by John Grisham
“Come on, this is ridiculous.”
“You’re nuts. Come on, let’s vote!”
“It’s a crime and we have no choice.”
Nix Gridley stood in a corner, looked at their faces, and managed to conceal a smile. Dunn Ludlow was a regular at the colored whorehouse in Lowtown. Milt Muncie had kept the same black mistress for at least as long as Nix had been sheriff. Neville Wray came from an old family of plantation owners who had been mixing and mingling for generations. Now, though, all fifteen were posturing in various awkward stages of piousness.
The state’s antimiscegenation law was similar to others throughout the South and had little to do with sex between white men and black women; such relations were hardly frowned on. The purpose of the law was to protect the sanctity of white women and keep the Negroes away from them. But, as history had proven many times, if two people want to have sex they do not spend time thinking about code sections. The law prevented nothing, but was used occasionally as punishment after the fact.
Truitt waited until all comments ceased, then said, “We need to move along. Can we have a vote here. All in favor of these two being indicted, raise your hands.” Fifteen hands went up, all but Hobard’s.
An indictment did not require a unanimous vote. Two-thirds would suffice, and Truitt had never lost one. The grand jury soon dispatched with the other cases, and Truitt said, “And now we come to the matter of Mr. Pete Banning. First-degree murder. I’m sure you all know as much as I do. Sheriff Gridley.”
Nix stepped over some boots and shoes and managed to return to the seat at the end of the table. Half the men were smoking and Nix told Roy Lester to crack a window. Truitt lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling.
Nix began with the crime scene and passed around two photos of Dexter Bell lying dead in his office. He described the scene, recounted the testimony of Hop Purdue, and told the story of driving out to arrest Pete, who told him where to find the gun. Nix produced the gun and three slugs, and said there was no doubt they did the damage. The state police had sent a report. Since his arrest, Pete Banning had refused to discuss the case. He was represented by Mr. John Wilbanks. If indicted, it appeared as though there would be a trial in the near future.
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Truitt said. “Any questions?”
A hand shot up and Milt Muncie asked loudly, “Do we have to vote on this? I mean, I know Pete Banning and I knew Dexter Bell, and I really don’t want to get involved here.”
“Neither do I,” said Tyus Sutton. “I grew up with Pete Banning and I don’t feel right sittin’ in judgment.”
“That’s right,” said Paul Carlin. “I’m not touchin’ this case, and if you try to force me, then I’ll just resign. We can resign from this grand jury, can’t we? I’d rather resign than deal with it.”
“No, you can’t resign,” Truitt said sharply as his rubber stamp unraveled.
“How about we abstain?” asked Joe Fisher. “It makes sense that we have the right to abstain in a case where we are personally acquainted with those involved, right? Show me where in the law it says we can’t abstain when we want to.”
All eyes were on Truitt, who, in matters of grand jury procedure, usually made up the rules as he went along, as did all DAs around the state. He could not remember any reference to abstentions in these situations, though, truthfully, he had not looked at the code sections in years. He had become so accustomed to the rubber-stamp approach that he’d neglected the procedural intricacies.
As he stalled and tried to think of a response, his thoughts were not on the grand jury but on the trial jury. If the men of Ford County were so split, and so eager to avoid the case, how could he possibly convince twelve of them to return a verdict of guilty? The biggest case of his career was melting before his eyes.
He cleared his throat and said, “May I remind you that you took an oath to properly and without bias listen to the evidence and decide if in all probability the alleged crime was committed? You are not here to pass judgment on Mr. Banning’s guilt or innocence; that’s not your job. Your duty is to decide whether he should be charged with murder. The trial court will determine his fate. Now, Sheriff Gridley, do you have any doubt that Pete Banning murdered Dexter Bell?”
“None whatsoever.”
“And that, gentlemen, is all that is sufficient for an indictment. Any further discussion?”
“I ain’t votin’,” Tyus Sutton said defiantly. “Pete had a reason for doin’ what he did and I ain’t passin’ judgment.”
“You’re not passing judgment,” Truitt snapped. “And if he had a reason and has a legal defense it will all come out at trial. Anybody else?” Truitt was angry and glared at his jurors as if ready for a brawl. He knew the law and they didn’t.
Tyus Sutton was not easily intimidated. He stood and pointed a finger across the table at Truitt. “I’m at a point in my life where I will not be yelled at. I’m leavin’, and if you want to tattle to the judge and get me in trouble, I’ll remember that the next time you run for office. And I know where to find a lawyer.” He stomped to the door, opened it, walked through it, and slammed it behind him.
Down to fifteen. Two-thirds were required for an indictment, and at least three of those remaining didn’t want to vote. Truitt was suddenly sweating and breathing heavily, and he was racking his brain as he strategized on the fly. He could dismiss them and present the Banning case next month. He could dismiss them and ask the judge for a new panel. He could press for a vote, hope for the best, and if he failed to get ten he could always present the case again in November. Or could he? Did double jeopardy apply to grand jury cases? He didn’t think so, but what if he made the wrong move? He had never been in such a position.
He decided to press on as if he’d been in this situation many times. “Any more discussion?”
There were some anxious glances around the table but no one seemed eager to join Tyus Sutton. “Very well,” Truitt continued. “All those in favor of indicting Pete Banning for the first-degree murder of the Reverend Dexter Bell raise your hands.”
With no enthusiasm, five hands slowly went up. Five more eventually joined them. All others remained under the table.
“You can’t abstain,” Truitt snapped at Milt Muncie.
“And you can’t make me vote,” Muncie shot back angrily, ready to either throw a punch or take one.
Truitt looked around the room, counted quickly, and announced, “I count ten. That’s two-thirds, enough for an indictment. Thank you, Sheriff. We are dismissed.”
* * *
—
As the days passed, Pete busied himself by improving conditions at the jail. The coffee was his first target and by the end of his third day the entire jail—prisoners, guards, and cops—were drinking Standard Coffee from New Orleans. Florry delivered it in five-pound bags, and during her second visit asked Nix what the colored prisoners were drinking. He replied that they were not served coffee, and this angered her. During the ensuing tirade, she threatened to withhold all coffee until it was offered to everyone.
At home, she snapped Marietta and Nineva into high gear and they began cooking and baking with a vengeance. Almost daily, Florry arrived at the jail with cakes, pies, cookies, brownies, and pots of beef stew, venison stew, collard greens, red beans and rice, and peas and corn bread. The quality of the jailhouse cuisine rose dramatically, for all inmates, with most of them eating far better than on the outside. When Amos gutted a fatted hog, the entire jail gorged on smoked spare ribs. Nix and his boys feasted as well, and saved a few bucks on lunch. He had never experienced the incarceration of a wealthy landowner who had plenty of acreage for growing food and the staff to prepare it.
After the first week, Pete convinced Nix to appoint him a jail trusty, which meant his cell was not locked during the day and he could roam as he pleased as long as he did not leave the building. Nix
was somewhat sensitive to the potential rumors that Pete was getting special treatment, and at first didn’t like the idea of using him as a trusty. But, every respectable jail had at least one trusty, and at the moment Nix had none. The last one, Homer Galax, served the county faithfully for six years and had three to go on his aggravated assault conviction when he ran off with a widow who was rumored to have some money. They had not been seen since, and Nix had neither the time, the interest, nor the energy to look for them.
Another rule, one that was evidently nonbinding as well, was that a trusty had to first be convicted of his crime and sentenced to serve his time in the county jail rather than the state pen. Nix brushed this aside as well, and Pete became the trusty. As such, he served the much improved meals to the other four white prisoners, and to the six or seven black ones on the back side of the jail. Since all prisoners soon knew where the food was originating, Pete was a popular trusty. He organized work details to clean up the jail, and he paid for a plumber to modernize the equipment in both restrooms. For a few bucks, he devised a venting system to clear the smoke-clogged air, and everyone, even the smokers, breathed easier. He and a black prisoner overhauled the furnace and the cells were almost toasty at night. He slept hard, napped frequently, exercised on the hour, and encouraged his new pals to do likewise. When he was bored he read novels, almost as fast as Florry could deliver them. There were no shelves in his tiny cell so she hauled them back to his study, where his library numbered in the thousands. He also read stacks of newspapers and magazines that she brought him.
Pete offered his reading materials to the others, but there was little interest. He suspected they were either fully or partially illiterate. To pass the time, he played poker with Leon Colliver, the moonshiner across the hall. Leon was not particularly bright, but he was sharp as hell at cards and Pete, who had mastered all card games in the army, had his hands full. Cribbage was his favorite, and Florry brought his cribbage board. Leon had never heard of the game, but absorbed it with no effort and within an hour was up a nickel. They played for a penny a game. IOUs were acceptable and no one really expected to collect any money.
Late in the afternoon, after all chores were done and the jail was spiffier than ever, Pete would unlock Leon’s cell and they would move their rickety chairs into the hallway, completely blocking it. The cribbage board was placed on a small square of plywood Pete kept in his cell. It was balanced on a wooden barrel that once held nails. The games began. Leon managed to keep a flask full of corn whiskey, distilled, of course, by his family, and at first Pete showed no interest. However, as the days dragged on and he began to accept the reality that he would be either executed or sent to prison forever, he said what the hell. In the heat of a tense cribbage game, Leon would glance around, up and down the hall, remove the flask from his front pants pocket, unscrew the top, take a swig, and hand it over. Pete would look around, take a drink, and hand it back. They weren’t selfish; there simply wasn’t enough to go around. And besides, every jail had a snitch, and Sheriff Gridley would frown on the drinking.
The two were hunched over the game board, talking of nothing but the score, when the door opened and Nix entered the narrow hallway. He was holding some papers.
“Evenin’, fellas,” he said. They nodded politely. He handed the papers to Pete and said, “The grand jury met today and here’s your indictment. First degree.”
Pete sat straight and took the papers. “No real surprise, I guess.”
“It was pretty cut-and-dried. Trial’s set for January 6.”
“They can’t do it any sooner?”
“You’ll have to talk to your lawyer about that.” Nix turned around and left.
Chapter 9
A month after the death of her husband, Jackie Bell moved with her three children to her parents’ home in Rome, Georgia. She took the few meager pieces of furniture that didn’t belong to the parsonage. She took a flood of beautiful memories of the past five years in Clanton. She took the painful farewells of a congregation that had nurtured her and her family. And, she took her husband. In the chaos after his murder, she’d agreed to have him interred in Clanton because it was simpler. However, they were not from Mississippi, had no relatives there and no real roots, and she wanted to go home. Why leave him behind? Part of her day was a trip to the cemetery to lay flowers and have a good cry, a ritual she planned to continue forever, and she couldn’t do that from Georgia. Dexter was from Rome too, so she had him reburied in a small cemetery behind a Methodist church.
They had married when he was in seminary in Atlanta. Their nomadic journey began upon graduation, when he was assigned the position of associate pastor of a church in Florida. From there they zigzagged across the South, having three children with no two born in the same place, and finally got assigned to Clanton a few months before Pearl Harbor.
Jackie loved Clanton until the day Dexter died, but not long after the funeral she realized she couldn’t stay. The most immediate reason was that the church wanted the parsonage. A new minister would be assigned and his family would need a place to live. The church hierarchy generously offered to provide housing for a year at no cost, but she declined. Another reason, indeed the most significant one, was that the children were suffering. They adored their father and could not accept his absence. And in such a small town, they would be forever stigmatized as the kids whose father was gunned down under mysterious circumstances. To protect them, Jackie moved to a place they knew only as the home of their grandparents.
Once in Rome, and once the children returned to the ritual of school, she realized how temporary the arrangements were. Her parents’ home was modest and certainly not large enough for three children. She collected $10,000 in life insurance and began looking for a place to rent. Much to the concern of her parents, she began skipping church. They were devout Methodists who never missed a Sunday. Indeed, few people in their part of the world missed church and those who did were talked about. Jackie was not in the mood to do much explaining, but she made it clear to her parents that she was struggling with her faith and needed time to reexamine her beliefs. Privately, she was asking the obvious question: Her husband, a devout servant and follower of Christ, was reading his Bible and preparing his sermon, at church, when he was murdered. Why couldn’t God protect him, of all people? Upon deeper reflection, this often led to the more troubling question, one she never asked aloud: Is there really a God? The mere consideration of this as a passing thought frightened her, but she could not deny its existence.
Before long, she was being talked about, according to her mother, but she didn’t care. Her suffering was at a level far above anything a few local gossips could inflict. Her kids were struggling in a new school. Day-to-day living was a challenge.
Two weeks after moving in with her parents, she moved out and into a rental home on the other side of town. It was owned by a lawyer named Errol McLeish, a thirty-nine-year-old bachelor she had known years earlier at Rome High School. McLeish and Dexter had been in the same class, though in different circles. Like everyone in the small town, McLeish knew the story behind Dexter’s demise and wanted to help his young widow.
After weeks of barely eating enough to sustain herself, Jackie had finally lost the pounds she’d gained six years earlier with her last pregnancy. It was not a weight loss scheme she would recommend to anyone, and it was so far the only bright spot in an otherwise hideous nightmare, but she had to admit, as she looked at herself in the mirror, that she was skinnier than she had been in years. Now at thirty-eight, she weighed the same as on her wedding day, and she admired her newly uncovered hip bones. Her eyes were puffy and red from all that weeping, and she vowed to finally stop it.
McLeish stopped by twice a week to check on things, and Jackie began using a bit of makeup and wearing tighter dresses when he was around. She felt guilty at first, with Dexter still warm in the ground, but she wasn’t even flirting yet. She had no p
lans to pursue a romance for the remainder of her life, she told herself, but then educated bachelors were probably scarce in Rome. She was, after all, now single, and what was wrong with looking nice?
For his part, McLeish thought her cute but with serious baggage. The widowhood was one thing, and something that could be dealt with over time, but he wanted no part of a ready-made family. As an only child who had spent little time around children, he found the idea overwhelming. He led her along, though, quietly taking advantage of her pain and loneliness, and the noticing advanced to flirting.
His real interest was in her possible lawsuit. McLeish owned several properties, all heavily mortgaged, and he had debts from other deals, and after lawyering for ten years he realized it was not going to be that profitable. As soon as Jackie moved back to Rome, McLeish began setting his traps. He traveled to Clanton and snooped around the courthouse long enough to learn about the Bannings. He spent hours digging through the land records, and when confronted with the inevitable inquiry, he claimed to be a leasing agent for a “big oil and gas company.” As he expected, this rippled through the courthouse and around the square and through the law offices and before long Clanton was seized by its first and only oil rush. Lawyers and their assistants pored over dusty old plat books while keeping a sharp ear for gossip and a close eye on this stranger. McLeish, though, soon vanished as quietly as he had arrived, leaving the town to wonder when the oil boom was coming. He was back in Georgia, where he checked on the widow Bell with a polite regularity, never appearing eager or interested but always thoughtful, almost deferential, as though he understood her tangled world and wanted no part of it.
* * *
—
In 1946, Hollins had an enrollment of 375 students, all female. The college was a hundred years old and had a sterling reputation, especially among upper-class southern ladies. Stella Banning chose it because many of her mother’s well-to-do friends in Memphis went there. Liza did not, primarily because her family couldn’t afford it.