An Innocent Client

Junior Tester was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He’d already been shipped down to Lakeshore Mental Health Institute in Knoxville. I had mixed feelings about Junior. While it was true that he’d tried twice to kill me and had very nearly succeeded both times, I couldn’t help thinking that he’d been a victim himself, a victim of a volatile mixture of fundamentalist extremism and parental hypocrisy. When he learned the circumstances of his father’s murder, something deep inside him had obviously snapped. And then having to sit through the trial and listen to it all again. . I doubted very seriously that he would be held criminally liable for his actions. Like Angel, he’d been so traumatized that he probably no longer recognized the fine line between right and wrong.

I hobbled through the maze on my crutches to the attorneys’ room at the jail. Erlene Barlowe was already seated at the table. She was getting the Maynard Bush treatment-handcuffs, shackles, a chain around her waist. She made the orange jumpsuit look pretty good despite the color clash with her hair.

When I walked in, she was sitting in the same chair Angel sat in during our many talks. To my surprise, she was her usual upbeat self. It didn’t look like I’d need any tissue.

”Mr. Dillard,” she said as I sat down, ”I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you, sugar. How are you feeling?”

”Like I’ve been shot.”

”I’m so sorry, baby doll. It must have been just awful. That man was even crazier than his daddy.”

”I’m sorry to see you here, Erlene.”

”You’ve got to get me out of this, sugar. I didn’t kill that man.”

How many times had I heard that? This time, though, it was different.

”I know you didn’t.”

”Well, I swan. Did my sweet little Angel tell you?”

”I’m sorry. I can’t discuss that with you.”

She clutched her hands to her heart. ”Well, bust my shiny little buttons, honey. Angel told you and you got her out of it anyway. That’s why I hired you, you know. I knew you were the best.”

The best. Helping a guilty woman walk away from a murder made me the best at my profession. I wondered what I’d have to do to be the worst.

”Tell me something,” I said. ”Angel had an opportunity to make an excellent deal a couple of weeks before the trial. She rejected it. You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you?”

Her smile turned from genuine to coy.

”They gave her another chance after the trial started. The district attorney was willing to dismiss the murder charge against her. All she would have had to do was tell them you committed the murder.

But she wouldn’t.”

”That’s my sweet little girl.”

”Convenient for us that Julie Hayes died when she did, huh?”

”It was a terrible tragedy. I can’t tell you how many times I begged that child to stay away from drugs. Turned out to be her undoing.”

”You wouldn’t have had anything to do with her death?”

”Why, sugar, I can’t believe you’d even ask me such a thing. But I will tell you this one teeny little secret. I may have suggested to someone that Julie was a problem, and that someone may have misinterpreted what I meant. I certainly didn’t mean for anyone to get killed.”

I decided to leave it at that. I didn’t want to take a chance on ending up as a witness against Erlene.

”How do you think the cops found out about your car?”

”You know, I gave that a lot of thought myself,”

she said. ”And I came to the conclusion that one of my girls must have called that nasty TBI agent. As a matter of fact, I’m certain of it. I believe I told her exactly what to say.”

”You what?”

She put her hands on the table, laced her fingers, and leaned towards me.

”I probably should explain something to you, baby doll. When you run a business like mine, you meet all different kinds of people. I try to be good to every one of them, so when I need something, I usually get it. Well, this time, what I needed was some real good legal advice, but it wasn’t the kind of legal advice I could get from you. So I talked to this wonderful man. He’s a lawyer, but not exactly the kind of lawyer you are. He used to help my husband out with his finances. He helped me understand some things about the law. Let’s see, what all were they? Things like double jeopardy, I believe is what he called it, and what was that other thing? Oh, yes, the Fourth Amendment.”

”Who was it?”

”I couldn’t betray his confidence, sugar pie. Let’s just say he’s a sweet, sweet man who likes to indulge in a little harmless sin on occasion. He and my Gus were real close.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I suspected Erlene had somehow been involved in Julie’s death, but I didn’t have any proof of it and doubted anybody on the planet would ever come up with any.

But this was something else, something fascinating.

”Why would you want Landers to find the car?”

I said.

”I couldn’t let Angel spend the rest of her life in prison or get the death penalty, sugar. The whole thing with that preacher man was my fault. When he came out to the club acting a fool and pawing Angel the way he did, it just flew all over me. Do you know what he said when I asked him nicely to leave? He said, ‘I want to rent your whore for the night. Who do I talk to about that?’ Why, that made me mad as fire, and I just figured right then and there that I’d teach him a little lesson. All Angel was supposed to do was go into the room and give him a drink. I was going to take care of the rest all by myself.”

”Didn’t quite work out the way you planned, did it?”

”It was awful. I should’ve known better than to send that sweet girl up to that motel room alone. I’ve been around the block a few times, sweetie pie, and I knew the preacher was rotten to the core, but I swan, I was so mad I just wasn’t thinking straight. I never dreamed he’d do what he did. And I never dreamed Angel would react the way she did. When she came down those steps I thought I was going to have a stroke. I went back into the room and there was all that blood. I nearly passed out. But I told myself to calm down, and I set about trying to make things right for Angel. I picked up the bottle of scotch and her purse and the knife and his wallet and then I went-”

”Hold on a minute, Erlene. Why’d you cut his, his. . what did you call it? His twigger or something like that?”

”His terwilliger?”

”Yeah, that. Why’d you cut it off? Angel told me she didn’t do it. It must have been you.”

”I saw this TV show where a man got convicted of rape because he had the girl’s DNA on his terwilliger. I got to thinking that Angel’s DNA might be on his terwilliger, and-well, you know, if the police did come around and start asking questions-I didn’t want her to have to explain something like that. Besides, sugar, he didn’t need it anymore.”

I knew when I met Erlene that there was more to her than big boobs and batting eyes, but I never expected anything like this.

”What else did you do?” I said.

”Well, let’s see. Not a whole lot. I just got sweet little Virgil to do me a favor.”

”You mean he didn’t see you on the bridge?”

”Nobody saw me on the bridge, honey. I can promise you that. And I thought there was no way anyone would find the terwilliger. That was just a stroke of bad luck.”

It was almost brilliant. She’d managed to dupe the police into thinking she’d committed the murder to get Angel off, but she’d done such a masterful job of it, she might well be convicted.

”You’ve got some serious problems, Erlene. For starters, what’s Virgil going to do when the state subpoenas him to testify against you? If he gets up on the stand and lies, they’ll charge him with perjury.”

”Don’t you worry your handsome face about that, honey. I won’t be going to trial.”

”You-why not?”