Chapter Ten.

I didn't get home until after ten that night. The moon was rising above the mountains to the west, casting a pale, yellow glow that framed the peaks like a halo. Caroline had fixed dinner and kept it warm, and after I changed into a pair of old sweat pants and a T-shirt, we ate silently by candlelight on the deck. I was sure Caroline was curious about the day's events, but I was content just looking at her face in the soft glow, watching the flickering shadows play across her face. She looked up once to find me staring at her, but all she did was smile and wink, a simple gesture that conveyed what I already knew.

When we were finished, I helped her gather the dishes and clean up the kitchen. Rio followed me every step of the way with his ragged tennis ball in his mouth. Chico, the mischievous little teacup poodle I'd bought for Caroline after her last surgery, was right beside him with a rubber frog hanging from his teeth. They were an unlikely pair a hundred-pound German shepherd and a five-pound poodle but they'd become inseparable. I was surprised at how gently Rio treated the puppy. Chico tormented him constantly, jumping up and biting at his face, chewing on his tail, running around him in circles and barking incessantly. If Rio made the mistake of lying on the floor, Chico immediately crawled up on his back and went to work on his ears. For the first several weeks Chico was around, Rio learned that he could escape by climbing onto a couch. But Chico was athletic; he could now jump onto the couch himself, and Rio's refuge was no more.

As soon as I finished wiping down the stove top, I looked at down at the dogs and said, "Alright, give 'em up."

Rio dropped the ball next to my feet and Chico did the same with his frog. I bent over, picked them up, and walked out to the deck. Rio whined in antic.i.p.ation, and I threw the tennis ball into the darkness. He bolted for the steps that led to the back yard, stopped for a second to listen for the ball landing, and disappeared. Chico looked like he was riding a pogo stick, jumping up and down and nipping at my knee. I tossed the rubber frog across the deck and he scrambled furiously after it.

I heard the phone ring inside the house and hoped Caroline would ignore it. I'd worked more than fifteen hours that day, and as far as I was concerned, that was enough. But less than a minute later, I saw her walking through the kitchen toward me. She motioned for me to come inside.

"I think you want to take this," she said, covering the receiver with her hand.

"Who is it?"

"Trust me. You want to take it."

I took the phone from Caroline and looked at the number on the caller ID display. I didn't recognize it, although I did recognize the area code: Nashville. Caroline sat down at the kitchen table, and I took a seat across from her.

"Joe Dillard," I said into the phone.

"Please hold for the governor," a female voice replied.

The governor? There was no doubt in my mind what the topic of conversation would be.

"Joe! Linc Donner here."

James Lincoln Donner III was the man who had appointed me to the district attorney general's job at the behest of Leon Bates. He was a wealthy Democrat, a silver-spooner who had inherited his family's vast real estate development fortune and had risen steadily through ranks of the state Democratic party. I remembered being surprised by his stature when I met him aboard his private jet, in which he'd flown to Johnson City to deliver the news of my appointment in person. In his television ads, he appeared to be tall and substantial. But Donner was a small, thin, hollow-cheeked man. He had politician-length chestnut-brown hair and gray eyes. His voice was a peculiar, throaty ba.s.s that reminded me of a bullfrog.

"This is quite a surprise," I said into the phone.

"Do you remember when I flew up there and signed your appointment? You were just about to leave the plane and I stopped you and said something to you. Do you remember what it was?"

"I think you said, 'don't make me regret this,' or something to that effect."

"Exactly. Don't make me regret this. I'm afraid you're beginning to make me question my decision."

"And why is that?"

"I was made aware of some information today that genuinely shocked me. It is true that John Lips...o...b..is the target of a murder investigation?"

I cursed Ralph Harmon under my breath. The leak had to have come from him.

"With all due respect, governor, I don't think that's an appropriate question for you to ask me."

"With all due respect to you, sir, I'm the governor and the head of the executive branch. And frankly, I'm not interested in what you think. John Lips...o...b..is a close friend of mine and one of the leading citizens of this state. He's poured more money into your community than any man living or dead. The very idea that he would somehow be involved in a murder is preposterous. Do you really think he would a.s.sociate with strippers and wh.o.r.es?"

"Strippers and wh.o.r.es to you, governor. Citizens of the district to me. Besides, I don't know Mr. Lips...o...b.. I don't know who he might a.s.sociate with."

"If news that you're even considering him as a suspect gets out, it could do irreparable damage to his reputation. Now I asked you a simple question, but since you didn't seem to understand the first time, I'll ask you again. Yes or no, is John Lips...o...b..the target of a murder investigation in your jurisdiction?"

The tone of his voice was accusatory, almost threatening, and I felt anger beginning to boil inside me. Caroline must have noticed, because she immediately reached across the table and took my free hand.

"There is more than one ongoing murder investigation in my jurisdiction," I said. "The key word being ongoing. As such, I'm not at liberty to discuss any of them with you."

"Dammit, man, I'm not a reporter. I'm the governor."

"Yeah, I think you mentioned that."

"How dare you take that insolent tone with me! If you want to keep your job, you'll treat me with the respect I deserve."

"Respect is something that's earned, governor. It seems to me that you're calling and trying to intervene in a murder investigation on behalf of one of your rich friends. That doesn't earn you much respect in my book. And as far as my job goes, unless I break a law or fall over dead, you're stuck with me for at least another three years. And as long as I'm here, I'll do the job the way I think it should be done. Discussing ongoing investigations with politicians isn't my idea of the way things should be done. But it's good to talk to you, governor. Feel free to call anytime."

I pushed the b.u.t.ton on the receiver and set the phone down on the table in front of me. Caroline was staring at me wide-eyed.

"Did you just do what I think you did?" she asked, a smile beginning to form at the edges of her lips. "Did you just hang up on the governor of Tennessee?"

"I think maybe I did."

"You're insane, do you know that? You're certifiable."

"That's a matter of opinion."

"You were also right, for what it's worth."

"Thank you."

"Do you think they'll be any repercussions?"

I nodded my head. "Probably."

"What kind?"

"I don't know. I've never crossed a governor before. I guess we just wait and see."

Chapter Eleven.

That night I dreamed of my mother. She was sitting at her sewing machine in the small house she shared with my sister and me, half-watching the black-and-white television that cast an eerie glow across the tiny den. Our den was always cloaked in darkness, as was the rest of the house, because my mother had put blinds on every window, and she kept all of them drawn. She didn't want to see the world outside, and she didn't want it to see her.

Her black hair was pulled tightly into a bun and her face, which could have been pretty, was tight and stern. She was wearing a full-length, long-sleeved, black dress with a wide, black belt around her waist. The dress was b.u.t.toned to her throat, and as I looked at her hands, I noticed her fingernails were painted black.

I was very young in the dream, and I was apprehensive. I rarely approached her because her mood was always dark and her comments often sarcastic, but on this particular afternoon my young mind, or perhaps my heart, was looking for some answers. The annual field day festivities had been held at school that day, and the parents of nearly all the children in my cla.s.s had attended. I won several events, but my parents were absent, as always. I'd never asked her why she didn't attend any of the functions that other parents attended, and I'd never asked her about my father. My grandparents had told me that he was in heaven with Jesus, but my mother had never offered any information, and I'd never broached the subject. I stood next to her chair, staring at my feet, waiting for to acknowledge me. She didn't. Finally, I spoke.

"Momma, can I ask you a question?"

"Don't you think you're a little old to be calling me momma? It makes you sound like a little sissy boy," she said without looking at me.

Her words surprised me, and I took a minute to gather my courage. She'd never hit me, so I wasn't afraid of physical abuse, but up to that point, just a word from her, uttered in her razor-sharp tone, could reduce me to tears.

"What do you want me to call you?" I asked.

She looked up from her sewing and raised her pencil-thin eyebrows. Her eyes flashed with a familiar anger.

"Don't get smart with me."

"I'm not being smart. I'm just asking what you want me to call you. If you don't want me to call you momma, then what? Mother?"

"Don't call me mother. I don't like it."

"Ma?"

"Fine. I don't' care."

"Can I ask you a question, ma?"

"Can't you see I'm busy?"

"What happened to my dad?"

She stiffened, but her eyes stayed on the needle that pumped up and down, up and down, like a drill bit driving into the earth in search of oil.

"He's dead," she said matter-of-factly.

"How did he die?"

She hesitated slightly before saying, "He was murdered."

"Who killed him?"

Her foot came off of the pedal and the sewing machine went silent. Her right hand slowly lifted away from the piece of material she'd been holding, her index finger extended, and she pointed at the television.

"They did," she said. "Those men right there. They murdered your father."

I turned and looked at the television. A row of men in suits were talking to a man sitting alone at a table.

"Who are they?"

"Politicians," she said. "Worthless, gutless politicians. Do you know what they're doing right now? They're talking to man who works for the president of the United States. Do you know who the president of the United States is?"

"Nixon."

"That's right. Those men there are going to try to impeach Nixon for doing something every one of them does every day."

"What's that?"

"They're going to impeach him for lying. But they all lie. They're all hypocrites."

"Is that how they killed my dad? By lying?"

"They lied to all of us. They made him go to a place he'd never heard of and fight in a war he had no business fighting. They wanted him to kill Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers."

"Why did those men want him to fight?"

"Because it's what they do. It's what they've always done, and it's what they'll always do."

"Will they make me fight, too?"

"I can't believe I have to raise you and your sister in a world like this," she said. "There's murder and corruption everywhere. It's hopeless."

Looking back on that conversation with my mother, I believe now that my soul, as young as it was, began to form a callous. It was a conversation I'd dreamed about many times, but this night, the dream took an ominous turn.

My mother rose from her sewing and glided silently across the den, disappearing briefly into the back of the house. When she returned, she was carrying Sarah, who was fast asleep, in her arms. She laid Sarah on the couch and motioned for me to come and sit. When I was seated, she knelt in front of me.

"There is no G.o.d, you know," she said. "There is no good in this world. There is only evil and deception and murder. The best thing I can do for you is spare you from it. You shouldn't have to live in this world. No one should."

She reached behind her back and pulled something from her belt. I looked into her face. It was blank, as devoid of emotion as a sand dune. Suddenly, I felt the cool steel of a gun barrel against my forehead.

"This is the best thing I can do for you and your sister," she said, and I heard the hammer click.

Chapter Twelve.

The phone on my desk rang at seven the next morning. I'd been in the office for more than an hour, having quit the idea of sleep following the nightmare. I looked at the phone curiously before I picked it up, wondering who would be calling so early.

"Joe Dillard."

"Uh, Dillard? Ralph Harmon here." The SAIC of the local TBI office was supposed to have gotten back to me the day before. "I didn't expect anyone to be in the office so early."

"So why did you call? Planning to leave a message?"

"Actually, I was," Harmon said, sounding fl.u.s.tered.

"A message for me or for someone else?"