bought a pitching machine a couple of years earlier, and I fed balls into the machine while Jack pounded them over the fence. Watching him hit a baseball was a truly beautiful thing to me. He was so quick, so powerful, so fluid. He was so much better than I ever was, and watching him gave me more pleasure than I’d had in months. The sun and the exercise felt good, and by the time we got back to the house, I was feeling a little better.
But then the night came, and with it, another bout of sleepless self-flagellation. We drove to the cemetery at eleven the next morning. I felt like a dead man walking when we climbed the hill to the gravesite. It was overcast and drizzling rain. There was a crowd of people there. I sensed their presence, but I couldn’t really see them. It was as though they were all standing in a bank of thick fog.
And then I caught a glimpse of Sarah. Caroline had called the sheriff’s department and made arrangements for them to bring her to the funeral. She arrived in the back of a cruiser, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and handcuffs and shackles. The deputy who brought her up wouldn’t let her under the tent with Caroline, Lilly, Jack, and me, so she ended up having to stand outside with the others in the rain.
Caroline had contacted Ma’s best friend, a woman named Katie Lowe, to give the eulogy. I sat there, not really listening, until she began to talk about Elizabeth’s children. I heard some things about my mother that I hadn’t known before, things that Ma had told Katie about Sarah and me. One of them was that Ma had been so proud of me when I graduated from law school that she cried. I’d never seen my mother cry, and I’d never heard her say a word about being proud of me.
When the service was over, the deputy took Sarah by the arm and led her straight back down the hill.
I watched as she climbed awkwardly into the backseat of the cruiser. I felt tears forming in my eyes as the cruiser pulled away and I turned to Ma’s casket.
I put my palms on it and stood there, not knowing what to say or do, embarrassed to be showing weakness in front of my children. I stood there until the crowd had dispersed and then, for some reason I didn’t understand, I felt the impulse to bend down and kiss her casket. I’d kissed her at the nursing home, but not until she was too far gone to feel it.
When I kissed her casket, I realized that I hadn’t ever given her a meaningful kiss. The thought made it almost impossible to keep from breaking down.
I leaned against the casket with my shoulders shaking and tried to compose myself.
”Goodbye, Ma,” I whispered. ”I’m sorry.”
I took a deep breath, straightened up, wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand, and lifted my chin. I put one arm around Caroline and the other around Lilly, and nodded to Jack.
Together, the four of us walked back down the hill towards the car in the drizzling rain, and went back to our lives.
PART III
July 24
6:15 a.m.
Agent Landers woke up in a foul mood, knowing he had to spend the next few days in a courtroom on a case he might lose, even with Dillard’s sister’s testimony. Just as he was starting to get in the shower, his cell phone rang.
”Landers.”
”I have some information for you.” It was a female. Landers could barely hear her.
”Who is this?”
”I used to work for Erlene Barlowe.”
”How’d you get my cell phone number?”
”Julie Hayes gave it to me. I was going to call you sooner, but when she got killed, it scared me.”
”So why aren’t you scared now?”
”Because I’m gone.”
”Tell me your name.”
”Can’t do it. You’re making a mistake. Angel didn’t kill anybody.”
”How do you know that?”
”Because I was there that night. I know what happened.”
”Are you saying Erlene killed him?”
”I don’t think you even have to ask me that question.”
”If you know something, we can protect you. You need to come back and sign a statement and testify.”
”You didn’t protect Julie.”
”You’re not helping me if you won’t come in.”
”I can help you find something you’ve been looking for.”
”I’m listening.”
”I’ll give you a hint. It’s red and has four wheels.”
”The Corvette?”
”I knew you were smart.”
”Where is it?”
”In a barn.”
”Stop playing games with me. Where’s the car?”
”Do you have a pen and a piece of paper? You’re going to need to write this down.”
Landers called Frankie Martin and told him he wouldn’t be around for jury selection in the morning, but he didn’t tell him why. Landers could tell from the tone of Martin’s voice that he was pissed off, but Landers wasn’t about to tell Frankie or anyone else where he was going. He’d been jerked around enough on the Angel Christian case. If the girl on the phone was sending him on a wild-goose chase, he was going to be the only one who knew about it.
Landers made the drive down I-181 from Johnson City to Unicoi County in thirty minutes. It was already seventy-eight degrees, and there was a thick mist hanging over everything. It was going to be hotter than hell and humid. He took the Temple Hill exit and turned onto Spivey Mountain Road.
Two miles up the mountain, Landers came to an unmarked gravel road, right where his source said it would be. He turned right and followed the gravel road through a gulley and along a tree-covered ridge.
After a mile, he came to a cattle gate that was secured by a padlock. He climbed the gate and followed the trail on foot through a stand of white pine for another quarter mile. As he broke into a clearing, Landers spotted the barn a hundred yards to his right. So far, it looked like the bitch was telling the truth.
Landers pulled his gun and walked slowly up to the barn. He saw something move in the woods to his left and froze. Must have been a deer. He peeked through the wooden slats until his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness inside. Sure enough, there it was.
A vehicle covered by a tarp. The barn door was padlocked, so Landers crawled in through an open window, walked over to the car, and lifted the tarp. A Corvette. A beautiful, red, fucking Corvette. And he could make out dark stains on the passenger seat.
The
Landers pulled a notepad from his pocket and wrote down the vehicle identification number, climbed back through the window, and jogged all the way back to his car. Sweat was pouring off of him. As soon as he got to a spot where he had a cell phone signal, he called Bill Wright and told him what he’d found. Wright said he’d arrange for two agents to secure the property. No one would go in or out until Landers did what needed to be done. Wright also said he’d call the forensics team. They’d be on the way soon.
