arabesque on the desk when the door opened and Alexander Dunn walked in. Dunn was a trust-funder, the beneficiary of a grandfather who struck it rich in the coal mines in southwest Virginia. He was vertically challenged, maybe five-foot-eight, and his brown hair was medium length, heavily moussed, and combed straight back from his wide forehead. He had thin, nearly indiscernible lips and dull, yellowish teeth. He was wearing a navy blue suit that looked like it was tailor-made, just like the suit he wore during Billy Dockery’s trial. His Italian loafers were black instead of brown, but a white kerchief was still rising out of the breast pocket. He strode straight up to my desk and stood there looking at me.
“The legend returns,” he said. The tone was sarcastic, and he wasn’t smiling.
I knew Alexander was a fairly recent hire in the DA’s office. Prior to his becoming an assistant district attorney, he’d been an ambulance chaser and divorce attorney. He’d been with the DA’s office for less than a year, and from what I’d read in the newspapers, he was trying mightily to make a name for himself by pressing for the maximum punishment on every case he handled. He wasn’t having much success, though, and after watching him try Dockery’s case, I knew why.
“Hello, Alexander,” I said, looking back down at my box of goodies.
“Run out of money?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Did you run out of money? Is that why you’re working here?”
“Not exactly.”
“Planning on running for office?”
“No.”
“What then? Why are you here?”
“Thought it might be entertaining.” I pulled another photograph out of the box, this one of my son, Jack, swinging a baseball bat.
“Entertaining?” Dunn said. “Well, just so you know, your pleasure is my pain. You’re hurting my career.”
“Really? How?”
“This new murder should be my case,” he blurted. “I’ve been here longer than you.” His tone had changed from sarcastic to whiny.
“Sorry. Just doing what the boss tells me to do.”
“What makes you think you can just waltz in here and take over? People aren’t happy about this, you know. People in the office. People in law enforcement. I’ve heard lots of bad things about you. Don’t expect any help from anyone.”
“Don’t worry, Alexander. I wouldn’t think of asking you for help.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I won’t ask you for help. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m kind of busy here.”
I looked up from the box and noticed that his lower lip had started quivering slightly, but he remained standing in front of my desk. He seemed to be having some kind of debate with himself about whether he should say what was on his mind. Finally, he spit it out.
“How’s that sister of yours? Still a drug addict and a thief?”
It was true. Sarah had been a drug addict and a thief in the past, but she’d been clean for more than a year. She’d replaced her drug addiction with religious fervor, but given a choice between the two extremes, I’d take good old Southern Baptist fanaticism every time.
I forced myself to smile at him, but my blood pressure was steadily rising.
“I’m tired, Alexander,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s been an extremely difficult first day on the job, and I think you should leave now.”
“It’s a shame,” he said, “having an assistant district attorney whose sister is a career criminal. It doesn’t look good for the office.”
“Maybe you should take it up with the boss.”
“Maybe I will.” He sounded like a fifth grader.
“Let me help you with the door,” I said, and I moved quickly around the desk towards him. I was a good five inches taller than him and at least forty pounds heavier. He started backing towards the door as though he were afraid I’d pull a gun and shoot him if he took his eyes off of me. He opened his mouth to say something else, but I raised an index finger to my lips.
“Shhh. I’m not sure what might happen if you start talking again.”
His eyes opened even wider. A trembling hand found the doorknob behind him. The door squeaked as it opened, and he turned and slithered out.
I stood there staring at the door for almost a full minute with the insult about Sarah ringing in my ears. I was consciously trying to slow my heart rate when I saw the doorknob turn. I couldn’t believe it. The little fool was coming back, probably to get one last shot in. I made it to the door in two steps and jerked it open.
Rita, pulled off balance by the force of the opening door, stumbled into my arms.
“Oh, my God, Rita!” I said, horrified. She backed up a step and smoothed her dress, the excess of her breasts escaping from her D-cups like wild horses from a corral. “I thought you were… I thought-”
“Don’t you pay any attention to him,” she said. “He’s just jealous is all.”
“You were listening?”
“I knew he’d do something like that. He’s been upset ever since he found out you were coming to work here.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“Of the greatest magnitude, honey,” Rita said. “But you still need to be careful how you handle him. Lee protects him.”
“Why? Why is that incompetent little jerk even working here?”
“Because the boss’s wife just happens to be Alexander’s daddy’s sister, and he’s her favorite nephew. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that blood’s thicker than water. Especially around here.”
I knew exactly what she meant. Nepotism was alive and well in northeast Tennessee. The county clerk’s office, the tax assessor’s office, the county highway department, the sheriff’s department, and the school system were all staffed by the sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, and cousins of county commissioners and their spouses. In the past, I’d always found the practice to be somewhat amusing-the hicks perpetuating their own myth-but this was different.
“So I’m stuck with him,” I said, “no matter what he does.”
“You step lightly around him,” Rita said. “He’s not very smart, but he’s mean as a striped snake.”
Monday, September 15
I held my first press conference as an assistant district attorney late that afternoon on the courthouse steps. Lee Mooney asked me to bail him out, so I did, albeit reluctantly. I kept the details to a minimum and got out of there as quickly as I could.
I moved slowly the rest of the day, exhausted. After leaving the scene where the Beck family had been murdered shortly after eleven the night before, I’d taken the long way home and sneaked into the house so I wouldn’t wake Caroline. I didn’t want to describe to her what I’d seen, to try to put the horror into words. I went into the den and mindlessly watched television until after midnight, then lay on the couch and tried to sleep. I tossed and turned until an hour before dawn, the grotesque image of the broken legs running back and forth across my mind like an ember glowing in the night wind.
I finally finished setting up my office a little after five. Besides Alexander, there were four other young lawyers in the office, and not one of them said a word to me all day. Before I left, I called Fraley to see if there was anything new to report. The only thing the canvass had provided was a witness at a house nearby who said she saw two people in black clothes and white makeup get out of the Becks’ van sometime just after dark. I headed home.
We lived on ten acres on a bluff overlooking Boone Lake in a house built primarily of cedar, stone, and glass. I loved the house and the property, and I loved the woman and the dog I shared it with. The back was almost all glass and faced north towards the lake. The views, especially when the leaves turned in October and November, were spectacular. Rio greeted me with his usual enthusiasm, and once I calmed him down, I found Caroline in the bathroom, topless. She was standing in front of the mirror prodding her left breast near the nipple with her index finger. The sight made me more than a little anxious.
