agreement and forcing you to go to trial. But I think this punishment is more appropriate for a man like you. You’re going to die in jail, but before you die, I think you have plenty to look forward to. A handsome young man like you, with a pretty potty mouth like yours, will undoubtedly enjoy tremendous popularity in the general population at the penitentiary.
I’m sure you’ll be a favorite among the sodomites.
The sentence stands. Life without parole. Get him out of here.”
My last image of Johnny Wayne was of his being dragged backwards across the floor, refusing to walk, tears streaming down his face and onto the silver tape stretched across his mouth. The worst part of it for him, though, had to be the fact that his jumpsuit had become terribly wrinkled during the fight with the guards.
I ducked out through a side door to avoid the media, went down the stairs, and headed back through the security station. Sarge was going through a woman’s purse. As I walked by, he handed her the purse and headed straight for me.
”Hey, Dillard, you hear about the murder?”
”What murder?”
”They found some guy in a room up at the Budget Inn stabbed to death. Somebody cut his dick off. A cat found it this morning out by the lake.”
”I didn’t do it, Sarge.” I kept on walking, but I could hear him laughing.
”Maybe you’ll get to defend the killer,” I heard him say. ”Yeah, maybe the killer’ll be just like ol’
Johnny Wayne. Innocent. Railroaded by the system.”
April 12
10:00 a.m.
Special Agent Phillip Landers’s cell phone rang a little before ten a.m., just as he was wrapping his mouth around a breakfast burrito at Sonic. Bill Wright, the Special Agent in Charge of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation office in Johnson City, was calling. Bill was Landers’s boss. Not that the brown-nosing jerk should have been the boss. Landers should have been the boss. By his own account, he was, by far, the smartest, hardest- working, best-looking TBI agent in the office. He knew he’d get his chance soon, though. Wright was about to retire.
”There’s a body at the Budget Inn,” Wright said as Landers chewed slowly and stared at a teenage waitress on a pair of roller skates. ”Male. Stabbed to death. That’s about all I know. I already called forensics. They’re on the way.”
The Johnson City police didn’t have any forensics people on the payroll, so murders were often passed along to the TBI. Landers took his time finishing his burrito. No big rush. The guy was already dead.
There were six city cruisers in the Budget Inn parking lot when Landers pulled in a half hour after he got the call. All of the cruisers had their emergency lights on, as though the cops who drove them were actually
Landers opened the trunk, lifted out a couple of pairs of latex gloves, and walked up the stairs to room 201. It was overcast and drizzling outside, but it still took his eyes a second to adjust to the dim light in the room. As soon as he cleared the door, he could smell blood. His eyes moved to the left. Jimmy Brown, a big, dim cracker with a butch haircut who had worked his way up through patrol and was finally, after twenty years, an investigator with the Johnson City police, was leaning over the bed. Beneath him was the body of what appeared to be a male whale. A very pale male whale. He was buck naked, lying flat on his back. His legs were splayed and his arms went straight out from his shoulders.
Spread-eagled. He was covered in dark dried blood.
”So much for death with dignity, huh?” Landers said.
Brown looked at him deadpan. He didn’t even smile. How could he not smile? That was pretty fucking funny. Landers chalked it up to petty jealousy.
”Where’s the forensics team?” Brown said.
”On the way. Should be here in an hour or so.”
The TBI’s East Tennessee forensics guys and girls scrambled out of Knoxville, ninety miles to the west.
They were responsible for covering the entire eastern half of the state. Landers knew they’d show up in their fancy modern mobile crime scene van dressed in their cute little white uniforms. Thanks to the
”Who’s the pretty boy?” Landers said.
Brown stepped back away from the body and pulled out his notepad.
”Signed in as John Paul Tester and gave a Newport address, confirmed by registration in the glove compartment of his car. His wallet’s gone, if he had one.
Manager says he checked in late yesterday afternoon, said he was here to preach at a revival, and asked where he could get a good hamburger. The manager told him to go to the Purple Pig. We’re getting a driver’s license photo from the Department of Safety so we can take it down there and ask around.”
Landers wondered why Brown needed the notepad to impart such a brief summary. The guy was really thick. Landers began to walk around the bed, looking at the dead whale. There were dozens of stab wounds, most of them concentrated around the neck and chest.
”Preacher, huh? Looks like somebody didn’t like the sermon.”
”That’s the least of it,” Brown said. ”His dick’s gone.”
”Jesus! Really?” Landers hadn’t noticed with all the blood. He looked between the whale’s legs and there was nothing but a mess of dark red goo. Whoever cut it off had to work for it. Landers figured it had been quite a while since the whale had seen his own dick.
”And get this,” Brown said. ”Some woman called the sheriff’s department this morning. She lives out by Pickens Bridge, and her cat brought her a little gift. Turned out to be a human penis. Probably belongs to this guy.”
His logic was astounding. ”Any idea how long he’s been dead?” Landers said.
”He’s cold and stiff. I’d say more than eight hours.”
”Security cameras?”
”Just at the front desk. Nothing in the parking lot or anywhere else.”
A patrol officer knocked and walked in. He was carrying an eight-by-ten photo of the dead guy. He handed it to Brown, who handed it to Landers.
”Are you here to help or are you just sightseeing?”
Brown said.
”Your wish is my command, at least until the case officially gets dropped in my lap.”
Brown gave him an eat-shit look. ”Why don’t you take this down to the Purple Pig and ask around?”
”Done,” Landers said. ”Anything else?”
”I don’t think so. I’ve got people running down the woman who was on duty last night, canvassing the rooms, and working the Newport angle. You say forensics is on the way. I think we’ve got it under control for now.”
”Cool. I’m off to the Pig.”
Landers walked down the steps and past the patrol guys and got into his car. He recognized a reporter from the Johnson City paper loitering outside the entrance. Her name was Sylvia something. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she wasn’t hideous, so Landers got back out of the car and went over to shoot the shit with her for a couple of minutes. He leaked her a little tidbit about the missing dick, thinking it might be worth a blow job somewhere down the line.
As he made his way south down Roan Street, Landers kept glancing at the photo of the dead preacher. He had reddish hair, semi-decent features, and wide sideburns that ran to the bottom of his ear lobes, a la Elvis Presley. Not a bad-looking dude, but damn sure not in the same league as Landers.
”What’d you do to get yourself killed, Rev?” Landers said to the photo as he turned into the parking lot at the Purple Pig. ”Dip the old wick in a vat of bad wax?”
