An Absence of Principal (8 page)

“A black Suburban sped up and passed me; I hadn’t seen if it had been following me. It pulled up even with Maria. Two windows opened on the passenger side and automatic machine guns trained down on her and the car.

“I learned later that over a hundred shots were fired at Maria and her boys. The last shot was a kind of small rocket that was fired at the rear of the car. It punctured the fuel tank and Maria’s car exploded. Police said later they were never able to identify any of the bodies in the car, but found four different sets of dental records that were a match. They were killed for nothing.”

CHAPTER 6
 

G
arrison found it difficult to shake the visual images that came with Alex’s story. Now was not a convenient time to have an emotional distraction.

“The court remands the defendant to custody and sets bail for the defendant, Tony Nail, at $250,000,” the judge said. “Further, the charges are upgraded from suspicion of murder, to murder in the first degree, and given the fact a drug transaction was allegedly a part of the crime, the case will be handled in the federal court system.

“But your honor, my client has been a model citizen and he is accused of a crime he did not commit,” Trask argued.

“Save it, Mr. Trask. Your client is accused of murder. I don’t care if he’s the President of the United States of America, he’s not walking when we haven’t determined yet if he has or hasn’t been falsely accused.”

“There is nothing violent in his past. He has no record, for heaven’s sake, your honor. Nothing!” Garrison argued. “He’s a good man. A minister whose only purpose in his work is to help others come to a better life.”

“That’ll be all, Mr. Trask,” the judge said.

“But your honor!” Trask pleaded again. Halfmann again brought his gavel down hard, ushering in an abrupt end to Trask’s insistence. The judge followed his gavel pounding with a hasty exit from the courtroom. Suddenly, there was simply no one remaining in the courtroom with whom Trask could argue.

Was he or wasn’t he guilty? Trask had asked himself that question repeatedly about his friend and client since hearing Alex’s story, and although her experiences had nothing to do with Tony Nail’s life, he still couldn’t help but bring it all into question, including the innocence of a man he had never doubted before.

In the seedy, desperate underworld of narcotics trafficking, Rule No. 1 is to bring the money. The only variations in that rule existed between those with a sense of morals and those without. At the highest levels of the trafficking world, murder was a daily occurrence. If the money wasn’t delivered at the pre-appointed time, someone would pay with his or her life. The higher-level bosses were the people in the trade with little or no conscience. Life to them was as meaningless as swatting at a fly. The lower-level street dealers, some of whom might have become involved in the trade out of necessity or coercion, and were now in without a way out. Some of the lower-level operatives may value life a little more. Although they were striving for the same end result: survival. In fact, at the lower levels, many tried to avoid violence where possible. Because they often knew they were just as susceptible to being killed. And they had families, too.

It was with the street-level dealers’ immediate superiors, men and sometimes women who had ties to the lieutenants in the cartels, where the disregard for human life began in earnest.

“What’s next?” Nail asked.

“Right now, you will be escorted back to your cell, Tony. If you have the means to pull together $25,000 cash for bail, you’ll be released. If not, you’ll remain in custody for now,” Garrison said.

Nail sat, trying to understand how his life could go so wrong so quickly.

“I’m a custodian, Garrison. I don’t make that much money in a year.”

“Let me see what I can do,” Garrison told his friend. “Let the deputies take you back. Say a prayer. Say two or three prayers. Pray constantly. I’ll get to work on this. And I’ll be in touch.”

Alex had snuck in at the back of the courtroom and was watching the interaction between the two men.

“Good morning,” Garrison said to her after Nail had left.

“You have quite a compassionate streak in you,” she said.

“Tony and I go back a long ways. We grew up together. I don’t think he’s involved in this. I only want to clear his name, and I want to find out who’s responsible for the murder and for setting Tony up. That’s where you’re going to come in.”

Ben Doggett was snoozing on the couch. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. The first Sunday of the summer. His fitful attempts at sleep the last few nights had been mostly unsuccessful and he hadn’t rested well since he had become involved in the buying and selling of drugs.

Buying and selling drugs.
He still couldn’t believe he had fallen this far.

The words played over and over in his mind, keeping him from sleep at night and keeping him nervous and restless during the day. His confrontation with Tony Nail hadn’t helped matters. Ben still felt an overwhelming sense that his life was caving in around him. Sometimes it was hard to pinpoint what was worse: The gambling. The sordid secretary sex. The impending failure of his marriage. His sudden decision to become involved in drug trafficking to try to make ends meet. Or all of it. Probably all of it.

Ben tossed and turned to the sound of another Rangers’ baseball loss on TV. His slumber was interrupted by Angela.

“Ben? Ben … wake up! Now!”

He could tell from the sound of her voice she was troubled. Not just troubled, but mad. Really mad. As he approached consciousness he began to wonder what terrible aspect of his new life she had discovered now. Was it his new side job? His lover? Or did she somehow come across his gambling debts?

“Sit up, Ben, we gotta talk,” Angela said.

Oh brother, he thought. This can’t be good. It never had been good whenever Angela demanded they talk.

“Ben, listen to me: Tawny answered the phone today. It was a woman asking for you. She recognized the number. It was Shanna. Why would she call you on the weekend, Ben? Are you having an affair?”

“Say what?”

“Are you sleeping with Shanna?” Angela asked. “Your secretary?”

“Are you crazy?” Doggett said

“Shanna never calls you on your cell phone from her cell phone. On the weekend. You’re gone all the time, at weird times. You don’t have any explanation for where you’ve been, you don’t go where you say you’re going, and … “

“I would never sleep around on you, Angela. I can’t believe you would think so little of me,” Ben butted in.

“ — and the emails, Ben. I found the emails you two have been sending each other. How you wanna try to explain these?”

Angela threw a stack of fifty emails at her husband. He read over the evidence she had collected, but he didn’t have to; didn’t want to. He knew what they all said. In fact, just looking at them was painful, especially with Angela sitting right in front of him. Ben was busted. He searched the depths of his mind trying to figure out what he would say to her when he finally finished pretending as though he was reading them.

Because he could think of nothing, he wisely chose to say nothing.

Tears formed and spilled out of Angela’s eyes.

“I want you out of here in an hour,” she said. “Take all your stuff with you and just get out. Act like you’re never coming back because right now, that’s how soon it’ll be before I’d ever think about letting your sorry butt in my home again. I can’t believe you would do this to our marriage. It makes me sick. You make me sick! I’m gonna leave here and go across the street to JoDelle’s and in one hour I’m gonna look out that window, and you better be out of here. You better get going. You’re wasting time.”

Doggett could say nothing. He had no defense. None. He felt completely helpless and as low as he had ever been in his life.

He walked down the hallway and passed his daughter. She said nothing. She didn’t have to. The look of disgust on her face said it all.

Doggett walked into his bedroom, and began to pack his suitcase.

“How could you be so stupid?” he heard the question come from behind him. It was Britton. “How could you pull apart our family like this?” his son asked.

“I’m sorry,” Doggett finally said

“That’s crap. You’re sorry you got caught. Just get out and stay away from Mom. Me and Tawny, we’ll keep you away from her.”

An hour later Ben had packed a bag and said his goodbyes, or whatever they amounted to. It was obvious Tawny and Britton wanted him in the house even less than Angela did. It was what pained him most, knowing his kids seemed to hate him, too.

Doggett scooped up a few personal items in his at-home work area, grabbed a couple of books and tucked a Bible in his briefcase, just in case he decided to get right with Jesus during his little layover away from the family. It wasn’t likely he would ever crack open the Good Book, but it never hurt to bring it along in case he had himself a little God moment.

Doggett never considered himself much of a religious man but occasionally he did have lapses in his imperfect self that let a little of the Lord’s light in. He never could tell when that might happen again, which is why he would often tote his Bible along for the ride just in case the spirit struck him.

It took Doggett a couple of trips to load all his belongings into his car. There were no offers of help from the children and certainly none from Angela. When he bid them goodbye, the three of them sat together, teary eyed in the family room in front of an old sit-com, something they stared at blankly to try to ease their collective pain. They said nothing. They didn’t look his way as he walked down the hall and out the front door for the last time.

As he pulled out of the driveway he thought about what he had done to his family. And to himself. He wondered how he would recover. He knew Angela and the kids would. They would have each other and they could bond together during this ordeal. He had no one. Well, almost no one.

A variety of plants hung from the rafters on the porch of the first-floor apartment that Shanna Riley called home. It was just her and Snuggles, her Chihuahua. Doggett hated the name Snuggles, but even more so when it was applied to a yapping little Chihuahua.