Jordan's Stormy Banks: A Body Farm Novella (5 page)

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think she was killed somewhere else—maybe at her own house—and taken out there and dumped. That’s why there was no car—no nothing—at the scene. Her body had been out on that hillside long enough to decompose. At least a week, I bet. Maybe two. Ask around, Sheriff—see if anybody saw her or talked to her in the past ten days. This guy escaped, what, forty-eight hours before she was found? The timing doesn’t fit.”

“Cotterell!” he roared. The deputy, who I felt sure had overheard our exchange, jogged heavily in our direction. “Get this man out of here and on his way back to Knoxville.”

“Yessir.” Cotterell took my elbow and steered me into the stairwell.

We were only halfway down the first flight of stairs when the sheriff bellowed the deputy’s name again. “Get back up here,” he shouted. “He’s so fuckin’ smart. Let him find his own damn way out.”

Cotterell squeezed my elbow, then I felt him slip something into my hand. It was a business card embossed with the blue-and-gold logo of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and below that, the words
SPECIAL AGENT WELL
INGTON H. MEFFERT II.
“Get to a phone and call Bubba, quick,” he hissed. “They’re fixin’ to lynch this fella.”

“Did you say ‘lynch’?” I stared at him. “You can’t be serious. This is 1990.”

He shook his head. “Not in their minds it ain’t. Dixon don’t speak for everybody—he sure don’t speak for me. But them people milling around? They’re Klan. Outsiders, mostly—Carolina, Virginia, Alabama. Dixon called ’em in for his posse. His posse, their party. I’m tellin’ you, this is a done deal. They’re fixin’ to string this man up right here, right now.”

“Cotterell!” boomed the sheriff. “You get your fat ass up here!”

“Call Bubba,”
the deputy hissed, and hurried up the stairs.

Just as I reached the ground floor, the outside door opened and Deputy Number One—Yates?—entered. He was accompanied by a tall, barrel-chested man. He had red hair and a red beard. He also had red scratches on his face.

I ducked down a darkened hallway and found a vacant office. Switching on a desk lamp, I laid down the card and picked up the phone. It took several tries to get through—I had to push down one of the clear buttons on the base of the phone and then dial 9 for an outside line, and my trembling fingers misdialed twice. Finally, miraculously, I heard Meffert’s voice.

My voice shaking, I recounted what I’d learned, what the sheriff had said and done, and what Cotterell predicted.

“Shit,” said Meffert. “Shit shit
shit
.”

“You really think they might lynch this man?”

“You remember what happened in Greensboro? Bunch of Klansmen shot up a crowd of black protesters. Killed six people, including a pediatrician and a nurse. That was in 1979. Two years later, in Mobile, they hung a black man from a tree, just to show they could. Sheriff Dixon’s telling them a black sex offender has raped and murdered the most prominent white woman in Morgan County, Tennessee? Do I think it might happen? No—I
know
it’ll happen. Take a miracle to stop it.”

I was just putting the phone back in the cradle when I glimpsed movement in the darkness beyond me. An instant later a pistol entered my small circle of light. A hand aimed the pistol at my chest, and a voice—the sheriff’s gravelly voice—said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I was just calling my wife,” I said. “I told her I’d be home by mid-afternoon. I didn’t want her to worry.”

“Now ain’t that sweet,” he said. “Let me call her, too, and tell her how much we ’preciate your help.” With his free hand, he lifted the handset and pressed Redial. He angled the earpiece so that both of us could hear it ringing.

Don’t answer, Bubba
, I prayed.

“Meffert,” I heard the TBI agent say, and my heart and my hopes sank.

“Y
ou get in there,” the sheriff snarled, prodding me with the pistol, “and don’t make me tell you twice.”

Cotterell was in the corridor, a plastic cup in one hand, a blank look on his face. “Here, let me help you, Sheriff,” he said, opening the cell door wider. “How about we cuff him, too? Here, hold my coffee for just one second?” Without waiting for an answer, the deputy handed Dixon the cup, then—to the astonishment of both me and the sheriff—he snapped one handcuff on his boss’s outstretched wrist and, with a quick yank, clicked the other cuff to the cell door. As Dixon stared in bewilderment, Cotterell twisted the pistol from the sheriff’s other hand and shoved him into the cell, the sheriff’s movement pulling the door shut behind him.

“What the
fuck
are you doing?”

“I’m placing you under arrest, Sheriff.”

“Bull-
shit
. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about assault. I’m talking about obstruction of justice. I’m talking about evidence-tampering, and conspiracy, and corruption, and probably civil-rights violations, too, though I reckon the D.A. or the U.S. Attorney will know more about that than I do.”

“You’re fired, Cotterell. And that’s the least of your troubles. You unlock this cell and unlock these cuffs, and I mean
right
now, or I will
bury
you under this goddamn courthouse.”

“I can’t do that, Sheriff. I’m sworn to uphold the law, same as you. Difference is, I really aim to do it.”

A
cheer went up from the crowd when Cotterell and I emerged onto the courthouse steps, where one of the shotgun-wielding deputies still stood sentinel, but it quickly faded when the door closed behind us.

“Where is he?” shouted the big red-haired man I’d seen going inside earlier.
Donnelly.
“Where’s that sick sumbitch that killed my wife?”

“Where is he?” echoed a jumble of other voices. “Bring him out!”

“Hang on,
hang
on,” Cotterell called. “Y’all just hold your horses. Sheriff Dixon’s still interrogatin’ him.”

“We already know ever’thing we need to know,” shouted Donnelly.

“Yeah.” I heard. “
Yeah!
Let’s get it on!”

Suddenly there was a commotion to one side, and the crowd there parted, revealing a six-foot cross, its frame wrapped in layers of cloth—
wrapped in swaddling clothes
, I thought, in an absurd echo of the Christmas story—and a tongue of flame climbing up from its base and spreading to the outstretched arms. The crowd roared its approval.

“Come on!” yelled Donnelly. Someone thrust something into his hands, and I felt my stomach lurch when I recognized the distinctive shape of a rope noose.

Cotterell held up both hands in an attempt to quiet the crowd. “Not so fast,” he yelled. “We might be gettin’ ahead of ourselves. We ain’t sure we got the right man.”

“Hell
yeah
we got the right man,” Donnelly jeered. “No doubt about it. Now shut up, Jim. Get with us or get outta the damn way.”

To my surprise—to my deep dismay—I felt myself take a step forward. “Listen to me,” I shouted. “You all are making a mistake.”

“Who the hell are you,” Donnelly bristled, “and what business is this of yours?”

“I’m a forensic scientist,” I said. “I’m the one who identified your wife’s body. The man inside didn’t kill her.” A wave of discontent rippled through the crowd. “Denise Donnelly was strangled. Her throat crushed. That man’s a cripple—he couldn’t have done it.”

“He’s full of shit,” yelled Donnelly. “That nigger is a rapist and a killer, and he’s got to hang.” His words prompted a raw, enraged chorus of agreement.

“That man was behind bars in Brushy Mountain while she was being killed,” I shouted. “She was already dead—long since dead—by the time he escaped.” I fumbled at my shirt pocket, my shaky hand reaching for the small, folded paper bag—the bag containing the hyoid bone I’d plucked from the stained leaves on the hillside a few hours before. But before I could extract it, I was interrupted by a shout from the crowd.

“Nigger-lover,” yelled someone deep in the pack, and the insult was taken up by dozens of voices. “Nigger-lover! Nigger-lover! Nigger-lover!”

Donnelly held up a hand for quiet, and the taunts died away. “We don’t need some liberal, egghead
scientist
”—I saw spittle spray from his mouth when he spat out the word—“coming in here acting like he’s better and smarter than we are. Go back to your library, professor, and stay the hell out of our business.”

“I’m on the staff of the Tennessee State Medical Examiner,” I said, reaching for my belt and grabbing my badge.

“I don’t give a good goddamn about that,” he shouted. “We got plenty of rope. It wouldn’t take two minutes to cut another piece for you. And that oak limb is plenty strong enough for two men to swing from.”

“Denise Donnelly fought for her life,” I yelled to the crowd. “She had her killer’s skin under her fingernails. A
white man’s
skin, and a red hair, too.” I pointed at Donnelly. “Y’all ought to be asking Mr. Donnelly here how he got those scratches on his hands and face.”

Finally, my words seemed to be having some effect. The mob quieted, and I saw heads craning to peer at Donnelly.

“I got these scratches clearing a briar patch last week,” Donnelly shouted. “Anybody wants to come see the brush pile tomorrow, you’re more’n welcome. But anybody calls me a liar to my face, you’ve got a fight on your hands.”

I played the last card I had to play. “She’d been unfaithful to him. He had a motive to kill her.”

There were mutterings in the crowd—the sounds of doubt—and I felt a surge of hope. Suddenly, from high overhead, came the sharp sound of glass shattering, followed by a shout from a second story window of the courthouse. “Hey!
Hey!
” The heads of the mob swiveled upward. Deputy Yates leaned out the broken window. “It’s the sheriff! They’ve got him handcuffed and locked in a cell up here!”

“The sheriff was breaking the law,” shouted Cotterell. “Just like y’all are talking about doing. I couldn’t let him do that. I can’t let y’all do it, either.”

“Get out of the way, Jim, before you get hurt,” warned Donnelly. “Come on, let’s get the sheriff out and give that nigger what he deserves.”

The crowd surged forward. Cotterell snatched the shotgun from the deputy beside him. He fired it into the air, and they hesitated, but only briefly, then surged again. He racked the slide and fired once more, but by this time the mob was already swarming up the steps. Half a dozen hands laid hold of my arms; another half dozen began pummeling my head and shoulders. Beside me, I sensed the same thing happening to Cotterell.

Suddenly my attackers hesitated, then froze, and over the shrieks of the mob, I heard the whine of sirens—many sirens, growing louder as they approached the courthouse. Then I heard the squawk of a loudspeaker. “This is the FBI. Put up your weapons and disperse immediately, or you will be arrested. Put up your weapons and disperse immediately, or you will be arrested on federal charges.”

The hands clutching my arms let go, the rain of blows ceased, and I felt myself sag against the door as I was released and my attackers began backing away. I heard a commotion—a din of voices shouting “FBI! Make way! Make way!”—and the crowd parted and fell back, their faces scowling and cringing, like dogs who’ve attacked in a pack then were routed and set fleeing, tails between their legs. A wedge of federal agents—a dozen or more, all wearing body armor emblazoned
FBI,
all carrying short-barreled shotguns that they looked ready, willing, and able to use—forced their way to the courthouse steps. A man in civilian clothes stepped from the crowd and huddled with one of the agents. He pointed at Donnelly and at three others in the front ranks, and four agents spun from the wedge and put the men facedown on the ground, cuffing them in the blink of an eye.

I heard angry mutterings and wondered if the mob might turn on the FBI agents, but over the mutterings there were more sirens and more commotion at the back of the square. Moments later a phalanx of uniformed Tennessee state troopers, led by Special Agent Meffert, mounted the courthouse steps and stood shoulder-to-shoulder facing the crowd.

Meffert conferred briefly with the ranking FBI agent, then from the top step called out, in a voice that might well have carried halfway to Knoxville, “You have two minutes to disperse. It is now 8:03. Anyone still on the courthouse grounds at 8:05 will be arrested. You’ll be charged with engaging in a hate crime, and you will be cuffed and transported to arraignment in a United States criminal court. Make your choice, and make it fast. The man in that jail is not an innocent man, but he didn’t kill that woman. Anybody wants to go to prison for trying to lynch him, step right up—your future beckons.”

The crowd had fallen back, but it had not scattered. Meffert made a show of checking his watch. “Y’all got one minute,” he called, then added, as if it were an afterthought, “Now, I don’t know from personal experience, but I hear there’s a lot of big black men in federal prison be glad to add a little white meat to their diet, if you catch my drift. Variety bein’ the spice of life and all. Who wants to be first in line for that? Step right up,
step
right up, you cowardly sons of bitches. I’ll drive you there myself. I’ll even hand you the soap and point you toward the showers. Come on, by God!”

As his challenge hung in the air, the flaming cross flickered and went dark, the fire went out of the mob’s eyes, and the men slunk away, by twos and threes and tens, their tails tucked between their legs.

When the square stood empty—except for the law enforcement officers and the cuffed men and the undercover agent who’d pointed out the ringleaders—Meffert turned to Cotterell and me. “Well
that
was fun,” he said, shaking his head. “Jim, you interested in running for sheriff again? I’m thinking you might win this time around.”

“I’ll give it some thought,” muttered Cotterell. “First, though, I got to go change my britches.”

Meffert smiled, then clapped me on the shoulder. “Welcome to the Volunteer State, Doc. How you likin’ it so far?”

I stared at him, then heard myself chuckle. Within moments the three of us were howling with laughter—laughter of relief and disbelief and, above all, gratitude for our unlikely deliverance—there on the courthouse steps.