Joe Dillard - 03 - Injustice for All (19 page)

“No sign of it yet. We’ll stay on it.”

Anita closed the phone. Her only viable suspect, a kid, was staying a step ahead of her. Now both he and his vehicle had disappeared. Anita had nothing solid to tie Tommy Miller to the judge’s murder. But if he had nothing to hide, why would he run?

As Anita got into the car, her cell phone rang. She looked at the number and turned to Norcross.

“It’s the boss.”

“Like I told you before,” Norcross said, “I’m glad he didn’t dump this case on me.”

32

Judge Green’s murder dominates the radio broadcasts as I drive through Boones Creek toward Jonesborough the next morning. Hannah’s disappearance merits a brief mention. I’ve left home later than usual because I’m too tired to work out. I decide to take a detour and stop by my sister’s house. It’s several miles out of the way, but I haven’t seen or heard from her since Christmas, when she suddenly announced to everyone that she was four months’ pregnant. Since she’s forty-four years old, unmarried, and hasn’t been exactly a model citizen, the news came as quite a surprise. We had a short discussion that resulted in her storming out of the house, and I haven’t spoken to her since.

Sarah lives in the house that belonged to my mother before she died of Alzheimer’s a few years back. She’s a year older than I, a beautiful, green-eyed, dark-haired woman who has never been able to get past my uncle raping her when she was a child. She’s spent most of her adult life addicted to booze, drugs, and rotten men. She’s been in jail a half dozen times.

After our mother died, Sarah pulled herself together for about a year, although she replaced her addiction to substances with a religious zeal worthy of the pope himself. During that time, she met a man named Robert Godsey and moved away with him to Crossville, Tennessee, which is about a hundred and fifty miles west of Johnson City. Godsey turned out to be a jerk and beat her terribly—twice. During the second beating, Sarah defended herself by hitting Godsey with a fireplace shovel and wound up being charged with attempted murder. The charge was eventually dropped and Sarah moved back, but I’ve seen very little of her since. She’s working at a deli in Johnson City, slinging sandwiches for the college lunch crowd.

As I pull into the driveway off Barton Street, I see a large chopper parked outside the garage door in the shade of an old sugar maple. The first thing that pops into my mind is that Sarah’s taken up a new hobby. The Harley is painted a glossy black, with shiny chrome wheels and leather saddlebags. It can’t be Sarah’s. She’s strong, but she’s eight months’ pregnant now, and the bike has to weigh more than half a ton. There’s no way she could handle it.

I walk to the front porch and ring the doorbell. It’s a little after eight. I know she has to be at work by nine, so I figure she should be up. She comes to the door wearing an oversized black T-shirt that says “Biker Bitch” in white letters across the front. Her face is full and pink, and her pregnant belly is pushing against the inside of the shirt.

“What are you doing here?” Sarah says matter-of-factly.

“Just thought I’d stop by and say hello. Haven’t seen much of you lately. Damn, you’re as big as a house.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“No, I didn’t mean it that way. It just surprised me. You look good. You really do. You look healthy. A little tired maybe, but healthy.”

“Your powers of observation never cease to amaze.” Her tone is unfriendly and sarcastic.

“Caroline misses you. So do I.”

“I see Caroline once in a while.”

“Really? She hasn’t mentioned it.”

“I guess she doesn’t tell you everything, does she?”

“Have I done something to piss you off?”

“Not lately.”

“Well, are you going to invite me in for a cup of coffee or leave me standing out here on the porch?”

“I have company.”

“So introduce me.”

She shrugs her shoulders and opens the door. I follow her through the living room and into the kitchen. Standing next to the sink is one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen. He’s a good five inches taller than I and looks to weigh in the neighborhood of three hundred pounds. He has a huge belly, but other than that, he looks like a weight lifter. He’s wearing a white T-shirt under a black leather vest, blue jeans, and boots. He has a brown beard that reaches to his collarbone, and both of his thickly muscled arms are covered in tattoos. His brown hair is pulled into a ponytail that falls to the middle of his back.

“This is my friend Roy,” Sarah says.

He peers at me through expressionless blue eyes. Though I’m intimidated by his size, I step toward him and put out my hand.

“Joe Dillard. Sarah’s brother.”

His hand is rough, calloused, and as big as a ham. He squeezes tightly, as if to let me know he could crush me if he wanted to.

“They call me Mountain,” he says in a raspy bass.

“I can see why. That must be your bike out front. Nice.”

He nods and drains the last of his coffee as I back away from him slowly. He looks at Sarah and says, “Gotta hit the road, babe.”

Sarah walks over to him, and he bends down to kiss her. While he’s at it, he grabs two huge handfuls of her butt.

“I’ll stop by sometime tonight,” he says, and then he lumbers past me and out the front door. As he’s walking away, I see a patch on the back of his leather vest. It’s a red skeleton with a wicked smile on its face and a long, pointed red tail. It’s wearing a beret and carrying a rifle. Beneath the skeleton are the words “Satan’s Soldiers.”

Satan’s Soldiers is a notorious motorcycle gang. I know they’re heavy into the crystal methamphetamine business. They also deal in guns and explosives. I have to hand it to Sarah. She sure knows how to pick ’em.

I walk over to the coffeemaker, pour myself a cup, and sit down at the table. Sarah walks down the hall toward the bedroom. I sip the coffee and hear the chopper roar to life in the driveway. A few minutes later, Sarah, wearing a yellow blouse and a pair of black jeans, walks back into the kitchen.

“How long have you been dating Roy?”

“About a year, I guess.”

“Classy guy. I especially enjoyed the ass grab. Where’d you meet him?”

“Tonto’s.”

Tonto’s is a biker bar on the outskirts of Johnson City. I’ve never been in the place, but I’ve driven by it plenty of times at night on the weekends. Dozens of motorcycles—maybe up to a hundred—are always in the parking lot.

“Didn’t know you ever hung out at Tonto’s,” I say.

“Lots of things you don’t know. Did you stop by to pass judgment?”

“Nah, I just stopped by to say hello. Didn’t exactly expect to find a gangbanger in Ma’s house, though.”

“It’s my house now. And I’ll invite anyone I please.”

“Does he know I’m an assistant district attorney?”

“Yeah. I told him.”

“Do you know what they do, Sarah? That gang? They manufacture and sell crystal—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she barks. “Mind your own business. And you’d better get used to the idea of having him around. He’s the father of the baby I’m about to have.”

I stare at her in silence. She stands abruptly.

“I have to go to work now.”

She hovers over me until I reluctantly get up. I want to try to talk some sense into her, but I know from years of experience that I might as well beat my head against the refrigerator. I put my cup in the sink and turn around to face her, but she’s already walking away down the hallway again.

“You know the way out,” she calls over her shoulder, and I head out to my truck.

33

I have an appointment with the assistant United States attorney in Greeneville at ten a.m. I’m taking him my case file on Buddy Carver, the child porn aficionado. He’s agreed to present the case to a federal grand jury. I’m sure they’ll indict Carver, and I’m sure Carver’s lawyer won’t have the same success with the federal district judge that he had with Judge Green. Carver will soon be spending his days and nights in a minimum security federal prison, probably in Kentucky or West Virginia.

I stop in at the office for a few minutes to pick up Carver’s file and check for phone messages, but first I dial Anita White’s cell phone number, hoping she’ll give me an update on the investigation into Judge Green’s murder. I need to try to stay a step ahead of her if I can. Anita doesn’t answer the call. I leave her a message and dial Sheriff Bates’s cell number to get the latest on Hannah Mills, but he doesn’t answer, either.

I check my voice mail. There’s a message from Tom Pickering, the AUSA I’m supposed to meet in less than an hour. He wants me to call him before I come down. I dial the number.

“I got a call from a DEA agent in Knoxville this morning,” Pickering says after he comes on the line. “He wants to drive up and meet with you while you’re here.”

“DEA agent?” I say. “Any idea what he wants?”

“It has something to do with the girl who worked in your office who’s gone missing.”

“What’s his name?”

“Rider. Maurice Rider. Everybody calls him Mo. Good guy. He’s been around for a long time.”

“Do you know what he wants?”

“Not really. He called early. Mentioned that he’d read about the girl in the newspaper this morning. He said he had some information for whoever was looking into it, but he wanted to talk to someone he could trust. He asked if I knew anyone. I told him the sheriff seems to be a pretty solid guy, but he said he doesn’t trust sheriffs. So I mentioned you. When I told him you were coming down this morning, he asked if I thought it’d be okay if he drove up from Knoxville to meet you.”

“Sure,” I say. “If he knows something that might help, I’d be more than willing to talk to him. Right now we’re lost in the dark.”

I manage to avoid Lee Mooney and leave the office around nine fifteen. So many thoughts are floating through my mind that before I realize it, I’ve made the thirty- minute drive to Greeneville. I park my truck in front of the federal courthouse on Depot Street and walk past the concrete pillars designed to keep anyone from parking a vehicle within a hundred feet of the building. The pillars always remind me of that sick bastard Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing that killed dozens of innocent people.

Tom Pickering’s office is on the third floor, and I climb the wide marble steps in the courthouse foyer after making small talk with the U.S. Marshals at the security station just inside the front door. I lay out the Carver case for Pickering, a soft-spoken, studious man in his mid-thirties. Just as we’re finishing up, his secretary buzzes him over the intercom.

“Tell him to come on in,” Pickering says.

Mo Rider walks through the door, and Pickering introduces us. The first thing I notice is the prominent cleft in his chin. He’s fifty or so, wearing khaki pants and a brown button-down shirt. His hair, which he wears closely clipped, has already gone gray. His eyes are green, and he has the rugged look of a man who spends a lot of time outdoors. He takes a seat at the small conference table where Pickering and I have been working.

“I have a little story to tell you,” Rider says after we get past the preliminaries and he’s satisfied I’m not a shill for a drug cartel. “It starts about fourteen, fifteen years ago, when this young girl and her aunt came to my office. The girl’s a hiker. Name’s Katie, Katie Dean. She lives outside of Gatlinburg and spends a lot of time in the national forest. Sweet little gal, scared shitless the day she comes in.

“So she goes out on this overnight hike, gets way back off the beaten path, and runs across a huge patch of marijuana. Biggest we’d ever seen in that area at the time. Her aunt brings her into the office, she shows me exactly where the patch is, and a few days later we go in and burn it.”

“Sounds like a happy ending for you guys,” I say, “but what does this have to do with Hannah?”

“It was anything but a happy ending,” Rider says. “This kid, Katie, was only eighteen years old then. Like I said, she and her aunt were both scared about talking to us, but I assured them nobody would ever know outside of our office. Somebody leaked it, though. We had one guy from the county sheriff’s department on the task force, and he must have found out who she was and leaked the information. We never could prove it, but I know he had to leak it. Corrupt bastard. The whole damned sheriff’s department was in the grower’s pocket. He was making millions, and he spread enough of it around to buy some loyalty.

“So anyway, a couple of days after we burned the field, the girl’s house was firebombed. Katie and another woman—a black woman who lived there with them—got out, but the fire killed her aunt and a young invalid boy, the aunt’s son, even the family dog.”

Rider stops for a minute and shakes his head. The incident he’s describing may have happened more than a decade ago, but I can see that the guilt he feels still weighs heavily on his soul.

“The group that did the firebombing was Mexican, run by a guy named Rudy Mejia,” Rider says. He looks me directly in the eye. “Mejia was murdered about a month later by another grower who was trying to lock up the marijuana business for himself. The other grower’s name was Rafael Ramirez. I think you have him in your jail up there, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I’ve got him on a not-so-strong murder charge. As a matter of fact, he reached out to me yesterday. Said he knows what happened to Hannah, the girl who’s gone missing from our office, but he wants a free pass in exchange for the information.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Rider says. “He’s branched out over the years into contract killing and kidnapping. He’s a real peach.”

“So what does all of this have to do with Hannah?”

“After the bombing, I felt like I had to do whatever I could to protect Katie, so I arranged for her to go into witness protection. She didn’t fit the program, but I talked the suits into letting her in anyway. Gave her a new name, new social, the whole bit. The aunt had stashed a bunch of money, and the girl wound up inheriting half of it, plus the farm where they lived. Katie hated witness protection, though. She spent a couple of months in Utah and then split, but at least she kept the alias. She moved back down here, sold the farm, and got a college degree from UT. She wound up working in the DA’s office in Knoxville until a few months ago. Do you see what I’m saying?”