Chapter 17

   Unknown to me—and there was no reason it should have been known to me because I was such a newcomer to the community and certainly not involved in judicial affairs, and besides I literally had my hands full of Ginger and for a few wonderful hours we lost interest in the trial—a secret meeting took place shortly after adjournment on Wednesday. Ernie Gaddis went to Harry Rex’s office for a post-trial drink and both admitted they were sick over Lydia’s testimony. They began making phone calls, and within an hour they had rounded up a group of lawyers they could trust, and a couple of politicians as well.
   The opinion was unanimous that the Padgitts were in the process of wiggling out of what appeared to be a solid case against them. They had managed to find a witness they could bribe. Lydia had obviously been paid to concoct her story, and she was either too broke or too stupid to understand the risks of perjury. Regardless, she had given the jury a reason, albeit a weak one, to second-guess the prosecution.
   An acquittal in such an open-and-shut case would infuriate the town and mock the court system. A hung jury would send a similar message—justice could be bought in Ford County. Ernie, Harry Rex, and the other lawyers worked hard every day manipulating the system on behalf of their clients, but the rules were applied fairly. The system worked because the judges and jurors were impartial and unbiased. To allow Lucien Wilbanks and the Padgitts to corrupt the process would cause irreparable damage.
   There was a consensus that a hung jury was entirely possible. As a believable witness, Lydia Vince left much to be desired, but the jurors were not as savvy about fabricated testimony and crooked clients. The lawyers agreed that Fargarson, “the crippled boy,” appeared hostile to the prosecution. After two full days and almost fifteen hours of watching the jurors, the lawyers felt they could read them.
   Mr. John Deere also had them worried. His real name was Mo Teale and he’d been a mechanic down at the tractor place for over twenty years. He was a simple man with a limited wardrobe. Late Monday afternoon when the jury was finally selected and Judge Loopus sent them home to hurriedly pack for the bus, Mo had simply loaded up his week’s supply of work uniforms. Each morning he marched into the jury box wearing a bright yellow shirt with green trim and green pants with yellow trim, as if he was ready for another vigorous day of pulling wrenches.
   Mo sat with his arms crossed and frowned whenever Ernie Gaddis was on his feet. His body language terrified the prosecution.
   Harry Rex thought it was important to find Lydia’s estranged husband. If they were in fact going through a divorce, it was more than likely not an amicable one. It was difficult to believe she was having an affair with Danny Padgitt, but at the same time it seemed likely that the woman was no stranger to extramarital activity. The husband might have testimony that could severely discredit Lydia’s.
   Ernie wanted to dig into her private life. He wanted to create doubt about her finances so he could yell at the jury, “How can she live so comfortably when she’s unemployed and going through a divorce?”
   “Because she got twenty-five thousand dollars from the Padgitts,” one of the lawyers said. Speculation about the amount of the bribe became a running debate as the night wore on.
   The search for Malcolm Vince began with Harry Rex and two others calling every lawyer within five counties. Around 10 P.M. they found a lawyer in Corinth, two hours away, who said he had met with a Malcolm Vince once about a divorce, but had not been retained. Mr. Vince was living in a trailer somewhere out in the boondocks near the Tishomingo County line. He could not remember where he worked, but he was sure he had written it down in his file at the office. The District Attorney himself got on the phone and coaxed the lawyer back to the office.
   At eight o’clock the next morning, about the time I was leaving Ginger at the motel, Judge Loopus readily agreed to order a subpoena for Malcolm Vince. Twenty minutes later, a Corinth city policeman stopped a forklift in a warehouse and informed its operator that a subpoena had just been issued for his appearance in a murder trial over in Ford County.
   “What the hell for?” Mr. Vince demanded.
   “I’m just following orders,” the policeman said.
   “What am I supposed to do?”
   “You got two choices, pal,” explained the cop. “Stay here with me till they come get you, or we can leave now and get it over with.” Malcolm’s boss told him to leave and hurry back.
   After a ninety-minute delay, the jury was brought in. Mr. John Deere was as spiffy as ever, but the rest were beginning to look tired. It seemed like the trial had been going on for a month.
   Miss Callie searched me out and gave me a restrained grin, not one of her spectacular day-brighteners. She was still clutching a small New Testament.
   Ernie rose and informed the court that he had no further questions for Lydia Vince. Lucien said he was through with her too. Ernie said he had a rebuttal witness he would like to call out of order. Lucien Wilbanks objected and they haggled over it at the bench. When Lucien learned who the witness was, he became visibly upset. A good sign.
   Evidently Judge Loopus was concerned about a bad verdict as well. He ruled against the defense, and a thoroughly bewildered Malcolm Vince was called into the packed courtroom to testify. Ernie had spent less than ten minutes with him in a back room, so he was as unprepared as he was confused.
   Ernie started slow, with the basics–name, address, employment, recent family history. Malcolm somewhat reluctantly admitted being married to Lydia and shared her desire to escape from the union. He said he had seen neither his wife nor his child in about a month. His recent employment history was spotty at best, but he tried to send her $50 a week to support the child.
   He knew she was unemployed but living in a nice apartment. “You’re not paying for her apartment?” Ernie asked with great suspicion, glancing warily at the jury.
   “No sir, I am not.”
   “Is her family paying for her apartment?”
   “Her family couldn’t pay for one night in a motel,” Malcolm said with no small amount of satisfaction.
   Once excused, Lydia had left the courtroom and was probably in the process of fleeing the country. Her act was complete, her performance over, her fee collected. She would never again set foot in Ford County. It’s doubtful her presence would have inhibited Malcolm’s testimony, but her absence gave him free rein to take all the cheap shots he wanted.
   “You’re not close to her family?” Ernie asked, a throwaway question.
   “Most of them are in jail.”
   “I see. She testified yesterday that a couple of months ago she bought a 1968 Ford Mustang. Did you help her with this purchase?”
   “I did not.”
   “Any idea how this unemployed woman could make this purchase?” Ernie asked, glancing at Danny Padgitt.
   “No.”
   “Do you know if she’s made any other unusual purchases lately?”
   Malcolm looked at the jury, saw some friendly faces, and said, “Yeah, she bought a new color television for herself and a new motorcycle for her brother.”
   It appeared as if everyone at the defense table had stopped breathing. The strategy over there had been to sneak Lydia in quietly, let her tell her lies, verify the alibi, get her off the stand, then push the case to a verdict before she could be discredited. She had known very few people in the county and now lived an hour away.
   The strategy was unraveling with disastrous results, and the entire courtroom could see and feel the tension between Lucien and his client.
   “Do you know a man by the name of Danny Padgitt?” Ernie asked.
   “Never heard of him,” Malcolm said.
   “Your wife testified yesterday that she had been having an affair with him for almost a year.”
   It’s rare to see an unsuspecting husband confronted with such news in such a public manner, but Malcolm seemed to handle it well. “That so?” he said.
   “Yes sir. She testified the affair ended about two months ago.”
   “Well, sir, I’ll tell you—that’s kinda hard to believe.”
   “And why is that?”
   Malcolm was squirming, suddenly interested in his feet. “Well, it’s really kinda personal, you know,” he said.
   “Yes, Mr. Vince, I’m sure it is. But sometimes personal matters have to be discussed in open court. A man is on trial here, charged with murder. This is serious business, and we need to know the truth.”
   Malcolm swung his left leg over his right knee and scratched his chin for a few seconds. “Well, sir, it’s like this. We stopped havin’ sex about two years ago. That’s why we’re gettin’ a divorce, you know.”
   “Any particular reason you stopped having sex?” Ernie asked as he held his breath.
   “Yes sir. She told me she hated sex with me, said it made her sick to her stomach. Said she preferred sex with, you know, other ladies.”
   Though he knew what answer was coming, Ernie managed to appear sufficiently shocked. Along with everyone else. He backed away from the podium and huddled with Hank Hooten, just a brief break to allow the jurors to fully absorb the blow. Finally, he said, “No further questions, Your Honor.”


* * *

   Lucien approached Malcolm Vince as if he were staring at a loaded gun. He picked around the edges for a few minutes. According to Baggy, a good trial lawyer never asks a question unless he knows the answer, especially with a witness as dangerous as Malcolm Vince. Lucien was a good lawyer, and he had no idea what Malcolm might blurt out.
   He admitted he had no affection for Lydia, that he couldn’t wait to get through with the divorce, that the last few years with her had not been pleasant, and so on. Typical divorce chatter. He remembered hearing of the Kassellaw murder the next morning. He’d been out the night before and returned home very late. Lucien scored a very weak point by proving that Lydia was indeed alone that night, as she had testified.
   But it mattered little. The jurors and the rest of us were still struggling with the enormity of Lydia’s sins.


* * *

   After a long recess, Lucien rose slowly and addressed the Court. “Your Honor, the defense has no other witnesses. However, my client wishes to testify. I want it stated clearly in the record that he will testify against my advice.”
   “Duly noted,” Loopus said.
   “A very stupid mistake. Unbelievable,” Baggy whispered loud enough for half the courtroom to hear.
   Danny Padgitt jumped up and strutted to the witness stand. His attempt at smiling came across as nothing but a smirk. His attempt at confidence came across as cockiness. He was sworn to tell the truth, but no one expected to hear it.
   “Why do you insist on testifying?” was Lucien’s first question, and the courtroom was still and silent.
   “Because I want these good people to hear what really happened,” he answered, looking at the jurors.
   “Then tell them,” Lucien said, waving his hand at the jury.
   His version of events was wonderfully creative because there was no one to rebut him. Lydia was gone, Rhoda was dead. He began by saying that he had spent a few hours with his girlfriend, Lydia Vince, who lived less than half a mile from Rhoda Kassellaw. He knew exactly where Rhoda lived because he had visited her on several occasions. She wanted a serious romance but he’d been too occupied with Lydia. Yes, he and Rhoda had had intimate relations on two occasions. They’d met at the clubs at the state line and spent many hours drinking and dancing. She was hot and loose and known to sleep around.
   As insult was added to injury, Ginger lowered her head and covered her ears. It was not missed by the jury.
   He didn’t believe Lydia’s husband’s garbage about her homosexual tendencies; the woman enjoyed the intimacy of men. Malcolm was lying so he could win custody of their child.
   Padgitt was not a bad witness, but then he was testifying for his life. Every answer was quick, there were too many fake smiles toward the jury box, his narrative was clean and neat and fit too nicely together. I listened to him and watched the jurors and I didn’t see much sympathy. Fargarson, the crippled boy, appeared just as skeptical as he had with every other witness. Mr. John Deere still sat with his arms wrapped across his chest, frowning. Miss Callie had no use for Padgitt, but then she would probably send him to prison for the adultery as quickly as for the murder.
   Lucien kept it brief. His client had plenty of rope with which to hang himself, no sense making it easier for the State. When Lucien sat down he glared at the elder Padgitts as if he truly hated them. Then he braced himself for what was about to come.
   Cross-examining such a guilty criminal is a prosecutor’s dream. Ernie deliberately walked to the exhibit table and lifted Danny’s bloody shirt. “Exhibit number eight,” he said to the court reporter, holding it up for the jury to see again.
   “Where’d you buy this shirt, Mr. Padgitt?”
   Danny froze, uncertain as to whether he should deny it was his, or admit ownership, or try and recall where he bought the damned thing.
   “You didn’t steal it, did you?” Ernie roared at him.
   “I did not.”
   “Then answer my question, and please try to remember you’re under oath. Where did you buy this shirt?” As Ernie talked he held the shirt in front of him with his fingertips, as if the blood was still wet and might spot his suit.
   “Over in Tupelo, I think. I really don’t remember. It’s just a shirt.”
   “How long have you owned it?”
   Another pause. How many men can remember when they bought a particular shirt?
   “A year or so, maybe. I don’t keep notes on clothes.”
   “Neither do I,” Ernie said. “When you were in bed with Lydia that night, had you removed this shirt?”
   A very cautious, “Yes.”
   “Where was it while the two of you were, uh, having relations?”
   “On the floor, I guess.”
   Now that it was firmly established that the shirt was his, Ernie was free to slaughter the witness. He pulled out the report from the state crime lab, read it to Danny, and asked him how his own blood came to be stained on the shirt. This led to a discussion about his driving abilities, his tendency to speed, the type of vehicle, and the fact that he was legally drunk when he flipped his truck. With Ernie pounding away, I doubt if a case of driving under the influence had ever sounded so deadly. Not surprisingly, Danny had a thin skin and began to bristle at Ernie’s pointed and sardonic questioning.
   On to Rhoda’s bloodstains. If he was in bed with Lydia, with the shirt on the floor, how in the world did Rhoda’s blood find its way from her bedroom to Lydia’s, a half mile away?
   It was a conspiracy, Danny said, advancing a new theory and digging a hole he would never get out of. Too much time alone in a jail cell can be dangerous for a guilty criminal. Well, he tried to explain, someone either stained his shirt with Rhoda’s blood, a theory that lightened up the crowd considerably, or, it was more likely that some mysterious person who examined the shirt was simply lying, all in an effort to convict him. Ernie had a field day with both scenarios, but he landed his heaviest blows with a series of brutal questions about why Danny, who certainly had the money to hire the best lawyers around, didn’t hire his own expert to come to court and explain the tainted blood exams to the jury.
   Perhaps no expert was found because no expert could reach the ridiculous conclusions Padgitt wanted.
   Same for the semen. If Danny had been producing it over at Lydia’s, how could it arrive at Rhoda’s? No problem—it was part of a broad conspiracy to nail him for the crime. The lab reports were fabricated; the police work was faulty. Ernie hammered him until we were all exhausted.
   At twelve-thirty, Lucien stood and suggested a break for lunch. “I’m not done!” Ernie yelled across the courtroom. He wanted to finish the annihilation before Lucien could get his hands on his client and try to rehabilitate him, a task that seemed impossible. Padgitt was on the ropes, battered and gasping for air, and Ernie was not going to a neutral corner.
   “Continue,” Judge Loopus said, and Ernie suddenly shouted at Padgitt, “What did you do with the knife?”
   The question startled everyone, especially the witness, who jerked backward and quickly said, “I, uh,—” then went silent.
   “You what! Come on, Mr. Padgitt; tell us what you did with the knife, the murder weapon.”
   Danny shook his head fiercely and looked too scared to speak. “What knife?” he managed to say. He could not have looked guiltier if the knife had dropped out of his pocket onto the floor.
   “The knife you used on Rhoda Kassellaw.”
   “It wasn’t me.”
   Like a slow and cruel executioner, Ernie took a long pause and huddled with Hank Hooten again. He then picked up the autopsy report and asked Danny if he remembered the testimony of the first pathologist. Was his report also a part of this conspiracy? Danny wasn’t sure how to answer. All of the evidence was being used against him, so, yes, he figured it must be bogus as well.
   And the piece of his skin found under her fingernail, that was part of the conspiracy? And his own semen? And on and on; Ernie hammered away. Occasionally, Lucien would glance over his shoulder at Danny’s father with a look that said, “I told you so.”
   Danny’s presence on the stand allowed Ernie to once more trot out all the evidence, and the impact was devastating. His weak protests that everything was tainted by a conspiracy sounded ridiculous, even laughable. Watching him get thoroughly decimated before the jury was quite gratifying. The good guys were winning. The jury seemed primed to pull out rifles and form a firing squad.
   Ernie tossed his legal pad on his table and appeared ready for lunch, finally. He jammed both hands into his front pockets, glared at the witness, and said, “Under oath, you’re telling this jury you didn’t rape and murder Rhoda Kassellaw?”
   “I didn’t do it.”
   “You didn’t follow her home from the state line that Saturday night?”
   “No.”
   “You didn’t sneak in her patio door?”
   “No.”
   “And hide in her closet until she put her children to bed?”
   “No.”
   “And you didn’t attack her when she came in to put on her night clothes?”
   “No.”
   Lucien stood and said angrily, “Objection, Your Honor, Mr. Gaddis is testifying here.”
   “Overruled!” Loopus snapped at the defense table. The Judge wanted a fair trial. To counteract all the lying done by the defense, the prosecution was being allowed considerable freedom in describing the murder scene.
   “You didn’t blindfold her with a scarf?”
   Padgitt was continually shaking his head as the narrative approached its climax.
   “And cut off her panties with your knife?”
   “No.”
   “And you didn’t rape her in her own bed, with her two little children asleep not far away?” “I did not.”
   “And you didn’t wake them with your noise?”
   “No.”
   Ernie walked as close to the witness chair as the Judge would allow, and he looked sadly at his jury. Then he turned to Danny and said, “Michael and Teresa ran to check on their mother, didn’t they, Mr. Padgitt?”
   “I don’t know.”
   “And they found you on top of her, didn’t they?”
   “I wasn’t there.”
   “Rhoda heard their voices, didn’t she? Did they yell at you, beg you to get off?”
   “I wasn’t there.”
   “And Rhoda did what any mother would do—she yelled for them to run, didn’t she, Mr. Padgitt?”
   “I wasn’t there.”
   “You weren’t there!” Ernie bellowed, and the walls seemed to shake. “Your shirt was there, your footprints were there, you left your semen there! You think this jury is stupid, Mr. Padgitt?”
   The witness kept shaking his head. Ernie walked slowly to his chair and pulled it from under the table. As he was about to sit, he said, “You’re a rapist. You’re a murderer. And you’re a liar, aren’t you, Mr. Padgitt?”
   Lucien was up and yelling. “Objection, Your Honor. This is enough.”
   “Sustained. Any further questions, Mr. Gaddis?”
   “No, Your Honor, the State is finished with this witness.”
   “Any redirect, Mr. Wilbanks?”
   “No, Your Honor.”
   “The witness may step down.” Danny slowly got to his feet. Long gone was the smirk, the swagger. His face was red with anger and wet with sweat.
   As he was about to step out of the witness box and return to the defense table, he suddenly turned to the jury and said something that stunned the courtroom. His face wrinkled into pure hatred, and he jabbed his right index finger into the air. “You convict me,” he said, “and I’ll get every damned one of you.”
   “Bailiff!” Judge Loopus said as he grabbed for his gavel. “That’s enough, Mr. Padgitt.”
   “Every damned one of you!” Danny repeated, louder. Ernie jumped to his feet, but could think of nothing to say. And why should he? The defendant was strangling himself. Lucien was on his feet, equally uncertain about what to do. Two deputies raced forward and shoved Padgitt toward the defense table. As he walked away he glared at the jurors as if he might just throw a grenade right then.
   When things settled, I realized my heart was pounding with excitement. Even Baggy was too stunned to speak.
   “Let’s break for lunch,” His Honor said, and we fled the courtroom. I was no longer hungry. I felt like racing to my apartment and taking a shower.

Chapter 18

   The trial resumed at 3 P.M. All the jurors were present; the Padgitts hadn’t knocked one off during lunch. Miss Callie gave me a grin, but her heart was not in it.
   Judge Loopus explained to the jury that it was now time for the closing arguments, after which he would read to them his formal instructions, and they should have the case to decide in a couple of hours or so. They listened carefully, but I’m sure they were still reeling from the shock of being so flagrantly intimidated. The entire town was reeling. The jurors were a sampling of us, the rest of the community, and to threaten them was to do the same to everyone.
   Ernie went first, and within minutes the bloody shirt was back in play. He was careful, though, not to overdo it. The jurors understood. They knew the evidence well.
   The District Attorney was thorough but surprisingly brief. As he made his last appeal for a verdict of guilty, we watched the faces of the jurors. I saw no sympathy for the defendant. Fargarson, the crippled boy, was actually nodding as he followed along with Ernie. Mr. John Deere had uncrossed his arms and was listening to every word.
   Lucien was even briefer, but then he had far less to work with. He began by addressing his client’s final words to the jury. He apologized for his behavior. He blamed it on the pressure of the moment. Imagine, he asked the jurors, being twenty-four years old and facing either life in prison or, worse, the gas chamber. The stress on his young client—he always referred to him as “Danny” as if he was an innocent little boy—was so enormous that he was concerned about his mental stability.
   Since he could not pursue the goofy conspiracy theory advanced by his client, and since he knew better than to dwell on the evidence, he spent half an hour or so praising the heroes who’d written our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The way Lucien interpreted the presumption of innocence and the requirement that the State prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt made me wonder how any criminal ever got convicted.
   The State had the chance for a rebuttal; the defense did not. So Ernie got the last word. He ignored the evidence and did not mention the defendant, but chose instead to talk about Rhoda. Her youth and beauty, her simple life out in Beech Hill, the death of her husband, and the challenge of raising two small children alone.
   This was very effective, and the jurors were absorbing every word. “Let’s not forget about her,” was Ernie’s refrain. A polished orator, he saved the best for last.
   “And let’s not forget about her children,” he said as he looked into the eyes of the jurors. “They were there when she died. What they saw was so horrible that they will be forever scarred. They have a voice here in this courtroom, and their voice belongs to you.”
   Judge Loopus read his instructions to the jury, then sent them back to begin their deliberations. It was after 5 P.M… a time when the shops around the square were closed and the merchants and their customers were long gone. Traffic was normally light, parking was easy.
   But not when a jury is out!
   Much of the crowd lingered on the courthouse lawn, smoking, gossiping, predicting how long a verdict would take. Others crowded into the cafes for a late coffee or an early dinner. Ginger followed me to my office where we sat on the balcony and watched the activity around the courthouse. She was emotionally wasted and wanted to do nothing but get out of Ford County.
   “How well do you know Hank Hooten?” she asked at one point.
   “Never met him. Why?”
   “He caught me during lunch, said he knew Rhoda well, said he knew for a fact that she was not sleeping around, especially not with Danny Padgitt. I told him I did not believe for an instant that she was seeing that scumbag.”
   “Did he say he dated her?” I asked.
   “He wouldn’t say, but I got the impression he did. When we were going through her things, a week or so after the funeral, I found his name and phone number in her address book.”
   “You’ve met Baggy,” I said.
   “Yes.”
   “Well, Baggy’s been around forever, thinks he knows it all. He told me Monday when the trial started that Rhoda and Hank were seeing each other. He said Hank’s been through a couple of wives, likes to be known as a ladies’ man.”
   “So he’s not married?”
   “I don’t think so. I’ll ask Baggy.”
   “I guess I should feel better knowing my sister was sleeping with a lawyer.”
   “Why would that make you feel better?”
   “I don’t know.”
   She’d kicked off her heels and her short skirt was even higher up her thighs. I began to rub them, and my thoughts drifted away from the trial.
   But only for a moment. There was a commotion around the front door of the courthouse, and I heard someone yell something about a “verdict.”


* * *

   After deliberating for less than one hour, the jury was ready. When the lawyers and spectators were in place, Judge Loopus told a bailiff, “Bring ‘em in.”
   “Guilty as hell,” Baggy whispered to me as the door opened and Fargarson came limping out first. “Quick verdicts are always guilty.”
   For the record, Baggy had predicted a hung jury, but I didn’t remind him of that, not then anyway.
   The foreman handed a folded sheet of paper to the bailiff, who then gave it to the Judge. Loopus examined it for a long time, then leaned down close to his microphone. “Would the defendant please rise,” he said. Both Padgitt and Lucien stood, slowly and awkwardly, as if the firing squad was taking aim.
   Judge Loopus read, “As to count one, the charge of rape, we the jury find the defendant, Danny Padgitt, guilty. As to count two, the charge of capital murder, we the jury find the defendant, Danny Padgitt, guilty.”
   Lucien didn’t flinch and Padgitt tried not to. He looked at the jurors with as much venom as he could convey, but he was getting more of it in return.
   “You may be seated,” His Honor said, then turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your service so far. This completes the guilt-or-innocence phase of the trial. Now we move to the capital phase in which you will be asked to decide whether this defendant gets a death sentence or life in prison. You will now return to your hotel, and we will recess until nine in the morning. Thank you and good night.”
   It was over so quickly that most of the spectators didn’t move for a moment. They led Padgitt out, in handcuffs this time, and his family seemed completely bewildered. Lucien had no time to chat with them.
   Baggy and I went to the office where he began typing with a fury. The deadline was days away, but we wanted to capture the moment. Typically, though, he faded after half an hour when the sour mash called. It was almost dark when Ginger returned, in tight jeans, tight shirt, hair down, a look that said “Take me somewhere.”
   We stopped at Quincy’s again, where I bought another six-pack for the road, and with the top down and the warm muggy air blowing by us, we headed for Memphis, ninety minutes away.
   She said little, and I didn’t poke around. She had been forced by her family to attend the trial. She hadn’t asked for this nightmare. Luckily, she’d found me for a little fun.
   I’ll never forget that night. Racing the dark empty backroads, drinking a cold beer, holding hands with a beautiful lady who’d come looking for me, one I’d already slept with and was sure to do so again.
   Our sweet little romance had but a few hours left. I could almost count them. Baggy thought the penalty phase would take less than a day, so the trial would end tomorrow, Friday. Ginger couldn’t wait to leave Clanton and shake the dust off her shoes, and of course there was no way I could leave with her. I’d checked an atlas—Springfield, Missouri, was far away, at least a six-hour drive. Commuting would be difficult, though I’d certainly try if she wanted me to.
   But something told me Ginger would vanish from my life as quickly as she had appeared. I was sure she had a boyfriend or two back home, so I wouldn’t be welcome. And if she saw me in Springfield she would be reminded of Ford County and its horrible memories.
   I squeezed her hand and vowed to make the most of those last few hours.
   In Memphis, we headed for the tall buildings by the river. The most famous restaurant in town was a rib place called the Rendezvous, a landmark owned by a family of Greeks. Almost all of the good food in Memphis was cooked by either Greeks or Italians.
   Downtown Memphis in 1970 was not a safe place. I parked in a garage and we hustled across an alley to the door of the Rendezvous. Smoke from its pits boiled from vents and hung like thick fog among the buildings. It was the most delicious smell I had ever encountered, and I, like most other patrons, was famished by the time we walked down a flight of stairs and entered the restaurant.
   Thursdays were slow. We waited five minutes, and when they called my name we followed a waiter as he zigzagged around tables, through smaller rooms, deeper into the caverns. He winked at me and gave us a table for two in a dark corner. We ordered ribs and beer and groped each other while we waited.
   The guilty verdict was a huge relief. Anything else would’ve been a civic disaster, and Ginger would’ve fled town and never looked back. She would flee tomorrow, but I had her for the moment. We drank to the verdict. For Ginger it meant justice had indeed prevailed. For me, it meant that too, but it also gave us another night together.
   She ate little, which allowed me to finish my slab of ribs and go to work on hers. I told her about Miss Callie and the lunches on her porch, about her remarkable children, and her background. Ginger said she adored Miss Callie, same as she adored the other eleven.
   Such admiration would not last long.


* * *

   As I had expected, my father was holed up in the attic, which is what he had always called his office. It was really the top floor of a Victorian tower at the front corner of our shabby and ill-maintained home in mid-town Memphis. Ginger wanted to see it, and in the darkness it looked much more imposing than in daylight. It was in a wonderful, shady old neighborhood filled with declining homes owned by declining families surviving gamely in genteel poverty.
   “What does he do up there?” she asked. We were sitting in my car, with the engine off, at the curb. Mrs. Duckworth’s ancient schnauzer was barking at us four doors down.
   “I told you already. He trades stocks and bonds.”
   “At night?”
   “He’s doing market research. He never comes out.”
   “And he loses money?”
   “He certainly doesn’t make any.”
   “Are we going to say hello?”
   “No. It’ll just piss him off.”
   “When was the last time you saw him?”
   “Three, four months ago.” Visiting with my father was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment. I was consumed with lust and anxious to get started. We drove out of the city, into the suburbs, and found a Holiday Inn next to the interstate.

Chapter 19

   Friday morning, in the hallway outside the courtroom, Esau Ruffin found me and had a pleasant surprise. Three of his sons, Al, Max, and Bobby (Alberto, Massimo, and Roberto), were with him, anxious to say hello to me. I had spoken to all three a month earlier when I was doing the feature on Miss Callie and her children. We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. They politely thanked me for my friendship with their mother, and for the kind words I’d written about their family. They were as soft-spoken, pleasant, and as articulate as Miss Callie.
   They had arrived late the night before to give her moral support. Esau had talked to her once all week—each juror had been given one phone call—and she was holding up well but worried about her blood pressure.
   We chatted for a moment as the crowd pushed toward the courtroom and walked in together. They sat directly behind me. A few moments later when Miss Callie took her seat, she looked at me and saw her three sons. The smile was like a bolt of lightning. The fatigue around her eyes vanished immediately.
   During the trial, I had seen in her face a certain amount of pride. She was sitting where no black person had ever sat, shoulder to shoulder with fellow citizens, judging a white person for the first time in Ford County. I’d also had hints of the anxiety that comes with venturing into untested waters.
   Now that her sons were there to watch, pride filled her face, and there was no evidence of fear. She sat a bit straighter, and though she’d missed nothing in the courtroom so far, her eyes darted everywhere, anxious to capture what was coming and finish her task.
   Judge Loopus explained to the jurors that in the penalty phase the State would offer evidence of aggravating circumstances in support of its request for the death penalty. The defense would offer mitigating proof. He did not expect it to take long. It was Friday; the trial had already lasted forever; the jurors and everybody else in Clanton wanted Padgitt shipped off so life could return to normal.
   Ernie Gaddis correctly gauged the mood in the courtroom. He thanked the jurors for their proper verdict of guilty and confessed that he felt no further testimony was necessary. The crime was so heinous that nothing more aggravating could be added to it. He asked the jurors to remember the graphic photos of Rhoda in the swing on Mr. Deece’s front porch, and the pathologist’s testimony about her vicious wounds and how she died. And her children, please don’t forget her children.
   As if anybody could.
   He delivered an impassioned plea for the death penalty. He gave a brief history of why we, as good solid Americans, believed so strongly in it. He explained why it was a deterrent and a punishment. He quoted Scripture.
   In almost thirty years of prosecuting crimes in six counties, he had never seen a case that so mightily begged for the death penalty. Watching the faces of the jurors, I was convinced he was about to get what he asked for.
   He wrapped it up by reminding the jurors that each had been selected on Monday after promising that they could follow the law. He read them the law enacting the death penalty. “The State of Mississippi has proven its case,” he said, closing the thick green law book. “You have found Danny Padgitt guilty of rape and murder. The law now calls for the death penalty. You are duty bound to deliver it.”
   Ernie’s spellbinding performance lasted for fifty-one minutes—I was trying to record everything—and when he finished I knew the jury would hang Padgitt not once but twice.
   According to Baggy, in a capital case the defendant, after protesting his innocence throughout the trial and being nailed by the jury, usually took the stand and said he was very sorry for whatever crime he’d been denying all week. “They beg and cry,” Baggy had said. “It’s quite a show.”
   But Padgitt’s disaster the day before precluded him from getting near the jury. Lucien called to the witness stand his mother, Lettie Padgitt. She was a fiftyish woman with pleasant features and short graying hair, and she wore a black dress as if she was already mourning the death of her son. Led by Lucien, she unsteadily began testimony that seemed scripted down to every pause in her cadence. There was Danny the little boy, fishing every day after school, breaking his leg falling from a tree house, and winning the spelling bee in the fourth grade. He was never any trouble in those days, none at all. In fact, Danny had caused no trouble at all growing up, a real joy. His two older brothers were always into something, but not Danny.
   The testimony was so silly and self serving that it bordered on ridiculous. But there were three mothers on the jury—Miss Callie, Mrs. Barbara Baldwin, and Maxine Root—and Lucien was aiming for one of them. He needed just one.
   Not surprisingly, Mrs. Padgitt was soon in tears. She would never believe that her son had committed such a terrible crime, but if the jury felt so, then she would try and accept it. But why take him away? Why kill her little boy? What would the world gain if he were put to death?
   Her pain was real. Her emotions were raw and difficult to watch, to sit through. Any human being would feel sympathy for a mother about to lose a child. She finally collapsed and Lucien left her sobbing on the witness stand. What began as a stilted performance ended in a gut-wrenching plea that forced most of the jurors to lower their eyes and study the floor.
   Lucien said he had no other witnesses. He and Ernie made brief final summations, and by 11 A.M. the jury once again had the case.


* * *

   Ginger disappeared into the crowd. I went to the office and waited, and when she didn’t show I walked across the square to Harry Rex’s office. He sent his secretary out for sandwiches and we ate in his cluttered conference room. Like most lawyers in Clanton, he’d spent the entire week in the courtroom watching a case that meant nothing to him financially.
   “Is your gal gonna stick?” he asked with a mouth full of turkey and Swiss.
   “Miss Callie?” I asked.
   “Yeah. She okay with the gas chamber?”
   “I have no idea. We haven’t discussed it.”
   “She’s got us worried, along with that damned crippled boy.”
   Harry Rex had quietly involved himself in the case in such a way that one would think he was working for Ernie Gaddis and the State. But he wasn’t the only lawyer in town secretly abetting the prosecution.
   “It took them less than sixty minutes to find him guilty,” I said. “Isn’t that a good sign?”
   “Maybe, but jurors do strange things when it’s time to sign a death warrant.”
   “So? Then he’ll get life. From what I hear about Parchman, life there would be worse than the gas chamber.”
   “Life ain’t life, Willie,” he said, wiping his face with a paper towel.
   I put my sandwich down while he took another bite.
   “What is life?” I asked.
   “Ten years, maybe less.”
   I tried to understand this. “You mean a life sentence in Mississippi is ten years?”
   “You got it. After ten years, less with good time, a murderer sent to prison for life is eligible for parole. Insane, don’t you think?”
   “But why—”
   “Don’t try and understand it, Willie, it’s just the law. Been on the books for fifty years. And what’s worse is the jury doesn’t know it. Can’t tell ‘em. Want some coleslaw?”
   I shook my head.
   “Our distinguished Supreme Court has said that the jury, if it knows how light a life sentence really is, might be more inclined to give the death penalty. Thus, it’s unfair to the defendant.”
   “Life is ten years,” I mumbled to myself. In Mississippi, the liquor stores are locked up on Election Day, as if the voters would otherwise get drunk and elect the wrong people. Another unbelievable law.
   “You got it,” Harry Rex said, then finished his sandwich with one huge bite. He pulled an envelope off a shelf, opened it, then slid a large black-and-white photo across to me. “Busted, buddy,” he said with a laugh.
   It was a photo of me, making my quick exit from Ginger’s room at the motel on Thursday morning. I looked tired, hungover, guilty of something, but also oddly satisfied.
   “Who took this?” I asked.
   “One of my boys. He was working on a divorce case, saw your little Communist car pull in that night, decided to have some fun.”
   “He wasn’t the only one.”
   “She’s a hot one. He tried to shoot through the curtains, but couldn’t get an angle.”
   “Shall I autograph it for you?”
   “Just keep it.”


* * *

   After three hours of deliberation, the jury slipped a note to Judge Loopus. They were deadlocked and making little progress. He called things to order, and we raced across the street.
   If the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict for the death penalty, then, by law, the judge imposed a life sentence.
   Fear pervaded the crowd as we waited for the jurors. Something was going wrong back there. Had the Padgitts finally found their mark?
   Miss Callie was stonefaced, a look I’d never seen. Mrs. Barbara Baldwin had obviously been crying. Several of the men gave the impression that their fistfight had just been broken up, and that they were anxious to resume the brawl.
   The foreman stood and very nervously explained to His Honor that the jury was divided and had made absolutely no progress in the last hour. He was not optimistic about a unanimous verdict, and all were ready to go home.
   Judge Loopus then asked each juror if he or she thought a unanimous verdict could be reached. They unanimously said no.
   I could feel the anger rise among the crowd. People were fidgeting and whispering, and this certainly didn’t help the jurors.
   Judge Loopus then delivered what Baggy later described as the “dynamite charge,” an off-the-cuff lecture about following the law and keeping promises made during jury selection. It was a stern and lengthy admonishment, loaded with no small measure of desperation.
   It didn’t work. Two hours later, a stunned courtroom listened as Judge Loopus quizzed the jurors again, with the same result. He grudgingly thanked them and sent them home.
   When they were gone, he called Danny Padgitt forward, and on the record, gave him a tongue lashing that made my skin crawl. He called him a rapist, murderer, coward, liar, and worst of all a thief for having taken from two small children the only parent they had. It was a scalding, withering assault. I tried to write it word for word, but it was so compelling I had to stop and listen. A rabid street preacher could not have heaped such abuse upon sin.
   If he had the power, he would sentence him to death, and a rapid and painful one at that.
   But the law was the law, and he had to follow it. He sentenced him to life and ordered Sheriff Coley to immediately transport him to the state penitentiary at Parchman. Coley slapped handcuffs on him and he was gone.
   Loopus banged his gavel and bolted from the courtroom. A fight erupted in the back of the courtroom when one of Danny’s uncles bumped into Doc Crull, a local barber and noted hothead. It quickly drew a crowd and several others cursed the Padgitts and told them to get back to their island. “Go back to your swamp!” someone kept yelling. Deputies broke it up, and the Padgitts left the courtroom.
   The crowd lingered for a while, as if the trial weren’t finished, as if justice had not been completely served. There was anger and cursing, and I got a whiff of how lynch mobs got organized.


* * *

   Ginger didn’t show. She said she would stop by the office after she checked out and say good-bye, but she obviously changed her mind. I could see her speeding through the night, crying and cursing and counting the miles until she was out of Mississippi. Who could blame her?
   Our three-day fling came to an abrupt end the way both of us expected but neither had admitted. I could not imagine our paths ever crossing again, and if they did it would be another round or two in the sack before we got distracted with life and moved on. She would go through many men before she found one who would last. I sat on the porch outside my office and waited for her to park below, knowing she was probably in Arkansas by then. We’d started the day in bed together, anxious to return to court to watch her sister’s murderer get his death sentence.
   In the heat of the moment, I began writing an editorial about the verdict. It would be a scathing attack on the criminal laws of the State. It would be honest and heartfelt, and it would also play well with the audience.
   Esau called and interrupted me. He was at the hospital with Miss Callie and asked me to hurry down.
   She had fainted as she was getting into the car outside the courthouse. Esau and the three sons had rushed her in, and wisely so. Her blood pressure was dangerously high, and the doctor was worried about a stroke. After a couple of hours, though, she had stabilized and her outlook was better. I held her hand briefly, told her I was very proud of her, and so on. What I really wanted was the inside story on what happened back in the jury room.
   It was a story I would never get.
   I drank coffee with Al, Max, Bobby, and Esau until midnight in the hospital canteen. She had not said a word about the jury’s deliberations.
   We talked about them and their brothers and sisters, and their children and careers and life growing up in Clanton. The stories poured forth, and I almost pulled out a pen and notepad.

Chapter 20

   For the first six months I lived in Clanton, I usually fled the place on weekends. There was so little to do. Other than an occasional goat roasting at Harry Rex’s, and one dreadful cocktail party, which I left twenty minutes after I arrived, there had been no socializing. Virtually all the young people my age were married, and their idea of a blowout was an ice cream “supper” on Saturday night at one of the innumerable churches in town. Most of those who went away to college never came back.
   Out of boredom, I occasionally spent the weekends in Memphis, usually at the apartment of a friend, almost never at home. I made several trips to New Orleans where an old girlfriend from high school was living and enjoying the party life. But the Times was mine for the near future anyway. I was a resident of Clanton. I had to come to grips with life in a small town, dull weekends and all. The office became my refuge.
   I went there on Saturday after the verdict, around noon. I had several stories about the trial I wanted to write, plus my editorial was far from finished. There were seven letters lying on the floor, just inside the front door. This had been a tradition at the Times for many years. On those rare occasions when Spot wrote something that prompted a reaction from a reader, more often than not the letter to the editor was hand-delivered and slid under the front door.
   Four were signed, three were anonymous. Two were typed, the rest handwritten, one I could hardly read. All seven expressed outrage that Danny Padgitt had escaped with his life. I was not surprised by the town’s thirst for blood. I was also dismayed that six of the seven made some reference to Miss Callie. The first one was typed and unsigned. It read:


   Dear Editor:
   Our community has sunk to a new low when an outlaw like Danny Padgitt can rape and murder and get by with it. The presence of a Negro on the jury should wake us up to the fact that these people do not think the way law-abiding white people think.


   Mrs. Edith Caravelle from Beech Hill, in a beautiful hand, wrote:


   Dear Editor:
   I live one mile from where the murder took place. I am the mother of two teenagers. How do I explain the verdict to them? The Bible says: “An eye for an eye.” I guess that doesn’t apply to Ford County.


   Another anonymous author wrote, on perfumed pink stationery with flowers around the border:


   Dear Editor:
   See what happens when blacks are placed in positions of responsibility. An all-white jury would have strung up Padgitt in the courtroom. Now the Supreme Court is telling us that blacks should teach our children, police our streets, and run for public office. God help us.


   As the editor (and owner and publisher) I had complete control over what was printed in the Times. I could edit the letters, ignore them, pick and choose the ones I wanted to print. On controversial issues and events, letters to the editor stoked the fires and got folks upset. And they sold newspapers, because that’s the only place they could be printed. They were absolutely free and allowed anyone the forum to sound off.
   As I read the first wave, I decided that I would print nothing that would harm Miss Callie. And I became angry that people were assuming she had somehow hung the jury and prevented a death sentence.
   Why was the town so anxious to blame an unpopular verdict on the only black on the jury? And with no proof whatsover? I vowed to find out what really happened in the jury room, and I immediately thought of Harry Rex. Baggy, of course, would stumble in Monday morning with his customary hangover and pretend to know exactly how the jury split Odds were he’d be wrong. If anyone could get to the truth, it would be Harry Rex.
   Wiley Meek stopped by with the town gossip. Folks were hot in the coffee shops. Padgitt was a dirty word. Lucien Wilbanks was despised, but that was nothing new. Sheriff Coley might as well retire; he wouldn’t get fifty votes. Two opponents were already making noise and the election was half a year away.
   One story had eleven voting for the gas chamber and one holding out. “Probably the nigger,” someone had said, echoing the prevailing sentiment at the Tea Shoppe around seven that morning. A deputy guarding the jury room allegedly whispered to someone somebody knew that it was a six-six split, but this was widely discounted around nine o’clock at the coffee shops. There were two primary theories roaring around the square that morning: first, Miss Callie had screwed things up simply because she was black; second, the Padgitts had dropped some cash on two or three of the jurors, same as they had done on that “lyin’ bitch,” Lydia Vince.
   Wiley thought the second had more supporters than the first, though many seemed perfectly willing to believe anything. I was learning that coffee shop gossip was useless.


* * *

   Late Saturday afternoon, I crossed the tracks and drove slowly through Lowtown. The streets were alive with kids on bikes, pickup basketball games, crowded porches, music from the open doors of the honky-tonks, laughter from the men in front of the stores. Everyone was outside, sort of limbering up for the rigors of Saturday night. People waved and stared, more amused at my little car than my pale skin.
   There was a crowd on Miss Callie’s porch. Al, Max, and Bobby were there along with Reverend Thurston Small and another well-dressed deacon from the church. Esau was in the house tending to his wife. She had been discharged that morning with strict instructions to stay in bed for three days and not lift a finger. Max led me back to her bedroom.
   She was sitting in bed, propped up with pillows, reading the Bible. She flashed a smile when she saw me, and said, “Mr. Traynor, so nice of you to come. Please sit. Esau, fetch Mr. Traynor some tea.” Esau, as always, jumped when she gave orders.
   I sat in a stiff wooden chair close to her bed. She did not appear to be the least bit ill to me. “I’m really concerned about lunch next Thursday,” I began, and we laughed.
   “I’m cooking,” she said.
   “No you’re not. I have a better idea. I’ll bring the food.”
   “Why does that worry me?”
   “I’ll buy it somewhere. Something a bit lighter, like a sandwich.”
   “A sandwich will be fine,” she said, patting my knee. “My tomatoes will be ready shortly.”
   She stopped patting and smiling and looked away for a moment. “We didn’t do a good job, did we, Mr. Traynor?” Her words were filled with both sadness and frustration.
   “It’s not a popular verdict,” I said.
   “It’s not what I wanted,” she said.
   And that was as close to the deliberations as she would get for many years. Esau told me later that the other eleven jurors had sworn on a Bible not to talk about their decision. Miss Callie wouldn’t swear on the Bible, but she gave them her word that she would guard their secrets.
   I left her there to rest and went to the porch, where I spent several hours listening to her sons and their guests talk about life. I sat in a corner, sipping tea, trying to keep myself out of their conversations. At times I would drift away and absorb the sounds of Lowtown on a Saturday night.
   The reverend and the deacon left, leaving only Ruffins on the porch. The talk eventually came around to the trial, and the verdict, and how was it playing on the other side of the tracks?
   “Did he really threaten the jury?” Max asked me. I told the story, with Esau adding emphasis when needed. They were as shocked as those of us who’d seen it.
   “Thank God he’s locked up for life,” Bobby said, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth. They were extremely proud of their mother, as they had been forever.
   I was tired of the trial. I left around nine, drove slowly and aimlessly back through Lowtown, alone and missing Ginger.


* * *

   Clanton seethed over the verdict for days. We received eighteen letters to the editor, six of which I ran in the next edition. Half of it was devoted to the trial, and this of course stirred things up even worse.
   As the summer dragged on, I was beginning to think the town would never stop talking about Danny Padgitt and Rhoda Kassellaw.
   Then suddenly, the two became history. Instantly, in the blink of an eye, literally in less than twenty-four hours, the trial was forgotten.
   Clanton, both sides of the tracks, had something much more important to fret over.

Part Two

Chapter 21

   In a sweeping ruling that left no room for doubt or delay, the Court ordered the immediate termination of the dual school system. No more stalling, no more lawsuits, no more promises. Instant integration, and Clanton was as shocked as every other town in the South.
   Harry Rex brought me the Court’s opinion and tried to explain its intricacies. It wasn’t that complicated. Every school district had to immediately implement a desegregation plan.
   “This’ll sell some newspapers,” he predicted, unlit cigar crammed in his mouth.
   All sorts of meetings were instantly arranged around town, and I covered them all. On a sweltering night in mid-July, a public gathering took place in the gym of the high school. The stands were packed, the floor covered with concerned parents. Mr. Walter Sullivan, the Times’s lawyer, also served as the attorney for the school board. He did most of the talking because he wasn’t elected in any way. The politicians preferred to hide behind him. He was blunt and said that in six weeks the Ford County school system would open and be fully desegregated.
   A smaller meeting was held at the black school on Burley Street. Baggy and I were there, along with Wiley Meek, who took photos. Again Mr. Sullivan explained to the crowd what was about to happen. Twice his remarks were interrupted by applause.
   The difference in those two meetings was astounding. The white parents were angry and frightened and I saw several women crying. The fateful day had finally arrived. At the black school there was an air of victory. The parents were concerned, but they were also elated that their children would finally be enrolled in the better schools. Though they had miles to go in housing, employment, and health care, integration into the public schools was an enormous step forward in their battle for civil rights.
   Miss Callie and Esau were there. They were treated with great respect by their neighbors. Six years earlier they had walked into the front door of the white school with Sam and fed him to the lions. For three years he was the only black kid in his class, and the family paid a price for it. Now it all seemed worth it, at least to them. Sam wasn’t around to interview.
   There was also a meeting in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church. Whites only, and the crowd was slightly upper middle class. Its organizers had been raising money to build a private academy, and now suddenly the fund-raising was more urgent. Several doctors and lawyers were there, and most of the country-club types. Their children were apparently too good to go to school with black children.
   They were quickly putting together a plan to open classes in an abandoned factory south of town. The building would be leased for a year or two until their capital campaign was complete. They were scrambling to hire teachers and order books but the most pressing concern, other than running from the blacks, was what to do about a football team. At times there was an air of hysteria, as if a 75 percent white school system would pose grave dangers for their kids.
   I wrote long reports and ran bold headlines, and Harry Rex was right. The newspapers were selling. In fact, by late July 1970 our circulation topped five thousand, a stunning turnaround. After Rhoda Kassellaw and desegregation, I was getting a glimpse of what my friend Nick Diener said back at Syracuse. “A good small town weekly doesn’t print newspapers. It prints money.”
   I needed news, and in Clanton it was not always available. In a slow week, I would run an overblown story on the latest filing in the Padgitt appeal. It was usually at the bottom of the front page and sounded as if the boy might walk out of Parchman at any minute. I’m not sure my readers cared much anymore. In early August, though, the paper got another boost when Davey Bigmouth Bass explained to me the rituals of high school football.
   Wilson Caudle had no interest in sports, which was fine except that everyone else in Clanton lived and died with the Cougars on Friday night. He shoved Bigmouth to the back of the paper and rarely ran photos. I smelled money, and the Cougars became front page news.


* * *

   My football career ended in the ninth grade, at the hands of a sadistic ex-Marine my soft little prep school had for some reason hired to coach us. Memphis in August is the tropics; football practice should be banned then and there. I was running laps around the practice field, in full gear, helmet and all, in ninety-five-degree heat and humidity, and the coach for some reason refused to give us water. The tennis courts were next to the field, and after I finished vomiting I gazed upon them and saw two girls swatting tennis balls with two guys. With the girls in the scene everything was very pleasant, but what really got my attention were the large bottles of cold water they drank whenever they wanted.
   I quit football and took up tennis and girls, and never for an instant regretted it. My school played its games on Saturday afternoons, so I was not baptized in the religion of Friday night football.
   I happily became a later convert.


* * *

   When the Cougars assembled for their first practice, Bigmouth and Wiley were there to cover it. We ran a large front page photo of four players, two white and two black, and another of the coaching staff, which included a black assistant. Bigmouth wrote columns about the team and its players and prospects, and this was only the first week of practice.
   We covered the opening of school, including interviews with students, teachers, and administrators, and our slant was openly positive. In truth, Clanton had little of the racial unrest that was common throughout the Deep South when schools opened that August.
   The Times did big stories about the cheerleaders, the band, the junior high teams—everything we could possibly think of. And every story had several photos. I don’t know how many kids failed to make the pages of our paper, but there weren’t many.
   The first football game was an annual family brawl against Karaway, a much smaller town that had a much better coach. I sat with Harry Rex and we screamed until we were hoarse. The game was a sellout and the crowd was mostly white.
   But those white folks who had been so adamantly opposed to accepting black students were suddenly transformed that Friday night. In the first quarter of the first game, a star was born when Ricky Patterson, a pint-size black kid who could fly, ran eighty yards the first time he touched the ball. The second time he went forty-five, and from then on whenever they tossed it to him the entire crowd stood and yelled. Six weeks after the desegregation order hit the town, I saw narrow-minded, intolerant rednecks screaming like maniacs and bouncing up and down whenever Ricky got the ball.
   Clanton won 34—30 in a cliffhanger, and our coverage of the game was shameless. The entire front page was nothing but football. We immediately initated a Player-of-the-Week, with a $100 scholarship award that went into some vague fund that took us months to figure out. Ricky was our first honoree, and so that required yet another interview with another photo.
   When Clanton won its first four games, the Times was there to stir up the frenzy. Our circulation reached fifty-five hundred.


* * *

   One very hot day in early September, I was strolling around the square, going from my office to the bank. I was wearing my usual garb—faded jeans, rumpled cotton button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves, loafers, no socks. I was then twenty-four years old and because I owned a business I was slowly turning my thoughts away from college and toward a career. Very slowly. I had long hair and still dressed like a student. I generally gave little thought to what I wore or what image I portrayed.
   This lack of concern was not shared by all.
   Mr. Mitlo grabbed me on the sidewalk and shoved me into his small haberdashery. “I been waiting for you,” he said with a thick accent, one of the few in Clanton. He was a Hungarian and had some colorful history of escaping from Europe while leaving behind a child or two. He was on my list of human interest stories to pursue as soon as football season was over.
   “Look at you!” he sneered as I stood just inside his door, by a rack of belts. But he was smiling and with foreigners it’s easy to dismiss their bluntness due to translation problems.
   I sort of looked at myself. What exactly was the problem?
   Evidently, there were many. “You are a professional,” he informed me. “A very important man in this town, and you are dressed like, uh, well…” He scratched his bearded chin as he searched for the proper insult.
   I tried to help. “A student.”
   “No,” he said, wagging an index finger back and forth as if no student had ever looked that bad. He gave up on the put-down and continued the lecture.
   “You are unique—how many people own a newspaper? You are educated, which is rare around here. And from up North! You are young, but you shouldn’t look so, so, immature. We must work on your image.”
   We went to work, not that I had a choice. He advertised heavily in the Times, so I certainly couldn’t tell him to take a hike. Plus, he made sense. The student days were gone, the revolution was over. I had escaped Vietnam and the sixties and college, and, though I wasn’t ready to settle down to a wife and parenthood, I was beginning to feel my age.
   “You must wear suits,” he decided as he went through racks of clothes. Mitlo had been known to walk up to the president of a bank and, in a crowd, comment on a faulty shirt and suit combo, or a drab tie. He and Harry Rex didn’t get along at all.
   I was not about to start wearing gray suits and wing tips. He pulled out a light blue seersucker suit, found a white shirt, then went straight for the tie rack where he picked out the perfect red-and-gold-striped bow tie. “Let’s try this,” he announced when his selections were finished. “Over there,” he said, pointing to a dressing room. Thankfully, the store was empty. I had no choice.
   I gave up on the bow tie. Mitlo reached up and in a skillful flourish had it fixed in a second. “Much better,” he said, examining the finished product. I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time. I wasn’t sure, but then I was intrigued by the transformation. It gave me character and individuality.
   Whether I wanted it or not, the outfit was about to become mine. I had to wear it at least once.
   To top it off, he found a white Panama hat that fit nicely on my shaggy head. As he adjusted it here and there, he tugged at a patch of hair over my ear and said, “Too much hair. You are a professional. Cut it.”
   He altered the slacks and jacket and pressed the shirt, and the following day I arrived to collect my new outfit. I planned to simply pick it up, take it home, then wait and wait until there was a slow day around town and wear it. I intended to walk straight to Mitlo’s so he could see me in his creation.
   He, of course, had other plans. He insisted I try it on, and when I did he then insisted that I walk around the entire square to collect my compliments.
   “I’m really in a hurry,” I said. Chancery court was in session and downtown was busy.
   “I insist,” he said dramatically, wagging the finger as if he would not negotiate for a second.
   He adjusted the hat, and the final prop was a long black cigar which he cut, stuffed in my mouth, and lit with a match. “A powerful image,” he said proudly. “The town’s only publisher. Now off.”
   No one recognized me for the first half block. Two farmers in front of the feed store gave me a look, but then I didn’t like the way they were dressed either. I felt like Harry Rex with the cigar. Mine was lit, though, and very strong. I sprinted by his office. Mrs. Gladys Wilkins ran her husband’s insurance agency. She was about forty, very pretty and always well dressed. When she saw me she stopped dead in her tracks, then said, “Why Willie Traynor. Don’t you look distinguished.”
   “Thank you.”
   “Sorta reminds me of Mark Twain.”
   I walked on, feeling better. Two secretaries did double-takes. “Love that bow tie,” one of them called to me. Mrs. Clare Ruth Seagraves stopped me and talked on and on about something I’d written months earlier and had forgotten. As she talked she examined my suit and bow tie and hat and didn’t even mind the cigar. “You look quite handsome, Mr. Traynor,” she said finally, and seemed embarrassed by her candor. I walked slower and slower around the square and decided that Mitlo was right. I was a professional, a publisher, an important person in Clanton even if I didn’t feel too important, and a new image was in order.
   We’d have to find some weaker cigars, though. By the time I completed my tour of the square, I was dizzy and had to sit down.
   Mr. Mitlo ordered another blue seersucker and two light gray ones. He decided my wardrobe would not be dark like lawyers’ and bankers’, but light and cool and a bit unconventional. He dedicated himself to finding me some unique bow ties and proper fabrics for the fall and winter.
   Within a month Clanton was accustomed to having a new character around the square. I was getting noticed, especially by the opposite sex. Harry Rex laughed at me, but then his own outfits were comical.
   The ladies loved it.

Chapter 22

   In late September there were two notable deaths in one week. The first was Mr. Wilson Caudle. He died at home, alone, in the bedroom where he’d secluded himself since the day he walked out of the Times. It was odd that I had not spoken to him once in the six months I’d owned the paper, but I’d been too busy to fret over it. I certainly didn’t want any advice from Spot. And, sadly, I knew of no one who’d either seen him or talked to him in the past six months.
   He died on a Thursday and was buried on a Saturday. On Friday I hustled over to Mr. Mitlo’s and we had a wardrobe session regarding the proper funeral attire for someone of my stature. He insisted on a black suit, and he had just the perfect bow tie. It was narrow with black and maroon stripes, very dignified, very respectful, and when it was tied and I was properly turned out, I had to admit that the image was impressive. He pulled out a black felt fedora from his personal collection and proudly loaned it to me for the funeral. He said often that it was a shame American men didn’t wear hats anymore.
   The final touch was a shiny black wooden cane. When he produced it I just stared. “I don’t need a cane,” I said. It seemed quite foolish.
   “It’s a walking stick,” he said, thrusting it at me.
   “What’s the difference?”
   He then launched into a baffling history of the crucial role walking sticks had played in the evolution of modern European male fashion. He felt passionately about it, and the more worked up he got, the thicker his accent became, and the less I understood. To shut him up I took the stick.
   The following day, when I walked into the Methodist church for Spot’s funeral, the ladies stared at me. Some of the men did too, most of them wondering what the hell I was doing with a black hat and a cane. In a whisper just loud enough for me to hear, Stan Atcavage, my banker, said behind me, “I guess he’s gonna sing and dance for us.”
   “Been hangin’ around Mitlo’s again,” someone whispered back.
   I accidentally whacked the cane on the pew in front of me, and the noise jolted the mourners. I wasn’t sure what one did with a cane while one was seated for a funeral. I squeezed it between my legs and placed the hat in my lap. Portraying the right image took work. I looked around and saw Mitlo. He was beaming at me.
   The choir began “Amazing Grace,” and we fell into a somber mood. Reverend Clinkscale then recited Mr. Caudle’s basics—born in 1896, the only child of our beloved Miss Emma Caudle, a widower with no children of his own, a veteran of the First War, and for over fifty years the editor of our county weekly. There he brought to an art form the obituaries, which would forever be Spot’s claim to fame.
   The reverend rambled on a bit, then a soloist broke the monotony. It was my fourth funeral since landing in Clanton. Except for my mother’s, I had never attended one before. They were social events in the small town, and often I heard such gems as, “Wasn’t that a lovely service,” and “Take care, I’ll see you at the funeral,” and, my favorite, “She would have loved it.”
   “She,” of course, was the deceased.
   Folks took off work and wore their Sunday best. If you didn’t go to funerals, then you were downright peculiar. Since I had enough oddities working against me, I was determined to properly honor the dead.


* * *

   The second death occurred later that night, and when I heard about it on Monday I went to my apartment and found my pistol.
   Malcolm Vince was shot twice in the head as he left a honky-tonk in a very remote part of Tishomingo County. Tishomingo was dry, the tonk was illegal, and that’s why it was hidden so deep in the sticks.
   There were no witnesses to the killing. Malcolm had been drinking beer and shooting pool, behaving himself generally and causing no trouble. Two acquaintances told the police that Malcolm left by himself around 11 P.M. after about three hours in the tonk. He was in good spirits and was not drunk. He said good-bye to them, walked outside, and within seconds they heard gunfire. They were almost certain he was not armed.
   The joint was at the end of a dirt trail, and a quarter of a mile up the road a sentry guarded a passageway with a shotgun. In theory his job was to alert the owner if the police or other unsavory characters were approaching. Tishomingo was on the state line, and there had historically been feuds with some hoodlums over in Alabama. Tonks were favorite places to settle scores and such. The sentry heard the shots that killed Malcolm, and he was certain no car or truck had fled the scene afterward. Any such vehicle would’ve had to pass by him.
   Whoever killed Malcolm had come from the woods, on foot, and carried out the hit. I talked to the Sheriff of Tishomingo County. He was of the opinion that someone was after Malcolm. It certainly wasn’t a garden-variety honky-tonk flare-up.
   “Any idea who might be after Mr. Vince?” I asked, desperately hoping that Malcolm had made some enemies two hours away.
   “No idea,” he said. “The boy hadn’t lived here long.”
   For two days I carried the pistol in my pocket, then, again, grew weary of that. If the Padgitts wanted to get me or one of the jurors, or Judge Loopus or Ernie Gaddis or anyone they deemed guilty of helping send Danny away, then there was little we could do to stop them.


* * *

   The paper that week was devoted to Mr. Wilson Caudle. I pulled out some old photos from the archives and plastered them all over the front page. We ran testimonials, stories, and lots of paid announcements of sympathy from his many friends. I then rehashed everything I’d written about him into the longest obituary in the history of the newspaper.
   Spot deserved it.
   I wasn’t sure what to do with the story about Malcolm Vince. He was not a resident of Ford County, thus not entirely eligible for an obituary. Our rules were quite flexible when it came to that issue. A prominent Ford Countian who’d moved away would still qualify for an obituary, but obviously there had to be something to write about. One who’d just passed through the county and either had no family or contributed little could not qualify. Such was the case of Malcolm Vince.
   If I exaggerated the story, the Padgitts would get the satisfaction of further intimidating the county. They would frighten us again. (Of those who’d heard of the killing, no one thought it might be the work of anyone other than the Padgitts.)
   If I ignored the story, then I would be running scared and shirking my responsibility as a journalist. Baggy thought it was front page material, but there was no room when I was finished with our farewell to Mr. Caudle. I ran it at the top of page three, with the headline PADGITT WITNESS MURDERED IN TISHOMINGO COUNTY. My first headline had been MALCOLM VINCE MURDERED IN TISHOMINGO COUNTY, but Baggy felt strongly that we should use the Padgitt name with the word “murdered” in the headline. The story was three hundred words.
   I drove to Corinth to snoop around. Harry Rex gave me the name of Malcolm’s divorce lawyer, a local act who went by the name of Pud Perryman. His office was on Main Street, between a barbershop and a Chinese seamstress, and when I opened the door I immediately knew that Mr. Perryman was the least successful lawyer I would ever meet. The place reeked of lost cases, dissatisfied clients, and unpaid bills. The carpet was stained and threadbare. The furniture was left over from the fifties. A rancid haze of old and new cigarette smoke hung in layers, dangerously close to my head.
   Mr. Perryman himself showed no signs of prosperity. He was around forty-five, potbellied, unkempt, unshaven, red-eyed. The last hangover was wearing off slowly. He informed me he was a divorce and property guy, and I was supposed to be impressed by this. Either he didn’t charge enough or he attracted clients with little to sell or fight over.
   He hadn’t seen Malcolm in a month, he said as he looked for a file among the landfill that covered his desk. The divorce had never been filed. His efforts to work out an agreement with Lydia’s lawyer had gone nowhere. “She flew the coop,” he said.
   “Beg your pardon?”
   “She’s gone. Packed up after the trial over there and hit the road. Took the kid, vanished.”
   I really didn’t care what happened to Lydia. I was much more concerned with who shot Malcolm. Pud offered a couple of vague theories, but they broke down after a few basic questions. He reminded me of Baggy—a local courthouse gossipmonger who’d make up a rumor if he doesn’t hear a new one within an hour.
   Lydia had no boyfriends or brothers or anyone else who might want to shoot Malcolm in the heat of a bad divorce. And, of course, there was no divorce. The bad blood hadn’t even begun!
   Mr. Perryman gave the impression of one who preferred to prattle and tell lies all day, as opposed to tending to his files. I was in his office for almost an hour, and when I finally managed to leave I ran outside for fresh air.
   I drove thirty minutes to Iuka, the Tishomingo County seat, where I found Sheriff Spinner just in time to buy him lunch. Over barbecued chicken in a crowded cafe, he brought me up to date on the murder. It was a clean hit by someone who knew the area well. They had found nothing—no footprints, no shell casings, nothing. The weapon had been a.44 magnum, and the two shots had practically blown off Malcolm’s head. For drama, he unholstered his service revolver and passed it over. “This is a forty-four,” he said. It was twice as heavy as my meager weapon. I lost what little appetite I had.
   They had talked to every acquaintance they could find. Malcolm had lived in the area for about five months. He had no criminal record, no arrests, no reports of fistfights, no dice shooting, disturbances, or drunken brawls. He went to the tonk once a week, where he shot pool and drank beer and never raised his voice. There were no loans or bills past due for more than sixty days. There appeared to be no illicit affairs or jealous husbands.
   “I can’t find a motive,” the Sheriff said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
   I told him about Malcolm’s testimony in the Padgitt trial, and about how Danny threatened the jury. He listened intently, and said little afterward. I got the clear impression he preferred to stay in Tishomingo County and wanted no part of the Padgitts.
   “That could be your motive,” I said when I finished.
   “Revenge?”
   “Sure. These are nasty people.”
   “Oh, I’ve heard of them. Guess we’re lucky we weren’t on that jury, huh?”
   Driving back to Clanton, I could not erase the image of the Sheriff’s face when he said that. Gone was the swagger of a well-armed man of the law. Spinner was truly grateful he was two counties away, and had nothing to do with the Padgitts.
   His investigation was dead. Case closed.

Chapter 23

   The only Jew in Clanton was Mr. Harvey Kohn, a dapper little man who’d been selling shoes and handbags to ladies for decades. His store was on the square, next door to the Sullivan law firm, in a row of buildings he’d bought during the Depression. He was a widower and his children had fled Clanton after high school. Once a month Mr. Kohn drove to Tupelo to worship in the nearest synagogue.
   Kohn’s Shoes aimed at the higher end of the market, which was tricky in a small town like Clanton. The few wealthy ladies in town preferred shopping in Memphis, where they could pay higher prices and talk about it back home. To make his shoes attractive, Mr. Kohn put shockingly high prices on them, then slashed them with deep discounts. The local ladies could then throw out any price they wanted when they showed off their latest purchases.
   He ran the store himself, opening early and staying late, usually with the help of a part-time student. Two years before I arrived in Clanton he hired a sixteen-year-old black kid named Sam Ruffin to unpack inventory, move stock, clean the place, answer the phone. Sam proved to be bright and industrious. He was courteous, mannerly, well dressed, and before long he could be trusted to run the store while Mr. Kohn went home every day at precisely eleven forty-five for a quick lunch and a long nap.
   A lady by the name of Iris Durant dropped in around noon one day and found Sam all alone. Iris was forty-one years old, the mother of two teenage boys, one in Sam’s class at Clanton High. She was mildly attractive, liked to flirt and wear mini-skirts, and usually selected shoes from Mr. Kohn’s more exotic inventory. She tried about two dozen varieties, bought nothing, and took her time about it. Sam knew his products and was very careful with her feet.
   She was back the next day, same time, shorter skirt, heavier makeup. Barefoot, she seduced Sam on Mr. Kohn’s desk in his small office just behind the cash register. Thus began a torrid affair that would change both their lives.
   Several times a week, Iris went shoe shopping. Sam found a more comfortable spot upstairs on an old sofa. He would lock the store for fifteen minutes, turn off the lights, and dash up.
   Iris’s husband was a sergeant in the Mississippi Highway Patrol. Alarmed at the number of new shoes in her closet, he became suspicious. Suspicion had been a way of life with Iris.
   He hired Harry Rex to investigate. A Cub Scout could’ve caught the lovers. Three straight days she walked into Kohn’s at the same time; three straight days Sam quickly locked the front door, eyes darting in all directions; three straight days the lights went off, etc. On the fourth day, Harry Rex and Rafe sneaked in the back of the store. They heard noises upstairs. Rafe barged into the love nest and in five seconds gathered enough evidence to send both of them packing.
   Mr. Kohn fired Sam an hour later. Harry Rex filed the divorce that afternoon. Iris was later admitted to the hospital with cuts, abrasions, and a broken nose. Her husband beat her with his fists until she was unconscious. After dark, three uniformed state troopers knocked on the door of Sam’s home in Lowtown. They explained to his parents that he was wanted by the police in connection with some vague embezzling charge at Kohn’s. If convicted he could be sentenced to twenty years in prison. They also told them, off the record of course, that Sam had been caught having sex with a white lady, another man’s wife, and there was a contract on his head. Five thousand bucks.
   Iris left town disgraced, divorced, without her children, and afraid to return.
   I had heard different versions of Sam’s story. It was old gossip by the time I arrived in Clanton, but it was still sensational enough to find its way into many conversations. In the South, it was not unusual for white men to keep black mistresses, but Sam’s was the first documented case of a white woman crossing the color line in Clanton.
   Baggy had been the one to tell me the story. Harry Rex had confirmed much of it.
   Miss Callie refused to talk about it. Sam was her youngest, and he couldn’t come home. He had fled, dropped out of high school, and spent the past two years living off his brothers and sisters. Now he was calling me.
   I went to the courthouse and dug through drawers of old files. I found no record of an indictment against Sam Ruffin. I asked Sheriff Coley if he had an outstanding warrant. He dodged the question and wanted to know why I was poking around in such an old case. I asked him if Sam would be arrested if he came home. Again, no direct answer. “Be careful, Mr. Traynor,” he warned, but would not elaborate.
   I went to Harry Rex and asked about the now legendary contract on Sam’s head. He described his client, Sergeant Durant, as a former Marine, an expert marksman with any number of weapons, a career cop, a hothead who was horribly embarrassed by Iris’s indiscretion, and who felt the only honorable way out was to kill her lover. He had thought about killing her, but didn’t want to go to prison. He felt safer killing a black kid. A Ford County jury would be more sympathetic.
   “And he wants to do it himself,” Harry Rex explained. “That way he can save the five grand.”
   He enjoyed delivering such dire news to me, but he did admit that he hadn’t seen his client in a year and a half, and he wasn’t sure if Mr. Durant hadn’t already remarried.


* * *

   Thursday at noon we settled down at the table on the porch and thanked the Lord for the delicious meal we were about to receive. Esau was at work.
   As the garden ripened in late summer, we had enjoyed many vegetarian lunches. Red and yellow tomatoes, cucumbers and onions in vinegar, butter beans, snap beans, peas, okra, squash, boiled potatoes, corn on the cob, and always hot corn bread. Now, as the air was cooler and the leaves were turning, Miss Callie was preparing heartier dishes—duck stew, lamb stew, chili, red beans and rice with pork sausage, and the old standby, pot roast.
   The meal that day was chicken and dumplings. I was eating slowly, something she had encouraged me to do. I was half through when I said, “Sam called me, Miss Callie.”
   She paused and swallowed, then said, “How is he?”
   “He’s fine. He wants to come home this Christmas, said everybody else was coming back, and he wants to be here.”
   “Do you know where he is?” she asked.
   “Do you?”
   “No.”
   “He’s in Memphis. We’re supposed to meet tomorrow, up there.”
   “Why are you meeting with Sam?” She seemed very suspicious of my involvement.
   “He wants me to help him. Max and Bobby told him about our friendship. He said he thinks I’m a white person who can be trusted.”
   “It could be dangerous,” she said.
   “For who?”
   “Both of you.”
   Her doctor was concerned about her weight. At times she was too, but not always. With particularly heavy dishes, like stews and dumplings, she took small portions and ate slowly. The news of Sam gave her a reason to stop eating altogether. She folded her napkin and began talking.


* * *

   Sam left Clanton in the middle of the night on a Greyhound bus headed for Memphis. He called Callie and Esau when he arrived there. The next day a friend drove up with some money and clothing. As the story about Iris broke fast around town, Callie and Esau were convinced their youngest son was about to be murdered by the cops. Highway patrol cars eased by their house at all hours of the day and night. There were anonymous phone calls with threats and abusive language.
   Mr. Kohn filed some papers in court. A hearing date came and went without Sam’s appearance. Miss Callie never saw an official indictment, but then she wasn’t sure what one looked like.
   Memphis seemed too close, so Sam drifted to Milwaukee where he hid with Bobby for a few months. For two years now, he had drifted from one sibling to the next, always traveling at night, always afraid that he was about to be caught. The older Ruffin children called home often and wrote once a week, but they were afraid to mention Sam. Someone might be listening.
   “He was wrong to get involved with a woman like that,” Miss Callie said, sipping tea. I had effectively ruined her lunch, but not mine. “But he was so young. He didn’t chase her.”


* * *

   The next day I became the unofficial go-between for Sam Ruffin and his parents.
   We met in a coffee shop in a shopping mall in south Memphis. From somewhere in the distance, he watched me wait for thirty minutes before he popped in from nowhere and sat across from me. Two years on the run had taught him a few tricks.
   His youthful face was showing the strain of life on the lam. Out of habit, he continually looked right and left. He tried mightily to hold eye contact, but he could do it only for a few seconds. Not surprisingly, he was soft-spoken, articulate, very polite. And quite thankful that I had been willing to step forward and explore the possibility of helping him.
   He thanked me for the courtesies and friendship I’d shown his mother. Bobby in Milwaukee had shown him the Times stories. We talked about his siblings, his movements from UCLA to Duke, then to Toledo, then to Grinnell in Iowa. He couldn’t live like that much longer. He was desperate for a resolution to the mess at home so he could get on with a normal life. He finished high school in Milwaukee, and planned eventually to go to law school. But he couldn’t do it living like a fugitive.
   “There’s a fair amount of pressure on me, you know,” he said. “Seven brothers and sisters, seven PhD’s.”
   I described my fruitless search for an indictment, my inquiries to Sheriff Coley, and my conversation with Harry Rex about Mr. Durant’s current mood. Sam thanked me profusely for this information, and for my willingness to get involved.
   “There’s no threat of being arrested,” I assured him. “There is, however, the threat of catching a bullet.”
   “I’d rather be arrested,” he said.
   “Me too.”
   “He’s a very scary man,” Sam said of Mr. Durant. A story followed, one in which I did not get all the details. Seems as though Iris was now living in Memphis. Sam kept in touch. She had told him some horrible things about her ex-husband and her two teenaged boys and the threats they’d made against her. She was not welcome anywhere in Ford County. Her life might be in danger too. The boys repeatedly said they hated her and never wanted to see her again.
   She was a broken woman who was racked with guilt and suffering a nervous breakdown.
   “And it’s my fault,” Sam said. “I was raised better.”
   Our meeting lasted an hour, and we promised to get together in a couple of weeks. He handed me two thick letters he’d written to his parents, and we said good-bye. He disappeared in a crowd of shoppers and I couldn’t help but ask myself where an eighteen-year-old kid hides? How does he travel, move around? How does he survive day to day? And Sam was not some street kid who’d learned to live by his wits and fists.


* * *

   I told Harry Rex about our meeting in Memphis. My lofty goal was to somehow convince Mr. Durant to leave Sam alone.
   Since I was living under the assumption that my name was on a not-so-favored list somewhere on Padgitt Island, I had no desire to have it added to another list. I swore Harry Rex to secrecy, and had no trouble believing he would protect my role as the intermediary.
   Sam would agree to leave Ford County, to finish high school up North, then stay there for college and probably for the rest of his life. The kid simply wanted to be able to see his parents, to have short visits in Clanton, and to be able to live without looking over his shoulder.
   Harry Rex didn’t care, nor did he want to get involved. He promised to relay the message to Mr. Durant, but he wasn’t optimistic it would get a sympathetic ear. “He’s a nasty sumbitch,” he said more than once.

Chapter 24

   In early December, I returned to Tishomingo County for a follow-up with Sheriff Spinner. I was not surprised to learn that the investigation of the murder of Malcolm Vince had produced nothing new. More than once, Spinner described it as a “clean hit,” with nothing left behind but a dead body and two bullets that were virtually untraceable. His men had talked to every possible friend, acquaintance, and coworker, and found no one who knew of any reason why Malcolm would meet such a violent end.
   Spinner had also talked to Sheriff Mackey Don Coley, and not surprisingly, our Sheriff had expressed doubt that the murder had anything to do with the Padgitt trial over in Ford County. It appeared as though the two sheriffs had some history, and I was relieved to hear Spinner say, “Ol’ Coley couldn’t catch a jaywalker on Main Street.”
   I laughed real loud and added, helpfully, “Yeah, he and the Padgitts go way back.”
   “I told him you’d been over, snoopin’ around. He said, ‘That boy’s gonna get hurt.’ Just thought you’d like to know.”
   “Thanks,” I said. “Me and Coley see things differently.”
   “Election’s a few months away.”
   “Yes it is. I hear Coley’s got two or three opponents.”
   “Just takes one.”
   Again, he promised to call if something new developed, but both of us knew that was not going to happen. I left Iuka and drove to Memphis.


* * *

   Trooper Durant had been quite pleased to learn that his threats were still hanging over the head of Sam Ruffin. Harry Rex had eventually delivered the word that the boy was still on the run but desperately wanted to come home and see his momma.
   Durant had not remarried. He was very much alone and extremely bitter and embarrassed about his wife’s affair. He ranted at Harry Rex about how his life had been destroyed, and worse, how his two sons were subject to ridicule and abuse because of what their mother did. The white kids at school taunted them daily. The black kids, their new classmates at Clanton High, were smug and made wisecracks about it.
   Both boys were expert marksmen and avid hunters, and the three Durants had vowed to put a bullet into Sam Ruffin’s head if given the chance. They knew exactly where the Ruffins lived in Lowtown. Durant commented on the annual pilgrimage many blacks from the North made at Christmastime. “If that boy sneaks home, we’ll be waitin’,” he promised Harry Rex.
   He also had some venom for me, and for my heartwarming stories about Miss Callie and her older children. He guessed correctly that I was the family’s contact with Sam.
   “You’d better get your nose outta this mess,” Harry Rex warned me after his meeting with Durant. “This is a nasty character.”
   I wasn’t anxious to have someone else dreaming of my painful death.
   I met Sam at a truck stop near the state line, about a mile into Tennessee. Miss Callie had sent cakes and pies and letters and some cash, an entire cardboard box that filled the other seat in my little Spitfire. It was the first time in two years she had been able to touch him in any way. He tried to read one of her letters, but became emotional and put it back in the envelope. “I’m so homesick,” he said, wiping huge tears while at the same time trying to hide them from the truckers eating nearby. He was a lost, scared little boy.
   With brutal honesty, I recounted the conversation with Harry Rex. Sam had naively thought his offer to stay away from Ford County but visit occasionally would be acceptable to Mr. Durant. He had little grasp of the hatred he had inspired. He did, however, seem to appreciate the danger.
   “He’ll kill you, Sam,” I said gravely.
   “And he’ll get by with it, won’t he?”
   “What difference will that make to you? You’ll be just as dead. Miss Callie would rather have you alive up North than dead in the Clanton cemetery.”
   We agreed to meet again in two weeks. He was doing his Christmas shopping, and he would have gifts for his parents and family.
   We said good-bye and left the dining area. I was almost to my car when I decided to step back inside and use the men’s room. It was in the rear of a tacky gift shop next to the cafe. I glanced out a window and saw Sam, very suspiciously, jump into a car driven by a white woman. She looked to be older, early forties. Iris, I presumed. Some people never learn.


* * *

   The Ruffin clan began arriving three days before Christmas. Miss Callie had been cooking for a week. She sent me to the grocery store twice for emergency supplies. I was quickly adopted into the family and given full privileges, the highest of which was to eat whenever and whatever I wanted.
   Growing up in that house, the children’s lives had been centered around their parents, each other, the Bible, and the kitchen table. And for the holidays there was always a fresh dish of something on the table, and another two or three on the stove or in the oven. The announcement “Pecan pies are ready!” sent shockwaves through the small house, across the porch, and even into the street. The family gathered at the table where Esau rather quickly thanked the Lord yet again for his family and their health and for the food they were about to “partake”; then the pies would be cut into thick wedges, laid on saucers, and carried off in all directions.
   The same ritual was followed for pumpkin pies, coconut pies, strawberry cakes, the list went on and on. And those were just the light little snacks that carried them from one major meal to the next.
   Unlike their mother, the Ruffin children were not the slightest bit heavy. And I soon learned why. They complained that they were unable to eat like this anymore. The food where they lived was bland and much of it was frozen and mass-produced. There were a lot of ethnic foods they simply could not digest. And the people ate in a hurry. The list of complaints grew.
   My hunch was that they had been so spoiled by Miss Callie’s cooking that nothing would ever measure up.
   Carlota, who was single and taught urban studies at UCLA, was especially entertaining when telling stories of the latest wacky food trends sweeping California. Raw foods were the current rage—lunch was a plate of raw carrots and raw celery, all to be choked down with a small cup of hot herbal tea.
   Gloria, who taught Italian at Duke, was considered the luckiest of the seven because she was still in the South. She and Miss Callie compared notes on the different recipes for things such as corn bread, Brunswick stew, and even collard greens. These discussions often turned serious, with the men offering opinions and observations, and more than one argument erupted.
   After a three hour lunch, Leon (Leonardo), who taught biology at Purdue, asked me to go for a ride. He was the second oldest, and carried a slight academic air that the others had managed to avoid. He had a beard, smoked a pipe, wore a tweed blazer with worn arm patches, and used a vocabulary that he must’ve spent hours practicing.
   We roamed the streets of Clanton in his car. He wanted to know about Sam, and I told him everything. In my opinion, whatever that was worth, it was too dangerous for him to enter Ford County.
   And he wanted to know about the trial of Danny Padgitt. I had sent copies of the Times to all of the Ruffins. One of Baggy’s reports had emphasized the threat made by Danny to the jurors. The exact quote had been highlighted, “You convict me, and I’ll get every damned one of you.”
   “Will he ever be released from prison?” Leon asked.
   “Yes,” I said, reluctantly.
   “When?”
   “No one knows. He got life for murder, life for rape. Ten years is the minimum for each, but I’m told weird things happen in the Mississippi parole system.”
   “So it’s twenty years minimum?” I’m sure he was thinking about his mother’s age. She was fifty-nine.
   “No one’s sure. There is the possibility of good time, which reduces the minimum.”
   He seemed as confused by this as I had been. Truth was, no one connected to either the judicial system or the penal system had been able to answer my questions about Danny’s sentence. Parole in Mississippi was a vast dark pit, and I was afraid to get too close.
   Leon told me that he had quizzed his mother at length about the verdict. Specifically, did she vote for the life sentence, or did she want death? Her response had been that the jury vowed to keep its deliberations a secret. “What do you know?” he asked me.
   Not much. She had strongly implied to me that she had not agreed with the verdict, but it was nothing definite. In the weeks after the verdict there had been an avalanche of speculation. Most courthouse regulars had settled on the theory that three, maybe four, of the jurors had refused to vote for the death penalty. Miss Callie was generally considered not to be in that group.
   “Did the Padgitts get to them?” he asked. We were easing into the long shaded front drive of Clanton High School.
   “That’s the prevailing theory,” I said. “But no one really knows. The last death penalty in this county for a white defendant was forty years ago.”
   He stopped his car and we looked at the stately oak doors of the school. “So it’s finally integrated,” he said.
   “It is.”
   “Never thought I’d see it.” He smiled with great satisfaction. “I used to dream of going to this school. My father worked as a janitor here when I was a little boy, and I would come over on Saturdays and walk those long hallways and see how nice everything was. I understood why I wasn’t welcome here, but I never accepted it.”
   There was not much I could add to this, so I just listened. He seemed more sad than bitter.
   We finally drove away and crossed the tracks. Back in Lowtown, I was amazed at the number of fine automobiles with out-of-state tags that were parked tightly in the streets. Large families sat on porches in the frigid air; children played in the yards and the streets. Other cars arrived, all with brightly wrapped packages in the rear windows.
   “Home is where Momma is,” Leon said. “And everybody comes home for Christmas.”
   As we stopped near Miss Callie’s, Leon thanked me for befriending his mother. “She talks about you all the time,” he said.
   “It’s all about lunch,” I said, and we both laughed. At the front gate, a new aroma wafted from the house. Leon froze, took a long whiff, said, “Pumpkin pie.” The voice of experience.
   At various times, each of the seven professors thanked me for my friendship with Miss Callie She had shared her life with many, had lots of close friends, but for more than eight months had especially cherished her time with me.
   I left them late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve as they were preparing for church. Afterward, there would be gifts and singing. There were more than twenty Ruffins staying in the house; I couldn’t imagine where everyone slept, and I was certain no one really cared.
   As accepted as I was, I did feel the need to leave them at some point. Later, there would be hugs and tears, and songs and stories, and, though I was certainly welcome to experience all of it, I knew there were times when families needed to be alone.
   What did I know about families?
   I drove to Memphis, where my childhood home had not seen a Christmas decoration in ten years. My father and I had dinner at a Chinese joint not far from the house. As I choked down bad wonton soup I couldn’t help but think of the chaos of Miss Callie’s kitchen and all those wonderful dishes being pulled from the oven.
   My father worked hard to seem interested in my newspaper. I obligingly sent him a copy each week, but after a few minutes of chitchat I could tell he had never read a word. He was concerned with some ominous connection between the war in Southeast Asia and the bond market.
   We ate quickly and went in different directions. Sadly, neither of us had given any thought to exchanging gifts.
   Christmas lunch was with BeeBee, who, unlike my father, was delighted to see me. She invited three of her little blue-haired widow friends over for sherry and ham, and the five of us proceeded to get tipsy. I regaled them with stories from Ford County, some accurate, some highly embellished. Hanging around Baggy and Harry Rex, I was learning the art of storytelling.
   By 3 P.M… we were all napping. Early the next morning, I raced back to Clanton.

Chapter 25

   One frigid day late in January, shots rang out somewhere around the square. I was sitting at my desk, peacefully typing a story about Mr. Lamar Farlowe and his recent reunion in Chicago with his battalion of Army paratroopers, when a bullet shattered a windowpane less than twenty feet from my head. A slow news week thus came to a sudden end.
   My bullet was either the second or the third in a fairly rapid sequence. I hit the floor with all sorts of thoughts—Where was my pistol? Were the Padgitts assaulting the town? Were Trooper Durant and his boys after me? On my hands and knees I scrambled to my briefcase as shots continued to crack through the air; they sounded like they were coming from across the street, but in the horror of the moment I really couldn’t tell. They sounded much louder after one hit my office.
   I emptied the briefcase and then remembered the pistol was either in my car or my apartment. I was unarmed and felt like such a weakling for not being able to defend myself. Harry Rex and Rafe had trained me better.
   I was scared to the point of not being able to move. Then I remembered Bigmouth Bass was in his office downstairs, and like most real men in Clanton he had an arsenal close by. There were handguns in his desk and he kept two hunting rifles on the wall, just in case he got the urge to run out and kill a deer during lunch. Anyone trying to get me would encounter stiff resistance by my staff. I hoped so anyway.
   There was a pause in the assault, then shouts of panic and chaos on the streets. It was almost 2 P.M… normally a busy time downtown. I crawled under my desk like I’d been taught in tornado warning drills. From somewhere below I heard Bigmouth yell, “Stay in your offices!” I could almost see him down there, grabbing a 30.06 and a box of shells, ducking into a doorway in great anticipation. I couldn’t imagine a worse place for some nut to start shooting. There were thousands of guns within arm’s reach around the Clanton square. Every pickup had two rifles in the window rack and a shotgun under the seat. These people couldn’t wait to use their guns!
   It wouldn’t be long before the locals returned fire. That’s when the war would really get ugly.
   Then the shots resumed. They weren’t getting any closer, I decided as I tried to breathe normally under the desk and analyze things. As the seconds slowly ticked by I realized that the assault was not aimed at me. I just happened to own a nearby window. Sirens approached, then more shots, more shouting. What in the world!
   A phone rang downstairs and someone grabbed it quickly.
   “Willie! You okay!” Bigmouth yelled from the bottom of the steps.
   “Yeah!”
   “There’s a sniper on top of the courthouse!”
   “Great!”
   “Stay low!”
   “Don’t worry!”
   I relaxed a little and emerged just enough to grab my phone. I called Wiley Meek at home, but he was already headed our way. Then I crawled across the floor to one of the French doors and opened it. Evidently this caught the attention of our sniper. He shattered a pane four feet above me and the glass fell like heavy rain. I dropped to my stomach and stopped breathing for what seemed like an hour. The gunfire was relentless. Whoever he was he was certainly perturbed about something.
   Eight shots, each sounding much louder now that I was outside. A fifteen-second pause as he reloaded, then eight more. I heard glass shatter, bullets ricochet off bricks, bullets split through wooden posts. Somewhere in the midst of the barrage, the voices became silent.
   When I could move again, I gently pulled one of the rocking chairs over on its side, then crawled behind it. The porch had a wrought-iron railing around it, and with that and the chair in front of me, I was concealed and protected. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to move closer to the sniper, but I was twenty-four years old and owned the newspaper and knew that I would write a lengthy story about this dramatic episode. I needed details.
   When I finally peeked through the chair and the railing, I saw the sniper. The courthouse had an oddly flattened dome, on top of which was a small cupola with four open windows. He’d made his nest there, and when I first saw him he was peeking just above the sill of one of the windows. He appeared to have a black face with white hair, and this sent more chills through my body. We were dealing with a world-class psycho.
   He was reloading, and when he was ready he rose slightly and began shooting completely at random. He appeared to be shirtless, which, given the situation, seemed even stranger since it was around thirty degrees with a chance of light snow later in the afternoon. I was freezing and I was wearing a rather handsome wool suit from Mitlo’s.
   His chest was white with black stripes, sort of like a zebra. It was a white man who’d painted himself partially black.
   All traffic was gone. The city police had blocked the streets and cops were darting about, squatting low and hiding behind their cars. In the store windows an occasional face popped out for a quick scan, then disappeared. The shooting stopped and the sniper ducked low and disappeared for a while. Three county deputies dashed along a sidewalk and into the courthouse. Long minutes passed.
   Wiley Meek bounded up the steps of my office and was soon beside me. He was breathing so hard I thought he’d sprinted from his house out in the country. “He hit us!” he whispered, as if the sniper could hear. He was examining the broken glass.
   “Twice,” I said, nodding up at the broken panes.
   “Where is he?” he asked as he moved a camera with a long-range lens into position.
   “The cupola,” I said, pointing. “Be careful. He hit that door when I opened it.”
   “Have you seen him?”
   “Male, white, with black highlights.”
   “Oh, one of those.”
   “Keep your head down.”
   We stayed huddled and crouched for several minutes. More cops scurried about, going nowhere in particular and giving the distinct impression that they were thrilled to be there but had little idea what to do.
   “Anybody hurt?” Wiley asked, suddenly anxious that maybe he’d missed some blood.
   “How am I supposed to know?”
   Then more shots, very quick and startling. We peeked and saw him from the shoulders up, blazing away. Wiley focused and began taking pictures through the long-range lens.
   Baggy and the boys were in the Bar Room on the third floor, not directly under the cupola, but not far from it. In fact, they were probably the closest humans to the sniper when he began his target practice. After the shooting resumed for the ninth or tenth time, they evidently became even more frightened and, convinced they were about to be slaughtered, decided they had to take matters into their own hands. Somehow they managed to pry open the intractable window of their little hideaway. We watched as an electrical cord was thrown out and fell almost to the ground, forty feet below. Baggy’s right leg appeared next as he flung it over the brick sill and wiggled his portly body through the opening. Not surprisingly, Baggy had insisted on going first.
   “Oh my God,” Wiley said, somewhat gleefully, and raised his camera. “They’re drunk as skunks.”
   Clutching the electrical cord with all the grit he could muster, Baggy sprung free from the window and began his descent to safety. His strategy was not apparent. He appeared to give no slack on the cord, his hands frozen to it just above his head. Evidently there was plenty of cord left in the Bar Room, and his cohorts were supposed to ease him down.
   As his hands rose higher above his head, his pants became shorter. Soon they were just below his knees, leaving a long gap of pale white skin before his black socks bunched around his ankles. Baggy wasn’t concerned about appearances—before, during, or after the sniper incident.
   The shooting stopped, and for a while Baggy just hung there, slowly twisting against the building, about three feet below the window. Major could be seen inside, clinging fiercely to the cord. He had only one leg though, and I worried that it would quickly give out. Behind him I could see two figures, probably Wobble Tackett and Chick Elliot, the usual poker gang.
   Wiley began laughing, a low suppressed laugh that shook his entire body.
   With each lull in the shooting, the town took a breath, peeked around, and hoped it was over. And each new round scared us more than the last.
   Two shots rang out. Baggy lurched as if he’d been hit—though in reality there was no possible way the sniper could even see him, and the suddenness evidently put too much pressure on Major’s leg. It collapsed, the cord sprang free, and Baggy screamed as he dropped like a cinder block into a row of thick boxwoods that had been planted by the Daughters of the Confederacy. The boxwoods absorbed the load, and, much like a trampoline, recoiled and sent Baggy to the sidewalk, where he landed like a melon and became the only casualty of the entire episode.
   I heard laughter in the distance.
   Without a trace of mercy, Wiley recorded the entire spectacle. The photos would be furtively passed around Clanton for years to come.
   For a long time Baggy didn’t move. “Leave the sumbitch out there,” I heard a cop yell below us.
   “You can’t hurt a drunk,” Wiley said as he caught his breath.
   Eventually, Baggy rose to all fours. Slowly and painfully, he crawled, like a dog hit by a truck, into the boxwoods that had saved his life, and there he rode out the storm.
   A police car had been parked three doors down from the Tea Shoppe. The sniper fired a burst at it, and when the gas tank exploded we forgot about Baggy. The crisis stepped up to the next level as thick smoke poured out from under the car, then we saw flames. The sniper found this sporting, and for a few minutes he hit nothing but cars. I was certain my Spitfire would be irresistible, but perhaps it was too small.
   He lost his nerve, though, when fire was eventually returned. Two of Sheriff Coley’s men stationed themselves on roofs, and when they unloaded on the cupola the sniper ducked low and was out of business.
   “I got him!” one of the deputies shouted down to Sheriff Coley.
   We waited for twenty minutes; all was quiet. Baggy’s old wing tips and black socks could be seen from under the boxwoods, but the rest was hidden. Occasionally, Major, glass in hand, would look down and yell something at Baggy, who could have been dying for all we knew.
   More cops sprinted into the courthouse. We relaxed and sat in the rockers, but we did not take our eyes off the cupola. Bigmouth, Margaret, and Hardy joined us on the balcony. They had watched Baggy’s descent from the front window downstairs. Only Margaret was concerned about his injuries.
   The police car burned until the fire department eventually showed up and doused it. The doors of the courthouse opened and some of the county employees came out and began smoking furiously. Two deputies managed to retrieve Baggy from the boxwoods. He was barely able to walk, and was obviously in great pain. They placed him in a patrol car and took him away.
   Then we saw a deputy in the cupola, and the town was safe again. The five of us hurried over to the courthouse, along with the rest of downtown Clanton.
   The third floor was sealed off. Court was not in session, so Sheriff Coley directed us to the courtroom, where he promised a quick briefing. As we were walking into the courtroom, I saw Major, Chick Elliot, and Wobble Tackett being escorted down the hall by a deputy. They were obviously drunk and laughing so hard they had trouble staying on their feet. Wiley went downstairs to sniff around. A body was about to be removed from the courthouse, and he wanted a shot of the sniper. The white hair, black face, painted stripes—there were a lot of questions.


* * *

   The deputy sharpshooters had evidently missed. The sniper was identified as Hank Hooten, the local lawyer who had assisted Ernie Gaddis in the prosecution of Danny Padgitt. He was in custody and unharmed.
   When Sheriff Coley announced this in the courtroom, we were shocked and bewildered. Our nerves were pretty raw anyway, but this was too much to believe. “Mr. Hooten was found in the small stairwell that leads up to the cupola,” Coley was saying, but I was too stunned to take notes. “He did not resist arrest and is now in custody.”
   “What was he wearing?” someone asked.
   “Nothing.”
   “Nothing?”
   “Absolutely nothing. He had what appeared to be black shoe polish on his face and chest, but other than that he was as naked as a newborn.”
   “What type of weapons?” I asked.
   “We found two high-powered rifles, that’s all I can say right now.”
   “Did he say anything?”
   “Not a word.”
   Wiley said they wrapped Hank in some sheets and shoved him in the backseat of a patrol car. He shot some photos but was not optimistic. “There were a dozen cops around him,” he said.
   We drove to the hospital to check on Baggy. His wife worked the night shift in the emergency room. Someone had called her, woke her up, summoned her to the hospital, and when we met her she was in a foul mood. “Just a broken arm,” she said, obviously disappointed that it was not more serious. “Some scrapes and bruises. What’d the fool do?”
   I looked at Wiley and Wiley looked at me.
   “Was he drunk?” she asked. Baggy was always drunk.
   “Don’t know,” I said. “He fell out of a window at the courthouse.”
   “Oh, brother. He was drunk.”
   I gave a quick version of Baggy’s escape and tried to make it sound as if he’d done something heroic in the midst of all that gunfire.
   “The third floor?” she asked.
   “Yes.”
   “So he was playing poker, drinking whiskey, and he jumped out of a third-floor window.”
   “Basically, yes,” Wiley said, unable to stop himself.
   “Not exactly,” I said, but she was already walking away.
   Baggy was snoring when we finally got back to his room. The medications had mixed with the whiskey and he appeared comatose. “He will wish he could sleep forever,” Wiley whispered.
   And he was right. The legend of Bouncin’ Baggy was told countless times in the years that followed. Wobble Tackett would swear that Chick Elliot let go of the cord first, and Chick would argue that Major’s good leg buckled first and caused a chain reaction. The town quickly believed that, whoever let go first, the three idiots Baggy left behind in the Bar Room had intentionally dropped him into the boxwoods.


* * *

   Two days later, Hank Hooten was sent to the state mental hospital at Whitfield, where he would remain for several years. He was initially indicted for trying to kill half of Clanton, but with time the charges were dropped. He allegedly told Ernie Gaddis that he was not shooting at anyone in particular, didn’t want to harm anyone, but was just upset because the town had failed to send Danny Padgitt to his death.
   Word eventually drifted back to Clanton that he had been diagnosed as severely schizophrenic. “Slap-ass crazy,” was the conclusion on the streets.
   Never in the history of Ford County had a person lost his mind in such a spectacular fashion.

Chapter 26

   One year after I bought the newspaper, I sent BeeBee a check for $55,000—her loan plus interest at the rate of 10 percent. She had not discussed the matter of interest when she gave me the money, nor had we signed a promissory note. Ten percent was a bit high, and I hoped it would prompt her to send the check back. I sent it, held my breath, watched the mail, and sure enough, about a week later there was a letter from Memphis.


   Dear William:
   I enclose your check, which I was not expecting and have no use for at this time. If, for some unlikely reason, I need the money in the future, then we shall at that time discuss this matter. Your offer of payment makes me extremely proud of you and your integrity. What you have accomplished in one year down there is a source of great pride for me, and I delight in telling my friends about your success as a newspaper publisher and editor.
   I must confess that I was worried about you when you came home from Syracuse. You appeared to lack direction and motivation, and your hair was too long. You have proven me wrong, and cut your hair(a little) to boot. You have also become quite the gentleman in your dress and manners.
   You’re all I have, William, and I love you dearly. Please write me more often.

Love, BeeBee
   P.S. Did that poor man really take off his clothes and shoot up the town? What characters you have down there!


   BeeBee’s first husband had died of some colorful illness in 1924. She then married a divorced cotton merchant and they had one child, my poor mother. The second husband, my grandfather, died in 1938, leaving BeeBee with a nice bundle. She stopped marrying and had spent the last thirty-odd years counting her money, playing bridge, and traveling. As the only grandchild, I was set to inherit all she had, though I had no clue as to the extent of her fortune.
   If BeeBee wanted more letters from me, then she could certainly have them.
   I happily tore up the check, walked down to the bank, and borrowed another $50,000 from Stan Atcavage. Hardy had found a slightly used offset press in Atlanta, and I bought it for $108,000. We ditched our ancient letterpress and moved into the twentieth century. The Times took on a new look—much cleaner print, sharper photos, smarter designs. Our circulation was at six thousand and I could see steady, profitable growth. The elections of 1971 certainly helped.


* * *

   I was astounded at the number of people who ran for public office in Mississippi. Each county was divided into five districts, and each district had an elected constable, who wore a badge and a gun and whatever uniform he could put together, and if he could afford it, which he always managed, he put lights on his car and had the authority to pull over anyone at any time for any conceivable offense. No training was required. No education. No supervision from the county Sheriff or the city police chief, no one but the voters every four years. In theory he was a summons server, but once elected most constables couldn’t resist the powerful urge to strap on a gun and look for folks to arrest.
   The more traffic tickets a constable wrote, the more money he earned. It was a part-time job with a nominal salary, but at least one of the five in each county tried to live off the position. This was the guy who caused the most trouble.
   Each district had an elected Justice of the Peace, a judicial officer with absolutely no legal training, in 1971 anyway. No education was required for the job. No experience. Just votes. The J.P. judged all the people the constable hauled in, and their relationship was cozy and suspicious. Out-of-state drivers who got nailed by a constable in Ford County were usually in for some abuse at the hands of the J.P.
   Each county had five supervisors, five little kings who held the real power. For their supporters they paved roads, fixed culverts, gave away gravel. For their enemies they did little. All county ordinances were enacted by the Board of Supervisors.
   Each county also had an elected sheriff, tax collector, tax assessor, chancery court clerk, and coroner. The rural counties shared a state senator and state representative. Other available jobs in 1971 were highway commissioner, public service commissioner, commissioner of agriculture, state treasurer, state auditor, attorney general, lieutenant governor, and governor.
   I thought this was a ridiculous and cumbersome system until the candidates for these positions began buying ads in the Times. A particularly bad constable over in the Fourth District (also known as “Beat Four”) had eleven opponents by the end of January. Most of these poor boys eased into our offices with an “announcement” that their wives had handwritten on notebook paper. I would patiently read them, editing, decoding, translating along the way. Then I would take their money and run their little ads, almost all of which began with either “After months of prayer…” or “Many people have asked me to run…”
   By late February, the county was consumed with the August election. Sheriff Coley had two opponents with two more threatening. The deadline to file for office was June, and he had yet to do so. This fueled speculation that he might not run.
   It took little to fuel speculation about anything when it came to local elections.


* * *

   Miss Callie clung to the old-fashioned belief that eating in restaurants was a waste of money, and therefore sinful. Her list of potential sins was longer than most folks’, especially mine. It took almost six months to convince her to go to Claude’s for a Thursday lunch. I argued that if I paid, then we wouldn’t be wasting her money. She wouldn’t be guilty of any transgression, and if I got hit with another one I really didn’t care. Dining out was certainly the most benign in my inventory.
   I wasn’t worried about being seen in downtown Clanton with a black woman. I didn’t care what people said. I wasn’t worried about having the only white face in Claude’s. What really concerned me, and what almost kept me from suggesting the idea in the first place, was the challenge of getting Miss Callie in and out of my Triumph Spitfire. It wasn’t built for hefty folks like her.
   She and Esau owned an old Buick that had once held all eight children. Add another hundred pounds and Miss Callie could still slide in and out of the front seat with ease.
   She was not getting smaller. Her high blood pressure and high cholesterol were of great concern to her children. She was sixty years old and healthy, but trouble was looming.
   We walked to the street and she peered down at my car. It was March and windy with a chance of rain, so the convertible top was up. In its closed state, the two-seater looked even smaller.
   “I’m not sure this is going to work,” she announced. It had taken six months to get her that far; we were not turning back. I opened the passenger door and she approached with great caution.
   “Any suggestions?” she said.
   “Yes, try the rear-end-first method.”
   It worked, eventually, and when I started the engine we were shoulder to shoulder. “White folks sure drive some funny cars,” she said, as frightened as if she were flying in a small plane for the first time. I popped the clutch, spun the tires, and we were off, slinging gravel and laughing.
   I parked in front of the office and helped her out. Getting in was far easier. Inside, I introduced her to Margaret Wright and Davey Bigmouth Bass, and I gave her a tour. She was curious about the offset press because the paper now looked so much better. “Who does the proofreading around here?” she whispered.
   “You do,” I said. We were averaging three mistakes per week, according to her. I still got the list every Thursday over lunch.
   We took a stroll around the square and eventually made it to Claude’s, the black cafe next to City Cleaners. Claude had been in business for many years and served the best food in town. He didn’t need menus because you ate whatever he happened to be cooking that day. Wednesday was catfish and Friday was barbecue, but for the other four days you didn’t know what you would eat until Claude told you. He greeted us in a dirty apron and pointed to a table at the front window. The cafe was half-full and we got some curious stares.
   Oddly enough, Miss Callie had never met Claude. I had assumed that every black person in Clanton had at one time bumped into every other one, but Miss Callie explained that was not the case. Claude lived out in the country, and there was an awful rumor over in Lowtown that he did not go to church. She had never been anxious to meet him. They had attended a funeral together years earlier, but had not met.
   I introduced them, and when Claude put her name with her face he said, “The Ruffin family. All them doctors.”
   “PhD’s,” Miss Callie said, correcting him.
   Claude was loud and gruff and charged for his food and did not go to church, so Miss Callie immediately disliked him. He took the hint, didn’t really care, and went off to yell at someone in the back. A waitress brought us iced tea and corn bread, and Miss Callie didn’t like either. The tea was weak and almost sugarless, according to her, and the corn bread lacked enough salt and was served at room temperature, an unforgivable offense.
   “It’s a restaurant, Miss Callie,” I said in a low voice. “Would you relax?”
   “I’m trying.”
   “No you’re not. How can we enjoy a meal if you’re frowning at everything?”
   “That’s a pretty bow tie.”
   “Thank you.”
   My upgraded wardrobe had pleased no one more than Miss Callie. Negroes liked to dress up and were very fashion conscious, she explained to me. She still referred to herself as a Negro.
   In the wake of the civil rights movement and the complicated issues it had spun, it was difficult to know exactly what to call blacks. The older, more dignified ones like Miss Callie preferred to be called “Negroes.” A notch below them on the social ladder were “coloreds.”
   Though I had never heard Miss Callie use the word, it was not uncommon for upper blacks to refer to the lowest of their kind as “niggers.”
   I could not begin to understand the labels and classes, so I adhered strictly to the safety of “blacks.” Those on my side of the tracks had an entire dictionary to describe blacks, little of which was endearing.
   At that moment, I was the only non-Negro in Claude’s, and this bothered no one.
   “What y’all eatin’?” Claude yelled from the counter. A blackboard advertised Texas chili, fried chicken, and pork chops. Miss Callie knew the chicken and pork would be sub-par, so we both ordered chili.
   I got a gardening report. The winter greens were especially nice. She and Esau were preparing to plant the summer crop. The Farmer’s Almanac predicted a mild summer with average rain—same prediction every year—and she was excited about warmer weather and lunch back on the porch, where it belonged. I began with Alberto, the oldest, and half an hour later she ended with Sam, the youngest. He was back in Milwaukee, staying with Roberto, working and taking classes at night. All children and grandchildren were doing well.
   She wanted to talk about “poor Mr. Hank Hooten.” She remembered him well from the trial, though he had never spoken to the jury. I passed along the latest news. He was now living in a room with padded walls, where he would remain for some time.
   The restaurant filled up quickly. Claude walked by with an armload of plates and said, “Y’all finished, time to go.” She pretended to be insulted by this, but Claude was famous for telling people to leave as soon as they were finished. On Fridays, when a few whites ventured in for barbeque and the place was packed, he put a clock on his customers and said, loudly, “You got twenty minutes.”
   She pretended to dislike the experience—the idea itself, the restaurant, the cheap tablecloth, the food, Claude, the prices, the crowd, everything. But it was an act. She was secretly delighted to be taken to lunch by a well-dressed young white man. It had not happened to any of her friends.
   As I gently pulled her out of the car back in Lowtown, she reached into her purse and took out a small scrap of paper. Only two typos that week; oddly, both were in classifieds, an area that Margaret handled.
   I walked her to the house. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?” I said.
   “I enjoyed it. Thank you. Are you coming next Thursday?” She asked the same question each week. The answer was the same too.