Turning Angel (26 page)

Sonny pulls a tin of Skoal from his shirt pocket, dips his thumb and forefinger into the snuff, then packs it between his lower lip and gum. ”I got some things working,“ he says, putting the Explorer in gear. ”I’ll let you know something, one way or another.“

”What do you have working?“ I ask anxiously.

He winks and grins. ”Don’t ask, don’t tell, right? Later, bud.“

The Explorer’s tires squeal as Sonny skids around the silent bell and roars back toward the highway.

The early afternoon passed without surprises. Shad Johnson cussed out the chief of police for arresting Drew, but he did nothing else about it. The whereabouts of Cyrus White remained unknown. My father spoke to Quentin Avery, but the famed civil rights lawyer did not promise anything beyond ”giving some thought to your son’s situation.“ I picked up Annie from school at three and drove her to softball practice at Liberty Park. I often stay and watch her practices, when I’m not drafted into coaching myself.

She’s hitting well today, but her fielding is less than spectacular. The coach ends practice early for some reason, and Annie walks over with a dejected expression on her face. I’m about to console her when my cell phone rings. The ID says it’s my father.

”Hey, Dad. What’s up?“

”Quentin Avery just called me.“

A fillip of excitement runs through me. ”Yeah?“

”He says he’s bringing a lawyer by my office, one who’d be perfect for defending Drew. He wants you to meet him. Can you get away?“

”Hell, yes. What time?“

”Daddy, you’re cursing again,“ Annie reminds me.

I smile and tug on her ponytail. ”What time?“

”Now. Quentin already had an appointment to get his foot checked, so I guess he figured he’d kill two birds with one stone.“

”Who’s the lawyer?“

”He didn’t say.“

”Okay, fine. I’m on my way. I just have to drop Annie off.“

”Was that Papa?“ Annie asks when I hang up.

”How did you know?“

”By the way you talk to him. It’s different than when you talk to me.“

Annie has more intuition than I ever did. ”You’re just like your mother, girl.“

All the humor goes out of her face. ”Am I really?“

”You are. Just like her.“

After we get in the car and start toward the highway, Annie says, ”You and Caitlin haven’t been talking much lately, have you?“

”No. She’s pretty busy up in Boston.“

Annie mulls this over. ”It sure seems like it. But I thought she’d come down and visit us more often.“

”I did, too, punkin. So did Caitlin. Work is something adults don’t have a lot of choice about sometimes.“
Although in this case that’s not true.

”Can I ask you something personal, Daddy?“

”Sure, Boo.“

”Is Mia too young for you?“

The question leaves me speechless.

”I mean, I know she is,“ Annie goes on, ”but she seems really mature for her age, and I really like her a lot. She doesn’t seem at all like the other high school kids, you know? She reads the same kind of books you do, and she’s really pretty, and—“

”Annie.“

My daughter’s eyes go wide, as though she’s hoping for good news but expecting bad.

I reach over and squeeze her hand. ”Mia’s got a lot to do before it’s time for her to settle down, baby. She has to go to college and figure out what she’s going to do with her life. Just like you will in about ten years.“

”Nine years,“ Annie corrects. ”I’ll be eighteen in nine years. I just thought she’d be a cool mom, that’s all. For somebody, you know?“

”I think you’re right.“ I lean over and hug her to my chest so she can’t see the tears welling in my eyes. My daughter so desperately needs a maternal figure, and I have failed to provide one. Right now—for the first time, really—I feel true anger at Caitlin for spending so much time away. I don’t think she was honest with me or with herself when she took her latest ”temporary“ assignment.

”I need to run down to Papa’s office for a while, Boo. I’ll see if I can get Mia to sit, okay?“

”Okay,“ she says in a bored voice, as though seeing Mia holds no excitement whatever.

I take out my cell phone and speed-dial Mia’s number.

Chapter
19

My father’s private office is a library devoted to medicine and military history. Scale models of World War Two tanks and planes stand beside ships from the Napoleonic era, and hand-painted lead soldiers guard every bookshelf in the room.

”How’s Drew holding up?“ Dad asks from behind his desk. My father is six feet tall with white hair, a silver beard, and piercing eyes that have witnessed most of the ways the human body and soul can fail.

”It’s hard to tell.“

”Did that drug dealer named in the paper kill Kate Townsend?“

”I honestly don’t know.“

”You don’t look very confident. What’s your worst fear, Penn?“

I haven’t really thought about it that way. ”To anyone but you, I’d have answered it’s that Drew will be wrongfully convicted of murder.“

”But to me?“

I close my eyes, and when I speak, the truth emerges as though by its own decision. ”It’s that Drew might have killed Kate without meaning to. The girl was highly sexual, despite her youth, and she liked to be choked during sex. She died of strangulation. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to see the possible link.“

”But Drew denies anything like that?“

”Yes.“

A buzz sounds from Dad’s phone, and Esther tells him she’s on her way back with Quentin Avery.

”Where’s Annie right now?“ Dad asks.

”I had Mia meet me outside and take her home. I didn’t know how long we’d be.“

He looks past me and rises from behind his desk, his eyes twinkling. ”There’s Quentin! Come in here, man.“

I turn and face the door. Often, when I meet someone I’ve seen only in pictures or on film, I find the actual human being to be much smaller in reality. That’s not the case with Quentin Avery. The famed lawyer may be over seventy, but he still carries the charismatic aura of a man who once strode boldly across the national stage. Despite the loss of his foot, he still stands six-feet-four, and he wears his white hair in a tight Afro hairstyle. His eyes have a greenish tint, and his skin is lighter than that of most Natchez blacks, but it’s darker than Shad Johnson’s, which is so light that some people have called him ”more white than black.“ But Avery’s appearance means nothing in the end. This man standing in my father’s office has argued multiple cases before the United States Supreme Court—argued and
won.
He has counseled presidents on civil rights issues, most notably JFK and Lyndon Johnson. He has struck fear into the hearts of white supremacists and corporations across the country. He has taught death penalty law at the Yale Law School. He has profoundly changed legal precedent, and by so doing, has done what few of us ever will: he has changed the world.

”My friend’s gonna be a little late,“ Quentin Avery says by way of greeting. ”My apologies, gentlemen.“

I imagined that he would speak precisely, the way so many black leaders of his generation strived to do. But Quentin Avery seems to have retained his Southern accent. His rich baritone rumbling in the lazy drawl of a manservant has probably caused many an opposing lawyer—not to mention judges—to underestimate him over the years. I offer him my hand.

”Penn Cage, Professor.“

Avery smiles an easy smile, then takes my hand in a grip of steel. ”Just plain Quentin works for me. Mind if I sit down? My foot may be gone, but it still throbs something terrible on occasion.“

”Take the couch, Quentin,“ says my father, coming around his desk. ”Penn, you sit back here. I’d love to hear this, but I’ve got patients to see. I’ll kick you out if I need to.“

”Thank you, Tom,“ Avery says, settling into the leather sofa opposite Dad’s desk.

I sit behind the desk and wait for the legend to speak.

”Your father told me a little about your problem,“ he says. ”And based on what he said, I have a good lawyer in mind. Local, too, though not female. Black lady lawyers are still in short supply in Mississippi. But my protégé is tied up downtown. Why don’t you tell me a little more about your case? I ought to be able to tell you whether he can help you or not.“

As I summarize the events of the past few days, Quentin Avery watches me with eyes that miss nothing. I tell him about Drew finding Kate’s body, the anal sex angle, the blackmailer, Cyrus White, even the nude photos in the cell phone. Now and then Avery’s eyes narrow or his lower lip pushes out, but he doesn’t break my flow with a single question. I suspect he’s learning as much about the situation by the way I describe it as he is from the facts. I conclude my briefing by telling about the witness coming forward and placing Drew’s car in the vacant lot near the creek. The only detail I omit is Jenny Townsend leaving Kate’s private effects with me. Until I know that Quentin Avery’s ”protégé“ intends to handle Drew’s defense, I can’t afford for anyone to know that shoe box exists.

”So, what do you think?“ I ask.

Avery sighs thoughtfully. ”I can tell you’re worried for your friend.“

I nod assent.

”You’re right to look for another lawyer for him. You have no business handling this case.“

He seems to be waiting to see if this offends me. It doesn’t.

”You’re way too close to your client. The man saved your life. You played on the same athletic teams for years. From what you’ve told me about him, Dr. Elliott is a larger-than-life kind of man. A hero, in some ways. That’s why it’s so hard for you to accept that he killed her.“

I open my mouth to argue, but Avery holds up a hand that could easily palm a basketball. ”I’m not saying he did it, Penn. But somewhere down deep in your soul, you’re afraid that he did.“

I remain silent, but my opinion of Quentin Avery’s instincts just went up.

”I don’t care whether he killed that poor child or not,“ Avery goes on. ”And it’s critical that his lawyer be just as detached. That’s the only way he can defend Elliott to the best of his ability. You know that, of course. It’s just tough to remember when you’re that close to a defendant.“

”You’re right. What do you think about the facts?“

”Facts?“ Avery snorts. ”What facts? The police haven’t even found the crime scene yet. Everything the D.A. has is circumstantial, and most of that doesn’t point to murder. Now, I’m not saying that the evidence he does have wouldn’t predispose a jury against Dr. Elliott. A Mississippi jury hears everything you’ve told me? They’re surely going to believe he could have done it. And if they find out Dr. Elliott was down in that creek with his hands on her dead body, they’re gonna vote guilty.
Unless
you can prove that big, bad Cyrus White raped and killed her.“

”That’s a pretty tall order, it seems to me.“

Quentin nods. ”Even if that other semen sample matches Cyrus’s DNA, all you’ve done is prove that Cyrus had sex with her.“ He sniffs and gives me a little smile. ”Of course, the jury’s gonna make all the difference in this trial. White folks are gonna come on preconditioned to believe that a depraved nigger dope dealer wouldn’t hesitate to rape and kill a tasty young thing like Kate Townsend. Black jurors will feel exactly the opposite. Odds are, you’ll get a racially mixed jury. That’s good for Dr. Elliott, because this is capital murder. All it takes to acquit is
one
juror with reasonable doubt.“ Avery grins, his teeth astonishingly white. ”It’d be a mighty poor lawyer who didn’t think he could persuade one juror that a fine, upstanding healer like Dr. Elliott just
might
not have done it.“

For the first time in days, I feel a surge of real hope. ”I feel stupid for sounding so pessimistic. I think it’s because I know that the D.A., the sheriff, and the judge are so dead set on convicting Drew.“

Avery nods sagely. ”Cause for concern. And to tell you the truth, that’s why I was willing to get involved in this case.“

”I don’t understand.“

”Shad Johnson,“ he says with obvious distaste.

”Do you know him?“

”We’ve met a few times. I know his people.“

His people.
This means family, stretching back for an unknown number of generations. ”How do you feel about him?“

”I think he’s dangerous. Not only to Dr. Elliott, but to every black man, woman, and child in this town.“

I’m dumbstruck. ”What do you mean?“

”There’s a crisis in black leadership in this country, Penn. The leaders of my era are relics of another age. A lost age, I’m sorry to say. Martin, Malcolm X…Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar…they’re dead as the dinosaurs. You’ve basically got three types of black leaders today. There’s the managerial type, who pretends race isn’t even an issue. He wants a large white constituency, but he also wants to keep the loyal blacks behind him. He’s pragmatic—and not a bad leader—but he tends to suppress the best type by claiming that going mainstream is the only solution for blacks. Then you have your black protest leader. He’s black, loud, and proud. He casts himself in the image of Malcolm and Martin, but deep down he’s nothing like them. He uses the ideals of those great leaders only to get what he really wants: personal status and power. Marion Barry, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan—the list is endless. They’re flashy, flowery, and dangerous. They deceive the mass of black Americans by tapping into their emotions, but they use that support only in service of egotistical ends. You won’t see these men wearing the simple black suits and plain white shirts that Martin and Malcolm wore. They want to be players, and they love dressing the part. True protest leaders are humble men, Penn. They value wisdom, not media consultants.“