“I don’t care if you’re bleeding,” I say.
“I needa… go… ta hospital.”
“How about the morgue?”
I kneel next to him and hold the barrel hard against his forehead. His head moves with the trembling of my hand. “You couldn’t just leave it alone, could you? All you had to do was crawl into a hole somewhere.”
“You don’t unnerstand,” Mooney says in the whiny voice I’ve heard more times than I care to remember, now thick with drunkenness. His dilated pupils look like black holes.
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” I say. I feel something I’ve never felt before, and I realize it’s indifference. I don’t care about him. I don’t care that he’s bleeding. “You broke into my house, you son of a bitch. You know the legal standard for defending yourself in your own home, don’t you?”
I see a glint of understanding. He knows what I mean.
“That’s right. Deadly force. I can use deadly force defending myself against someone who invades my home.”
I stand and back up a few steps, my mind whirling. If they look closely, they’ll see the amount of blood on the floor and know he bled for a while before he was shot the second time. They’ll analyze the angle of the trajectory of the bullet and know I was standing over him when I shot him. They’ll accuse me of murdering him.
He’s garbage. He raped Hannah and then had her murdered, and he’s going to get away with it. He shot my dog. He needs to be dead.
I pull back the hammer on the pistol and take a deep breath.
A hand wraps around the gun barrel and pushes it down gently. I come out of the trance and recognize the voice.
“Don’t,” Caroline says. “You’re not like him.”
I lower the gun to my side and nod my head. A thought pops into my mind, something Bates told me about Ramirez. I step back up next to Mooney, raise my heel off the ground, and stomp on his wounded knee with all the force I can muster. He screams in agony. I dial 911 on my cell phone and tell them there’s been a shooting. The cavalry is on the way.
“Take care of Rio, will you?” I say to Caroline.
I walk to a drawer next to the sink, pull out a clean dish towel, and walk back over to Mooney.
“Here,” I say as I toss it onto his forehead. “You’re going to jail. Try not to bleed to death before you get there.”
57
The following week is a blur. My first order of business is to reassure the employees in the office that I won’t be making any dramatic changes, that everyone will keep their jobs. I tell them as much as I can about Mooney’s resignation and my appointment. I don’t see any point in keeping anything from them. After all, I want them to trust me. They’re all shocked at the news of Hannah’s violent death, especially Tanner Jarrett. When he hears that she was pregnant with Mooney’s child, that Mooney paid to have her killed, and that we can’t prosecute Mooney because all the witnesses are dead, he excuses himself from the room and doesn’t come back.
The pressure from the media becomes so intense on the first day that I agree to a press conference in one of the courtrooms at one o’clock. News about Hannah has leaked, probably from Bates, and the conference is brutal. They ask about Hannah. How was she killed? Who killed her? When was she killed? When was she found? Is it true she was pregnant? I refer all those questions to the sheriff. They ask about Mooney, question after question after question. I refuse to tell them anything other than to confirm that he resigned last night and that the governor has appointed me to replace him until the end of the term. I refer all of the questions about the break-in at my house and the shooting to the sheriff. One of the reporters even asks whether it’s true that my dog was shot. I swallow hard and tell him to talk to the sheriff.
Late that afternoon, I’m sworn into office by the judge the governor has appointed to replace Leonard Green. Sixty-year-old Terry Breck made a fortune in medical malpractice law. He’s retired now, but the governor has apparently seduced him into taking the job. He has a reputation as an even-tempered, scholarly man. I hope that turns out to be true. It’ll be such a pleasant change from what I’m used to dealing with.
On Wednesday, Leon Bates appears before the grand jury with Tanner Jarrett. He comes out with indictments against seventeen members of Satan’s Soldiers for charges ranging from possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, to murder. Bates and his SWAT team conduct a raid early the next morning, and thus far, six of the seventeen have been taken into custody. None of the indictments contain the name “Roy” or the alias “Mountain,” and I wonder what Sarah’s boyfriend’s real name is and whether he’s on the run.
Late Thursday afternoon, Tanner Jarrett, Caroline, and I get on a plane to Knoxville. There we meet a black woman, Lottie Antoine, who looks to be in her mid-sixties. After Hannah’s death was made public, I was contacted by a lawyer from Gatlinburg and told that Hannah Mills had a will, and that Lottie was the executor of her estate.
After a short, emotional introductory meeting, the four of us board a plane to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Lottie is silent during the flight. She carries herself with a sense of quiet dignity, but I can see in her dark eyes that she, too, has endured more than her share of sorrow. We rent a van and drive to South Haven the next morning. We hold a brief service for Hannah and bury her alongside her mother and brothers and sister in McDowell Cemetery near Casco Township. Lottie speaks of Hannah’s gentle nature and kindness, her love of family and the outdoors, her relationship with Luke Clinton, and her almost superhuman ability to carry on through unspeakable tragedy. Her words move all of us to tears, and I find myself thinking, once again, about how unjust life can be. We board another plane that same afternoon and fly home. On the way, Lottie tells me that Hannah’s will set up a trust that would benefit her beloved Smoky Mountains National Park.
On Sunday evening, Caroline invites a group of people, around twenty or so, over to the house to celebrate my appointment as district attorney. I have mixed feelings about it. I’m looking forward to what I know will be a challenge, but at the same time, the circumstances under which I inherited the job give me no cause for celebration. Rio is limping around in a cast. The shot shattered the upper part of his right leg, but Dr. Kruk repaired the damage and says he’ll be fine in a couple of months.
I’m standing on the deck around eight o’clock. The sun has just dropped behind the hills to the west, and the evening air has taken on a bit of a chill. I’m talking to Jim Beaumont, a well-respected local defense attorney and close friend, when I catch a glimpse of my sister, Sarah, through the window in the kitchen. Caroline must have invited her. She looks like a tick about to pop. Towering above her is Roy, the biker boyfriend.
“Oh shit,” I say to Beaumont. “Excuse me for a minute.”
I hurry through the door into the kitchen, catch Sarah by the elbow, and lead her into the same hallway where Rio was shot.
“Are you crazy?” I say. “Don’t you know the sheriff is here? Your boyfriend’s about to go to jail.”
Sarah gives me a curious look. “Why?”
“Why? Don’t you read the papers? Listen to the news? Bates indicted a whole slew of his gang this week. He’s bound to be one of them.”
“You think so?” she says. A hint of a smile is beginning to form on her face.
“Damned right, I think so. Now get him out of here before Bates spots him and a gun battle breaks out.”
“Too late,” she says, and nods back toward the kitchen. I turn to see Bates walk up to Sarah’s boyfriend and give him a big slap on the back. I’m dumbfounded. I walk into the kitchen and stare. Bates notices me and grins.
“Come on over here, Brother Dillard,” Bates says. “Let me introduce you to Roy Walker, the best undercover agent I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”
I stand there looking at him stupidly, and Walker winks and sticks out his massive hand.