The prosecutor rose. “Objection, Your Honor. The witness has already sworn to tell the truth, so I don’t see the point of any of this.”
Jack looked at the judge and said, “He will see the point, Your Honor.”
“Overruled,” the judge said. “The witness may answer.”
“Yes, an Alpha president should be truthful,” said Brandon.
“Yesterday, Mr. Boalt asked you if you had ever told anyone about the relationship between Jamal Cousin and Shelly Towson. You answered, ‘Never.’ That was your testimony, correct?”
“I believe so.”
Jack turned and slowly walked toward the rail. Kelvin Cousin was seated at the end of the first row, behind the prosecutor’s table. With his gaze, Jack guided Brandon’s line of sight in Kelvin’s direction.
“You’ve met Jamal’s great-grandfather, Kelvin Cousin, have you not, Mr. Wall?”
Brandon glanced in the old man’s direction, acknowledging him. “I have.”
“You met when Jamal was sworn in as new president, correct?”
“Yes.”
“He spoke privately to you and Jamal and said how proud he was of you as Alpha presidents. Is that right?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“He told you how important it was that young men like you were continuing the traditions and values of the Alpha fraternity?” Jack glanced again at Kelvin, as if sending a message to Brandon.
“He did,” said Brandon.
“At some point in that same conversation, you asked him how he would feel about the Alpha president dating a white woman. You asked him that question, right?”
Brandon didn’t answer right away. Again Jack cut a glance in Kelvin’s direction, sending the message to Brandon.
“I believe I did ask him that question,” said Brandon.
“Kelvin expressed some concern about it, did he not?”
“Yes, but his concern was that dating a white woman might not be as safe as we thought it was.”
“Let’s talk about that a little more,” said Jack. “Does the name Willie James Howard mean anything to you, Mr. Wall?”
The prosecutor rose as if shot from a cannon. “Objection, Your Honor. This is going way beyond the scope of direct examination, and I can’t see how it has any relevance to this case.”
Jack detected a hint of urgency in the prosecutor’s voice.
“Judge, I’m not sure how Mr. Boalt would know if it’s relevant even before we’ve established who Willie James Howard is,” said Jack.
The prosecutor looked pale. “Judge, may we discuss this in your chambers, please?”
Judge Teague seemed confused by the request, but Boalt’s demeanor and tone of voice made it clear that, if the state attorney’s years of service to the people of Suwannee County meant anything, Judge Teague would grant him this favor.
“All right,” the judge said. “Counsel, in my chambers.”
The judge stepped down from the bench, and the courtroom waited in silence as the lawyers followed him into his chambers. Over the next ten minutes, the story of Willie James Howard unfolded. Oliver Boalt denied any awareness of it. It was Jack’s impression that he denied it a little too forcefully.
“Judge, we don’t even know if this Willie James actually existed,” Boalt said finally. “This story could be nothing but a story.”
The judge pondered it. “Mr. Swyteck, really, what is the point of dredging up all this history?”
“Your Honor—” Jack started to say, but Boalt cut him off.
“Clearly Mr. Swyteck’s point is that just about anybody could have lynched Jamal Cousin because we’re all a bunch of racists here in north Florida. I suppose the next thing we’ll see from him and his friends in My-amma is a warrant to search Your Honor’s closet for a white robe and a cross-burning kit.”
“That’s not my point at all,” said Jack.
Judge Teague raised his arms like a boxing referee, silencing the lawyers. “Here’s my decision. At this point, I will allow Mr. Swyteck to establish that Kelvin Cousin told Brandon Wall and Jamal Cousin a story about a black teenager who was lynched for sending love letters to a white girl. Beyond that, Mr. Swyteck, I’m keeping you on a short leash. I will not allow you to turn this hearing into a racial indictment of Live Oak in the nineteen forties. Is that clear?”
Jack clung to the fact that the judge had prefaced his ruling with the words “at this point.” There was work to do. But if the cross-examination of Brandon Wall proceeded as hoped, Jack was confident that Judge Teague would come around, even if Oliver Boalt did seem to deny the very existence of Willie James Howard.
“It’s clear, Judge,” said Jack.
CHAPTER 81
The river glistened with the first glint of the morning sun. Percy saw the flats boat approaching. It was white. So were the men on board. Percy felt his pulse quicken. He no longer had the full cover of night. He wondered if they could see him lying atop the log along the riverbank.
The engine ceased. There was silence.
“What the fuck is that?” asked one of the boaters, his voice carrying all the way to Percy.
Percy didn’t move. He lay there, motionless, and watched. The boat was in daylight, but Percy was in the forested wetland, still shrouded in predawn semidarkness.
Suddenly, a spotlight hit him straight in the eyes, blinding him. The beam swept his body from head to toe and then back again.
“Well,” the man said, “if that ain’t the ugliest fucking gator I ever did see.”
Percy pushed himself off the log and splashed into the cold swamp below. The spotlight followed him. The engine restarted. Percy could touch bottom, but he couldn’t run. He half swam and half walked, trying to escape. The boat drew closer. The spotlight bore down on him like a falling meteor.
“Hard to port!” the skipper shouted.
Percy was getting nowhere—worse than nowhere. He was chest-deep in water, knee-deep in muck. The boat was nearly on him. A rope hit him in the face. A lasso closed around his neck.
“Got him!”
Freeze, FBI!” Andie shouted. She was aboard the boat, her pistol aimed at Colt’s chest. Ferguson drew his weapon, too.
“You’re surrounded by law enforcement,” said Andie.
“That so?” said Colt. “Then where the fuck are they?”
Andie was beginning to wonder the same thing, but she didn’t flinch. “Are you Percy Donovan?” she shouted, plenty loud for Percy to hear her.
“Yeah.”
“Go ahead and take that rope off your neck. Are you hurt?”
“Yeah,” said Percy, as he removed the lasso. “Got shot in the leg. I’m bleeding.”
Andie repeated his words to make sure Percy’s condition was transmitted by her body wire.
“We’ll need medical—” she continued, but suddenly the engine roared, and the boat lunged forward. Ferguson tumbled overboard with the four other men at the bow. Another tackled Andie, her gun discharged, and he went down with a thud. Colt came at her. The fight for her weapon was a rematch of the campsite free-for-all as the boat sped straight down the river with no one behind the wheel.
CHAPTER 82
The courtroom was equal parts media and general public as Judge Teague led the lawyers from his chambers. Jack took his position in front of the witness, and the state attorney returned to his seat at the prosecutor’s table. The judge explained his decision from the bench.
“Mr. Wall, you are allowed to answer the following question: Did Kelvin Cousin tell you and Jamal about the alleged lynching of a black teenager named Willie James Howard?”
Brandon leaned closer to the microphone and said, “Yes, he did.”
Boalt rose. “Just to clarify the record, Your Honor. Am I correct in saying that the court is not accepting this testimony as proof that a man named Willie James Howard was actually lynched?”
“That’s correct,” the judge said. “The testimony is admitted only to show that the witness
heard the story.”
Jack searched the gallery and found Kelvin. He’d struck Jack as an even-tempered man in their meeting, but it had clearly angered him that the judge and the prosecutor had reduced the murder of Willie James Howard to a “story.”
Jack continued. “Mr. Wall, what Mr. Cousin told you about Willie James Howard scared you, didn’t it?”
“I’d say it opened our eyes,” said Brandon.
“But it didn’t stop Jamal from seeing Shelly Towson, did it?”
“No.”
“You worried about Jamal, didn’t you?”
“A little.”
“You worried not only because Jamal was black, but also because he was the president of the Alpha house, a black fraternity, right?”
“That was part of it.”
“But the biggest reason to worry—and I want you to be totally honest, speaking as a former Alpha president—wasn’t your biggest worry of all the fact that Shelly Towson’s brother was the president of the Theta house?”
“I don’t think that really mattered.”
It had mattered—Jack was sure of it. He just needed to find a way to get the witness to admit it. Jack retrieved the transcript from Mark’s disciplinary hearing.
“Mr. Wall, you were a witness at Mr. Towson’s student conduct hearing at the University of Florida, were you not?”
“I was.”
“You told the committee about the time that Baine Robinson hired you to serve as bartender at a fraternity party, am I right?”
“I did.”
“You quit before the party started, right?”
“Yes.”
“You quit because Mr. Robinson wanted you to serve a cocktail made with watermelon liqueur—a drink called ‘Strange Fruit’?”
“Yes.”
“You quit because you thought it was racist, correct?”
“I think almost anyone would see it as racist,” said Brandon.
“Agreed,” said Jack. “And still another reference to ‘strange fruit’ came in the text message we’ve heard so much about. Can we agree that was a racist message?”
“Absolutely.”
“And Jamal told you that he’d received two other messages just like it. One from Theta brother Baine Robinson and the other from Theta brother Cooper Bartlett, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Wall, is it fair to say that, after those messages, you’d heard and seen enough to believe that the brothers of the Theta Pi Omega fraternity were racists?”
“At least some of them, definitely.”
“And even though you believed the Theta brothers were racists, you knew that Jamal Cousin was not going to stop seeing Shelly Towson. Isn’t that right, Mr. Wall?”
“I don’t think I knew that.”
“Well, let’s go back to your testimony from yesterday,” said Jack. “Jamal asked you to make sure all the Alpha brothers went on the tubing trip down the Ichetucknee so that Jamal could be alone in the house with Shelly Towson. That was your testimony, right?”
Brandon squirmed a little, but it was in the transcript, undeniable. “Right.”
“So you knew that the president of the Alpha house was going to continue to see Shelly Towson, right?”
“Yeah, I knew.”
“And you believed that Shelly’s brother had sent a racist text to Jamal.”
“Right.”
“And you believed that her brother’s friends had sent a racist text to Jamal?”
“Right.”
“And you had not forgotten that Baine Robinson had asked you to serve ‘strange fruit’ cocktails at a frat party, had you?”
“No, I didn’t forget.”
Jack paused, but only for effect. “You had a problem with that. Didn’t you, Mr. Wall?”
“I don’t know if—”
“Objection.”
“I’ll rephrase,” said Jack. “Jamal Cousin, the president of the most prestigious black Greek-letter organization on campus, was dating a white woman whose brother was the president of a racist fraternity. As a former Alpha president, you had a problem with that. Didn’t you, Mr. Wall?”
“I—I didn’t like it.”
“You wanted the relationship to end, didn’t you?”
“I would have preferred it if Jamal stopped seeing her, yeah.”
That was good enough. Jack had established the platform he needed to launch the final strike.
“A week after the text messages, Jamal Cousin’s body was found on the Ichetucknee River, correct?”
“That’s my understanding.”
“That’s all I’m asking for, Mr. Wall, is your understanding. In fact, I’d like to compare your understanding of what happened to Jamal Cousin to what Kelvin Cousin told you about Willie James Howard.”
“Judge,” said Boalt, groaning, “I object to this—”
“Overruled.”
Judge Teague seemed to understand where Jack was headed. Jack took it as a green light.
“Right before his death,” said Jack, “Willie James Howard wrote love letters to a white girl. Correct?”
“That’s what Mr. Cousin told us.”
“Jamal had a white girlfriend at the time of his death, correct?”
“Yes.”
“The men who murdered Willie James took him to the river?”
“Right.”
“Jamal was found on the river?”
“Yes.”
“The men who murdered Willie James bound his hands and feet. Hog-tied him, right?”
“Yes.”
“Jamal was also hog-tied?”
“I don’t—”
“You know that,” said Jack, allowing no wiggle room. “You’ve seen those awful photographs, have you not?”
“Yes, I’ve seen them.”
“Willie James was thrown in the river and drowned?”
“Yes.”
“Jamal Cousin may or may not have drowned.”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
“Objection,” said Boalt.
“That one is sustained,” the judge said.
Brandon was in desperate need of a break, but Jack forged ahead. He went to his table and retrieved the crime lab report he’d received from the state attorney that morning. He was down to his last round of ammunition.
“Mr. Wall, you were part of a civilian search party that went looking for Percy Donovan after his disappearance, were you not?”
“I was.”
“You didn’t find Percy, but you did find a foam resin shoe, correct?”
“I did.”
Jack handed the report to the witness—not for him to read it, but just to set up his question. “Would it surprise you to hear that a forensic examination confirmed that the shoe you found is the mate to the foam resin shoe that was found near Jamal’s body?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
Jack took the report back from him. “Mr. Wall, how big an area did you and the other volunteers search?”
“There were two teams on each side of the river. We walked a couple of miles, I’d say. Maybe more.”
“How many volunteers were there?”
“Maybe seventy-five.”
“So there were seventy-five volunteers searching four linear miles of riverbank, and it was you who happened to find the shoe. Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“You zeroed right in on it, I guess?”
“I found it.”
Jack took a step closer, his gaze tightening. “You found it because you knew it was there.”
Brandon swallowed hard. “That’s not true.”
“You found it right where you lost it on the night of Jamal’s death.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
Jack handed the report to the witness, this time opening it to the appropriate page.
“Look at page five of the report, Mr. Wall. This C
roc wasn’t found in black water. The environmental conditions that destroyed all DNA on the first Croc didn’t exist. This one—the mate you found—has DNA on it. Do you see where it states that in the report?”
Brandon studied the page. The report shook in his hand.
“Brandon,” said Jack, deliberately using his first name and a softer tone. “Should I hire a scientist to test that Croc for your DNA? Or do you want to tell us the truth here and now?”
Brandon stared at the report, his hand shaking. The prosecutor could have objected, but there was only silence, as if everyone in the courtroom knew that the truth was nigh.
“Brandon,” said Jack, nudging a little more. “You ‘found’ the Croc because if you didn’t, one of those seventy-five other volunteers would. Did you think it would look better if you found it? Or did you think you could explain why your DNA was on it by saying that you touched it when you found it?”
Finally, Brandon looked up, his voice quaking. “He suffocated.”
“Jamal suffocated?”
He nodded, looking past Jack as he spoke, a vacant expression in his eyes. “We were just trying to scare him. When I opened the trunk, Jamal was dead.”
An Alpha brother jumped to his feet in the crowd. “Brandon, don’t!”
Judge Teague gaveled down the interruption and then spoke directly to the witness. “Mr. Wall, under the Constitution of the United States you have no further obligation to answer Mr. Swyteck’s questions. You have the right to say nothing until you’ve consulted with legal counsel.”
Jack heard what the judge was saying, but he stood dumbfounded, as his own interpretation of a night gone terribly wrong played out like a movie in his mind. A blindfolded Jamal with his mouth taped shut. The Alpha brothers shoving him in a stuffy trunk. The hourlong car ride to the river. The trunk popping open and Brandon’s horrified discovery that Jamal had suffocated. The panic over a possible arrest and prison sentence for all the brothers involved, not to mention the disgrace to befall the Alpha house. And someone—Brandon—coming up with a surefire way to divert law enforcement’s attention from any involvement of a black fraternity: a staged lynching, inspired by the true story of Willie James Howard.
“I think I need a lawyer,” said Brandon.
“Bailiff, please take Mr. Wall into custody,” the judge said.
A Death in Live Oak Page 31