No Defense (18 page)

Two weeks passed. I was walking across the
quad, fighting a strong, chilling wind, when he appeared out of
nowhere, looking as though he’d never left, carrying a notebook and
a textbook under his arm.

“You’re back,” I said dryly, looking past
him.

“I had to get here for my poetry seminar
this morning. It was my turn to make a presentation,” he said.

“That’s the only reason you came back?”

“Of course not.”

I sighed and frowned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“What do you think? You took off. I had no
idea where you were or what you were doing, if you were dead or
alive, if you would ever come back.”

“I was riding my motorcycle around, very
much alive.”

“For two weeks?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee.”

“With?”

“Nobody.”

I looked at him skeptically. The wind picked
up, driving the small piles of autumn leaves into a frenetic
airborne dance.

“I have never lied to you,” he said. “And I
swear I never will.”

Starting to cry, I snapped my down jacket
closed and began to walk away.

Eddie grabbed my arm and guided me to a
stone bench next to the sidewalk marking the quad’s perimeter. We
sat down.

“Why would you do that, right after we
talked about ...” I asked, crying.

“To think about what we talked about.
Getting married was not something I’d planned on doing any time
soon-until I met you. I needed time to be alone, that’s all.”

Tears ran down my cheeks, onto my jacket and
jeans. My head was bent down and my long straight hair fell across
the sides of my face.

“You know what my seminar talk was on this
morning?” he asked.

I shook my head. “You.”

I eyed him suspiciously.

“No, really. About how special we are. What
I feel for you is not like anything I’ve ever known. LuAnn, how
many other people do you think have what we do?” He opened his
textbook to a paper-clipped page and pointed to a poem.

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

When you are old and grey and full of
sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this
book,

And slowly read, and dream of the sift
look

Your eyes had once, and if their shadows
deep;

How many loved your moments if glad
grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or
true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in
you,

And loved the sorrows if your changing
face;

And bending down beside the glowing
bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd if stars.

“Especially these lines,” he said,
underlining with his finger the words “But one man loved the
pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing
face.”

“What about these?” I asked, pointing to the
last verse. “You fled. You ran away from me.”

“I didn’t, LuAnn. I went looking for you.”
Then he moved my hair out of my face with his hand, turned my head,
and looked at me to see if I understood what he meant.

I did. “Here I am,” I said.

Eddie was the only person I’d ever known who
could talk to me about my soul and not sound silly.

But that was a long time ago.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

A group of Tallagumsa High cheerleaders
celebrating their number-one rating at the national cheerleader
camp in Mississippi filled the usually quiet time during the
afternoon lull with giggles and high-pitched squeals.

I managed to relax with a cup of Sanka in my
corner booth anyway, where I read a
Birmingham News
story
about the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown.

Ben finished a brief interview session with
the Coffee Club. After they left, he stayed in his seat and opened
the mail he’d picked up at the post office. From the corner of my
eye, I could see him glance over at me. I looked over; he turned
away and then stared down at his mail. We played this cat-and-mouse
game for several minutes. What’s he up to? I wondered. The first
thing that came to mind-the very worst thing I could think of--was
that his wife had written to announce that she was pregnant. (He’d
only been home to D.C. once since he got to town and had never said
a word about the visit upon his return.) Or maybe she’d decided to
come down for a visit. I couldn’t imagine having her in my
restaurant or watching her walk down First Avenue with him.

Finally, he came over to my booth and sat
down across from me.

“Want some more coffee?” I asked.

“No,” he said. He set his pile of mail on
the table. An assortment of letters and bills was on the top. A
large manila envelope was on the bottom. He kept one hand on the
mail, as though we were outside on a windy day. He looked odd to
me, not quite the Ben I knew, as though his features had shifted
slightly out of place. He cleared his throat, swallowed, and looked
around the room. “I need a cigarette,” he said.

“You don’t smoke,” I said.

“I used to.” He got up, walked around behind
the booth to the cigarette machine in the coat room, and bought a
burgundy-and-white pack of Carltons. He returned, lit up, and
started coughing.

“What is going on?” I demanded.

“I just got some information that I, um ...”
His voice trailed off. He seemed mesmerized by the smoke curling up
from his cigarette.

“What, Ben? What’s the big mystery? Would
you look at me, please.”

He took a deep breath and met my eyes. “This
manila envelope has the FBI documents, all unredacted. Someone from
the Justice Department leaked them to my boss.”

“That’s great! Can I see?” I reached for the
envelope.

“Just a second,” he said sharply. He clamped
his hand over mine.

“All right! I won’t touch it. What’s the
matter with you? You are acting very strange.”

He sat quietly for a moment, then sighed
loudly and released my hand. “Jesus! I don’t know what to do,” he
said. “Here, you might as well read them too.” He removed the
papers from the envelope and gently pushed them toward me. He took
another drag on his cigarette and coughed again.

Clipped on top of the papers was a note
handwritten on a piece of
Washington Star
stationery. It
read:

Ben,

A good friend at Justice gave these to me
after he read the article you wrote about Newell Hagerdom and the
Alabama governor’s race. Looks like your book might have to
wait.

-Frank

The FBI documents were attached to the note.
This time nothing was blacked out.

MEMO

To: Carl Best, Chief, Atlanta Field
Office

From: Special Agent Dorr

Re: Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson

Date: August 28, 1963

I have confirmed that a Bureau informant,
Dean Reese, was in the car involved in the murders. Thus I expect a
speedy resolution of the matter. Hopefully, the State of Alabama
will bring indictments here. Perhaps they will be able to get
convictions with the help of Reese’s eyewitness testimony. If the
State refuses to go forward, however, as often occurs in these
cases, this would definitely be a candidate for federal civil
rights charges.

MEMO

To: Carl Best, Chief, Atlanta Field
Office

From: Special Agent Dorr

Re: Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson

Date: August 30, 1963

Dean Reese has provided me with the names
and addresses of the men in the car with him: Newell Hagerdorn and
Floyd Waddy. Agent Moon and I will attempt to interview each of
them and other possible witnesses. As always in this kind of case,
if we can secure even one cooperative witness (in addition to
Reese) we will be lucky, particularly here where, according to
Reese, one of the men who was with him that night and the one
responsible for pulling the trigger is the Sheriff of Tallagumsa,
Alabama, the town outside of which the killings occurred.

For what it’s worth, there is a rumor around
town that they were shot by someone whose daughter was involved
with one of them.

MEMO

To: Carl Best, Chief, Atlanta Field
Office

From: Special Agent Dorr

Re: Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson

Date: September 5, 1963

As you know, it appears that the shells
found at the scene of the crime came from the Sheriff’s personal
gun which Reese turned over to us. The fingerprints on the gun
haven’t been checked yet. We spoke with Hagerdom and Waddy, the two
men named by Reese. Floyd Waddy was indignant; he has a strong
alibi. Sheriff Newell Hagerdom laughed at us.

As I mentioned over the phone, we may have
serious problems here. After spending a few days in town, we’ve
discovered that Reese has a reputation for being an extremely
unstable alcoholic known for violent and unpredictable behavior.
This was not a complete surprise. We had some reason to believe
that there were problems with Reese. In a similar Mississippi case
his evidence proved unreliable. We had kept him on the payroll
though because we had no one else in the area. I have set up a
meeting with him tonight.

MEMO (marked URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL)

To: David Metzger, Assistant to the
Director

From: Carl Best, Chief, Atlanta Field
Office

Re: Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson

Date: September 7, 1963

We recommend strongly that the Bureau cease
all involvement in the investigation of the above-mentioned deaths
and that we not reveal any of the information gathered to anyone,
including State authorities. Without our involvement, they will not
bring a case. As you pointed out, Reese’s suicide has thrown the
case into a tailspin. Not only is our best evidence gone, but any
trial might result in serious embarrassment to the Bureau and the
Justice Department and damage our chances of successfully pursuing
other civil rights cases in the Deep South. In short, it would do
far more harm than good.

A few more interviews have been scheduled,
just to tie up loose ends. One is with Liz Reese, the wife. It is
unclear whether she’ll cooperate. We understand that the Reeses’
marriage was a very troubled one.

I put the FBI documents down on the table. I
felt my face flush hot and red and heard my heart beating loudly in
my ears. Instantly the din from the cheerleaders receded, and it
seemed that Ben and I were growing larger and larger, turning into
giants who towered over all the irrelevant specks of people around
us, people too tiny to see or hear or care about.

“What could that mean?” I asked, trying to
make some sense of what I’d just read.

Ben took my hand in his. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not. Who wrote this? It’s not real,
of course. It’s some sort of hoax or a very bad joke,” I said.

“How can you be sure?” he asked.

I jerked my hand free and put it in my lap,
then glared at him. “Of course I’m sure. You don’t believe this, do
you?”

“I just opened that envelope a few minutes
ago and thought I had to show the documents to you,” he said.
“Beyond that, I haven’t thought about what they mean. I know as
much about them as you do.”

Cleo walked up and interrupted us. “You have
a phone call, LuAnn.”

“I’ll call them back,” I snapped. I didn’t
bother to look up at her.

“But it’s the Alabama Best Milk accountant
you’ve been calling for two days,” she said.

“I said I’ll call him back!” I insisted,
turning toward her.

Cleo shook her head as she walked away.

“It’s ridiculous, Ben,” I continued. “You
should write them back and make them do something about it.”

“Write who? The Justice Department? The
FBI?”

“Whoever you need to write to see that these
lies are fixed. It’s obviously a political dirty trick by someone
who doesn’t want Daddy to win the election. That Republican who
just entered the race-Ollie Beckwith, maybe him. Your newspaper
should know better than to send out this kind of trash.” I tore my
paper napkin into little pieces as I talked.

“Look,” Ben said. “My editor sent me these,
not some kook. I’ve worked for Frank for five years, and he is the
most honest man I know. He wouldn’t have sent them if he didn’t
believe they were honest-to-God FBI documents. His source had to be
unimpeachable or I wouldn’t have them.”

“Could we sue the FBI, then, to correct
them?”

“Don’t you want to ask your father about
this before you start filing lawsuits?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’m sure there’s an easy explanation for
all of this. Just ask your father. He can probably clear it up in a
second.”

“Of course he could if he knew anything
about it, but he doesn’t, Ben. Don’t you see that I would know all
about this if there were a shred of truth to it? I’m not a stranger
here like you are. I would know. There’s no way something this big
could be kept a secret.”