After a short, emotional introductory meeting, the four of us board a plane to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Lottie is silent during the flight. She carries herself with a sense of quiet dignity, but I can see in her dark eyes that she, too, has endured more than her share of sorrow. We rent a van and drive to South Haven the next morning. We hold a brief service for Hannah and bury her alongside her mother and brothers and sister in McDowell Cemetery near Casco Township. Lottie speaks of Hannah’s gentle nature and kindness, her love of family and the outdoors, her relationship with Luke Clinton, and her almost superhuman ability to carry on through unspeakable tragedy. Her words move all of us to tears, and I find myself thinking, once again, about how unjust life can be. We board another plane that same afternoon and fly home. On the way, Lottie tells me that Hannah’s will set up a trust that would benefit her beloved Smoky Mountains National Park.
On Sunday evening, Caroline invites a group of people, around twenty or so, over to the house to celebrate my appointment as district attorney. I have mixed feelings about it. I’m looking forward to what I know will be a challenge, but at the same time, the circumstances under which I inherited the job give me no cause for celebration. Rio is limping around in a cast. The shot shattered the upper part of his right leg, but Dr. Kruk repaired the damage and says he’ll be fine in a couple of months.
I’m standing on the deck around eight o’clock. The sun has just dropped behind the hills to the west, and the evening air has taken on a bit of a chill. I’m talking to Jim Beaumont, a well-respected local defense attorney and close friend, when I catch a glimpse of my sister, Sarah, through the window in the kitchen. Caroline must have invited her. She looks like a tick about to pop. Towering above her is Roy, the biker boyfriend.
“Oh shit,” I say to Beaumont. “Excuse me for a minute.”
I hurry through the door into the kitchen, catch Sarah by the elbow, and lead her into the same hallway where Rio was shot.
“Are you crazy?” I say. “Don’t you know the sheriff is here? Your boyfriend’s about to go to jail.”
Sarah gives me a curious look. “Why?”
“Why? Don’t you read the papers? Listen to the news? Bates indicted a whole slew of his gang this week. He’s bound to be one of them.”
“You think so?” she says. A hint of a smile is beginning to form on her face.
“Damned right, I think so. Now get him out of here before Bates spots him and a gun battle breaks out.”
“Too late,” she says, and nods back toward the kitchen. I turn to see Bates walk up to Sarah’s boyfriend and give him a big slap on the back. I’m dumbfounded. I walk into the kitchen and stare. Bates notices me and grins.
“Come on over here, Brother Dillard,” Bates says. “Let me introduce you to Roy Walker, the best undercover agent I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”
I stand there looking at him stupidly, and Walker winks and sticks out his massive hand.
“Howdy again,” he says. “They call me Mountain.”
58
On Monday morning, I’m sitting at my new desk at seven o’clock sharp. I’m alone. The rest of the crew won’t arrive for another hour.
I’ve removed everything from the office that reminds me of Lee Mooney: the desk, the furniture, the photos on the wall. I’ve boxed up all of his personal property and mailed it to him. The United States and Tennessee flags that framed his desk have been moved to the reception area. The large photograph of George W. Bush has been replaced by a framed copy of the preamble to the United States Constitution. I’ve painted the walls myself. Caroline told me that Hannah Mills’s favorite color was gold and helped me pick out a shade that isn’t too bright. I’ve brought a few small framed photos of my family into the office, but outside of that, I’ve chosen to keep it sparse.
There’s a large sealed envelope on the desk in front of me. To my right is a thick file I’ve retrieved from a storage room in my house.
Last week, I made two important phone calls. One was to Brian Gant’s appellate attorney, and the other was to the director of the Tennessee Department of Correction. I was amazed at how easy it was to get the director on the phone. Being a district attorney general certainly has its advantages. Brian’s lawyer faxed me a copy of the DNA profile of evidence from the scene where Brian’s mother- in-law was murdered and his niece was raped, and the director readily agreed to run the profile through their database. All he needed was a case number, he said, and he’d see to it that it was taken care of. In less than forty-eight hours, I received a telephone call from a Department of Correction DNA specialist. She had a match to the profile I faxed her, she said. The DNA belonged to a man named Earl Gaines. He’d been convicted twice of aggravated rape and was currently serving a thirty-year sentence. I asked her whether she could send me a copy of the DOC’s records on Gaines, and she said she’d get it in the mail right away.
The package in front of me is Gaines’s records. The file to my right is Brian Gant’s. I open the package, remove the thick sheaf of papers, and begin to read them carefully. Gaines was born in 1966. He was first convicted of aggravated rape at the age of nineteen. He served ten years, and was paroled in February 1995, just two months before Brian Gant’s mother-in-law was murdered.
I find the section that contains Gaines’s parole records. They show that in February 1995, he moved in with a woman named Clara Stoots. As I look at Clara Stoots’s address, an alarm bell goes off inside my head. I grab Brian Gant’s file and quickly locate a copy of the original police report of the murder. I’m looking for the mother-in-law’s address. When I find it, I begin to slowly shake my head.
“No,” I say out loud. “No.”
Clara Stoots’s address in April 1995 was 136 Old Oak Road, Jonesborough, Tennessee. Shirley La-Guardia, Brian Gant’s mother-in-law, lived at 134 Old Oak Road, Jonesborough, Tennessee. At the time of her murder, Earl Gaines was living right next door.
I dig back through Gaines’s file, curious about one thing. Toward the bottom of the stack are several booking photos of Gaines. I fold my arms on the desk in front of me, drop my head onto them, and start slamming my fist onto the desk in anger and frustration.
As little Natalie first told the police, Gaines looked very much like Uncle Brian.
59
Anita White walks unannounced into my office an hour and a half later wearing a smart- looking navy blue pantsuit but seeming a bit frazzled. She sits down across the desk from me without saying a word. I’ve called her a couple of times since our conversation at Perkins the morning they arrested Tommy Miller, but she hasn’t answered and hasn’t returned the calls. I wonder whether she’s looking for another apology from me.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” I say.
“I’ve been out of the country.”
“Vacation?”
“I took a few personal days, but I worked the entire time I was gone.”
“Really? On what?”
“It started with the forensic analysis of Judge Green’s computer. Our analyst found out that someone had hacked into the judge’s computer not long before he was killed. He investigated, like all good TBI agents do, and found that the computer the hacker used was located in another country.”
“And what country was that?”
“Canada.”
The look on her face is almost, but not quite, smug. There’s a gleam in her eye that tells me she knows something that I don’t. I can tell she’s dying to spit it out, but first she wants to enjoy her little game.
“Canada’s a big country,” I say.
“Yes, and Vancouver’s a big city.”
The thought germinates in my mind and begins to grow quickly. Vancouver. Canada. Judge Green. Computer
