“I got the impression that he used to be. I guess he’s seen the light.”
“Doesn’t it scare you?”
“No. It doesn’t scare me. And it shouldn’t scare you either. Don’t even think about it.”
As we pulled into the driveway, it was strange not to be greeted by an overly excited German shepherd. Rio had been gone for only two days, but already I missed him. Since Jack had moved out, Rio had become my closest male companion.
I parked Caroline’s car in the garage and helped Lilly out of the backseat and upstairs to her room. Caroline walked back towards our bedroom. Just as we got to the top of the stairs, I heard Caroline yelling my name. The urgency in her voice told me that whatever had alarmed her was serious. I told Lilly to go on to bed and that I’d check on her in a few minutes.
I took the steps two at a time and walked quickly through the house. Caroline was just coming through the bedroom door. All of the color had drained from her face. Her left hand was covering her mouth, and with her right she was pointing towards the bedroom.
“What is it?” I said.
“The bathroom.”
I walked through the bedroom and into the bathroom. I saw it as soon as I stepped through the door. On the mirror above Caroline’s vanity, scrawled in what appeared to be red lipstick, was, “Ah Satan.”
There was only one explanation.
Natasha had been in my house.
Sunday, November 2
I called Fraley, who came over immediately. While I was waiting for him, I searched every nook and cranny of the house. Outside of the message in the bathroom, there was no sign of Natasha. Fraley dusted the vanity and the mirror for prints but found nothing, took a few photographs, and then the two of us searched the house again. When we were finished, we stood in the driveway beneath the bright sun.
“What are you going to do?” Fraley said.
“I don’t know. At least the dog will be back tomorrow. No way she gets in the house if Rio’s here.”
“She’s just trying to scare you.”
“Yeah? Well, she’s doing a pretty good job of it. I don’t know why in the hell I got back into this business. I should have gotten a nice, safe teaching job somewhere.”
“And miss all this fun?” Fraley said. “Relax. We get through the hearing, you go see Boyer and make your deal, and then we’ll get her psychotic ass off the streets for good.”
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Sit up every night with a shotgun?”
“You’ve got some options. Your daughter’s going back to school, right? You and your wife can move in with her mother until things calm down, or maybe you could ask the sheriff to put some guys out here until we can get her picked up.”
“I’m not going to my mother-in-law’s,” I said. “I’ll call Bates.”
I called the sheriff, who had become my biggest admirer since the court hearing with Judge Glass. He agreed to post two deputies, in two cruisers, at my house until Natasha was arrested. I was still scared, but at least I breathed a little easier.
Monday, November 3
First thing Monday morning, I waited for Alexander Dunn in the parking lot in back of the courthouse. It was chilly, the sky fast moving and slate gray. He got out of his black 700-series BMW wearing a navy blue suit covered by a tan, calf-length trench coat. His hair was slicked back, as always. His gloved right hand held an expensive black leather briefcase.
“You’ve got diarrhea of the mouth,” I said as soon as he shut the door. “Do you have any idea how much damage you’ve caused? How could you be so fucking stupid?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dunn said as he pushed past me and started towards the courthouse.
“I’m talking about running your mouth to the media. I’m talking about interfering with a murder investigation. I’m talking about obstruction of justice.”
He stopped and turned, a smug look on his face.
“Are you referring to the story in the paper yesterday morning about your proposed deal with a murderer?”
“What do you get in exchange for doing something like that? Brownie points? Will she make you look good somewhere down the road? Do a feature on you? Will she turn her back if you make a mistake? Tell me, Alexander, what’s the trade?”
“You obviously said something to someone you shouldn’t have,” Dunn said.
“I didn’t say a word to anybody. The only people who knew what was going on were you, Lee, Jim Beaumont, and me.”
“Then Beaumont said something to someone, or he leaked it himself.”
“It wasn’t Beaumont.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because Beaumont’s a decent human being, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for you.”
“Fuck you, Dillard.” Dunn turned and started walking away.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said, catching up to him and leaning against him with my shoulder. “What’s the price for betrayal? Did she give you thirty pieces of silver? A blow job? I swear, if you weren’t Lee’s nephew, I’d kick your ass all over this parking lot.”
“Speaking of kicking ass, Lee got a call from the Crossville district attorney’s office late Friday,” Dunn said as he continued to walk. “Have you been to Crossville recently, by any chance?”
He caught me totally off guard. After a long silence, I said, “What I do outside the office is none of your business.”
“It seems that one of the probation officers down there-I believe he’s dating your sister-got beaten up pretty badly. He had to be hospitalized overnight.”
“Is that a fact?” I said stupidly, unable to think of anything else.
“Yeah, it’s a fact. You know what else is a fact? He told them you did it. He doesn’t want to press charges for some reason, but why would he tell them something like that?”
“I guess he doesn’t like me.”
“Imagine that. Lee isn’t very happy about it. And who can blame him? A member of his office, an assistant district attorney, going into another district and committing a crime. It’s embarrassing. It’s disgusting. It’s… it’s downright shameful, is what it is.”
We reached the door to go upstairs to the office, and I broke away from him and headed for the front of the courthouse. He was having entirely too much fun at my expense; I didn’t want to listen to any more of it.
“He also said you had someone else with you,” Alexander called as I walked away. “My guess is it was your buddy Fraley.”
I ignored him and walked up the sidewalk to the corner and turned left towards the front steps. As I walked through the front door of the courthouse, I saw Sarge Hurley, the seventy-something security officer who’d saved my life a year and a half earlier. I’d stopped by to talk to Sarge a couple of times since I started working for the district attorney’s office. He hadn’t changed a bit. Still tall and lean with thinning silver hair, liver spots, and hands as big as country hams. Still had the youthful sparkle in his eye. Still carried his can of pepper spray, and he was still a living, breathing oracle of courthouse gossip. He started smiling as soon as he saw me.
“Well, I’ll be damned, if it ain’t Mike Tyson,” he said. “Or since your first name’s Joe, maybe I should call you Joe Louis.”
I was horrified. How could he possibly know? Had Alexander Dunn broadcast news of my trip to Crossville over some private law enforcement network?
“What are you talking about?”
He was frisking a skinny teenager. “I hear you got a right hand like a jackhammer and you’re mean as a goddamned badger.”
“Who told you that?”
“Little birdie in a tree. No, that’s a damned lie. It was a fat birdie; ain’t no way he could sit in a tree. You
