Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

It was hard to think of my sister as a thief, but that’s exactly what she’d been in the past. She’d stolen money from me, and Ma had been a favorite target. I wandered around the house for the next fifteen minutes, checking to make sure she hadn’t hauled off a computer or a television or a stereo system. When I was finished, I walked back into the kitchen. Caroline was sitting at the table drinking a bottled water. She looked at me, and I knew the news was going to be bad.

“My diamond necklace is gone.” I’d given Caroline the necklace for Christmas five years ago. She’d never owned anything expensive, and seeing the look on her face when she opened the box had given me great pleasure. She kept it in a jewelry box in a drawer in the bedroom. If it was gone, Sarah must have snuck in there and stolen it during the night.

“Dammit,” I said. “ Damm it! How could she do this?”

“I guess we were expecting too much,” Caroline said.

“I thought she might be ready to change. I thought I might be able to help her.”

“When she’s ready to change, if she’s ever ready to change, she’ll do it on her own. We can’t force it on her. What do you think we should do?”

“She’s taken a ten-thousand- dollar car and a five-thousand-dollar necklace. What do you think I should do?”

Caroline sighed. “I don’t know, babe. Maybe you should go out and try to find her.”

“I’ve been down that road before. You know she’s high by now. I guarantee she’s already sold the necklace for peanuts or traded it for coke. If I found her at some dealer’s house I’d end up defending myself in court after I killed the somebody. I guess I’ll just call Johnson City’s finest and see if they can pick her up before she sells the car to some chop-shopper.”

The phone rang. Maybe it was Sarah, ready to turn back before she crossed the line.

“Mr. Dillard?” a male voice said when I answered.

“Yes.”

“Hi, this is Matthew Miller with the Johnson City Police Department. Haven’t seen you in a while. You okay these days?”

I knew Matthew Miller. I knew most of the cops in Johnson City. Matthew was a good guy.

“I’m fine, Officer Miller. Tell me you found my daughter’s car.”

“A Chrysler Sebring, maroon in color, Washington County plate number QRS-433?”

“It was stolen last night.”

“Well, sir, I’m afraid I have some more bad news. We found it wrecked this morning off of Knob Creek Road. Went down an embankment and rolled across a creek. Ended up against a tree. I’d say it’s totaled, and-”

“What about the driver?”

“No driver,” Miller said. “No trace. Any idea who was behind the wheel?”

“It was probably my sister. She disappeared sometime last night.”

“I thought she was locked up.” Sarah was infamous. Everybody knew her.

“She got out a couple of weeks ago. She was staying here.”

“I guess no good deed goes unpunished,” Miller said. “We’re pretty much finished up here. I’m going to have the car towed down to Brown’s Mill Chevron, you can take it from there. The air bags inflated and there’s no blood, so if it was your sister, she probably made it out okay.”

“Thanks. Can you send somebody out here to take a report? She took some jewelry, too.”

“Probably be best if you just call 9-1-1,” he said. “They’ll send the right people.”

I thanked Miller and hung up.

“She wrecked it,” I said to Caroline. “She wrecked Lilly’s car. I’m calling the cops. I’m through with her.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I’m serious. She committed two felonies under my roof. She stole and wrecked my daughter’s car and stole your necklace. With her record, they’ll ship her off to the penitentiary where she belongs. She won’t see the light of day again for at least four years, maybe longer.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Caroline said. “I don’t want you beating yourself up about it later.”

I picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

June 9

10 a.m.

Two days later I got a call from a drug enforcement agent I’d known for ten years. He said they’d picked Sarah up in a crack house on Wilson Avenue around midnight on Monday. He thought I might like to know.

I drove straight to the jail. On the way, my cell phone rang. It was Diane Frye.

“The answer is yes,” she said when I picked up the phone. “John Paul Tester Junior owns a silver Dodge Ram pick-up.” It was the same color, make, and model of the truck that had almost run over me.

“So what else did you find out about him?”

“Born December 1, 1972, to John Paul and Debra Jean Tester in Newport. His mother died of ovarian cancer when the boy was only two. Raised by his father, who was a journeyman welder when he wasn’t preaching the gospel. When he was on the road, which was often, Junior stayed with an aunt. Talked to the aunt, nice lady named Wanda Smithers who has since moved to Ocala, Florida. She said Junior idolized his daddy. She said the boy’s favorite thing to do when he was a boy was to go to church and listen to his daddy preach. Said he’d sit on the front row and hang on every word.

“By the time Junior was ten years old, he was already studying the bible and ‘testifying’ for his father. Started preaching when he was a teenager. When he wasn’t preaching, he spent almost all of his time in his room. Never had a girlfriend, didn’t show any interest in any school activities or sports. The gospel was his whole life. The aunt says that after he got out of high school, Junior and his father started traveling together. They preached all over the southeast. She says they’re somewhat of a legend among the fundamentalists.”

“You’re amazing, Diane. You learned all that in two days?”

“It’s my charm and personality. That and the fact that the aunt talked my ear off.”

“Anything else?”

“The aunt said she visited last year for a weekend. Said Junior stayed in his room and studied, just like when he was a boy. She also said Daddy Tester wasn’t as committed to the faith as Junior. She said he tended to drink heavily every so often and that he liked the ladies.”

“I wonder if the son knew about that,” I said.

“Probably. Be kind of hard to hide for an entire lifetime. I also talked to a couple of people down at the Cocke County sheriff’s department. Daddy Tester apparently had some political clout and got Junior his job. He’s been there for more than ten years as a chaplain. He counsels the officers, works with inmates at the jail, that sort of stuff. The people I talked to said everybody down there thinks Junior’s a nut job. He apparently won’t talk about anything but the gospel, and since his daddy was killed, he hardly talks at all.”

“Anything violent?”

“No criminal record. The aunt said he’s gentle. Doesn’t remember him ever even getting into a fist fight. But she said he’s changed since his father’s death. She came up for the funeral and said he acted awfully strange.”

“Thanks. Send me a bill.”

“It’s already in the mail.”

A half-hour after I got off the phone with Diane, a guard brought Sarah into the interview room. She looked like she’d aged fifteen years. When she saw I was there, she didn’t bother to sit at the table, she just put her hands over her face and slid down the wall onto the floor. The sight of her no longer made me sad. All I felt was anger.

“Have a good time?” I said.

“Go to hell.”

“Go to hell? That’s great. You did a nice job on Lilly’s car. I really appreciate that.”

“Yeah, well, tell her I’m sorry. I haven’t driven in a while.”