The suggestion took me by complete surprise. Even sitting there watching Alexander Dunn botch a trial, knowing I could do much better, going back to practicing law hadn’t entered my mind. I’d quit a year earlier after spending more than a decade as a criminal defense lawyer. I made a lot of money, gained a lot of notoriety, and was good at what I did, but the profession eventually burned me out mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Friends and acquaintances had always asked me, “How can you go into court and represent someone who you know is guilty?” My answer was always that my job was to make certain the government followed its own rules and to hold them to their burden of proof. It didn’t have anything to do with guilt or innocence. I convinced myself for years that I was doing something honorable, that I was an important cog in the machine that called itself the criminal justice system. But over time, and especially after I realized I’d helped Billy Dockery escape punishment for murdering a defenseless elderly woman, I began to regard myself as something much less than honorable. It had been a little more than a year since I’d helped two women walk away from a charge of murdering a preacher. The preacher’s son tried to kill me in the parking lot outside of the courthouse, and he nearly killed my wife in the process. That was enough.
I’d worked hard my entire life and had accumulated a fair amount of money, so I took a break, thinking I might eventually teach at a university. For the past year, I’d divided my time between watching my son play baseball for Vanderbilt University in Nashville and watching my daughter perform at football and basketball games as a member of the University of Tennessee’s dance team. When I was home, I piddled around the house, worked out at the gym, ran miles and miles along the trail by the lake, and played with the dog. I enjoyed myself most of the time, but Caroline was right: I was bored, and I missed the excitement of playing such a high-stakes game.
“I don’t know, Caroline,” I said. “It got pretty bad there towards the end. Do you really think I’m ready to go back?”
“If we were sitting here talking about going back into criminal defense, I’d say no. But I think you’d like prosecuting. You’ve always had a little bit of a hero complex. Putting bad guys behind bars might be right up your alley.”
“You’re ready to get me out of the house, aren’t you?” I said. “You’re tired of looking at me.”
“How could I be tired of looking at you? You’re gorgeous. You’re big and strong and you’ve got that dark hair and those beautiful green eyes. You’re eye candy, baby.”
“That kind of flattery will definitely get you laid.”
“Seriously,” she said, “I’m not tired of anything. I could live this simple little life we have now until they put me in the ground, but I know you, Joe, and you’re just not happy. You have too much drive to be a professional piddler.”
“So you think I should just call Mooney up and say, ‘Hey, how about giving me a job’?”
“Why not? The worst he can say is no, but I think he’d be glad to have you.”
I smiled at her. Caroline had a way of making me feel like I could conquer the world. She’d always had more confidence in me than I had in myself.
“Okay,” I said. “If you really think it might be right for me, I’ll give it a shot. I’ll call Mooney first thing in the morning.”
She stood and pursed her lips slightly. The next thing I knew she was pulling her shirt over her head. She slipped off her bra and turned towards the bedroom, dangling the bra from her fingertips as she looked at me over her shoulder.
“Now that’s what I call eye candy,” I said as I put down the beer and followed her. “Wait up. Let me help you take off the rest.”
Friday, August 29
I felt the welcome coolness of air-conditioning on my face as I opened the door and stepped out of the oppressive heat and humidity. It was a room the owner of the restaurant-a man named Tommy Hodges who fancied himself a local political insider-reserved for special customers, people he believed had power or privilege. It had its own entrance at the side of the one-story brick building. I was forty-one years old and had practiced law in the community for more than a decade, but I’d never set foot in the place.
The room was small and dimly lit, dominated by a single table, large and round with a scarred blue Formica top. All four walls surrounding the table were decorated with autographed photos of state and local politicians. Lee Mooney, the elected attorney general of the First Judicial District, was examining a photograph of himself as I stepped through the door.
Mooney was fifty years old, a lean, striking man with gray eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, and a handlebar mustache. I’d called him on Thursday morning and asked him whether he might consider hiring me, and he asked me to meet him at Tommy’s place the next day. He turned his head when he heard the door open and grinned.
“Joe Dillard, in the flesh,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s been a long time.”
At six feet, five inches, Mooney was a couple of inches taller than me. As his fingers wrapped around my hand, his white teeth flashed and his eyes locked onto mine. He held both my gaze and my hand a bit too long.
I was suspicious of all politicians, but because I’d practiced criminal defense law for so long, I was especially suspicious of the ego-filled megalomaniacs who typically sought the office of district attorney. A Texas A amp;M grad, Mooney had gone from ROTC cadet to officer training to the judge advocate general’s office in the Marine Corps. He retired five years ago after the marines passed on the opportunity to promote him to full colonel. His wealthy wife had persuaded him to move to northeast Tennessee, which was her childhood home, and he immediately hired on as an assistant with the local DA’s office. Before I stopped practicing law, I tried half a dozen criminal cases against Mooney. I remembered him as a formidable adversary in the courtroom with an almost pathological fear of losing. I’d suspected him more than once of withholding evidence, but I wasn’t ever able to prove it.
Mooney quit the DA’s office two years ago when he smelled blood in the water. Word around the campfire was that his predecessor-a pathetic little man named Deacon Baker-had lost control of his own office and, Mooney must have sensed, lost the confidence of the voters. Mooney resigned and immediately announced he was running against his boss in the August election. When the last murder case I defended blew up in Deacon Baker’s face just before the election, Mooney buried him.
“So what have you been up to for the past year?” Mooney said as we sat down.
“As little as possible.”
“How’s your wife? Is it Caroline?”
“Right. She’s fine, thanks for asking.”
“I’ve read about your son in the newspaper. He’s some ballplayer.”
“He’s worked hard.”
“Have you missed it? Practicing law, I mean.”
“Some,” I said. There was a seductive element to defending people accused of committing crimes, especially when the stakes were at their highest. Having the fate of a man’s life depend on both the intensity of your commitment and the quality of your work was often alluring.
Tommy Hodges, the slight and balding owner of the restaurant, showed up carrying two glasses of water and a pad.
“Don’t I know you?” he said to me.
“I don’t think so.”
“Sure you do,” Mooney said. “This is Joe Dillard, the best trial lawyer who ever set foot in a courtroom around here.”
Hodges’s eyes lit up.
“Oh, yeah!” he said, pointing at me. “I remember you! That murder, the preacher, right? That was something. Big news.”
“Yeah,” I said, “big news.”
“I ain’t heard of you since. Where you been?”
“Sabbatical,” I said.
“What?”
“Tommy,” Mooney said, “how about a couple of club sandwiches and a couple of Cokes? Is that okay with you, Joe?”