by Scott Pratt
“There’s the man right now,” Mooney said as he stood up. “We were just talking about you. I heard you handled yourself very well in front of Judge Glass this morning.”
“I don’t think I’ll be invited to his retirement party,” I said.
“Shit, he’ll never retire,” Mooney said. “The only way he comes off of that bench is in a casket. But don’t worry about it. You made plenty of other friends today, especially Sheriff Bates. He thinks you’re a one-man dream team. Come on over here. I want to introduce you to someone.”
The young man at the table stood up and offered his hand. He was a good-looking kid, late twenties, around six feet tall with short, straw-colored hair, blue eyes, and a square jaw.
“This is Cody Masters,” Mooney said. “Investigator Cody Masters from the Jonesborough Police Department.” I vaguely recalled hearing or reading the name somewhere.
“Joe Dillard,” I said, returning the smile.
“Have a seat,” Mooney said. “We’ve got a little problem, and we think you’re just the man to solve it. Cody has a case coming up for trial next month, and I want you to handle it. It’s a sexual abuse case that got a lot of publicity a couple of years ago. You might remember it. What did they call it in the papers, Cody?”
Masters blushed a little and dropped his head, obviously embarrassed.
“The Pizza Bordello case,” he said.
“I remember that,” I said. “The guy who owned Party Pizza in Jonesborough. What was his name?”
“William Trent,” Mooney said.
“Wow, that’s still around?”
“Afraid so, and it’s set for trial on October fourteenth. Can you do it?”
“You’re not giving me much time to get ready,” I said. “Who was handling it before?”
“Alexander,” Mooney said. “But after the disaster with Billy Dockery, we can’t afford to take another beating on a high-profile case. I want you to try to work out some kind of deal, but if you can’t, you have to win at trial.”
It sounded like an ultimatum. “And if I lose?” I said.
“Let’s not even think about that,” Mooney said as he stood up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll let you two boys get acquainted.”
I looked at Masters and shook my head. “Maybe I should have stayed retired,” I said. “Why don’t you fill me in?”
For the next half hour, I listened while Cody Masters told me about William Trent, a thirty-five-year-old husband and father of two who had opened a small pizza restaurant in Jonesborough a decade earlier. He was a member of the chamber of commerce, a Little League coach, and a deacon at the Presbyterian church. He was also, from what Masters told me, one very sick son of a bitch.
A couple of years earlier, Masters was approached by two seventeen-year-old girls who told him that William Trent had been having sex with both of them for two years. Both were former employees of Trent’s, and they told Masters a lurid tale. Trent, they said, hired only young girls who he believed would have sex with him. The girls were usually from broken homes, impoverished, weren’t good students—the kind of kids most employers would shy away from. Trent let them know on the front end that certain things would be required of them if they worked at his restaurant, things that he termed “unconventional.” The girls said Trent kept pornography running on a computer screen in the back office, hosted lingerie parties for the employees in the restaurant after hours, kept a small refrigerator in the kitchen stocked with liquor, and occasionally provided cocaine, crystal meth, or marijuana. He also started them at ten dollars an hour, almost double the minimum wage. The girls said there was an unspoken allegiance among the employees—what happened at work stayed at work.
Trent immediately went about seducing them, and from what they told Masters, Trent’s sexual appetite was insatiable. They had sex with him in the walk-in cooler, on the table in the kitchen where the pizza dough was rolled, in the bathrooms, on the counter and on the tables in the front after the restaurant closed, and his car in the parking lot out back. He wanted threesome sex, oral sex, anal sex, sex in bizarre positions—they even let him penetrate them with a catsup bottle a couple of times. And he insisted that the girls use birth control, because he refused to wear a condom.
Masters told me that at least ten girls were involved over a three-year period, although some of the girls refused to cooperate with the police. The big problem with the case, Masters said, was that he was a rookie when he first met the girls, that the district attorneys were all away at their annual conference in Nashville, and that he had made several early mistakes that Trent’s lawyer would undoubtedly bring up at trial.
“I probably should have waited until the DAs got back,” Masters said, “but I wanted to get him off the streets. It made me so mad I threw the freaking book at him. I charged him with forty-two felonies. About half of them were aggravated rape and aggravated kidnapping. I tacked on statutory rape, aggravated sexual battery, sexual battery by an authority figure, you name it. He was looking at about twelve hundred years in prison. But his wife posted his bail and they hired Joe Snodgrass from Knoxville. He made me look like a fool at the preliminary hearing.”
I knew Joe Snodgrass by reputation only. He ran one of the most successful criminal defense firms in the state. He’d been the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and president of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association. He had a good reputation as a trial lawyer, and he’d written books on criminal procedure and pretrial litigation in criminal cases.
“What was the problem?” I said.
“I didn’t read the statutes right. Hell, I’m not a lawyer. All of the aggravated rape charges and all of the aggravated kidnapping charges got thrown out after the preliminary. And Snodgrass made the girls look like trashy little whores.”
“What kind of evidence do you have?”
“Not typical rape evidence,” he said. “We don’t have any sperm or DNA, no bruises on any of the victims, no—”
“Wait just a second,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him. “Do you have any physical evidence at all?”
“Not really,” Masters said, shaking his head. “All we have are statements from some of the girls and a diary. Oh, and I got his payroll records so I could make sure the girls were working on the days when they say they had sex with him.”
“How many girls?”
“I think only four are still willing to cooperate.”
“Does Trent have any priors?”
“None.”
“What about the computer at the restaurant? Did you have a forensics expert check it to see whether he was really going to porn sites?”
“I did, but it came up empty. After we got it back from the lab, I had one of the girls come down to the office and she said it wasn’t the same computer. He must have gotten wind we were coming.”
I sat back and thought for a few minutes. Lee was asking me to prosecute what boiled down to a multiple statutory rape case with no physical evidence and victims who were, at the very least, young girls of questionable character. The two I knew about had both said they’d engaged in consensual sex with their boss for a long period of time. The man accused of committing the crimes was a father, husband, reputable businessman, active in his church and community, and had never been in trouble before. He was also obviously well financed. I had only a few weeks to prepare, and in the meantime, I was supposed to be helping with the most intense murder investigation in the history of the district. What was it Lee had said when I met with him before I took the job? Easy money?
“I’m sorry, Mr. Dillard,” Masters said. “I may have screwed this up beyond repair.”
“Call me Joe,” I said, “and don’t worry about it. It would’ve been better if you’d waited until the DAs got back, and it would’ve been a lot better if you’d had the girls wear a wire, but it was a rookie mistake. No sense beating yourself up about it. What charges are left that we can prove?”
“After the pr
eliminary hearing went so badly, Lee got involved for a week or so,” Masters said. “One of the girls kept a diary, and Lee used it to convince the grand jury to indict Trent on ten counts of sexual abuse by an authority figure. We could have charged him with more than a hundred counts, but Lee didn’t want to spend six months at trial proving all of them. He said if everything went well, Trent would wind up with thirty years.”
“Did you say he used a diary to get the indictment?” I said.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because we can’t use it at trial.”
“We can’t? Why the hell not?”
“It’s hearsay, and it doesn’t fall under any of the exceptions to the hearsay rule.”
“So what are we going to do? We don’t have shit other than the girls’ statements.”
“I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, I want you to go back and reinterview every single employee who worked there for the three years before he was arrested. If any of them will admit to having sex with him, and if they’ll come testify, we can prove a pattern of conduct. Once you get them lined up, I want to talk to all of them.”
“Done,” Masters said.
“When you did the preliminary hearing, did you get any sense of what the defense is going to be?”
“From the way the lawyer was questioning them, it looked like he was going to make them all out to be liars.”
“So Trent is going to deny having any kind of sexual contact with any of his employees?”
“That’s what he said when I arrested him.”
“Did he give you a statement?”
“Nope. Lawyered up five minutes in. Acted like he didn’t have a care in the world.”
“Go ahead and get started on your interviews as soon as you can,” I said. “Keep in mind that in order to convict him under the authority-figure statute, we have to prove three things. We have to prove there was sexual contact between him and the girls, we have to prove the girls were between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, and we have to prove that he had supervisory power over them by virtue of his occupation. The last two will be easy, but the first one will be the key.”
“You know something?” Masters said. “Even if these girls aren’t as pure as the driven snow, no grown man should be allowed to take advantage of them like that. They’re just kids. They were only fifteen years old when he started having sex with them.”
Masters slid the evidence box across the table towards me.
“All the statements, the payroll records, and the diary are in here,” he said. “You want to take a look?”
“Give the diary back to the girl,” I said. “Have her bring it when she comes in to talk to me. I’ll read it then. I’ll take the rest of it home with me.”
Masters shrugged his shoulders and took the diary out of the box. As I’d talked to him, an idea had formed in my mind, but the less he knew about it, the better.
“Guess I’d better get to work,” Masters said as he rose, stretched, and started for the door.
“One more thing,” I said. “Why did these girls decide to come forward after all this time?”
“They didn’t come right out and say it, but I think it was jealousy more than anything else,” Masters said. “Trent let both of them go and replaced them with a couple of fifteen-year-olds. I guess he was tired of them.”
“Women scorned, huh?”
“You got it. Hell hath no fury.”
Thursday, September 25
Nearly two weeks had passed since the Becks were murdered, and despite the fact that Fraley and his fellow agents were working up to fifteen, twenty hours a day, they hadn’t been able to identify a suspect. Dozens of tips had come over the CrimeStoppers line, and we’d made a public request for help, but the killers were still on the loose, and we were no closer to catching them.
On Thursday morning, Caroline and I were sitting in a tiny, cramped office inside the Johnson City Breast Care Center. A silent nurse had led us there quickly upon our arrival. As I looked around, I could see it was an office where only one person worked, probably someone who entered data into a computer. There were three chairs that looked as though they’d been placed hurriedly and haphazardly, one at the computer and two just inside the door. It was a lousy place to tell someone they had cancer, if that was what we were there for.
Caroline had already been through all the tests. Her primary-care doctor had ordered a mammogram and a chest X-ray. I’d gone with her to both appointments, although she insisted she could handle it without me. She kept telling me I should be at work, but I insisted on going with her.
The mammogram showed a suspicious shadow. The doctor who read it wasn’t able to make a diagnosis. She said from one angle, the mass looked like a benign cyst. From another angle, it looked like it could be something else. There was a 95 percent chance it was a cyst, she said, but just to be safe, she wanted a biopsy. The X-ray had been inconclusive. Caroline had gone in four days later for the biopsy. We were there for the results.
Caroline sat down in one of the chairs. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved, red T-shirt. Plain attire, but she made the jeans look fantastic. She’d been quiet on the ride into town, and there was a distance in her eyes that told me she was frightened.
“Why couldn’t they just call us?” she said. “Why do they make us come all the way up here?”
I didn’t want to think about the obvious answer to the question.
“Maybe they want to show you the lab report,” I said. “They’re probably just covering their butts from a law-suit in case something goes wrong later.”
She gave me a look of uncertainty.
“Ninety-five percent,” I said. “There’s a ninety-five-percent chance you’re clean, plus the fact that you’re young and you have no history of cancer in your family. You’re going to be fine.”
“What if it’s bad?” she said.
“If it’s bad, we deal with it. Think positive.”
There was a soft knock on the door and it opened. Into the room stepped a black-haired, thirty-something male wearing a white shirt, brown tie, and khaki pants. There was a pager on his belt. I assumed he was a doctor. Behind him was a chubby woman wearing a colorful print smock. I barely looked at her. There were now four of us in a room designed for one. I was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic.
“Mrs. Dillard?” the man said.
Caroline nodded.
“And you are … ?” He looked at me.
“Her husband,” I said.
“My name is Dr. Jameson,” he said, ignoring the woman behind him.
I reached out and took Caroline’s hand. Maybe it was the somber tone of his voice, but I knew this was going to be bad.
“As you know, we’ve conducted a biopsy on the mass in your left breast. I have the results here, and I’m afraid the news isn’t what you want to hear. The tests are positive for cancer, Mrs. Dillard. Invasive ductal carcinoma. I’m sorry.”
I heard the breath rush involuntarily out of Caroline’s body. My own mind went temporarily blank, as though I’d been blasted with a thousand volts of electricity. I looked at her, she looked at me, and in that moment—that awful moment that I’ll remember until the day I die—we were connected by something I would never have dreamed possible. It was fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. Neither of us could speak.
I could see that Caroline was fighting to hold back the tears, fighting to keep her composure in front of these strangers. Dr. Doom and his assistant were hovering awkwardly. Finally, I spoke.
“Could you give us a minute?”
“Certainly,” the doctor said. He appeared relieved to have been given permission to leave the room. The two of them turned and walked out without another word.
I pushed the door closed and turned to Caroline. Tears were already streaming down both of her cheeks. I reached down and helped her out of the chair, wrapped my arms around her, and held the only woman I’ve ever loved. Her shoulders heaved, and she began to
sob.
“Let it go,” I whispered. “Let it go.” I knew there was nothing I could say or do that would alleviate the shock and the terror of the diagnosis she’d just received, and as she stood there, leaning on me and sobbing, I tried to think of what I’d say when she was finished. After a few minutes, the storm began to subside, and I took a small step back. I took her face in my hands and looked into her eyes.
“You’ll beat it,” I said, wiping her tears away with my thumbs. It was all I could do to keep from breaking down and sobbing right along with her. “You’ll beat it. Whatever it takes, whatever you have to do, you’ll do it. I know you, Caroline. You’re as strong as they come, and you’ve got a thousand reasons to stick around, not the least of which is standing right here in front of you. I’ll help you. I’ll do anything you need. The kids will help you. Lots of people will help. You won’t go through this alone. I promise.”
I don’t know whether it was the look on my face, or some gesture I made, or some tone of desperation in my voice that reached her. It had to be something discernible only to a lifelong lover and friend, because I didn’t consciously do anything that would have caused her to do what she did next, something that took me completely by surprise.
She wiped a final tear from her cheek with the back of her hand and took a long, slow breath. Then she looked into my eyes, smiled, and said, “Don’t worry, baby. I won’t leave you. I’ll never leave you. Why don’t you tell the doctor to come back in?”
Sunday, September 28
Norman Brockwell was sixty-six years old.
An English teacher for nearly twenty years. Coach of the Washington County High School basketball team for eight years. And then the big break—appointed by the superintendent to serve as principal of Washington County High School. Twenty-one years in that position.
Twenty-one years.
