Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(48)

I looked back toward the house to see Kevin walking in my direction.

“Go back inside!” I yelled. “Stay with Caroline! I’ll be in soon!”

A Washington County Sheriff’s Department deputy named Rocky Littleton showed up at the house about ten minutes after Caroline made her call. I took the shotgun and leaned it against the wall inside the garage and went back out to talk with him. He took some photos and filled out a report.

“You want me to wake up the sheriff?” he said.

“No point. There’s nothing he can do tonight.”

“You didn’t get a look at any of them?”

“No. All I can tell you was it sounded like a diesel pick-up truck.”

“Didn’t recognize the voice that yelled?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

“Not much to go on here, Mr. Dillard,” Deputy Littleton said. “I’ll get forensics to come out and gather up bullets and shell casings. They shot your garage all to hell.”

“I know.”

“I hope your vehicles are insured.”

“They are. So’s the house. It’ll be okay.”

“I have to tell you something,” Littleton said. “I admire you for taking this case. A lot of lawyers would have run like their hair was on fire, but you stepped right up, just like you always have. And for what it’s worth, from where I’m standing—and this goes for a lot of my buddies at the department—your client is being shafted. A lot of folks at the Johnson City Police Department feel the same way. I hope you can get it straightened out. There are a few racists around, we all know that, but for the most part the people here are good people. This has already made us look bad all over the country, and it just isn’t right.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it. Now let me ask you a question. You have some discretion as to whether you make your report public, correct?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a bit of a gray area, but if the case is still under investigation, then I don’t have to make the report available to the media.”

“Is the case still under investigation?” I said.

“Do we know who burned the cross and made Swiss cheese out of your garage door?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Then as far as I’m concerned, it’s still under investigation.”

“I appreciate that, Deputy Littleton. I really do. I wasn’t looking forward to reading in the paper tomorrow or the next day about what happened here tonight.”

“I’ll talk to the sheriff in a couple of hours,” Littleton said. “He’s an early riser. We’ll muster up our informants, get some folks out in the streets, see if we can’t find out who did this. Somebody will want to take credit. They’ll run their mouths. They always do.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting them,” I said. “Maybe I’ll get a chance to return the favor in some way.”





FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11

Kevin and I skipped our run the next morning for obvious reasons. He was extremely upset about what happened, but I told him we had no idea whether the people who fired shots into the garage and burned the cross knew he was there. Even if they didn’t, he was still terrified by what had happened. I understood. Assault rifles and burning crosses. It was a hell of a night.

Sheriff Leon Bates showed up at the house at 6:00 a.m. His forensics people were just finishing up after combing over the garage, Kevin’s car, and the area around the cross. They’d also combed both sides of the road leading to my house for a half-mile in each direction. I didn’t think they’d found much. They’d removed the blackened cross and put it in a van. It probably wouldn’t yield much in the way of evidence, but you never knew.

Leon called my cell when he pulled up outside and I invited him in for a cup of coffee. Caroline was still asleep, and I’d finally talked Kevin into going back to bed. He’d sat at the kitchen table with a stunned look on his face for more than an hour before I managed to persuade him to try to get some more sleep.

Leon walked in, mid-forties, long and lanky. He removed his cowboy hat and sat down at the table.

“Brother Dillard, looks like you’ve gotten yourself into another fine mess.”

“Looks that way,” I said. “I seem to be pretty good at fine messes.”

“They shot your garage door up pretty bad,” Leon said.

“Insurance will cover all the damage to the garage,” I said. “Same with Caroline’s car and my truck. And Kevin said his parents have insurance on his car.”

“When I find these boys, and I promise you I will, they’re gonna do a bunch of time if they make it to the jail.”

“Don’t go killing anybody you don’t absolutely have to kill,” I said.

I knew Leon wasn’t afraid to pull a trigger. He also wasn’t above torturing suspects if the stakes were high enough and he needed information immediately. He had his very own black site he called “The Farm” where he sometimes took prisoners for “special” interrogations. He’d used it to get information out of a suspect who was killing judges all over the state almost a year earlier. The judge and his girlfriend were also kidnapping, torturing, raping and killing young women. They were both completely depraved. I was involved in that case, and as much as I hated to admit it, I knew about what Leon had done and was okay with the result. I wasn’t particularly comfortable with it, but looking back, it had saved some lives.