Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

“Is that the only reason you broke out? So you could kill your mother?”

He smiled.

“And the Tate woman? Why?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “She got the drop on them deputies, handed me the gun, and then drove me out of there, just like I told her. She was as responsible as me for them getting killed. I didn’t figure she’d like it in jail, so I did her a favor. Besides, I didn’t need her no more.”

“So now you’ve got four more counts of murder,” I said. “The two deputies, Bonnie Tate, and your mother.”

“I know how many was killed. I can count.”

“The judge wants to try you for the teenagers first, then the police officers, then Bonnie, and then your mother, but they have a little problem. The law says they have to arraign you on these charges as soon as possible. Normally they do it within seventy-two hours of your arrest, but with your security situation, they have some leeway. I have a waiver here I need you to sign. It gives them up to thirty days to arraign you on the new charges, but they’ll probably do it in the next week or two. You don’t have to sign it, but you might as well. You’re eventually going to end up on death row anyway.”

I pulled the document from my briefcase and stood to approach him. He was trussed up like a chicken, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. I set my briefcase on his thighs and put the pen in his right hand. He scrawled his signature on the line.

“They can’t kill me but once, you know,” he said.

“Are you finished now, Maynard? You’ve killed your mother. Is that enough? Or are you going to kill anybody you can kill between now and the time they stick a needle in your arm?”

“You ain’t gonna have to worry about me much longer.”

“Why? You contemplating suicide?”

“Nah, I like myself too much for that. But they’ll get me in here, Dillard. You mark my words.”

“Who?”

“I killed two cops in this county. You think they’re gonna to let me live?”

“You’re in a max block, in case you haven’t noticed. Nobody can get to you in here.”

“The guards can. I won’t make it another week. But that’s all right. I’ve lived my life, and now I got my revenge.”

I walked to the door and opened it, and the three sturdy young guards stepped in. They took Maynard back and I ran the gauntlet of catcalls again on my way out. Once I was clear of the max unit, I thought about what Maynard had said. The chances that Darren and David Bowers had friends and relatives working at the prison were good. For a moment, I thought I should do something, maybe file a motion and have Maynard transferred out of Johnson County for his own protection. Then I thought about the argument I’d have to assert — that it was likely the guards at Northeast would conspire to murder him. I imagined myself making that argument in front of Judge Glass. He’d throw me under the jail.

Maynard, I decided, was on his own.

July 10

9:45 a.m.

Agent Landers looked down at his ringing cell phone, then over at the naked blonde lying next to him. His head was throbbing again. The woman wasn’t nearly as young as she looked last night. Must have been the bad lighting in the bar. Or the whiskey.

He was supposed to have rest of the week off. He and Bull Deakins were planning to drive down to Hotlanta for a couple of days. They were going to catch a Braves game and visit the Golden Pony, maybe round up a couple of fillies and ride them for a night or two.

The phone number on the caller ID was the district attorney’s. Wonderful. Landers pulled a sheet up over the woman’s head so he didn’t have to look at her and answered the call.

“Landers.”

“Phil, it’s Frankie Martin. We have a serious problem. Our only witness against Angel Christian is dead.”

Deacon Baker had assigned the Angel Christian case to Martin, who was only four years out of law school and had never tried a murder case. Martin didn’t know it, but Deacon was setting him up to be a scapegoat. If the case went south, Martin might as well pack the suntan lotion, because he’d end up going south with it.

“Julie Hayes?” Landers said. “How?”

“They found her at her place yesterday afternoon. She didn’t show up for work, so Erlene Barlowe sent one of her gofers over to check on her. She was dead on the kitchen floor. The Washington County investigator who worked the scene said it looked like she might have been poisoned, so I asked the medical examiner to rush the preliminary autopsy. M.E. says she was full of cocaine and strychnine.”

Landers had heard of lacing cocaine with strychnine at a DEA seminar. It was a relatively simple process that produced an agonizing death.

“Any ideas on who might have done it?” Landers said.

“I certainly have a candidate in mind.”

“You think it was Erlene Barlowe?”

“Who else would kill her?”

“You think she killed her to keep her from testifying against Angel? I think you’re reaching, Frankie. Why would she risk murdering somebody to help Angel out? The kid had only been around a couple of months when we arrested her. Barlowe barely knows her.”

“At this point, I think Barlowe probably murdered the preacher, too.”

“Then why would she kill a witness who was about to help us convict someone else? Doesn’t make any sense. And in case you haven’t looked close, we have less on Barlowe than we do on Angel.” Landers hated working with kid lawyers. They were too dumb to live.

“Deacon told me this morning about the witness who saw Barlowe on the bridge,” Martin said.

“Do you know what Deacon told me about that witness? He said the guy was unreliable. He said there was no way he could have made an ID like that in the dark. He said for me to ignore him.”

“What are we going to do, Phil? This case was weak enough with Hayes. Without her, I might as well dismiss it.”

“I wasn’t hot to take it to the grand jury in the first place. You can thank your boss for that. He said he wanted to shake the tree.”

“Him and his tree. Dillard’s going to kick my butt in court. I’m going to be a laughing-stock. Every newspaper and television station within fifty miles is covering this case, and everybody around is going to be watching while I go down. There’s an election coming up, and in case you guys over there at the TBI don’t pay attention to stuff like that, losing a high-profile murder case a week before an election is not good politics. Baker will fire me over this.”

“It’s not going to help my career either, Frankie.”

“Why didn’t we have her tucked away as a material witness?”

“Because she never gave me any indication she was going anywhere.”

“Did you know she was a coke head?”

“I had my suspicions.” Landers felt a hand running up his leg and pushed it away. It returned, and he pushed it away again. He was thinking about how much he hated lawyers, prosecutors included. Every time something went wrong with a case, they blamed it on the police. He also hated aging bleached blondes like the one next to him. He wished she would just get up and leave.

“We need to try to make the best of this,” Frankie said. “I talked to Deacon a little while ago, and we’ve come up with a plan. We’re going to make Dillard an offer he can’t refuse on the Christian case, but if it doesn’t work, we’re going to need your help.”

“I have the rest of the week off, Frankie. Call me on Monday.”

Landers hung up and turned to the woman, who was peeking out over the sheet. Her left eyelash was twice as long as her right one, which must have come off during the sexcapades last night. No doubt he’d find it in the bed later. Ugh. The roots of her blond hair were dark, and so was the mole just above her left nostril. Landers had absolutely no clue what her name might be.