Buried Memories (29 page)

“Does it surprise you to know that I don’t know where Gerald Albright lives?”

“No, Ray, I don’t have any idea what you know,” Bone said, turning his shoulder to E. Ray as if he was bored by the conversation.

“Do you know anything about Jimmy Don Beets?” Andrews asked.

“I don’t have the slightest idea. I didn’t know he’d been killed ’til I read it in the paper.”

“Okay, back to when you called Rick Rose. Did you leave the number of the pay phone for him?”

“Yeah. He called back in five or ten minutes,” Bone said.

“He just wanted to know, Ray, when you comin’?” Andrews asked.

“No, he wanted to know when Betty was comin’.”

“How long after you hung up from Rick Rose was Betty Beets arrested?”

Bone scanned the ceiling of the courtroom, trying to come up with a time. “Oh, probably thirty minutes.”

“When they arrested her, did they arrest you too?”

“They arrested me, then they turned me loose.”

“When you’re talking about being arrested, did they put you alongside the car?”

“No, they put me down face first in the middle of the highway.”

“Then you weren’t arrested.”

“I had handcuffs on me and I was pretty well arrested as far as I’m concerned.” Bone smirked.

“After Betty got to the jail here, did you call down and talk to her?” Andrews asked.

“Yes.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I was asking what she wanted.”

“Such as?”

“Well hey, what I talk to Betty about ain’t none of your business.”

Murmurs rumbled through the courtroom at Bone’s disrespect.

“I bet it’s the court’s and the jury’s business,” E. Ray shot back.

“We weren’t talking about this case,” Bone said, looking down, suddenly interested in his fingernails.

“What was you discussing?” E. Ray asked.

“Betty had nothing to tell me,” Bone said, probably remembering his recent prison term where nothing was lower than a snitch.

“Was she talking about you and Gerald Albright?” Ray Bone and Gerald Albright fascinated E. Ray because they were friends, and because a drunken Betty Beets had lain in bed with Albright and confessed to burying someone in her yard.

“Betty has nothing to tell on me or Gerald Albright. I’ve known him for forty-two years.”

“When was the last time you talked with him?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“You don’t have the slightest idea when you talked to someone you’ve known for forty-two years?”

“That’s right.”

“Where does he live?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

“Ever been to his house?” E. Ray moved closer and his brows drew together in an angry frown.

“I’ve never been to his house.”

“Does he live in Kauffman County?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea,” Bone said, continuing in his sullen manner.

“Well, where in the last forty-two years has he lived?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea. I take care of my business, and Gerald takes care of his.”

“What kind of business does he do?”

“He keeps an ad in the paper. You just have to look in there.”

“What does it say, hot cars?” Now the testimony had degenerated to nasty insinuations, with attorney and witness trying to out-nasty each other. “Have you run an ad in the paper?”

“No, I haven’t lately. Did you read in the paper that I had an ad there?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea,” E. Ray said, happy to zing one of Bone’s lines back at him.

Judge Holland grabbed his gavel to silence the laughter, but the courtroom crowd took the hint and quieted down.

“You seem to be talking about all this stuff that you should have been asking a long time ago,” Bone said. “You should have gone to the DA’s office to get some charges filed against me, because it seems like you know a lot that I don’t.”

In exasperation, E. Ray turned to Judge Holland. “I’m trying to ask him some questions, Judge.”

“Mr. Bone,” Holland said, “please answer the questions that are asked by the lawyers.”

“How long had you been in the penitentiary?” E. Ray said.

“Seven or eight years.”

E. Ray took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked drained as he passed the witness to Bandy and gratefully fell into his chair.

Bill Bandy picked up some photographs from the evidence table and handed them to Bone. “Could you please identify these for me.”

Ray thumbed through the pictures. “This is the wishing well, that’s the shed, and that’s Betty’s trailer.”

“Mr. Bone, who looks after those flowers out there in the wishing well?”

“Betty.”

“Does she mow the yard?”

“She never did want anyone else to mow her yard.”

Bandy went to the bar in front of the jury. Leaning on it, he said, “She spent a lot of time looking after those flowers?”

“I know she had flowers all over the porch and everywhere else. She spent a lot of time in her yard, period.”

“Did you know at the time you were living there that Doyle Wayne Barker was buried out there under the shed?”

“No, sir.”

Bandy passed Ray Bone to Andrews for redirect.

“Did you know at the time or did Mrs. Beets tell you that Robby Branson killed Jimmy Don Beets?”

“No, sir, she never told me anything like that.”

“She didn’t tell you that
she
killed anybody?”

“No.”

E. Ray sighed in relief and released Bone, who swaggered out the door.

The witness who had been promised stepped daintily to the stand. Betty Beets smiled shyly at E. Ray and nodded briefly to the jurors.

To add to her demure pretense, Andrews cautioned Betty, “Now you’re gonna have to talk loud enough for everyone to hear you.”

“All right,” she said softly.

“Have you ever been in trouble before?”

“Not that ever amounts to anything,” Betty answered.

“You might want to tell me about a misdemeanor offense in Dallas. Something that concerned a husband, correct?”

“Yes, my second husband, Bill Lane. He told the judge that my shooting him was his fault, so the court reduced my charge to a misdemeanor and fined me one hundred dollars. Another fifty dollars in court costs.”

Having that antiseptically out of the way, E. Ray led her through the facts that by now were well known to the court, and everyone else in Henderson County. He talked about her trip to Virginia where her mother had testified that she and Jimmy Don got along well.

“If I asked if Jimmy Don Beets was missing in the lake,” Andrews said, “would that be true or false?”

“False,” Betty answered.

“What happened to Jimmy Don Beets?”

Betty started at the beginning of Jimmy Don’s last day, itemizing whom he had talked with, the errands he ran, and continued describing a very ordinary day for two people who lived at the Cedar Creek Lake.

“We took the boat to get gas for the races the next day, and Jimmy Don began griping about all the work he put into the boat and what a mess it was after we returned from vacation.

“We went home and watched TV, then got ready for bed.”

“Do you sleep in the same bedroom?”

“Yes, but we never went to bed.”

“How come?”

“When Jimmy Don had gone to the bedroom, I went to put my dog in the kitchen like I do every night. By the time I got to the living room, Robby came in.”

“Now Robby is the older boy?”

“Yes. Jimmy Don heard him come in. Jimmy Don had been drinking all day and he was pretty well drunk, and he was mad.”

“What did he do when Robby came in?”

“Jimmy Don came into the living room and said, ‘Robert, did you quit your job?’ Robby said he did. Then Jimmy Don started griping about the messed-up boat and the motorcycle. Also about my truck. I had four flat tires and it was all muddy. The house had been a mess. Coins we owned were thrown all over a dresser.

“I asked Jimmy Don to calm down, that we’d talk about it in the morning. He turned and went back to the bedroom, and Robby went into the bathroom. When Robby came out, I heard them fighting. I was startled at first. I didn’t know what was going on.”

“They were fighting in the bedroom and there were loud voices?” Andrews said, making sure the jury had heard.

“They were yelling at each other. I had started for the bedroom when I heard a shot.”

At this point in her trial, Betty made a production of manufacturing tears. She sniffled loudly while tightly clutching a Kleenex. Snickers filtered through the courtroom.

“Did you hear one shot or more?” E. Ray asked.

“I only remember hearing one shot.”

“What did you do then?”

Betty reached for a fresh Kleenex and dabbed her eyes. “I got to the bedroom and found Jimmy Don on the floor. Robby was standing just inside the door. I sat down beside Jimmy Don.”

“Did Robby have a gun in his hand?”

“No, but I found one a few minutes later.”

“Did it look like that gun there?” Andrews asked, pointing to the gun that the prosecution had placed into evidence.

“It looked similar to it.”

“Do y’all have two guns that look like that?”

“We have three guns that look like that.”

Realizing he should have cleared that point with Betty so the jury wouldn’t think she owned an arsenal, E. Ray hurried on. “Was Jimmy Don facedown, or how was he laying?”

“He was kinda on his back and side. His head was bleeding and there was blood coming from his mouth.”

“What did you do then?”

“I reached up and got a bedspread. I don’t remember anything about a sleeping bag, but I do remember a bedspread. I was sitting beside Jimmy Don, and Robby said, ‘Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.’ Then he asked me to help him.”

“Did you try to talk with Jimmy Don?”

“I held Jimmy Don for a few minutes and tried to tell him what I was doing and why. I told him how much I loved him. And I know if he could be here, if he could see me, he’d say he understood that I had to help Robby,” Betty said, as if she had rehearsed a script.

“How come you felt like you had to help him?”

“I remember when he was a little boy of eight, I took him to live with his daddy. He looked up at me and asked when he could come home again. I said soon, but I knew that wouldn’t be. He didn’t come to live with me ’til he was eighteen.”

Betty ran through the facts of the case, telling about Robby going on a bike ride, Shirley coming down with her husband, and everything else that had been attested to by her family, but she cleverly rearranged the facts so they suited her story. At E. Ray’s prompting, she frequently added new details.

“Back in the bedroom,” Andrews said, “did you put a sheet over Mr. Beets?”

“I put the bedspread on him. When I rolled him over onto the spread, the gun was under him, so I picked it up and put it in the nightstand.”

“When Robby came back in, had Mr. Beets already been placed?” Andrews asked.

“He was still laying in the bedroom,” Betty told him.

Then disregarding the fact that Robby had to have seen Jimmy Don if he had killed him, Andrews asked, “Did Robby ever see him?”

Incredulously, Betty answered, “No,” telling her attorney that the son she accused of killing Jimmy Don hadn’t seen the man.

She also turned around the fact that Robby had helped her bury Jimmy Don to that she had helped Robby. She denied having peat moss hidden under her trailer, ready to cover the grave, and insisted she bought it the next day.

“Would your check for that peat moss be dated that next day?” E. Ray asked.

Betty assured him it would, but she produced no check as evidence.

Again, E. Ray revisited the reasons for Betty helping her son.

“Robby was on probation,” Betty told him. “He had just gotten six years. I said to Jimmy Don, “I couldn’t do anything else.’ ” Then she turned to the jury and said, “I guess I could have too. I could have told the truth, but I had to help him.”

Then there was the matter of the insurance that Betty had tried to take out with J. C. Penney, in addition to hiring lawyers to have Jimmy Don declared dead so she could collect on his policies and pension. E. Ray continued trying to put out fires, and establish that it was Jimmy Don, not Betty, who suggested trying to collect on the life insurance policies.

He asked, “Do you know how much insurance Jimmy Don Beets has?”

“No.”

“Do you know how much his retirement fund was?”

“I didn’t even know anything about a retirement fund.”

“You heard the lady testify about the J. C. Penney insurance application, and we didn’t object to that, and that’s in evidence. Did you sign his name?”

“Yes, I did,” Betty admitted, adding that Jimmy Don had never objected to her signing his name when he was living.

Betty also acknowledged signing her husband’s name to sell the boat, cleverly sliding over the fact that she didn’t own it, and never mentioning her fictitious power of attorney.

Andrews still had another task. He needed to clarify that Betty wasn’t the hard-hearted woman who could dump a dead husband in a planter and get on with her life. He asked, “Did it bother you that Jimmy Don was out there in the front yard, dead?”

Through more sniffling, she said, “Oh yes. Every day. It bothered me and it always will. I had to move out of that trailer for a while. When it’d go dark, I couldn’t leave the living room and I couldn’t go outside.”

After keeping Betty on the witness stand all morning, Andrews prepared to wrap up his questions, and wanted to leave on a positive note.

“Are you owning up to your part in covering up for your son?”

“Yes, I am.”

“They have this indictment that you pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Jimmy Don Beets. Is that the truth?”

“No. I could never hurt Jimmy Don.”

“Did you love Jimmy Don?”

“I loved him. No one’s ever been as good to me as he was.”

“Do you love your son Robby?”

“Who?” she asked, adjusting her hearing aid.

“I said, do you love your son Robby?”

“Yes. I love all my children. No matter what they say, what they do, it won’t ever stop that.”