Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(21)

“What about the sheriff’s girlfriend?” Jack said.

“Are you talking about Erlene Barlowe?”

“Yeah, she runs a strip club, right? Maybe she knows the stripper.”

“She doesn’t run an escort service that I know of, but I haven’t seen her in a while. Maybe she’s expanded her business empire. I’ll pay Erlene a visit.”

“Where? At her club?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Mom might have a problem with you going to a strip club.”

“I’ve been there before, and your mom knows Erlene. They’re friends. Besides, I won’t go when they’re open. I’ll catch her in the afternoon when she’s doing her paperwork. That way I won’t see any of the girls in action. Will that satisfy you, you prude?”

“Just looking out for Mom,” Jack said.

“Your mom trusts me, obviously more than you do. How about this? You can go instead. Charlie, you wouldn’t mind if Jack went to a strip club to talk to the owner, would you?”

“Not as long as he wears a blindfold,” Charlie said.

I smiled and looked around the table.

“I’ll talk to Erlene. The rest of you know what to do. I think we have the rarest of opportunities in the world of criminal defense. We have a client who’s actually innocent. There’s a downside to our client being innocent, though. It raises the stakes. None of us wants to see a young man go to prison for something he didn’t do, and none of us wants to see his future ruined. So, we pretty much have to prove he was innocent, and we have to make the state say it out loud. So let’s get our act together and do this right.”





THURSDAY, AUGUST 29

I pulled my pick-up truck onto the gravel driveway that wound about two hundred yards through a stand of birch trees, across a narrow creek, and finally crested a ridge before the cabin came into view. It was a little after five o’clock, and the breeze coming out of the west was still warm and smelled of pine. I’d called my sister, Sarah, earlier in the day and asked if I could come down and talk with her. She’d agreed. She didn’t ask the purpose of the visit, although I could tell by the tone of her voice over the phone she was curious. She’d moved to this isolated, seven-acre piece of property in southwestern Washington County a couple of years before, and I didn’t often get a chance to visit.

As I got closer to the cabin, I noticed movement to my right. A young girl riding a black pony was racing toward me at full gallop. The girl was my seven-year-old niece, Grace, and as I parked the truck and got out, she jumped out of the saddle and into my arms.

“Uncle Joe!” she said, a huge grin crossing her face. “Momma said you were coming to visit!”

“You’re growing like a weed, Gracie,” I said. The child was nearly a mirror image of her mother, dark haired and dark eyed and dark skinned. She was truly delightful. “What’s your pony’s name, and when did you learn to ride like that?”

“Her name is Pepper, and I rode every day this summer. She even jumps. Do you want to see her jump, Uncle Joe?”

“Sure, if it’s okay with your mother.”

“Momma doesn’t care if I jump. She thinks it’s cool.”

Grace led Pepper to a tree stump and climbed back into the saddle. She nudged the pony with her heels and it took off full speed. They headed straight for a line of low, plastic tubes that looked like PVC pipe. The tubes had been fitted into plastic cubes and were about a foot off the ground. Grace and Pepper jumped four of them and were back by my truck two minutes after they took off.

“That was impressive, Grace,” I said. “You’re quite the little equestrian.”

“Eques...what? What’s that mean?”

“Equestrian. It means horse rider. You’re good at it.”

She smiled and nodded her head.

“Where’s your mother?” I said.

“She’s in the house.”

“I’m going to go in and talk to her for a few minutes. Have fun. I’ll see you in a little bit. I want to watch you ride some more before I leave.”

There was a pick-up truck I didn’t recognize, a red one, parked out near the barn and as I walked up toward the cabin. I saw a man I didn’t recognize look out at me from just inside the barn. I raised my hand and waived, but he turned around and walked away from me. I knocked on Sarah’s side door and it opened within a couple of seconds.

“Hey, stranger,” she said as she reached out to hug me. She gave me a peck on the cheek. “Nice to see you.”

“You, too,” I said. “You look good.”

Sarah was also dark-skinned, dark-eyed and dark-haired. She was tall and lean, and her skin smooth as ever. I always marveled at how Sarah could have spent so many years abusing herself with drugs and alcohol and didn’t seem any worse for the wear. I chalked it up to genetics. She was just a beautiful woman, and, it seemed, no amount of self-abuse could overcome the genetic predisposition. She’d spent more than a year in the county jail on a variety of charges when she was younger. She’d caught drug charges, DUIs, theft charges. I knew her self-destructive nature was a result of my uncle raping her when she was a child, and she’d finally seemed to overcome it. She’d been running her diner in Jonesborough for three years. It did well and she worked hard. She and Grace seemed to be doing great, and she’d told me several times how much she loved living in the boonies.