I wanted to backhand him. James and Rita Miller, the parents of his murdered, beautiful, innocent young wife, were two of the nicest people I’d ever met. I interviewed them as I was preparing for the trial. One of the questions I asked was how Laura had ever become involved with Johnny Wayne.
James Miller told me Laura met Johnny Wayne while she was attending college at Carson-Newman, a small school in Jefferson City, only sixty miles away.
Johnny Wayne, who lived in Jefferson City and was a part-time student, had made himself a fixture at the Baptist Student Union, a gathering place for students of the Baptist faith. It was there that he ran his con on Laura, convincing her that he held deep convictions about Christianity. James and Rita said they had concerns, but they trusted Laura’s judgment. Johnny Wayne seemed intelligent and acted as though he loved Laura. They never imagined a monster lurked beneath the careful grooming and easy smile. But the marriage began to show serious cracks soon after the wedding and steadily broke down. Not long after their third anniversary, Johnny Wayne left Laura for another woman and moved to North Carolina. He was in Charlotte at a bar with his newly pregnant girlfriend the night Laura was murdered.
I looked at Johnny Wayne and envisioned my knuckles cracking into his teeth. It was an image I found soothing.
”What’s it going to be?” I said. ”I need an answer.
We’re supposed to be in court in two hours.”
”I need more time to consider it.”
”No, you don’t. It’s a gift. Take it or leave it.”
His hands went to his nose and he began his obnoxious habit of squeezing his nostrils together with his thumb and index finger. Squeeze and hold. Release. Squeeze and hold. Release.
After three squeeze-and-holds, he said, ”Fuck it.
I’ll do it. Throw me to the wolves.”
”Good decision,” I said. ”First one you’ve made in a while.”
”Are we done here?”
”I suppose. You in a hurry?”
”I have to take a crap. It’s the bologna they serve in this dump.” His voice, like his face, was devoid of emotion. He hadn’t bothered to ask how his son would be affected. He hadn’t mentioned the boy in months.
I got up and pushed the button on the wall to summon the guards. Johnny Wayne remained seated while I leaned on the wall and stared at the ceiling.
I didn’t want to sit back down. I wanted to be as far away from him as possible. After three or four minutes, I could hear the thump of heavy boots as the guards made their way down the hallway towards the door.
”Hey, Dillard,” Johnny Wayne said suddenly.
”What?”
”Everybody thinks she was such a saint. She was a stupid bitch. All she had to do was give me a divorce on my terms, which weren’t that complicated. She brought this on herself.”
”Don’t say another word,” I said. The vision of flying teeth was acquiring details.
The door clanged and the guards pushed their way through and gathered him up. One of them, a skin-headed, thick-necked youngster, looked me up and down.
”You only do criminal defense, ain’t that right?”
he said.
”That’s right.”
”Then I reckon you’ll be glad to know that an old lady called into dispatch a little while ago and reported that her cat found a human pecker out near the lake. A body’ll probably turn up soon.”
”A pecker? Do you mean a penis?”
”Penis to you. Pecker to me.”
”So?”
”Thought you’d like to know. A dead body means business for you, don’t it? Sort of like an undertaker.”
He winked at his partner and they shared a laugh.
Even Johnny Wayne smiled. After they left, I stayed on the wall for a few minutes, their laughter and Johnny Wayne’s vulgar confession replaying in my head. The rattle of the chains faded as they led him away.
My head started to pound and my stomach tightened as I made my way back through the labyrinth of steel and concrete. I was sick of defending the Johnny Wayne Neals of this world, and I was sick of being mocked and laughed at by assholes like the two guards. I reminded myself that I was getting out of the legal profession. In less than a year, I’d be free of it. No more Johnny Waynes. No more assholes.
As I made my way towards the entrance, I tried to tell myself to take it easy. Don’t let it get to you.
You did your job. I forced myself to think about something more pleasant. My birthday. Celebrating with my wife, Caroline, and the kids, the most important and beautiful people in my life. Chocolate cake. What would I wish for this year?
It came to me as I stepped out the front door into the rain, and the thought made me smile. The chances of the wish coming true were about a million to one, but what the hell? Why not?
This year, I’d make my birthday wish simple and selfish. This year, before I gave up the practice of law, I’d wish for one-just one-innocent client.
April 12
8:45 a.m.
An hour later, I was sitting in my truck in the parking lot at the Washington County Courthouse in downtown Jonesborough. It’s a postcard-pretty little town, the oldest in Tennessee, nestled in the rolling hills ninety miles northeast of Knoxville. I looked across the street at the International Storytelling Center, which was built a few years ago and brings Jonesborough a limited amount of national acclaim.
Every October, thousands of people gather for a huge storytelling festival. I smiled as I thought about the irony of having a storytelling center so near the courthouse. There were whoppers being told in both places.
As the raindrops patted against the windshield, I opened the console, took out a bottle of mouthwash, and gargled. I’d gotten in the habit of carrying the mouthwash with me because my mouth seemed to stay dry and bitter during the day, especially when I had to go in front of a judge or jury. The dryness was accompanied by a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach and a nagging sense of impending doom. It would disappear sometimes when I was with my family, but it was never far away. At night, I kept having a dream where I was on a makeshift raft without a paddle, floating down the middle of a wide, raging river that was rushing me towards a deadly waterfall. I couldn’t get to the side of the river, and I couldn’t go back upstream. I’d wake up just as I went over the falls.
I put the cap back on the bottle and took a deep breath. Showtime. I climbed out of the truck and walked up the courthouse steps, through the foyer, and up to the security station.
The security officer was John Allen ”Sarge” Hurley, a gruff but good-natured old coot with whom I traded friendly insults every chance I got. Sarge was legendary around the sheriff’s department for his bravery and machismo. My favorite story about him was the time Sarge single-handedly apprehended a notorious armed robber named Dewey Davis after Davis held up a grocery store on the outskirts of Jonesborough. A much younger Sarge, responding to a robbery-in-progress call, showed up just as Dewey was walking out the front door of the Winn-Dixie carrying a shotgun. As the story goes, Sarge jumped out of his cruiser oblivious to the shotgun, ran Dewey down in the parking lot, and knocked him unconscious with one punch before he hauled him off to jail.
Sarge had to be in his early seventies now. He was still tall and lean, but Mother Nature was beginning to bend him like an old poplar in a stiff wind. There were dark liver spots on his huge hands, and his upper lip had retreated until it was tight across his dentures, giving him a permanent snarl. The buckle on his gun belt was notched two inches above his navel, but he had no holster and no gun. He carried only a nightstick and small can of pepper spray.
”What’s up, Sarge?” I said as I walked through the metal detector.
”The rent,” he growled. ”I hear your boy Johnny Wayne is throwin’ in the towel today.” The sheriff’s department was a more efficient gossip pipeline than a sewing circle. Sarge always knew what was happening, sometimes before it happened.