I dive behind a berm as small arms and machine gun fire whizzes by overhead and kicks up sand near my feet. The steady thump of antiaircraft fire echoes off the hills beyond the airstrip. I belly crawl to the edge of the berm and shoulder my weapon. Other Rangers are running and yelling around me. I look for a target and am just about to fire when something falls on my back, nearly knocking the wind out of me. It’s a fellow Ranger. I push him off me, and when he rolls, I see that his face has been blown off. I scream, stand up, start firing, and run straight toward the enemy.
“Joe! Joe! Wake up! Joe!”
I open my eyes. Caroline is sitting up, shaking my shoulder.
“You’re screaming. Are you all right?”
I shake my head in disbelief. It seemed so real. “Yeah, baby, I’m fine. I guess it was just a nightmare.”
“ Just a nightmare? You’re soaking wet.”
I sit up on the edge of the bed as Caroline rubs my back.
“Why don’t you go dry off and come back to bed?” she says.
I look at the clock. Almost four in the morning. I stand up and walk around the bed to Caroline’s side. I tuck the comforter in around her and kiss her on the forehead.
“Go on back to sleep,” I say. “I think I’ll just stay awake.”
I walk out to the couch, turn on the television, and try not to think about the dream. But it won’t go away. A year after I jumped into Grenada, I learned that the U.S. State Department had issued a warning to the Grenadian government that we were coming. They, in turn, told the Russians and the North Koreans, who immediately left the island. All that was left were a few Cuban engineers and the People’s Defense Force, but they were armed to the teeth, and they were waiting for us.
That was the day I knew I would leave the army, and that was the day I knew I’d never trust my own government again.
45
Anita White believed Tommy Miller would show up at his mother’s house before long. He was a kid, after all. His father had just been buried. He’d want to be near his mother, and he’d need money. Anita formulated a simple but effective plan for finding out if Tommy came around. She gave her cell number to the nosy neighbor, Trudy Goodin, and told her to keep a close eye out.
Mrs. Goodin called late on a Tuesday night.
“I saw him through the window,” she said. “I’m sure it’s him.”
Anita and three other agents took Tommy down at six the next morning when he and his mother backed out of their garage. Toni Miller was driving, with Tommy in the passenger seat. The agents made the usual show of force on a felony arrest-the guns drawn, the yelling, the threats. When Special Agent in Charge Ralph Harmon discovered that Tommy had an airline ticket to San Francisco and five thousand dollars in cash in his backpack, he became infuriated and arrested Toni for obstructing justice. Both Tommy and his mother were handcuffed, taken to the TBI office, and placed in separate interrogation rooms. Agent Harmon tried to interview Toni Miller first, but she immediately demanded to speak to an attorney.
“What are we going to do with her?” Anita asked as Harmon walked out of the room.
“Let her sit. We can hold her for up to seventy-two hours before we have to get her in front of a magistrate. There’s no way I’m letting her anywhere near a phone. The first thing she’ll do is start calling lawyers.”
Anita watched on the monitor as Harmon walked in and read Tommy his Miranda rights. To her surprise, Tommy didn’t mention anything about an attorney. Harmon then left Tommy alone for three hours. Toni Miller was still in the other interrogation room down the hall. During the entire three hours, the only peep the agents heard from Tommy was when he asked to go to the bathroom. Other than that, he simply sat with his head down on the table.
Just before Anita, Norcross, and Harmon entered the interrogation room to interview Tommy, Harmon called them into his office.
“I’ll handle the questioning,” Harmon said. “The two of you just watch and learn. The only satisfactory conclusion to this interview will be a signed confession and an arrest for first-degree murder, and I intend to make sure it happens.”
When they walked into the room, Harmon took a seat directly across the table from Tommy. Anita sat down to Tommy’s right, Norcross to his left. Anita looked at Tommy closely. What she saw was a frightened boy who looked very much like his father. Anita had seen pictures of Ray Miller in the newspaper, and she immediately noticed the similarities. He had a young handsomeness about him, with dark hair and eyes, a slight lump in the bridge of his nose, high cheekbones, and well-defined facial lines.
“Where have you been, son?” Harmon said in a friendly tone. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I was on the road for a little while,” Tommy replied.
“I want you to understand something from the beginning, Tommy,” Harmon said. “It’s okay if I call you Tommy, right? I want you to know that we’re here to help you. We’re willing to do anything we can to help you help yourself. You believe that, don’t you, Tommy? You believe we’re here to help? We’re your friends, son. We don’t want to see anything bad happen to you.”
Tommy nodded his head silently. Anita thought she saw a look of relief cross his face. She wanted to tell him that Harmon wasn’t his friend. She wanted to tell him he should ask for a lawyer, but she sat there silently, just as Harmon had ordered.
“I read your Miranda rights to you earlier, correct?” Harmon continued. “I know your dad was a lawyer, so you should be familiar with your rights, but there’s been a change in the law recently. The United States Supreme Court says you no longer have a constitutional right to have an attorney present during questioning. You still have a right to an attorney, and you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. Do you understand that?”
“I understand,” Tommy said.
“Are you sure you don’t want a lawyer present during this interview?”
“I’ve been thinking about that ever since you picked me up,” Tommy said. “I don’t have anything to hide. I just want to get this behind me.”
“Of course you do. Besides, only a person who’s done something wrong needs a lawyer, am I right? Only guilty people need lawyers.”
“Where is my mother?”
“She’s just down the hall. She’s fine.”
“Is she going to go to jail?”
“A lot will depend on how our conversation goes,” Harmon said. “Can we get you anything? Something to drink? Eat? A cigarette?”
“Some water would be good,” Tommy said.
Harmon nodded at Anita. “Get the boy some water.”
Anita returned quickly with a bottle of water, stung by the cavalier manner in which Harmon had ordered her out of the room. She watched as Tommy lifted the bottle to his lips. His hands were trembling slightly, which was understandable, given the circumstances.
“I guess you know why you’re here,” Harmon said to Tommy.
“Yes, sir, I think so. I think you want to talk to me about Judge Green’s murder.”
For the next twenty minutes, Tommy gave Harmon the same answers he’d given Jack Dillard a couple of weeks earlier. He recounted the evening as best he could but was unable to answer any specific questions about his actions after he left the cemetery that night. He told Harmon about waking up outside the convenience store and driving to the Dillards’. He told him about how his clothing smelled like gasoline and that Mrs. Dillard had offered to wash the clothes for him. He said he ran from his home because his mother told him the police suspected him of being involved in the judge’s murder. No, he didn’t know how she found out about it. As soon as he returned home that morning, his mother told him he should leave. He ran from the police in Durham for the same reason he left Johnson City-fear. He didn’t think the police would believe his story about not being able to remember. He explained how he gave his car to a stranger in North Carolina, knowing the police would be looking for the car, and how he hitchhiked and rode buses around the Southeast for two weeks, staying in cheap hotels and flophouses along the way. When he was finished, Harmon sat back and folded his arms.