by Scott Pratt
“Police! Search warrant!” Norcross yelled.
A long minute passed and Norcross banged on the door again. “Open the door! Search warrant!”
Fraley saw a shadow pass across the window and heard the sound of feet shuffling inside. The door cracked open, and Marie Davis stuck her pale head outside.
“What do y’all want?” she said.
Fraley stepped forward slowly, wary of what—or who—might be behind Marie.
“We have a search warrant that allows us to take a sample of Natasha’s hair for DNA testing. The warrant also allows us to search for a gold necklace.”
“I don’t want y’all in here again,” Marie said.
“Open the door and step back,” Fraley said. “If you don’t, we’ll kick the door in and arrest you for obstruction.”
The door creaked as it opened, and Fraley and Norcross entered the house. It was dark and quiet. All the shades had been drawn and the television was off. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke and mildew. Marie went immediately to the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. She was wearing the same flowered robe that she wore the first time Fraley came to her house.
“Where’s Natasha?” Fraley said.
“Asleep,” Marie said, motioning with her head towards the hallway.
“She won’t be for long with that goddamned dog barking.”
“She probably took something. She could sleep through Armageddon,” Marie said.
“Don’t you have any lights in this place?” Fraley said as he looked around the trailer.
Marie walked across the kitchen into the small den, turned on a lamp beside her recliner, and went back to the kitchen.
“Have you seen an ice pick since the last time we were here?” Fraley said.
Marie shook her head and blew out a long stream of gray smoke.
“How about a necklace? A gold cross on a gold chain.”
Marie stared down at the table in front of her, saying nothing. Fraley moved towards her.
“Lying to a police officer is a felony, Ms. Davis.”
“I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t say nothing.”
“Have you seen a gold cross on a gold chain or not?”
“I ain’t telling you nothing.”
Fraley looked at her. She was obviously in poor health, hiding behind tinted glasses, her skin as pale as a full moon, liver spots covering her bony hands. He imagined her sitting alone in a dark, silent house, her perception clouded by drugs, waiting for Natasha to return, wishing that death would take her. He might have felt sorry for her, but how could he feel sorry for someone who had brought a cancer like Natasha into the world? And now it appeared Marie was protecting her.
Norcross, who had gone to the back to retrieve the other two agents, walked into the kitchen.
“Ms. Davis here says Natasha’s sleeping,” Fraley said. “I’ll go first. Thor, you’re right behind me, Danny behind you. Jimbo, you stay here and keep an eye on Ms. Davis. If she moves, shoot her.”
“What happened to the other dog?” Jimbo said to Marie. “There were two last time I was here.”
Marie shrugged her shoulders, staring down at her cigarette.
Fraley moved cautiously down the darkened hallway, gun raised. The door to Natasha’s room was closed, so he reached out and carefully turned the knob. The door opened silently; the room was as dark as black ink. Fraley stepped soundlessly inside. He could hear steady breathing in the corner. He looked over his shoulder to see Norcross’s frame filling the doorway and slid his hand along the wall to find the light switch. He flipped it on.
Natasha was lying on top of the bedspread on her stomach, sound asleep. A black T-shirt covered her to midthigh. Her arms were beneath the pillow under her head. Fraley turned to Norcross and gave him a hand signal. Norcross took the handcuffs from their pouch on his belt and crept towards the bed. Fraley stepped to the foot, ready to grab Natasha’s ankles as soon as Norcross made his move. Danny provided cover. Fraley holstered his weapon and nodded, and Norcross dropped his knees into the small of Natasha’s back and grabbed both of her forearms.
“Police!” Norcross yelled. “Stay facedown!”
Natasha screamed as Norcross wrenched her arms behind her back and snapped the handcuffs on her wrists. She tried to squirm and kick, but Fraley had a solid hold on her ankles, and the sheer weight and strength of Norcross rendered her helpless.
“Bastards!” Natasha screamed. “Motherfuckers!”
Fraley watched as Norcross lifted her off the bed and dragged her down the hallway. Once he got her to the den, he laid her on her stomach in the middle of the floor and straddled her.
“Don’t move,” Fraley said. “We have a warrant to take a hair sample from you and to search the house.”
“I hate you!” Natasha screamed. She continued to struggle. “I hate fucking cops! I hope your children burn to death!”
“Danny, hold her legs,” Fraley said. “Norcross, turn her head to the side and hold her still.”
Natasha continued to rail as Fraley pulled a small evidence bag and a pair of tweezers out of his jacket pocket.
“Hold still, sweetie pie,” Fraley said. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
Fraley knew that the best DNA sample would come from the roots of Natasha’s hair, so he maneuvered the tweezers close to Natasha’s scalp as she struggled and spit and cursed. He plucked five hairs, put them in the bag, and sealed it. He was just starting to get off of his knees when he noticed the chain around Natasha’s neck. It was gold.
“Hold her right there,” Fraley said. He got up and went back to Natasha’s bedroom, rifled through a couple of drawers until he found a T-shirt, and went back into the den.
“Put this over her head and turn her over,” he said to Norcross. “I don’t want her spitting all over me.”
Norcross did as Fraley said. When he turned Natasha over, Fraley saw that a gold cross was indeed hanging on the chain.
“Look, guys,” Fraley said. “Isn’t that nice? She’s put a personal touch on it. The cross is hanging upside down from the chain. We’re going to take this, Natasha. I’m sure you don’t mind.”
Fraley fumbled with the clasp while Natasha let loose a steady stream of expletives. It took almost a minute to get it unhooked. He pulled the chain from beneath Natasha’s neck. When Fraley had bagged the necklace, he looked at Norcross’s face. The big man was flushed and beginning to sweat.
“Turn her back over and get the cuffs off of her,” Fraley said. “I think we have everything we came for.”
Natasha went silent as Norcross rolled her over. Fraley held his gun on her while Norcross unlocked the cuffs, pulled the T-shirt off of her head, and stepped carefully away.
“Don’t leave town,” Fraley said as the agents began to back towards the kitchen. Jimbo opened the door, and light seeped into the dim interior of the room. “As soon as we get the results from the lab and figure out where this necklace came from, we’ll be back to get you.”
Suddenly, the lightbulb in the lamp that Marie had turned on exploded with a loud pop! Fraley heard the bits of glass fly against the inside of the lamp shade, and when he looked towards the lamp, he could see smoke rising.
Natasha slowly pulled herself to her knees and glared at Fraley. She began to speak, and Fraley felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her freakish eyes boring into him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Tuesday, November 11
Fraley looked up at the clock as he walked through the door of the small house he rented on Cranston Street. Almost midnight. It had been an exhausting day, beginning with the raid at Natasha’s. As he opened the closet door to hang up his coat, Fraley heard the familiar meow of his golden-eyed tabby. He felt the cat rubbing against his leg and reached down to pick it up.
“How’s Clementine tonight?” Fraley said, scratching lightly around her ears and down her back. “I’ll bet you’re hungry. Sorry Pops was so late getting hom
e.”
Fraley walked into the kitchen, set the cat down gently, and opened a can of food.
“How about tuna and bacon tonight?” he said. “Good for your ticker.”
Fraley scraped the food into a plastic bowl and stood watching as Clementine enthusiastically went about devouring it.
“Pops is gonna get out of these smelly clothes. You let me know when you’re ready to go out.”
Immediately after the raid, Fraley had made the hundred-mile drive to Knoxville to hand-deliver Natasha’s hair samples to the lab. While he was there, he managed to convince the lab supervisor to give the DNA comparison top priority, which meant Fraley should hear something by tomorrow afternoon.
After driving back, Fraley set about trying to identify the necklace he’d taken from Natasha. The cross was somewhat unique in that it had been manufactured in the form of a ribbon with a small diamond at its center. He began by driving to Gladys Brockwell’s daughter’s home. He showed her the gold cross, but she said she’d never seen it. She also said her mother had become an avid Internet shopper. If she’d purchased the necklace over the Internet, Fraley knew the forensic computer analysts could find the transaction. The problem was it could take days, even weeks.
So Fraley hit the streets. He showed the necklace to eight different jewelers before he found someone who recognized it and could identify the manufacturer and the regional distributor. Once he had the distributor’s name, Fraley tried to contact them by phone, but by that time it was nearly seven o’clock and no one was manning the company’s switchboard. It would have to wait until morning.
After grabbing a bite to eat, Fraley had gone to the hospital to see Dillard. He found him in the intensive care waiting room looking haggard and worried. He hadn’t shaved, the lines in his forehead looked drawn and rigid, and there were dark circles beneath both eyes. Though Dillard barely spoke, Fraley had stayed until eleven forty-five. He remembered the agony of his first wife’s death, the feelings of emptiness and loneliness, and he knew it was better for Dillard to have someone around. Besides, Fraley lived only a couple of blocks away.
Dillard managed to say that he’d finally called his children, but he’d instructed both of them to stay at school until the weekend. He said he hoped Caroline would be out of intensive care by then, but the way he said it made Fraley think it would probably be much longer. Dillard had also pointed out Caroline’s mother in the waiting room. He said he thought she somehow blamed him for Caroline’s illness, because she was all the way across the room reading a book. She left around nine without speaking.
Fraley tried to tell Dillard about the raid at Natasha’s and the progress he’d made with the necklace, but nothing he said seemed to have any effect. It was like talking to a mannequin. Sheriff Bates had shown up around nine, so for a little while, Fraley at least had someone to talk to.
Fraley donned his favorite flannel pajamas and went to the refrigerator. He grabbed a can of Budweiser and went into the den. Just as he was about to sit down, Clementine meowed again, signaling that she was ready. Fraley opened the front door and let her outside. He sat down in the recliner, sipping his beer and watching a rerun of his favorite show, Law & Order. Just as he finished his beer, he heard the cat scratching, got up, and let her back inside.
“Pops is bushed,” he said, “and he’s going to bed.”
An hour after Fraley lay down, a noise awakened him. He lay in bed listening for a few seconds, heard it again. It was a soft thump, as though someone were knocking on the side of the house. It sounded as if it were coming from just outside the back door. Fraley sat up and reached into the drawer of his bedside table and retrieved his pistol. Leaving the lights off, he crept through the house in his pajamas, stopping briefly at the closet to pick up a flashlight. He moved silently to the front door, let himself out slowly, tiptoed down the front steps, and moved along the wall on the side of the house, his heart pounding. The wind was whipping and the ground beneath his bare feet was cold and hard. When he reached the corner of the house, Fraley flipped on the flashlight. The small backyard was quiet and still except for the wind. He walked slowly all the way around the house, finding nothing. As he doubled back, he heard a scraping sound. He looked towards the sound and realized a maple that needed trimming was rubbing against the house in the wind.
Fraley’s feet were beginning to go numb because of the cold, so he moved quickly back around the side and up the steps. Clementine regarded him curiously as he locked the door behind him.
“Sorry, honey,” he said. “I guess Pops is getting a little jumpy in his old age.”
Fraley bent over, picked up his pet, and carried her off to the bedroom. Ten minutes later, he was sound asleep, his left hand resting on his beloved cat, his right hand resting on his revolver.
Wednesday, November 12
I’d been at the hospital for thirty-six hours, unable to sleep or eat, barely able to communicate. The sparse news I received about Caroline was dire, and I kept experiencing feelings of desperation and hopelessness. My head was pounding, my throat was dry, and it seemed that every joint in my body ached whenever I attempted to move.
The intensive care waiting room was recently constructed, a large, open space with a skylight above, comfortable chairs, and tapestries on the walls. Jack and Lilly were calling every hour or so for updates, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them how serious Caroline’s condition really was. Fraley and Leon Bates both stopped by sometime during the evening, but I had very little recollection of anything they said.
I was sitting in the chair with my eyes closed and my feet propped up on a table in front of me when my cell phone rang. I opened my eyes to find that I was the only person left in the waiting room. I picked the cell up off of the table next to me and didn’t recognize the number that was calling. I looked at my watch—twelve minutes after two in the morning. I pushed the button and lifted the phone to my ear.
“She’s killing the policeman! She’s killing the policeman!” a female voice screamed.
“What? Who is this?”
“Natasha! She’s killing him!”
I suddenly recognized the frantic voice. It was Alisha.
“Who?” I said. “Which policeman?”
“Mr. Fraley! You have to help him!”
I stood up, unsure of what to do.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know! He’s in bed!”
I pushed the button on the phone and started running down the hall towards the stairs. Along the way, I dialed 911.
“Nine-one-one dispatch, what’s your emergency?” a female voice said.
“This is Joe Dillard. I’m an assistant district attorney, and I’m calling to report what might be a murder in progress,” I said breathlessly as I started down the steps.
“A murder in progress?” she said in a skeptical voice. “Where are you, sir?”
“I’m on my way there. You need to send someone to Hank Fraley’s house. He’s a TBI agent and he lives on Cranston Street.”
“Do you have the address?”
“No, goddammit! Hank Fraley! TBI agent! Cranston Street! He’s being attacked right now! Get the police and an ambulance over there!”
I pushed my way through the door that led to the parking lot and entered the cold night air. The wind was blowing so hard that it almost knocked me off balance as I ran towards my truck.
“Did you say your name is Joe Dillard?” I heard the dispatcher say.
“Yes! I’m an assistant district attorney. Have you sent a patrol car?”
“How do you know that a murder might be in progress, Mr. Dillard?”
“What fucking difference does that make?” I yelled. “It’s happening!”
I jumped into the truck and tossed the cell phone down on the seat next to me. Fraley’s house was a short distance from the hospital. If I got there in time, maybe I could get my hands on Natasha, or, at the very least, keep Fraley alive until the paramedics arrived.
&nb
sp; It took me only a couple of minutes to get to Fraley’s. I parked the truck near the curb right in front of the house and turned on the emergency flashers, hoping the police would see them and know exactly where to come. As I sprinted towards the front door, I realized I wasn’t armed. I stopped, turned around, and raced back to the truck. I opened the passenger-side door and reached beneath the seat, where I kept a tire tool and a jack. I felt the cold steel of the tire tool, pulled it out, and ran back towards the house and up the front steps. The house was completely dark. I opened the storm door and grabbed the doorknob, hollering Fraley’s name at the same time. The door was locked. I broke out a window with the tire tool, reached inside, and unlocked the dead bolt and the knob.
I kept telling myself that Alisha was wrong, that she’d probably just experienced a nightmare, that there was no way Fraley would let Natasha get the best of him.
“Fraley!” I called as I stepped into the den. I’d been in the house only once, the night Fraley rode with me to Crossville to get Sarah, but he’d given me a little tour. He showed me the pictures of his family that he’d hung on the wall and his medals from serving in the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam.
The house was dead silent. As I crept down the short hallway towards the bedroom, gripping the tire iron tightly in my right hand, I felt the temperature drop, and I immediately knew Natasha had been there. I heard sirens in the distance just as I reached the bedroom. The door was open slightly, so I gently pushed it with the tire iron. I reached around the doorway with my left hand and slid it against the wall until I felt a light switch.
The scene before me caused my knees to buckle, and I staggered towards the bed, trying to keep my balance. Fraley was faceup, his eyes and mouth wide open. I stood over him and reached down to feel his carotid for a pulse, but he was perfectly still. Fresh blood was everywhere. It covered his face, arms, and pajamas. I forced myself to look more closely, and could make out several puncture wounds. There was blood on the walls, even on the ceiling. The bedroom window was open. Natasha must have made her exit through the window. As I backed awkwardly away from the bed, I noticed something on the floor. It was Fraley’s pistol, and it too was covered in blood.
