Joe Dillard - 01 - An Innocent Client (13 page)

Maynard was about six feet tall, and years of methamphetamine and cocaine abuse had left him as thin as an anorexic. He had shoulder-length black hair he parted in the middle and a dark, smooth complexion.

His eyes were almost as dark as his hair. I’d never asked him, but I assumed some Native American heritage, most likely Cherokee or Chickasaw. Both of his arms and his upper torso were covered with tattoos. Their intricate design announced to those who knew about such things that he was a member of the Aryan brotherhood. Most of the white inmates belonged to the brotherhood. It helped them stay alive. The tattoos on Maynard’s chest and back were religious symbols. There was a large dove on his chest and an even larger cross on his back. I’d seen them when a guard brought him in shirtless one day.

Maynard was wearing a standard-issue jumpsuit that was much too large for him. He sat down and folded his long, thin fingers across his stomach. It looked as though he could easily slide his wrists through the handcuffs, which were attached to a chain around his waist. The guards had secured the shackles around his ankles to the legs of his chair, which was bolted into the concrete floor. He didn’t look at me.

”Hello, Maynard,” I said. ”How have you been since you tried to ambush me in court?”

Silence.

”There are a couple of things we need to discuss today if you’re feeling up to it. Are you feeling up to it?”

Nothing.

”I’ll take that as a yes. First of all, I need to know why you won’t submit to a psychological evaluation.

I’m not insinuating that you have mental problems, Maynard. I just need to have you evaluated to see whether the doctor can find something that might help us.”

Maynard sat there like a stone. I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

”I’d also like to know why you won’t talk to the investigator or the mitigation expert. They’re trying to help you. Don’t you get that?”

Silence.

”I’ve been through all of the evidence, including your background, Maynard. How about you and I get real with each other? You’ve spent most of your life in prison. Killed your first wife and got the charge reduced. Murdered some dude who was screwing around with your girlfriend and got convicted, served fifteen years. Killed at least two men in prison and got away with both of those murders.

As soon as you got out, you started hauling cocaine and meth. While you were at it, you sold and smoked and snorted practically anything you could get your hands on. Now you’ve killed and cut up a couple of teenagers. They can prove you tied the girl up and had sex with her before you shot her. They’ve got semen from her vagina; the DNA matches yours.

They’ve got both victims’ blood all over that little house you rented. Got your signature on the lease at the storage place where you stashed the bodies. That was bright. Didn’t you think they’d start to smell after a few days? They’ve got the kids’ blood and your fingerprints on the chainsaw you used to cut them up. And they’ve got a lot more.”

”I don’t care.”

”Really? Why not?”

” ‘Cause I know I done wrong and I deserve to die.”

I nearly fell out of the chair. I’d defended people who had decided to accept their fate and their punishment, but in a death penalty case, it wasn’t so easy to do. There was no way the prosecution was going to offer Maynard anything. He had raped, shot, and dismembered a young girl and shot and dismembered her boyfriend, and he was a career criminal. The only thing they’d accept would be Maynard’s pleading guilty to two murders and agreeing to the death penalty, and there was simply no way I was going to let him do that. If the state was going to kill him, it was my duty to make sure they could prove their case. I couldn’t just walk him into court and say, ”Okay, we quit. Go ahead and kill my client.” We were going to trial whether Maynard wanted to or not.

”I can appreciate that,” I said, ”but you have to understand that we’re going to trial anyway. Jesus, Maynard, we just got a change of venue. At least you’ll get a fair trial in Mountain City.”

”I don’t want you to put on no witnesses for me,”

Maynard said. ”You put me up there, I’m gonna tell them I did it.”

”So what the hell am I supposed to do?” I said.

”Sit there like a deaf-mute?”

”You just do the best you can. God will take care of the rest.”

”Don’t do that to me, Maynard. Don’t tell me you’ve found God in here. I know He’s here, because everybody in here finds Him, but if I’m going to try to defend you, you have to help me a little. Don’t leave it in God’s hands. God helps those who help themselves.”

”There’s only one thing I want you to do,” Maynard said, ”and it ain’t got nothing to do with the trial.”

”What’s that?”

”I’d like a little privacy is all.”

”What are you talking about?”

”I been writing to this woman on the outside. Her name’s Bonnie Tate. Me and her have got real close, you know? She’s the one that’s made me realize I don’t have to lie no more. God will forgive me and accept me into heaven. I think maybe I’m in love, Dillard. Can you believe it? Ol’ badass Maynard, falling flat out in love with a woman I ain’t never even met. I even tried to write her a little poetry. But that’s the problem. It’s these motherfucking guards. They look at my mail. They brought the poetry in and gave it to some of the other dudes in here. Them boys been fucking with me ever since.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard about guards trying to embarrass and humiliate inmates with the contents of their outgoing mail. He was probably telling the truth.

”What do you want me to do?” I said.

”You don’t have to do much. They can’t read letters if I put ‘legal mail’ on the envelope, can they?”

”They’re not supposed to. Communication between client and lawyer is privileged, even if the client is an inmate.”

”All I want to do is put Bonnie’s letters in an envelope and address them to your office. So I’ll write

‘legal mail’ on the envelope, and underneath that I’ll write her initials. When you see it come into the office, all you have to do is either call her up and tell her to come get her letter or forward it on to her. I’ll give you her phone number and address.”

I thought about it for a minute. All he was asking was to be able to write love letters without being humiliated. But then I thought again about who I was dealing with.

”Sorry, Maynard, can’t do it.”

”Why not?”

”It’s probably illegal, and I like life on the outside just fine. If the wrong people found out what I was doing, they’d lock me up.”

”Well, can you at least fix it so she can visit me?”

I’d set up jail visits for plenty of clients. It seemed like a reasonable request.

”Now, that I
can
do. Put her on your visitors list.”

”You know something, Dillard?” he said. ”I didn’t like you much when I first met you. Thought you was like all them other mush-mouthed, pussy lawyers. But at least you try to do the right thing. You been coming up here to see me pretty regular and you been straight with me. I ain’t saying I want to marry you or nothing, but you’re a pretty decent dude.”

I didn’t know what to say. A vicious, cruel, remorseless, murdering sociopath was doing his best to convince me he liked me, and I wondered why.

”Can I ask you a question?” he finally said.

”Sure.”

”How come you do this kind of stuff, Dillard?

Ain’t no way you could like it much. How come you defend men like me?”

The question took me by surprise, and I leaned back in the chair for a second. I didn’t want to get into talking about my motivations, and I didn’t want to tell him I was getting out.

”Why do you care?” I said.

”C’mon, Dillard, humor old Maynard. How come you take these death penalty cases?”

”Most of them are appointed. But if you have to know, Maynard, I guess I have this sort of simple philosophy about it. I just don’t think it’s right for a government to pass laws telling its citizens they can’t kill each other and then turn around and kill its citizens. It just seems hypocritical to me.”

Maynard grinned. ”You’re a do-gooder, Dillard.

That’s what you are.”

”Maybe. Something like that.”

”You’ll take care of the visits, then?” he asked when I didn’t say anything else.

”Yeah, Maynard. I’ll set it up.”

I thought it was the least I could do for a man who was soon to be condemned to die.

June 16

9:15 p.m.

It was after nine o’clock when I finally finished with Maynard. Darkness was falling, but it was clear and warm and I could see the stars shining above the lights in the jail parking lot. I was tired and wanted to get home quickly, so I took a short cut along a back road that bordered Boone Lake.

As I drove along with the windows rolled down, I started thinking about how Angel was getting along at the jail. She was locked up with murderers, child abusers, drug addicts, thieves, hookers, and cons. So was Sarah, but Sarah was tough as nails. It would have to be incredibly difficult for a young girl. I imagined what it would be like to be caged most of the day and herded like sheep the rest of the time, to be taunted and bullied by guards and inmates, to be subjected to all kinds of physical indignities, to have absolutely no privacy.

And if she really was innocent? The thought made me cringe.

I was about halfway home when I noticed headlights in my rearview mirror. They were approaching fast. I thought about pulling over and letting whoever was in such a hurry pass, but I was on a narrow, curvy stretch of road with steep slopes on both sides.

To my right were rocky cliffs, and to my left, thirty feet below, was the lake.

The vehicle behind me turned its headlights on bright when it got to within fifty feet or so. I had to turn the rearview mirror down to keep from being blinded. I slowed and looked in the side-view mirror.

The vehicle was right on my tail.

I started tapping the brakes to try to get whoever it was to back off. They didn’t. I sped up around a sharp curve but almost lost control in a patch of gravel. When I got the truck straightened back out, the vehicle bumped me.

”Why, you sorry sonofabitch . . .” I slammed on the brakes, and the truck skidded to a halt in the middle of a short straightaway. I kept an old aluminum baseball bat under the seat, and I fully intended to use it on the person behind me. I reached down and felt for the bat, hoping whoever it was didn’t have a gun.

With a sudden loud crash, my truck jerked forward. I twisted around and looked out the rear windshield over the bed. I could tell that the vehicle silhouetted behind me was a pickup, bigger than mine, but between the surrounding darkness and the glare of the headlights, I couldn’t make out the color.

It was pushing me along the road.

I turned back and grabbed the wheel, trying to hold the truck straight and pushing on the brakes with all my strength. The tires screamed, but the truck began slowly to turn towards the lake. I tried to turn hard to the right, but the truck behind me had gotten its bumper into my left rear fender and was turning me. I was moving faster by the second, and I had absolutely no control.

A moment later, I felt the right front tire drop off the embankment. I’d been turned almost one hundred eighty degrees. I looked and at last caught a glimpse of the truck that was pushing me. It was a silver Dodge. Then the right rear dropped, and my truck was rolling. My head slammed into the steering wheel and I saw a flash of bright light. I felt a brief sense of dizziness. I thought I heard a splash, then an explosion, and then I thought I was being smothered.

And then it was silent and still. I felt fingers gently rubbing across my forehead.

”Joe,” a voice said. ”Joe, honey, it’s time to wake up. C’mon, baby, you have to wake up.” It was Caroline’s voice.

I awoke to the sound of a rushing waterfall. It was dark, and my wife was nowhere to be found. I looked around. I was leaning hard to my right and being restrained by something. I reached down and realized it was a seat belt. Something was pushing against my face. An air bag. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I remembered that the Dodge had pushed me over the embankment. I was in the lake, and the sound I heard wasn’t a waterfall; it was the lake rushing in through the open passenger window.

As I struggled with the seat belt, the truck began to level off and more water started pouring in through the driver’s side.

”I am
not
going to drown!” I said out loud. ”I am
not
going to drown in this fucking lake!”

I got the belt off, scooted out from beneath the air bag, and crouched in the middle of the seat. Water was pouring in so fast on either side of me that there was no way I could get out. I knew I’d have to wait until the truck was submerged. I looked around frantically. The headlights were still on. I could see bubbles rising as the truck sank in the water. I pulled my shoes off. The water continued to pour and roar.

And then it was black. The water began to cover me. It was so cold I could barely breathe. My face was nearly against the roof as the cab finally filled.

I took a deep breath and pushed myself through the passenger side window. The truck had started to roll in the water, and for a second, I had no idea which direction to swim.

I thought about the bubbles in the headlights. Bubbles rise, Joe. Follow the bubbles. I let out some air and felt the bubbles rise across my face. I kicked for my life, and a few seconds later, I broke the surface.

It was eerily quiet, but the moon gave off enough light that I could make out the features of the landscape around me. I was only about twenty feet from the steep, rocky bank where I’d gone over. I looked up to see whether whoever tried to kill me—and I knew it had to be Junior Tester—was still there. I couldn’t see or hear anyone.

Boone is a mountain lake, and the water was bone chilling. My teeth started chattering and my hands and feet were already beginning to tingle. I knew I had to get out fast. I swam for the bank, got hold of some overhanging brush, and pulled myself up onto the rocks. I sat there for a couple of minutes, caught my breath, and tried to compose myself.