Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(43)

“Can you guarantee his safety?” Mr. Davidson asked me.

I had returned home to find Caroline doing better after receiving some pain meds and a thousand milliliters of sodium chloride through an intravenous drip. I’d asked her about Kevin staying with us, and her response was, “Of course,” just like I knew it would be.

“There aren’t any guarantees,” I said to Mr. Davidson. “We live out in the county, on a bluff that overlooks the lake. We don’t have any neighbors we can see or hear. I have a German shepherd who is extremely territorial and I have weapons in my house that I know how to use. In fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to use them to protect your son. But I can’t watch him every minute of every day. I’m sure he’ll have places he wants to go occasionally just to keep from going stir crazy. I’ll do all I can, but honestly, no, I can’t absolutely guarantee his safety. The only way to do that would be for him to disappear until the trial. He’d have to go into hiding. That might be something you want to consider.”

“But he hasn’t done anything wrong!” Mr. Davidson yelled.

“I understand that, but for whatever reason, he’s been accused. Racial tensions are extremely high. They were high before this happened. Kevin will be a target for white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, all of those groups. I feel sure there are some who would want to make an example of him.”

“You said you know how to use the weapons you have,” Mr. Davidson said. “Do you mind if I ask what kind of weapons are in your home?”

“Dangerous weapons. The kind that can kill people from close range or long range.”

“Do you have a military background, Mr. Dillard?”

“I was a US Army Ranger when I was young.”

“Did you see combat?”

“I did.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“These are extremely personal questions, Mr. Davidson.”

“If I’m going to put my son’s life in your hands, I want to know. Have you ever killed anyone?”

“I have.”

“How many?”

“More than I care to admit.”

“I don’t want to send him into hiding like a coward, especially since he’s done nothing wrong,” Mr. Davidson said, “and from what you’ve told me, I think you can do a better job of protecting him than I can. I have no military background; I’m not some kind of bad ass. I don’t even own a gun. I’d feel better if he stays with you.”

“Fine,” I said. “I tell you what. Kevin has his own car, right?”

“I don’t know if you’d call it a car, but it has four wheels and occasionally gets him from place to place,” Mr. Davidson said.

“What time are you planning to go to Kevin’s house and pick up his things?”

“We were going to go as soon as we’re finished here.”

“Give me an hour. I’ll get my son to drive me to Johnson City and I’ll meet you guys at Kevin’s house. We’ll load up his things and he can follow us out here to my house. I’ll make sure we’re not tailed. No one will know he’s here, at least for a while. Someone will most likely find out eventually.”

We hung up and I called Jack. He agreed to come and pick me up and take me to Johnson City. When he showed up, I kissed Caroline and told her I’d return with our new house guest in a couple of hours. I climbed into Jack’s Jeep, and the first thing he said was, “Are you sure this is a good idea, Dad?”

“No. Not at all. I’m just trying to do what’s best for Kevin.”

“Some crackpot might try to kill him.”

“That’s the whole point of him coming to our place, Jack. You remember a few years back when that sick coward John Lipscomb killed three of Elaine Barlowe’s girls out on the lake and then wound up sending a group of sicarios from Columbia to kill me and our entire family?”

“How could I forget it? You took us to Michigan and made us stay there with your old Army buddy until it was over.”

“The point is that the house is defensible. If someone were to come, Rio would let me know. I have a pretty nice little cache of weapons. I can still shoot.”

“But why would you want to take that risk?”

I turned and looked him in the eye.

“You’re my son. Do I even have to answer that question?”

He shook his head and turned back to the road.

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “Living up to your very ridiculously high moral code.”

“That’s right. And it’s a code you share, or at least I hope you do. I just feel like this is what I should do. And maybe I’m over thinking it. Maybe nobody will bother Kevin.”

“I hope not,” Jack said. “But if they do, I want to be there, too.”

Jack was as good with many of the weapons as I was. I’d taken him shooting with me hundreds of times over the years. But he’d never been in combat. He’d been in his share of fistfights, but fistfights and firefights are two entirely different animals. He’d wanted to enlist after he graduated from law school, but I’d talked him out of it. I just couldn’t bear the thought of him putting himself in harm’s way so the military industrial complex that had come to dominate our government and our foreign policy could continue to feed itself. It was feeding itself just fine without him. In fact, it was downright bloated. The budget for the U.S. military was more than $825 billion and there were active duty U.S. military personnel in roughly one hundred and sixty countries around the world. It was completely out of control, accompanied by one of the most masterful marketing campaigns ever devised. When I got out of the service, nobody noticed. Now, every soldier was a hero until they came home and tried to get help from the Veterans Administration. The VA was a bureaucratic mess. Congress had been bought by the defense industry, and it wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Jack finally agreed that he could do more good at home than somewhere in the Middle East, where he had a far better chance of losing a limb or winding up in a body bag than making some kind of meaningful difference.