“And you’re a model citizen, aren’t you, Mr. Dockery? I’ll bet you don’t even drink.”
Dockery’s eyes flashed with righteous indignation. He leaned forward and put his hands on the rail in front of him.
“Yeah, I may drink a little, but I’ll tell you what I don’t do. I don’t parade around in a fancy suit and put people on trial for murder when I ain’t got a smidgen of proof.”
“I object, Your Honor,” Dunn said. “The witness is being argumentative.”
“You walked right into it, Mr. Dunn,” Judge Green said. “Move along.”
“Isn’t it true, Mr. Dockery, that you took thousands of dollars in cash from the victim’s home the night you murdered her?”
“If I did, then where is it? Y’all tore my mama’s place, her cabin, our barn, and every vehicle we own apart looking for money and didn’t find a thing. And you know why you didn’t find nothing? ’Cause I didn’t do nothing.”
Alexander Dunn’s cross-examination was a monumental disaster. It ended shortly thereafter. Jim Beaumont rested his case, and Judge Green read the instructions to the jury.
The judge was long rumored in the legal community to be a closet homosexual, and he lorded it over his courtroom like an English nobleman. Before I stopped practicing law, I’d appeared before Green hundreds of times, and although I hadn’t laid eyes on him in a year, each grandiose gesture he made, each perfectly formed syllable he spoke, reminded me of what a pompous ass he was. During lulls in the trial, I found myself imagining him prancing around the room in a white periwig, pink tutu, and tights, leaping through the air like a fabulously gay ballet dancer.
As soon as Green finished, the jury retired to deliberate. I thought I’d be in for a long wait, but in less than thirty minutes, I saw the bailiffs and clerks bustling around, a sure sign the jurors had made their decision.
Five minutes later, they filed back into the courtroom. Green turned his palm upward and raised his right hand as though he were a symphony conductor coaxing a crescendo from the woodwinds. The foreman rose, an uncertain look on his weathered face.
“I understand you’ve reached a verdict,” the judge said.
“We have, Your Honor.”
“Pass it to the bailiff.”
A uniformed deputy crossed the courtroom to the jury box, took the folded piece of paper from the foreman’s hand, and delivered it to Judge Green. The judge dramatically unfolded the paper, looked at it with raised brows, refolded it, and handed it to the bailiff. The bailiff then walked the form back across the room to the foreman.
“Mr. Foreman,” the judge said, “on the first count of the indictment, premeditated first-degree murder, how does the jury find?”
“We find the defendant not guilty.”
“On the second count of the indictment, especially aggravated kidnapping, how does the jury find?”
“We find the defendant not guilty.”
“On the third count of the indictment, aggravated burglary, how does the jury find?”
“We find the defendant not guilty.”
I watched Dockery pat his lawyer on the back and walk out the door arm in arm with his mother.
The son of a bitch had gotten away with it again.
I fumed all the way home, muttering to myself about what an idiot Alexander Dunn had been. When I pulled into the driveway, the garage door was open. My wife must have forgotten to close it again. She always does. I parked my truck in the driveway and walked inside. As soon as I opened the door, I heard the sound of hard nails skidding across the wood floor. Rio, my German shepherd, came barreling around the kitchen counter, headed straight for me. I was carrying a bottle of water in my hand, and when he jumped up to greet me, his snout sent the bottle flying across the kitchen floor.
“Shit, Rio,” I said as I walked towards the counter. “Why are you always so damned excited to see me? We’re together all day every day.”
The tone of my voice frightened him, and he lowered his head and slinked away. As I turned to reach for a paper towel so I could wipe up the spilled water, I scraped my shin on the open door of the dishwasher. I cursed again and reached down and slammed it closed.
“Where have you been?”
Caroline walked into the kitchen with her perpetual smile on her face. We’d been high school sweethearts, and twenty years of marriage hadn’t dimmed our passion. I always looked forward to getting home to my leggy, tanned, athletic wife. I loved her soft brown eyes and her thick auburn hair. But at that moment I wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.
“Caroline, why do you leave this goddamned dishwasher door open all the time?” I snapped as I knelt down and started wiping up the spilled water. “I just cracked my shin on it again. I’ve asked you at least a hundred times to close the fucking dishwasher. ”
I looked up. She’d stopped in her tracks and was glaring.
“Why don’t you watch where you’re stepping?” she said sarcastically. “Are you fucking blind?”
When the word fuck came out of either of our mouths, it was a signal to the other that an immediate choice had to be made. Caroline could walk away and leave me alone until I calmed down. She usually did. Or she could stand and fight. This time, the battle was on.
“And why can’t you close the fucking garage door?” I said, still wiping. “Were you born in a barn? All you have to do is push a button and it closes itself.”
“What difference does it make whether the garage door is closed?” she snarled.
“It keeps some of the heat out, and when we keep some of the heat out, the air conditioner doesn’t have to work so hard. And when the air conditioner doesn’t work so hard, it saves us money! But you don’t ever think about that, do you? The money we have isn’t going to last forever, especially if you keep pissing it away doing stupid shit like leaving the garage door open.”
“So you’re saying I’m going to drive us into bankruptcy by leaving a garage door open? Sitting around the house for a year has driven you crazy, Joe.”
I straightened up, wadded the paper towel, and tossed it in the wastebasket under the sink.
“Screw you,” I said as I walked past her towards the bedroom. I grabbed a pair of shorts, some socks, and a T-shirt from the dresser and my running shoes from the closet and went back to the bathroom to change. Just as I finished tying my shoes, Caroline appeared.
“So do you want to tell me what’s going on with you?” she said.
“Nothing’s going on.”
“You haven’t been in the house five minutes and you’ve already terrified Rio, slammed the dishwasher, and sworn at me for leaving a garage door open. Something’s going on. Where have you been for the past two days?”
I looked up at her. The anger was gone from her face, and the tone of her voice told me she was genuinely concerned.
“I went to Jonesborough to watch Billy Dockery’s trial,” I said.
“I knew it,” she said. “I’ve been reading about it in the newspaper. I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away. Is it still going on?”
“No. They acquitted him again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prosecutor do a poorer job of trying a case.”
“Come on out to the kitchen table,” she said as she reached out and took my hand. “Let’s talk.”
I followed her and sat down. She went to the refrigerator, pulled out two beers, and came back to the table.
“You’re miserable,” she said. “You’re bored. I think you feel like you’re wasting your life, and it’s time to do something about it.”
She popped the top on a can of Budweiser and handed it to me.
“I’m not miserable,” I said. “I’m just a little upset. Seeing Dockery walk out the door today made me sick to my stomach.”
“So why don’t you do something about it?” she said.
“Do something? Like what?”
“Why don’t you go back to work? I remember when we were young you talked about going to work for the prosecutor’s office. Why don’t you give Lee Mooney a call and see if he can find a place for you?”