In good faith

Sunday, November 2

The lights were bright, the floors clean, and the smell antiseptic as the doctor in the white coat looked at us sympathetically. His name tag dubbed him Ajeet Kalam. He looked to be in his late thirties, very slightly built, with a roundish face, small teeth, and suspicious dark eyes. His accent told me he was born in India.

I was standing next to a gurney on which my daughter was lying. She’d been sedated, but she was awake. We’d been in the emergency room for three hours, and I was afraid the Indian doctor was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

“It’s good that you brought the dog with you,” he said.

“It wasn’t much fun going back there and dragging him out,” I said.

“It was a female, actually.” I hadn’t bothered to look, and I really didn’t care. “How did you kill her?”

“I bashed her head in with a tree limb.”

“A violent way to die,” he said wistfully.

“I didn’t exactly have the time or the means to do it more humanely.”

“Rabid dogs are a terrible problem where I come from. They kill tens of thousands of people every year. Especially in the poorer provinces.”

Another time, under different circumstances, I might have been sympathetic to the public health problems in India, but at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less.

“Do you have the test results?”

He nodded his head.

“And?”

“The dog wasn’t rabid,” he said. “Lucky for you.”

There was a collective sigh of relief as Caroline, Lilly, and I realized that Lilly wouldn’t have to undergo the painful treatment for rabies.

“So what’s the plan?” I said.

“You look familiar to me,” the doctor said. “Have we met?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I can’t put my finger on it. It seems I’ve seen you recently. Perhaps on television?”

I shook my head, but he looked at me more closely. I could see he was about to put it together.

“Can we get back to my daughter?” I said.

“The crazy woman!” he said triumphantly. He pointed at me. “The crazy woman! You are the lawyer the crazy woman yelled at on the television!”

“Please,” I said.

“Do you know what she was saying? It sounded like a bunch of babble.”

“I think she was trying to put a curse on me,” I said, immediately wishing I could grab the words out of the air before they reached his ears.

His voice lowered and his eyes widened. He spoke slowly. “Ah, a curse. Very dangerous. Very scary for you, no?”

“No. Not scary. Now, if you don’t mind-”

“Right.” He looked as though he’d just awakened from a dream to find a young girl lying on a gurney. “How did you come across the animal?”

“We were jogging,” I said. “We were going to race. She went out first, and I heard her scream…”

He looked down at Lilly, then back at me.

“Perhaps it is the curse,” he said. “Perhaps you should be more vigilant.”

“Is there anything else you should be doing?” I snapped. The look on my face must have told him not to mention the curse again, because he quickly got back to the matter at hand.

“I’ll give her an injection that will help fight infection,” he said. “And I’ll prescribe some pain medication. The stitches will dissolve, but you need to take her to her doctor in ten days or so, just to make sure everything is healing properly.”

“Can we take her home now?”

“You can. The test is very reliable, but I want you to keep a close eye on her for a few weeks. If there is any sign of headache, fever, irritability, restlessness, or anxiety, you must bring her to the emergency room immediately.”

I patted Lilly on the hand and reached down and kissed her on the forehead.

“You’re gonna be fine,” I said, as much for me as for her. “You’re gonna be fine.”

“If you will excuse us, the nurse and I will go ahead and give her the injection. You can come back in about ten minutes.”

I winked at Lilly, took Caroline’s hand, and walked out of the room, down the hall, and through the automatic doors that led into the sunshine.

“What’s this about a curse?” Caroline said after we stood in silence for several minutes. “I thought you didn’t know what she was saying.”

“It’s nothing. Really. Don’t worry about it.”

“What ever happened to being open and honest?” she said. “I thought you weren’t going to hide things from me anymore.”

In years past, I’d made a habit of keeping things from Caroline, things I didn’t think she needed or wanted to know. But last year, shortly after my mother’s death, I’d finally opened up to her. I told her about Sarah being raped when we were children and about my shame in being unable to defend her, about my terrifying experiences in the military, about the mayhem I witnessed every day at work, about the frustration I felt at being raised without a father. The conversation seemed to lift a psychological burden I’d been carrying for years, and I’d promised to tell her everything in the future.

“I’m not hiding anything,” I said. “I just thought you had enough on your mind. Besides, I’m not taking it seriously.”

“Who told you she put a curse on you?”

“It was just some old guy who came into the coffee shop the other day.”

“So tell me about it.”

“I’ll tell you on the way home. Let’s go get Lilly.”

A nurse brought me a wheelchair, and I rolled Lilly out to the car. During the drive home, I told Caroline and Lilly about the old man who came into the coffee shop Friday morning. I left out the part about one of us having to die, and I didn’t say anything about Natasha’s Dobermans.

“Did he tell you his name?” Caroline said.

“I didn’t want to know his name.”

“Do you think he was some kind of Satanist?”

“I got the impression that he used to be. I guess he’s seen the light.”

“Doesn’t it scare you?”

“No. It doesn’t scare me. And it shouldn’t scare you either. Don’t even think about it.”

As we pulled into the driveway, it was strange not to be greeted by an overly excited German shepherd. Rio had been gone for only two days, but already I missed him. Since Jack had moved out, Rio had become my closest male companion.

I parked Caroline’s car in the garage and helped Lilly out of the backseat and upstairs to her room. Caroline walked back towards our bedroom. Just as we got to the top of the stairs, I heard Caroline yelling my name. The urgency in her voice told me that whatever had alarmed her was serious. I told Lilly to go on to bed and that I’d check on her in a few minutes.

I took the steps two at a time and walked quickly through the house. Caroline was just coming through the bedroom door. All of the color had drained from her face. Her left hand was covering her mouth, and with her right she was pointing towards the bedroom.

“What is it?” I said.

“The bathroom.”

I walked through the bedroom and into the bathroom. I saw it as soon as I stepped through the door. On the mirror above Caroline’s vanity, scrawled in what appeared to be red lipstick, was, “Ah Satan.”

There was only one explanation.

Natasha had been in my house.

Sunday, November 2

I called Fraley, who came over immediately. While I was waiting for him, I searched every nook and cranny of the house. Outside of the message in the bathroom, there was no sign of Natasha. Fraley dusted the vanity and the mirror for prints but found nothing, took a few photographs, and then the two of us searched the house again. When we were finished, we stood in the driveway beneath the bright sun.

“What are you going to do?” Fraley said.

“I don’t know. At least the dog will be back tomorrow. No way she gets in the house if Rio’s here.”

“She’s just trying to scare you.”

“Yeah? Well, she’s doing a pretty good job of it. I don’t know why in the hell I got back into this business. I should have gotten a nice, safe teaching job somewhere.”

“And miss all this fun?” Fraley said. “Relax. We get through the hearing, you go see Boyer and make your deal, and then we’ll get her psychotic ass off the streets for good.”

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Sit up every night with a shotgun?”

“You’ve got some options. Your daughter’s going back to school, right? You and your wife can move in with her mother until things calm down, or maybe you could ask the sheriff to put some guys out here until we can get her picked up.”

“I’m not going to my mother-in-law’s,” I said. “I’ll call Bates.”

I called the sheriff, who had become my biggest admirer since the court hearing with Judge Glass. He agreed to post two deputies, in two cruisers, at my house until Natasha was arrested. I was still scared, but at least I breathed a little easier.

Monday, November 3

First thing Monday morning, I waited for Alexander Dunn in the parking lot in back of the courthouse. It was chilly, the sky fast moving and slate gray. He got out of his black 700-series BMW wearing a navy blue suit covered by a tan, calf-length trench coat. His hair was slicked back, as always. His gloved right hand held an expensive black leather briefcase.

“You’ve got diarrhea of the mouth,” I said as soon as he shut the door. “Do you have any idea how much damage you’ve caused? How could you be so fucking stupid?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dunn said as he pushed past me and started towards the courthouse.

“I’m talking about running your mouth to the media. I’m talking about interfering with a murder investigation. I’m talking about obstruction of justice.”

He stopped and turned, a smug look on his face.

“Are you referring to the story in the paper yesterday morning about your proposed deal with a murderer?”

“What do you get in exchange for doing something like that? Brownie points? Will she make you look good somewhere down the road? Do a feature on you? Will she turn her back if you make a mistake? Tell me, Alexander, what’s the trade?”

“You obviously said something to someone you shouldn’t have,” Dunn said.

“I didn’t say a word to anybody. The only people who knew what was going on were you, Lee, Jim Beaumont, and me.”

“Then Beaumont said something to someone, or he leaked it himself.”

“It wasn’t Beaumont.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because Beaumont’s a decent human being, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for you.”

“Fuck you, Dillard.” Dunn turned and started walking away.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said, catching up to him and leaning against him with my shoulder. “What’s the price for betrayal? Did she give you thirty pieces of silver? A blow job? I swear, if you weren’t Lee’s nephew, I’d kick your ass all over this parking lot.”

“Speaking of kicking ass, Lee got a call from the Crossville district attorney’s office late Friday,” Dunn said as he continued to walk. “Have you been to Crossville recently, by any chance?”

He caught me totally off guard. After a long silence, I said, “What I do outside the office is none of your business.”

“It seems that one of the probation officers down there-I believe he’s dating your sister-got beaten up pretty badly. He had to be hospitalized overnight.”

“Is that a fact?” I said stupidly, unable to think of anything else.

“Yeah, it’s a fact. You know what else is a fact? He told them you did it. He doesn’t want to press charges for some reason, but why would he tell them something like that?”

“I guess he doesn’t like me.”

“Imagine that. Lee isn’t very happy about it. And who can blame him? A member of his office, an assistant district attorney, going into another district and committing a crime. It’s embarrassing. It’s disgusting. It’s… it’s downright shameful, is what it is.”

We reached the door to go upstairs to the office, and I broke away from him and headed for the front of the courthouse. He was having entirely too much fun at my expense; I didn’t want to listen to any more of it.

“He also said you had someone else with you,” Alexander called as I walked away. “My guess is it was your buddy Fraley.”

I ignored him and walked up the sidewalk to the corner and turned left towards the front steps. As I walked through the front door of the courthouse, I saw Sarge Hurley, the seventy-something security officer who’d saved my life a year and a half earlier. I’d stopped by to talk to Sarge a couple of times since I started working for the district attorney’s office. He hadn’t changed a bit. Still tall and lean with thinning silver hair, liver spots, and hands as big as country hams. Still had the youthful sparkle in his eye. Still carried his can of pepper spray, and he was still a living, breathing oracle of courthouse gossip. He started smiling as soon as he saw me.

“Well, I’ll be damned, if it ain’t Mike Tyson,” he said. “Or since your first name’s Joe, maybe I should call you Joe Louis.”

I was horrified. How could he possibly know? Had Alexander Dunn broadcast news of my trip to Crossville over some private law enforcement network?

“What are you talking about?”

He was frisking a skinny teenager. “I hear you got a right hand like a jackhammer and you’re mean as a goddamned badger.”

“Who told you that?”

“Little birdie in a tree. No, that’s a damned lie. It was a fat birdie; ain’t no way he could sit in a tree. You didn’t think you could do something like that and the news not get out, did you?”

Fat birdie. Fraley. It had to be Fraley.

“I have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about, Sarge.”

He released the teenager and walked over and put his arm around my shoulders as I headed for the steps.

“Hell, son, I’m proud of you,” he said. “Any man that would beat on a woman deserves exactly what you gave him. I wish I coulda been there to help you, though the way I hear it, you didn’t need help.”

“Do me a favor, will you? Don’t spread it around.”

He let out a rich laugh. “Too late for that, counselor. Word’s already spread like jelly on a biscuit.”

On the way up the stairs I dialed Fraley’s number.

“Thanks a lot,” I said when he answered.

“For what?”

“How many people have you told about what happened the other night?”

There was a long silence. “Just a couple.”

“Great. In case you didn’t know it, what I did was against the law. It’s called battery.”

“What you did was karma,” he said. “What goes around comes around. Eye for an eye, all that shit. It was justice. And you did it with such conviction. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would’ve never believed it.”

“You need to tone it down. Mooney already knows about it. He’ll probably fire me as soon as I walk in the door.”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to cause you any-”

“Not your fault,” I said. “Somebody from the Crossville DA’s office called him.”

“Are they going to prosecute you?”

“I don’t think so. Just let it die down, okay? No more stories.”

Rita Jones was at her post in the reception area, smacking a piece of gum and wearing a turquoise sweater that clung to her like cellophane.

“Mr. Mooney would like you to come to his office,” she said. I noticed Alexander Dunn standing by the coffee pot, acting as though he weren’t paying attention.

I walked straight back to Lee’s office. His assistant waved me through without saying a word. I found him sitting at his desk, framed by the American and Tennessee flags, reading the newspaper. It seemed that every time I went into his office, he was reading the newspaper. Did he do anything else?

“Close the door and have a seat,” he said without looking up. His tone was firm and businesslike, unfriendly.

I set my briefcase on the floor and took a seat across from him. He folded his paper, removed his reading glasses, and sat there pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“Alexander was just in here,” he said. “He says you accused him of leaking information to the newspaper.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Didn’t waste any time, did he?”

“He said you threatened him.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“I knew there would be some resentment when I hired you, but I thought you were confident enough to overlook it.”

“There’s a difference between resentment and sabotage,” I said. “That article could have a tremendous effect on my case.”

He held up his hand. “I know. I know it could affect your case. Do you have any proof that it was Alexander who leaked it?”

“No, but there were only four people who knew what was going on: me, you, Beaumont, and Alexander. Beaumont had no reason to leak information to the press, I didn’t do it, and I don’t think you did. That leaves Alexander.”

“There are dozens of ways it could have gotten out. One of the guards at the jail might have overheard Boyer and Beaumont talking. One of Beaumont’s partners, one of his secretaries, a paralegal, anybody. He might have discussed it with Dunbar. Someone in our office might have overheard you talking on the phone. There’s just no way to be sure it was Alexander. Now, I want the two of you to cease fire, and I want you to make an effort to control your temper.”

As I sat there listening to him, I began to remember a few of the other reasons-besides money-that I never quite made it down to apply at the district attorney’s office. Interoffice politics. Nepotism. Lectures from the boss. It all seemed so silly, so ridiculous.

“I don’t think I have much of a temper,” I said.

“Really?” His brows rose and he began fingering his mustache. The habit was starting to annoy me.

“It takes a lot to set me off, Lee.”

“So what set you off last Wednesday?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I got a call from the district attorney in Crossville.”

“Yeah, Alexander mentioned something about that.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

I looked down at my hands, suddenly ashamed. I felt like a schoolboy in a principal’s office.

“There’s this guy, Robert Godsey, used to be a probation officer here. He and my sister started dating. It got pretty serious, and then Godsey decided to transfer down to Crossville, where he grew up. So my sister follows him down there. And then Wednesday night I get a phone call and this woman tells me that Godsey has beaten my sister up. So I go. And when I saw her… I don’t know, Lee… I just snapped. Her eye was swollen shut and her lip was split and she had marks on her throat where he’d choked her. I went over to his house. I tried to convince myself just to talk to him, maybe scare him a little, but when I saw him standing in the door all I could think about was Sarah and how she looked, and I guess I sort of went off on him.”

“Sort of? You broke his nose and a couple of ribs.”

I shook my head. There wasn’t much I could say.

“The DA didn’t mention anything about him beating up your sister,” Mooney said. “I guess that’s why he’s not going to pursue it in court.”

“I’m sorry, Lee. I didn’t mean to cause you any problems.”

“He said someone else was with you. Who was it?”

“Just a friend. I’d rather not say. I called him and asked him to go. He was doing me a favor.”

He leaned forward on his elbows and rested his chin on his fists. “I like to keep a low profile, Joe. I like for my employees to do the same. This isn’t defense work, where you have to get yourself in the newspapers and on television to be noticed. The cases come to us whether we get publicity or not. You’ve handled yourself pretty well up to this point, but lately I see you making some questionable decisions. That little show in the courtroom the other day with Natasha, while amusing to some, was embarrassing to me. You had no business approaching her in the courtroom. And now you’ve gone to another district and assaulted a man, and I get a telephone call from an outraged district attorney who wants to know what the hell kind of people I’m hiring. This job is hard enough without having to deal with that kind of bullshit.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I apologize.”

“I knew Godsey when he was here, and I thought he was a jerk. And I know Alexander’s a snit, but my wife loves him and I’m stuck with him. Now, I don’t want to give you an ultimatum, Joe, but I don’t want to see any more of this kind of behavior. Do I make myself clear?”

I was so embarrassed I couldn’t look at him. I nodded.

“Good. Leave the door open on your way out.”

Two days later, I found myself standing with my hands against a gray block wall while a uniformed guard ran his hands up and down my arms, my back, stomach, chest, and legs. He clipped my driver’s license and my bar card to a visitors’ log and took my photograph. When he’d met all of his security requirements, he led me silently down a dim hallway, through a door made of steel bars, and into a poorly lit room with a round steel table in the center. There were four plastic chairs at the table, and I sat down. I’d been in hundreds of similar rooms, rooms painted in neutral colors and stained by nicotine and mildew. The musty air smelled of a mixture of floor wax and hot dogs. I could hear trustees rolling lunch carts down the hallway towards the cell block.

I sat nervously picking at my fingernails until I heard the unmistakable sound of shackles tinkling as the inmate shuffled towards the room. There was the sound of a muffled voice, then the metallic clang of the key turning in the lock. The door opened and a short-haired, fierce-looking female guard stepped through. She raised her nose as if to sniff me, then moved her head to the side, signaling her ward that it was okay to walk in. Without saying a word, the guard stepped back out and locked the door.

I looked at the forlorn figure before me and reached for her. Sarah, cuffed and shackled, fell into my arms and wept. I stroked her hair and listened to her desperate sobs. All I could say was, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

When the tears finally subsided, we sat across from each other at the table. The jail uniform was green-and-white striped. It looked like something out of a Charlie Chaplin movie. Her face was badly bruised again, her nose swollen and purple. There was a bandage over her right eyebrow and deep scratches just beneath her throat. Her boyfriend, Robert Godsey, was lying in a hospital bed only a few blocks away with a fractured skull. His condition had been upgraded from critical to serious, and from what I’d been able to learn from the nurse on the hospital ward, it appeared that he would be okay.

“How did you get in here?” Sarah said quietly. I noticed she was clutching a wadded-up piece of tissue in her hand. “They don’t let the inmates have visitors for a week when they first come in.”

“I told them I was your lawyer,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “They don’t know me here.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, Joe. You have to believe that.”

“I do. I believe you. But you’re going to have to tell me exactly what happened so I can figure out the best way to handle it.”

She took a deep breath, and I saw tears gathering in her eyes. She started to speak, then stopped and cleared her throat. She wiped her eyes and nose with the tissue.

“We both came home from work yesterday a little after five. I fixed him some supper, but he wouldn’t eat. He was pacing around the house and kept disappearing into the bathroom. When he came out the last time, I saw a tiny white flake in his nose, and I knew. I knew he was using cocaine. I’ve used enough in my day to recognize it. No appetite, can’t sit still, irritable-he had all the symptoms.

“So I tried to talk to him about it. I asked him if there was anything he needed to tell me, if he was having problems at work, if he felt like things weren’t going to work out between us. He acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about, so I mentioned the flake in his nose. He went berserk on me.”

“That’s obvious,” I said. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“They took me to the emergency room before they brought me here,” she said. “My nose is broken, and they had to stitch the cut over my eye where he hit me with the fireplace poker.”

The thought of my sister being beaten with a fireplace poker by an oversize brute enraged me, but I kept my mouth shut. The last thing Sarah needed was for me to start yelling or preaching or saying, “I told you so.”

“How many times did he hit you?” I said.

“I don’t know. A lot. When he hit me with the poker it knocked me backwards and I fell across a coffee table onto the hearth. There was one of those little shovels that you use to clean out the ashes in the fireplace, and I picked it up and swung it at him. It hit him in the side of the head and he fell. His head hit the stone, and he just lay there. I tried to help him, but he wouldn’t wake up, so I called nine-one-one.”

She dropped her head into her hands and began to weep again. I stood up and rubbed her neck, but it was obvious that the kind of pain she was experiencing was beyond anything I could hope to assuage.

“Sarah, did you tell all of this to the police?” I said.

What she had described was clearly a case of self-defense. The force she’d used in defending herself was reasonable under the circumstances, especially considering the history of the relationship and the fact that she was being attacked with a fireplace poker. The facts wouldn’t even support aggravated assault, let alone the attempted second-degree murder charge that had been filed against her.

She nodded. “I told them exactly what I told you.”

I moved back around the table and sat down.

“Listen to me,” I said. “It happened. You can’t change it now. What you can do is fight with all of your strength to make sure this doesn’t ruin the rest of your life. They’ve charged you with attempted second-degree murder, which tells me that something isn’t right. It’s a class B felony; maximum sentence is thirty years. Your bond is three hundred thousand, cash only, which is ridiculous under these circumstances. It’s also more than I can raise right now, so you’re going to be stuck here for a while. But I’m going to hire you a lawyer, a damned good one, and we’ll make sure this turns out the way it should. In the meantime, I’m going to go talk to the district attorney and find out what the hell’s going on.”

“I know what’s going on,” Sarah said. “It’s Robert’s father. He has a lot of money and he has a lot of influence around here. He’s a close friend of the district attorney’s. He brags about it all the time.”

“Great. Small-time politics and criminal justice. My favorite combination.”

Her face was battered and bruised, her green eyes glistening with tears, and my heart ached for her.

“I’m scared, Joe,” she said. “I’m really scared.”

I reached for her hands. “I know you’re scared. But have faith. I’ll make sure you get out of here. I promise.”

Less than an hour later, I walked into the reception area of the district attorney’s office in Crossville carrying the photos Fraley took the first night Godsey attacked Sarah. I also had more photos stored in my camera’s memory, photos I’d taken just before I left the jail. I’d never met District Attorney General Freeley Sells and knew nothing about him. I’d called from the car and told his secretary I needed to see him and that I’d be there in just a few minutes. As I rounded a corner, I saw a plump woman wearing a high-necked green dress who looked to be in her mid-fifties. She eyed me warily as I stood in front of her desk.

“I’m Joe Dillard,” I said. “I called earlier.”

“Mr. Sells is busy.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

“He’s going to be busy all day.”

“Then I guess you and I will get to know each other pretty well, because I’m not leaving until I talk to him.”

There was a door with Sells’s name on it directly behind her desk, and I could hear someone talking. I walked around the secretary’s desk, knocked twice on the door, and opened it. I could hear her babbling behind me, but I didn’t care.

Freeley Sells was just hanging up the telephone when I walked through the door. His head was shaved and he had a bushy mustache. He reminded me of G. Gordon Liddy. He was wearing a gray suit with an American flag lapel pin just like the one Lee Mooney wore all the time. He stood as I approached.

“Who in the hell do you think you are, barging in here like this?” he said. He was short and wiry, and I could see a thick vein bulging in the middle of his forehead.

“My name is Joe Dillard.” I didn’t offer my hand. “I apologize for the intrusion, but I need to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“I know who you are, and I know what you want to talk about. I don’t have a damned thing to say to you.”

“Why are you holding my sister on a charge of attempted second-degree murder when any fool can see that she acted in self-defense?”

“Your sister nearly killed a resident of this district, a man who happens to be from a fine Christian family. Not to mention that she has a record longer than my leg.”

“My sister defended herself against a man twice her size who was using her for a punching bag. He hit her with a goddamned fireplace poker before she finally hit him back. And this wasn’t the first time he’s done it.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Are you referring to the other recent incident in which Mr. Godsey was badly beaten? He said you were the one who did it.”

“I don’t care what he said. He got what he deserved, both times.”

I held the photos of Sarah up so he could see them. He glanced at them, but quickly looked away.

“These are from the first time,” I said. “I just took some more. This one was even worse.”

“You can tell it to a jury, Mr. Dillard. A Cumberland County jury who won’t appreciate some drug-addled harlot coming into their county and attempting to kill one of their own.”

“I don’t give a damn where the jury’s from. There’s no way they’ll convict her. Did he tell you he was hopped up on cocaine?”

“The jury will convict her if I have anything to do with it,” Sells said. “I intend to try her, convict her, and send her to the penitentiary, where she belongs. Now, I’ve got work to do, Mr. Dillard. It’s time for you to leave.”

I stood there staring at him. “You have work to do? What kind of work? Is there someone else you need to railroad?”

“Get the hell out of here!” Sells roared.

I smiled at him. “You know something?” I said. “I’m going to enjoy this. I’m going to enjoy showing people that you’re nothing more than a corrupt hick.”

I spun on my heel and walked out the door, hoping I could get out of the district before he thought up a reason to have me arrested. My heart was pounding as I jogged through the courthouse lobby and out the front door to my truck.

Once I cleared the county line, I started thinking about Sarah. I’d been around the legal system long enough to know that if a prosecutor was bent on convicting someone and he had a judge in his pocket who would let him bend the rules, the chances of beating him at trial were slim.

Sarah was in real trouble this time. If I lost this fight, she was likely to lose the rest of her life.

Friday, November 7

The next morning, my cell phone rang at six. I’d been up for a half hour, sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and waiting for the sun to come up. The sky was just beginning to brighten, and as I looked out over the back deck I could begin to make out the silhouettes of the trees along the ridgeline to the east. I walked over to the counter where the phone was charging and looked at the caller ID. It was Leon Bates.

“We need to have a sit-down,” Bates said.

“When?”

“This morning. Right now, if you can. It’s pretty important.”

“Where?”

“Someplace private. I don’t want nobody seeing us or hearing what I have to say.”

“How about here? There’s nobody here but Caroline and me, and she won’t be awake for a couple of hours.”

While I waited for Bates, I threw on some clothes, a jacket, and a pair of gloves. The temperature was in the low thirties, but the wind was calm. I thought it might be best if Bates and I took a walk around the property. That way Caroline wouldn’t be disturbed when Rio inevitably started barking.

I called the dog, walked outside, and stood at the head of the driveway. Bates showed up in his black Crown Victoria a few minutes later.

“You up for a walk?” I said.

“Damn straight. Just let me grab my gloves. Is that dog going to tear my leg off?”

“Not unless I tell him to.”

We walked down the driveway and behind the house, through the backyard, and onto a walking trail that I’d carved out of the woods several years earlier. Many of the trees had lost their foliage, and they covered the ground like a vast green carpet. Dampness from recent rains gave rise to a slightly musty odor, an odor that always reminded me of playing in the woods behind my grandparents’ home when I was a child. Rio ran ahead of us, lifting his leg next to tree trunks and chasing squirrels.

“Nice place,” Bates said. He was wearing his dark brown cowboy hat, an image he often liked to portray to the media.

“Thanks. You should come out sometime and bring the wife. We’ll drink a few beers and swap a few lies.”

“I might just do that. How’s the missus?”

“Doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.”

“That cancer’s a demon. Both of my grannies died from it. My great-uncle, too. The more they learn about it, the more it seems to spread.”

I nodded my head in silence. Surely he didn’t come all the way out here to talk about cancer.

“I heard about your sister,” Bates said. “Sounds like a bum rap to me.”

“It’ll turn out okay. The DA down there is a jerk, but we’ll figure out a way to beat him.”

The woods were damp and cool, and I could see Bates’s breath as we walked slowly along the path. The sun was just clearing the hills to the east, and streaks of pale yellow light were filtering through the branches and the few remaining leaves on the trees.

“So what brings you out here so early in the morning?” I said.

“Afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

“How bad? The way things have been going lately, I’m not sure I can handle much more.”

“There’s a problem in your office. A serious problem. I need to be sure I can count on you before I make another move.”

“Count on me for what?”

“To carry the prosecution through. To do what’s right. It ain’t gonna be easy.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what it is?”

“You give me your word you won’t say anything to anybody?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good enough for me. I’ve got Alexander Dunn on tape and on video collecting two thousand dollars in extortion money from a man who runs a little gambling operation out in the county.”

I stopped in my tracks, stunned. Alexander? He was an asshole, but I didn’t think he was a criminal. And I didn’t think he needed money.

“Sorry to drop it on you like this,” Bates said. “I need to move on Alexander while it’s fresh, but I ain’t gonna do nothing unless I know you’re with me.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m having a little trouble wrapping my mind around this. You say you’ve got Alexander on tape? You set him up?”

“Yeah,” Bates said with a slight chuckle. “He walked right into it. He’s got no idea.”

“How did this come about?”

“About a year ago I busted a bookie named Powers, big operation, especially for this part of the country. He was booking around fifty thousand a week. About a month after that I popped a casino that was set up in a big boat out on the lake. They’d run up and down the lake all night, gambling. Busted the operator and all the players.”

“I remember both of them,” I said. “It was all over the news. That’s when I knew you were either crazy or serious about what you were doing. The cops and the prosecutors around here have always left the gamblers alone.”

“What you didn’t hear about was that three or four months after the arrests, after the cases went to criminal court, they wound up getting dismissed at the recommendation of the district attorney’s office. The first case, the bookie, walked because Alexander Dunn told the judge that the sheriff’s department had illegally wire-tapped the bookie’s phone.”

“Did you?”

“Maybe, but we weren’t gonna use any of it in court. We got enough information from the tap that we started putting pressure on some of the players and went at him that way. Then we set up a sting and popped him when he paid off a winner. I don’t even know how Alexander found out about the tap.

“Then the second case got dismissed because Alexander told the judge we’d illegally obtained a search warrant for the boat and that the boat may have been in another county when we did the raid. Hell, I didn’t know the county line ran right down the middle of the goddamned lake, but it seemed to me like Alexander was looking for ways to get the cases dismissed instead of helping us put these guys in jail, where they belonged. Even the customers walked.”

“So you started looking at Alexander?” I said.

“Let’s just say I was suspicious. A couple of weeks ago, I arrested this ol’ boy who lives on a farm out in the county and ran a little casino in what used to be the hayloft of his barn. Not real big-time, but big enough. So I got him into interrogation and started threatening him. I threatened to bring the feds in, which I’d never do, but he didn’t know it. I threatened to arrest his wife. Told him I knew she was in on it, too. Finally, after three or four hours, he told me he had some information that I might be interested in. Said it was big stuff. So I agreed to make a little trade with him if the information turned out to be useful. Turned out to be damned useful.”

We started walking again, slowly. I was having trouble believing what I was hearing, but Bates had no reason to lie to me.

“This boy said most of the people who run gambling operations around here-card games, bingo, video slots, tip boards, bookies, craps, roulette, you name it-used to make campaign contributions to the district attorney and the sheriff. Always in cash, even in years when there wasn’t an election. They had sort of an unspoken understanding. I’ve never taken any of their filthy money and never will, but a few months after Mooney got elected, Alexander started making the rounds. He told everybody there was a new deal. Monthly payments, cash, and he raised the stakes on them. My informant says they were all pissed about it, but what were they gonna do? Call me?”

“So how’d you set him up?”

“I just waited for him to make his regular monthly pickup. Had cameras inside and outside of the house, and the informant wore a wire.”

We turned a corner on the trail and started walking back towards the house. The quickly rising temperature had caused the air near the cool ground to condense, and a shroud of gray mist hung motionless among the trees. The thought of Alexander extorting money from gamblers blew my mind. He put forth such a polished public image, and he was so damned smug. Still, I took no pleasure in what Bates was telling me. It could only lead to a huge public scandal, with the district attorney’s office at its center.

“Have you talked to Mooney about this?” I said.

“Not yet,” Bates said, “but I’m going to. He’s got a tough row to hoe ahead of him, being that Alexander’s his nephew and Lee hired him and put him in charge of a bunch of big cases, at least until you came along.”

“Maybe that’s why he hired me,” I said. “Maybe he suspected something.”

“Maybe, but if he suspected something he should have told somebody about it. This is gonna cause him some real problems.”

“Any evidence that Mooney might be involved?”

“Nope. Not a bit.”

“So why are you telling me all of this, Leon? Why don’t you just turn it over to the feds and let them do their thing?”

“I don’t trust the feds. Lee Mooney and his wife both have a lot of political connections. We turn this over to the U.S. Attorney and there’s a good chance it goes away the same way my gambling cases did in state court. I want you to prosecute Alexander, and I want you to make sure the case is handled the way it should be handled.”

“That won’t be up to me, and you know it. That’ll be Mooney’s call.”

“Trust me,” Bates said, “you’ll catch the case.”

We made our way up the hill and back up the driveway to his Crown Vic. As he opened the door, he turned towards me and his eyes narrowed.

“Honest injun, Dillard,” he said, “you up for this? All I’m asking you to do is what’s right.”

I nodded my head.

“That’s all I need then. I’ll have a little chat with the district attorney when the time is right.”

Bates climbed into the car and started the engine.

“Hey, Leon,” I said, tapping on the window. He rolled it down. “You said you made a little trade for the information your informant gave you. What was it?”

He took off his cowboy hat and set it on the seat beside him. “You didn’t hear this from me,” he said, “but I told him I’d make sure he didn’t get no more than a year’s probation, and I told him he could keep his equipment and keep right on doing what he’s been doing for one more year. After that, I figure me and him will be even and all bets are off. You okay with that?”

I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. What could I say? It was just the high sheriff of Washington County, doing business the same way it had been done for decades.

I looked around the room at the portraits of the generals and presidents hanging on the oak-paneled wall: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln. Sandwiched between them was a framed law degree from the University of Tennessee and certificates that said Jim Beaumont was licensed to practice law in Tennessee and in the federal courts.

Beaumont walked in a minute later carrying two cups of coffee, his graying brown hair still wet from his morning shower. I’d called him right after Bates left and told him about Sarah’s case in Crossville, and he’d agreed to meet me at his office. He handed me a cup of coffee and sat down next to his antique mahogany rolltop desk. He was wearing a tweed vest over a white shirt with a string tie. He looked at me with his clear blue eyes, and I could see compassion.

“Never thought you and I would be talking under these circumstances,” he said in his syrupy drawl. “I’m truly sorry about what happened to your sister.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Can you work it into your schedule? I know it’ll be a pain driving back and forth to Crossville, but you’re the only guy around here I’d trust to handle it.”

“Appreciate the confidence,” Beaumont said, “but I’ve been thinking about this ever since you called, and there might be a better way to handle it than going into unfamiliar territory and trying a criminal case where the odds are likely to be stacked against us.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“This district attorney, Freeley Sells, I know a little about him. A friend of mine from law school’s been practicing down there for more than thirty years. We’ve stayed in relatively close contact over the years. We talk on the phone every six months or so, take in a Tennessee football game once or twice a year, that sort of thing. He’s told me quite a bit about Mr. Sells.”

“Good or bad?”

“Let’s just say he holds an extremely low opinion of the district attorney.”

“We share the same opinion,” I said. “I had the distinct displeasure of speaking to him face-to-face.”

“Did you now?” Lines formed ridges across his forehead as he raised his eyebrows. “And how did that conversation go?”

“Not well. I’m afraid I made things even worse. I called him a corrupt hick.”

Beaumont laughed richly. His laugh always reminded me of Santa Claus, a throaty “ho, ho, ho.”

“You’ll be pleased to know that from everything I’ve heard about Mr. Sells, you were right on both counts,” he said.

“You said something about another way to handle it. What do you have in mind?”

“A little trick I learned a few years back dealing with another politician whose name I can’t reveal. I know it’s hard to believe, but politicians are human, and humans have secrets. I found that the key to getting a politician to do what you want him to do is to find his secrets and threaten to reveal them.”

Beaumont was an intriguing character, with his mixture of Western outfits, country charm, and genteel mannerisms. On the surface, he was the perfect Southern gentleman. But he’d been playing the game, and playing it well, for three decades and I knew from experience that a person couldn’t be effective for long in criminal defense without a willingness to act ruthlessly when the situation called for it. He apparently was of the opinion that this was the right situation. What he was suggesting was clearly blackmail.

“So how does one go about finding the secrets?” I said. “Hire a private investigator?”

“Exactly, but not just any private investigator. We need experience, we need professionalism, we need discretion, but more than anything we need results.”

“From the look on your face, I’m assuming you have someone in mind.”

He nodded slowly, the dimples in his cheeks barely showing as his lips curved upwards into a shrewd smile.

“There are a couple of gentlemen I met after doing some very thorough research. Both are retired FBI agents who spent most of their careers in Washington, D.C., and both are very skilled in every phase of investigation. One lives in Atlanta; the other is in Boca Raton. I haven’t spoken to them in a couple of years, but I can tell you this: The work they did far exceeded my expectations.”

“Expensive?” I said.

“Very, but compared to the cost of a trial two hundred miles away, it’s a drop in the bucket.”

“How much?”

“I’d say fifty thousand will cover everything, including my fee.”

“How long will it take?”

“If they’re able to get to it right away, probably less than a month. Would you like me to call them?”

“Absolutely.”

He pushed himself up stiffly from the chair. “Please don’t take this personally, but they’re extremely particular about the people they deal with. So with your permission, I’ll make the call from the library.”

“By all means.”

Beaumont walked out of the room, leaving me there to ponder the portraits and think about the world in which I worked each day. Nothing was as it seemed. Nothing was real. Virtually everyone I dealt with, be it judge, victim, defendant, defense counsel, sheriff, boss, even coworker, had an agenda that had little to do with a quest for justice. When I went to work for the district attorney’s office, I thought I’d be doing something right, something worthwhile, something I could feel good about. But I’d found the game was the same; the side I was on was of no real consequence.

Beaumont returned twenty minutes later, a mischievous grin on his face.

“They’re in,” he said.

“When?”

“As soon as I wire them a twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer.”

“You’ll have it tomorrow.”

I stood and offered my hand to Beaumont.

“Do you think this will work?” I said.

“I have every confidence that these gentlemen will lift Mr. Sells’s skirt up over his head, and by the time they’re finished we’ll be intimately familiar with everything that’s underneath.”

I thanked him and turned to leave, but before I got to the door a question popped into my head.

“Hey, Jim,” I said, turning around. He’d already taken his seat behind the desk. “I’ve known you for a long time. Why haven’t you ever told me about these guys? I probably would have used them a couple of times.”

He reached up and started stroking his goatee, rocking slowly back and forth in the chair. His eyes locked onto mine, and I knew that, for once, I was about to get an honest answer from someone.

“Because you were my competitor,” he said. “You still are.”

She showed up out of nowhere, just like the first time. Fraley had been frantically searching for Alisha, because without her, we had very little chance of winning the motion hearing that was scheduled for Monday. Fraley said he believed Alisha’s foster parents knew where she was, but they weren’t telling him. He’d canvassed the downtown area, leaving his card at craft shops and with the lone art dealer in town. He’d gone to the university, where he left notes for her on bulletin boards with instructions on how to contact him or me. He’d gone to the local arts center, asked around, and left another note on a bulletin board. For the last two days, he’d been cruising the mall, restaurants, the shopping centers-anyplace where there were a lot of people-approaching anyone he described as “earthy-looking,” showing them her photograph and leaving his card.

I worked late Friday evening. I’d spent the last few days making sure everything was ready. Our witnesses were lined up-all but Alisha-and I’d read case after case, scrounging for anything that would help me with the arguments I’d have to make in front of Judge Glass. I was the last one out of the office, and by the time I stepped through the door into the crisp evening air, it was dark. A cold front had rolled in over the mountains, bringing with it the first snow of the year. Tiny flakes danced on the wind, brushing lightly against my cheeks as I walked through the empty parking lot.

I started my truck and was just reaching up to put it in gear when the passenger door opened. I turned my head and nearly jumped out. When she opened the door, the interior light hit her face and good eye, and I thought Natasha was climbing into my truck.

“You’re looking for me,” Alisha said. She was wearing a long black overcoat and gloves, her head covered by a tan knit stocking cap. The long, flowing red hair I remembered from the park was tucked inside the coat. She turned her face towards me, and the same flesh-colored patch covered her right eye. Her left eye sparkled like a gemstone, and she smelled of pine-scented incense.

“Yes,” I said, feeling a mixture of shock, relief, and fear. “Yes, I am. Do you want to go back in the office and talk?”

“I’d rather just ride, if you don’t mind.”

She was the same size as Natasha, had the same face and hair. The only difference I could discern was the eye patch, but anyone could put on an eye patch. I needed to be sure. I had no intention of winding up dead by the roadside like the Becks.

“Do you have any identification?” I said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Please forgive me, but I’m going to have to ask you to prove to me that you’re not your sister. You look just like her.”

She turned towards me and smiled. She took her gloves off and reached up slowly with her right hand. Her long, slim fingers slid underneath the eye patch and lifted it, revealing a yellowed orb covered by what appeared to be a milky cataract. I dropped my eyes immediately, feeling like a jackass.

“Thank you,” I said. “I hope you understand.”

I pulled out past the courthouse and turned left on Main Street, heading towards the rural community of Lamar and the Nolichucky River. Now that she was there, I didn’t quite know where to start. I found myself wondering whether she knew what I was thinking.

“You were right about Boyer and Barnett,” I said as we made our way slowly down Main, “but we have to go into court on Monday and tell the judge how you knew.”

“Do I have to testify?”

“I’m afraid so. If you don’t, there’s a chance that the judge will exclude all of our evidence. If that happens, Boyer and Barnett will walk away.”

She sat there in silence for a moment, the streetlights causing a strobelike effect across her face.

“Why hasn’t Natasha been arrested?” she said.

“We don’t have any solid evidence against her. Not yet, anyway.”

“She was there.”

“How do you know? I realize this must be difficult for you, but you have to explain how you knew about the murders.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find it hard to believe.”

“Try me.”

“It’s been this way with Natasha ever since I can remember. When something extreme happens where she’s involved, especially something violent that springs from rage, I can see it in my mind. It’s like watching a movie on a screen, but the images appear in flashes, like black-and-white photographs.”

I was struck again by the tone of her voice. It was a mellow soprano, almost melodic.

“And that’s how you knew about Boyer and Barnett?” I said. “You saw them in a telepathic flash?”

My mind began to churn. I pictured myself questioning her during the hearing, her sitting on the witness stand in a shawl and hat with her eye patch and telling the court she was telepathic. Judge Glass would disallow her testimony, dismiss the case against Boyer and Barnett, and I’d be lynched by sundown. Unless, of course, I could find an expert witness who would agree to come to court and testify by Monday. But even if I could find one, Beaumont would stand up and object, because if I was going to employ an expert, the rules required that I notify him and send him a report. Then again, I could argue that parapsychology was not recognized as a bona fide science, so the witness was not technically testifying as an expert, but merely as a witness who could illuminate the issues for the court. It might work. After all, everything Alisha had told us had turned out to be true. What other explanation could there be for her knowing what happened?

She was there, you idiot! Either that or she’s wearing a goddamned contact lens over her “bad” eye and she’s really Natasha playing some kind of sick game with you. Nah, there’s no way. The juvenile records. Her mother. They confirmed that Alisha exists. So was she there? Maybe she’s crazy too and she has a grudge against Natasha.

I glanced over at her, wondering whether I was sitting in the presence of yet another crazed murderer who intended to pull out a gun and blow my brains out as soon as we got out of town. But as we reached the city limits of Jonesborough, Alisha began to recount the night the Brockwells were murdered. She was awakened by what she thought was a nightmare sometime after midnight.

“I saw a woman’s back,” she said. “I didn’t know who she was. It was dark, but I could see she was wearing a nightgown. I saw a hand on her shoulder, holding her. And the next image I saw was the ice pick in her back. I saw it over and over, and I knew. I knew it had to be Natasha.”

“You’re absolutely sure it was Natasha?”

“I see what she sees,” she said softly. “At first, I kept telling myself it was just a nightmare. Mrs. Hamilton heard me screaming and came into my room. She held my hand and rubbed a cool washcloth on my face. I think I went back to sleep for a while, but then…”

She became silent. I didn’t want to press her, but I had to know. She had to tell me everything.

“Then you saw the image of Mr. Brockwell?”

She nodded, sniffling. “That was when I saw Sam and Levi. They shot Mr. Brockwell. I’m so sorry.”

She began to sob, and I found myself thinking that she was either telling the truth or she was one of the best liars I’d ever met. She seemed such a gentle creature. I leaned over and popped the glove compartment open, took out a napkin, and handed it to her.

“Does Natasha know you can see these things?” I said.

She nodded her head.

“So that’s why you left your foster parents?”

“I was afraid she might come there and hurt them.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Alisha. If it hadn’t been for you, they’d still be out there killing people.”

“I saw an image of Mr. Beck the day he was killed,” she said through her tears. “He was standing next to a brick wall in the sunlight, holding his son in his arms. Then I saw his picture in the paper the next day. Natasha must not have been there when the Becks were killed, because I would have seen something. But she at least saw Mr. Beck; I’m sure of it. And if I’d come to you sooner, maybe Mr. and Mrs. Brockwell would still be alive.”

I reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “None of this is your fault.”

As we drove south on Highway 81 towards the mountains, she sat quietly in the darkness. I asked her about Natasha, and she shook her head slowly and began to tell me about their lives. She said she and Natasha were born in Mountain City. Her father owned a Chevrolet dealership there, and the family was comfortable until she was eight years old. Then one day her father went out for a pack of cigarettes and never returned. The dealership was broke, she said, and her father had embezzled tens of thousands of dollars. There was an intense search, but he disappeared without a trace, taking his embezzled money with him.

Natasha was her identical twin, but she said she never felt the kinship, the closeness that she’d read about among other twins. Alisha remembered Natasha as being surly and reclusive, almost paranoid, from the beginning.

“We both got kittens for our seventh birthday,” she said. “Natasha’s bit her on the finger. It bled and she cried. A little while later, I saw her take the kitten outside. It was the first time I saw the images. I was sitting on the couch with my kitten when this awful scene flashed in my mind. It was a kitten, tied down on its back, spreadeagled, and it was bleeding from the mouth. I went outside to find Natasha. She was behind the garage. She’d taken stakes from our tent and some string and tied the kitten down, just like I pictured it. She was pulling its teeth with a pair of pliers.”

Natasha, she said, was unable to control her rage even in day care. She attacked other children without hesitation, forcing her mother to remove her from the day care and keep her at home. Not even her father, who was a strict disciplinarian, could control her. When their father left, the family moved back to Johnson City to be near Marie Davis’s family. Marie took a series of menial jobs, leaving Natasha’s care and schooling to Marie’s mother. Natasha’s behavior continued to worsen until one day, when the twins were thirteen, she set fire to her grandmother’s home. Marie finally took her to a psychologist, who recommended that Natasha be committed to an institution.

“She was gone for two years,” Alisha said. “They were the best two years of my life. When she came back, they said she’d be okay as long as she took her medication, but she stopped. By that time, my mother had suffered a nervous breakdown and she wasn’t working anymore. She took lots of pills.”

A little over a month after Natasha returned, Alisha awoke one night to find Natasha standing over her with an ice pick.

“I thought I was dreaming. I saw an image of myself lying in bed,” she said. “As soon as I opened my eyes, she stabbed me.”

“Why? Why would she do something like that?”

“Who can explain madness? Who can explain evil? Natasha is both, Mr. Dillard. She’ll kill again if you don’t stop her soon. Now that she’s crossed that line, she’ll never go back.”

Doctors who treated Alisha at the hospital the night Natasha stabbed her called the police, who in turn called social services. Alisha was moved into a foster home for her own protection.

“Natasha told Mother that if she tried to send her back to the institution, she’d kill her,” Alisha said. “Mother talked them into letting her stay. She promised she’d make sure Natasha took her medication. I think she did for a while after that, but Mother can barely take care of herself, let alone someone like Natasha.”

“Isn’t your mother afraid of her?”

“She’s afraid of her, but she says Natasha needs her. They live off of Mother’s social security checks. And if something happened to Mother, Natasha knows she’d be right back in the mental institution.”

She talked for a while longer as I wound through the back roads of the county. The snowfall had eased; there were only occasional flakes rushing past the headlights like tiny shooting stars. Eventually, I brought the conversation back around to the hearing on Monday.

“Do you know Boyer and Barnett?” I said.

“They both grew up in our neighborhood. I went to school with Sam Boyer until Mr. Brockwell finally kicked him out for good. Levi’s a few years younger than me, but I knew him.”

“How would you describe them? What kind of people are they?”

“Poor, angry, neglected. Like a lot of kids in that neighborhood. Levi was especially mean. I saw him beat up Kerry Jameson one day. It was a long time ago; Natasha was in the mental institution. It was summertime, and a bunch of us were playing stickball in a field not far from my house. All Kerry did was call Levi a sissy. Kerry was older and bigger than Levi, but Levi picked up a stick and beat him so badly they had to take him to the hospital.”

“Why would they kill for Natasha?”

“I don’t know for sure, but Natasha started studying Satanism as soon as she got back from the institution. She liked the rituals and the philosophy. She tried to get me involved, but I didn’t want any part of it.”

“What is the philosophy?” I said.

“Do whatever you want. Please yourself. There are no consequences to your actions. If you feel like having sex, you have sex. If you feel like taking drugs, you take drugs. If you feel like killing someone, you kill them. They don’t believe they’re subject to the laws of man. If Natasha was controlling them, she was probably using a combination of sex, drugs, and Satanic propaganda.”

“Have you seen Boyer or Barnett lately?”

“I went over to Mother’s on her birthday. I called first to see if Natasha was around, but she said Natasha had been out all night and was asleep. When I got there, Sam and Levi were just coming out the front door. They got in Sam’s car and left. Mother said they spent the night in Natasha’s room. She said they’d been hanging around a lot.”

“When was that?”

“August ninth.”

“Doesn’t Natasha have the same kind of telepathic connection with you that you have with her?”

“No, but she can do something that I can’t. She can interfere with electricity somehow. She does something with her mind, something that somehow overloads electrical circuits. I’ve seen her do it. It’s very frightening.”

I thought about what Fraley had told me the morning after Natasha was arrested. He said he was in the middle of interrogating Sam Boyer when the power seemed to surge and some of the lights in the building exploded.

“Alisha, can I trust you to show up on Monday morning?”

All I had to do was hand her a subpoena, and then if she failed to appear, I could get a brief continuance and have her arrested and held as a material witness. But I couldn’t do it. Part of me hoped she would stay away and let me take my chances with the judge. After listening to her and observing her for an hour, I no longer suspected that she might be involved in the murders in any way. She was so beautiful, so serene, so seemingly pure. I was genuinely concerned for her safety, and I knew I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her.

“Do you know what ‘Alisha’ means, Mr. Dillard?” she said.

I shook my head.

“It means truth. I’ll be there.”

“Aren’t you afraid of what Natasha might do?”

“I have something much more powerful than Natasha.”

“Really? What is it?”

“I have faith.”

I thought about the photographs of the six murder victims, the wild look in Natasha’s eyes in the courtroom, the message on my bathroom mirror.

“I’m afraid you’ll need more than faith if Natasha decides to come after you.”

She turned and looked out the window for a few minutes. When she turned back, she was smiling warmly.

“I’m not worried,” she said. “I have faith in God, and I have faith in you.”

Saturday, November 8

I got hold of my forensic psychiatrist friend Tom Short early on Saturday morning. I thought he’d be skeptical of Alisha’s claim that she received telepathic signals from Natasha and was fully prepared to deal with a barrage of wry sarcasm. But instead, after listening to what Alisha had told me, Tom surprised me by saying there had been some interesting progress made in parapsychology in recent years and gave me the telephone number of a woman who lived in Sea Island, Georgia.

“Her name’s Martha King,” Tom said, “marvelous-looking woman. Probably forty or so, tall, shiny black hair, turquoise eyes, terrific body.”

“Is that how you described her to your wife?”

“I don’t think I mentioned her to my wife, wiseass. She has a doctorate in parapsychology, and she’s also what they call a seer.”

“A seer? What’s that?”

“A person who can see things others can’t see. A person who knows things he or she couldn’t or shouldn’t know. A psychic. I met her at a conference in Hilton Head five or six years ago. She convinced me.”

“So you think it’s really possible? I guess the better question is, do you think I can convince a judge that it’s possible?”

“Give her a call,” Tom said. “I promise it’ll be an experience you won’t forget.”

I dialed the number. After a couple of rings, a woman’s voice answered. Once I was sure I was talking to the right person, I told her who I was, that Tom had suggested I call, and gave her a brief outline of my situation with Alisha, Natasha, and the hearing on Monday morning.

“My biggest concern is that I’ll get kicked out of court because the traditional scientific community doesn’t recognize telepathy,” I said.

“They don’t recognize it officially,” Ms. King said. Her voice was pleasant, with an accent that told me she’d either been raised or educated in England. “But there are a great number of psychologists, physicists, and mathematicians who absolutely believe that telepathy is real. They simply haven’t proven it yet in a controlled, scientific setting, or if they have, they haven’t reported it.”

“That doesn’t do me much good,” I said. “I have to convince a judge that my witness is reliable.”

“Perhaps your judge will have an open mind about it,” she said. “It really isn’t that hard to accept. Thoughts are a type of electromagnetic energy, although we don’t yet understand precisely how the energy originates or is dispersed. Is the idea that a person can generate a wave of energy that can be received and interpreted by another person so ludicrous? Especially in the case of identical twins? You might want to gather some of the research that the British have done on identical twins and mental telepathy and present it to the court. I’m sure you’d find it fascinating.”

“What about telekinesis?” I said. “My witness says her twin sister doesn’t have the same telepathic connection, but she can interfere with electricity. Have you seen evidence of that?”

“I’ve seen things far beyond the ability to manipulate electrical fields. The human mind is a powerful, powerful tool when one knows how to use it.”

“What are the chances that you could catch a plane here tomorrow and testify for me on Monday morning?” I said. “The state of Tennessee will take care of all the expenses, and I’ll make the travel arrangements myself.”

There was a long silence.

“Oh, my,” she said. “Could you excuse me for a moment?” She sounded like something had upset her; then I heard the phone drop to the floor. I waited for at least three minutes, the line dead silent. Finally, she came back on.

“I apologize; I’ve just had a bit of a fright,” she said. “I’m trembling all over.”

“Is everything all right?”

“I’m afraid not,” she said, “and I’m afraid I’ll have to turn down your offer to testify on Monday.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Can I ask you why?”

“I can’t tell you precisely, but I sense that something very evil is going on around you. There won’t be a hearing on Monday.”

Sunday, November 9

The house where Lee Mooney and his wife lived was tucked into a small grove of white oak trees just off the thirteenth hole at a country club halfway between Boone’s Creek and Jonesborough. As Leon Bates pulled his car into the driveway, he marveled at the sheer size of the place. The house was three stories, finished with brick and stone, and looked to be at least five thousand square feet. How could one man, one woman, and one child possibly use all of that space?

It had been a warm day, a welcome break from the unseasonably cold weather of the past couple of weeks. The sun was shining brightly, and Bates felt its warmth on his face as he walked towards the front door and rang the bell. He was greeted by a pink-faced Lee Mooney, fresh from the links, still wearing his blue sweater vest and his matching blue pants. Bates had called Mooney early in the morning to tell him he had something of grave importance he needed to talk about, but Mooney had put him off until after his Sunday golf game.

Mooney led Bates through an opulent foyer dominated by a crystal chandelier, across marble tile and cherry floors into a beautifully furnished study that looked out over the golf course.

“Drink?” Mooney said as Bates sat down in a plush, high-backed leather chair.

“No, thanks.”

“Don’t mind if I have one, do you?”

“Knock yourself out. It’s probably a good idea.”

“I see you wear your uniform even on Sunday,” Mooney said.

“I wear it when I’m working.”

“So you’re working today?”

“Sure am. That’s why I’m here.”

Bates watched as Mooney finished fixing a vodka martini. He dropped three olives from a jar into his glass and carried the glass to his desk. Rather than sit down in the seat next to Bates, Mooney slid in behind his desk.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Mooney said.

Bates leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and watched Mooney carefully.

“Ain’t no point in beating around the bush, Lee. I arrested Alexander Dunn this morning.”

Mooney’s complexion immediately changed from pink to purple, and his mouth tightened. He began to slowly spin the martini glass with his right hand.

“I assume that was a joke,” Mooney said.

“Afraid not. I arrested him for extortion and soliciting a bribe, for now. I’m going to have Dillard look at the case and see what else he can come up with.”

Mooney took a long drink from the martini and set it gently back down on the desk. Bates had to give him credit: Besides the change in color, Mooney had exhibited barely any reaction to the news. He shook his head.

“Extortion? Alexander? I don’t believe it.”

“Maybe you’ll believe it when you see the video, but for now, I’ll just play the audio.”

Bates reached into his back pocket and produced a small CD player that contained a recording of the night Alexander had collected two thousand dollars from Bates’s informant. He pushed the button and allowed the recording to play from start to finish. When it ended, Bates picked the recorder up and put it back in his pocket. Mooney drained the rest of the martini and began to finger his handlebar mustache.

“Alexander’s been begging me to make a deal,” Bates said. “He says it was all your idea. He wants to give you up. He’s even willing to wear a wire on you.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Mooney said calmly.

“Any truth to it?”

“What do you think?”

Bates leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms above his head, savoring the moment. Bates was a sheriff, and a damned good one, but he was first and foremost a politician. Opportunities like this were rare, and Bates planned to make the most of it.

“I think it’s time for you and me to make a deal,” Bates said. “The way I see it is this little situation could go real bad for you unless I was to see my way clear to put a certain spin on it. The way I see it is I can either tell folks around here that I suspect the district attorney has been involved in illegal activity but I can’t prove it, or, later on down the road if the word leaks out, I can tell them that we investigated Alexander’s accusations thoroughly and there is absolutely no evidence that the district attorney was involved in any way. I can tell them that Alexander is desperate and is trying to save his own ass by smearing his boss. And coming from me, people will believe it.”

“What about your recording? It mentions me.” Bates noticed that beads of sweat were forming at Mooney’s temples.

“Digital recordings can be altered pretty easily,” Bates said. “Computers are fine tools.”

Mooney rose from the chair and walked back over to the bar. Bates watched Mooney’s hands closely as he poured another drink. They weren’t even trembling.

“You said something about a deal,” Mooney said. “What is it you want?”

“Not much. You’ve got ambitions; I’ve got ambitions. Me? I think I’d make a fine state senator when my term as sheriff is up. But in order for me to be a senator, I’m gonna need a lot of political and financial support. I believe you could help me with both of those things. But in the meantime, I want you to stay out of Dillard’s way and let him make sure Alexander gets what he deserves. I also want your word that you’ll support me in everything I do from this day forward. If I bust a gambler, I want him prosecuted. Same with drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, whatever. You make me look good, and I’ll make sure you don’t go to jail.”

“Sheriff, take a look around you,” Mooney said as he walked back towards the desk. “Expensive furniture, expensive antiques, expensive art, cherry molding, imported tile, vodka that costs a hundred dollars a bottle. I have plenty of money. What makes you think that I would ever get involved in something like this, despite what my nephew claims?”

“Your wife went to see a divorce lawyer when she caught you sleeping with Rita Jones last year,” Bates said. “Can’t say as I blame you. Rita’s a looker. But stuff like that gets around pretty quick in a small place like this. The way I figure it is that you thought you might be out on your ear, and since you’d gotten used to living like this here, well, I reckon you just needed another source of income, and those gamblers were easy pickins. But it appears as though your wife has forgiven you. Either that or it’d cost her too damned much money to divorce you. Am I right?”

A smile crossed Mooney’s face as he stood over Bates, drink in hand.

“You know a lot, don’t you, Sheriff?”

“It pays to know a lot.”

Bates rose and stuck out his hand. “So, do we have a deal? In exchange for me keeping this ugly matter under my cowboy hat, you support me a hundred and ten percent from now on. And when the time comes for me to move on up in the world of politics, you’ll make a substantial campaign contribution, publicly endorse me, and get your friends to do the same. Plus you stop shaking down the gamblers, give Alexander’s case to Dillard, and stay out of his way.”

Mooney took Bates’s hand and squeezed.

“Have you spoken to Dillard about this?” Mooney said.

“I talked to him, but I didn’t say nary a word about you.”

“Anyone else know about it?”

“The jailers know Alexander’s in jail. My informant heard what Alexander had to say, but I took care of him. That’s it.”

“Good. Then I guess we have a deal.”

Mooney set his drink down on the desk and led Bates back through the house to the front door. As Bates stepped back out into the sunshine, he heard Mooney clear his throat behind him.

“Sheriff, do you mind telling me how you caught Alexander?”

Bates turned and grinned. “It was good old-fashioned police work is all.”

“Hmm, good for you. Bad break for me, huh?”

“Brother, let me tell you what my granddaddy used to say when I told him I thought I’d caught a bad break. ‘Leon,’ he’d say, ‘the sun don’t shine up the same dog’s ass every day. If it did, it’d warp his ribs.’ ”

Bates tipped his hat to the district attorney, got in his car, and drove away.

Monday, November 10

I took the money to Jim Beaumont Saturday morning after I talked to Martha King, and then spent the rest of the weekend trying to distract myself. I ran six miles both Saturday and Sunday, cleaned out the garage, fixed a leak in an upstairs faucet, mopped all the floors in the house, did a couple of loads of laundry, anything to keep busy. I slept fitfully Sunday night. Images of Natasha kept haunting my dreams. At four fifteen on Monday morning, I had a vision of Natasha standing over me while I slept, ice pick in her hand, and I bolted upright. Sweat was pouring out of me, so I went into the bathroom and took a shower. I didn’t even bother trying to go back to sleep.

Caroline’s mother walked through the door at seven, right on time. Her name is Melinda, a tall and elegant woman, sixty-eight years old. She’d agreed to stay with Caroline during the day until the worst of the sickness passed.

“Why is there a sheriff’s car out there?” Melinda said as I gathered my things.

“We had a little problem with someone. Nothing to worry about.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the girl who went after you in the courtroom, does it?”

“It might, but I think we’ve got it under control. If everything goes well today, she’ll be in jail by Wednesday.”

“For what?”

“For committing crimes against the peace and dignity of the great state of Tennessee.”

“How’s Caroline?” Melinda said.

“She still has a slight fever, and I don’t think she slept very well. I’m worried about her.”

“Well, her mother will take good care of her. You can run along and save the world.”

The truth was that I didn’t care much for Melinda, although I refrained from saying anything to Caroline. She was a cold and manipulative woman who reminded me very much of my own mother. But I was relieved to have her around. I knew I could count on her to look after my wife.

I was glad to see Alisha standing at the corner of the convenience store when I pulled in. She was wearing the same dark coat and tan cap she’d been wearing Friday. She got into the truck and smiled, but she had very little to say on the way to the courthouse. We arrived a little before eight, and I escorted her up the steps to my office. The hearing was scheduled to start at nine. I hadn’t heard anyone say anything about it being postponed or canceled, so I made some coffee and brought a cup to Alisha.

Fraley walked in just a couple of minutes later in his usual jovial mood. He was wearing a brown jacket that had a small tear in the right shoulder seam, and I noticed a stain on his white shirt.

“Well, if it isn’t the phantom,” Fraley said when he saw Alisha.

“Alisha Davis, meet Hank Fraley,” I said.

She smiled and nodded at Fraley. “We met at the park, but we haven’t been properly introduced.”

“Speaking of the park, where did you disappear to?” Fraley said. “I talked to Dillard for a couple of minutes, and when I started back down to talk to you, you were gone.”

“When you live with someone like Natasha, you learn to disappear,” she said. “As soon as Mr. Dillard turned his back I started walking down the hill towards the river. Then I walked along the bank. There wasn’t anything magical about it.”

“I talked to a woman on Saturday who explained some things about telepathy to me,” I said to Alisha while Fraley poured himself a cup of coffee. “I tried to get her to come and testify, but she said there wasn’t going to be a hearing.”

“No hearing?” Fraley said. “Why not?”

“She didn’t say. She just said she sensed something about evil being around me.”

“I know how she feels,” Alisha said. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Don’t worry; you’ll do fine. Just answer the questions the best you can.”

“That’s not what I mean. I just have this nagging feeling that something very bad is happening.”

“Happening? You mean now?”

“Yes. Something isn’t right.”

Lester McKamey sat on the cold concrete bench and sulked. The guards had rousted him early and taken him to a holding cell near the sally port. They’d refused to bring him any breakfast, telling him food wasn’t allowed in the holding cell. He’d been there for two hours, and his stomach was churning and growling. To make things worse, if they didn’t hold his hearing in the morning, he’d be stuck at the courthouse and would miss lunch, too. Fucking assholes. Being locked up was bad enough. Did they have to starve him to boot?

A fat transport deputy in a khaki uniform unlocked the cell door. The clock in the drab gray hallway said it was seven forty-five, too goddamned early to go to the courthouse.

“Why the hell are y’all takin’ me over there already?” Lester whined. “Court don’t start till nine.”

“What difference does it make to you, boy? You can sit on your ass over there as good as you can sit on your ass here.”

“I ain’t gonna get fed till suppertime,” Lester said.

“Tell it to somebody who cares.”

The guard led Lester down a short hallway. The steel door buzzed and then clanged as the bolt released. The door slid back into the wall and Lester walked through to yet another steel door twenty feet down the hall. It slid open and Lester could feel the cool morning air. A white van sat idling in the open sally port. Lester climbed into the back, conscious that another inmate was already there. Lester didn’t look at the other inmate as the guard chained his shackles to a steel ring on the floor. He wasn’t in the mood for idle conversation.

As the van bounced along towards the highway, Lester thought about his prospects. He’d been arrested for his third DUI in eighteen months after being stopped at a sobriety checkpoint a month ago. The cops also tacked on driving on suspended, second offense, violation of the seat belt law, violation of the implied consent law, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana for half a goddamned joint they found in the ashtray. His mama and daddy had refused to post his bail, and he’d been stuck in jail ever since. His lawyer, a fresh-faced punk who probably didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, had filed a motion claiming the roadblock violated Lester’s constitutional rights. If the lawyer was right, Lester would be home by suppertime. But if he was wrong, Lester was looking at six more months of eating cheap peanut butter and bologna.

The courthouse was less than two miles from the jail, so the ride lasted only a few minutes. Lester continued to sulk and stare at the floor as the guard unchained the other inmate. Once his own chain was unlocked and pulled through the ring, Lester climbed out. He thought he recognized the other guy as they shuffled towards the steps that led to the courthouse holding cell, but he wasn’t sure. He’d get a better look when they got upstairs.

The guard led them through the door, up the steps, and into the holding area. Lester leaned on one foot, then the other, as he waited for fat-ass to unlock the cell. The other dude shuffled into the cell ahead of Lester and plunked himself down on the concrete bench. Lester took a seat on the floor across from him. The guard slammed the cell door and walked out, leaving the two of them alone. The courthouse bailiffs were in charge of holding cell security, but they didn’t pay much attention. The last time Lester had been in the cell, a fifty-something lesbian with big teeth had talked on the phone on the other side of the counter for almost an hour. When she hung up, she disappeared until it was time for Lester to go in front of the judge.

The guy across from him was leaning over on his elbows with his face in his hands. He was wearing the standard-issue orange jail jumpsuit. He was lanky and had long black hair that Lester figured had been dyed, since the roots were a different color. Why in the hell would anybody dye their damned hair black? It made the guy look like a fucking zombie.

Wait a minute. Wait just a goddamned minute. Could it be? Lester cleared his throat.

“S’up, dude?” Lester said.

The zombie lifted his chin. It was him. The baby killer. Lester had seen him on television a bunch of times. What’s his name? Zombie-looking motherfucking baby killer, that’s what. Why would they leave me alone in a cell with a goddamned baby killer? I’m just a drunk.

Lester decided to play dumb, act like he didn’t recognize the dude. Maybe he’d even get the zombie to say something Lester could use later on to cut a deal and get out of jail.

“I’m fixin’ to get the hell out of here,” Lester said.

“That right?” said the zombie.

“Fuckin’-A. My lawyer says they violated my rights by settin’ up a roadblock out in the middle of nowhere.”

The zombie responded by dropping his face back into his hands.

“What’s your name, dude?” Lester said.

“What the fuck do you care?” the zombie said through his fingers.

“Shit, man, ain’t no need to get your panties all in a wad. I was just tryin’ to be friendly. Whatcha doin over here today?”

“Kicking the shit out of a baldheaded little redneck if he doesn’t shut his fucking mouth.”

“Damn, you are one hostile dude,” Lester said. He stood up and walked towards the barred window at the back of the cell that looked out over the parking lot behind the courthouse, still stinging from the remark about his bald head. He’d thought about getting one of those rugs like his uncle Roy, but they were too damned expensive. Besides, he didn’t want to put up with all the shit he’d hear from his drinking buddies.

Lester watched another van pull up and saw a stocky, black-haired boy get out of the back, wearing the same orange jumpsuit that he and the zombie were wearing. It was the other baby killer. He remembered this one’s name because Lester had a younger brother named Levi. His brother was pretty much worthless, but at least he wasn’t no baby killer.

“Looks like we’re gonna have company,” Lester said.

A couple of minutes later, Lester heard the sound of shackles rattling in the hall. The door opened and Levi came shuffling through, followed by a different transport deputy. The deputy stuck his key in the barred door and opened it. Lester had heard the news about the zombie wanting to cut some kind of deal with the DA’s office, and he knew there wasn’t but one way to cut a deal. You had to rat somebody out. This could get interesting.

The kid walked into the cell without looking at either Lester or the zombie. He sat down on the concrete bench next to the zombie and stared at the wall while the deputy locked the cell door.

“I’ll be back to pick you up at noon, Levi,” the deputy said.

What was that? A deputy who ain’t a son of a bitch? He called the boy by his name. Lester had never heard a guard or a deputy call an inmate by name. Sometimes they’d call them inmate or prisoner, but usually it was dickhead or maggot or shitbird or asshole. Never by name. He shook his head. If the deputy was coming back to pick up Levi at noon, that meant Lester’s hearing wouldn’t be held until at least one thirty. He’d have to sit in this fucking cell and twiddle his goddamned thumbs all morning. Why in the hell won’t they feed the inmates in the courthouse holding cells?

The clock behind the counter outside the bars said ten after eight. Lester could smell coffee brewing and could hear a couple of the bailiffs laughing beyond the door that opened onto a hallway that led to the courtroom. He put his back against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor.

“I hear you’re planning to make a deal,” a voice said. Lester looked towards the baby killers. The young one, Levi, was staring at the zombie, who still had his face in his hands. Levi’s voice was calm, his empty eyes locked onto the zombie’s head.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” the zombie said without moving.

Levi leaned towards him and hissed, “You gonna snitch on me?”

“I’m not snitching on anybody.”

“You’re a liar. And a coward.”

“Fuck you, man,” the zombie said, and he stood up and started to move towards the window. Before he could get out of range, Lester saw Levi rock back and lift his knees to his chest. His shackled feet flew forward and the zombie’s knees buckled. Lester slid into the corner and pulled his ankles beneath him as Levi leaped onto the zombie’s back and drove him face-first into the concrete floor.

A sickening crack as the zombie’s teeth shattered. Levi straddling him, grabbing two handfuls of hair, pulling his head backwards and smashing it into the concrete over and over. Blood flying, the zombie groaning.

Lester in the corner, frozen with fear as droplets of blood landed on his face and arms. Levi grunting and mumbling, the awful thud of the zombie’s head hitting the floor again and again and again and again. Lester watching Levi drive his knees into the zombie’s shoulder blades, wrapping the chain between his bloodied handcuffs around the zombie’s neck. The veins in Levi’s forearms bulging. The veins in his temple bulging. Levi squeezing. The zombie dying. Lester closing his eyes.

Voices, loud and excited, coming from the other side of the bars. The sound of metal against metal as someone scrambled to unlock the cell door. Cursing. More grunting. The sound of boots scraping. Lester opening his eyes. Levi being dragged from the zombie’s prone body. A pool of dark blood spreading out, coming nearer. A deputy kneeling over the zombie’s body.

Lester screaming.

A bailiff came into the office at eight twenty and said there was a problem in the holding area. I asked Alisha to stay where she was and hurried down the steps with Fraley right behind me. Another bailiff buzzed me through the barred steel door. Levi Barnett was sitting on a metal chair to my right with his head hanging and a bailiff looming over him. I noticed blood on his hands as I passed by. A short, baldheaded inmate was being led out the door. I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like he was crying. When I got to the holding cell, I froze. Lying facedown in a huge pool of dark blood was Sam Boyer. He wasn’t moving, didn’t seem to be breathing.

A bailiff was standing next to Barnett. Everyone else had disappeared, like rats scurrying from a sinking ship.

“Is he dead?” I said to the bailiff.

“ ’Fraid so.”

“You put them in the same cell?”

“We ain’t got but one holding cell,” the bailiff said. “But it wasn’t me that done it. The transport officers was the ones what brought them in and put them in the cell.”

“This is unbelievable,” I said. “Wasn’t anyone in here watching them? Aren’t you supposed to keep an eye on them?”

“They was alone for just a few minutes.”

I walked over and stood in front of Barnett. Anger pulsed through me like a radio signal. I wanted to strangle him. My chances of getting enough evidence to convict Natasha were dead, along with Boyer.

“You sick son of a bitch,” I said. “Doesn’t matter what happens in the other cases now; you’re going to prison for the rest of your miserable life.”

Barnett lifted his head and looked at me with dull, colorless eyes.

“I ain’t going to no prison,” he said. “I’m going to hell with you.”

Judge Glass sent word that the hearing would be postponed for two weeks, so I gave Alisha a ride back to Johnson City. The brilliant light in her blue eye seemed to have dulled. She remained quiet for the first ten minutes of the trip.

“Does this mean you won’t be able to arrest Natasha?” she said as we rounded a curve near the old Burlington Industries plant.

“I’m afraid so,” I said. “I think Boyer was willing to testify against her. Without him, all we have is circumstantial evidence. It isn’t enough to arrest her, let alone convict her.”

“You need to be careful,” she said. “You know what she’s capable of.”

Images of Natasha plunging an ice pick into Mrs. Brockwell’s back and into Alisha’s eye ran through my mind.

“Alisha, would you have any idea where the ice pick might be?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where it is.”

I gave her my home and cell phone numbers when I dropped her off at the convenience store and told her to call me anytime, day or night.

“Stay safe,” I said as she stepped out of the truck.

She turned and gave me a mournful look.

“What’s wrong? Do you want me to see if I can arrange police protection for you?”

“No. It’s not me I’m worried about. You’re a good man, Mr. Dillard. I just hope I see you again.”

Monday, November 10

Levi Barnett pondered his bloody hands as he rode silently in the back of the transport van towards the juvenile detention center. He was looking at the blood of a traitor, the blood of a coward. Sam Boyer wouldn’t be making the trip to the other side. He’d sold himself out to the laws of man, and Levi had made him pay the price.

The pathetic cops had forced him to sit there for almost three hours while they took their photographs and their blood samples. The big cop who’d arrested Levi at the motel and then tried to interrogate him had shown up and scraped some of the blood off of Levi’s hands. He’d tried again to interrogate Levi, but Levi told him to go fuck himself.

Levi spit on the floor as he thought of the scrawny little baldheaded dude sitting in the corner of the cell. Didn’t offer to help Sam, didn’t say a word, didn’t make a move. All he did was watch and scream like a little girl.

He knew Natasha would be pleased. She’d come to visit him at the juvenile detention center three days earlier. The guards there were so fucking stupid. All Levi had to do was put her on his visitors list. When she arrived, they led Levi to a visiting room and left the two of them alone for an hour. Levi knew the guards were watching on video, but they couldn’t hear a thing. Natasha had laid out her plan, and Levi had executed the first step to perfection. All that was left was for him to complete the second step, and Natasha would take care of the third.

Levi lifted his hands over his head and stretched. Even though he’d just committed a murder, the transport deputy hadn’t cuffed him in back or put a waist chain on him. The policy at the juvenile detention center was that all prisoners going to court were to be cuffed in front. Another deputy was along for the ride as extra security, but as long as Levi’s hands were in front of him, he could do what he needed to do.

The van pulled up in front of the detention center, and Levi looked out at the dull-yellow concrete-block building. It was a single story, with four-inch openings for windows and an exercise area that was surrounded by chain link and concertina wire and just a little bigger than his cell. What little food Levi had eaten tasted like plastic, and the guards, like the other inmates, were all morons. None of them were armed, and Levi mused briefly about what it would be like to walk in with a weapon and slaughter every last one of them.

But old man Finney was armed, as was the extra deputy. Both carried stainless-steel. 357 Magnum revolvers in holsters on their hips. Old man Finney was the transport deputy the sheriff’s department assigned to the juvenile detention center. Every time someone from the detention center needed a ride to court or got hauled off to a juvie home downstate, Finney came and picked them up. Levi couldn’t stand the old hypocrite. He wore bifocal glasses with black rims and always had his stupid sheriff’s hat on. He called people by their first name and tried to make them think he was their friend. Some fucking friend. Take you to court, where you have to sit and listen to some blueblood judge run his mouth, and then take you straight back to jail.

Levi waited for the door to open. Finney reached in and started fumbling with the lock that secured the chain through the steel ring on the floor while the other deputy, a young, pasty-looking dude with a buzz cut and acne scars whom Levi had never seen before, stood back and chewed on a toothpick. As soon as Levi saw Finney get the lock released and start pulling the chain, he raised both arms over his head and came down hard on the back of Finney’s neck. The old man grunted. His bifocals flew off of his face and his hat went rolling towards the front of the van. Levi wrenched the revolver from its holster and pointed it at the pasty guard, who was fumbling with his own holster. The guard’s mouth was open, and Levi saw the familiar look of fear in his eyes. Before the guard could get a firm grip on the revolver, Levi blew a hole through his throat.

Levi turned back towards the van and stood there watching as old man Finney fumbled around trying to find his glasses. When his fingers finally clutched them, he pushed them onto his nose and rolled slowly over onto his back.

“Levi, what are you going to do?” Finney said.

“What do you think I’m going to do?” Levi said as he raised the revolver and pointed it at Finney’s forehead.

“Levi, please. I’ve never mistreated you.”

“You don’t want to stay in this world. It’s full of bad people. Think of it as a favor.”

“No, Levi, please. I have a family. They need me.” Finney raised his hands in front of his face. “Levi! I’ve tried to be your friend! ”

Levi pulled the trigger and watched curiously as a chunk of Finney’s forehead separated from his face and splattered against the interior wall of the van. Finney’s body jerked once and then he was still.

“Yeah, I was thinking about that a little earlier,” Levi said. “Some fucking friend.”

Levi closed the door. He saw his reflection in the mirrored glass window. As he looked at himself, he thought about how far he’d come. Not long ago, he’d been a nobody, a poor boy with no education and no future. But all that had changed with Natasha. She’d taught him the ways of Satan, and now he was a celebrity. Everyone knew his name. Everyone feared him. He even received fan mail in jail.

Levi looked down at the fallen guard. A soft, gurgling sound was coming from the wound in his throat. Levi thought about putting another bullet in his head to finish him off, but instead he looked towards the building. He could see people looking out the windows. A guard ran up and locked the front door while talking on a cell phone. They’d be coming soon.

Levi raised his middle finger defiantly towards those who were peering out at him. Fuck them. There would be no prison for Levi, not now, not ever. Soon he and Natasha would walk together with Satan.

“Fuck all you motherfuckers!” Levi shouted. “Fuck the world!”

He fired one shot at the building, then slowly pushed the barrel up tight beneath his chin.

And pulled the trigger.

Monday, November 10

After I took Alisha back to Johnson City, I drove home to check on Caroline. She was sleeping, but Melinda said she still had a fever. I drove back to Jonesborough, finished up some work on my other cases, and went to lunch alone. When I returned, Fraley was sitting in a chair in front of my desk with his feet up. He was smoking a cigarette and putting the ashes in a coffee cup.

“You’re not supposed to smoke in this building, big boy,” I said. “If Mooney smells it, he’ll call the police and have you arrested.”

“If he calls the police, I’ll crush his skull like a peanut shell,” Fraley said, taking another long drag.

“Some morning, huh?” I said.

Fraley blew a smoke ring. “You haven’t heard, have you?”

“Heard what?”

“About Barnett. He overpowered Deputy Finney in the back of the transport van, got ahold of his weapon, and shot himself in the head.”

I felt my knees weaken and sat down behind the desk.

“He’s dead?”

“Dead as Elvis. It was a. 357 Magnum. In under the chin and out the top of his skull. The bullet took a bunch of his brain with it, what little he had.”

I ran my fingers through my hair, still unable to completely digest what I’d just heard.

“Is Finney…?”

“Didn’t make it. Levi shot him in the head. They sent another deputy along for extra security, a kid named Huff. Killed him, too.”

My stomach started churning and I suddenly wished I’d skipped lunch. Both of our murder suspects were dead, one killed by a codefendant in a holding cell at the jail and the other a suicide. Two deputies were dead. We had a third suspect in the murders, but we didn’t have enough evidence to arrest her, and now the only two people who could have provided us with that evidence were dead. I wondered how much Alexander Dunn’s little leak to the media had to do with what happened.

“So where does this leave us?” I said.

“If you want to look on the bright side, it leaves us with two dead scumbag murderers. I say good riddance. Now we don’t have to prosecute them, don’t have to feed and clothe and shelter them, and we don’t have to waste electricity killing them.”

“Your compassion never ceases to amaze me.”

“My compassion is with the innocent people they terrorized and murdered. But if you’re anxious to look at the bleak side of things, we’re pretty much left with our dicks in our hands as far as Natasha goes.”

“What are we going to do about her?”

“Let me drop this little tidbit on you. I drove up to the detention center when I heard the chatter about the shooting. While I was there, I went in and asked the guards about Levi’s visitors. He’s only had one besides his aunt. Guess who?”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Three days ago. Signed in under her own name and everything.”

My phone rang and I picked it up.

“Is Special Agent Fraley back there with you?” It was Rita Jones.

“He is.”

“Mr. Mooney would like to see both of you right now.”

Fraley and I made the short walk down the hall to Mooney’s office. We found him pacing back and forth between his flags with his hands folded behind his back. Instead of sitting, Fraley and I both stood behind the chairs in front of his desk. He paced for more than a minute, occasionally fingering his handlebar mustache. Finally, he spoke.

“This is a clusterfuck,” Mooney said, “a clusterfuck of magnanimous proportion. Do the two of you have any idea what happened today?”

It sounded like a rhetorical question to me. Of course we knew what happened, but I’d learned long ago that the best answer to a rhetorical question was no answer at all, so I kept my mouth shut. Fraley did the same.

“Do you know that the reputation of law enforcement in this community was ruined today? Ruined! I’ve spent the last two years of my life trying to make the people here feel safe, make them feel confident about the men and women who are responsible for providing them with safe streets and an efficient court system. I’ve tried to hire people who are fair and compassionate to victims and defendants alike. And now, in a three-hour span, every bit of credibility we’ve been able to establish is gone.”

I stood there staring down at his desk, focusing on nothing. I told myself that the man had given me a job, and since Caroline had come down with cancer, he’d also probably saved me from bankruptcy. The least I could do was stand quietly while he ranted. Suddenly, he stopped pacing and turned towards us.

“I want you to know that I hold the two of you at least partially responsible for this,” he said.

Fraley and I exchanged an incredulous glance. Since Mooney was my boss, I thought it best that I do the talking.

“Lee, I know you’re upset,” I said. “Everyone is. But pointing fingers won’t do anyone any good.”

“Bullshit!” he snapped. “When bad things happen in an organization people get blamed. It’s called accountability, in case you’ve never heard of it. Those held accountable for whatever has happened usually resign or get fired. At the very least, they change the way they do business. So pointing fingers is exactly what I need to be doing. I have to show the people of this district that we’re accountable when something as monumental as this goes wrong.”

“Explain to me how any of this was our fault in any way,” I said.

“ You’re the one who ordered arrests on the basis of information you received from a confidential informant,” he said, pointing at me. He turned to Fraley. “And you, a veteran TBI agent, went along with it. And as I understand it, your confidential informant had absolutely no personal knowledge of what happened. She didn’t see a thing. Because of that, you gave an opening to the defense. Because of that, they filed motions to suppress and a hearing was scheduled. And because of that, Boyer and Barnett wound up in the same cell and now both of them, along with two police officers, are dead! Do you see what I’m getting at?”

I’d read plenty of appellate opinions in which judges convoluted logic to the point of sophistry, but this was beyond even them.

“Our informant was exactly right about everything, and without her, we would’ve had more victims,” I said.

“We do have more victims! Three more! And we all look like idiots!”

He was shouting now; his face looked like a candy apple with eyes.

“What do you want us to do, Lee?”

“What do I want you to do? I want you to make this right! I want you to redeem yourselves and this office! I want that girl arrested. I want her kept alive long enough for you to convict her of first-degree murder in a very public trial. And then I want her executed. That’s what I want you to do!”

“We don’t have enough evidence to arrest her, Lee. We needed Boyer.”

“Then find some! Plant some! Manufacture some! Do whatever the hell you have to! I want her locked up by the end of the week.”

“We’ll do what we can, Lee,” I said.

“Good. Now get out.”

Fraley and I spun and walked out as quickly as dignity would allow. Instead of going back to my office, I turned towards the stairs and started down. Neither of us said a word until we were outside. I stopped by a bench that sat next to a Civil War-era cannon.

“Can you believe that? He actually tried to blame us for Boyer and Barnett.”

“He seemed a little out of sorts,” Fraley said.

“And do you know what’s even worse? He thinks the only way to redeem himself and the office is with an execution. Redemption through bloodshed.”

“Redemption through bloodshed. Sort of like salvation through bloodshed, isn’t it?”

“If we don’t come through for him, it sounded to me like the ax is going to fall on somebody’s neck, and I’ll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that somebody will be me.”

Fraley reached out and patted me on the shoulder and I saw the glint in his eye.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Ol’ Fraley’s got you covered.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back when I first got out of the academy, an old buddy of mine told me that if I was going to last in this business, I’d need to learn to deal with bosses and politicians who were looking for fall guys. He taught me to cover my ass. So when we were walking back towards Mooney’s office, I turned on my cover-your-ass gadget.”

Fraley reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a device that was thin and shiny.

“What is that? An iPod?” I said.

“No, no, no. This, my friend, is a digital voice-activated recording device. Top of the line. I never leave home without it.”

“And it was on while Mooney was ranting?”

Fraley pushed a button, and I could hear Mooney’s voice.

“Wait, let me find my favorite part.” He searched through the diatribe for a few minutes.

“Here it is,” he said, and Mooney’s voice came through loud and clear: “Then find some! Plant some! Manufacture some! Do whatever the hell you have to! I want her locked up by the end of the week.” Fraley looked at me and grinned.

“I love you, man,” I said, and I grabbed his neck and planted a kiss on his cheek.

Monday, November 10

“Y’all better be careful,” a deep voice said from behind me. “People will say you’re in love.”

I turned around to see the face of Wild Bill Hickok, back from the dead in the form of Jim Beaumont. Beaumont bowed stiffly and tipped his hat. Today’s string tie was made of rawhide with a round piece of polished turquoise mounted on the platinum clasp at his neck.

“I hate to interrupt your affair, Mr. Dillard, but I have a very important matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

I told Fraley I’d catch up with him later to form a strategy for dealing with Natasha, and turned back to Beaumont.

“Let’s walk,” he said.

We started walking leisurely up the brick sidewalk, past the International Storytelling Center and the Eureka Hotel towards the west end of Main Street. The unpredictable November weather had changed yet again, and the past few days had been warm and pleasant.

“News from the investigators already?” I said.

“No, not yet. There are some things I need to tell you. I wish I could have done it sooner, but I was bound by the rules of ethical conduct and client privilege. I hope you’ll understand.”

“Of course.”

“Now that Mr. Boyer has expired, I believe I’m no longer bound by privilege,” Beaumont said. “I’ll start by telling you that you were right about Miss Natasha Davis. She was deeply involved in all six murders.”

“Then why can’t we find any evidence?” I said.

“Being mad doesn’t make her stupid. She wasn’t at the first crime scene, but she ordered Boyer and Barnett to commit the murders because Mr. Beck attempted to share his faith in God with her.”

“What were they doing down on Marbleton Road?”

“It started at a rest stop on the interstate. They’d been to Knoxville for some kind of Goth festival. On the way back, their car started overheating, so they pulled into the rest stop to let it cool down. Mr. Beck approached Natasha; she became angry and gave the other two the order to kill the family. She drove the car back to town and the boys took the Becks down to Marbleton, shot them, and drove their van back to Johnson City.”

“You said she ordered them. Why did she have so much control?”

“Boyer said she controlled them in a variety of ways, but I think it was primarily with two things: she was generous with sex, and she was generous with drugs. She’s also an attractive young lady, or at least Boyer believed she was. Beyond that, she put the two of them in a position where they were competing for her attention and affection. She played them against each other. She introduced them to Satanic rituals and philosophy and used that as a means to gain further control. Boyer believed the first murders, the Becks, were a test. She was testing their loyalty. He said shooting everyone in the right eye was Barnett’s idea. Apparently there’s some kind of painting or print of the eye of providence in Natasha’s home. She hated it, so Barnett shot everyone in the right eye as a symbolic gesture to Natasha.”

“And the inverted crosses and running over their legs?”

“Boyer’s way of keeping up in the competition.”

“What about the Brockwells?” I said. “Why did they kill them?”

“Natasha allowed Boyer to pick their next victim. Boyer said he hated Mr. Brockwell because Brockwell humiliated him when he expelled him from school. They did surveillance on the house for a couple of days and then went in and did the deed.”

“Was Natasha there?”

“She killed Mrs. Brockwell with an ice pick.”

“Boyer saw her do it?”

“Yes. She also accompanied them to the woods where Mr. Brockwell was shot. She gave the order.”

“Any chance Boyer told you where Natasha hid the ice pick?”

“I asked him. He said he didn’t know. Don’t you have any other physical evidence?”

“Nothing solid,” I said, “but with what you’ve told me, if you’ll sign a sworn affidavit, I might be able to get a warrant to get a DNA sample from her. We’ve got some hairs from the Brockwells’ place that we haven’t been able to match up with anyone.”

“I’ll have to make an inquiry with the Board of Professional Responsibility first, but I’ll do it no matter what they say,” Beaumont said.

“Screw the BPR. They’re nothing but a waste of space and oxygen.”

“I agree, but I’ll give them the courtesy of a call anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me if they tell me I have to remain silent, even if it allows a murderer to go free.”

“All right, just let me see if I’ve got this straight,” I said. “Natasha manipulates Boyer and Barnett into forming a sort of mini-Satanic cult. She shoves the dogma and ritual down their throats in what appears to be a successful effort to gain control of them. They run into the Becks randomly at a rest stop, where Mr. Beck approaches Natasha and wants to talk to her about God. She gets angry and orders her boys to kill them. A couple of weeks later, they decide they liked it and they kill the Brockwells. Is that pretty much it in a nutshell?”

“Almost,” Beaumont said.

“What did I miss?”

“There are two other things I need to tell you. First, Boyer said Natasha took a necklace from Mrs. Brockwell after she killed her. It was a twenty-four-karat-gold cross on a gold chain.”

“We searched her house. Didn’t find it,” I said.

“Maybe she’s wearing it.”

I tried to picture Natasha in my mind the day I confronted her in the courtroom, but I couldn’t remember whether she was wearing a cross. Mrs. Brockwell’s family hadn’t said anything about a missing necklace, which meant it was either new or she didn’t wear it often. If it was relatively new, and if she purchased it with a credit card, we might be able to identify it. If Natasha was wearing it, which I doubted.

“Thanks, we’ll check it out,” I said. “And what’s the last thing?”

“Do you remember the article in the paper after the Brockwells were killed in which you referred to the killers as cowards?”

“There were a lot of articles. I said a lot of things.”

“Well, apparently the comment didn’t sit well with Mr. Barnett. Boyer said the night they were arrested at the motel, Natasha told Barnett it was his turn to pick the victim. They were on their way to your house.”

Monday, November 10

As I was walking back up the steps towards the office my cell phone rang. I looked down and recognized my mother-in-law’s cell phone number.

“Her fever’s getting worse,” Melinda said. “And she’s talking like she doesn’t know where she is. I’m taking her to the emergency room.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I turned and ran back down the stairs and out to my truck. I called Rita Jones on the way to the hospital and told her where I’d be, and I called Fraley and told him everything Jim Beaumont had shared with me. Fraley said he’d get hold of Beaumont, draft an affidavit, and take care of the warrant himself. I was glad to be free of it for a while, because suddenly I didn’t care about Boyer or Barnett or Natasha. All I cared about was Caroline.

I raced to the hospital, breaking nearly every traffic law ever written along the way. I saw Melinda’s car in the emergency room parking lot, got out, and rushed inside. I found Melinda pacing in the waiting room.

“Where is she?”

“They took her back as soon as we got here,” Melinda said. Her face was drained of color, her eyes darting nervously around the room.

“Can’t we go with her?”

“They told me to wait out here. I think it’s serious. They mentioned something about an infection.”

Over the next hour and a half, I paced constantly around the waiting room, to the parking lot, back to the waiting room, to the nurses’ station, where I was told at least five times that a doctor would be out to talk to me as soon as Caroline was stabilized. They wouldn’t give me any information about what was wrong with her or how she was doing. The only thing the nurse would tell me was that they were “treating her.” I didn’t want to call Jack or Lilly until I knew more, and Melinda had turned stone-faced and silent. All I could do was pace and think.

As I paced, thoughts kept flashing through my mind: Sarah being beaten, Lilly being attacked by a Doberman, Boyer dead on the floor. Barnett sitting in the chair: “I’m going to hell with you.” I walked back in from the parking lot and glanced across the emergency room lobby. An elderly man in a long sweater was making his way to a chair with the aid of a wooden cane. He reminded me of the old man who warned me of the curse.

Oh, my God. Caroline… this is my fault. I’m so sorry.

I remembered the old man’s voice as I was walking out of the coffee shop: “One of you has to die.” Had I been wrong to ignore the warning? Had I been too cavalier? Too full of hubris to recognize the threat to my family? And if the old man was right, and the curse was real, what was I going to do? I couldn’t just go to Natasha’s and kill her. What would I tell the police? That I was defending myself from a Satanic curse? Good luck selling that to a jury.

Finally, a doctor I recognized came into the waiting room. Collins Reid was the oncologist who was overseeing Caroline’s chemotherapy program. He wore a white medical coat and had thick, longish black hair and a beard that covered a pale, round face.

“How is she?”

“Let’s go back into the private area,” the doctor said, and he led Melinda and me down a short hallway into a large room that was furnished with three brown overstuffed chairs and a matching couch. As I looked around the room, I realized that it must be a place for families to grieve. There were prints of Jesus with the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm beneath them. My throat tightened.

“I really don’t understand this,” Dr. Reid said when we all sat down. “Her white cell count was fine when we drew blood before her last chemo treatment. Her count has dropped, which is normal with chemotherapy, but the problem is that it dropped so low that she became what we call neutropenic, which in turn made her vulnerable to a variety of infections. She’s now developed a condition known as sepsis, which basically means her bloodstream has become filled with bacteria. I’m afraid it’s quite serious.”

“What does ‘quite serious’ mean?” I asked. “Is this life-threatening?”

He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. I could tell from his demeanor, and from the way he was avoiding eye contact with me, that he was extremely concerned about Caroline.

“I’m afraid it is. She’s going to be in isolation for a while. We’ll treat her with antibiotics. Her survival depends on how she reacts to the antibiotics. And I’ll tell you this up front: patients often develop further complications from the antibiotics.”

“Isolation?” I said. “Does that mean I can’t see her?”

“I’m sorry. She has to be in a sterile environment. We can’t risk having anything, or anyone, around her until we get the infection under control.”

“How long?”

“It’s hard to say.”

“How long before I can see her?”

“Please, Mr. Dillard, take it easy. This type of thing happens rarely, but unfortunately, it happens. I’ve seen patients recover in a short amount of time, and I’ve seen them require months of hospitalization. But Caroline is relatively young and, up until the cancer diagnosis, she’d been healthy. All we can do is follow the treatment plan and hope her youth and strength get her through this.”

“Is she in pain?”

“She’s sedated now. She shouldn’t be feeling any pain…”

As the doctor continued to talk, I felt myself slipping into a deep psychological void. I could hear him, but his words sounded distant and muffled. Time suddenly seemed to slow, and I found myself contemplating particles of dust that were illuminated by sunlight pouring in through a window. By the time the doctor left, I’d entered into what must have been emotional shock. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even think. Melinda said something to me before she left, but I had no idea what it was.

I don’t know how long I sat on the couch, but I eventually forced myself to get up and walk over to admissions. My legs felt as though they were dragging a ball and chain as I made my way through the bustle of people coming and going through the main lobby. I sat down in front of the clerk and somehow managed to give her my insurance card and the information she needed. Caroline, she said, had been moved to an isolated room near the intensive care ward.

I got up and wandered back through the lobby, not knowing what to do or where to go. I’d never felt so helpless. Thoughts of Caroline lying alone in a hospital bed, hooked to tubes and monitors and fighting for her life, caused my throat to constrict so tightly that I had to stop, lean against the wall, and gather myself. As I walked down the hallway towards the cafeteria, I caught a glimpse of a small cross on a sign just to my right. It was the hospital chapel, and I felt myself being pulled towards it as though by force of gravity. I opened the door and looked inside. The chapel was empty. There were eight pews, four on my right and four on my left, and a simple altar at the front of the room.

I took a deep breath and walked in. It was quiet, the air perfectly still. As I moved slowly towards the altar, tears began to stream down my face. I tried to control them, but there were so many emotions running through me: sorrow, pain, fear, sympathy, anxiety… by the time I reached the altar I was sobbing.

And then I did something I hadn’t done since my mother told me there was no God. I got down on my knees, bowed my head, and prayed.