Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(46)
The lieutenant governor introduced Senator Tate, and Tate gave a forty-minute, mini–State of the Union address, combined with a State of the State of Tennessee address. He spent the last five minutes talking about me and what a fine gentleman I was, how I had seen hard times and overcome them, and how I would make a fine district attorney by protecting the people of Knox County and ferreting out corruption and aggressively prosecuting criminals.
And then it was my turn to speak. I was spiffed up to the max. Claire had bought me a charcoal-gray tailored suit with a shirt and tie and socks and shoes to match, and she’d ordered me to go to a spa in Knoxville that morning that she said was the best in town. They were waiting for me, and they pampered me for two hours, including giving me a haircut and a shave. Prior to the rally, there was another barber waiting backstage who put hot towels over my face, gave me a close shave, and made me smell the way I would imagine a high-dollar corporate CEO would smell.
There was a teleprompter in front of me, and I stuck to the words Claire had written. I thanked everyone for coming. I said I was honored and humbled to be endorsed by a man as revered as Senator Tate, and that I would bring honesty, integrity, and organization to the district attorney’s office. I didn’t say I’d bring those things “back” to the office, because it had been occupied by Ben Clancy for so long before Morris was elected that there hadn’t been honor or integrity in the district attorney’s office for a long, long time. I kept it short, around eight minutes, and then I began to thank everyone again.
Just as I was about to finish, a man holding up a large placard came walking down the aisle against the wall to my right. The placard said, “Where is Dr. Nicolas Fraturra?”
“Did you kill my brother?” the man yelled. “What did you do to him?”
I didn’t know whether the man was really Fraturra’s brother or a Morris plant. Maybe he was both. Security started to move toward him, and people started booing. I raised my hand to quiet the crowd as the man reached the bottom of the steps. He was about thirty feet away.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Michael Fraturra.”
“And Dr. Nicolas Fraturra is your brother?”
“Was my brother! Until you killed him!”
“Who told you that, Mr. Fraturra?” I said.
“Stephen Morris told me you killed my brother.”
“Did he offer you any proof?”
“He said Nick didn’t save your girlfriend and your baby. That you lost them both because of a rare medical condition and that you tried to get Mr. Morris to arrest my brother.”
“That’s true, Mr. Fraturra. I went to Stephen Morris and asked him to arrest your brother for reckless homicide. He was on call the night my girlfriend and baby died, and he was too drunk to care for them. He could have saved them, but he arrived late and he was drunk. By the time another doctor got there, it was too late. They were gone.”
“And Mr. Morris wouldn’t arrest him so you killed him! What did you do with his body?”
“If something has happened to your brother, Mr. Fraturra, I’m sorry for your loss, just as I’m sure you’re sorry for the loss of my girlfriend and daughter. But I didn’t harm your brother. If he’s gone, I had nothing to do with it.”
“Liar! You’re a liar and a murderer! I hope you rot in hell, you miserable son of a bitch!”
At that point, a security guard took Mr. Fraturra by the arm and led him out the door. I noticed Claire, flanked by two Knoxville police officers, follow them out.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the audience. “I’ve been falsely accused before. There isn’t really anything I can do other than deny the accusations because they aren’t true. I hope you believe me. Thank you again, and I wish all of you the best, no matter who wins this election.”
Roger Tate got up and spoke for another ten minutes, controlling any damage that might have just occurred. As he was finishing up, I saw Claire motion to him from the corner of the stage. He said, “Excuse me for just a second,” and walked over to her. She whispered in his ear briefly, and he returned to the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the man who just claimed to be Dr. Nicolas Fraturra’s brother is really a gentleman named Ronald Blair. After he left the arena, a Knoxville police officer asked him to provide some identification. After a couple of minutes of questioning, he admitted that he was paid one thousand dollars to put on the show we all just witnessed. We’ve decided not to press charges.”
I breathed a deep sigh of relief as people yelled their disapproval. Then I started to wonder about the $1,000. He said he’d been paid $1,000, but he didn’t say who paid it. Between the release of the information about Morris’s wife, the revelation about the plant at the rally, and the endorsement of Roger Tate, Morris was as good as dead in the water. My money was on Claire. I was betting she’d paid the guy, and it had worked perfectly.
Damn, she was good.
CHAPTER 25
Sheriff Corker was nervous. He and Harley Shaker had been summoned to the small trailer where Roby Penn lived on a Tuesday evening. Cigarette smoke hung heavy in the kitchen. The three men were sitting at the table, drinking beer and playing Texas Hold’em. Sheriff Corker had shown up at the allotted time. Harley had shown up ten minutes late, which caused Roby to go off on a five-minute, profanity-laced rant about respect and wasting other people’s time. Roby had even threatened to shoot him. The sheriff had finally calmed Roby down. They’d settled in and were about five hands into the game, but the sheriff knew this evening wasn’t about playing cards and strengthening male bonds. Something was troubling Roby. He was fidgety and even more irritable than usual.