In good faith

PART IV

Hank Fraley drove towards Natasha’s with a feeling of excitement mixed with anxiety. It had taken him only half a day to secure a search warrant for Natasha’s DNA sample and the necklace, and now, after a night of tossing and turning, he, Norcross, and two other agents were heading to Natasha’s to execute the warrants at seven a.m. A cold, overcast dawn was breaking, and Fraley flipped on the windshield wipers as a light rain began to fall.

Norcross sat in the passenger seat. He was wearing a brown suit covered by a black overcoat and a tan, button-down shirt that was too tight for his muscular neck.

“Hey, Thor,” Fraley said, “I’ve been thinking about this crazy little bitch, and I’m betting she’s got something special planned.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Think about it. She goes down to the juvenile detention center and meets with Barnett three days before the hearing. She knows that Boyer is about to rat her out. She knows their little train has come to the end of the tracks. So she talks Barnett into killing Boyer and then himself. He goes out in a blaze of glory, gets a whole bunch of press. But I don’t think she’s the type to let Barnett steal the spotlight for long.”

“What do you think she’s planning?” Norcross asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but I’m thinking it’ll be some kind of mass murder-suicide thing. Maybe a shopping mall, maybe a school. That seems to be a popular way of going out these days.”

“Let’s hope we can arrest her and lock her up before she does it.”

“I doubt it. Once we show up and get the DNA sample, she’s going to think the bomb’s about to drop. She’ll do something.”

Fraley was tired, still haunted by nightmares of the two children on Marbleton Road. He wanted this case to be finished. He wanted to get back to working stolen car rings and chop shops, maybe a nice white-collar embezzling case.

“I hate dealing with people like her,” Fraley said, “because the chances are we won’t be able to get rid of her.”

“What do you mean?” Norcross said.

“I mean she’s probably crazy enough to stay out of prison. They’ll send her to a mental institution, put her back on her meds, keep her five or ten or twenty years, and turn her loose. And as soon as they let her out, she’ll go back off her meds and start killing people again. I swear to God, people like her are the same as cancer. The only way to really get rid of them is to kill them.”

Norris rounded a bend and the white frame house came into view. Sitting outside was Marie’s powder blue Chevy sedan that looked to be at least twenty years old. Fraley had seen the car and run the tag back when he was doing surveillance on Natasha. As Fraley pulled up behind the car, he took a closer look. The paint was faded and cracking and the vinyl top was peeling. The tires looked like they wouldn’t make it around the block.

Fraley led the way up the steps to the front door, flipping off the safety on his pistol as he climbed. When he reached the top, he moved to the right and unholstered the gun. Norcross banged on the door with his fist and stepped to the side while the other two agents moved around to cover the back. A dog started to bark immediately.

“Police! Search warrant!” Norcross yelled.

A long minute passed and Norcross banged on the door again. “Open the door! Search warrant!”

Fraley saw a shadow pass across the window and heard the sound of feet shuffling inside. The door cracked open, and Marie Davis stuck her pale head outside.

“What do y’all want?” she said.

Fraley stepped forward slowly, wary of what-or who-might be behind Marie.

“We have a search warrant that allows us to take a sample of Natasha’s hair for DNA testing. The warrant also allows us to search for a gold necklace.”

“I don’t want y’all in here again,” Marie said.

“Open the door and step back,” Fraley said. “If you don’t, we’ll kick the door in and arrest you for obstruction.”

The door creaked as it opened, and Fraley and Norcross entered the house. It was dark and quiet. All the shades had been drawn and the television was off. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke and mildew. Marie went immediately to the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. She was wearing the same flowered robe that she wore the first time Fraley came to her house.

“Where’s Natasha?” Fraley said.

“Asleep,” Marie said, motioning with her head towards the hallway.

“She won’t be for long with that goddamned dog barking.”

“She probably took something. She could sleep through Armageddon,” Marie said.

“Don’t you have any lights in this place?” Fraley said as he looked around the trailer.

Marie walked across the kitchen into the small den, turned on a lamp beside her recliner, and went back to the kitchen.

“Have you seen an ice pick since the last time we were here?” Fraley said.

Marie shook her head and blew out a long stream of gray smoke.

“How about a necklace? A gold cross on a gold chain.”

Marie stared down at the table in front of her, saying nothing. Fraley moved towards her.

“Lying to a police officer is a felony, Ms. Davis.”

“I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t say nothing.”

“Have you seen a gold cross on a gold chain or not?”

“I ain’t telling you nothing.”

Fraley looked at her. She was obviously in poor health, hiding behind tinted glasses, her skin as pale as a full moon, liver spots covering her bony hands. He imagined her sitting alone in a dark, silent house, her perception clouded by drugs, waiting for Natasha to return, wishing that death would take her. He might have felt sorry for her, but how could he feel sorry for someone who had brought a cancer like Natasha into the world? And now it appeared Marie was protecting her.

Norcross, who had gone to the back to retrieve the other two agents, walked into the kitchen.

“Ms. Davis here says Natasha’s sleeping,” Fraley said. “I’ll go first. Thor, you’re right behind me, Danny behind you. Jimbo, you stay here and keep an eye on Ms. Davis. If she moves, shoot her.”

“What happened to the other dog?” Jimbo said to Marie. “There were two last time I was here.”

Marie shrugged her shoulders, staring down at her cigarette.

Fraley moved cautiously down the darkened hallway, gun raised. The door to Natasha’s room was closed, so he reached out and carefully turned the knob. The door opened silently; the room was as dark as black ink. Fraley stepped soundlessly inside. He could hear steady breathing in the corner. He looked over his shoulder to see Norcross’s frame filling the doorway and slid his hand along the wall to find the light switch. He flipped it on.

Natasha was lying on top of the bedspread on her stomach, sound asleep. A black T-shirt covered her to midthigh. Her arms were beneath the pillow under her head. Fraley turned to Norcross and gave him a hand signal. Norcross took the handcuffs from their pouch on his belt and crept towards the bed. Fraley stepped to the foot, ready to grab Natasha’s ankles as soon as Norcross made his move. Danny provided cover. Fraley holstered his weapon and nodded, and Norcross dropped his knees into the small of Natasha’s back and grabbed both of her forearms.

“Police!” Norcross yelled. “Stay facedown!”

Natasha screamed as Norcross wrenched her arms behind her back and snapped the handcuffs on her wrists. She tried to squirm and kick, but Fraley had a solid hold on her ankles, and the sheer weight and strength of Norcross rendered her helpless.

“Bastards!” Natasha screamed. “Motherfuckers!”

Fraley watched as Norcross lifted her off the bed and dragged her down the hallway. Once he got her to the den, he laid her on her stomach in the middle of the floor and straddled her.

“Don’t move,” Fraley said. “We have a warrant to take a hair sample from you and to search the house.”

“I hate you!” Natasha screamed. She continued to struggle. “I hate fucking cops! I hope your children burn to death!”

“Danny, hold her legs,” Fraley said. “Norcross, turn her head to the side and hold her still.”

Natasha continued to rail as Fraley pulled a small evidence bag and a pair of tweezers out of his jacket pocket.

“Hold still, sweetie pie,” Fraley said. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

Fraley knew that the best DNA sample would come from the roots of Natasha’s hair, so he maneuvered the tweezers close to Natasha’s scalp as she struggled and spit and cursed. He plucked five hairs, put them in the bag, and sealed it. He was just starting to get off of his knees when he noticed the chain around Natasha’s neck. It was gold.

“Hold her right there,” Fraley said. He got up and went back to Natasha’s bedroom, rifled through a couple of drawers until he found a T-shirt, and went back into the den.

“Put this over her head and turn her over,” he said to Norcross. “I don’t want her spitting all over me.”

Norcross did as Fraley said. When he turned Natasha over, Fraley saw that a gold cross was indeed hanging on the chain.

“Look, guys,” Fraley said. “Isn’t that nice? She’s put a personal touch on it. The cross is hanging upside down from the chain. We’re going to take this, Natasha. I’m sure you don’t mind.”

Fraley fumbled with the clasp while Natasha let loose a steady stream of expletives. It took almost a minute to get it unhooked. He pulled the chain from beneath Natasha’s neck. When Fraley had bagged the necklace, he looked at Norcross’s face. The big man was flushed and beginning to sweat.

“Turn her back over and get the cuffs off of her,” Fraley said. “I think we have everything we came for.”

Natasha went silent as Norcross rolled her over. Fraley held his gun on her while Norcross unlocked the cuffs, pulled the T-shirt off of her head, and stepped carefully away.

“Don’t leave town,” Fraley said as the agents began to back towards the kitchen. Jimbo opened the door, and light seeped into the dim interior of the room. “As soon as we get the results from the lab and figure out where this necklace came from, we’ll be back to get you.”

Suddenly, the lightbulb in the lamp that Marie had turned on exploded with a loud pop! Fraley heard the bits of glass fly against the inside of the lamp shade, and when he looked towards the lamp, he could see smoke rising.

Natasha slowly pulled herself to her knees and glared at Fraley. She began to speak, and Fraley felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Don’t worry,” she said, her freakish eyes boring into him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Tuesday, November 11

Fraley looked up at the clock as he walked through the door of the small house he rented on Cranston Street. Almost midnight. It had been an exhausting day, beginning with the raid at Natasha’s. As he opened the closet door to hang up his coat, Fraley heard the familiar meow of his golden-eyed tabby. He felt the cat rubbing against his leg and reached down to pick it up.

“How’s Clementine tonight?” Fraley said, scratching lightly around her ears and down her back. “I’ll bet you’re hungry. Sorry Pops was so late getting home.”

Fraley walked into the kitchen, set the cat down gently, and opened a can of food.

“How about tuna and bacon tonight?” he said. “Good for your ticker.”

Fraley scraped the food into a plastic bowl and stood watching as Clementine enthusiastically went about devouring it.

“Pops is gonna get out of these smelly clothes. You let me know when you’re ready to go out.”

Immediately after the raid, Fraley had made the hundred-mile drive to Knoxville to hand-deliver Natasha’s hair samples to the lab. While he was there, he managed to convince the lab supervisor to give the DNA comparison top priority, which meant Fraley should hear something by tomorrow afternoon.

After driving back, Fraley set about trying to identify the necklace he’d taken from Natasha. The cross was somewhat unique in that it had been manufactured in the form of a ribbon with a small diamond at its center. He began by driving to Gladys Brockwell’s daughter’s home. He showed her the gold cross, but she said she’d never seen it. She also said her mother had become an avid Internet shopper. If she’d purchased the necklace over the Internet, Fraley knew the forensic computer analysts could find the transaction. The problem was it could take days, even weeks.

So Fraley hit the streets. He showed the necklace to eight different jewelers before he found someone who recognized it and could identify the manufacturer and the regional distributor. Once he had the distributor’s name, Fraley tried to contact them by phone, but by that time it was nearly seven o’clock and no one was manning the company’s switchboard. It would have to wait until morning.

After grabbing a bite to eat, Fraley had gone to the hospital to see Dillard. He found him in the intensive care waiting room looking haggard and worried. He hadn’t shaved, the lines in his forehead looked drawn and rigid, and there were dark circles beneath both eyes. Though Dillard barely spoke, Fraley had stayed until eleven forty-five. He remembered the agony of his first wife’s death, the feelings of emptiness and loneliness, and he knew it was better for Dillard to have someone around. Besides, Fraley lived only a couple of blocks away.

Dillard managed to say that he’d finally called his children, but he’d instructed both of them to stay at school until the weekend. He said he hoped Caroline would be out of intensive care by then, but the way he said it made Fraley think it would probably be much longer. Dillard had also pointed out Caroline’s mother in the waiting room. He said he thought she somehow blamed him for Caroline’s illness, because she was all the way across the room reading a book. She left around nine without speaking.

Fraley tried to tell Dillard about the raid at Natasha’s and the progress he’d made with the necklace, but nothing he said seemed to have any effect. It was like talking to a mannequin. Sheriff Bates had shown up around nine, so for a little while, Fraley at least had someone to talk to.

Fraley donned his favorite flannel pajamas and went to the refrigerator. He grabbed a can of Budweiser and went into the den. Just as he was about to sit down, Clementine meowed again, signaling that she was ready. Fraley opened the front door and let her outside. He sat down in the recliner, sipping his beer and watching a rerun of his favorite show, Law amp; Order. Just as he finished his beer, he heard the cat scratching, got up, and let her back inside.

“Pops is bushed,” he said, “and he’s going to bed.”

An hour after Fraley lay down, a noise awakened him. He lay in bed listening for a few seconds, heard it again. It was a soft thump, as though someone were knocking on the side of the house. It sounded as if it were coming from just outside the back door. Fraley sat up and reached into the drawer of his bedside table and retrieved his pistol. Leaving the lights off, he crept through the house in his pajamas, stopping briefly at the closet to pick up a flashlight. He moved silently to the front door, let himself out slowly, tiptoed down the front steps, and moved along the wall on the side of the house, his heart pounding. The wind was whipping and the ground beneath his bare feet was cold and hard. When he reached the corner of the house, Fraley flipped on the flashlight. The small backyard was quiet and still except for the wind. He walked slowly all the way around the house, finding nothing. As he doubled back, he heard a scraping sound. He looked towards the sound and realized a maple that needed trimming was rubbing against the house in the wind.

Fraley’s feet were beginning to go numb because of the cold, so he moved quickly back around the side and up the steps. Clementine regarded him curiously as he locked the door behind him.

“Sorry, honey,” he said. “I guess Pops is getting a little jumpy in his old age.”

Fraley bent over, picked up his pet, and carried her off to the bedroom. Ten minutes later, he was sound asleep, his left hand resting on his beloved cat, his right hand resting on his revolver.

I’d been at the hospital for thirty-six hours, unable to sleep or eat, barely able to communicate. The sparse news I received about Caroline was dire, and I kept experiencing feelings of desperation and hopelessness. My head was pounding, my throat was dry, and it seemed that every joint in my body ached whenever I attempted to move.

The intensive care waiting room was recently constructed, a large, open space with a skylight above, comfortable chairs, and tapestries on the walls. Jack and Lilly were calling every hour or so for updates, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them how serious Caroline’s condition really was. Fraley and Leon Bates both stopped by sometime during the evening, but I had very little recollection of anything they said.

I was sitting in the chair with my eyes closed and my feet propped up on a table in front of me when my cell phone rang. I opened my eyes to find that I was the only person left in the waiting room. I picked the cell up off of the table next to me and didn’t recognize the number that was calling. I looked at my watch-twelve minutes after two in the morning. I pushed the button and lifted the phone to my ear.

“She’s killing the policeman! She’s killing the policeman!” a female voice screamed.

“What? Who is this?”

“Natasha! She’s killing him!”

I suddenly recognized the frantic voice. It was Alisha.

“Who?” I said. “Which policeman?”

“Mr. Fraley! You have to help him!”

I stood up, unsure of what to do.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know! He’s in bed!”

I pushed the button on the phone and started running down the hall towards the stairs. Along the way, I dialed 911.

“Nine-one-one dispatch, what’s your emergency?” a female voice said.

“This is Joe Dillard. I’m an assistant district attorney, and I’m calling to report what might be a murder in progress,” I said breathlessly as I started down the steps.

“A murder in progress?” she said in a skeptical voice. “Where are you, sir?”

“I’m on my way there. You need to send someone to Hank Fraley’s house. He’s a TBI agent and he lives on Cranston Street.”

“Do you have the address?”

“No, goddammit! Hank Fraley! TBI agent! Cranston Street! He’s being attacked right now! Get the police and an ambulance over there!”

I pushed my way through the door that led to the parking lot and entered the cold night air. The wind was blowing so hard that it almost knocked me off balance as I ran towards my truck.

“Did you say your name is Joe Dillard?” I heard the dispatcher say.

“Yes! I’m an assistant district attorney. Have you sent a patrol car?”

“How do you know that a murder might be in progress, Mr. Dillard?”

“What fucking difference does that make?” I yelled. “It’s happening!”

I jumped into the truck and tossed the cell phone down on the seat next to me. Fraley’s house was a short distance from the hospital. If I got there in time, maybe I could get my hands on Natasha, or, at the very least, keep Fraley alive until the paramedics arrived.

It took me only a couple of minutes to get to Fraley’s. I parked the truck near the curb right in front of the house and turned on the emergency flashers, hoping the police would see them and know exactly where to come. As I sprinted towards the front door, I realized I wasn’t armed. I stopped, turned around, and raced back to the truck. I opened the passenger-side door and reached beneath the seat, where I kept a tire tool and a jack. I felt the cold steel of the tire tool, pulled it out, and ran back towards the house and up the front steps. The house was completely dark. I opened the storm door and grabbed the doorknob, hollering Fraley’s name at the same time. The door was locked. I broke out a window with the tire tool, reached inside, and unlocked the dead bolt and the knob.

I kept telling myself that Alisha was wrong, that she’d probably just experienced a nightmare, that there was no way Fraley would let Natasha get the best of him.

“Fraley!” I called as I stepped into the den. I’d been in the house only once, the night Fraley rode with me to Crossville to get Sarah, but he’d given me a little tour. He showed me the pictures of his family that he’d hung on the wall and his medals from serving in the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam.

The house was dead silent. As I crept down the short hallway towards the bedroom, gripping the tire iron tightly in my right hand, I felt the temperature drop, and I immediately knew Natasha had been there. I heard sirens in the distance just as I reached the bedroom. The door was open slightly, so I gently pushed it with the tire iron. I reached around the doorway with my left hand and slid it against the wall until I felt a light switch.

The scene before me caused my knees to buckle, and I staggered towards the bed, trying to keep my balance. Fraley was faceup, his eyes and mouth wide open. I stood over him and reached down to feel his carotid for a pulse, but he was perfectly still. Fresh blood was everywhere. It covered his face, arms, and pajamas. I forced myself to look more closely, and could make out several puncture wounds. There was blood on the walls, even on the ceiling. The bedroom window was open. Natasha must have made her exit through the window. As I backed awkwardly away from the bed, I noticed something on the floor. It was Fraley’s pistol, and it too was covered in blood.

I reached down and picked up the pistol, the sirens outside growing louder with each passing second. As I tried to decide what I should do next, several images again began flashing through my head: the Becks’ bullet-riddled bodies; Norman Brockwell and his wife, brutally murdered; Sarah’s battered face; Lilly on the ground, fighting for her life; Boyer’s body on the holding cell floor; Fraley’s death stare; and Caroline lying alone, dying from a blood infection. Again I heard the old man’s warning: “If the curse is real, there’s only one way to break it. One of you has to die… One of you has to die… One of you has to die…”

Fraley’s car keys were on the bedside table. I knew a shotgun would be in either the cab or the trunk. I grabbed the keys and hurried out the door, intending to find the shotgun and take off in my truck. The sirens were louder, almost there. The place would soon be filled with uniformed officers and paramedics. If I stuck around I’d be held there for the rest of the night.

Instead of opening the trunk, I jumped in and started Fraley’s car.

Wednesday, November 12

The heavy winds were ushering in a thunderstorm, and as I drove the cruiser across town a blinding bolt of lightning tore through the blackened sky, followed by a clap of thunder that reminded me of an artillery burst. I was conscious on some level that what I was doing was wrong, but after seeing Fraley’s body and the horrific way in which he died, I wasn’t thinking rationally. About halfway to Natasha’s house, I punched Leon Bates’s number into my cell.

“Natasha killed Fraley,” I said when Bates answered in a sleepy voice. “I’m going after her.”

“What? Killed Fraley? When?”

“A few minutes ago. I just left his house. She stabbed him to death.”

“What do you mean, you’re going after her?” Bates asked.

“It’s time somebody put a stop to this.”

“Now, you wait just one damned tick there, ol’ buddy. You can’t go tearing after a suspect with murder in your heart.”

“She’s responsible for at least nine deaths,” I said. “She’s terrorized me and my family. She’s threatened me; she even left a threatening message in my house. I’m going, Leon. You can’t stop me.”

“And what are those beautiful children of yours going to do if she kills you? Especially if Caroline doesn’t make it?”

I hung up on him as soon as he mentioned Caroline’s name. It was the thought of saving her life that was driving me. If I could kill Natasha, maybe it would break the curse, and maybe Caroline would be all right. I tried not to think about what he’d said about my children. I willed myself to think only about what Natasha had done to Caroline and Lilly and Fraley and the Becks and the Brockwells. By the time I got to Natasha’s neighborhood, I was in a blind rage.

I parked Fraley’s car a couple of blocks from Natasha’s and rifled through the trunk. It turned out to be a bonanza-a twelve-gauge pump shotgun, fully loaded with seven shells, and a flashlight. I stuck Fraley’s pistol in my pants pocket and walked quickly up the road in a driving rain. I jogged towards an old Chevy that was parked in the driveway and felt the hood. It was warm.

I crouched beside the car for a few moments, watching the house and listening. Nothing was moving; the house and yard were dark except for occasional flashes of lightning. I became aware of my clothing. I was still wearing the same clothes I’d worn to work the preceding morning. I’d left my coat at the hospital, and my shirt was soaked and sticking to me. A cold chill ran through me, and I decided to move.

I walked slowly up on the front porch and turned the doorknob. It was unlocked, but it squeaked slightly as I opened it. I crouched again and moved just inside the door. Another flash of lightning exploded above me, briefly illuminating an image of Marie Davis sitting in her recliner. I pushed the switch on the flashlight and panned the kitchen and den. Marie, wearing her flowered robe, was staring straight at me, her face as pale as white paper behind the tinted glasses. I moved towards her slowly, still in a crouch.

“Where is she?” I whispered.

She looked away for a brief second and I heard air rushing through her nostrils. When she turned back, she raised her right hand, her index finger pointing towards the back of the house. She mouthed the word outside.

I moved back out through the front door, went down the steps, and put my back against the front of the house. From there, I started sliding along the wall until I got to the corner. I peeked around the side, looking for any sign of Natasha or a dog, seeing nothing. I slid along the side wall until I got to the corner. I raised the flashlight and scanned the backyard. Still nothing. Just as I started to move, I thought I sensed movement behind me. I was conscious of another lightning strike and searing pain, and then I slipped into darkness.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up I was flat on my back with rain pelting down on me, stinging my face. I opened my eyes and first tried to lift my head, but the pain in my temples was so intense when I moved that I nearly threw up. I closed my eyes and lay still, thoroughly confused until I suddenly remembered where I was. Hunting for Natasha. Trying to save my wife. But something had happened. Either I’d been struck by lightning, or someone had hit me.

I tried to sit up, but realized that my arms and legs were restrained. I turned my head from side to side and could see that my wrists were tied to something that had been driven into the ground. Tent stakes? I pulled against them with what little strength I had, but neither of them moved. I lifted my head and could see that my legs were both bound in the same fashion. As I laid my head back down on the cold, soaked earth, I could feel something warm running down the back of my neck, and I knew it must be blood.

The kitten. Natasha and her kitten.

I began to tug at the stakes again, ignoring the pain that was surging down my spine and radiating through my entire body.

C’mon, goddammit! C’mon!

I tried desperately to push the stakes back and pull them towards me. I thought if I could loosen them enough in the ground, I’d be able to pull them up.

As I strained against the ropes, I heard a snarl a few feet away. I turned my head just as a bolt of lightning flashed and could make out a figure standing beneath a small tree, wearing a hood. In its hand was a thick leash, and attached to the leash was a Doberman. A sickening chill overtook me. It was Natasha. My heart began to pound even harder in my chest. She wrapped the leash around the trunk of the tree a couple of times, tied it, took a few steps, and stood directly above me. I knew if I didn’t find a way to free myself soon, I’d be dead.

“I like you in this position,” she said in a calm voice. “If I had more time, I’d build a cross and do it right.”

She knelt down, her knees almost straddling my head. I watched as she reached with her right hand to the ground to retrieve something. She picked up a hammer, the one she must have used to drive the stakes into the ground. Slowly, she reached into a coat pocket and pulled out an ice pick. She began waving the pick back and forth in front of my eyes.

“Have you come to arrest me?” she said. “Or have you come to kill me? I think you’re here to kill me. And what does that say about you, Mr. Dillard? It says you’re no different than me. You came to punish me for violating your Christian laws, just like I punish those who deserve it. Or did you come to sacrifice yourself so others might live? Do you have a Jesus complex, Mr. Dillard? Do you?”

She bent close to the ground and put her lips next to my ear.

“I wish I could crucify you,” she whispered, “but since I can’t nail you to the ground, I’ll have to settle for this.”

She moved quickly to her right, still on her knees. I saw her hold the ice pick against my right forearm, felt the stab of the steel point. She raised the hammer and brought it down hard. I moaned as the pick drove through my flesh. Oh, my God, how’s it going to feel when she drives it into my throat, my chest, my eye? The pain was unspeakable, but I refused to scream or beg for mercy. The rage I’d felt before I was knocked out had returned. I hated her. I hated her and everything she represented. I put an image of blowing a hole through her with the shotgun in my mind, and kept straining against the ropes.

She pulled the ice pick out, sending another shock of pain through me, then straddled me and began whispering in my ear again.

“The smell of your blood will drive Zeus wild,” she said. “As soon as I finish, I’m going to let him taste you. He hates you anyway. Do you know why? Because I told him you killed his sister. How’s your daughter, anyway?”

She scooted to the left and drove the pick through my other forearm. A wave of nausea came over me, and I turned my head to the side in case I threw up. I didn’t want to drown in my own vomit, but the thought crossed my mind that it might be better than what Natasha had in store for me. She crawled around to my right foot, and I braced again for the pain. But as she lifted the hammer, I heard another female voice.

“Stop hurting him, Natasha.”

Was I hallucinating? Maybe, but when I looked at Natasha, there was a look of surprise, maybe bewilderment, on her face.

“You!” Natasha hissed as she slowly stood. “What are you doing here?”

I heard a squishing sound, footsteps, and looked back and to my left. Alisha was standing there, and in her hands she held Fraley’s shotgun. The dog continued to snarl and bark. I could see it pulling against the leash. Please, God, don’t let the leash break. Please.

“Leave him alone, Natasha. Let him go.”

“Or what? Are you going to shoot me?” Natasha started walking slowly towards her sister as she spoke. “You, the good daughter, the gentle soul, the Wiccan princess? You’ve never hurt anything in your life. You don’t have the strength.”

“Stop, Natasha, or I’ll pull the trigger.”

“Go ahead!” Natasha yelled. “You can’t hurt me anyway. Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know that I’m the daughter of Satan?”

She began to speak in the same language I’d heard at the courthouse, continuing to move towards Alisha. As she spoke, she quickened her step. Suddenly, she raised the ice pick and lunged at Alisha.

The shotgun belched fire and smoke and thunder, and Natasha was lifted off the ground. I heard a thud as she landed, and I strained to see if she was moving. Alisha dropped the shotgun and began working on the ropes holding my arms. As soon as they were free, I tried to help her loosen the ropes on my ankles, but my fingers wouldn’t work. Blood was pouring out of the wounds in my forearms, and when I tried to stand, pain and dizziness forced me back to my knees. I looked over at Natasha-she was faceup a few feet away. Her shirt was stained with dark blood.

She bleeds. I guess she’s human after all.

I crawled over to the shotgun and picked it up. The dog had suddenly grown quiet. I didn’t want to kill it, but if it broke free and came after us, I knew I wouldn’t have a choice. Alisha hooked her hand beneath my arm and helped me get to my feet. I noticed headlights coming down the road towards the driveway. I turned back and stood looking down at Natasha. My forearms felt like they were on fire, and my head felt as if it were about to explode with every beat of my heart. With Alisha still holding my arm for support, and using the shotgun as a crutch, I knelt back down next to Natasha and felt for a pulse.

Nothing.

At last, the wicked witch was dead.

“Help me get to the side of the house,” I said to Alisha as she pulled me up from my knees. “I think someone’s coming.”

The storm had lost some of its ferocity, but rain continued to fall. We got to the corner of the house just as the car pulled into the driveway. As it moved closer, I recognized the Crown Victoria. It was Leon Bates.

I turned to Alisha and gently touched her cheek. Her long hair was plastered to the sides of her face, rainwater dripping from her chin.

“You have to go now,” I said. “You have to get out of here. I don’t want him to see you.”

“What? What do you mean?” she said. She seemed to be in a state of semi-shock.

“Go in the back door, get those wet clothes off, and stay inside until they come to question you. Tell them you don’t know what happened. Tell them you were too scared to look outside.”

“But why?” she said. “I… I…”

I was thinking about Lee Mooney and Freeley Sells and their desire to see someone suffer publicly for crimes that had been committed in their district. I was thinking about political agendas and scapegoats. I was thinking about how corrupt the system could be.

“Please, Alisha, I know how things work. I’m afraid of what they might do to you. They might arrest you. They might charge you with murder. I’m not going to let it happen.”

The interior light in Bates’s car came on, and I heard the door slam.

“Go!” I said. “Please, just go inside and don’t ever say a word to anyone.”

She looked at me desperately, her face a mosaic of fear, confusion, and sadness. I saw her make the decision, and she disappeared around the corner of the house. I heard the door to the back porch creak, and I knew she was safe.

Without Alisha, I was unable to stand for more than a few seconds, and I dropped once again to my knees. The beam of a flashlight was making its way towards me slowly.

“Here!” I yelled, immediately regretting it because of the pain. The beam was on me instantly, and then Leon Bates was over me, water pouring off of the plastic cover of his cowboy hat.

“Damn, brother, are you all right?” Bates said.

“No.”

“What the hell happened here? Where is she?”

I pointed over my shoulder with my thumb. “Over there. She’s dead. Watch out for the dog.”

Bates walked immediately to the spot where Natasha lay. I watched as he surveyed the scene: the body, the tent stakes and the ropes, the shotgun, the ice pick. The Doberman didn’t make a sound. I saw Bates pick up a shovel and examine it closely with the flashlight. He looked towards the back of the house and disappeared from sight for a minute. When he returned, he stood over me again.

“You’re bleeding like a stuck hog, Dillard,” he said. “We’d best get an ambulance out here, pronto.”

He hoisted me to my feet and we made our way to his car. As he opened the back door on the passenger side, he told me to wait for a minute.

“I’ve got some plastic in the trunk,” he said. “Let me cover the seat. I don’t want you bleeding all over my damned vehicle.”

Once I was in the backseat, Bates got on the radio. I felt myself sliding towards unconsciousness. Time passed, I don’t know how much, and Bates was leaning over me again, checking my wounds.

“You gotta stay awake now,” he said. “Don’t go slipping into no coma on me.”

I was conscious of him kneeling next to me, dabbing the wounds on my arms with something. I opened my eyes and saw a first-aid kit sitting on the ground.

“Talk to me, Dillard,” he said.

I opened my eyes and tried to focus, but I felt as though the life were ebbing out of me like an ocean tide.

“Who killed her?” Bates said.

“I did,” I whispered.

“I don’t reckon that’s true, brother. Don’t take no genius to figure out what happened over there. Somebody got staked out on the ground, and judging by the blood on the ice pick and the shovel and the wounds to your head and your arms, I’m guessing it was you. I don’t reckon you was in much shape to defend yourself after she whacked you in the head with that shovel and tied you up, so somebody had to help you, and I reckon that somebody is the person who left those wet footprints on the back porch when she went in the house.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head as much as I could without passing out from the pain. “No, Leon, please don’t. Please!”

“Why?” Bates said. “Why are you doing this?”

“She saved my life,” I whispered. “She had to kill her own sister. She’s already paid enough. Please don’t throw her to the wolves. Just let her be.”

He stared at me for a long moment, his mouth slightly agape. Even in the state I was in, I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind as he pondered his next move. His eyes suddenly flew open wide, as though he’d experienced some kind of revelation.

“You with me? You with me, Dillard?” he said as he shook my shoulder. “You understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded as best as I could.

“All right, here’s the deal. You found Fraley’s body; you knew it had to be Natasha that killed him, so you came over here to check it out and you called me on your way. Once you got here, she ambushed you in the backyard. She staked you out and drove that ice pick through your arms. Just when she was about to finish you off, I showed up. I tried to get her to back off, but she came at me and I killed her. That makes a hell of a lot more sense, and it makes me a goddamned hero.”

“It was Fraley’s shotgun,” I whispered.

“Hell, son, I got one, too. I’ll just run up there and get Fraley’s, wipe it down real good, and put it back in his car. Where was it?”

“Trunk.”

“Okay. Now, do we have the story straight? They’ll be here any minute.”

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“No need to thank me. You owe me now, Dillard.” He popped a cold pack and set it on the back of my head.

“Yes, sir, you owe me. And believe me, one day I’ll collect.”

Six months later… Friday, May 15

I’m sitting in the vacant jury room just down the hallway from the courtroom in Jonesborough. Jim Beaumont, his blue eyes gleaming like a South Pacific island lagoon, is brushing a tear from his cheek as he recounts the story.

“You should have seen the look on his face when I plopped those photographs down on his desk.” Beaumont chortles. “He thought I was there to beg for mercy or to try to make some kind of deal. I made a deal, all right! The deal of the century!”

His laughter is infectious, and my diaphragm begins to cramp slightly as I pound the table. I’ve heard the story at least a half dozen times, but each time he tells it he enhances it a little, and I can’t get enough.

“The one with his thumb up that girl’s ass was my favorite. I nearly pissed myself when I saw it! Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!”

Prostitutes, and the younger the better.

That was the secret his retired FBI guys unearthed in Cumberland County. It took them just over two weeks to find out what was beneath Freeley Sells’s skirt, another three days to set him up and get their video and photographs. The girl cost me five thousand dollars, but I considered it money well spent.

“He wilted like an orchid in a blizzard!” Beaumont says. “I thought he was gonna run over to the jail and let Sarah out himself!”

“I surrender,” I say, holding up my hands and trying to catch my breath. “You’re killing me.”

His mood changes suddenly as something catches his eye. It takes only a second before I realize what it is. I’d taken my jacket off when we entered the room and hung it on the back of my chair. I’m wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and Beaumont is looking at the scars on my forearms.

“They’re fading,” he says.

I put my arms on the table, embarrassed. “Yeah. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“You’ve been through a lot, you and your wife.”

“We’re still standing.”

“I admire both of you.”

I passed out in the ambulance on the way to the hospital the night Natasha met her demise, and when I woke up almost twenty-four hours later, Caroline, Lilly, and Jack were all standing over me. Caroline’s white cell count had risen during the early-morning hours as quickly as it had fallen a couple of days before, and although the doctors attributed her miraculous recovery to their regimen of antibiotics, I wondered whether the true explanation was something far beyond their-and my-understanding.

Caroline has since endured a breast reconstruction and another round of chemotherapy. She still faces six weeks of radiation, but her hair is starting to come back in, and during the entire ordeal, she’s missed less than two weeks of work. I’ve loved and respected Caroline since I was a teenager, but as I watch her deal so bravely with the calamity of cancer, my respect for her grows exponentially with each passing day.

Hank Fraley’s daughter took him to Nashville to be buried less than a week after he was killed. I was still a little woozy from the blow to my head, but the family and I made it to the funeral. I was amazed at how much Fraley’s daughter, whose name is Jessica, resembled the photograph of Fraley’s wife that he’d shown me in his office. Jessica was a beautiful young woman, very gracious. I cried when they put him in the ground. He’d become a good friend, and I miss him.

Sarah was released the same day Jim Beaumont had his meeting with Freeley Sells. She’s stopped going to church. I drop by to see her at least three times a week, but she’s withdrawn and sullen. She says she hasn’t heard from Robert Godsey. I suspect she might be drinking again.

Leon Bates convinced every law enforcement agency in the region-and the media-that he killed Natasha in self-defense. A Johnson City detective came and questioned me in the hospital, but the questions were cursory and he didn’t stay long. I lied to him, but I don’t regret it. What’s right isn’t always what’s legal. Bates has since become a folk hero. He’s appeared on a half dozen national talk shows and has let the news leak that he’s thinking about running for state senator when his term as sheriff expires. He told me a couple of weeks ago he might even consider a run for the United States Senate.

I agreed to a plea deal with Alexander Dunn’s attorney. Alexander pleaded guilty to one count of accepting a bribe as a public official and agreed to serve six months in jail and another two years on probation. Despite the fact that Leon Bates told me Lee Mooney wasn’t involved in the extortion scheme, Alexander’s attorney convinced me otherwise. After that, I couldn’t bring myself to drop the hammer on Alexander, and I find it difficult to look Mooney in the eye every day.

I haven’t seen or heard from Alisha, but my experience with her and Natasha has changed me in a fundamental way. Although I still don’t believe I know the answers to questions of eternity, I’ve become much more reverent, and instead of just gazing at the rising sun each morning, which has long been my habit, I take a little time to pray.

A bailiff sticks his head through the door.

“The judge is ready for you,” he says.

I stand and put on my jacket as Beaumont does the same.

“This is certainly unusual, isn’t it?” he says.

“I guess it is.”

We walk out to the courtroom, and I take my seat at the prosecution table. Beaumont goes straight to the podium as his client steps through the bar and walks up to be arraigned.

The elderly woman Billy Dockery has attacked and robbed is in a coma, but this time he cut his hand breaking into her house and left his blood at the scene. Dockery is charged with attempted first-degree murder, burglary, and theft of over five thousand dollars.

He’s looking at forty years in prison.

I intend to make sure he gets what he deserves.