Part 14 (1/2)
”I'll talk to him,” I said, and I punched the flas.h.i.+ng b.u.t.ton.
”I just want you to know that if John Lips...o...b..isn't convicted of murder, I'm going to the legislature and I'm going to have you removed from office,” Governor Donner said. ”There better not be any plea bargains, no reduced charges, nothing. He pleads guilty to second-degree murder or a jury convicts him. Otherwise, you're gone, my friend.”
”I'm not your friend.”
Donner laughed. ”That's the first intelligent thing I've heard you say, Dillard. I'm going to take great pleasure in watching you go down in flames.”
The line went dead.
I knew I was in dangerous territory. Unfamiliar, dangerous territory. I'd never gone up against the kind of power or the kind of people I was facing. Lips...o...b..had plenty of money, he had high-dollar lawyers, he had political clout. That, in itself, wasn't so dangerous, but I knew he was also willing to cross lines. The attack on Sarah proved it.
The entire investigation had turned into a runaway train, and I was the engineer. I wasn't about to jump off, though. I had to keep going. Whether it was for Erlene and her girls, for Sarah, or to serve my own foolish pride, I didn't know, but I couldn't back down. If I did, how could I ever look my wife, my children, my sister, or even myself, in the eye again? As I sat there with the governor's threat echoing in my head, I felt a burgeoning sense of dread unlike anything I'd ever experienced.
These people weren't just hoping to beat me in court.
They wanted to destroy me.
The Davidson County sheriff did what he said he'd do. Lips...o...b..and Pinzon were arrested in their posh Nashville office a couple of hours after the sheriff and I spoke on the phone. We let Nelson Lips...o...b..dangle, hoping he might come running to my office, beg to make a deal, and tell us what happened on the boat. I suspected that Bates was illegally tapping Nelson's cell phone, but I didn't mention it and if he was, nothing came of it.
As soon as we heard Lips...o...b..and Pinzon had been arrested, Bates sent Rudy Lane and a patrol deputy to Nashville in a van to pick them up. They left late in the afternoon, were going to spend the night at a hotel near the jail, pick up the prisoners bright and early, and have them back in time for a one o'clock arraignment. There was a provision in the Rules of Criminal Procedure that allowed their lawyers to appear on their behalf, so I knew as soon as their they'd been booked at the jail and their bond had been posted, Lips...o...b..and Pinzon would be traveling straight to the airport to their private jet and would fly back to Nashville.
I awoke early, as usual, the morning of the arraignment, fixed myself a cup of coffee, and drank it in the cool darkness on the deck. The crisp morning air felt good against my skin. The stars were beginning to fade, and I could hear the whine of a small outboard motor, no doubt a fisherman, rounding the bend in the channel below. There was a slight breeze blowing in off of the water, carrying with it an earthy, musty odor. I finished the coffee, went back inside, dressed in my running gear, grabbed a small flashlight, and Rio and I took off down the trail that bordered the bluff above the lake. Chico remained in the house, curled up between Caroline and Gracie on the bed.
Forty minutes later, I was back at the house, drenched in sweat. I walked around to the front and started up the driveway to get the morning paper. I glanced toward the woods, which looked like an out-of-focus, black-and-white photograph in the faint, gray light of pre-dawn. Rio, who'd been investigating the base of a maple tree behind me, came loping up the driveway. I could hear his claws sc.r.a.ping against the asphalt and hear his breath, which always reminded me of a locomotive. Just as he pa.s.sed me, he stopped and let out a low growl.
”What's wrong, big boy?”
I looked ahead, and could make out two dark shapes at the top of the driveway, side by side, ten or fifteen feet from the road. They weren't moving. Rio continued to growl a deep, throaty, threatening sound. I reached down to calm him and noticed that his teeth were bared, something he did rarely. I'd stuck the flashlight into the pocket of the hooded sweats.h.i.+rt I was wearing, so I reached in and retrieved it. I pushed the b.u.t.ton and cast the beam at the shapes. They were still about fifty feet away, eerily still and silent. I couldn't tell what they were.
”h.e.l.lo? Who's there?”
No answer.
I reached down with my right hand and grabbed Rio's harness. He resisted, apparently not wanting to go any closer to the objects. I let go of the harness and started walking, very slowly, to the road. The shapes in the driveway gradually came into focus. My first thought was to turn and run back to the house, but I couldn't. I had to see if they were real. I moved closer still.
Ten feet away, I stopped.
”Oh, no,” I murmured. ”Please, please, no.”
The breeze s.h.i.+fted slightly and the smell of blood filled my nostrils. I turned my back to the bodies and began to vomit.
Chapter Twenty-Seven.
As the last bit of bile erupted from my stomach, a frightening realization gripped me. I was up against something I'd never encountered a terrorist. The bodies in my driveway were placed there for one reason, to strike terror into my heart.
Rio had moved over to my side but was still growling. I stood unsteadily, my thighs like molded gel, and turned back toward them. Both had been duct-taped into chairs and were sitting side by side, their torsos covered in dark blood, their faces luminescent in the pale light. Their chins weren't resting on their chests as they should have been. Instead they were sitting up straight, eyes open, their death stares seemingly tracking me like the eyes in a portrait. I pulled Rio back down the driveway and walked through the kitchen into the bedroom.
”Caroline,” I whispered. Her eyes opened and she smiled.
”What time is it?”
”A little after six. You need to get up, baby. Things are about to get a little crazy around here.”
”Crazy? What do you mean?”
”Just get up and get dressed. I'll explain in a few minutes.”
I kissed her on the forehead and went back into the kitchen. Rio paced nervously back and forth between the front door and the kitchen door. I dialed Bates's cell number.
”There are two bodies in my driveway,” I said when he answered. My voice was quivering involuntarily. ”You need to get over here with your crime scene people and a couple of ambulances, but I don't want you to do it through the normal channels. Use your cell phone. I don't want the media crawling all over my place, and I don't want them crawling all over this crime scene.”
”Do you know them?” he asked.
”Yeah. So do you. Come as quick as you can. I'm going back outside.”
Caroline walked into the kitchen wearing a robe. I watched her fix herself a cup of coffee and sit down at the table.
”What's going on, Joe?”
”Something bad has happened. Two people have been murdered. They're in our driveway.”
She set her coffee cup down and looked at me like I had suddenly started speaking a foreign language.
”In our driveway? What are you. . . what?”
”I'm not sure what's going on yet.”
”Are you sure they're. . . how could this. . . are you sure they're dead?”
”They're dead.”
”How? I mean. . . who? Who are they?”
”Witnesses. Against John Lips...o...b..”
”Have you called the police?”
”Bates is on his way. Stay inside, and try to keep Rio from going nuts when they show up.”
I turned away from her and walked to the door. I wasn't looking forward to going back outside, but I felt like I needed to. I didn't think they should be alone, and at some level, I felt responsible for their deaths.
I closed the door behind me and walked back up the driveway. It was lighter now, but the sun still hadn't cleared the eastern horizon. All of the stars except Venus had faded into the grayness. I walked slowly, consciously taking deep breaths in an attempt to quell the fear and anxiety coursing through me. I briefly entertained the thought that perhaps I'd experienced some kind of mental spasm, that a group of neurons in my brain had misfired and created an illusion, complete with the smell of blood. I actually hoped I'd gone temporarily insane, and when I went back outside, the bodies wouldn't be there.
But they were. Frozen, like b.l.o.o.d.y mannequins, continuing to stare silently at me in death. I still had the flashlight, and as I got to within five feet, I s.h.i.+ned it onto the body to my right. It was Zack Woods. I circled him, careful not to get too close. Duct tape a lot of it had been wrapped around his forehead, shoulders, thighs, and calves. A piece of two-by-four had been shoved between his back and the back of the chair, obviously before the tape was applied. His head had been fastened to the board with the tape. That's why he was sitting up straight.
The other body was Hector Mejia, Lips...o...b..s caretaker, whom I'd met only briefly at the Was.h.i.+ngton County Jail. He'd also been duct-taped to a chair and braced with a two-by-four.