Ties That Bind
Page 25
Jenna looked up at him. She still had feelings for him but she wanted to be sure that renewing a relationship was the best thing for everyone, especially their children. “Yes, I’ll think about it.”
“Fair enough.”
“And you won’t put any pressure on me?”
Randolph smiled. “What kind of pressures?”
Her words came out in a throaty whisper when she said. “Pressure of the worse kind and you know what I’m talking about.”
A deep smile curved his lips. “Yes, I’ve got a pretty good idea. How about letting me take you out tonight? A movie?”
Jenna nodded. “All right. There shouldn’t be a problem getting Mom to watch Haywood.”
“I want Haywood to come, too.”
Jenna lifted her dark brow. “Do you know what kind of movie we’re talking about then?”
“Yes. But I want to spend time with her and I want her to spend time with me. Is that all right?”
Jenna smiled. “Yes, that’s perfectly all right.”
That night the three of them went to dinner and then to a movie, Disney’s new animated motion picture, The Fox and the Hound. Afterward, Randolph took them to an ice cream parlor for Haywood’s favorite, chocolate-chip cookie dough.
After Jenna had undressed Haywood and gotten her into bed, she rejoined Randolph in the living room on the sofa. “Haywood enjoyed herself a lot tonight, Randolph. I appreciate you including her in our plans.”
He smiled as she came and sat down next to him on the sofa. “I will always include her, Jenna. She is a part of you and I know it’s a package deal. I wouldn’t want it any other way.” He pulled her into his arms. “I’d like to go see your mother tomorrow. How is she?”
Jenna sighed. “Mom’s doing fine. She had a hard time after Dad’s death and moving here to Atlanta was the best thing for her. The boys keep her busy since none of them have decided to get married. She’s hoping that Haywood won’t be her only grandchild.” After a few moments she said, “And how is Gramma Mattie?”
He leaned back against the sofa.
“She’s doing fine. She does a lot of charity work to keep busy. A lot of her relatives have sold their land to developers on Hilton Head and for a long time that bothered her but she refused to sell Glendale Shores.”
“And I don’t blame her. It’s her legacy as well as yours.”
Randolph pulled her closer into his arms. “Yes, and Trey’s as well. I just hope he appreciates it when he’s old enough to inherit it. Angela thinks Gramma Mattie ought to sell it and take the money. She doesn’t understand or appreciate the value of something being handed down through generations—especially for black people. There’s little we have that we can call ours and can still hold onto.”
“And how are your grandparents, Robert and Julia?”
“They are fine. Grandmother Julia had a hard time adjusting to Ross’s death and had a light stroke in the seventies. But now she’s doing fine and is as feisty as ever, and still refuses to see Angela’s true colors. She’s hoping for a reconciliation although I’ve told her countless times it won’t happen. Granddad still comes into the office at least twice a week although he’s officially retired.” Randolph chuckled. “I think he does it just to get away from Grandmother Julia for a while.”
He checked his watch. “It’s time that I leave. Will you walk me to the door?”
“Sure,” Jenna said, getting to her feet. “How long will you be in Atlanta?”
“Through Tuesday. Then I’m flying to Philadelphia to meet with someone who used to be an agent for the FBI. He’s willing to testify as to what the FBI was doing against various rights movements in the sixties, especially the Panthers.”
“Won’t it be dangerous for him to talk?”
“He feels he has nothing to lose since he’s dying of cancer.”
“Oh, how sad.”
“Yeah, but he won’t be dying in vain if he knows something that can free Johnny.” When they reached the door Randolph pulled her into his arms. “I’d like to spend as much time as I can with you and Haywood while I’m here. For the next three weeks I’m going to be extremely busy trying to put together enough evidence for Governor Brown to review. But sometime during that time I’ll be returning to Virginia to spend time with Trey. Due to my busy schedule I try to do that every chance I get.”
Jenna nodded. “You will keep me abreast of how Johnny’s doing, won’t you?”
“Of course.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her in a way that was meant to give her pleasurable memories for that night and a few nights to come.
Twenty-four
February 1981
Randolph spent the next five weeks working extremely hard on Johnny’s case. He met with Marvin Crews, a man who’d been a FBI agent for thirty years before retiring at the end of the seventies. He spent a lot of time between California and Virginia and included pit stops in Atlanta whenever he could to see Jenna and Haywood.
After meeting with Governor Brown he filed the necessary papers with the courts asking for a retrial. Word had come to him a week later in Virginia that a new trial would be granted. He leaned back in his office chair and released a huge sigh. They had succeeded and moved past one hurdle but there would be others. News of Johnny’s new trial would put the FBI on notice and they would be doing anything and everything to prepare for it. It wouldn’t be the first time that a former Panther member claimed the FBI had framed them.
Randolph’s thoughts were interrupted when Clara rang him. “Yes, Clara, what is it?”
“Mrs. Fuller is here to see you.”
“My grandmother?”
“No sir, your ex-wife.”
Randolph frowned. He could hear Angela in the background taking offense at being referred to as his ex-wife. “Did you tell her I’m busy and asked not to be disturbed?”
“Yes sir, I tried.”
Frustrated, Randolph rubbed a hand across his face. “All right, then. Please send her in.”
No sooner had Clara opened his office door than Angela came storming in. “How could you!” she all but screamed. “How could you take back up with that woman?!”
It didn’t take Randolph long to figure out what woman Angela was talking about. Evidently she had found out that he was seeing Jenna—not that he had been trying to keep it a secret—but he wasn’t in the mood for one of her tantrums. He stood.
“You have no right to question what I do or who I see, Angela. For some reason you can’t get it into your head that we’re no longer married.”
Tears, whether fake or real, were in her eyes. “But I’m the mother of your son. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
Randolph’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, it means you’re the mother of my son and nothing more.”
“Trey wants the three of us to be together.”
“I would give my son anything he wants but never that. You and I are finished. In truth, there was never an ‘us.’ It was all lies from the beginning.”
“It wasn’t my fault that I got pregnant!”
Randolph walked from around his desk, muttering a curse under his breath. His temper had reached the boiling point. “You think not? Well, I know otherwise. Two years ago I happened to run into the woman who was your best friend and former roommate at Howard. Kathy Taylor. You do remember her, don’t you? She got drunk and spilled her guts about your abortion, which I later verified with my own private investigator, so don’t waste time denying it. She also told me about what you did to me that day after I had gotten the news about Ross. She told me how she was the one to supply you with the speed to put into my drink.”
Shock flashed across Angela’s face. “Surely you don’t believe that. She lied.”
Randolph clenched his teeth to keep from cursing. “No, she did not. She knew too much about it and after listening to her, it all made sense. Grief-stricken or not, I would not have made love to you with a ten-foot pole unless I’d been drugged.”
“No, that’s not
true. You’ve always wanted me like I’ve always wanted you.”
Randolph looked at her like she was crazy. “I’ve never wanted you. I’ve always loved Jenna and you were engaged to marry Ross.”
“But I would not have married Ross. I would have found some way out of the engagement. I never loved him. I always wanted you.”
A frown marred Randolph’s features. He was taken aback by her words. Although Kathy Taylor had mentioned that very thing to him, he had refused to believe that part of her conversation. “What are you saying?”
“Just what you heard. Ross didn’t love me so I have no regrets for not being in love with him either. You were the one I loved and wanted any would fantasize about you all the time,” she said like he should be appreciative that she had done so. “My only regret is that your grandmother felt I was more suited to be Ross’s wife than yours. Otherwise, the two of us would have been together from the start.”
“No, we would not have been,” he stated in violent protest. “I would never have allowed my grandmother to choose my wife. Don’t you understand I was in love with Jenna? In my heart, my mind and my soul, I was already married to her: That’s why I could never bring myself to physically touch you all those years we were together.”
“But you were married to me!”
“Legally yes, but in every other way possible I still belonged to Jenna. How could you think that you could replace her when she meant everything to me?”
“But I did replace her,” she said haughtily. “I planned everything and got just what I wanted. Ross’s death was unfortunate but it came at an opportune time.”
Randolph became livid. “Get out of my office, Angela, and don’t come back. Our only connection will be Trey. Only then can you contact me and only by phone. I don’t want to see you unless it’s when I come to pick up my son.”
Angela’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m going to tell him what you’re doing. I’m going to tell him that you’re allowing another woman to come between us and because of her the three of us can’t be a family.”
Randolph’s face turned to stone. “You go do that and while you’re at it also tell him about all the men you’ve slept with while married to me. You can also tell him how you drugged me into sleeping with you when I was already engaged to marry someone else. There is no way in hell that I’d ever get back with you. Now get out of here before I have security throw you out! The sight of you sickens me!”
“You turn your back on me and I’ll see to it that you lose your son. Count on it.” Angela then walked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
Randolph rubbed his hand across his face, hating the day Angela Douglass had come into his life.
Jenna, Leigh and Ellie entered the courtroom that was filled to capacity. As Jenna took her seat she glanced toward the front at Randolph. After the courts had made a decision to grant Johnny a new trial, Randolph had worked endlessly, putting together facts, investigating leads and interviewing potential witnesses. She hadn’t seen him in the past two weeks and looking at him now, she could see how much time he had put into Johnny’s case. Although he was meticulously dressed, the lines of strain around his eyes indicated he was tired, but the sparkle in them indicated he was ready for a good fight.
Ever since he had shown up that Saturday at her house, he had made occasional visits back to Atlanta to see her and Haywood. On these trips he would take them out to dinner, to a movie or just spend time with them. One night, while her mother had kept Haywood, Randolph had taken Jenna to a seventies night club, reliving the music, dress and food of the only decade they had spent apart since first meeting at Howard. They had danced the night away to all the disco sounds. She always enjoyed the time they spent together. Although the attraction between them was very strong, he never pushed for anything beyond friendship. But the kisses he would give her when it was time for him to leave left her breathless and yearning for more. But they had agreed to take things slow and get to know each other all over again. And because he’d been spending so much time working on Johnny’s defense, they were taking things even slower.
“Courtrooms always give me the creeps,” Leigh whispered to Jenna and Ellie.
Jenna nodded, knowing just how she felt. According to what she had read in the papers, the jury selection had taken almost a week but there they sat assembled, five women and seven men, all of them white. Randolph had told her that he would not be wasting his time trying to paint a picture of the Black Panthers as being a bunch of pure and innocent Boy Scouts. What he intended was to hit hard and heavy, specifically detailing how the FBI targeted the group on several occasions to destroy them, and how in Johnny’s particular case there was no physical evidence linking him with the crime. And the one witness they had was flimsy at best.
A lump formed in Jenna’s throat when Randolph happened to glance their way. He smiled at everyone but when his eyes met hers they spoke volumes and were filled with desire and longing. His attention was pulled back when the bailiff indicated the arrival of the judge and asked everyone in the courtroom to rise.
The new trial of the State of California and the federal government versus Johnny Lane was underway.
The prosecution, all federal attorneys, tried to paint a picture of Johnny as being a college dropout, a young man full of hatred against whites and the war; a man who had left DC and had come to California looking for trouble. They made him look like a militant, a radical, an extremist and a suspected communist. Their testimony lasted all that day and part of the next two days. The witnesses they called were police officers, informants and federal agents who had been involved in the raid that night. The only eyewitness, an agent by the name of Frank Miles, testified that he saw Johnny pull the trigger on the gun that killed federal agent James Johns. He further testified that Johnny would have killed him, too, had he not wrestled the gun from his hands.
Jenna had watched as Johnny sat there listening attentively, occasionally taking notes, but not showing any emotion at what Frank Miles or the other agents were saying.
On the fourth day the defense took over and she got to see Randolph in action. He painted another picture, one totally different than the one the federal attorneys had painted. He told the jury how the Panthers had started out as a group of intelligent black men, disenchanted with police brutality in their community, and who banded together to provide protection in their neighborhoods. He told about the covert FBI COINTELPRO activities that had been aimed at destroying the Black Panther Party at all cost. He called several past FBI informants to the stand who told how J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with destroying the group, even to the point of deliberately sending in informants whose sole purpose was to cause friction within the group. But the surprise came on the fifth day when Randolph called a white woman by the name of Holly Bell to the stand. She was the wife of a federal agent who’d also gotten killed in the Oakland raid.
Crying through most of her testimony, Holly Bell told everyone in the courtroom about the letters her husband had written, most of them to appease his conscience regarding the various things Hoover had ordered him to do against certain groups of people. But what Randolph wanted to hit on, and he did so extremely well, was the fact that in one of Oliver Bell’s letters to his wife, he told her that his partner, Agent Frank Miles, felt intense hatred for another agent by the name of James Johns.
The prosecution objected, stating Mrs. Bell’s testimony was sheer speculation. However the judge overruled their objections and allowed Oliver Bell’s letters to be entered as admissible evidence, thus planting a seed of doubt in everyone’s mind since the only eyewitness could also be a suspect.
Randolph presented testimony after testimony, letting his skill as an attorney shine through. He showed how the FBI distorted information and depicted them as an agency run by an obsessed tyrant hell-bent on destroying the Black Panther movement, even if it meant sacrificing some of his own men in the process and using unethical and illegal means to do so.
On the ninth day Randolph rested his case, hoping that he had created doubt of Johnny’s guilt in everyone’s mind. But still it wasn’t clear just how the jury would vote. The jury deliberated for three days, asking to re-review certain evidence and testimony. On the fourth day they were ready to present their verdict.
They found Johnny innocent of the charge of first-degree murder of a federal agent.
Twenty-five
Johnny wept like a baby. After nearly fourteen years of being locked behind bars he was free to live the rest of his life as he chose.
The federal attorneys and agents, unhappy with the verdict, stormed out of the courtroom while a mass of reporters flooded in. Flashbulbs went off and microphones were shoved in Randolph and Johnny’s faces. It had been a case that had drawn national attention. Randolph Fuller had set a precedent for fairness in this country, proving that every individual was guaranteed certain rights and the government had been put in place to protect those rights, not to distort or destroy them. And as Randolph had pointed out, no one man should have had that much absolute power. During his reign as FBI director, Hoover had held more power than the United States president and had maliciously abused it.