No Defense

by Rangeley Wallace

  “If the tape can be authenticated, I will admit it subject to the defense having the opportunity to inspect the recording, assure themselves that it is authentic,” Judge McNabb said. “Go ahead with your examination.”

  Junior pulled a brown cardboard box out from under the attorney’s table and removed an old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape player. A tape was already in the player. He lugged the machine over to the witness stand. “Let the record reflect that we have marked a reel-to-reel tape as State’s Exhibit One for Identification.”

  “Mr. Dorr, have you ever seen Exhibit One for Identification?” Junior asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “The night of September 5, this tape was used to record a statement made by Dean Reese.” Dorr stood up slightly and bent down over the reel. “Those are my initials and the date in ink on one of our evidence stickers, right there.”

  “Was anyone else present when this tape was made, other than you and Mr. Reese?”

  “No.”

  “When did you last see the tape, prior to yesterday?”

  “It was in my file cabinet in my office until I retired. When I retired I sent it to archives. Then when I got the subpoena to appear before the grand jury here I asked archives to find the tape. It took awhile, but finally they did, yesterday. An agent drove it over from Atlanta immediately.”

  “Who brought the tape and the tape player to the bam on September 5?”

  “Reese did.”

  “Who turned it on and off that night?”

  “He did.”

  “What happened the first time it was turned on?”

  “I spoke. I said that he and I were at a barn off Route 23, that Reese was going to make a statement about the murders of Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson.”

  “May I play the first minute or so of the tape marked as Exhibit One for Identification now, Your Honor?”

  “Go ahead,” Judge McNabb said.

  Chip sighed audibly as Junior carried the tape player back to his table and put it down there.

  Junior turned on the machine. A voice exploded out of the speaker.

  Dorr, who appeared to be in pain, reached for his ear and adjusted his hearing aid.

  “Sorry,” Junior said, turning the machine down. He rewound the tape and started over. The beginning of the tape was exactly as Dorr had described it. Junior turned off the machine.

  “Is that an accurate recording of what you said at the beginning of the taping with Dean Reese on the evening of September 5?” Junior resumed his pacing again.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “What happened next?” Junior asked.

  “Dean Reese just talked. I listened. The tape recorded him.”

  “May I play a bit more?” Junior asked Judge McNabb.

  “Yes.”

  Junior then played another few seconds of the tape. A man’s voice said, “My name is Dean Gilbert Reese and this is my statement to Agent Dorr.”

  “Is that Dean Reese speaking, Mr. Dorr?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that an accurate recording of the first words he spoke into the tape recorder on the night of September 5?”

  “Yes.”

  “I move that State Exhibit One for Identification be admitted into evidence,” Junior said.

  Chip stood again. “I must object again, Your Honor, to anything on that recording that Mr. Reese may or may not have said being admitted into evidence,” he argued, his face growing bright red as he became genuinely incensed. “It is preposterous and patently unfair. Reese is not here for me to cross-examine, and for the many reasons hearsay is inadmissible you should exclude any part of the tape made by Dean Reese, the most significant being we can’t see him, listen to him, and judge his credibility here in the courtroom. Even a madman can sound sane on a tape. But then, when you see him, you know the truth.”

  Junior stood up but apparently had second thoughts about what he was about to say and sat back down.

  “I’m afraid I must grant Mr. Fuller’s motion on behalf of the State and admit the tape subject to your inspecting it, Mr. Tuckahoe,” the judge said. “I know Reese is not here to cross-examine, and if there were a jury I might hesitate a little more on this ruling. But as you requested, there is no jury. I assure you I am capable of weighing accurately the probative value of the tape. The defense has until Monday morning, five days counting today, to examine the tape and make any further objections at that time. That’s plenty of time, don’t you think? You may play Exhibit One, Mr. Fuller,” Judge McNabb said.

  Chip sat down, shaking his head in dismay. My father whispered something to him and then they, like the rest of us, waited to hear the tape.

  Junior turned on the machine and Dean Reese’s voice filled the courtroom.

  “My name is Dean Reese,” he said. “I want to set the record straight about what happened to those boys, Turnbow and Johnson, who got killed last week, because I know who they’ll try to blame.” Reese had a more noticeable twang than most of the people around Tallagumsa. We all talked with heavy southern accents, but his voice had a rough, redneck quality to it that fit perfectly the physical description of Reese given earlier. He sounded like a good old boy.

  I dreaded hearing whatever his eerie presence was about to reveal. We’d gone into this trial assuming nothing Reese said would be admitted. How bad would it be?

  “This is how it happened, the truth and the whole truth,” Reese said. “On the night of August 27, 1963, I was home with my wife, Liz, and our baby, watching TV, when the doorbell rang. It was my friend, Sheriff Newell Hagerdorn. The sheriff’s car was out front. Floyd Waddy was sitting in it, waiting. I waved hi to him. ‘Wanna go get a drink?’ Newell asked me. We spend a lot of time hanging out together. We’re buddies, you know. ‘Aren’t you working?’ I asked him. ‘Yeah, but nothing’s going on,’ he said, so I told my wife I was going and went on with them. I thought we were going to a bar to drink, but there was a case of beer in the back seat. We drove around and drank, and after a while Newell asked, did I want to drive. ‘Sure,’ I said. So we stopped and I got in the driver’s seat and Newell took the passenger seat. Floyd stayed in back. I started driving. We all drank beer. ‘What do you think about them nigger boys trying to integrate the university?’ Newell asked me. ‘Not much,’ I said. The radio was playing ‘Johnny Angel’ and I wanted to listen to the song, not to talk, but then Newell said, ‘Drive on over to Old Highway 49; they’re going to be going that way and we can give them a scare.’ We did, and we were laughing and having some fun driving up and down the road, honking and singing, when what do you know, we see a car up ahead, and Newell said, ‘Put on the sirens,’ so I did. Newell asked Floyd for the shotgun out of the back and told me to pull up alongside the car. I did, we saw who it was, then he shot, twice. I thought he was just trying to scare them, but he hit the one who was driving. Their car swerved and hit a tree and crashed to a stop. ‘Shit, man,’ Floyd said. ‘Quick. Pull over.’ So I did. We all got out. The one driving was dead, but the other one got out of the car and began running away. Newell ran after him and shot him, bam, bam, bam, three times, I think. Then Newell ran back, jumped in the car, and said, ‘Let’s go. Take Floyd home, then I’ll drop you off.’ And that’s it. That’s what happened. We dropped Floyd off, then went to my house. I got out and told Newell I’d take the gun and get rid of it. I took it and gave it to Agent Dorr instead.”

  As the tape played, Judge McNabb’s head had fallen forward, revealing the spottiness of his hair transplants. He didn’t even look up again when the tape ended. The courtroom was still. Feeling something warm on my chin, I reached up and touched it. I looked at my hand. My lip was bleeding. I must have been chewing on it for some time. I took a Kleenex out of my purse and dabbed at it. Judge McNabb slowly raised his head. His face was pale, and beads of sweat rested on his lip and forehead.

  Daddy wrote someth
ing on Chip’s yellow pad and pushed the pad over to Chip. Chip read it and shrugged.

  I turned slightly to look at my family across the courtroom, a few rows behind me. Jane, of course, was no longer there: Earlier that morning the judge had sent her to wait in the witness room. Buck’s face was obscured by the handkerchief he was using to wipe his forehead. Eddie looked right at me. Much to my surprise he looked upset and sad. Mother was staring straight ahead, one hand resting lightly on her throat. She appeared to be in a world of her own.

  “Mr. Dorr, is that the same statement you heard Dean Reese give on the night of September 5?”Junior asked.

  “Yes, it is. Hard to forget that.”

  “Has anything been added or omitted?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see Dean Reese again after that?”

  “No. He died the next day.”

  “Did you have occasion to talk to anyone else in Tallagumsa during the course of your investigation?”

  “Yes, Dean’s wife, Liz Reese.”

  “When?”

  “A day or two after he died.”

  “Can you tell us about that?”

  “We dropped by unannounced, as no one ever answered our phone calls. She was hysterical. She had bruises on her legs and a black eye too. She was crying like a wild woman-you know, out of control. She had a little baby there with her, who was crying too. There were clothes everywhere and several open suitcases. She didn’t say anything except she blamed us for giving her husband the power to cause so much pain. She was angry and asked us to leave her alone.”

  “Did the FBI continue its investigation thereafter?”

  “No. We closed the investigation mid-September 1963.”

  “Why?” Junior asked.

  “My superior, Carl Best, decided that we didn’t have a chance of bringing or winning a case, given the circumstances. Even with the best federal civil rights cases, we often couldn’t get indictments out of a local federal grand jury in the South. A conviction was even harder back then. Our policy was to negotiate and persuade as much as possible, to accomplish voting rights and integration with as little violence as possible. Accusing the sheriff of a small southern town of murder wasn’t likely to make us too popular. With Dean Reese dead, we didn’t seem to have much choice. We could only do so much, and we had plenty of other problems to deal with in the South.”

  “Did you agree with his decision?”

  “I understood it. It wasn’t my job to agree or disagree.”

  “No further questions,” Junior said. He walked slowly back to his chair, cracked the knuckles of his right hand, and sat down.

  “Are you going to cross-examine, Mr. Tuckahoe?” Judge

  McNabb asked Chip.

  “Yes, sir,” Chip said, rising.

  “Well, it’s almost noon,” Judge McNabb said, “so why don’t we adjourn for lunch. I have a motion in another matter at one o’clock to attend to. Court is adjourned until two o’clock.”

  “All rise,” the bailiff said.

  As we rose, Judge McNabb left the room. I rushed out as fast as I could, pushing past the few people who tried to leave before me. It was starting to drizzle as I walked quickly to my car and drove away.

  I had not bothered to go out to the memorial after Ben told me of the defacement but was desperate to see it now. I sped out Old Highway 49 and pulled over at the tree.

  A storm was gathering. The sky was rapidly growing dark with distant lightning followed by a roll of thunder every five or so minutes. Behind the tree the corn that had been planted in the spring and grown through the summer was gone. Cows or pigs had been turned out to feed on the stalks after the ears were picked, leaving the fields barren and dusty.

  I got out of the car, trying hard not to think of Dean Reese’s voice describing that night fifteen years ago. I didn’t believe a thing he’d said, but I found his words replaying in my head over and over, as if I’d brought the tape player with me.

  The memorial was ruined. Someone had splattered the metal plaque and the stand on which it rested with blood-red paint. Even worse, a big red thick-lipped smile had been painted around the gash in the tree. I couldn’t even cry. It was too late for that.

  A black storm cloud opened, dropping a torrent of rain. As a lightning bolt landed nearby, I ran back to the car, still fully intending to stay at the memorial for the entire break. After a few minutes, however, the scene Dean Reese had described as having occurred on this very spot seemed to come to life in front of me. Behind the heavy sheets of rain, I watched the boys’ car crash into the tree and the sheriff’s car pulling over next to it. I squeezed my eyes shut tight for a moment, then sped away, leaving the tree, the memorial, the dead boys, and their murderer behind me.

  By one-forty I was back in the courtroom in my seat in the first row behind the empty defense table. I was waiting, trying to concentrate on my throbbing lip to the exclusion of all else, when my father and Chip walked by.

  Daddy stopped and put his hand on my shoulder. “Where’d you run off to?” he asked. “We were looking for you at the Steak House.”

  “I had something I had to do at the house,” I lied.

  He smiled knowingly.

  I’d never been able to lie to him and get away with it.

  The spectators filed into the gallery quietly, their voices muted by an almost palpable undercurrent of suspense and expectation.

  “How long did Dean Reese provide information to the FBI, Mr. Dorr?” Chip asked when he began his cross-examination of the FBI agent. Chip stood next to his chair. On the table within reach of his right hand were several sharpened pencils, a yellow pad, and a small pile of papers.

  “One year, maybe a little more.”

  “Did you ever bring a case-by that I mean, indict anyone based on any information Dean Reese gave you-prior to this case, that is?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever learn anything about the Klan from him, anything that you didn’t already know?”

  “No.”

  “Did you feel he was a reliable source of information?”

  “We wouldn’t have paid him if we didn’t,” Mr. Dorr said.

  “Didn’t he ever give you information which turned out to be false?”

  “Sure, but that’s not unusual. Informants give us what they have, based on what they hear. Sometimes it turns out to be false.”

  “Didn’t he provide false evidence to you in another civil rights case?” Chip asked.

  “There was an occasion on which Mr. Reese provided information that turned out not to be accurate information, yes.”

  “When was that? Before or after the Turnbow-Johnson murders?”

  “The spring before, in the murder of a prominent black man in Mississippi, Medgar Evers.”

  “Didn’t Dean Reese purposefully mislead you in that matter?”

  “I don’t know that to be the case. The information he gave us wasn’t accurate, that’s all.” Dorr, starting to look tired, rested his elbow on the edge of the stand and his chin on his hand.

  “But isn’t it true that the person who Dean Reese claimed had killed Medgar Evers was the same person who’d fired Reese from a garage job in Mississippi the year before?”

  “Yes, that’s what we discovered.”

  “And yet you claim his accusation in the Evers case wasn’t intentionally false?”

  “I just don’t know, one way or the other,” Dorr said.

  “Why did you rely on him for anything after that troubling incident occurred?”

  “Objection,” Junior said. “The witness hasn’t testified the incident was troubling.”

  “Was it?” Chip asked.

  “Yes,” Dorr said. “But we needed anything we could get out of the Deep South in those days. You know, I’m sure, that most people who are willing to inform on other people aren’t the most upstanding citizens, but law enforcement needs their help.”

  “You mean you were desperate?”

  “No, I w
ouldn’t say that.”

  “Let me ask it another way: Would Dean Reese have been your first choice for a reliable source of information?”

  “No. But he wouldn’t have been my last, either.”

  “But you had other problems with him, didn’t you? In fact, didn’t Dean Reese have a reputation for violence and drunkenness?”

  “There was some talk along those lines.”

  Chip picked up a piece of paper from the pile next to his yellow pad. “Didn’t you once say, Mr. Dorr ...”

  Junior stood up. “Mr. Reese has been accused today of nearly every sin in the Bible. He is not on trial, however, and I think this collateral attack on him has gone far enough. Could Mr. Tuckahoe just get on with the case at hand?”

  “The State can’t rely on Reese for its entire case and then try to deny the defense its only avenue for assessing his truth and veracity,” Chip said. He looked ready for a fistfight, bouncing slightly off one foot, then the other.

  “Dean Reese is not our entire case. Just one little piece of it, as you will see.” Junior seemed very smug.

  “I doubt that,” Chip said.

  “You may proceed, Mr. Tuckahoe,” Judge McNabb said.

  “Didn’t you say in 1963 that ‘Dean Reese has a reputation for being an extremely unstable alcoholic known for violent and unpredictable behavior’? Aren’t those your exact words?” Chip asked, holding up the paper and waving it for emphasis.

  “Yes. They are.”

  “Isn’t that why the FBI didn’t push this case in 1963? Because it was too embarrassed to go ahead with a case based on the testimony of a drunken liar who killed himself?” Chip asked. “Just as the State today should be embarrassed by this case?”

  “Objection,” Junior said. “He’s arguing his case, not questioning the witness.”