My Father and Atticus Finch (11 page)

   Chapter 19

“M
ISS
E
LIZABETH
,” Foster Beck said on cross-examination, speaking softly. “I have just a few questions, if you please.” He had thought long and hard about whether to cross-examine Elizabeth Liger at all, and if so how, but he had decided there was no choice. Something apparently had gone on between his client and the young white woman, but he did not think for one minute that it was rape. And he was curious about her mention of salve.

“You first went to see Charles White on a Monday, the day before what you just described, not on Tuesday, isn't that right, Miss Elizabeth?”

After some confusion about the days, Elizabeth Liger agreed that Monday was the first day she went to see Charles White. “He came to the store, he and that negro woman, Mary Etta. She called me out there on the front of the store and she told me he was a fortune-teller. She said, ‘That man in there was the best fortune-teller that had ever been put out in the state and he guaranteed it, and I wanted you to come down there and let him tell yours.' And, of course, I said ‘All right.'' I went down there to see him Monday.”

“You went alone?”

“I went by myself. I told him that I wanted to have three questions answered for a quarter. He said he could answer any three questions for a quarter. The first question was something about the right husband.”

“He said you would have a husband?”

“Yes, by the Fourth of July. I think the next question was whether I was going to have a pretty home and pretty furniture, and was I going to be happy, something like that, but I don't remember what he said. I think the third question was to describe my husband and how he looked. He said he was tall and curly-headed and had black curly hair, and then I think after that, he told me to come over there a minute that he was going to fix me up.”

“That was on Monday?”

“That was on Monday. He told me to come over there and he would put some of that salve and rub on it, and he said it was about closed up now. He said he was going to fix it so this boy when he come could open it and have more fun.”

“And he rubbed salve on you that same day, that Monday?”

“Yes, he rubbed some salve on me then. That was the first time he rubbed any on me. He rubbed right down there—on my private parts. I stood up and he pulled up my dress and rubbed the salve on it. I was standing up. I had on my shorts then. He didn't pull them off then, he just got them down there on this side and just rubbed it on.”

“On your private parts?”

“Yes, he got it up in there. I asked him what was that for. He said he was going to, you know, make it open wider.”

“What did you say?”

“I didn't say anything. I stood there I reckon about a minute or two. When he got through rubbing that salve I pulled my dress down. I knew that he gave a full reading. I told him I was going to come back Tuesday and let him give me a full reading.”

“And you said this after he put the salve on you?”

“That was after he had put the salve on me.”

“How long were you with him that Monday?”

“I was in the room with Charles something like forty-five or fifty minutes or an hour. I didn't stay in there long after he rubbed the salve on me. I talked to him about a full reading. That was all I talked about.”

“And then?”

“When I came out of the room I stood there and talked to Mary Etta a little bit. I reckon I talked about ten or fifteen minutes to her. After that I went back home. I went to the store. Mr. Mance Scarbrough and my brother, Harold, run the store. Mr. Scarbrough is a clerk there. I told Mr. Scarbrough about going down there and having this fortune told, and I told him about paying the quarter and getting the three questions answered.”

“Did you tell him about the salve?”

“Yes, I told him about Charles rubbing the salve on me. I told him everything.”

“Did you tell your brother?”

“I didn't tell anybody else about that, just Mr. Scarbrough.”

“When did you next see Charles White?”

“It was about the same time the next day when I went down there—about 2:30.”

“You brought him some money?”

“Yes, I had my dollar.”

“And where did you get that dollar?”

“I got it at the store. Mr. Mance Scarbrough gave it to me after I told him what I was going to do with it.”

This produced some chuckles and head-shaking in the audience; most people knew that Mance had never given away a dollar to anyone in his life.

“And then you went back to see Charles White with the dollar? Did he use any salve that time?”

“When he gave me the dollar reading he rubbed some salve on me. When he got through with the reading, he told me he was going to fix me up real good for twelve dollars. I told him that I wanted a husband and a home and two children, a boy and a girl, and that I didn't want my brother and my mother to be mad with me, and he said he could get that. I asked him how much he would charge and he told me it was twelve dollars. I told him I would go home and get what I had, that I didn't have but only ten dollars and he told me that would be all right and to bring the ten dollars and owe him two dollars, and after that I said to him, ‘No, I haven't got but $8.65,' and he said, ‘Well, that will do, just bring me what you have.' When I came back nobody showed me how to go in the room there . . .”

At this point, the transcript reflects that the witness began weeping, but the court instructed that the examination proceed.

“I don't remember how long I was in there the second time [on Tuesday]. When I gave him the $8.65 he did not [sic] take an eye-water dropper and make a cross on me. He took that and put it on my breasts.”

“With an eye-dropper?”

“Yes, sir, with an eye-dropper. He said some kind of a prayer or something. Yes, this man got on top of me. That is all I know, what I told you a while ago.”

“And you spoke with Mary Etta when you left?”

“When I left there I went out of the house the back way. I saw Mary Etta in the backyard at the washtub. I think another woman was in the house. I don't know. I wasn't talking to anybody but Mary Etta.”

“You know Mary Etta's daughter, Carrie Louise. Did you speak to her?”

“I don't remember passing Carrie Louise. I saw Mary Etta. I told her he got on top of me and told her what he done to me. I told her that he had just told me I was going to have a husband and children and I was going to get a husband before the Fourth of July, but I don't remember what else I told her. I might have told Carrie Louise good-bye. I don't remember.”

“Did you make a complaint to Etta or Carrie Louise?”

“I did not make any complaint to them.”

“You were not crying then?” Foster hoped Elizabeth would confirm that she was not crying; Carrie Louise had told him that Miss Elizabeth was not crying, and he didn't want to have to put a teenaged colored girl's word against a white's.

“I was not crying then. I cried after I told Mr. Scarbrough. I told Mr. Scarbrough that this man told me he was going to fix me up, that I was going to have a husband and two children, and I told about him rubbing the salve on me and putting me on the bed and getting on top of me and that was when he took the phone and called up Harold.”

Foster then asked the witness the following question: “How did he tell you that he was going to fix you up? With a husband and home, didn't he, and that was what he meant, wasn't it?”

The State objected to this question and the court sustained the objection.

“You didn't talk to your brother about it at all?” Foster asked.

The State objected to this question but there was no ruling, and the witness answered, “No, sir.”

The defense then asked, “Miss Elizabeth, I will ask you again if this isn't a fact that this negro was polite and courteous to you all the time that you were there?”

The State objected to this question and the court sustained the objection. Mr. McCartha recorded that the defendant reserved an exception to the ruling.

“You have anything else before we go to lunch, Foster?” Judge Parks asked.

Foster did not want to stand between the jury and lunch. “Let me think about it while we all have lunch, Judge, if I may. But I do want to reserve an exception to your last ruling . . .”

“Already noted. We'll resume at one o'clock sharp,” Judge Parks announced, bringing down his gavel.

“All rise,” sang out the assistant clerk in his signature Boston accent, and all stood respectfully, moved by the drama they had just witnessed.

   Chapter 20

M
Y FATHER
was a prudish man, so I am not surprised that he never said anything to me about a “salve.” Most likely, he did not know anything about the alleged application until Elizabeth Liger took the stand. As a lawyer who has been surprised by what a witness said in a deposition or in court testimony, I can well imagine what transpired during the brief meeting my father was afforded with his client, before the two had separate lunches.

“I'm telling this jury my side, lawyer,” Charles White announced to Foster the moment Sheriff Reeves left them alone. Out of the presence of the jury, he was once again manacled.

“Charles,” Foster said, “I've already said I don't want you testifying, and I've explained why. That's all there is to it. We don't have time to argue over it. Now what's all this about salve?”

“
Shee-uh
. I didn't touch that girl.”

“You didn't?”

“You think I'm crazy coming to a town full of crackers, rubbing salve on a white girl's pussy?” Charles rattled his chains at the absurdity.

Foster's head was spinning. He didn't quite believe nothing had happened involving salve, although what Charles White said made sense. He would have to have been crazy to do a thing like that in Troy. “Then how do you explain what she said about your rubbing her down there with salve?”

“It's not
my
job, lawyer, explainin' what this crazy white girl's doin' with the salve.”

“What do you mean ‘doing with the salve'? Was she doing it to herself?”

“
Shee-uh
.” Charles White grinned. It was the first time Foster remembered him grinning, although it was a grin of contempt. “They all put it on they selves and rub with their fingers till they get off. Don't you know about nothing?”

“So you're saying
she
put it on?”

“I'm sayin' I didn't touch her pussy with no salve.”

Foster was becoming impatient. He was pretty sure Charles was not telling him everything that went on between him and Elizabeth Liger. It was just too strange for Elizabeth Liger to have made up such a story out of whole cloth, and Charles was not saying there was no salve, just being cagey about who did what to whom with it.

Did it matter who rubbed salve on Elizabeth Liger? Maybe, maybe not, though he was curious. “Did you see her do it? Are you telling me you watched her put salve on her private parts?”

“Time's up,” Sheriff Reeves announced. “You boys have to kiss bye-bye.” The sheriff grabbed the slack in the chain that bound Charles White's wrists and jerked, but Charles stayed put in his chair. “Get your ass up, boy!” Sheriff Reeves shouted, reaching with his free hand for the billy club on his belt. Charles still wouldn't get up, but he looked to his attorney—the first time Foster remembered
Charles doing so for help, not in contempt. It was a small thing, but it was something.

“Sheriff, don't you yank him again,” Foster said, moving between the two larger men. Then, turning to his client, he said, “Go on with him, Charles. We'll talk more at the next recess.”

F
OSTER HAD
less than half an hour to decide whether to continue his cross-examination of Elizabeth Liger. He was hesitant to challenge her further about being raped, only to have the jury hear her swear again how Charles had pulled up her clothes, how she cried but it didn't do any good. As for what she did say, Foster suspected he could make her admit she stole the money from her brother's store, though maybe it was better to let that rest. He'd heard the laughter when she'd said that Mance Scarbrough gave her money, so the jury knew she'd lied. In the mind of the jury, did that lie make her a liar about Charles White?

And what to ask about the salve? Elizabeth Liger had gone back on Tuesday, after the first application, for “a full reading.” Why? Did she in fact go back for more salve and rubbing? Dr. Stewart's report of his examination, which the jury would see, said there were no signs of violence to her private parts. So she must have consented to whatever went on—although twelve white jurors would not want to hear that a local white woman consented to some kind of strange sexual activity with a Negro.

From a window of the second floor, Foster watched small knots of white men amble back to the courthouse. Many of them were returning from bounteous noonday dinners at their homes in town—dinners of vine-ripe tomatoes, fresh cantaloupes, barbecued
ribs, fried chicken, icebox lemon pie—the kinds of big, heavy dinners their fathers and grandfathers used to require after a hard morning of farm work in the fields. These town-dwelling store clerks and office workers no longer needed all that food in the middle of the day, but the habit was strong, and besides, it all tasted so good. And so they would cling to their big noon dinners, maybe cutting back at supper. As for those from rural parts of the county who had come too far in their mule-drawn wagons to go home for dinner, they would have had their wives pack delicious, home-cooked meals of pork chops and hard-fried egg-and-bacon sandwiches. Others—men without wives—would have made do at a general store across from the courthouse, where they could purchase “white meat”—pork fat that was battered and fried—along with homemade biscuits, ribbon cane syrup, bottles of chocolate milk, Buffalo Rock sodas, moon pies. At least Foster's meal of cold hoecake, ham, and a slice of blackberry cobbler was free. The Negro porter at the hotel had said, with a conspiratorial wink, that it was “on the house.”