by Scott Pratt
After picking the hair up and carefully placing it in the bag, I changed the sheet and her pillowcase and walked back to the bathroom. She was sitting on a stool, looking at herself in the mirror. The sheet she’d been wearing had been replaced by a pink bathrobe. Small patches of hair remained on her scalp. She was tending to them with a pair of scissors. As I entered the room, she glanced up at me in the mirror, her eyes glistening.
“I’m hideous,” she said.
“No. You’re beautiful.” Choking back my own tears, I walked up behind her and began to stroke her scalp with my fingers. The remaining hair on her head felt like soft down. “I’ve always thought you were the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. I still do.”
“Will you finish it for me, like we talked about? I don’t think I can bear to do it myself.”
“Sure, baby.”
I dipped a washcloth in warm water and ran it across her scalp. I took a bar of soap, lathered it in my palms, and rubbed it softly up the nape of her neck, back from her forehead, and around her temples and ears. I held her gaze in the mirror as tears streamed down her face.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
And then, still stroking her head, I reached into the medicine cabinet for my razor.
Thursday, October 30
Sheriff Leon Bates shivered as he sat alone inside the Dodge Dakota he used for surveillance. Nothing glamorous about this part of the job. Bates was parked inside a barn less than a hundred yards from his informant’s house. The temperature outside had dipped to near freezing, and even though Bates was out of the wind, he was colder than a witch’s titty in a brass bra. He looked down at his watch. The target was supposed to show up at ten p.m. Almost time.
Above him, Bates knew there was a large room filled with gaming tables, video slot and poker machines, even a roulette wheel. Bates had busted the man who owned the property less than a week ago. After a few hours of interrogation and a threat to call in the feds, the man had revealed something that Bates had suspected for several months but hadn’t been able to prove. Now was the time.
Five minutes later, Bates saw headlights coming over the ridge to the east. The car slowed as it reached the driveway, turned in, and crawled slowly along over the rutted clay.
“That’s it,” Bates whispered. “Come to Papa.”
The lens of an infrared digital camera was positioned in a hole in the barn wall and trained on the front of the house. Yet another tiny lens was in the ceiling above the kitchen table inside the house. The informant inside was wired for sound. All of Bates’s brand-new high-tech toys had been purchased with money his department had seized from drug dealers over the past year and a half. Bates got out of the vehicle and turned on the camera. Once he was sure it was working property, he reached back into the Dakota, flipped the switch on the recorder, donned the headphones, and moved to a spot where he could peek through the slats and watch.
The car parked in front of the house and a man got out. Bates shook his head slowly as the man walked up the front steps and knocked on the door.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “My boy wasn’t lying.”
“What’s going on, playah?” Bates heard his informant say. The equipment was working perfectly. “C’mon in out of the cold.”
Bates heard muffled breathing and the sound of footsteps as the two men walked through the house. When the footsteps stopped, Bates heard the target’s voice.
“Put your hands on the table and spread your legs,” the target said.
Bates immediately recognized the voice. He wasn’t worried about the target frisking his informant. The listening device was wireless and undetectable.
“Where’s your wife?” the target said.
“Went to a movie with her sister,” the informant said. “She won’t be back for a while. Have a seat there; take a load off. How ’bout a beer?”
“No time. I just need to make my pickup and go.”
“So you’re just gonna fuck me and run, huh? Shove it up my ass without even bothering to give me a reach-around? You got no manners at all.”
Bates squirmed in his seat. “C’mon, Lacy,” he whispered to himself. “Get him to say something about his boss.”
“This is business,” the target said. “It’s not a social call.”
“Well, business ain’t what it used to be with that damned sheriff running around arresting folks. Y’all’s monthly payment is starting to cut a little deep.”
“You just make the payment and keep your mouth shut. Let me worry about the sheriff.”
Bates heard a beer can pop. “How much are y’all taking in on this little venture of yours?” the informant said.
“None of your goddamned business.”
“Yeah, well, I reckon it’s a pretty good lick or you wouldn’t be taking the risk. What’s your boss’s cut?”
“When did you get so damned nosy?”
“Just like to know where my hard-earned money’s going. Besides, it looks to me like you’re the one doing all the work.”
“Hard-earned, my ass,” the target said. “You make your money by stacking the odds and skimming the juice. There’s nothing hard about it.”
“So what’s his cut?”
“Half. You satisfied? He gets half.”
“Damn, boy, you ain’t as smart as I thought you were.”
“Just give me my money. I need to get going.”
The earphones went silent again accept for the sound of footsteps and the informant’s muffled breathing. Bates heard what he thought might be a drawer opening, then more footsteps.
“There it is,” the informant said. “Two grand. Cash.”
His equipment was so good that Bates heard the sound of a heavy envelope landing on a table. A chair leg scraped, and Bates assumed the target was picking up his extortion money.
“It’s all there,” the informant said. “You don’t have to count it.”
“It’d better be,” the target said. “I’ll see you next month. In the meantime, why don’t you move someplace closer to town? I hate driving all the way out here.”
“I’m not moving my operation. For two grand a month, you can afford the gas.”
Bates listened to the footsteps again, then watched as the target walked back out to his car. The target was easily identifiable, as was the number on his license plate. The camera above the table would leave no doubt. Bates allowed himself a smile.
“Gotcha,” he said out loud. “Your ass is mine.”
Friday, October 31
Halloween morning broke dreary and cold, with the wind whipping out of the southwest. A front was moving in, and as I drove to the office I watched the burnt-orange and bloodred leaves cling stubbornly to the branches that served as their lifelines. About two miles from Jonesborough, I noticed something strange to my left. A leafless, dead oak stood naked against the charcoal sky. Perched in its branches were at least two dozen carrion birds, vultures, each the size of a large turkey. As I passed beneath the tree they all took flight at the same time, their huge wings spreading out like giant robotic arms. For the rest of the trip into town, I had the unshakable sensation that they were following me, circling above, flying messengers of death.
I arrived in Jonesborough early and parked in the lot behind the courthouse. I looked up as soon as I got out of the truck and was relieved that the vultures were nowhere in sight. I walked around the courthouse and across Main Street to a small coffee shop.
I’d just started reading the newspaper when I noticed a man walk through the door. He was wearing a long, blue denim coat and a floppy black felt hat and carrying a walking stick with an ornamental carving of a lion’s head at the top. His gray hair cascaded out from beneath the hat to his shoulder blades, and his bushy beard, also gray, nearly covered his face. As soon as he stepped through the door he looked directly at me. I nodded and looked back down at the paper. He shuffled past me to the counter. A couple of minutes later, he was stan
ding over me with a steaming cup of coffee in his left hand.
“Mind if I sit, neighbor?” he said.
There was only one other person in the shop at the time. He could have sat at any of a dozen tables.
“Suit yourself,” I said, and he lowered himself awkwardly into the chair across from me. His nose was crooked and crisscrossed with pink veins. His eyes were small, close-set, and almost black. I folded the newspaper, smiled, and offered my hand.
“Joe Dillard,” I said. His hand was half the size of mine, his fingers rough and callused.
“I know who you are,” he said in a deep, throaty drawl, without returning the smile. “I saw you on the television.”
“Pretty embarrassing,” I said.
He poured some cream into his coffee and began to stir slowly.
“The young lady could be dangerous,” he said.
“Yeah? What makes you say that?”
“Unusual language she was speaking, don’t you think?”
“Was it a language? I thought it was just gibberish.”
He took a sip of coffee. As he set the cup down, he lifted his eyes. They were so dark I couldn’t discern iris from pupil, like two dime-sized, bottomless holes.
“It was a language, and that’s why I’m here, neighbor,” he said. “To warn you.”
“Warn me?”
He leaned forward, his lips tightening over his jagged teeth, and lowered his voice. “The language she was speaking is called Enochian. Some say it’s a language made up by hoaxsters, that it has no real value or power. Others say it’s an ancient language passed down through the pagans, a secret language spoken only by those who worship the lord of darkness.”
“And you know this language?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “When I was a younger man,” he said.
“So which were you, a hoaxster or a devil worshiper?”
He flinched a little, as though the directness of the question stung him.
“There was a time when I was lost,” he said, “but no more. Do you want to know what she said?”
“Not unless she was confessing to a crime.”
“She was reciting an Enochian passage that I’m sure she found in The Satanic Bible. It’s the only place she could have found those exact words.”
It made sense, since we’d found a copy of The Satanic Bible in Natasha’s bedroom. I sat there stirring my coffee, waiting for him to continue, trying to act as though I wasn’t alarmed.
“She put a curse on you,” he said. “A satanic curse. One that could bring terrible wrath and violence down upon you.”
Wrath and violence, psychics, inverted crosses and bullet holes in the eye. I was beginning to think I might be dreaming all of this. If I was, I wanted to wake up. I kept smiling, choosing my words carefully.
“Even if what you’re saying is true, she doesn’t have any power over me,” I said. “I don’t believe in Satan, and I damned sure don’t believe in curses.”
He shook his head and sighed. “To each his own, but if I were you, I’d take great care until the conflict between you and the girl is resolved.”
“Oh, it’ll be resolved,” I said. “You can bet on that.”
“It would be a mistake to underestimate her.”
I took one last sip of my coffee and stood up.
“You know what?” I said. “I have to go. Thanks for the warning.”
I walked towards the door. Just as I opened it, I heard him say, “Excuse me, Mr. Dillard?”
I stopped and turned back to face him.
“If the curse is real, there’s only one way to break it.”
“What’s that?”
“One of you has to die.”
Friday, October 31
Jim Beaumont’s motion to suppress all of the evidence we’d gathered against Sam Boyer and Levi Barnett arrived by courier from his office less than an hour after I sat down at my desk. Hugh Dunbar, Levi Barnett’s attorney, had joined the motion, but I knew the work was done by Beaumont. It alleged a variety of violations under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and asked the judge to exclude any and all evidence found as a result of the warrants I’d obtained the night we made the arrests. I’d been expecting the motion, but as I sat leafing through it at my desk, a feeling of uneasiness came over me. Beaumont, whom I knew to be a fine lawyer, got right to the heart of it. The primary question would be: Did the warrant applications, which were largely based on the testimony of Alisha Davis, an informant, set out enough facts to show that the informant had a reliable basis of knowledge? Beaumont argued very persuasively that it did not. If a judge agreed with him—and we were going in front of Judge Glass—we’d lose everything.
As I sat at my desk, rereading the motion for the third time, the telephone rang.
“Have you read my motion?” It was the distinctive baritone of Jim Beaumont. I was immediately suspicious, because I’d watched Beaumont practice criminal defense for years and had talked to him many times. I knew he didn’t trust prosecutors, and I knew he wasn’t the type to call and chat.
“Looking at it now,” I said.
“You’re on some damned thin ice, counselor,” Beaumont said. “Arrest warrants based on a drawing from an anonymous informant? That’s a first for me, and I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“She turned out to be right,” I said. “That should help her credibility. Besides, there’s a lot more to it than the drawing.”
“I took the liberty of calling the judge’s secretary,” he said. “The hearing’s set for Monday the tenth.”
“In a hurry, are we?”
“I hate to do this to you, Joe,” he said, chuckling under his breath. “I’ve always liked you, but when the judge throws out your evidence and these boys walk out the door, they’re gonna run you out of town on a rail.”
“Did you call to gloat?”
“A little bit, but the main purpose of the call is to tell you that my client wants to meet with you.”
“Boyer? You’re kidding me. What could he possibly have to offer?”
“It seems he’s been sitting in that jail cell over there in protective custody, all by his lonesome, without the influence of others, with nothing to do but stare at the walls and think. Hypothetically speaking, he might just be starting to feel like he’s getting a bad rap, since he’s the only one looking at the death penalty. And because he’s become offended by the injustice of the situation, he might just be able to provide you with some valuable testimony regarding someone else’s involvement in these crimes.”
“Natasha Davis?”
“Let’s just say it might be a person of the female persuasion, and this person might be directly responsible for all six killings.”
“You’re not trying to tell me that Boyer didn’t kill anyone.”
“He’s willing to admit his involvement, but the killings were committed while he was under this third party’s influence.”
I thought about Alisha’s comment, “one who commands.”
“And what would you expect in return for this information?” I said.
“We’d certainly expect some consideration.”
“How much?”
“I’m thinking something along the lines of second-degree murder, run everything concurrent, twenty-five years.”
“He’d be eligible for parole in eight years,” I said. “Eight years for six murders? You’re out of your mind.”
“You know as well as I do that the parole board won’t let him out. He’ll serve at least twenty, and who knows? Maybe with a little luck one of his fellow inmates will kill him for you.”
“Glad to hear you haven’t lost your compassion.”
“I don’t have any compassion for him. I’ve seen the evidence you have. Looks to me like he helped kill six innocent people. But we all have a job to do, right?”
“I can’t do a thing without talking to the boss,” I said.
“Figured as much. How do you like b
eing on a leash, anyway? Under the thumb of a politician?”
“It has its ups and downs, but it beats running interference for scumbags every day.”
“Ah, you cut me to the quick. Just one more thing before I let you go. Even if your boss gives you the okay, I’m not going to let you talk to him until after the motion hearing. You never know what a judge will do.”
“You don’t really think Judge Glass is going to let them walk away from this, do you? Especially after the little show your boys put on in the courtroom.”
“Like I said, you never know. He might seize the opportunity to make you look like an ass in front of the whole community. A little payback, you know? I’ll see you on the tenth.”
I buzzed Lee Mooney’s administrative assistant a few minutes later, and she told me to come on back. When I walked through Mooney’s door, I was surprised to find Alexander Dunn seated in a chair in front of Mooney’s desk.
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought you were alone.”
“No problem,” Mooney said, motioning to a chair next to Dunn. “Alexander and I were just discussing a few of his cases.”
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
“Personal or professional?”
“Professional.”
“Go ahead. You don’t mind if Alexander sits in, do you? He might learn something.”
I did mind. I didn’t trust Alexander, and didn’t feel comfortable discussing anything about my case in front of him. But I remembered what Rita told me—that he was Lee’s nephew and that Lee protected him—so I didn’t think asking him to leave would be particularly wise. I sat down in the chair.
“I just got off the phone with Jim Beaumont. Sam Boyer wants to deal.”
Mooney was wearing a dark blue jacket with a miniature American flag on the lapel. He reached up and began to finger his handlebar mustache.
“What does he have to offer?” Mooney said.
“He says there was a third person involved, and he’s willing to give her up. I think it’s the girl I’ve told you about. Natasha Davis.”
