Due Process Read online

  DUE PROCESS

  DUE PROCESS

  BY

  SCOTT PRATT

  © 2018 Phoenix Flying, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 1944083022

  ISBN 13: 9781944083021

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you to Don Spurrell and Jim Bowman, both great friends and excellent lawyers. They’re my go-to guys when I have a question about law. And thank you to Dr. Kenneth Ferslew for helping me understand the effects of GHB and the procedures involved in its detection.

  This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit and to her inspirational courage. I loved her before I was born and I’ll love her after I’m long gone.

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  FRIDAY, AUG. 23

  SUNDAY, AUG. 25

  SUNDAY, AUG. 25

  SUNDAY, AUG. 25

  SUNDAY, AUG. 25

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 27

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 27

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 29

  PART TWO

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 29

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 29

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 30

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 30

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 30

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 30

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 30

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12

  PART THREE

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 15

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY SCOTT PRATT

  PART ONE

  FRIDAY, AUG. 23

  My name is Joe Dillard, and it was hot and muggy outside as I drove my wife’s car northeast through Knoxville on our way back home from Nashville. My wife, Caroline, was in the passenger seat, sleeping. I was listening to a podcast called “S-Town” about a bi-polar, suicidal genius in Alabama who probably suffered from mercury poisoning and may or may not have hidden a bunch of gold on his property.

  I was listening to the podcast primarily to keep my mind off of what was going on with Caroline. The drugs that had been controlling her metastatic breast cancer had once again stopped working—the cancer was advancing in her liver—and she’d been placed in a clinical trial at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The trial was studying the effectiveness of an immunotherapy drug that had not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. She’d been on the drug for almost two months and had tolerated it fairly well. It had also shrunk the tumors in her liver, but other drugs had done the same thing, and, like lethal soldiers, the cancer eventually found a way to improvise, adapt and overcome.

  She’d also recently had to have radiation on her left knee because a cancerous tumor had wrapped itself around the joint and the doctors said they were afraid the knee would snap. I wouldn’t wish radiation on my worst enemy after seeing its effects on Caroline in the past. She’d had her breast radiated initially, and that put her down for several months. Later, after the metastasis, she’d had her entire spine radiated, which nearly killed her. After that, they’d radiated her brain to keep the cancer cells from getting in there. The brain radiation had left her unable to function for months.

  And now they’d told us that an MRI of Caroline’s brain showed the beginnings of cancer in her cerebellum, which is the part of the brain that controls balance and movement. I found that ironic and tragic, because she had been a dancer and dance teacher all of her life. The neurologist had assured us that it could be handled with radiosurgery (precisely-targeted radiation) and that there would be no side effects, but I hated the thought of Caroline going through more radiation. I hated that the disease had emaciated her, that it had taken her beautiful hair, that it had caused her so much pain and worry and heartache. I hated that she had to rely on so many drugs to survive. I hated the relentlessness of it all. I’d come to hate cancer with a passion I could not begin to adequately describe.

  The worst part of the clinical trial was that we had to drive to Nashville two out of every three weeks, and Nashville was a five-hundred-and-fifty-mile round trip from our home in Johnson City. We also had to spend the night in a hotel each time, so it was expensive. Caroline told me we were spending a little over a thousand dollars a month for hotels, gas and meals, but I wasn’t really concerned about the expense. We were in good shape financially, and even if we weren’t, I would have spent my last dime if it helped make her feel better and prolonged her life.

  She woke up as we entered Knoxville, just like she always did. The nurses at Vanderbilt gave her Benadryl during her immune-drug infusion, and it always put her to sleep. She slept through the infusion, woke up long enough to get to the car, and then slept another two-and-a-half hours until we got to Knoxville.

  I looked over at her when she said, “What are you listening to?”

  “It’s called ‘Shit Town,’” I said.

  “Classy title.”

  “It actually fits. You’d have to listen to it to understand. You want me to turn it off and put on some music?”

  “Please. I don’t think I can handle Shit Town right now.”

  “Country?”

  “Is there anything else?”

  Caroline had become a huge fan of modern country music. It had come out of the blue a few years earlier. She’d spent her entire life listening to pop—the same music the majority of her dance students listened to—but one day she heard a cross-over country song that she loved, and she’d been listening to country ever since. Her favorite artist was Carrie Underwood, who Caroline said had perfected her own genre called “vigilante country.” I’d listened to some of Ms. Underwood’s music and had to agree with Caroline’s classification of the genre. Carrie Underwood had probably killed off more men in her songs than any other artist I’d ever heard. I wondered why Caroline loved the lyrics so much, though. I’d asked her whether I should start watching my back.

  As we approached one of the exits not far from the University of Tennessee, Caroline said, “You know what? I could use a beer.”

  Caroline rarely drank, so the statement was a surprise.

  “Are you asking me to stop and get you a beer?”

  “No. I’m asking you to stop and get me a six-pack. Get those little ones. What are they, seven ounces?”

  “Yeah, seven ounces. What brought on this sudden thirst for beer?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the trial drug. But I want to drink a fe
w beers.”

  “Do you think it’ll be good for you?” I said.

  “C’mon, Joe. I have cancer in my bones, my liver and my brain. I’ve had it for years. I’ve taken every drug known to man. Do you seriously think a couple of beers is going to matter?”

  I couldn’t argue with that, so I pulled off I-40, went into a convenience store, and bought a six-pack of seven-ounce Bud Light bottles. I opened one, handed it to her, and headed back onto the interstate. She was digging in the bag for a second beer by the time I merged onto the highway.

  “Are we breaking the law?” she said.

  “Do you mean are you breaking the law? I’m not drinking in the car.”

  “Well, am I?”

  “Would it make you feel good if you were?”

  “It’d make me feel naughty. I don’t get a chance to be naughty much these days.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, “but a passenger can drink a beer in the great state of Tennessee.”

  “I’m disappointed.”

  “You can pretend you’re naughty. Use your imagination.”

  The second bottle went down almost as quickly as the first.

  “You’re slamming that stuff,” I said. “You looking to get drunk?”

  She took Oxycontin for pain every day, she’d taken the Benadryl earlier, and she was already reaching for her third beer.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  “And you can’t do it sober?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Okay...talk.”

  “You’ve been dreaming about me dying, Joe. You’re having nightmares about it.”

  What she was saying was true. She’d awakened me several times over the past month, but I had no idea she knew the specifics of the dreams I’d been having.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m talking in my sleep?”

  “You’ve always talked when you have nightmares, and you sweat so much the sheets get soaked. You’ve been having nightmares about Sarah, too, about when she was raped when you were children.”

  “What do you want me to say, Caroline? I don’t have them intentionally.”

  “Do you think I’m going to die?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to die? Are you tired of all this? Because I’d understand if you are. I read about this syndrome last week. It’s called compassion fatigue. I think you have it.”

  “Did you just ask me if I want you to die? I’m not even going to answer the question. I’ll just chalk it up to the drugs and the beer. And I’ve never heard of compassion fatigue.”

  “I’m not drunk and I’ve taken so many drugs they don’t even affect me. Look up compassion fatigue when we get home. It happens to a lot of different groups of people, like nurses and doctors and police officers, but one of the other groups is caregivers within families who have to deal with the long-term illness of a relative or a spouse. You’re definitely in that category.”

  “So? Are you saying I don’t care anymore?”

  “I’m saying you’re tired of all this and it’s stressing you out to the point that you’re having nightmares.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not wrong. You’re losing compassion. You’re becoming numb. You’re doing it to protect yourself because you’re afraid I’m going to die.”

  “Fine,” I said. I was starting to get angry but trying very hard to control the emotion. “But this isn’t fair. Seriously, how dare you suggest that I want you to die? So you have cancer. That doesn’t mean you can do or say whatever you want. Sometimes you think there are no longer any consequences to your behavior because you can always play the cancer card.”

  “See?” she said, her voice rising. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re mean to me. You were never mean to me before.”

  As much as I hated it, this kind of spat was becoming more frequent between us. There always seemed to be tension hanging over us. I knew it was the constant pressure and frustration from the disease, but that didn’t make it any less real. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, there was probably at least a grain of truth to what she was saying. I thought she was wrong about any lack of compassion, but the more time that passed and the more the disease progressed, the more stress I felt. I found myself wondering what I would do without her, and I didn’t have any answers. But I couldn’t say that out loud, I couldn’t talk to her about it, because I knew if I started talking about what I’d do without her, I’d start tearing up and might even cry, and that would just upset her more. As far as the nightmares went, she was probably right. The long-term stress of dealing with the disease was a contributing factor, but my confusion about and fear of having to go on living without the woman I’d loved since I was a teenager was also undoubtedly in the mix.

  “Can we please not argue?” I said. “I love you. I’ve always loved you and I will continue to love you. I’m sorry about the nightmares, I really am. I’ll sleep on the couch so I won’t wake you.”

  “I don’t want you to sleep on the couch. I want you to sleep in our bed like you always have.”

  “Then I’ll sleep in our bed like I always have.”

  She took another pull off a beer and turned toward me.

  “Why are you suddenly being so agreeable?”

  “Look,” I said. “This has been a long, hard road for both of us. For all of us. Especially for you. And now that Lilly and Randy and Joseph are gone, it’s been even harder. We don’t have as much help, and I’ve seen an emptiness in you that breaks my heart. You and Lilly were always so close, and we both had so much fun with Joseph. When they left, it was like part of your heart was torn out of your chest. Mine, too, but it’s been worse for you.”

  My son-in-law, Randy Lowe, had graduated from medical school and was now in an oncology residency program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Caroline and I loved Randy deeply and were both extremely proud of him, but at the same time, we resented him for taking our beloved daughter and grandson to Boston. Caroline looked at me and tears filled her eyes.

  “But you’re still here,” she said, “and I have Jack and Charlie. I just hate the thought that I’m causing you to have nightmares. And I thought the thing with Sarah was put to rest a long time ago.”

  “I guess it’ll never be put to rest,” I said. “I don’t know why I’m dreaming about it, but let’s just do what we’ve always done. Let’s just hang in there and keep loving each other.”

  She leaned across the seat and kissed me on the cheek.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you, too,” I said. “Hand me one of those beers. We’ll be naughty together.”

  SUNDAY, AUG. 25

  “I was raped,” the girl said in a voice that could barely be heard. The Johnson City Police Officer, Tonya James, looked into her rearview mirror.

  “What did you say?”

  Officer James had put her passenger, a redhead who gave the name of Sheila Self and said she was twenty-four years old but didn’t have any identification, into the back seat of her cruiser five minutes earlier at a convenience store on Walnut Street not far from East Tennessee State University. It was 1:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. The passenger wore a tight, short, red spandex dress, spiked heels, heavy make-up, and looked like a hooker. Ms. Self was under the influence of some substance or was, perhaps, mentally ill. She initially made absolutely no sense at all when Officer James showed up after responding to a 911 call that reported Ms. Self was wandering around inside the convenience store muttering to herself and had refused to leave. After speaking to Ms. Self for several minutes and consulting her supervisor, Officer James determined that an involuntary mental health commitment may be in order, and she was transporting Ms. Self to Woodlawn Mental Health Facility for an evaluation.

  “Do you know where I’m taking you?” Officer James asked.

  “Woodlawn, but I’m not cra...crazy. I was drugged and raped.”

  “
Raped? When?”

  “Not really sure. Hour ago, maybe? Longer?’’

  The woman’s speech was slurred and she smelled of alcohol, but this was the first time she’d mentioned drugs or being raped. Officer James needed to pay attention in case it was true.

  “Do you know who raped you?”

  “Some guys, maybe three. They puh…pulled me into a bathroom.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “Party. Tree Streets.”

  Officer James pulled into a church parking lot, turned toward the back seat, and gave her passenger her full attention.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I went there to dance. I work for AAA Escort. Sometimes I do exotic dancing. They set it up.”

  “What time were you supposed to be there?”

  “Midnight.”

  “And you got there at midnight?”

  “I think I took a cab. It’s still fuzzy, but some of it’s starting to come back to me.”

  “Do you know the names of any of the people who raped you?”

  “No.”

  “Can you describe them?”

  “Not really. Not right now. It was dark.”

  “Were they white or black or Hispanic or Indian or Asian? Can you tell me their race?”

  “At least one of them was black. They were football players.”

  “Football players? How do you know that?”

  “Football player party. The escort service told me. The guy that paid me said he was a captain.”

  Officer James found it interesting that the young woman was suddenly recalling some details, but nothing that could really help the police find who committed the rape, if a rape had really been committed.

  “Who paid you?”

  “Some big guy.”

  “Was he one of the men that raped you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How did he pay you?”

  “Cash money.”

  “Do you have the money?”

  “Did you go through my purse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it in there?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t know what happened to it. One of them probably stole it. Maybe I lost it.”