In good faith

PART III

I made the news on the local CBS affiliate at six o’clock that night. Luckily, the cameraman hadn’t gotten there in time to record what I said to her. Caroline taped one of the newscasts, and we sat that night watching it over and over, trying to figure out what Natasha was saying. She spoke in what seemed to be a strange, guttural language, something I’d never heard.

The phone rang around seven. The caller ID was blocked, but I picked it up anyway. An unfamiliar woman’s voice on the other end asked to speak to Mr. Dillard.

“Who’s calling?” I said.

“I don’t want to tell you my name,” she said in a heavy Southern accent, “but I work with your sister at Godsey’s Insurance Agency. You need to go see her.”

“Beg your pardon? Did you say I need to go see her?”

“Yes. Right away. Tonight, if possible. And it would be best if you didn’t tell her you were coming.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Please, Mr. Dillard. Please go to Sarah. She needs you.”

“Crossville’s over two hours away,” I said. “I don’t think I’d be inclined to jump in the car and go down there on the basis of an anonymous phone call.”

There was a pause at the other end. I heard her draw in a deep breath.

“She’s been injured,” she said.

“Injured? Is she all right? Has she been in an accident?”

“No, I… I… You have to promise me you won’t tell her it was someone from work who called you. She’ll know it was me.”

“What’s going on?” I said. “If she’s hurt, I want to know what happened.”

“It was Robert,” she whispered. “He beat her. He beat her up.”

Her words stung me like a swarm of bees. I knew he was wrong for her. I knew he was a hothead. I was afraid something like this might happen, but I hadn’t had the guts to come out and say it to Sarah.

“Where is she?” I said, trying to remain calm.

“She’s at home. I just left there. It’s bad, especially her beautiful face.”

“Did she go to the hospital? Did she call the police?”

“She won’t do either one. She begged me not to call the police.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“I’ve known Robert since he was a little boy, Mr. Dillard. I’ve been working for his daddy, and his granddaddy before that, for thirty-five years. Robert’s a bad seed. He’ll do it again.”

“No, he won’t,” I said. “I can promise you that.”

I talked to her for a couple more minutes and then thanked her for calling.

“Mr. Dillard?” she said before she hung up. “I just want to tell you that Sarah is so proud of you. She brags on you all the time.”

I hung up the phone and tried to control my anger. Think, dumb-ass. Think. What should you do?

Caroline, who had started the chemotherapy treatments a couple of weeks earlier and had recovered well from the initial effects, wandered into the kitchen.

“Who was that?” she said.

“A friend of Sarah’s down in Crossville. She says Sarah’s boyfriend beat her up. She says I need to come down there tonight. Apparently it’s bad.”

“I’ve seen that look on your face before,” Caroline said. “What are you thinking about doing?”

“I was just asking myself that same question.”

“Why don’t you call the Crossville police?”

“Because they’ll go pick him up and take him to jail for twelve hours. They’ll charge him with a misdemeanor and let him out in the morning. He’ll go to court and swear he’ll never do it again, and they’ll slap him on the wrist and send him home.”

“Don’t you think he should go to jail?”

“I think he should suffer. I think he should feel the same pain he inflicted on Sarah. And I intend to make sure it happens.”

Caroline walked over and took my face in her hands. “I won’t try to stop you,” she said. “If you want to know the truth, I feel the same way you do. But you’re not going alone.”

“I don’t want you to go, baby,” I said. “You’re sick, and besides, I don’t want you to see what I’m going to do to him. I don’t want you to see me that way.”

“You need to take someone,” she said. “I want somebody looking out for you.”

“I’ll call Fraley.”

Just before eleven, Fraley and I rolled off the I-40 exit into Crossville. Before I left home, I looked in my Rolodex for the telephone number of the man who had been Robert Godsey’s boss at the local probation department. I reached him at home, and yes, Godsey had left a forwarding address. It would just take him a minute to get on the office database on his computer. Yes, he’d be glad to give it to me. Was I going down to visit, or was I working on a case?

Fraley had been home watching television. He was up for a road trip, he said, and after I told him why I was going, he became even more enthusiastic. I picked him up at his house, just a couple of blocks from the hospital in Johnson City.

The ride down had been largely silent as the debate raged within me about whether I was doing the right thing. I finally decided I didn’t give a damn whether it was right. It was what I was going to do. As we turned onto Live Oak Road about a half mile from Sarah’s apartment, Fraley spoke up.

“ ‘It was self-defense, Your Honor,’ ” he said. “ ‘Mr. Dillard went to confront Mr. Godsey about assaulting his sister, and Mr. Godsey attacked him. Mr. Dillard merely defended himself. I swear it on a stack of Bibles.’ ”

I turned and looked at him. He had a smile on his face.

“I appreciate this,” I said. “I’ll make it up to you sometime.”

The house Sarah rented sat atop a small knoll about fifty yards off Live Oak Road. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw her car, the used red Mustang she bought with some of the money Ma left her. The house was on a good-size lot, maybe three-quarters of an acre, surrounded by a fifteen-foot-high hemlock hedge.

“No way the neighbors would have heard anything with that hedge,” Fraley said.

“Sometimes there’s such a thing as too much privacy,” I said.

“You want me to come in with you?” Fraley said.

“Yeah. I want someone besides me to see her.”

We walked down a brick path and up a set of concrete steps, and I knocked on Sarah’s door. A brisk wind was blowing; it cut through the light nylon jacket I was wearing and I felt myself shiver. I heard footsteps beyond the door, then a rubbing sound as she leaned up against the peephole inside. There was a long silence.

“Sarah,” I said, knocking again. “Open the door.”

“What are you doing here, Joe?” she said from the other side.

“Somebody called me. Are you all right?”

“Who’s that with you?”

“A friend. He’s a police officer.”

“I don’t want any police around.”

“He’s not here to arrest anyone. He just rode along to keep me company.”

“Go away, Joe. I don’t want to talk to you right now,” she said.

“I’m not leaving, Sarah. If you don’t open the door, I swear to God I’ll kick it in.”

We stood there for a couple more minutes, until finally I heard the dead bolt slide and the doorknob turn. The door opened slightly, and I pushed my way in. Sarah had already turned and started through the house. She walked into the kitchen and stood at the sink looking out the window with her back to me, wearing a white terry-cloth bathrobe with her shiny black hair hanging over the collar. I followed, stopping at a tiled counter. Fraley stayed a few steps back in the den.

“What happened?” I said softly.

“It was stupid,” she said. “We got into an argument. I don’t even remember what it was over. We both said some things we shouldn’t have said, and then…”

I noticed there was a buzzing sound to her words, a form of pronunciation I’d never heard from her, as though she wasn’t opening her mouth all the way.

“Turn around,” I said.

Her head fell forward and her shoulders slumped.

“What are you going to do, Joe?”

“Turn around. Please.”

She turned slowly, her chin on her chest.

“Look at me,” I said.

When she lifted her chin, it was all I could do to keep from grabbing Fraley’s gun and heading straight to Robert Godsey’s house. Her left eye was swollen completely shut, an angry purple bruise spreading out like the wake from a raindrop on a pond. Both of her lips were swollen; her bottom lip had been split wide open. It looked like a puffy pink grub worm that had been chopped in half. As I moved towards her, I could see bruises on her throat. She’d obviously been choked.

“Come here,” I said, and opened my arms. She leaned against my chest and I held her close.

“It was my fault,” she said, her voice breaking. “It was my fault. You know how I get sometimes. I just don’t know when to shut up.”

I waited for her to calm down and took a step back. I reached out and lightly touched her cheek.

“I’m so sorry this happened,” I said. Rage was slowly building in me, constricting arteries, causing me to tremble slightly and my field of vision to narrow. I could feel my heart beating inside my chest. “Are you all right? Don’t you think you should go get checked out by a doctor?”

She must have sensed my anger, because she looked directly into my eyes and said, “Don’t hurt him, Joe. It isn’t worth it. I’ll be fine.”

I put my hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to go talk to him. I can’t just let this go.”

“Promise you won’t hurt him. He has problems. He didn’t mean to do it.”

“I’ll be back in a little while. In the meantime, put some things in a suitcase. You’re coming home with me.”

“No. I don’t want-”

I squeezed her shoulders tightly.

“No discussion, Sarah. He beat you, and I don’t care what you said, you didn’t deserve it. I’m going to go talk to him, and then I’m going to come back here and pick you up. You need to think this through for a few days, and you don’t need him around while you’re doing it.”

She let out a sigh and nodded her head. I leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Get ready to go. I’ll be back.”

“One second,” Fraley said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a digital camera. He handed the camera to me. “Take some pictures of her,” he said. “You never know when it might come in handy.”

I’d seen Godsey use his size and his belligerent demeanor to intimidate his probationers dozens of times. I guess he thought he could do the same to me, because he opened the door immediately when I knocked. He was shirtless, barrel-chested and hairy. I could see the hair on his shoulders backlit by a lamp in the den behind him as he loomed in the doorway.

“What do you want?” he said as he opened the storm door and glared at me.

I clocked him without saying a word. I had a picture of Sarah, battered and bruised, in my mind, and I hit him in the nose so hard that blood shot out like a red geyser. He staggered backwards into the house, his eyes wide with surprise, and I bull-rushed him. I got my shoulder into his chest, grabbed the backs of his thighs with both hands, lifted his feet off the ground, and drove him into the floor with a loud thud just inside the doorway. I heard at least one rib crack, and he let out a pathetic groan as the air rushed out of his lungs. I could hear myself talking, yelling, cursing, but I wasn’t conscious of what I was saying. As soon as I got him on the ground I pinned his hips with my knees and got my left forearm under his chin and against his jawbone. I turned his head and pinned it sideways against the floor and started hammering him with my right fist and elbow. I hit him in the temple, in the side of the face. My forearm slipped once and he turned his head towards me, so I hit him square in the mouth. I hit him until he went limp.

Something in my brain told me to stop, but I couldn’t. I just kept on hitting him, over and over. My knuckles were smashing into the hard bones in his face and skull, but I couldn’t feel a thing. Suddenly, I was lifted off his body and dragged backwards, my butt skidding along the hardwood floor. A voice was saying, “Enough! Enough!” Strong hands lifted me to my feet and pulled me through the doorway into the night air.

A familiar voice said, “Jesus Christ, Dillard…”

I stood there gasping for breath, temporarily unable to recognize the face in front of me. It slowly came into focus, like a ship emerging from a thick fog, and I realized it was Fraley. I turned and looked inside the house. Godsey was lying on his back, his legs spread. I walked back in and stood over him. He was breathing, but he wasn’t moving, his eyes staring up at the ceiling.

“I didn’t know you were going to go ballistic on me,” Fraley said. “Were you trying to kill him?”

“Can you hear me?” I said loudly to Godsey. He blinked. Both of his eyes were swelling, and his nose was smashed sideways onto his cheek. He was bleeding from the mouth, nose, and a cut above his left eye. I shoved his shoulder with my foot and he groaned.

“Don’t ever come near her again,” I said. “Don’t call, don’t write, nothing. She’s gone. She’s out of your life. Do you understand?”

“Let’s go,” Fraley said.

“Do you understand me, you piece of shit?”

“He understands,” Fraley said as he pulled me out the door and towards the truck. “I promise you he understands.”

Later, as we drove east on I-40 towards home, I heard Sarah stir in the passenger seat. I was driving her Mustang while Fraley followed in my truck. She hadn’t said a word since I loaded her suitcase in the trunk and we started towards home. I turned to look at her, and in the dim light from the dashboard, I could see the ugly purple lump where her left eye should have been.

“Joe?” she said in a soft voice. “Did you hurt him?”

“Not too bad.”

“Seriously, what did you do to him? Tell me.”

“The truth?”

“Please.”

“I don’t know, maybe a broken nose, a couple of fractured ribs, maybe a fractured jaw or something, maybe a concussion. He’ll probably live.”

She was silent for a couple of minutes. I saw her chest rise and fall as she let out a long, slow breath.

“Thank you,” she said, and she leaned her head back and went to sleep.

It was after two in the morning when I finally crawled into bed next to Caroline. I could see the outline of her face in the soft glow of the night-light. She looked beautiful sleeping so peacefully, and once again I found it difficult to believe that she’d been afflicted by such a horrible disease.

In the week leading up to her first chemotherapy treatment, she’d seemed distant and resigned. The night before she was scheduled to go to the cancer center, she bought a bottle of wine and drank it in less than an hour. While I didn’t think it was the healthiest thing she could do, it was at least good to hear her laugh for a little while. Unfortunately, the laughter soon gave way to tears of fear and frustration. She fell asleep on the couch with her head in my lap. I sat there stroking her hair and wondering what the next few months would bring until I finally drifted off to sleep sometime early in the morning.

I drove her to the cancer center early that Friday, just under two weeks after her first surgery revealed that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and had invaded the skin above the tumor. The stitches had been removed from her breast and underarm only the day before, but the cancer was aggressive and quickly advancing, the doctors said. They didn’t want to waste time getting started.

As we walked into the room where the chemotherapy was to be administered, I looked around and was immediately struck by the atmosphere. The place was set up like a beauty salon. Five reclining chairs were aligned in a space no more than thirty feet long and ten feet wide, all facing a television perched on a shelf high on the wall. The floor was shiny white linoleum, the walls gray. Frosted plastic sheets in the drop ceiling concealed banks of fluorescent lights. To the right was a long counter, behind which sat three nurses in colorful smocks. One of the nurses, a gray-haired woman with a gentle face, took Caroline into the hallway and directed her to a set of scales. After recording her weight, the nurse led Caroline to a room where another nurse stuck a needle in her arm and withdrew blood. They would use the blood sample for a variety of things, she said, but of primary importance were Caroline’s white and red blood cell counts.

An hour later, after she’d been returned to the beauty parlor and her blood had been analyzed, another nurse wheeled an IV tower up behind Caroline. The surgeon who had removed part of the tumor and the sentinel lymph node had installed a port just beneath the skin next to her collarbone. Into the port the nurse stuck an oversized, hook-shaped needle, and I saw Caroline cringe. A plastic bag containing clear fluid was suspended from the tower. A tube ran from the end of the bag and was hooked into another tube that was attached to the hook-shaped needle. For the first thirty minutes, the medicine that flowed through the tube into Caroline’s port was to prevent the nausea that the chemicals were sure to cause. Once the bag was empty, the nurse switched to a drug called Adriamycin, a cytotoxin designed to kill fast-multiplying cells. The doctor had explained that cancer cells multiply quickly, as do many other cells in the body. Adriamycin would kill the cancer cells, he said, but in the process, it would also kill other fast-multiplying cells, including those that grow hair and fight infection. After the Adriamycin finished dripping into Caroline’s vein, the nurse switched to another drug, cyclophosphamide, which was supposed to attach itself to the cancer cells’ DNA to keep them from reproducing.

I sat by Caroline’s side for three hours that first morning. We talked, played cards, watched television. As I tried to distract her, I watched the nurses go about their duties in a starkly efficient manner. All of the chairs were filled, and I’d discovered there were private rooms off the hall. Those too were full. Ninety percent of the patients were women, all in varying stages of treatment. Most wore caps, some nylon, some knitted, one crocheted, to hide their baldness. There were dark circles under their eyes, and their faces were sullen and seemed to be deflating. I was shocked by how many there were. One would finish the treatment and leave, and another would immediately take her place. The business of cancer was booming.

After an hour, I noticed a distinct change in the smell of Caroline’s breath. It was a mixture of metal and almonds, different from the one caused by the anesthesia a few weeks earlier. It reminded me of the smell of cyanide. The irony was undeniable: in order to save her, they had to poison her.

We drove home in the afternoon and waited for her to turn purple, to faint, to vomit. Nothing happened. She felt fine Friday night and most of Saturday, and we began to tell each other that maybe she was one of those special people we’d heard of; maybe she would remain immune to the side effects of the powerful drugs.

Saturday evening, she began to complain of fatigue. Her bones ached, she said. She slept fitfully, tossing and turning and moaning. On Sunday morning, she got out of bed and I fixed her a hard-boiled egg. She ate it slowly, almost cautiously, as though she knew what was about to happen. Fifteen minutes later, she was vomiting in the bathroom. I knelt beside her as her body lurched and heaved. I put a cold compress on her forehead, wiped the dribble from her chin and cheeks, the sweat from her temples, the tears from her eyes.

She stayed in bed for the next thirty-six hours, barely able to lift her head. All I could do was help her back and forth to the bathroom and make sure she took in water. I’d never felt so helpless.

Now, almost three weeks later, I’d just fallen off to sleep and was dreaming about fighting with Robert Godsey when I was awakened by an unfamiliar sound. I lifted my head from the pillow and looked around. Caroline was sitting up on the other side of the bed with her back to me. She’d pulled a sheet over her head. I reached over and touched her back.

“Are you all right?” I said.

Her response was a stifled sob.

“What’s wrong?” I said. “What hurts? What can I do?”

She continued to cry, so I pulled my feet up under me and slid over to sit beside her on the bed. I put my arm around her and pulled her towards me. As I did so, I reached up with my right hand to stroke her hair, but she’d pulled the sheet tightly across her scalp. I touched her cheek and could feel the wetness of tears.

“What is it, baby? What’s wrong?” I said.

Slowly, she lifted the sheet, and as I ran my fingers beneath it, I realized what was going on. She dropped her head onto my shoulder and continued to sob.

“It’s all right, Caroline,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to comfort her. “It’s all right. We knew this was going to happen.”

“It isn’t happening to you,” she whispered.

“I know, baby,” I said. “I wish it were. I wish it were me instead of you.”

I held her in the darkened room, listening alternately to the sounds of her sorrow and the wind whistling outside the window. After several minutes, she loosened her grip on my shoulders, took a deep breath, and lifted her head. “I have to use the bathroom,” she said. “Would you take care of it for me and then come back and help me?”

“I’ll be right there.”

She rose and shuffled slowly out of the room like a ghost, still shrouded in the sheet. As soon as I heard the bathroom door close, I stood up, turned on the light, and walked back and stood over the bed. There, on her pillow, fanned out in the shape of a halo, was her beautiful auburn hair. It had apparently freed itself all at once while she slept.

I went into the kitchen and found a plastic bag, returned to the bedroom, and gathered the long strands. She and her mother had discussed what she should do with her hair if it fell out, and they’d decided to donate it to Locks of Love, a company that made wigs for children with cancer. My job was to preserve it, package it, and deliver it to her mother.

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.

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 standing 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.”

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 being 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.”

“Is she the girl who was in the room with them the night they were arrested? The one you had to let go?”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“The same girl who was on television barking at you like a little dog?”

“Yeah.”

“That was priceless,” Dunn chimed in. “You should have seen the look on your face when you turned around towards the camera. You were white as a sheet, looked like you were about to pee your pants.”

“So anyway, I think she ordered the murders,” I said. “Maybe even participated. We have some circumstantial evidence that leads us in that direction. And now Boyer wants to tell us what happened.”

“What kind of circumstantial evidence?” Mooney said.

“The first witness we talked to turned out to be Natasha’s identical twin sister. She’s the one who put us onto them in the first place. Then Natasha turns up in the motel room when we go to arrest Boyer and Barnett. But the most compelling thing is the carvings in two of the victims’ foreheads.”

Mooney had seen both Bjorn Beck and Norman Brockwell up close, and he certainly was aware of the carvings. But the only involvement he’d had in the case was to visit the crime scenes and assign the investigation to the TBI. I’d tried to discuss a couple of things with him early on, but he put me off both times, telling me to “handle it any way you see fit.” He’d barely mentioned the case since the night I argued against forming a task force. He hadn’t looked at the file, and was blissfully unaware of most of the facts and the evidence. All he knew about the case was what I’d told him, and if anyone else asked him about it, he simply referred them to me.

There was a legal pad sitting just to his right, and I stood up and slid it over in front of him. I told him to write down, “ah Satan.” He did so, and said it out loud.

“That’s what was carved into Bjorn Beck’s and Norman Brockwell’s forehead,” I said. “It’s the same thing the boys were chanting in court, and they were looking at Natasha Davis while they were chanting. Now write it backwards.”

I glanced over at Dunn, who had slid forward in his chair so he could see what Mooney was doing. His hair was combed straight back and plastered to his head, and he smelled of cologne and cigar smoke. Mooney finished writing and looked up at me.

“Natasha,” he said.

“I know she was involved. I just can’t prove it yet.”

“You can’t convict her solely on the uncorroborated testimony of a codefendant,” he said.

“I know, but we don’t need much. The fact that she was with them when they were arrested and the carvings in the foreheads may be enough. Besides, if Boyer opens up, I’m betting we’ll find more.”

“And Boyer wants a break in exchange for information that will convict her?”

“Exactly.”

“How much of a break?”

“Beaumont asked for twenty-five years, eligible for parole in eight. I didn’t agree to it, but I was thinking somewhere along the lines of twenty-five years day-for-day might not be out of the question. But it’s up to you, Lee. I remember standing at the scene where the Becks were killed and you said no deals.”

He leaned forward and folded his hands on his desk in front of him. He looked at Alexander for a long moment, then turned to me.

“I hired you because I trust your judgment,” he said. “I want you to handle this case your way. If you think making a deal with Boyer will help you get another murderer off the street, and if making a deal is the only way, then do what you have to do. I’m going to leave it all up to you.”

I stood up. “Thank you, Lee,” I said. “I appreciate your confidence. I trust everything that was said in this room today will stay in this room.” I glanced sideways at Alexander, who immediately turned and looked at the wall.

“Absolutely,” Mooney said.

I walked out of his office and back down the hall knowing that I’d just been set up. I’d seen it before with other prosecutors and their assistants. Lee’s decision to let me have free rein on the case had nothing to do with his having confidence in me. It had everything to do with accountability. He’d turned the case over to his trusty assistant, an experienced trial lawyer who he believed was perfectly capable of handling anything that came his way, and he’d instructed him to handle the case “your way.” He even had a witness.

If something went wrong, he was off the hook.

I, on the other hand, would be left twisting in the wind, like an outlaw at the end of the hangman’s noose.

Saturday, November 1

Saturday evening reminded me of why I enjoyed being away from the cruelty and ugliness that made up the criminal justice system. Lilly had come home for the weekend, and Jack called just to check in around six o’clock. Caroline felt well enough to cook steaks on the grill. After the three of us ate supper and cleaned up, I grabbed a couple of beers and sat on the back deck and watched the stars twinkle in the vast black sky. Around eight, Caroline, Lilly, and I curled up on the couch and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was so good to hear Caroline laugh, and Lilly even provided a bit of vaudeville when she tripped over Rio and tossed a bag of popcorn all over the den.

Just as I was starting to think the world wasn’t such a bad place after all, the phone rang. It was Sarah.

“I just wanted you to know that I’m going back to Crossville tomorrow,” she said. “Robert and I are going to give it another try.”

I was dumbfounded. Sarah had always been unpredictable and headstrong, but I couldn’t imagine that she would put herself back into an abusive situation.

“Are you crazy?” I said. “Are you ill? Are you back on the sauce?”

“Don’t start on me, Joe. I’m a grown-up. I can handle it.”

“He beat the hell out of you, Sarah!”

“Don’t yell at me!”

I knew from years of experience that shouting wouldn’t work. The more I shouted, the more she’d shout, and the chances of reasoning with her would steadily melt away. I tried to think of a way to convince her that she was making a terrible mistake, but in the back of my mind, I knew it was futile.

“Sarah, please. It hasn’t even been a week. You haven’t even healed yet, for God’s sake.”

“We talked on the phone for a long time yesterday,” she said. “He’s sorry, Joe. He’s really sorry. He broke down and cried like a baby.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Why don’t you at least give it a month or so? Let yourself try to get past this.”

“I don’t want to give it a month. I want to go back and try to make it work. We’re going to go to counseling.”

“Counseling? What kind of counseling? A karate class?”

“Stop being so cynical,” she said. “He’s really a good man.”

“No, he isn’t. Good men do not beat on women. Period.”

“He just has some problems. Surely you, of all people, can sympathize with that.”

“No, I can’t sympathize with it. He’s a bully. He takes his rage out on people who can’t defend themselves.”

“The pot calling the kettle black,” she said.

Here we go. The classic warped Sarah logic. She’s worse than a goddamn judge.

“What do you mean? I did what I did because he deserved it. And he’s bigger than I am.”

“He said you didn’t give him a chance.”

“And what about you? Did he give you a chance?”

“He’s willing to give me another chance, in spite of what you did.”

“So now you’re blaming me? This is absolutely unbelievable.”

“I didn’t ask you to come down there. I could have handled it just fine myself.”

“What were you going to do, Sarah? Bleed on him?”

“I’m not going to argue with you anymore,” she said. “I just called because I felt like I owed you the courtesy of telling you I’m moving back.”

“Sarah, he’s going to do it again. When he does, don’t call me.”

I hung up on her, frustrated and angry. Caroline, who’d heard the shouting, walked up behind me and started rubbing my neck.

“She’s going back,” I said quietly.

“I know,” Caroline said. “I heard.”

“What’s wrong with her? I just don’t understand how she could do something so foolish.”

“She still hasn’t gotten over the rape. She thinks she deserves abuse. If she’s not doing it herself, she finds someone to do it for her.”

“Something bad’s going to happen,” I said.

I turned to her and she kissed me on the cheek. “And if it does, you’ll be right there for her, just like you’ve always been. C’mon, let’s get some sleep.”

I opened my eyes Sunday morning to streaks of silver light shining in from behind the blinds in our bedroom. I threw my legs over the side of the bed, reached up, and pulled back the blinds. Massive gray clouds that looked like buffalo humps were receding to the west, replaced by an azure sky brightened by the sun in the east. As I sat there looking out the window, I suddenly felt like something wasn’t quite right, but then I realized what it was: Rio greeted me every morning as soon as my feet hit the floor. He’d lay his snout across my thighs, look up at me with those expressive brown eyes, and wait for me to scratch his ears. He’d spent the night at the veterinarian’s after being neutered the day before. I hated to do it to him, but as he grew older, he was becoming more aggressive. We kept him in the house most of the time, but anyone who came to the door was greeted by a snarling, ninety-pound missile just itching to launch itself. He calmed quickly and had never bitten anyone, but I’d also received a couple of complaints from people who happened to walk or jog by the house when he was outside. He apparently guarded the edge of the property with the same zeal that he guarded the house. I hoped the neutering would calm him down.

I stood and looked at Caroline, who was sleeping peacefully. She’d lost all of her hair-even her eyebrows were gone-but I’d already grown used to it. As the sunlight illuminated her face, I thought to myself again how beautiful she was. I’d tried to tell her, but she scoffed at the compliments, referring to herself as “onion head.”

She’d done amazingly well. By scheduling her chemotherapy treatments on Fridays, she was able to endure the sickness she experienced immediately afterwards on the weekends and get back to her beloved dancing classes on Mondays. She wore a wig to the dancing school that almost, but not quite, matched the color of her hair. I’d suggested that she didn’t need to wear the wig, but she said she was afraid her baldness would frighten the younger students, and I knew she was right. When she was around the house, she usually wore a knitted cap of some kind. She complained of pain in her bones, slept late most days, and had to take a nap in the afternoons, but she’d managed to keep her sense of humor and a positive outlook.

I put on my robe and walked into the kitchen clenching and unclenching my right hand. The knuckles were still swollen and discolored from my trip to see Robert Godsey. I thought about Sarah and shook my head.

I made a pot of coffee and wandered outside to get the newspaper. A slight breeze was blowing out of the southwest, and I could hear the gentle rustle of the brittle leaves that remained on the trees in the woods across the street. I retrieved the newspaper, walked back down the driveway into the house, poured myself a cup of coffee, and sat down at the kitchen table to read.

The headline, above the fold on the front page, said: Prosecutor Seeks Deal; Shocking New Details in Multiple Murders

The story was written by Misty Bell. As I read, I felt the anger rising in my throat. The Johnson City Banner has learned that recently hired Assistant District Attorney Joe Dillard is seeking to make a deal with one of the suspects in six recent murders. Sources close to the investigation confirmed yesterday that Dillard is willing to offer Samuel Boyer, nineteen, a twenty-five-year sentence in exchange for information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of an unidentified third party that law enforcement officials believe was involved in the murders. And in a shocking, previously unreported discovery, the Banner has learned that the phrase “ah Satan” was carved into the foreheads of two of the victims…

I threw the paper down on the table in disgust. Jim Beaumont, Lee Mooney, Alexander Dunn, and I were the only people who knew of Beaumont’s offer and my discussion with Lee Mooney. Beaumont had no incentive to leak it to the newspaper; nor did Mooney. I knew I hadn’t done it, so that left only Dunn.

“That son of a bitch,” I muttered. “That slimy little son of a bitch.”

I wondered whether Natasha Davis had seen the story, and if so, what her reaction would be. Would she run? Try to get to Boyer? Clean up any mess that might still be lingering?

“I’m going to strangle him,” I said out loud. “I’m going to crush his windpipe with my bare hands.”

A blond head peaked around the corner near the refrigerator. It was Lilly, who’d been coming home from school every weekend since Caroline’s diagnosis. The director of the dance team had graciously agreed to let her take some time off, and although I’d tried to talk her out of it at first, I was glad to have her home. She stepped around the corner wearing an oversize, bright orange University of Tennessee T-shirt that hung almost to her knees, her long hair rumpled from sleep.

“Who are you going to strangle?” she said.

“Sorry, honey; I didn’t know you were there.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Let me fix you some breakfast. Are you up for a run this morning? It’s beautiful outside.”

“Are we racing?” I saw the competitive glint in her eyes. She’d been running seriously for several years, since she turned thirteen, and she’d been dancing her entire life. She was in great shape, but this was the first time she’d ever asked me to race.

“Do you want to race?” I said.

“Depends.”

“On?”

“On how mad you’ll get when I beat you.”

“Care to put your money where your mouth is?” I said.

“How much?”

“Five bucks.”

“Deal. How far are we racing?” Lilly asked.

“Up to you.”

“Three miles. How much of a head start do I get?”

“Who said anything about a head start?”

“C’mon, you’re a man, Dad. And a jock. You’ve been running your whole life.”

“I’ll give you one minute.”

“Five.”

“Three.”

“Okay. Three.”

“We run to the oak on the bluff and back. That’s three miles, right?”

“Right.”

Thirty minutes later, Lilly and I were standing on a ten-foot-wide trail that ran along the northern bank of the Watauga River, also known as Boone Lake. The trail was developed for recreation by the Tennessee Valley Authority and wound for five miles through a wooded area on property owned by the TVA. It was only a couple of hundred yards from our house, so we’d both run the trail a thousand times. As we stood there stretching, she reminded me so much of her mother-beautiful, strong, and intelligent. I wondered briefly where she’d be in five years, ten years. I hoped she didn’t stray too far.

It was perfect on the trail. No one was around, the breeze was still blowing, and the temperature was climbing along with the sun. I put my finger on the stopwatch on my wrist.

“Ready?” I said.

“I apologize in advance for the embarrassment I’m going to cause you,” Lilly said.

“Five… four… three… two… one… Go!”

Lilly took off, and I pushed the button on the watch. I stretched some more and bounced around, watching her disappear around the first bend as I waited for three minutes to elapse. Two minutes into my wait, I heard what sounded like an animal growling, followed by a piercing scream. It was a woman’s voice, not that far away, coming from the direction Lilly ran. I listened intently.

Lilly? Was that Lilly?

The woman screamed again, and I heard another sound. A bear? A dog? Coyote? I took off down the trail as fast as my legs would carry me. I heard it again, but this time the voice was screaming for me: “Dad! Help me! Dad!”

I rounded the first bend and headed up a small rise, my lungs already burning. As I topped the rise, I caught a glimpse of her. She was on the ground, about a hundred yards in front of me, just to the right of the trail. She was screaming and crying and poking at something with a stick.

“Lilly!” I yelled. “I’m coming! Hang on!”

“It’s trying to kill me!” she screamed.

As I closed in on her, I saw the dog. It was a Doberman. And then I saw the blood on Lilly’s face. Her jacket was ripped and her exposed shoulder was bloody. She was swinging a small tree limb in her right hand, desperately trying to keep the dog at bay. I kept running and started looking for a weapon.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Here! Here! Come get me!” The protective parental instinct had taken over. I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting the dog away from my daughter. Even without a weapon, I headed straight for it with absolutely no idea what I’d do when I got there. Kick it, I told myself, punch it, pick it up and smash it against a goddamned tree if you have to.

The dog moved towards Lilly. Thirty yards. She swung the stick she was holding and the Doberman yelped and backed off a little. About fifteen yards short of Lilly, I spotted a thick branch beneath a white oak. I grabbed it up, still running. Then I was between Lilly and the dog. Lilly was crawling backwards, crying. The dog lowered its head and snarled; its canines looked like white spears.

The dog lunged and I brought the tree limb down hard on the top of its head. The oak limb was a perfect club, between three and four feet long and hard as steel. My hands buzzed from the shock as the blow drove the dog’s snout into the dirt beside the trail, stunning it. It snarled again and tried to get up, but then staggered forward and collapsed. I looked at the dog for a brief second, and then I turned and looked at my daughter, who was cowering near a bush. She was covered in blood. I turned back and raised the limb. Brought it down hard. Again. And again. The dog’s head became a bloody mass of hair and brain matter. I dropped the club and rushed to Lilly.

“It must have come from under that bush,” she was saying, pointing to a nearby laurel. “I didn’t even see it until it knocked me down.”

Terrible thoughts were racing through my head. The dog is rabid. Lilly’s been infected. She could die. Then I thought of the morning at Marie Davis’s house, the look on the TBI agent’s face after he’d seen the Dobermans out back. Natasha. Could she be lurking out here in the woods somewhere? Did she sic her dog on my daughter?

“We need to get you to a hospital,” I said as I quickly tried to examine the bite marks. Her forehead was streaked with red. “Did it bite you on the head?”

She nodded. I parted her hair and could see a gash in her scalp.

“Where else?”

She pointed to her shoulder, about three inches from her neck. There were at least two puncture wounds near her collarbone and more on her forearm.

“You did good fighting him off,” I said. “You did good, honey. You’re going to be fine now.”

I picked her up off the trail and put her arm around my neck.

“Can you walk?”

She nodded.

“Let’s get out of here.”