Страница 43 из 55
“No, sir. I did not.”
“Are you certain?”
“He didn’t bring no paper. They rode up and started shooting. If Mr. Stephens said he did that, he is a liar. And if you say he did it, sir, you would be a liar too.”
Chapter 108
AFTER ABRAHAM FINISHED testifying and Moody took him home to put him back to bed, Jonah challenged the admissibility of Phineas Eversman’s search warrant.
My father looked mildly amused. “It’s a search warrant, Mr. Curtis. It looks like a thousand others that I’ve seen over the years,” he said.
Since his profane outburst in the direction of the applauding juror, I thought, my father had been unusually patient with Jonah. He must have realized how bad that eruption would look once all these “ two-bit newspaper reporters” put it into print.
Jonah decided to tack in another direction. “Your Honor, I know you are well aware that under the rules of civil procedure, all documents entered as evidence must be shared with all counsel before commencement of trial,” he said. “The first time I saw this was a few minutes ago.”
My father peered down his nose at the spectacle of a Negro lawyer daring to cite civil procedure to him. “Now, Mr. Curtis, you being from up in Jackson and all, and educated up in the North, well, I’m sure you are accustomed to practicing before the big-city courts like they have up there, with your civil procedures and all that,” he said. I had seen him perform this act before: the simple country judge, working his way through the facts of the case with nothing but his good ol’ horse sense. “But down here in Eudora,” he went on, “we do things in a simple and logical fashion. Mr. Lewis hands me a document, I take a look at it. I ask myself if it looks authentic. In this case I thought it did, and I admitted it into evidence. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see it earlier-Mr. Lewis, you should’ve showed it to him-but I’m not going to throw it away or declare a mistrial on account of a thing like that. Mr. Curtis, is that all right with you? Yes? Let’s proceed.”
He was so folksy, so mock-reasonable, that it made my stomach queasy. It was obvious that this judge was not the least bit worried about being overturned on any appeal. That could only be because he knew there would never be an appeal: Sheriff Reese and his deputy were Klansmen, and Phineas Eversman, the only other law enforcement officer in Pike County, had crossed over to their side. The defendants would be acquitted, they would go free, and no one would ever disturb them on these murder charges again.
“Now, I want both sides to listen,” my father said. “I’m going to recess this proceeding until tomorrow morning. Just because every reporter in America is interested in this case, doesn’t mean I don’t have other matters to adjudicate. This afternoon I will devote myself to the trial of a man who’s been charged with public drunke
He banged his gavel once.
“Until tomorrow, nine o’clock. Sharp.”
Chapter 109
“ALL RISE! THIS COURT stands adjourned!”
My father swept out of the room. Everyone in the courtroom started talking at once, the newspaper reporters pushing through the crowd, hastening to beat each other to the telegraph stations at the depot.
Through the window I saw that the su
Maxwell Hayes Lewis stepped over to the prosecution table.
“Mr. Curtis, gentlemen-I just want to say, I am mighty sorry for forgetting to show that search warrant to you fellows before we got started this morning.”
I looked him right in the eye. “Ah, Mr. Lewis, that is perfectly understandable. I’m sure you were too busy manufacturing that warrant this morning to bother showing it to us.”
Lewis chuckled. “Ben, I am sorry to see you have become such a cynic.”
“Let me tell you something, Mr. Lewis.” I straightened all the way up so as to look down on him from the maximum height. “You got Phineas to fake a warrant for you, and you found some justice of the peace who was happy to sign it and postdate it, and you got my father to admit it into evidence with a wink and a nod. But Jonah has a whole bunch of witnesses who saw what your clients did that night. They saw the death and destruction. And they will testify.”
The affable smile disappeared from Lewis’s face. He was gathering his wits for a comeback when Conrad Cosgrove burst into the near-empty courtroom, shouting.
“Mr. Stringer! Mr. Corbett! Come on out here, you got to see this!”
I followed the others down the center aisle to the doorway. Outside, the trees in the square were swaying in the breeze from the oncoming storm. A soft patter of rain had just started to fall.
Right in front of the door, in the center of the lawn fronting the courthouse, was a sight I had never witnessed before.
A huge cross was planted there.
And it was burning.
Chapter 110
THAT EVENING A nervous and troubled prosecution team met for supper in the dining room of the Stringer home. Allegra, who usually took her meals with the children, decided to join us.
“Louie, isn’t it just amazing how our Ella can turn one little handful of crabmeat into a she-crab soup worthy of Galatoire’s in New Orleans?” Allegra said.
I was thinking, I never knew his name was Louie. Even way back in grammar school, he was always L.J.
L.J. had no time to answer. At that moment a rock exploded the glass of the window above the dining table and skipped across the room. A second rock smashed through the window beside it, then a third. Glass flew everywhere.
“The girls!” Allegra screamed and hurried up the stairs.
I ran after L.J. into the center hall. He opened his gun cabinet and took out three rifles: one for me, one for him, one for Jonah.
L.J. moved quietly along the walls of the front rooms, reaching up to cut off the gaslights so that we could see out and the people outside couldn’t see in.
I saw at least fifty men milling about out there. They looked like the mob from the previous night, only larger. And they were chanting:
Free the Raiders!
Let ’em go!
Free the Raiders!
Let ’em go!
They carried rifles, pistols, and pitchforks, and torches to light their way. I saw some of them holding big branches they must have pulled down from the trees on their way. One man had a bullwhip he kept cracking with a pop like a pistol shot.
Free the Raiders!
Let ’em go!
L.J. stuck his head around the window frame. “Let the jury decide who goes free,” he shouted.
A rock came hurtling across the veranda to shatter the porcelain urn on a pedestal behind me. Another rock crashed through a stained-glass panel beside the front door.
“L.J., get your head in!” Jonah cried. “Don’t be a fool. Or a martyr.”
L.J. stood in full view of the mob, waving his arms, trying to quiet them down, but soon realized that Jonah was right. He stepped back from the window.
“You’ve got to get Allegra and the girls out of here,” I said.
He nodded. “I’ll have Conrad hitch up the carriage. Allegra’s got a sister up in Pricedale. This whole town has gone crazy.”