Scott Pratt - Injustice for all

The key to all this, of course, is Tommy Miller. Will he go against everything he’s learned from his father and what I’m sure his mother has told him and talk to the police? Will the TBI agents-who are experts at getting people to talk to them-be able to coerce him or pressure him or simply outsmart him? Will they be able to bring enough pressure or guilt to bear to loosen his tongue? If they do, what will he say? Will he tell them he was at our house during the time of the murder, hoping to use us as an alibi? Will he confess and tell them he gave his clothes to Caroline? Is there evidence the police can use against him in his car? If there is, will he be shrewd enough to get rid of the car in a way the police can’t trace? What would I do in his position? Would I burn the car and report it stolen? Disable the engine, tow it to a junkyard, and have it crushed for scrap metal?

My God, what a mess.

The last time I’m conscious of the clock, it’s three in the morning. I slip into sleep, and find myself running through a maze of mirrored walls, floors, and ceilings. Someone is chasing me. I come to a dead end and look at myself. I’m emaciated, nearly unrecognizable. Something has drained my body, perhaps even my soul. My skin is cracked, pale, and drawn so tightly against my bones that I resemble a skeleton. I shrink away from the image in horror and turn to run back in the direction from which I’ve come.

I take one step and see them. Anita White and Mike Norcross, guns up, come around the corner. I turn back and look into the mirror. I smash it with my fist.

On the other side of the mirror is a dark tunnel. I can see a dim light in the distance. I run toward it, but after only a few strides I feel myself falling, falling, falling through the darkness and down what I believe is a bottomless pit. Suddenly a parachute pops open above me. I land awkwardly and tumble, rolling onto my side as the parachute falls softly around me. I extricate myself from the chute and stand. I’m in complete darkness now, but I feel a weight on my shoulders. I run my hands up my abdomen, across my chest, and realize I’m wearing web gear now. I’m wearing boots and a Kevlar helmet. I have an M16 assault rifle strapped across my shoulders. A flashlight is attached to the strap on my web gear, and I flip it on. I’m in a cave. I hear a faint voice and cast the beam of the flashlight toward the sound.

“Fahhhhhh-eeee.”

I see an elongated mound. I bring the weapon around, pull the charging handle, and aim it toward the mound. I creep forward slowly. The floor of the cave begins to tremble beneath my feet. I shoulder the weapon. The sound grows louder.

“Faaaahhhh-eeeeee.”

It’s the voice of a female. I suddenly realize I recognize it.

The mound begins to erode as the tremors intensify. Suddenly, the clay that covers it splits, and I can make out what I believe is a face. It’s a body, slimy, in the early stages of decomposition. The lips are moving.

“Faaaahhhiiiinnnddd-mmmeeeee.”

The tremors stop; the body bends at the waist and sits up. The head turns toward me, and I find myself looking directly at what’s left of Hannah Mills’s sweet face.

“Find me,” she whispers. “Find me.”

Anita White’s plan was to execute the search warrants simultaneously, early in the morning, in Tennessee and North Carolina. Detective Rama from Durham had taken the documents Anita faxed him and drafted his own application. The primary difference in the two applications was that Rama had received information (from Anita, a fellow law enforcement officer) that Tommy Miller had returned to Durham because he was a student at Duke University, and that the vehicle was now in North Carolina. He’d called Anita late the previous afternoon and told her that the judge had issued the warrants for both Tommy’s car and his apartment, that he’d obtained an address for Tommy, and that he was personally staking out Tommy’s place at the Belmont complex near the Duke campus. Rama had called again around eleven at night to tell Anita that Tommy was in the apartment, but the car wasn’t in the lot. Anita told him that even if he couldn’t find the car in the morning, she wanted Tommy held for questioning.

Anita hung up her phone at seven a.m.

“Rama’s in place,” she said to Norcross. “He’s going in now.”

Anita pulled into Toni Miller’s driveway. Norcross was in the passenger seat, and two more agents were in a separate car right behind them. She threw the car into park, killed the engine, and got out. The other two agents went around to the back as Toni and Norcross strode to the front porch. Anita rapped sharply on the front door.

“Police! Search warrant!” she yelled. She banged on the door again.

A couple of minutes later, Anita heard a voice from the other side of the door. It was Toni Miller.

“What do you want?”

“Police, Mrs. Miller! We have a search warrant. Open the door.”

“Get the hell out of here!” The voice sounded tortured, as though Toni Miller had been horrifically wounded.

“Open the door, Mrs. Miller, or we’ll break it down!”

“There’s nothing you want here! Go away! Please! Go away!”

“Last chance, Mrs. Miller! Open the door!”

There was a long silence before Anita heard a loud click as Toni Miller slid the dead bolt. Anita pushed the door open and walked into the foyer. The ceiling in the foyer was nearly twenty feet high; the floor was marble. A large chandelier hung above Anita’s head.

Toni had backed up near a decorative rail that spiraled upward along a staircase. Anita gasped when she saw her. She was naked-her robe lay in a pile at her feet-and she was crying hysterically. She spread her arms wide and screamed, “Go ahead! Search me! I have nothing to hide!”

“Walk through and let the others in,” Anita said to Norcross, who had turned his back to Toni. Anita stepped toward Toni, reached down, and picked up the robe and nightgown off the floor. She wrapped the robe around Toni’s shoulders and led her silently into a den off the foyer. Toni was now sobbing quietly. Anita felt deep sympathy for this tortured woman, a woman who had probably done nothing wrong, a woman whose husband-and now her son-had put her through far more than Anita suspected she deserved.

Anita helped Toni sit on a couch and knelt in front of her.

“I’m sorry to have to put you through this, Mrs. Miller, but I have a job to do. We have a warrant that allows us to search the property, inside and out. We’ll do it as quickly and quietly as we can. And when we’re finished, I’d still like to ask you a few questions.”

Anita looked into Toni’s eyes. They’d taken on a faraway look, as though she’d transported herself mentally to some other place, some other time.

“Just do what you have to do and get out,” Toni whispered.

The search lasted four hours and encompassed three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, den, dining area, laundry room, game room, basement, and garage. The agents found nothing whatsoever that could be called evidence. When Anita examined Toni’s cell phone, she found that Toni hadn’t made a single call to Tommy in the past twenty four hours. There were several calls to and from someone named Caroline, however. Wasn’t that Dillard’s wife?

Anita had called Rama every half hour during the search to see how things were going with Tommy Miller, but Rama wasn’t answering his cell. Anita figured he was either searching the car or sweating Tommy.

She told the other agents to wait outside and walked back into the den where Toni Miller had been sitting during the entire search. She hadn’t said a word.

“We’re finished, Mrs. Miller,” Anita said. Toni didn’t respond.