Scott Pratt - Injustice for all

“Good to see you again. What can you tell me?”

There’s a large lump in Norcross’s left cheek-chewing tobacco-and he steps off to the side and spits a stream of brown juice onto the ground.

“This your case?” Norcross asks.

“Will be as soon as you catch the killer.”

“Looks like somebody hid out in the tree line over there for a while.” Norcross motions to a spot where two other agents are walking a grid. “Not really sure how long he was here, but from the look of it, he moved around quite a bit before he decided where he was going to set his little trap.”

“Trap?”

“The tree. The perp cut it down-looks like he used a saw of some kind-and it falls across the driveway. He waits back in the trees. When the victim leaves, he has to stop right here. He lives alone, and he’s far enough away from everyone else that nobody sees or hears a thing-at least we haven’t found anybody yet. The victim walks around to the trunk of the tree, starts tugging on it, and he gets whacked. There’s some blood on the tree trunk and scuff marks where the body was dragged across the lawn to the other tree over there. Then the perp douses him with kerosene or gasoline, strings him up, and sets him on fire.”

“Who’s the victim?” I ask.

Norcross grins. “You don’t know?”

“No. Why should I?”

“You’re serious? Nobody’s told you yet? He’s almost as famous as you.”

I shrug my shoulders.

“His name’s Green,” Norcross says, and a chill immediately goes down my spine. “As in Leonard Green. Judge Leonard Green.”

I hate to admit it even to myself, but as I stand watching the paramedics untie the rope and slowly lower what’s left of Judge Leonard Green to the ground, I feel no sympathy for him. I’ve practiced law as both a defense lawyer and a prosecutor in front of Green for fifteen years. I’ve seen him at the gym almost every weekday morning-where he has invariably ignored me-for at least eight years. I should feel something, especially considering the horrible death he’s experienced, but I don’t. His destruction of Ray Miller’s life and career was simply the latest in a long line of cruel acts I’ve seen him commit from his perch of power, and I’m almost relieved to know he won’t be doing it again.

Lee Mooney has been scurrying around the crime scene like an ant. I can sense that he’s angry as he approaches me. His cheeks are flushed with pink, and there are small beads of sweat on his forehead. He stands next to me as the coroner begins to look at the body.

“I’ve been screwed,” Mooney says.

“How so?”

“They assigned it to her. ” Mooney jerks his head to his right and shoots a glance toward a black woman wearing a black baseball cap and a navy blue jacket, both with “TBI” emblazoned across the front. Her name is Anita White.

“So? She’s smart. She’s tough. She’s experienced. Seems like a pretty good choice to me.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

“Look around, Dillard. What do you see? Swinging dicks, that’s what. White swinging dicks. I’ve got a dead judge in my district, and the TBI assigns a black woman to lead the investigation.”

“It’s a new age, boss.”

“New age, my ass. I don’t give a damn if a black man got himself elected president, a murder investigation requires cooperation between agencies, especially when the TBI is involved. How many cops around here do you think are going to cooperate with a black woman?”

“I think you’d be surprised.”

Mooney looks at me in disgust and stomps away. I’ve seen glimpses of racism in his behavior before, but this is the first time he’s been blatant about it. As I watch him walk away, I wonder whether the reason he’s been able to hide it so well is because he rarely, if ever, interacts with people of different races. The county where I live has a very small number of African Americans, less than 3 percent of the population. There are no black lawyers, no black office holders, only a couple of black police officers in Johnson City, and no black person works for the sheriff’s department. The world in which we both work is staffed by whites.

Anita White is in her late thirties. She was transferred to the Johnson City field office about a year ago. She’s medium height and slim, her smooth skin is the color of cocoa powder, her ebony hair is touched with red highlights, and her eyes are a clear green. She has an easy, dimpled smile with a barely noticeable gap between her front teeth and a small mole on her left cheek. She’s truly stunning, almost to the point of being intimidating.

I’ve worked only one case with her so far, a prison murder in Mountain City shortly after she arrived. It was a particularly gory stabbing and all of the witnesses were cons, but working with Anita was a pleasure. I found her to be extremely intelligent. I learned that she loves to read and once dreamed of being a concert pianist. She has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a law degree from what used to be Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis.

As the coroner continues to gingerly look over Judge Green’s body, Anita walks up. I, too, step toward the gurney.

“Morning, Counselor,” Anita says.

“Agent White.”

“Unpleasant way to go out, huh?”

“I can give you a time of death.”

“Really?”

“He got to the gym every morning at five. He worked out until six, took a shower, and was out the door by six fifteen. I saw him in the locker room almost every day.”

“Were you there this morning?” Anita says.

“Sure was.”

“I take it you didn’t see him.”

“Nope.”

“Which gym?”

“The one on State of Franklin Road.”

“Which is about ten minutes from here, give or take a few?”

I nod.

“So he leaves here around ten minutes to five, and that should be pretty close to the time of death?”

“Should be.”

“I’d like to hear your thoughts on who might have done this,” Anita says. “You’ve known the judge a lot longer than I have.”

Something pops to the front of my mind, but I push it back quickly. Could it be possible? No. No way.

“Who found him?” I ask.

“A man he hired to trim some shrubbery. He showed up about eight this morning.”

I take a moment and think back on the judge’s career on the bench. When it came to making enemies, he was truly an artist.

“Your list of suspects is probably pretty long,” I say.

“Green sent thousands of people to prison over the past thirty years. His decisions were emotional more often than they were rational, and he couldn’t restrain himself from sticking a knife into anyone who gave him an opening. Add the fact that I think he was a sexual deviant, and the list gets even longer.”

“What makes you think he was a sexual deviant?”

“Things he’s said over the years, things he’s done, the way he acted. He was always talking about staying up until three or four in the morning reading legal opinions on the Internet. Used it as an excuse for being grouchy. But since he didn’t know very much about the law, he was either lying or just plain stupid. Plus, he’s always been soft on sentencing sexual offenders. He let a pedophile walk last week on a legal technicality.”

“I heard about that,” Anita says. “Didn’t some witness come all the way from Canada?”

“Yeah, Vancouver, and Green made him look like a fool. I guess he just couldn’t help it. But as far as suspects go, maybe Green molested someone and the victim decided to get even. Maybe someone was trying to blackmail him and he resisted. This is personal. Beaten, hanged, burned. Whoever did this was extremely pissed off.”