Scott Pratt - In good faith

Nothing.

At last, the wicked witch was dead.

“Help me get to the side of the house,” I said to Alisha as she pulled me up from my knees. “I think someone’s coming.”

The storm had lost some of its ferocity, but rain continued to fall. We got to the corner of the house just as the car pulled into the driveway. As it moved closer, I recognized the Crown Victoria. It was Leon Bates.

I turned to Alisha and gently touched her cheek. Her long hair was plastered to the sides of her face, rainwater dripping from her chin.

“You have to go now,” I said. “You have to get out of here. I don’t want him to see you.”

“What? What do you mean?” she said. She seemed to be in a state of semi-shock.

“Go in the back door, get those wet clothes off, and stay inside until they come to question you. Tell them you don’t know what happened. Tell them you were too scared to look outside.”

“But why?” she said. “I… I…”

I was thinking about Lee Mooney and Freeley Sells and their desire to see someone suffer publicly for crimes that had been committed in their district. I was thinking about political agendas and scapegoats. I was thinking about how corrupt the system could be.

“Please, Alisha, I know how things work. I’m afraid of what they might do to you. They might arrest you. They might charge you with murder. I’m not going to let it happen.”

The interior light in Bates’s car came on, and I heard the door slam.

“Go!” I said. “Please, just go inside and don’t ever say a word to anyone.”

She looked at me desperately, her face a mosaic of fear, confusion, and sadness. I saw her make the decision, and she disappeared around the corner of the house. I heard the door to the back porch creak, and I knew she was safe.

Without Alisha, I was unable to stand for more than a few seconds, and I dropped once again to my knees. The beam of a flashlight was making its way towards me slowly.

“Here!” I yelled, immediately regretting it because of the pain. The beam was on me instantly, and then Leon Bates was over me, water pouring off of the plastic cover of his cowboy hat.

“Damn, brother, are you all right?” Bates said.

“No.”

“What the hell happened here? Where is she?”

I pointed over my shoulder with my thumb. “Over there. She’s dead. Watch out for the dog.”

Bates walked immediately to the spot where Natasha lay. I watched as he surveyed the scene: the body, the tent stakes and the ropes, the shotgun, the ice pick. The Doberman didn’t make a sound. I saw Bates pick up a shovel and examine it closely with the flashlight. He looked towards the back of the house and disappeared from sight for a minute. When he returned, he stood over me again.

“You’re bleeding like a stuck hog, Dillard,” he said. “We’d best get an ambulance out here, pronto.”

He hoisted me to my feet and we made our way to his car. As he opened the back door on the passenger side, he told me to wait for a minute.

“I’ve got some plastic in the trunk,” he said. “Let me cover the seat. I don’t want you bleeding all over my damned vehicle.”

Once I was in the backseat, Bates got on the radio. I felt myself sliding towards unconsciousness. Time passed, I don’t know how much, and Bates was leaning over me again, checking my wounds.

“You gotta stay awake now,” he said. “Don’t go slipping into no coma on me.”

I was conscious of him kneeling next to me, dabbing the wounds on my arms with something. I opened my eyes and saw a first-aid kit sitting on the ground.

“Talk to me, Dillard,” he said.

I opened my eyes and tried to focus, but I felt as though the life were ebbing out of me like an ocean tide.

“Who killed her?” Bates said.

“I did,” I whispered.

“I don’t reckon that’s true, brother. Don’t take no genius to figure out what happened over there. Somebody got staked out on the ground, and judging by the blood on the ice pick and the shovel and the wounds to your head and your arms, I’m guessing it was you. I don’t reckon you was in much shape to defend yourself after she whacked you in the head with that shovel and tied you up, so somebody had to help you, and I reckon that somebody is the person who left those wet footprints on the back porch when she went in the house.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head as much as I could without passing out from the pain. “No, Leon, please don’t. Please!”

“Why?” Bates said. “Why are you doing this?”

“She saved my life,” I whispered. “She had to kill her own sister. She’s already paid enough. Please don’t throw her to the wolves. Just let her be.”

He stared at me for a long moment, his mouth slightly agape. Even in the state I was in, I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind as he pondered his next move. His eyes suddenly flew open wide, as though he’d experienced some kind of revelation.

“You with me? You with me, Dillard?” he said as he shook my shoulder. “You understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded as best as I could.

“All right, here’s the deal. You found Fraley’s body; you knew it had to be Natasha that killed him, so you came over here to check it out and you called me on your way. Once you got here, she ambushed you in the backyard. She staked you out and drove that ice pick through your arms. Just when she was about to finish you off, I showed up. I tried to get her to back off, but she came at me and I killed her. That makes a hell of a lot more sense, and it makes me a goddamned hero.”

“It was Fraley’s shotgun,” I whispered.

“Hell, son, I got one, too. I’ll just run up there and get Fraley’s, wipe it down real good, and put it back in his car. Where was it?”

“Trunk.”

“Okay. Now, do we have the story straight? They’ll be here any minute.”

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“No need to thank me. You owe me now, Dillard.” He popped a cold pack and set it on the back of my head.

“Yes, sir, you owe me. And believe me, one day I’ll collect.”

Six months later… Friday, May 15

I’m sitting in the vacant jury room just down the hallway from the courtroom in Jonesborough. Jim Beaumont, his blue eyes gleaming like a South Pacific island lagoon, is brushing a tear from his cheek as he recounts the story.

“You should have seen the look on his face when I plopped those photographs down on his desk.” Beaumont chortles. “He thought I was there to beg for mercy or to try to make some kind of deal. I made a deal, all right! The deal of the century!”

His laughter is infectious, and my diaphragm begins to cramp slightly as I pound the table. I’ve heard the story at least a half dozen times, but each time he tells it he enhances it a little, and I can’t get enough.

“The one with his thumb up that girl’s ass was my favorite. I nearly pissed myself when I saw it! Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!”

Prostitutes, and the younger the better.

That was the secret his retired FBI guys unearthed in Cumberland County. It took them just over two weeks to find out what was beneath Freeley Sells’s skirt, another three days to set him up and get their video and photographs. The girl cost me five thousand dollars, but I considered it money well spent.

“He wilted like an orchid in a blizzard!” Beaumont says. “I thought he was gonna run over to the jail and let Sarah out himself!”

“I surrender,” I say, holding up my hands and trying to catch my breath. “You’re killing me.”

His mood changes suddenly as something catches his eye. It takes only a second before I realize what it is. I’d taken my jacket off when we entered the room and hung it on the back of my chair. I’m wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and Beaumont is looking at the scars on my forearms.