Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

“It was Julie Hayes, wasn’t it?”

Mr. Dillard nodded.

“Did anybody else at the club tell the police anything like that?” Erlene said.

“No ma’am. She was the only one.”

“What does that tell you, sugar?”

“It tells me that either she’s lying or everyone else is lying.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think I want to hear you tell me she’s lying.”

Erlene smiled. Mr. Dillard was so handsome and she could just feel goodness oozing out of him.

“She’s the one who’s lying, baby doll.”

Erlene told him about Julie and her drug problem and her crush on Gus. She told him how Julie came back on a bus from Texas with Angel after they’d met in the bus station down there. Julie had noticed that Angel didn’t have any luggage, not even a purse, so Julie knew right off that Angel was probably a runaway. Since Angel was so pretty, Julie asked her if she’d like to tag along and maybe work in the club. When Erlene picked Julie up at the bus station in Johnson City, Angel was with her.

“So you think Julie’s setting you and Angel up for a murder because she’s jealous?” Mr. Dillard said.

“I wouldn’t put anything past her. She’s a troubled girl. I’ve heard her talk about her arrest record. She bragged about it. She used to tell Gus she had a record as long as his terwilliger.”

“As long as his what?”

“Terwilliger. It’s what I call a man’s thingy. You know…” Erlene pointed between her legs, and Mr. Dillard’s face turned red as her lipstick.

“What else do you know about Julie?”

“Just what she’s told me. She said her mother’s boyfriend tried to rape her when she was sixteen. When she told her mother about it, her mother accused her of lying and beat her up pretty bad. She took off and has been on the road ever since. I think her life has been pretty much nothing but drugs and prostitution. That’s one of the reasons she likes to work here. The money’s good enough that the girls don’t have to sell themselves. But Julie just can’t seem to stay away from the drugs. She has to know I’m about to fire her again.”

“Okay,” Mr. Dillard said. “That helps. It looks like we can impeach Julie if she testifies. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

“What question is that?”

“Is a red Corvette going to jump up and bite us on the backside sometime between now and the trial?”

“I just don’t see how it could, sugar.”

“Good. I’ll put an investigator on Julie Hayes and gather all the background information we can on her. From what you’ve told me, we shouldn’t have much trouble helping her make herself look bad in front of a jury.”

Mr. Dillard didn’t know it and Erlene wasn’t about to tell him, but Julie Hayes wouldn’t be going in front of any jury.

“We have another problem,” he said. “Two hairs they found on Tester’s shirt match Angel’s DNA.”

“Is that bad, sugar?”

“It’s a problem, but I don’t think it’s insurmountable. I’m going to suggest a couple of Angel’s hairs could have passed to Tester while he was at the club.”

“He was all over her,” Erlene said.

“That’s not what you told the TBI.”

Dang it again! “That TBI man scared me to death, honey. I didn’t know what to say to him.”

“From now on, Erlene, I’d suggest you just stick to the truth. In this case, it looks like the truth may set Angel free.”

He was so cute and noble. Erlene just wanted to pinch his cheeks.

June 6

5:45 a.m.

I liked to watch the sun rise on Sunday mornings. The Sunday after they arraigned Angel Christian, I got up around five-thirty, made a pot of coffee, and wandered up the driveway in the darkness in my bare feet and boxers to get the newspaper. As I got to the end of the driveway, I noticed a silver pick-up truck, one of those macho Dodges with tinted windows, illuminated by our security light, backed into the dirt road that led into the woods across the street from the mailbox. It was the same place where I’d counted Erlene’s money. The headlights weren’t on and I couldn’t hear the engine running. The property where the truck was sitting belonged to me. It wasn’t hunting season, and no one had asked me about camping, so I decided to check it out.

I got the paper out of the box and started walking toward the truck. Just as I got to within ten feet, the engine roared to life and the lights came on. I thought it was probably one of Jack’s friends, so I started to wave and say hello, but the thing started coming right for me. I jumped out of the way before it hit me, but it couldn’t have missed by more than a couple of feet. When I landed, my foot caught on a small bush and I ended up flat on my back. The truck came off of the dirt road and squealed off down the road. I didn’t get a look at the driver over the headlights, and my clumsy leap kept me from seeing the license plate.

I cursed and picked myself up off the ground and walked back down the driveway toward the house, wondering who could have been in the truck. I thought about the look Tester’s son had given me and made a mental note to call Diane Frye, a retired state trooper who was now a private investigator. I’d already talked to her about working the Angel Christian case for me, but now I needed to know whether Tester’s son had a silver Dodge truck registered in his name, and if he did, I needed to know anything and everything she could find out about him.

That’s when I noticed Lilly’s car was gone. We had room for only two cars in the garage, so Lilly’s was always parked just outside, off to the side of the driveway. I knew it had been there the night before, because Lilly had driven it to Knoxville and hadn’t gotten home until midnight. I’d waited up for her.

I went back into the house and upstairs to Lilly’s room. She wasn’t the kind of kid to sneak out, but I was hoping against hope that she had. I found her sleeping the dead-zone sleep of a teenager.

As I walked to Sarah’s room, I was hoping the car had been stolen by some stranger, knowing it hadn’t. Sarah’s bed was unmade and empty.

She’d been doing relatively well under the circumstances. Caroline and Lilly had taken her to town to buy her some clothes a couple of days after she showed up, and I’d brought her a catalogue from Northeast State Community College. She’d talked about enrolling in the fall and studying computer graphics. She spent a lot of time wandering through the woods down by the lake and watching television, and she’d been attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings four days a week.

But then I made a mistake. I took her up to see Ma on Saturday. Ma didn’t recognize either one of us and was unusually belligerent. She told us to get out of her room and never come back. She made such a fuss that one of the nurses suggested we leave and come back another time. The visit obviously upset Sarah, who was hoping to make some kind of peace before Ma died. Sarah hadn’t given any indication on Saturday night that she was about to do something stupid, but she was more quiet than usual and had gone to bed early.

I walked back through the house to our bedroom and touched Caroline on the shoulder. She came out of sleep slowly.

“Mmm…what? Is something wrong?”

“Sarah’s gone,” I said. “In Lilly’s car.”

She didn’t seem to understand for a moment. Then she sat straight up. “Oh no,” she said. “I dreamed last night that she ran away.”

“We better take a look around and make sure nothing’s missing.”

“What do you think she took besides the car?”

“I don’t know, but you better make sure she didn’t steal anything out of your purse, and you should check your jewelry. Lilly’s, too. I’ll check the electronics and the guns.”