Grass Roots

by Stuart Woods

  “Perhaps you have seen on television, read in the newspapers, that a new type of identification is, today, available to law-enforcement agencies. This is genetic identification, where a drop of blood or a single hair can be identified as belonging to a particular human being. You will, perhaps, wonder why the prosecution did not avail themselves of the opportunity to strengthen their case by using such a technique. Perhaps it is because they believed that such a test would destroy their case.

  “Finally, the prosecution made its last, desperate move—to call a witness to testify about an alleged incident which, she says, occurred eight years ago, an alleged incident that was never properly investigated, an alleged incident to which there were no witnesses. Thus, we may never know what actually occurred on that night so many years ago; we will never be able to properly assess the blame for what may or may not have happened. In any case, Larry Moody is not on trial for that incident, but for the murder of Sarah Cole.

  “You have been called into this court to consider not just allegations, but hard evidence, and I submit to you that the prosecution has not shown you a single unflawed piece of evidence that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Larry Moody was in any way connected with the death of Sarah Cole.

  “On the other hand, the defense has shown that Larry Moody is a person of good character, who, apart from a few speeding tickets, has never been in any trouble with the law. You have heard Charlene Joiner testify that he was with her at the time the prosecution says the murder was committed. She has testified that she and Larry have a very healthy sex life, that there was no reason for him to seek out Sarah Cole for sex, let alone murder her.

  “Finally, the prosecution has failed to establish any motive for this murder. Why would an intelligent young man, leading a happy and productive life, with a beautiful companion, seek to rape and murder a woman he didn’t even meet until the day of her murder?

  “You all know, I am sure, that in order to convict Larry Moody of this crime, each of you must be sure, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he is guilty as charged. It is hard for me to believe that twelve of you could be sure, beyond a reasonable doubt, based on the evidence in the case. If, after assessing all you have seen and heard here, any one of you has any reasonable doubt that the evidence is insufficient to support a conviction, then you must acquit Larry Moody. Any other vote would be a miscarriage of justice.

  “I remind you that Larry Moody’s life is at stake here, and that, apart from your duty to the law, each of you has a conscience that he must answer to. I urge you to consider all the doubts in this case, and to reach a verdict that each of you can live with. Thank you.”

  Will sat down at the defense table.

  “Is that it?” Larry Moody asked.

  “That’s it,” Will said. “Now we wait.”

  22

  Will decided to wait at home for the jury’s verdict. He returned to the cottage, checked in with campaign headquarters, phoned Kate Rule and chatted for a while, then settled down to wait.

  At seven o’clock, he got a call from the bailiff. “Mr. Lee, I just went into the jury room to ask when they wanted to break for dinner, and they said they didn’t want to break, that they were close to a verdict. You might want to come on back here.”

  Will thanked the man and hurried to Greenville. He arrived to find the lawn of the courthouse floodlit and full of demonstrators. Their numbers had grown since the beginning of the trial, and they were still separated into two camps, divided by the front walk to the building. As Will strode up the walkway to the courthouse, both groups fell silent. At the top of the steps, Larry Moody and Charlene Joiner were giving an interview to a television reporter. Will waited for them to finish, and the reporter turned to him.

  “Any prediction on a verdict, Mr. Lee?”

  “I would never try and predict what a jury will do,” Will replied. He waved Larry and Charlene into the building. “I’ve had word from the bailiff that the jury expects to reach a verdict soon,” he said, showing them into a witness room. They all sat down.

  “What do you think they’ll do?” Larry asked.

  “I wasn’t kidding that television reporter,” Will said. “Juries are unpredictable. There might be one or two strong jurors who will influence them one way or another; they might divide into camps and hold their positions; there might be one holdout against the rest that will result in a hung jury and a mistrial. You just never can tell.”

  “Does it mean something that they’re near a decision now?”

  Will looked at his watch. “They’ve been at it for nearly five hours now. I think that’s in our favor. I would have been more worried if they had reached a verdict the first hour. Somebody’s on our side in there, I think.”

  “Listen,” Larry said, “I want you to know that I think you did a good job. I know I didn’t like some of the things you did, but I’ve had a chance to think about it, and I think you did the best thing.” He looked at the floor. “If I’m convicted, it won’t be your fault,” he said quietly.

  “I agree with that,” Charlene said.

  “Thank you both,” Will said. Nobody said anything for a few moments. “Are you two back together?” Will asked finally, to keep the conversation going.

  “Oh, we … ” Larry began.

  “I moved back in a couple of weeks before the trial started,” Charlene interrupted.

  “Good,” Will said, for lack of anything else to say.

  They sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts, for a few more minutes; then the bailiff knocked on the door. “The jury is coming in,” he said.

  Will, Larry, and Charlene returned to the courtroom. The crowd was noisily filing in from the front lawn, still dividing themselves into camps, one on either side of the aisle. When the courtroom was full, the bailiff called for all to stand, and the Judge entered.

  Judge Boggs rapped for order, then turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?”

  The foreman, a white woman, stood. “Yes, we have, Your Honor.”

  “Please read the verdict,” the Judge said.

  The woman unfolded a piece of paper and read, “We the jury find the defendant, Larry Eugene Moody, guilty of murder in the first degree … ”

  An uproar broke out in the courtroom. People on one side of the aisle were laughing and cheering, and on the other, there were angry murmurs. The Judge hammered them into silence.

  “Please continue,” he said to the foreman.

  “ … and we recommend a sentence of life imprisonment.”

  There were cries of “No!” from some of the black people in the courtroom, and the Judge used his gavel again to restore silence. “The defendant will stand.”

  Larry Moody stood, looking frightened. Will stood with him.

  “Do you have anything to say?” the Judge asked.

  “No, sir,” Larry said.

  “Then I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment in the state penitentiary,” the Judge said. “I will hear motions.”

  Will rose. “Your Honor, the defense moves to continue bond pending appeal.”

  The Judge looked at Elton Hunter.

  “The prosecution objects, Your Honor,” Hunter said. “This is first-degree murder. Defendant may flee the jurisdiction.”

  The Judge looked down at his desktop for a moment. “The defendant is employed and established in the community; enough issues have been raised to warrant bail, though this is unusual,” he said. “Two hundred fifty thousand dollars is substantial bond; I will continue it pending appeal.” There was a noise of outrage from one side of the courtroom, which the Judge ignored. “Court is adjourned pending receipt of notice of appeal.” He rapped his gavel sharply, then left the courtroom.

  Will stood up and turned to Larry and Charlene. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think it was the best we could have hoped for, under the circumstances. Even if your appeal fails, you could be eligible for parole in as little as seven years.”

 
; Larry nodded. “Thanks for your help,” he said, offering his hand.

  Will shook it, and Charlene’s; then he motioned to the group milling behind them in the courtroom. “Larry, do you know these people here? They’ve been on the courthouse lawn all week.”

  Larry nodded. “Some of them are members of an organization I belong to.”

  “What organization?” Will asked.

  “We never speak its name.”

  23

  Mickey Keane was bored to stupefaction. He had always prided himself on his patience on stakeouts, but now he was going bananas. He couldn’t even get out of the car and stretch, because he didn’t want to be seen in this apartment complex—the crutches were too memorable. Not that stretching was much fun these days. His bruises had all turned yellow, making him resemble some species of squash, and he was still sore as a boil all over. His recuperative powers were diminishing with age, he reckoned. He was nearly forty-two, after all.

  Then he sat bolt upright. The door to the apartment was open. A moment later, the man left the apartment, closing the door behind him. He walked quickly down to a car, a silver Toyota, opened the door, got in, fiddled with something—maybe the glove compartment—then got out, locked the car, returned to the apartment, and closed the door.

  Keane sat there, wide-eyed, his adrenaline pumping. What? The son of a bitch doesn’t leave the apartment for three days; then he comes out, gets something out of the car, and goes back in? Christ! The guy ought to have cabin fever by now. Keane certainly did.

  Gradually, the adrenaline ebbed away, and Keane sank back into the seat, sick with disappointment. He closed his eyes and sighed. How long, oh, Lord, how long?

  *

  Suzy answered the phone, then handed it to Perkerson.

  “It’s him,” she whispered.

  “Yes?” he said into the phone.

  “I want to see you here,” the voice said.

  “Right away,” Perkerson replied.

  “No,” the voice said. “We have a problem that must be dealt with first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your roommate. Deal with her.”

  “Say that again?” Perkerson replied.

  “Kill the girl, and get out of there. Take what you can, but don’t bother cleaning up the place; it doesn’t matter.”

  “Half an hour,” Perkerson replied. He hung up.

  “I want to go with you,” Suzy said.

  Perkerson looked at her. “All right, why not?”

  “Just let me fix my makeup,” she said, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Perkerson went to a kitchen drawer, got the 9 mm automatic, and screwed in the silencer. He felt a pang of something he had never before felt when he was about to kill: regret. But he had never questioned an order of the Archon’s, and he must not do so for personal reasons. He walked to the bathroom and stopped in the doorway. She was standing, her back to him, applying lipstick in the mirror.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” she said.

  “No hurry,” Perkerson replied. He raised the pistol.

  Her eyes widened in the mirror; she dropped the lipstick. “No … ”

  Perkerson shot her in the back of the head. Simultaneously, the mirror turned red and disintegrated. Her body collapsed over the sink, then slid to the floor.

  Perkerson walked into the bedroom and started packing, which didn’t take long, because he habitually had everything arranged for a quick departure. Everything went quickly into two canvas suitcases. He had one last look around, then gingerly retrieved his toilet kit from the bathroom, wiped the blood from it, and packed it.

  He left the apartment, walked quickly to his car, backed out of the parking spot, and drove toward the front gate. The usual cars, he noted, except for that Ford Taurus. It had been parked in front of 41C for a couple of days now. Nobody in it, though; it didn’t look like a problem. He drove on. Inside him there was an unfamiliar hollow feeling.

  *

  Mickey Keane stirred and looked around him. Shit, he had dozed off. Might as well call it a day; it was nearing eleven and … He looked up. The Toyota was gone. When? How long? I doze off for five minutes, and the guy is gone! He got his new Ford Taurus started and drove quickly toward the gate. The usual guy was on duty.

  “Did Ross leave recently?”

  “Yeah, maybe two minutes ago,” the guard said. “That way.”

  Keane stomped on the accelerator and spun the car into the road. Maybe he could still catch up. Three minutes later, he reached Georgia Highway 41, the main drag in these parts. Which way? He sped toward the city, looking as far ahead as he could for the silver Toyota.

  Ten minutes later, he was at Interstate 75, and there had been no sign of the Toyota. Keane cursed himself for dozing off. He sat at a traffic light until it changed, then drove home. “Fuck him,” he said aloud. “I’ll start again tomorrow.”

  24

  Will sat with his parents in their library, along with Tom Black and Kitty Conroy, and watched the eleven-o’clock news, a substantial portion of which was devoted to a recap of the trial and conviction of Larry Moody. Interviews with Larry and, especially, Charlene, were replayed, along with interviews with the demonstrators on the courthouse lawn.

  “I told you the press was going to love Charlene,” Kitty said. “She’s the new glamour girl of the state; I hear she’s had a couple of movie offers, and an offer of a book contract.”

  “More power to her,” Will said. “I’ve always thought she was too beautiful and smart to be working at a convenience store. You know, I think she supplied me with some false evidence.”

  “What evidence?” his father asked, looking alarmed.

  “I always thought we were a little too lucky in that Charlene had a sweater identical to Sarah Cole’s.”

  “But how could she have come up with an identical one, if she didn’t already have it?”

  “I picked her up at her place of work once, in Larry’s van, and I had to use the men’s room, while she waited in the van. The lab reports, which described the brand and store label of the sweater, were in an envelope on the front seat. It didn’t occur to me until after I had had a little shouting match with Larry and Charlene that something like that might have happened. By that time, the sweater was already in evidence.”

  “You really think she’s that bright?” Tom asked.

  “I do,” Will said. “And now I wonder about her blood type, too. She gave me this certificate from a doctor in Marietta, said she was up there visiting, and he was an old family friend. She could have learned Sarah Cole’s blood type from that lab report. I should have chosen the doctor myself and had the certificate sent directly to me. Sloppy lawyering.”

  Martin Washington, head of Attorneys for Racial Equality, was being interviewed in front of the courthouse.

  “Mr. Washington, Will Lee is a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Do you think black people are going to resent his defending Larry Moody, and, perhaps, not vote for him because of it?”

  “I hope not,” Washington replied. “This was not a case Will Lee sought out; the Judge got him to agree to it, along with Mr. Hunter, and then tossed a coin to see who prosecuted and who defended. The Judge told me that himself. I think Mr. Lee performed a public service in taking the case, and he acquitted himself well in the trial, even if his client was not acquitted.”

  The anchorman came back on the screen. “That opinion of Will Lee’s performance in the trial was backed up by the foreman of the jury, Mrs. Evelyn Everett, in an interview taped only a few minutes ago.” He turned and looked at a monitor.

  Mrs. Everett appeared on-screen. “I think that, up until the point of the testimony of the schoolteacher, Miss McInvale, most of us on the jury were leaning in favor of acquittal. Mr. Lee had poked a lot of holes in the other evidence in the case. Her testimony, however, turned the tide in favor of conviction, and I think that testimony surprised Mr. Lee as much as it did us.”

  “Was there much argument
about the life sentence among the jurors?” the reporter asked.

  “Yes, some of us were in favor of the death penalty. It was Mr. Lee’s summation, though, that kept us from going that route. I think that, although we all felt that Larry Moody was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, Mr. Lee made some of us feel that there was, at least, some doubt, and that made us reluctant to take the man’s life.”

  “That’s a pretty good review,” Tom Black said. “We may come out of this well, after all.”

  The camera returned to the anchorman. “All during the trial, members of a white supremacist group kept a vigil on the courthouse lawn. Our reporter interviewed one of their leaders.”

  The camera switched to a young man, severely dressed in a dark suit and black tie, being interviewed by a reporter.

  “Mr. Johnson,” she asked, “what is the feeling of your people about the verdict in this trial?”

  The young man’s brow furrowed. “We think this is a major miscarriage of justice, brought on by racist attitudes favoring blacks in our society,” he said, “and by a particularly poor performance by the defense lawyer, Mr. Will Lee.”

  “Thank you, God,” Will said, bringing his hands together.

  “We feel,” continued the man, “that a good attorney would have destroyed the credibility of the Wilson woman when she took the stand. We don’t think we got our money’s worth from Lee.”

  “Are you saying that your organization hired Mr. Lee and paid his fees?”