Bootlegger’s Daughter (3 page)

“A dark moonless night, ladies and gentlemen, on a winding stretch of deserted highway. Two cars meeting each other. Trooper Davis says he observed my client weaving back and forth over the center line and he had what? Fifteen seconds? Twenty seconds to observe all this?”

“Don’t forget, ladies and gentlemen, that Trooper Davis is an experienced officer with nearly ten years as a North Carolina highway patrolman,” said Tracy Johnson. I decided those ugly glasses were a smart touch. They neutralized both her prettiness and her inexperience and lent a tone of judicial competency as she ran over the case again and asked for a guilty decision.

In persnickety tones more suited to explaining Parcheesi rules, Judge Byrd instructed along predictable lines: the jury was not to consider what they’d like the law to be, but what it is; yes, there’s a presumption of innocence and the state must prove guilt, but not beyond all doubt, he told them, leaning heavily on the all, merely beyond reasonable doubt. He read them the law on DWI, told them their possible verdicts, then sent them off to deliberate.

It was 12:15.

I’d hoped to slide Luellen’s case in before the lunch recess, but Ambrose Daughtridge had poor-mouthed about his schedule enough that Tracy called his case next, so Reid and I splashed across the street in the freezing rain to Sue’s Soup ’n’ Sandwich Shop for a bowl of her homemade Brunswick stew. The little shop was crowded and steamy and permeated with the wonderful smells of hot coffee, toasted bread, and fragrant meats. We had to wait a few minutes for one of the tiny booths that lines the wall opposite the long Formica lunch counter.

Reid was torn between optimism for his client’s case and disgust that Gilchrist had even been charged. He’d managed to keep on the panel a sharp-eyed middle-aged woman who’d worked as an auto insurance adjuster, and he seemed to think that she was the natural choice for foreperson, someone who’d see this case for what it was and bring in a quick not guilty.

I hate to lick the red off anybody’s candy cane and kept my mouth shut.

“What?” he asked.

“She’s never going to get elected foreperson,” I told him. “James Greene is.”

“What you talking? She’s white, she’s educated, she’s sharp-”

“She’s a woman,” I interrupted. “And a civilian.” Our stew arrived, hot and thick, and I added a heavy sprinkle of black pepper. “James Greene may be a black man, but he’s still a man and an ex-police officer. The other men’ll vote for him to show they’re not bigots and he’ll toss around enough jargon that the women will defer to his expertise.”

“Yeah?” Reid crumbled saltine crackers over his bowl and stirred them in as he considered how Greene’s being foreperson would affect Gilehrist’s chances. “Well, hell, he knows even better than the Webster woman that it’s all a crock of shit. Everybody sitting in that courtroom knows that Davis wouldn’t have pulled Gilchrist that night if he’d been white. Green’s just some extra insurance I slipped past little Tracy.”

“God takes care of fools, drunkards and brand-new ADA ’s.” I reached for the pepper shaker again, but Reid pushed it away.

“You’re gonna wreck your stomach,” he warned. “What’d I forget?”

“There’s talk that James Greene wants the security contract for that new pharmaceutical plant over in Cotton Grove.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that, too. So?”

I swallowed a meltingly tender chunk of beef. “So Owen Barfield’s one of the owners.”

Dismayed enlightenment broke on Reid’s face. “And Owen Barfield is Judge Perry Byrd’s brother-in-law,” he groaned.

“Bingo!” I said. “What better way to get the word to Owen that Greene’s Security Agency is absolutely colorblind when it comes to providing security than for James Greene to be foreman of a jury that convicts a black man when there are good grounds to let him ofi?”

Reid pushed aside his stew. His appetite seemed to have suddenly disappeared. “You’ve got a weird mind, Deborah,” he said, frowning at me. “That’s too goddamned Machiavellian. Greene wouldn’t-”

“How ’bout a nice slice of pie?” asked our waitress as she paused at our booth to top off our cups with more coffee. “We’ve got deep-dish apple or there’s one piece of pecan left.”

Pecan pie’s my absolute favorite and I do indulge in the wintertime-after all, what are bulky sweaters for?-but good as Sue’s is, it doesn’t hold a candle to my Aunt Zell’s, and I don’t squander those five hundred calories on anybody else’s.

“I’ll take the apple if you’ll melt me a little cheddar on the top,” said Reid, who wore a bulky red sweater vest under his gray tweed sportscoat.

I was wearing a cropped green jacket over a soft challis skirt with a wide tight belt that registered every ounce I ate, so I passed.

The rain had slacked off by the time we got back to the courthouse, but it had washed away most of the sand that a janitor had sprinkled earlier and the wide marble steps were glazed in a thin coat of ice. Reid took my arm as we started up. “How you gals walk around on those stilts in good weather beats me, but why you don’t break your neck in winter…”

Since my beautiful black leather boots had sensible one-inch heels, I knew his grousing was just to cover his worry.

“Maybe the jury will come back as soon as court reconvenes,” I comforted, patting his hand. A quick return would mean acquittal.

It was nearly three before the jury brought in their verdict. I’d gotten Luellen another stay of active time, and though Judge Byrd gave her a stiff lecture-“You know what suspended means, Miz Martin? You under some kind of impression you don’t have to go to jail if you don’t keep to the terms of the judgment on you?”-he did allow her one more chance to set up a regular schedule of restitution payments with her parole officer.

Machiavellian or not, James Greene had been chosen foreman and the jury did deliver a guilty verdict. Reid and I-and maybe the wary-eyed Gilchrist-were the only two not surprised. (Later, the bailiff showed Reid the ballots that had been thrown in the trash can. On the first vote, the count had been seven to five for acquittal.)

Perry Byrd tried hard not to beam as he sent for Gilchrist’s driving record. Despite the plumber’s testimony, he wanted to see for himself; and when it was brought to him, Byrd frowned and muttered to himself in those carrying undertones, “I don’t believe this man’s gone twenty-one years with no tickets.”

Even under uniform sentencing, a judge has much leeway. The punishment for a first DWI conviction with no priors could be as light as court costs and a few hours of community service. Gilchrist’s was near the maximum: 120 days suspended for three years upon payment of a $250 fine and court costs, plus forty-eight hours of active jail time.

Reid was appalled, but still game. “Your Honor,” he said, “my client operates a one-man business for his livelihood. We request that he be allowed to wait till the weekend to activate his jail time.”

“Denied!” said Judge Byrd. “Bailiff, take the prisoner in custody.”

Okay, so Gilchrist probably would’ve blown a ten. Big damn deal. It wasn’t his choice to go out that night and it wasn’t like he’d deliberately gone and driven recklessly on a crowded highway or anything. Even Trooper Davis admitted he’d been well below the speed limit.

Normally, mean-minded judicial pettiness sends me right up the wall; that frigid January day it sent me right over to the election board where I filed for Harrison Hobart’s seat.

I really wished it could have been Perry Byrd’s.

The County Democratic Coalition was holding a candidates’ forum at West Colleton Senior High, a sprawling two-story “educational plant” built by integration back in 1969.

It took fifteen years and the threat of cutting off federal funds to make the county finally admit that separate wasn’t equal. All those shabby old black schools had to be closed because no white tax-paying parents would stand for sending their children there. I shake my head sometimes to hear people fume about the evils of bussing and the benefits of neighborhood schools. You didn’t hear any of that kind of talk back when I was in seventh grade and it was black kids being bussed miles past white schools.

We arrived a little before six, and the early May sun was still high in the clear blue sky. It streamed in through floor-to-ceiling cafeteria windows and further brightened tables already cheerful with red-checked biodegradable paper tablecloths. Clusters of red, white, and blue balloons were tethered at each table, and red-white-and-blue crepe-paper bunting draped the head table. Very colorful. Very patriotic.

Lest anyone forget why we were there though, a partisan mural hung on the wall behind the head table. An art teacher here at West Colleton had painted a lifesize donkey kicking the butt of an elephant whose eyeglasses looked suspiciously like those worn by North Carolina ’s senior senator.

Supper was the usual pork barbecue, cole slaw, hush puppies, and sweet iced tea. I’d graduated from West Colleton, and Knotts had farmed around here since the late 1700s, so the crowd was friendly. Lots of hugs and howdies. For moral support, I sat at a table with John Claude Lee and Reid Stephenson, my two partners; Sherry Cobb, our legal secretary; and their significant others, which in Reid’s case seemed to change with the moon. A couple of my brothers and their families were there, too.

Not Daddy though.

He wasn’t real thrilled when I went to law school and he’s sat on his hands ever since I announced for judge. Being the only daughter after a string of sons, I was supposed to wear frilly dresses and patent leather Mary Janes till I grew up and married somebody who’d worship at the foot of my pedestal the rest of my natural life. He swears he isn’t chauvinistic; but truth is, he doesn’t approve of ladies messing with politics. (Daddy’s like Jesse Helms that way. Neither one of them’s ever met a woman. All females are ladies unless they’re trashy and immoral, in which case they’ve got other labels.)

I try to take into account that he’s an old man now, someone from another era. He says that’s disrespectful. People say I’m natured more like him than Mother, another reason I stayed in town with Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash after Mother died. Keeps us from snarling at each other. This way I can stay polite and respectful.

Most of the time.

The evening followed predictable lines once they got rid of the feedback squeal in the sound system: a welcome by the president of the Democratic Women, an invocation by the minister of Cotton Grove Presbyterian, then some brief remarks by our U.S. House incumbent. It’s a safe seat. Down at the grass roots level, there’re still a lot of farmers, and ninety percent of Colleton County farmers are yellow dog Democrats when it comes to local politics.

We faced the flag for the pledge of allegiance, then sang “God Bless America,” which usually evokes muddled memories. Grade school assemblies get mixed in with cozy feelings from when “thru the night with the light from above” was the blissful security of the hall light that shone through a crack over my bedroom door until I fell asleep.

All incumbents stood to be applauded, including Perry Byrd and Harrison Hobart, then the chairman of the Colleton County Democratic Party gave a seven-minute pitch for Harvey Gantt, who was running against Jesse Helms for U.S. Senate and who sent regrets that he couldn’t be with us that night. After that came the parade of candidates to the microphone at the front of the cafeteria. State hopefuls got five minutes, county three.

Sheriff Bowman Poole only took two minutes. He gazed out over the two hundred or so party faithful with that genial expression that never quite masks the watchful alertness of a shepherd collie and said he sure did appreciate their continuing support, he’d try not to let ’ em down. Bo plays the role of laid-back good ol’ boy as well as anybody, but he runs a modern department. His officers have to keep themselves updated with regular classes at the community college, and he takes advantage of all the special techniques seminars that the SBI runs in Raleigh. Long as he wants to stay sheriff, Bo Poole’ll keep getting elected, and people gave him a good hand when he stepped away from the mike.

District judges come down near the end of the slate of candidates even though our judicial district comprises a three-county area. (On the ballot, we come after the sheriff but before clerk of the court, register of deeds, coroner, and county surveyor.) We can’t make campaign promises or take stands on particular issues. All we can do is state our background and expertise and promise to uphold the laws of this great land.

Running against me in the primary were three males. One, Luther Parker, was a tall gangling attorney from the next county who looked vaguely like a black Abe Lincoln without the beard. The other two were white, a fat attorney from Widdington and an earnest young assistant DA from Black Creek with a wonderful bass speaking voice that almost made you forget it had nothing to say. Harrison Hobart had let it be known-unofficially, of course-that he favored the ADA, “a man who thinks like me ’bout where the law ought to be going.”

It was unlikely that any of us would win a clear majority in the primary. I figured the two whites would probably cancel each other out, and then if all my relatives voted for me and if Parker pulled a big percentage of black votes, it’d probably come down to a runoff between him and me. At that point it’d turn into a real horse race. Far as I know, the only Colleton County woman ever elected to county-wide office has been Miss Callie Yelverton, our register of deeds, and she sort of inherited the job from her daddy, who first got himself elected about 1932.

Just because Democrats don’t pay as much attention to color and gender as Republicans doesn’t mean they don’t take both into account when they step inside the voting booth.

I’m white, but I’m female.

He’s male, but he’s black.

I’m single with some dirty linen I’d hate to have washed in public.

He’s a family man with a spotless reputation.