There was a short pause:
The second-floor window behind the judge’s desk looked out over the lawn behind the building towards the jail. I got to the window just in time to see Maynard Bush climbing into the passenger side of a green Toyota sedan. A woman was helping him get into the car. She slammed the door, ran around to the driver’s side, jumped in, and the car drove away.
Darren and David Bowers were sprawled in the courtyard. Darren was facedown; David was lying on his back. The first thought that hit me when I realized what had happened was that they both had grandchildren.
It took me less than a minute to run down the steps, out the back door, and across the courtyard.
David was gasping for breath, blood gurgling from a hole in his throat. Darren wasn’t moving. I pressed my finger against his carotid. No pulse. Two officers from the jail were only seconds behind me. One of them took a look at the two fallen men and raced back inside.
I rolled up my jacket and placed it underneath David’s feet. I took off my tie, folded it, and laid it across the wound in his throat. I put my left hand behind his head and held the tie over the wound with my right, trying to keep pressure on it to reduce the bleeding.
”Stay with me, David,” I said. ”You’re going to be okay. Just stay with me until the ambulance gets here.” He didn’t respond. ”David! Please, hang in there. You want to see those grandbabies again, don’t you?” His eyes flickered slightly at the mention of his grandchildren, but blood was pouring from the wound and his breath was labored. I didn’t think he was going to make it.
Beside me, a young Johnson County deputy rolled Darren onto his back and started CPR. The deputy who’d gone back inside returned with a first-aid kit and three more officers. They helped me replace my tie with a bandage.
”What happened?” one of them said.
”I don’t know,” I said. ”I heard the shots, looked out the window, and they were down.”
I held the bandage for what seemed like forever, when suddenly, finally, I became aware of sirens; the air seemed to explode with noise and activity. Two ambulances and a crash truck arrived from the EMS
station, which was only three blocks away. All of them jumped the curb and pulled to within a few feet of me. Uniformed men and women began to surround me, and I stood and backed off a ways. There was nothing more I could do.
They patched David up as best they could, strapped him onto a gurney, and loaded him into the ambulance. They did the same for Darren, but everybody knew he was already dead.
As they drove away, I stood there in a daze. A thought began to form in my mind, and I instantly felt nauseous. Had Maynard used me to plan his escape? It was routine for attorneys to help their clients set up jail visits-but I was certain the woman I’d seen helping Maynard get into the car had to be Bonnie Tate. I hadn’t actually seen her before, but it had to be her.
I thought about what Maynard said to me that day:
July 7
11:45 p.m.
Being a single man with a rather large supply of discretionary income, and having had the opportunity to provide certain legal services to Mr. and Mrs. Gus Barlowe in the past, Charles B. Dunwoody III, Esq., saw no harm in occasionally availing himself of the pleasures of the Mouse’s Tail Gentlemen’s Club. To his closest associates, he privately referred to his adventures at the club as slumming with the naked hillbilly girls. He wasn’t always particularly proud of the things he did there, but as he told his country club buddies, ”Pardon the pun, but sometimes a gentleman just has to let it all hang out.”
Gus Barlowe had sought Dunwoody’s advice on a wide range of topics-most of which Dunwoody was not at liberty to discuss. Dunwoody had quickly learned that Mr. Barlowe was an enterprising gentleman who generated large streams of revenue and who required an attorney with a creative mind and a deft touch in order to dissuade curious institutional minds from examining his affairs too closely.
Since Dunwoody’s academic and legal backgrounds were steeped in corporate law and international banking and finance, he’d been able to satisfactorily accommodate Gus Barlowe’s needs. The fact that Barlowe paid handsomely, and paid in cash, only made the relationship more palatable for Dunwoody.
Mrs. Barlowe, who had very capably taken over her husband’s affairs since his untimely death, had made the VIP lounge available to him on a Thursday evening in July, and he’d spent two delightful hours with three of the finest-looking floosies he’d ever laid eyes on. Dunwoody had to hand it to Mrs. Barlowe-
she had excellent taste when it came to hiring whores. It was getting rather late and Dunwoody was beginning to wind down. He’d ingested a little more cognac than usual and had made three separate trips to the bull pen. God bless Viagra.
Dunwoody was sitting at the bar in the private room, conversing with a topless bartender named Tina, when Mrs. Barlowe suddenly appeared at his shoulder. They exchanged the usual pleasantries and she asked him whether they could talk privately for a few moments. Anything for her, Dunwoody said, and they retired to a small booth in the corner. Mrs.
Barlowe shooed the girls away, and lawyer and strip club owner were left alone in the room.
Because Dunwoody had done so much work for her husband, he knew he was sitting across the table from a very wealthy woman, especially if one measured by local standards. He’d never been so crass as to directly ask her late husband how he managed to accumulate such large amounts of cash, but it didn’t take a Rhodes scholar to deduce that Barlowe must have been doing something at least marginally illegal. Dunwoody suspected Barlowe was most likely selling narcotics, but so long as he paid Dunwoody’s hefty fees and maintained a certain amount of decorum in Dunwoody’s presence, the lawyer had no qualms about camouflaging the cash.
”What can I do for you, madame?” Dunwoody said. He thought Mrs. Barlowe a handsome woman.
She dressed like a tart and spoke like a farm girl, but she had a sort of crude charm about her, not to mention a delicious body, especially for a woman her age.
”I need some legal advice, sugar.”
”Charles B. Dunwoody the third, at your service.”
”I’m going to pick up your tab tonight, sweetie pie, so I can retain you for the next little while. I wouldn’t want you to think I was trying to take advantage of your good nature.”
”You can take advantage of me anytime you like,”
Dunwoody said. The generous offer came as a pleasant surprise, since he was certain his tab would be in the neighborhood of two thousand dollars. Privacy does have its price sometimes.
Dunwoody must have taken too much Viagra, because in spite of the fact that he’d performed brilliantly earlier in the evening during the bull pen sessions, he suddenly found himself strongly attracted to Mrs. Barlowe. She was wearing a low-cut zebra-striped top that revealed a significant portion of her magnificent breasts. Dunwoody had to force himself not to stare, and he suddenly felt himself getting a chubby. He hoped he wouldn’t have to rise quickly from the table.
”I know you don’t do criminal work,” she said,
”but I have a difficult situation on my hands and I need a sugar plum like you to help me figure out how to handle it.”
Sweetie pie and sugar plum. No one had ever referred to Charles Dunwoody in such a manner, and he was not a young man. Mrs. Barlowe was correct in her assertion that Dunwoody did not indulge in the vulgar practice of criminal defense. He believed the arena of criminal defense was reserved for con artists and grandstanders. Nonetheless, any attorney worth his salt who paid attention in law school was well versed in the basics of
