No Defense (31 page)

“Could you identify the man you saw get out
of the sheriff’s car?”

“No, I was too far away. He was white. The
man who got out of the other car was a Negro. The white man shot
him.”

“Was anyone else in the sheriff’s car?”
Junior asked.

“I couldn’t tell,” Jackson said.

“What did you do?”

“I got home fast and waited there for a few
hours. Then I went back up the road after everybody had done left
and there was the car crashed into the tree. Nothing else.”

“No further questions,” Junior said.

I peered over Daddy’s shoulder. He was
doodling on Chip’s yellow pad again. This time he’d drawn a
sheriff’s car with the star on the door and the light on top. A
figure sat at the wheel. Next to the car was a large shotgun and a
row of bullets streaming from the gun toward the driver of the
car.

“Mr. Jackson,” Chip said, standing up for
cross-examination, “when did you first tell this story you’ve just
told us?”

“A few months ago.”

“Who did you tell it to?”

“Mr. Fuller.” The witness pointed at
Junior.

“You’d never told the story to anyone before
this year, had you?”

“No, sir.”

“So for fifteen years you’ve kept this
vision you had a secret?”

“Objection,” Junior said. “There’s no
evidence that Mr. Jackson had a vision.”

“Fine,” Chip said. “For fifteen years you’ve
kept everything you just testified about a secret. Is that
correct?”

“Not a secret, ’xactly.”

“Well, why then didn’t you tell
someone?”

“Nobody asked me.”

“You don’t think a citizen has an obligation
to report a crime he witnesses at or near the time of the crime?
You believe you should wait until you’re contacted?”

“If you a Negro, ’specially back then, yes,
sir.”

“Do you know anyone in either Jimmy
Turnbow’s or Leon Johnson’s family?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who do you know?”

“I knows their mamas and most of their
brothers and sisters. We go to the same church.”

“It’s fair to say you are good friends with
both families isn’t it?” ‘

“We be friends.”

“They’re pretty happy about your testimony
here, aren’t they, Mr. Jackson?” Chip asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Haven’t you discussed your testimony with
members of their families over the last months?”

“No.”

“Haven’t you been in Jimmy Turnbow’s
mother’s house in the last two months?”

“Yes.”

“And in Leon Johnson’s mother’s house in the
last two months?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you claim never to have discussed
your testimony with them.”

“We didn’t.”

“Hard to believe,” Chip said.

“Objection,” Junior said.

“No further questions,” Chip said.

Washington Jackson stood up slowly and
looked out around the courtroom with unblinking eyes. If my father
hadn’t been on trial, I would have believed every word he said.

At the lunch break, I watched Mother leave
the courtroom and go down the hallway. She stopped at the
witness-room door and knocked. Jane came out; they hugged and
walked back in my direction toward one of the exit doors. I ducked
into the ladies’ room and waited until they and most of the other
spectators had time to leave for lunch. Jane was scheduled to take
the stand after the break. I knew I was the last person either of
them wanted to see at that moment.

The night before, after the first full day of
trial, Jessie and I had been reading
Runaway
Bunny
for the zillionth time when my mother called on the phone.

“Bad day, huh?” I said.

“I don’t want to think about that right
now,” Mother said. “I called to talk about your sister. She is very
nervous about her testimony tomorrow, her blood pressure is far too
high, and I’m worried,” she said. “Please, LuAnn. I’m asking you to
support her on this. It would mean so much to her.”

“She shouldn’t testify,” I said firmly.

“Oh, don’t start that again,” she said.
“She’s six months pregnant, and if she gets too upset she could
lose the baby, LuAnn. Don’t you care? After all she’s been through,
try to think of her. You know, she needs you a lot more now than he
does.”

“I just know what’s right, Mother.”

“I don’t think you have the slightest idea,”
she said.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

When Jane walked into the courtroom following
the lunch break I felt a flash of anger over what she was about to
do, as well as concern about how she looked. Her face was so
bloated that her eyes, always her best feature, appeared to be no
more than slits. She wasn’t wearing any of the rings she usually
wore; her fingers were too swollen. Her fingernails were gnawed to
the quick. She reminded me of the old farm women who came to town
for lunch now and again, women who had grown so obese that they
couldn’t stand without assistance from their husbands or sons.

Jane testified about as I expected, based on
what Mother had told me at the Labor Day picnic. She said that
Daddy woke her up on the evening of August 27, 1963, and asked her
to keep an eye on me, her then-twelve-year-old sister, while he
made sure Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson made it safely to the
university. He was worried about them, he told her, because of
several anonymous threats.

“When did he get home that night?”Junior
asked.

“I was asleep, so I’m not sure, “Jane said.
“Late.”

“Did he say anything to you the next
day?”

“He said that something terrible had
happened, someone had killed the boys. That he’d been at a bar
brawl and missed them by minutes. He was pale and upset.”

“Were you home on the night of September 4,
1963?”

“Yes.”

“Tell us what happened.”

“Two men came to the door, identified
themselves as FBI agents, and asked to speak to my father.”

“Did you get your father?”

“Yes. I called to him. He came in the room,
shook their hands, and told me to go on. I went to the
kitchen.”

“What did you hear after that?”

“I heard the agents say something, and then
I heard my father laughing.”

“Did you ever discuss that FBI visit with
him?”

“Yes. I asked what was going on after they
left. He said everything was fine, not to worry. He wouldn’t talk
about it other than to say that.”

“I don’t have any further questions,” Junior
said.

Chip stood up. “You said your father woke
you on the night of August 27, 1963, before he went out. Is that
correct, Mrs. Newton?” he asked.

“Yes, I was asleep.”

“What time was it?”

“Seven or seven-thirty.”

“Did you usually go to bed that early?”

“I’d just gotten home from summer school,
exams and all, and I was exhausted.” Jane’s cheeks were starting to
turn a little pink even though the courtroom wasn’t warm.

“School?” Chip asked. “What school was
that?”

Jane’s face flushed bright red. She looked
startled. The corners of her mouth dropped, and she began to cry
softly.

Someone from the other side of the aisle
said, “Goddamn you, Newell.” It sounded like my mother, but it
couldn’t be. She never cursed.

I turned to look. Mother’s hands were
clenched around the top back of the seat in front of her and her
face was contorted in anger.

“What school, Mrs. Newton? What courses did
you take? What dorm did you live in? Were you in a sorority?” Chip
asked Jane.

“Objection,” Junior said. “Let the witness
answer one question at a time.”

“Will you tell us why you were asleep,
please?” Chip asked.

“I was exhausted,” she said. She stopped
crying and got a stubborn look on her face that I knew well from
growing up with her. “I was sick with a virus.”

“Isn’t it true that you never went to
college that year?”

“No, that’s not true.”

“Fine, maybe you went, but didn’t you drop
out before the year ended and move out of the state? Remember,
you’re under oath, Mrs. Newton.”

Jane turned her attention to Daddy for the
first time since taking the stand. On her face was a look of sheer
disbelief mixed with absolute fury.

He stared right back, the muscles in his
neck tightening as they engaged in a silent battle of wills. His
fingers drummed an incessant beat on the defense table.

Jane sat there for what seemed a long time,
then slowly turned to Judge McNabb. “Do I have to answer?” she
asked.

“I’m afraid so,” he said.

Jane’s breath grew shallow as she became
even more distraught than she’d been after her last miscarriage.
What on earth was this about?

She slumped down and began to talk in a
whiny, pitiful voice. I had to strain to hear her. “I’d just gotten
home from Mississippi where I’d spent seven months at a cousin’s,”
she said. “I had a baby, gave it away before I ever even saw it,
and came home to recover. I wasn’t doing very well and was on some
kind of tranquilizer. That’s why I was asleep. Is that what you
wanted to know?” she asked, looking up defiantly at Chip. “Now you
do.”

“And you wanted to keep your child, didn’t
you?” Chip asked.

“Yes, I did, more than anything in the
world.”

“Who made the decision about what to do with
the child?”

“My father. He made all the decisions then,
just like he does now.” She looked sharply at Daddy.

He looked down and began to doodle on Chip’s
yellow pad.

“And at that time you would have done
anything to hurt him, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would have.”

“And isn’t that still true? Don’t you still
blame him for the loss of that child?”

“Yes.”

“And you hold him responsible for your
having so much trouble bearing children?”

“Yes, I do. The doctor there was a quack. He
did something to me, something dreadful. I blamed my father. I
hated him!” She began to sob. “I’m sorry, Buck!” she cried, and as
her cries steadily grew louder and wilder, Buck rushed up the aisle
to Jane.

“No further questions,” Chip said.

Buck avoided looking at my father as he
wrapped his arms around Jane and helped her walk out of the
courtroom.

I was horrified by the news of this baby, my
niece or nephew, who was no longer a baby but a child somewhere,
aged fifteen, and shocked that Chip would force Jane to testify
about her sad experience. Had that cross-examination really been
necessary?

I asked my father that question as we walked
out after court was adjourned for the day, not long after Jane left
the courtroom in tears.

“She shouldn’t have testified against me,”
he said. “You said so yourself, remember?”

“Yes, but ...” I didn’t know where to
start.

I kept jeans and a T-shirt, riding hat,
boots, and a box of sugar cubes in the trunk of my car for times
when I craved a ride on Glory. For a time like this.

I drove out to Miss Edwina’s farm, changed
clothes in the middle of the barn, and went out to set up the
jumps. For over a year I’d hardly jumped at all, certainly nothing
over two feet; I decided to try four feet.

Jumping a difficult course requires total
focus and in return gives the rider a thrill, a high that is
something akin to the exhilaration and intensity of falling in
love, just the sort of distraction I so desperately needed at that
moment.

Eddie hated my jumping Glory. “It’s a stupid
way to try to kill yourself,” he’d said once. “You could end up
crippled. Must be a better way if you’re so anxious to end it all.”
He’d only been half joking. But I wasn’t going to die. I’d only
fallen a few times in my whole life while taking jumps, and the
worst injury had been a broken arm when I was ten.

I set up a course of eight jumps, six at
three and a half feet, the last two at four feet. Glory had jumped
that high with her trainer, but never with me. I was ready, though.
After Jane’s testimony, I was ready for anything.