successful, and in just a few minutes, he’s back on the deck with the ball in his mouth.

  “Good boy, Rio. Good boy.”

  He drops the ball at my feet, and I pick it up. I throw it into the darkness again. He’d run and search all night if I’d stay out here with him. As I’m watching, Caroline walks out the door and hands me the phone. It’s Bates.

  “Put on a suit,” he says. “I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”

  “A suit? Where are we going?”

  “To meet somebody important.”

  “Who?”

  “Just put on the suit, all right? I’m on my way.”

  I reluctantly follow his order. He pulls into the driveway a little while later, and I climb into the BMW. He backs out without saying a word, and a in few minutes we’re heading west toward Jonesborough.

  “So when do you tell me where we’re going?” I ask.

  “We’re in for a busy night. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  A few minutes later he pulls the BMW into a high-dollar residential area called the Ridges. It’s the latest example of one-upmanship among the rich in the community, full of elegant homes surrounded by a championship golf course. I’ve never been inside any of the homes at the Ridges, but I know several people who live here. One of them is Lee Mooney.

  Bates pulls into the driveway of a sprawling white mansion. He turns off the ignition and opens the door.

  “You coming or is your ass glued to that seat?” Bates says.

  “Is this Mooney’s house?”

  “Sure is.”

  “I don’t think I’d be welcome here.”

  “Neither one of us will be welcome in a few minutes. Now get your butt
out of the car and come on. You don’t want to miss this.”

  We walk onto the front porch and Bates rings the doorbell. Lee Mooney opens the door a minute later, wearing a navy blue robe that appears to be made of silk and a pair of house shoes. He reeks of booze. The look on his face when he sees Bates is a mixture of consternation and confusion.

  “What do you want, Sheriff?”

  When he sees me, the look turns to anger.

  “And what’s he doing here?”

  “We need to speak to you in private,” Bates says.

  “About what?”

  “It’s important. I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t.”

  “This is private enough. Tell me what you want.”

  “If you make me stand out here on the porch, I’m going to say what I have to say loud enough so your neighbors and your wife can hear me,” Bates says loudly. “And believe me, it won’t go good for you.”

  Mooney looks around nervously and opens the door. As he steps back so we can walk through, he stumbles slightly and catches himself on the door.

  “You remember where the study is, I assume,” Mooney says.

  “I do,” Bates replies with mock civility.

  “Go ahead. I’ll be right up.”

  Mooney disappears down a hallway and Bates leads me up a wide staircase. I look around in awe: marble tile, cherry molding, cathedral ceilings, expensive art, a huge chandelier in the foyer. I’ve always heard that Mooney’s wife was extremely wealthy, and from the looks of the house, she must be. We walk into a study filled with plush leather and expensive wood. There’s a large cherry desk to my right and a leather couch to my left. Bates and I sit down on the couch.

  “He’s deep in the bottle,” I say.

  “No kidding. I thought he was gonna fall on his backside when we came in.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “Once. It’s been a while, though.”

  “What’s going on, Leon?”

  “You’ll see. Just let me do all the talking.”

  Mooney walks in a couple of minutes later and closes the door behind him. He’s carrying a martini. He sits down behind his desk, sets the drink down, laces his fingers around the back of his neck, and leans back.

  “What’s so damned important that it can’t wait until morning?” he says in a drunken, belligerent slur.

  Bates leans forward and rests his forearms on his thighs. He stares at Mooney for a long minute—so long that even I begin to become uncomfortable.

  “We finally got a break in the Hannah Mills case,” Bates says.

  “We?” Mooney says. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

  “Me and Mr. Dillard, here. We’ve been working together. Well, that ain’t exactly right. I’ve been doing most of the work, but Mr. Dillard did help me out with one little detail. It was important, though. It surely was.”

  Mooney unlaces his fingers, takes a drink from the martini, and crosses his arms.

  “Why is he wearing a suit?” Mooney says.

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. Don’t you want to know about Hannah? I thought you’d be tickled to hear that we found her.”

  “You found her? Where? Is she alive?”

  “She was in a mine shaft up on Buffalo Mountain. Somebody killed her and dumped her down that hole like a bag of trash.”

  Mooney shakes his head and lowers his chin. He reaches for the martini glass again and misses, then finds it. I don’t know exactly where Bates is going with this, but I can feel a slow burn beginning in my stomach.

  “Do you have any suspects?” Mooney asks.

  “Oh yeah, I’ve got a suspect, all right. As a matter of fact, I know exactly who’s responsible for her death.”

  “Then I assume you’ve made an arrest.”

  “Well, I’ve got a little problem with that. I was hoping maybe you might help me out, but I kinda doubt it, to tell you the truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t reckon you’re gonna confess, are you?”

  Time freezes momentarily. I see Mooney draw in a long, slow breath, as if trying to gather himself. I’ve suspected since the beginning that Mooney was involved in Hannah’s death, but I didn’t want to believe it. Bates must have gotten his DNA test results back. Mooney must be the father of Hannah’s baby.

  “Is this some kind of joke, Sheriff?” Mooney says. “You’re making jokes about Hannah’s murder?”

  “Oh no, it’s no joke. I’ll just go ahead and tell you the way I see it. After you got Hannah drunk up there at Tanner’s birthday party and she made her little announcement about being a virgin, I reckon you just couldn’t stand it. You had to help yourself. So the way I figure it is, you followed Tanner and Hannah home and raped her while she was passed out.”

  Mooney stands abruptly, his face twisted in anger. He points toward the door.

  “Get out!”

  Bates doesn’t move. He seems perfectly calm, but I feel myself growing angrier with each passing second.

  “I ain’t going nowhere,” Bates says. “Not until I’ve said my piece. Now, you can either sit your ass back down in that chair, or I can go downstairs and tell your wife what I’m about to tell you.”

  Mooney sits, slowly. Beads of sweat are forming on his forehead. He takes a long drink of the martini.

  “You didn’t think about getting her pregnant, though, did you?” Bates says. “You damned fool. You see, ol’ Dillard here got me a sample of your DNA. It matches the DNA sample from the embryo the pathologist found in Hannah’s body. Tough luck for you, huh? If Hannah had stayed in that hole for a couple more weeks before we found her, we wouldn’t have been able to get DNA and you would’ve been in the clear. The only thing I don’t know is how you found out about her being pregnant, but that don’t really matter, does it? I’ll bet you were in a panic. You had to do something, and you had to do it fast. So you went to your old buddy Stinnett and made a deal with Ramirez.”

  Mooney remains quiet. He’s taken on the look of someone who has just been forced to eat a pile of dung.

  “Ramirez is locked up again,” Bates continues, “but this time ain’t nobody gonna let him out. One of his cronies hired a couple of bikers to kill Hannah. They’re as dead as she is. Stinnett’s dead, too. So you can relax, Brother Mooney. I can’t prove any of this.”

  Mooney’s expression changes slowly to one of smugness. He clears his throat and leans back in his chair again. I can feel my heart beating inside my chest. Pressure has been steadily building at my temples, and my field of vision has narrowed. All I can see is Mooney. I’m thinking about his sneaking into her bedroom, sweating over her while she lay helpless and unaware. I’m thinking about what a sick, perverted bastard he is. I’m thinking about how good it would feel to snap his neck like a twig.

  “Get up,” I say.

  “Get away from me,” he mutters.

  “I said get up, you fucking coward!”

  I’m conscious of movement to my left, and I realize it must be Bates. I crack Mooney across the bridge of the nose with the back of my right hand before Bates can get to me. He yelps like a puppy and tears immediately fill his eyes. Bates is pulling me backward while talking in my ear, but my eyes stay on Mooney. I feel a sense of satisfaction as blood begins to run from his nostrils onto his mouth and his chin. Bates keeps talking, but the words are like white noise. They mean nothing to me. He pushes me into the chair and kneels in front of me.

  “Brother Dillard, you with me?” The voice sounds as though it’s coming from far away. “Brother Dillard? You’ve got to come out of it, now. We’ve got business to take care of.”

  The rage begins to subside, and I slowly become conscious of where I am. I feel sick, and I suddenly want nothing more than to leave this place. Mooney’s presence in the room nauseates me. I nod weakly at Bates. He stands and turns toward Mooney, who is holding his expensive robe against his bloody nose.

  “This can go one of two ways,” Bates says. �
�What I could do is run straight to the media folks around here and tell them that Hannah Mills was pregnant with your child when she was killed. I can prove that. Then I might start leading some of them reporters down the same road I’ve been traveling for the past few weeks. My guess is that they’ll draw the same conclusions I’ve drawn. It’ll be real embarrassing for you. No way you’ll be able to stay in office once they get through with you.

  “But what I’d rather do is keep this between you, me, and Mr. Dillard here. All you have to do is write out a letter of resignation right now and give it to me. I’ll see to it that it goes straight to the governor. He’s already got your replacement picked out. He’s already signed the paperwork for the appointment. You’re finished either way. Pick your poison.”

  “You’re lying,” Mooney says.

  Bates reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a piece of paper. He tosses it onto the desk in front of Mooney.

  “There’s the lab report,” Bates says. “Read it and weep.”

  He reaches back into his pocket and pulls out a pen. “That resignation needs to be effective immediately.”

  54

  Bates and I are riding through the darkness in silence. I’m stunned by what’s happened, not so much by the fact that Mooney is guilty, but by the fact that he’s going to get away with it. Losing the district attorney’s office will devastate him—he’s become addicted to the power and prestige—but I can’t stop thinking that he needs to be punished. He needs to be dragged through a public trial, convicted, and sent off to prison. There he should be gang-raped for ten years before they finally stick a needle in his arm.

  I know Bates is right. The only way to prove that Mooney was involved in Katie’s death would be to bring a string of witnesses into court to testify how the contract came about and how it was executed. But the only direct link to Mooney—Roscoe Stinnett—is dead. So are the two bikers who actually murdered Hannah. Ramirez is in a federal prison, but the prosecution couldn’t force him to testify at a trial without leverage. Even if he did testify, Stinnett apparently never told him precisely who was putting out the contract on Hannah. There’s simply no direct evidence that Mooney was involved, and the only circumstantial evidence is that he’s the father of Hannah’s child. It’s not enough.