The Case Against William (22 page)

"Me
neither. But that asshole homey ratted me out."

"Coco
Pop?"

"No,
man. Eugene. He took a plea, say I killed that cop."

"But
you didn't?"

"No,
I did. But Eugene ain't supposed to rat me out, so I ain't supposed to be
here."

"I
didn't kill her."

"Who?"

"That
girl."

"What
girl?"

"Cheerleader."

"Aw,
man, a cheerleader. What she do, fuck around on you? Them cheerleaders, they
like that."

"No,
she wasn't … I mean, I don't know. I didn't know her. They've got the
wrong guy. I'm innocent."

"That
sound good. Keep saying it, just like that. Sound sincere."

"I
didn't kill her."

"Shit,
I'm starting to believe you my ownself. You good, homeboy, real good. I was
good too, crying and telling everyone I was innocent, that I didn't kill that
cop. Got me a new trial. Course, I got convicted again. Fuckin' jury."

"But
you killed him?"

"Damn
straight. Fuckin' punk-ass undercover cop gonna bust my ass? I don't think
so. I shot that motherfucker right between his eyes with my Glock nine.
Boom!
He dead. But that jury, they wouldn't believe me no how, gangbanger from
the 'hood all tatted up and looking bad. But you a white boy, they might buy
your bullshit. You might beat it, walk out that courtroom a free man. It
could happen."

"You
really think so?"

"Nah."

The
gangbanger next door laughed.

Dee
Dee Dunston woke at 6:30
A.M.
on
the morning of Saturday, November 12, 2011. She was eighteen years old and a
freshman cheerleader at Texas Tech University in Lubbock in West Texas. But
that morning she woke in Room 310 at the Omni Hotel in Austin, Texas. The Tech
football team, cheerleaders, band, and fans had traveled the three hundred
seventy-five miles from Lubbock to Austin for a game against the Texas
Longhorns that day at noon. Dee Dee Dunston teemed with excitement. She had
never been to Austin. She did not know that she would never leave Austin.

She
would be dead in eighteen hours.

Dee
Dee jumped out of bed and into the shower before her roommate woke. Cissy was
a sophomore and liked to sleep late; she was a city girl from Fort Worth. Dee
Dee was a country girl from Sweetwater. She had grown up on a ranch where
animals and humans woke at dawn. She wore boots and jeans and cowboy hats.
She rode horses and branded cows and castrated calves. She was a cowboy;
anyone who called her a "cowgirl" got a punch in the nose, and she
could punch. She didn't wear makeup until college. She never knew she was a pretty
girl; neither did the other cowboys.

But
they knew now.

She
blew her short blonde hair dry then dressed in her cheerleader outfit: a red
top that came just below her breasts and a short red skirt that rode just below
her navel, revealing her lean torso, and black Spandex shorts underneath.
White bow in her hair. She was a member of the coed squad, thirty boys and
girls. The coed squad performed at football games, but they also competed in
collegiate cheer tournaments. The days of cheerleaders offering bouncing
breasts and fluffy pompoms were long gone; cheerleading today was physical and
demanding, more gymnastics than cheerleading. Back in high school, she had
played softball and volleyball and trained in gymnastics, which led her into
competitive cheering. She had won a spot on the Tech squad at the tryouts the
previous May. Tumbling, stunts, basket toss, game day spirit and motion
techniques, and the interview. It was like winning the Miss America pageant,
only harder. Her abs were ripped, her legs muscular, her arms lean.
Cheerleading today was not for soft-bodied girls. It was for athletes.

Dee
Dee Dunston was an athlete.

"What
time is it?"

She
had come out of the bathroom to find Cissy stirring.

"Seven-thirty.
I'm going down for breakfast."

Sweetwater's
population was ten thousand; Lubbock's was two hundred forty thousand; Austin's
was a million. Dee Dee had never been to the big city. She felt as if she had
spent the entire time in town gazing about in awe with her mouth gaped open.
The tall buildings, the homeless people panhandling for handouts, the colorful
tattooed people with piercings all over their bodies, and the cross-dressers
parading about. It was like going to the circus, except this show wasn't under
a big tent. It was everywhere in Austin.

And
now she felt her mouth drop open again as they walked across the football field
at the UT stadium. The Mustang Bowl, the Sweetwater High School stadium,
seated six thousand; the Texas Tech stadium sixty thousand; the UT stadium one
hundred thousand. The stands rose high into the blue sky, and there was a huge
video screen in the south end zone where they would show instant replays.

"Big,"
Cissy said.

"Amazing,"
Dee Dee said.

"He
is."

"I'm
talking about the stadium."

"I'm
talking about him."

"Who?"

Cissy
nodded in the direction of the Longhorn team warming up on the field. Dee Dee
looked that way.

"William
Tucker."

He
wore his white uniform pants but only a tight sleeveless orange shirt. His
body was muscular, his long hair blonde, his smile big and bright when he
looked over at them. His voice was strong and manly when he called out.

"The
Dizzy Rooster on Sixth Street. Tonight. Be there."

Cissy
and the other girls giggled. Dee Dee did not. She stood as if her sneakers
were embedded in the grass field. Cissy tugged at her arm. Dee Dee finally
moved, but not before she had made a decision.

She
would be there. That night. At the Dizzy Rooster.

The
Dizzy Rooster offered live music seven days a week. It was loud, it was
crowded, it was filled with neon beer signs, and it was fun. The female
bartenders wore red and pink tutus and corsets and stockings with garter belts,
which explained all the guys at the long wooden bar, that and the two girls dancing
on the bar. Dee Dee stood at the bar with Cissy and four other Tech
cheerleaders. They were drinking beers. The legal drinking age in Texas was
twenty-one, but like most underage college students, Dee Dee possessed two
driver's licenses: the real one she gave to cops when they stopped her for
speeding the highway between Sweetwater and Lubbock and the fake one she gave
to bouncers at bars. The fake one showed her age as twenty-one.

She
finished her beer and ordered another; she felt a hand on her arm. She whirled
around ready to tell another Tech player to drop dead and came face to face
with him. She stared up at his face. The face all of America had seen so many
times on television. The face that had been all around campus the past week as
the excitement over the big game with Texas grew each day. The face of—

William
Tucker.

"She
fought him," Dwayne said.

It
was Monday afternoon. They had retraced Dee Dee Dunston's every step that day
based upon the homicide report from two years before: Omni Hotel … UT
stadium for the game … back to the hotel for dinner … partying on Sixth
Street … the Dizzy Rooster bar. Frank and the others now stood at the
crime scene behind the bar where Dee Dee's short life had ended.

"Detectives
back then, they were pros," Dwayne said. "Tracked her minute by
minute that day. To this bar. She was last seen inside the bar at
approximately midnight. She came out here through the back door. Of her own
volition."

"What's
that mean?" Chuck asked.

"Means
he didn't drag her. She came out here of her own free will. Only one reason
she'd come out here with the killer. Sex. Consensual sex turned rough and
then violent. It happens."

The
alley behind the bar was bleak and bare; it was not a place where a young
girl's life should end. Where any life should end.

"Time
of death was between midnight and two
A.M.
,"
Dwayne said. "Cause of death was strangulation. Cleaning crew found her
the next morning, about six. Cops collected all the evidence there was to
collect, couldn't match the DNA. Put out her photos around Austin and on the Tech
campus, asked for leads. None came. Became a cold case."

Dwayne
squatted; he puffed on his cigar and pondered the crime scene like a Sioux
hunter tracking his prey. He was a homicide cop again, a pro from the mean
streets of Houston. He held out the color crime scene photos one by one,
matching each up with the reality of the crime scene. Frank looked over
Dwayne's shoulder at the final photo—Dee Dee Dunston in an awkward sitting
position in a corner where this building met the adjoining one, as if she had
slid down the brick wall, her face bloody and her blonde hair messy, her red
cheerleader outfit out of kilter, her legs splayed, the bright white sneakers with
the little red pompoms entwined in the laces incongruous with the rest of her
body, her blue eyes wide open. Staring at her lifeless image, Frank Tucker was
certain of one thing.

My
son did not do this to her.

"Whoever
did this to her," Dwayne said, "he was big and strong. 'Cause she
didn't go down easy. She fought him, hard. She punched, she kicked … she
didn't want to die."

An
image flashed through Frank's mind of Dee Dee fighting for her life in this
small space, trapped in this corner, slapping her fists against her attacker's
thick arms while his big hands grasped her neck and strangled her. Fighting
but losing. They all stared at Dee Dee's death photo. Chico made the sign of
the cross.

"Can
we get a drink?" Chuck said. "Seriously, I need a drink."

"I
need a protein shake," William said to the guard. "So I need someone
to go to my dorm and get my supplements and whey protein. And I've got to get
in a real workout today. I've got a game Saturday."

The
fat-ass guard pushed the food tray through the slot in the bars. From the
looks of him, he hadn't even driven past a gym in two decades.

"Oh,
okay. Let me call down to the fitness center, make you an appointment."

"Thanks."

The
guard laughed.

"What?"
William said.

"Boy,
you some kind of bullshit prima donna, ain't you? This ain't no fucking spa,
stud. You in that cell twenty-three hours each day. You get one hour outside
on the concrete inside the fences with the electric wires up top. Ain't no
working out in here. There's just working off the time."

"You
know who I am? I'm William Tucker."

"And
you think that makes you special?"

"Yeah.
I do."

"Your
mama tell you that? You a special boy? Well, let me tell you something,
William Tucker—ain't no special in here."

The guard chuckled and walked off. William heard him mumbling.

"
'I want to workout,' he says. Hell, I want a fuckin' raise."

The
gangbanger next door giggled.

"White
people are funny."

There
was a time when black cops could not be homicide detectives in the South. But
times had changed. In Houston and in Austin. Herman Jones was black. He was
the detective in charge of the Dee Dee Dunston murder case, two years ago and
today. He refused to give Dwayne Gentry the time of day until Dwayne flashed
his Houston police department badge.

"You
on the job?"

"Early
retirement."

"Drinking?"

"That
obvious?"

Detective
Jones nodded. "You got that look. And the breath."

They
had soldiered up on the drive over.

"I'll
have both too in ten years," the detective said. "Part of the job
description."

"Amen."

Detective
Herman Jones appeared to be mid-forties, maybe ex-military like Dwayne. He
looked Dwayne over then sighed.

"Come
on back."

Herman
led Dwayne into a large room filled with desks where the homicide detectives
worked. Herman sat behind his desk; Dwayne sat in the chair to the side. The
guys had dropped Dwayne at the Austin Police Department in downtown before they
drove to the UT stadium to meet William's coach. Dwayne hoped Herman would
treat him like a colleague instead of an adversary. Like a brother in arms.

"Dee
Dee was a party girl," Herman said. "Partied with the wrong guy that
night. Bad deal."

"We
retraced her steps this morning. You did a good job."

"Thanks."

"Did
William Tucker's name ever come up back then?"

"Nope.
Still can't believe it. But I handled the Bradley Todd case, still can't
believe that."

"Neither
can his dad."

"Heard
he was in to see his boy. He was a great lawyer. I sat through the Todd
trial. The first girl. He made the D.A. look like a fool."

"The
D.A. hasn't forgotten."

"Nope.
He's got a hard-on for the dad. Heard he started drinking after Bradley killed
the second girl."

"Yep."

"Hard
thing to live with. Even for a lawyer. But, hell, Bradley's girlfriend had me
convinced he was innocent. He shouldn't blame himself."

"It's
what good men do."

"I
guess. What do you want to know?"

"The
homicide file tells me you're a pro, Herman. So why didn't you take William's
phone and laptop when you executed the search warrant on his dorm room?"

"No
comment."

"Come
on, man, don't 'no comment' me. I would never have left the prime suspect's
phone and laptop."

Detective
Herman Jones sighed.

"Sorry,
Dwayne. Gag order."

"From
the judge?"

"The
D.A. Like I said, he ain't exactly buddies with the boy's dad. He taking his
boy to trial?"

"Yep."

"Gonna
be another O.J."

"You
can't help me, Herman?"

Herman
regarded Dwayne, obviously wondering if he were seeing his own future.