Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(57)

He was staring at me, trying to figure out whether I’d really shoot him. Something, either in my eyes or in my voice, convinced him that I would. He put the gun on the floor.

“Stand up,” I said.

He stood.

“Turn around and walk toward the door. We’re going to accompany you to your vehicle to make sure you don’t have friends waiting outside.”

He started walking toward the door with the three of us behind him. No one was talking. The only sounds were feet slowly moving across the floor and measured breathing. It was one of the tensest moments of my life, and I’d been through some pretty tense times. For some reason, my fingers were tingling.

When he got to the door leading outside, he bolted. He ran right towards Sarah’s diner and then ducked to the right at the end of the building. Jack started after him, but I grabbed him by the arm.

“Let him go,” I said.

“This isn’t good, Dad,” Jack said. “You should have called the police and had him arrested.”

“And put an even bigger target on my chest? No, thanks. I don’t know what it is with these people. Black militants, white supremacists. Why does everybody want to kill the lawyer? Why do they want to kill each other?”

“It’s an inherent flaw of the male gender,” Charlie said. “They want power and control and are willing to use violence to obtain what they want. History is full of examples. Men killing men. Men killing women and children. Men devising more efficient means of killing. And for what? Power and control.”

“Thank you, Charlie, for making me feel better about being a man,” I said.

“I wasn’t talking about you specifically,” she said. “But history has proven men to be bloodthirsty, and we’re in a volatile situation, the kind of situation that attracts bloodthirsty men. We haven’t seen the last of him.”

“Well, at least he knows there are consequences if he tries to come in here and intimidate us again,” Jack said.

“He won’t,” I said. “He, along with some of his friends, will bushwhack us instead.”





TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15

At a convenience store in Hampton, Tennessee, the two men looked at each other from twenty feet apart. There was vague recognition on the part of Greg Murray. The man who was pumping gas into a large diesel pick-up looked familiar, but he hadn’t seen him in a long, long time. Who was he? He was a mountain of a man, broad shouldered with a long brown beard, wearing the clothing of a logger. The man kept glancing over at him. Murray thought the recognition must be mutual, but the connection just hadn’t quite been made.

Murray finished pumping gas into his own pick-up and was turning to get into the cab when he noticed the large man walking toward him.

“I know you,” the man said.

“I know you, too. I just can’t place you.”

“Mind if I ask your name?”

“Greg Murray.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” The big man stuck out his hand.

“Garrett Brown, Greg. Long time no see, my friend.”

“Yeah, it’s been awhile. How have you been, Garrett?”

Garrett Brown had been a legendary athlete at Cloudland High School in Roan Mountain. He was the biggest, strongest, fastest boy at the school, and he excelled at everything he tried, except for in the classroom. Murray had played on the football and basketball teams, too, but he wasn’t near the player Brown had been. They’d been friends throughout high school, close friends, in fact. They rode the mountain back roads together, drank beer and moonshine, smoked weed, chased girls, and listened to everything from Hank Williams to Lynard Skynard to Joe Cocker.

After high school, though, Murray was involved in a serious car accident that fractured his sternum, several ribs and broke his right humerus and left femur. He was in the hospital for weeks, and when he was released, he was addicted to opiates. At the time, there was no program for weaning patients who had been using large amounts of opiates while in the hospital off of the drugs, so Murray was left to either quit cold turkey and go through the terrible withdrawal symptoms or keep on trying to get his hands on the drugs any way he could. That meant going to the street dealers, and they were expensive. He’d started breaking into houses, he’d stolen from his parents and grandparents. Eventually, he found himself alone, ostracized from his family, and that’s when he decided to rob a bank. He was caught and sent to the federal penitentiary.

“I was sorry to hear about what happened to you,” Brown said. “How long have you been out?”

“Just a few months.”

“Got a job?”

“Yeah. I’m working at a place down in Jonesborough. My mother helped me get this truck because I’ve been clean for several years. Just trying to put my life back together.”

“How was it?” Brown said. “Prison, I mean.”

Murray shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know what Brown wanted to hear.

“It was prison,” he said. “I spent five years in a medium security federal pen in Beckley, West Virginia, and then they moved me to a camp. Medium was a bitch.”

“A lot of niggers in there?” Brown said.

Murray was surprised by Brown’s casual use of one of the most volatile words in the English language.