Chapter 91

“NOTICE HOW NOBODY COMPLAINS about the heat anymore,” L.J. said to me one morning over breakfast at his home. “Nobody talks about the mosquitoes, or the price of cotton, or any of the things that mattered before. None of those things means a damn now. All anybody cares about is the trial.”

I had to smile. “I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about, L.J., since nobody in this town speaks to me.”

“Maybe they’re like me, they just hate talking to a damn lawyer.”

I’d been given a bedroom on the second floor at L.J.’s, with a sitting room attached and a small balcony where my first cup of coffee was served every morning. There were fresh sheets, starched and ironed, every day; the best sausages for breakfast, aged beef for supper.

Most important, L.J. posted three armed guards around the house: one at the front, one in the back, and one baking on the roof. At L.J.’s I’d gotten the first really good night’s sleep I’d had since coming back to Eudora.

L.J.’s wife, Allegra, bustled into the dining room.

“Japheth Morgan insists on seeing you two right now,” she said.

Indeed, Morgan did mean right now. He had followed Allegra and was standing directly behind her. In his hand was a fresh broadsheet, the ink still shiny. At the top of the page I saw in enormous type the word EXTRA!!!

“I thought you two gentlemen would want to be the first to read this,” Morgan said.

L.J. shook his head. “What the hell have you done now, Japheth?”

Morgan began to read aloud. “The Mississippi Office of Criminal Courts has announced the venue and date for the proceedings currently known far and wide as the White Raiders Trial. Following a ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court, the prosecutor’s petition for change of venue has been denied, and the trial will be held in Eudora, Mississippi, scene of the alleged offenses.”

“Well, hell, that’s no big surprise,” L.J. said. “We all knew nobody else wanted to grab hold of this hot horseshoe.”

“I agree,” I said. “It’s disappointing, but it does provide the prosecution with its first proper grounds for appeal.”

“Appeal to whom?” said L.J. “The Supreme Court has ruled.”

“There’s another Supreme Court, in Washington,” I said with a wink.

Japheth looked relieved. “Do y’all want to hear this or not?”

“Please,” L.J. said, straightening his face into a serious expression. “Please read on.”

“Jury selection will begin on September the seventeenth at nine o’clock a.m.,” he read.

“Goddamn, what is that, next Monday? That’s six days from today,” L.J. said. “Ben, you’re gonna have to scramble.”

“Wait. Wait. Wait,” Japheth said.

He read slowly, emphatically:

“Further, the Supreme Court has exercised its judicial discretion to appoint a judge to oversee this important and much-noted trial. The judge appointed is…”

Japheth glanced over to make sure we were listening. We absolutely were.

Then he read on:

“The judge appointed is a lifetime citizen of Eudora, the Honorable Everett J. Corbett.”

Chapter 92

SON OF A BITCH!

It was not illegal for the Mississippi Supreme Court to appoint my father to preside over a trial in which I was assisting the prosecution.

Not illegal, but wildly unusual, and absolutely deliberate.

I could have fought it, but I already knew that I wouldn’t. It gave us a second, decent ground for the eventual, inevitable appeal.

Most people in town, Japheth reported, were positively delighted with the news. Everyone knew that Judge Corbett was “fair” and “honest” and “sensible.” Judge Corbett “understands the true meaning of justice.”

“That is exactly what I am afraid of,” I said.

Having spent the first part of my life listening to my father pontificate, I knew one thing for certain: he might cloak himself in eloquence, reason, and formality, but underneath it all he believed that although Negroes might be absolutely free, thanks to the detested Mr. Lincoln, nowhere was it written that Negroes deserved to be absolutely equal.

Judge Corbett and men of his class had gradually enshrined that inequality in law, and the highest court in the land had upheld its finding that “separate but equal” was good enough for everybody.

Now the trial was less than a week away, and one huge question was still outstanding: who would the state of Mississippi send to prosecute the case?

“My sources in the capital have heard nothing about it,” Japheth told L.J. and me. “It’s a big, holy secret.”

Chapter 93

A WHILE LATER, the three of us were sitting on the west veranda of L.J.’s house, watching the sunset and sipping bourbon over cracked ice.

“Well, you gentlemen are always acting so all-fired high and mighty,” Japheth said, “but you’ve yet to give me a single piece of information that I can use. Why don’t you start by sharing the names of the prosecution witnesses?”

“Watch out, L.J., he’s using one of his journalist’s tricks to get you to spill it,” I said.

“Me?” L.J. scoffed. “What do I know? I don’t know anything. I’ve been cut off by the entire town. I’m almost as much persona non grata as Mr. Nigger-Lover Corbett. Everybody from here to Jackson knows whose side I’m on. And you know any friend of Ben Corbett’s doesn’t have another friend between here and Jackson.”

I clapped his shoulder. “I appreciate what you’ve done, L.J.”

It was right then that we heard a deep tenor voice, with a hint of something actorly in the round tones, accompanying a firm bootstep down the upstairs hall.

“If you need a friend from Jackson, maybe I can fill the bill.”

We looked up to see a man whose appearance was as polished and natty as his voice. He wore a seersucker suit of the finest quality and a straw boater with a jaunty red band. He could not have been much more than thirty, and he carried a wicker portmanteau and a large leather satchel jammed with papers.

He introduced himself as Jonah Curtis and explained that he had been appointed by the state of Mississippi to prosecute the White Raiders.

“I had my assistant reserve a room at Miss Maybelle’s establishment,” he said. “But Maybelle took one look at me and it turned out she had misplaced my reservation. She suggested I bring myself to this address.”

“Welcome to the house of pariahs, Mr. Curtis,” said L.J. “You are welcome to stay here in my home for as long as this trial takes.”

“I do appreciate that, sir. And please, call me Jonah.”

Jonah Curtis was almost as tall as I. He was what anyone would call a handsome man.

And Jonah Curtis was one other thing besides.

Jonah Curtis was a black man.