Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(16)

“Yes, Dr. Brady?”

“Start checking into whether we can pay this woman off. I want to know how much it’ll take to make her go away.”





THURSDAY, AUGUST 29

Caroline turned out to be a prophet, because the call came in later that day. Gerome Davidson, an assistant city manager in Collierville, wanted to meet with me along with his wife, Regina, and his son, Kevin. The call came into the office in Jonesborough, where Charlie and Jack and I had updated things. We’d expanded into a rental space that had become vacant next door, so we now had offices for me, for Jack, and for Charlie. We also had a decent-sized conference room and small offices for our new legal secretary and a paralegal.

The secretary was a sharp, mid-thirties blonde named Beverly Snyder and the paralegal was a younger, equally-sharp brunette named Kelly Sims, both of whom had been hired by Jack and Charlie. I’d had a secretary years earlier, but Caroline had become my secretary when I decided to get out of practicing criminal defense law. That only lasted a couple of years. When I went back to criminal defense, Caroline handled the secretarial duties, but she didn’t much care for it and she no longer had the energy. We also had a new investigator, a former FBI agent who had retired after twenty years with the bureau and was hiring herself out as a private investigator on a case-by-case basis. Her name was Susan Stoneman, but everybody called her Stony. She’d worked two cases for us, and I’d found her work to be excellent and her rates reasonable.

So we’d hired the new people, had the new office set up, and had updated all of our computers and software. We were capable of being a regular legal defense juggernaut now, a real team with good people and the right technology. Because of all the changes, and especially because I had Jack and Charlie around all the time, I’d found myself revitalized when it came to practicing law. I was often lost when it came to using the tech stuff, but I was enjoying the practice of law for the first time in a long time.

Charlie was in court when the call came in from Gerome Davidson and I was at the jail talking to an appointed client named Rocky Rutledge who had been accused of murdering his brother-in-law, so Beverly initially turned the call over to Jack. Jack spoke with Mr. Davidson for quite some time and set up an appointment for the next day. Mr. Davidson, who had driven up from Collierville as soon as his son told him what was going on, wanted me there. He said he’d done some calling around and believed I would be the best person for the job, so Jack told him, without talking to me, that I’d be there. I was a bit annoyed at first, but after thinking about what Caroline had said and after listening to what Jack had to say, I agreed.

The three of them walked in at 11:00 a.m. sharp, right on time. Beverly buzzed me and told me they were there. By the time I walked out into the lobby, she’d offered them coffee or tea or water, which they all turned down. I greeted each of them separately.

Kevin was an impressive looking young man. He was about two inches shorter than me at six-feet-one, and he was lean and muscular. He had a firm handshake and he looked me directly in the eye when I took his hand. He had beautiful, perfect white teeth, short hair, high cheekbones and a long face. Everything about him said athlete, the way he looked, the way he moved. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit and tie over a white button-down shirt.

His parents were a handsome couple as well. Kevin was practically a clone of Gerome, while Regina was striking in a navy-blue business suit. She wore her hair short, and was as lean as the men in her life. She would later tell me that she ran track at Middle Tennessee State University, where she was a 400 and 800-meter specialist and where she had met her husband, who was a linebacker on the football team majoring in public administration.

I brought the three of them into my office and we made some small talk. Gerome and Regina had been married right out of college and Kevin came along the very next year. He was now twenty-one years old, which meant they’d been married for twenty-two. They also had two daughters, both of whom were in high school in Collierville. Kevin had been an all-state performer at Collierville. He’d drawn the attention of some Division I programs, but none of them wanted him to play quarterback. He was left-handed and said while his arm was plenty strong, he wasn’t consistently accurate. He could run, though, and he eventually wound up at East Mississippi Community College in a small town called Scooba, Mississippi. He played very little there, didn’t like the coach, and transferred to ETSU after being invited to visit. The Bucs were a Division I FCS school just putting a program back together. They didn’t even have a stadium in which to play during Kevin’s first two years but were scheduled to move into a brand-new stadium on campus his senior season. The team won two games Kevin’s first year, had won five games last year, and were hoping to win at least seven this year. The young man’s eyes lit up when he talked about football; I could tell he loved it.

“And what kind of student are you?” I asked.

“Top of my class,” he said. “Majoring in criminal justice and minoring in history. I’ve already been accepted to law school at the University of Tennessee. I guess that could change, depending on what happens in this case.”

“I went to the University of Tennessee law school,” I said. “Good school, but I barely remember it. I was married, we were having and raising babies. I was so busy it’s just a blur.”

“I hope Kevin gets the opportunity to go there,” his father said. “He’s worked hard, and up until the other night, has made good decisions for the most part.”