Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(45)

“He worked at the Pentagon when I met him,” Claire said. “He was a major in the army, a Green Beret who wanted to move on to Delta. He was a good man, very dedicated to his work.”

“Did you love him?”

“I did, and he loved me. But he loved his work more, so I suppose the old adage that one must be careful what one wishes for is true. I found and fell in love with a man dedicated to protecting and serving the country he loved, but there wasn’t enough room in his life for his career and for me. He ultimately chose the career.”

“How long since the breakup?”

“Last year in November.”

“Ah, so it’s still pretty fresh.”

I reached across the table and patted her hand. “I won’t say it gets better with time, but it changes. The pain eases just a fraction each day that goes by. You learn to cope. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find another knight one day.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever find anyone like him, but I guess there’s always a chance.”

“And in the meantime, you get to work with new and exciting people like me,” I said.

She smiled and pointed her fork at me. “You are not boring,” she said. “I’ll give you that. The way you went off on Henshaw and Kurtz this afternoon was a complete surprise.”

“That was for you,” I said. “The first words out of his mouth were, ‘I didn’t vote for your father.’ What an asinine thing to say. I knew right then it wasn’t going to go well. Besides, I don’t have much use for the feds. They framed me and put me in jail. They dieseled me. They tried to break me, turn me into a robot.”

“They dieseled you? What does that mean?”

“They handcuffed me with the black-box cuffs that they can practically break your wrists with, they shackled me, and they put me on a bus. I stayed on the bus anywhere from sixteen to twenty hours a day for three months straight. They’d feed me once a day—a bologna sandwich, a piece of fruit, and some milk—and they just rode me from prison to prison. There was no bathroom on the bus, so I had to be careful about what I ate and drank. If I lost control of my bladder or bowels on the bus, I was going to take a bad beating. Took a shower maybe once a month, didn’t shave or cut my hair. They call it diesel therapy. It was torture. They do it to people they deem ‘disciplinary problems.’”

“Who does it?” Claire said.

“The US marshals. US attorneys or prison wardens usually pick out the people who get dieseled, but the marshals do the dirty work.”

“That’s unconscionable. I’m going to tell my grandfather about it.”

“He knows,” I said. “There have been congressional hearings where it’s come up. They turn their backs to it so they aren’t accused of meddling in how the federal criminal justice system operates. Nobody wants to appear soft on crime.”

“How did you get through it?” Claire said. “I mean, mentally?”

“About halfway through, I just made up my mind they weren’t going to break me. And I thought a lot about Grace. She was my lawyer then, but I was already in love with her.”

“Amazing,” she said.

I raised my glass and she clinked hers against it.

“To never getting dieseled again,” I said.

“To becoming the next district attorney of Knox County,” she said.

“Excellent,” I said. “Now tell me everything that’s going to happen tomorrow.”





CHAPTER 24

The event, which was held at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium, was billed as a political rally and had been well publicized. I had to hand it to Claire. She really knew her stuff when it came to running political campaigns. I had a huge organization of volunteers, envelope stuffers, sign distributors, and people who would make cold calls on my behalf. There were billboards all over Knoxville. I’d seen my name on at least ten buses and six billboards.

“Darren Street for District Attorney General. A Man of Integrity,” the slogans beneath my face said. I found it horrifyingly embarrassing at first, but after seeing the images over and over, I got used to it. I didn’t believe it, but I got used to it. Had it said, “Darren Street for District Attorney General. A Dangerous Man of Occasional Integrity,” I would have liked it better.

The rally was held in late October, just two weeks before the election. Claire, as always, was right. The auditorium held twenty-five hundred people, and it was packed. They weren’t there to see me. They were there to see and hear a man who was an icon in Tennessee, Senator Roger Tate. Several dignitaries came—state representatives and senators, the lieutenant governor, and the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives. They all sat up on the stage with us. About five minutes before the proceedings were to begin, the sheriff made his entrance, dressed in his uniform and his cowboy hat and carrying his signature Colt Python revolvers. He took a seat on the second row on the stage, right next to the county clerk. I sat next to Senator Tate. It was a surreal scene and a surreal feeling, thinking I was about to be endorsed for a local political office by one of the most powerful men in the United States. The thought actually ran through my mind, My God, my mother would be so proud.

The mayor of Knoxville opened the rally by welcoming everyone and introducing a pastor who said a few words and then led everyone in the Lord’s Prayer. A beautiful young child, a girl perhaps eight or nine years old with long blonde curls and wearing a pale-blue dress, sang a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that gave me goose bumps and had everyone in the place on their feet yelling when she was finished.