Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

The people of Johnson County didn’t understand that I’d been appointed to represent Maynard Bush by a heartless judge who dumped terrible cases on me for his private amusement. What they understood was that I was dressed in a suit, standing beside and speaking on behalf of a sociopath who’d killed two of their own. If they’d known that Maynard had manipulated me into helping him, they’d have strung me up right then and there.

I’d parked my truck a block from the courthouse in an alley. As soon as the arraignment was over, I grabbed my briefcase and headed straight for the back stairs. Once I got to the bottom, I jogged across the spot where David Bowers was shot, got to my truck as quickly as I could, and sped out of Johnson County.

Judge Glass’s plan was to arraign Maynard in Mountain City in the morning and in Elizabethton — for the murder of his mother in Carter County — in the afternoon. The two towns were forty-five minutes apart. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve enjoyed the drive. The road wound through the Cherokee National Forest and along Watauga Lake, which acted as a gigantic mirror for the surrounding mountains. The views were breathtaking. There were times in the past when I might have stopped along the way to take in the scenery, but I didn’t even notice.

I drove all the way back home and went through the mail. There was an opinion from the Supreme Court on Randall Finch’s case. The opinion said Randall had a right to plead guilty at arraignment, and if the state hadn’t bothered to file their death notice in a timely manner, too bad. I couldn’t believe it. I’d won. For once, they put the sophistry aside and used a little common sense. I was pleased until I thought about what I’d really done — helped a baby killer escape a penalty he deserved.

I returned a few phone calls and drove over to Elizabethton. I tried to eat lunch at at a coffee shop on Main Street, but I only picked at the food. Ever since Maynard had killed the Bowers twins, I’d lost my appetite. Food made me nauseous. And I was having trouble making myself work out. Exercise had always been an important part of my daily life. Exercise produced endorphins, and endorphins made me feel good. But I didn’t seem to care about feeling good. I was having more trouble sleeping than ever, and when I looked at myself in the mirror in the mornings, I noticed circles under my eyes that seemed to be getting darker with each passing day.

After I paid the check at the coffee shop, I headed for the Carter County Courthouse, a truly unique structure. I don’t know who the architect was, but the taxpayers should have taken him out and shot him the day he decided it would be a good idea to build the jail directly above the courthouse. It may have seemed like a grand idea at the time, but the reality soon set in. The inmates quickly realized that they could flood the jail by stuffing rolls of toilet paper into the commodes. They also realized that the raw sewage overflowing and spilling onto the floors soon seeped into the courtrooms and clerks’ offices below. I could imagine some inmate having just been sentenced to ten years heading back to his cell and dropping a little dung of his own onto the judge below. It happened often enough that the place smelled like an outhouse.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw an ambulance with its lights flashing near the sally port at the jail. There were also several patrol cars, all with their lights flashing. Somehow, I knew what had happened. Instead of heading inside to the smelly courtroom, I parked and walked directly toward the ambulance.

They were bringing someone out on a gurney just as I turned up the sidewalk toward the sally port. Several police officers were milling around the door that led to the jail. A short, burly female paramedic with bright orange, spiked hair was pushing the gurney. It was obvious that whoever was on the gurney was dead. A sheet had been pulled over the head.

“Step back, sir,” the paramedic said as I approached.

“Is that Maynard Bush?”

“You need to step away and mind your own- ”

I reached down and snatched the sheet back from the head. Maynard’s eyes were wide open, frozen in what must have been a last moment of terror. His tongue was black and swollen and sticking out of his mouth at a macabre angle. There was a dark bruise across his throat. I’d seen enough ligature marks to know what it meant. Maynard had hung himself, or, more likely, someone had hung him.

The orange-headed paramedic was glaring at me. I flipped the sheet back up over Maynard’s head and glared back.

“He was right,” was all I could think of to say. “He was right.”

I walked into the courthouse to tell Judge Glass I was leaving. He didn’t bother to thank me for representing Maynard or say anything about Maynard’s death. He just nodded his head and grunted. When I got back out to the parking lot, I noticed Caroline’s car backed in next to my truck. The door opened and she stepped out. Her eyes were red and puffy.

“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, baby” she said. “The nursing home called right after you left. Your mother died a little while ago.”

July 17

10:20 a.m.

We went up to the nursing home to clear out Ma’s room the day after she died. Jack had flown in on a red-eye the night before and he helped me carry the furniture out to the truck. Then Caroline and I went to the funeral home while Jack and Lilly took the furniture back over to Ma’s house. A tall, slim, bespectacled man who spoke in a quiet voice with a slight lisp showed us into the room where the caskets were kept.

About twenty caskets were spread around the room, mahogany and teak and oak and stainless steel. The man led us first to a round table in the corner.

“Please, have a seat,” he said. “Can I offer you something to drink? Some cookies, perhaps?”

Cookies. I didn’t want any cookies. I gave him a look that would have silenced most people, but he just smiled. He set a pad of paper down on the table and produced a pen.

“I’ve read a lot about you Mr. Dillard,” he said, “but I didn’t know your mother. Tell me about her.”

“Why?” I knew he didn’t care about her or me. He just wanted to get as much money out of me as he could.

“We take the responsibility of contacting the newspaper on your behalf for the obituary,” the man said. “I just need some basic information. Try to think of all the good things you remember about your mother.”

“She was a tough woman. She raised my sister and me all by herself after my father was killed in Vietnam. She worked as a bookkeeper for a roofing company and did other people’s laundry for extra money. She wouldn’t accept help from anyone. She didn’t say much and thought the world was a terrible place. How’s that?”

“Where did she go to church?”

“She didn’t believe in God. She thought the Christian religion was a global scam set up to control people and extract money from them by making them feel guilty. Do you think they’ll print that?”

“Did she have brothers and sisters?”

“One brother. A jerk who drowned in the Nolichucky River when he was seventeen.”

“And her parents?”

“Both dead.”

“Would you excuse us for a minute?” Caroline said. She reached over and took my hand and led me out the door into the lobby.

“Why don’t you let me handle this?” she said.

“I hate these jerks. Preying on other people’s misery.”

“You look tired. Why don’t you go out to the car and nap while I finish up here?”

“I can’t sleep in a bed. What makes you think I’ll be able to sleep in the car?”

“Please? Just try to relax. You’ll feel better. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”