Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

“Landers.”

“I have some information for you.” It was a female. Landers could barely hear her.

“Who is this?”

“I used to work for Erlene Barlowe.”

“How’d you get my cell phone number?”

“Julie Hayes gave it to me. I was going to call you sooner, but when she got killed, it scared me.”

“So why aren’t you scared now?”

“Because I’m gone.”

“Tell me your name.”

“Can’t do it. You’re making a mistake. Angel didn’t kill anybody.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I was there that night. I know what happened.”

“Are you saying Erlene killed him?”

“I don’t think you even have to ask me that question.”

“If you know something, we can protect you. You need to come back and sign a statement and testify.”

“You didn’t protect Julie.”

“You’re not helping me if you won’t come in.”

“I can help you find something you’ve been looking for.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’ll give you a hint. It’s red and has four wheels.”

“The Corvette?”

“I knew you were smart.”

“Where is it?”

“In a barn.”

“Stop playing games with me. Where’s the car?”

“Do you have a pen and a piece of paper? You’re going to need to write this down.”

Landers called Frankie Martin and told him he wouldn’t be around for jury selection in the morning, but he didn’t tell him why. Landers could tell from the tone of Martin’s voice that he was angry, but Landers wasn’t about to tell Frankie or anyone else where he was going. He’d been jerked around enough on the Angel Christian case. If the girl on the phone was sending him on a wild goose chase, he was going to be the only one who knew about it.

Landers made the drive down I-181 from Johnson City to Unicoi County in thirty minutes. It was already 78 degrees and there was a thick mist hanging over everything. It was going to be hot and humid. He took the Temple Hill exit and turned onto Spivey Mountain Road.

Two miles up the mountain, Landers came to an unmarked gravel road, right where the anonymous caller said it would be. He turned right and followed the gravel road through a gulley and along a tree-covered ridge. After a mile, he came to a cattle gate that was secured by a padlock. He climbed the gate and followed the trail on foot through a stand of white pine for another quarter-mile. As he broke into a clearing, Landers spotted the barn a hundred yards to his right. So far, it looked like the caller was telling the truth.

Landers pulled his gun and walked slowly up to the barn. He saw something move in the woods to his left and froze. Must have been a deer. He peeked through the wooden slats until his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness inside. Sure enough, there it was. A vehicle covered by a tarp. The barn door was padlocked, so Landers crawled in through an open window, walked over to the car, and lifted the tarp. A Corvette. A beautiful, red Corvette. And he could make out dark stains on the passenger seat. The mother lode. Finally.

Landers pulled a notepad from his pocket and wrote down the vehicle identification number, climbed back through the window, and jogged all the way back to his car. Sweat was pouring off of him. As soon as he got to a spot where he had a cell phone signal, he called his boss and told him what he’d found. Bill Wright said he’d arrange for two agents to secure the property. No one would go in or out until Landers did what needed to be done. Wright also said he’d call the forensics team. They’d be on the way soon.

Landers drove back down the mountain and straight to the tax assessor’s office at the Unicoi County courthouse. They’d just opened and there was no one there besides Landers. The woman who worked there helped him find the property he’d just left on one of the tax maps. From that, learned that the taxes on the property were paid by a corporation called Busty Gals, Inc.

Landers got back into his car and drove to the TBI office in Johnson City. On the way, he called the Tennessee secretary of state’s office in Nashville and asked them to fax him a copy of Busty Gals, Inc.’s corporate charter. The incorporator was HighRide, Inc., a Delaware corporation not registered to do business in Tennessee. A phone call to the Delaware secretary of state’s office confirmed what Landers suspected. Erlene Barlowe owned HighRide, Inc., which meant she also owned Busty Gals, Inc. Landers faxed the Corvette’s VIN number to the National Auto Theft Bureau, an arm of the insurance industry that tracked nearly every car in the country. The Corvette was also registered to HighRide, Inc. That explained why Landers hadn’t been able to get a hit from the Tennessee Department of Motor Vehicles.

Landers used all of the information he’d gathered to draft an affidavit for a search warrant for the barn. He didn’t mention the fact that he’d trespassed onto the property on Spivey Mountain. The way he drafted the warrant made it look as though he’d done some excellent police work, which he figured he had. He found Judge Glass in his office at eleven-thirty, and the judge signed the warrant

Landers was scheduled to testify in the Angel Christian case in the afternoon, but depending on what forensics found in the barn, he knew his testimony might have to change. He kept up with the radio traffic, so he knew the forensics team hit the barn a little before 1:00 p.m. He headed down to Jonesborough to talk to Deacon Baker.

July 24

9:00 a.m.

I found out Sarah was going to testify against Angel less than a week before the trial, when the district attorney faxed me an amended witness list and a copy of my sister’s statement. I didn’t believe a word of what I read. The statement had been taken by Phil Landers.

I was confident as I sat in the courtroom on the second floor in Jonesborough, but as always, I was a little nervous. The bailiff announced the entrance of Judge Leonard Green. The case of the State of Tennessee versus Angel Christian was about to go to trial.

Seventy-seven citizens from Washington County had been summoned. From that group, we’d choose the jury that would determine Angel’s fate. I’d spend a great deal of time talking to them about being open-minded and neutral and the importance of a fair trial, but I knew the goal of jury selection was to try to make sure the trial was anything but fair. I needed to select people who were more likely to be sympathetic to Angel than to the state. The key was to talk to them as much as I could, accurately gauge their answers and reactions, and then make sound decisions.

I’d never before represented a woman accused of murder, let alone a woman who looked like Angel. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse, and presented me with a fascinating dilemma when it came to picking a jury. I knew Angel would be attractive to the prospective male jurors, especially if I chose them carefully, and I hoped the attraction would cause them to be sympathetic toward her and want to help her. At the same time, there would be evidence presented during the trial of the kind of mutilation any man would fear. If the male jurors perceived at any time during the trial that Angel might be capable of such an act, she’d be doomed.

The image Angel presented to the prospective female jurors was an even trickier issue. The average female in Washington County, Tennessee, was a God-fearing conservative. From the mouth of Agent Landers, those conservative women would hear testimony that Angel was a runaway and that she had worked, if only for a short time, in a strip club. They’d hear that Angel Christian probably wasn’t her real name, and that Landers had been unable to find background information on her. That alone could be enough to cause many women to vote to convict her, but my bigger concern was jealousy. If the female jurors perceived that Angel regarded herself as beautiful, or that she was somehow attempting to take advantage of her beauty to gain favor with the men, we wouldn’t have a chance.