I hear the distinctive sound of a zipper as the paramedics close the body bag. Anita and I watch as they begin to roll the charred remains of Judge Green toward the ambulance.
“That’s quite an endorsement coming from an assistant district attorney,” Anita says.
“I know him, and I know he didn’t do this.”
“So if I arrest him for murder, I guess somebody else will be prosecuting.”
I hear a clap of thunder in the distance as she turns her back to me and walks away. I hurry off toward my pickup. I need to talk to Tommy.
14
Instead of going to the office, I head straight back to the house. By the time I get there, the thunderstorm is beginning to unleash its fury. As I pull into the driveway, I can see whitecaps on the channel below, and the young birch trees at the edge of the woods are bending with the howling wind. Small raindrops are whizzing by the windshield horizontally, and the thick cloud cover has transformed morning into dusk.
The Honda Civic that I assume belongs to Tommy Miller is gone. I open the door from the garage into the kitchen and Rio almost knocks me down. He’s excited to see me, unaccustomed to my coming home so early in the day.
Caroline is standing at the stove, while Jack sits at the kitchen table. There’s a stack of pancakes in front of him, and the smell of bacon fills my nostrils. Both of them look at me in surprise.
“What are you doing here?” Caroline says.
I ignore her and walk straight to the table. “Where’s Tommy?” I say to Jack.
“What?”
“You heard me. Where’s Tommy? I saw him sleeping downstairs before I left.”
“I guess he went home.”
“Did you talk to him? What did he say?”
The questions I’m firing at Jack are quick, and the tone of my voice is intense. It’s not the kind of treatment he’s used to getting from me. Caroline walks over from the stove and sets a plate of scrambled eggs down on the table.
“What time did Tommy show up?”
“I don’t know,” Jack says. “Why are you so pissed off?”
“I asked you a question, and I want a straight answer. Now, what time did Tommy show up? ”
“Don’t yell at him,” Caroline says evenly.
“Stay out of this.”
Jack is looking at me with wide eyes. We haven’t exchanged a cross word since his first year in college when he got a little too deep into the Nashville party scene. Caroline doesn’t reply. She knows how I feel about Jack, and she knows I wouldn’t be acting this way without a good reason.
“I don’t know what time he got here,” Jack says, looking back down at his plate. “I woke up this morning and he was here. He was already awake.”
“Did you talk to him before he left?”
“Yeah, a little bit. He said he got hammered last night.”
“What time did he leave?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
“What else did he say?”
“Not much. He was pretty quiet. I don’t think he felt good.”
“How did he look?”
“What do you mean, ‘How did he look?’ He looked like someone who buried his father yesterday and tried to drown the memory in a liquor bottle.”
“Did he look like he’d been in a fight?”
“I didn’t notice anything.”
“No cuts? No blood? No bruises?”
“Not that I saw. What’s going on, Dad?”
“What about his clothes? Did you see anything on his clothes?”
“Not really. I mean, he was wearing some of my clothes.”
“What the hell happened to his clothes?”
“I don’t know.”
I take a deep breath and sit down across from him. Caroline returns the pan to the stove and walks back to the table.
“You’d better sit down,” I say to her.
For the next few minutes, I describe to them the crime scene, how someone apparently planned the murder, lay in wait, then brutally assaulted, hanged, and burned a man. When I’m finished, I stare straight at Jack.
“They haven’t positively identified the body yet. But there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind who it is.”
“Who?” Caroline asks.
“It’s Judge Green.” I’m still staring at Jack. “And Tommy Miller is at the top of their list of suspects. The TBI is going to be crawling all over this.”
Jack’s face slowly turns pale, as though a valve has been opened and has drained every bit of blood from above his shoulders. Suddenly he stands.
“I’m going to be sick,” he says, and he sprints for the bathroom.
15
Caroline and I sit in silence for a few minutes, listening to the retching from the bathroom echo off the walls down the hall.
“You don’t really think Tommy did it,” Caroline says.
“It’s possible.”
“But you knew Ray. You know Tommy. You’re his friend, Joe.”
“Not if he committed a murder and brought it to my doorstep. That’s not my idea of friendship.”
“Tommy didn’t kill anyone, and you know it. They’re just going after Tommy because of what happened with Ray.”
“Oh, they’re going after him, all right. You can count on that. My guess is Special Agent Anita White will be knocking on his door within the hour.”
Caroline stands and starts walking toward the counter. She picks up the telephone.
“Then I’m calling Toni,” Caroline says. “I have to warn her.”
I get up and walk toward her, holding out my hand.
“No way, Caroline. One of the first things they’ll do is get a subpoena for their phone records. If you call, you’ll probably get a visit. Now give me the phone.”
“She just buried her husband. I can call to check on her if I want.”
“But you can’t call to warn her that the cops are coming to question her son about a murder.”
“Why not?” She turns her back on me and begins to dial.
“Because you could wind up getting charged with obstruction of justice, that’s why. Caroline, don’t be reckless. Stay out of this.”
“That’s twice you’ve said that to me in the past twenty minutes. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m not one of your underlings at the office. I don’t take orders from you.”
“Please.”
“If it were me, I’d expect her to do the same.”
I put my hand on her shoulder and turn her toward me.
“What do I have to do to make you understand this isn’t a game? You’re about to commit a crime, and you’re forcing me to be a witness.”
“Calling my friend is not a crime. And you don’t have to listen.”
The look in her eyes tells me she’s made up her mind. She walks toward the bedroom, the phone to her ear. I turn, frustrated, and catch a glimpse of Jack coming down the hall, wiping his mouth with a washcloth. The aura of self-assuredness that usually surrounds him has vanished. He trudges through the kitchen on heavy legs and plops back into his seat at the table.
I begin to rub my fingers through my hair and notice that they’re trembling. I feel anger-anger that Judge Green set all of this into motion, anger that I’m helpless to do anything about it, anger that my wife is acting like a stubborn fool-but I also feel fear. I know what the system is capable of. I know what it can do to the guilty, and I know what it can do to the innocent. My mind conjures up an image of Tommy strapped to a gurney, an IV hooked to his arm. I fear for Tommy, but I also fear for my son.
“I can’t believe this,” Jack says quietly. He stares down at the table, as though in a trance.
“Think,” I say. “Think about everything he said and did.”
“Why? Even if I remember something that might help the police, do you think I’m going to tell them? We’re talking about my best friend here. We’re talking about someone whose life was ripped apart for no good reason, someone who didn’t deserve it. Even if he did kill the judge-and I don’t believe for a second that he did-I’ll be damned if I’m going to help them pin it on him.”