David Baldacci

by Wish You Well (v5)

  A gasp went up from the crowd. And then the door opened and Lou and Eugene came in. Miller and Goode looked smug once more as they saw it was only the child. Eugene sat while Lou went up to the witness chair.

  Fred approached. “Raise your right hand, put your left on the Bible. You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do,” she said quietly, looking around at everyone staring at her. Cotton smiled reassuringly. Out of sight of anyone, he showed her that his fingers were crossed for luck too.

  “Now, Lou, what I have to ask you is going to be painful, but I need you to answer my questions. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, on the day Jimmy Skinner was killed, you were with him, right?”

  Miller and Goode exchanged troubled glances. Goode got to his feet.

  “Your Honor, what does this have to do with anything?”

  “The Commonwealth agreed to let me explore my theory,” said Cotton.

  “All right,” said the judge. “But don’t take all day.”

  Cotton turned back to Lou. “You were at the mine entrance when the explosion occurred?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you describe for us what happened?”

  Lou swallowed, her eyes becoming watery.

  “Eugene set the dynamite and came out. We were just going to wait for it to go off. Diamond—I mean, Jimmy—ran into the mine to get Jeb, his dog, who had chased a squirrel in there. Eugene went in to get Jimmy. I was standing in front of the entrance when the dynamite went off”

  “Was it a loud explosion?”

  “Loudest thing I’ve heard in my life.”

  “Could you say whether you heard two explosions?”

  She looked confused. “No, I can’t.”

  “Likely as not. Then what happened?”

  “Well, this big rush of air and smoke came out and knocked me down.”

  “Must’ve been some force.”

  “It was. It truly was.”

  “Thank you, Lou. No further questions.”

  “Mr. Goode?” said Atkins.

  “No questions, Your Honor. Unlike Mr. Longfellow, I’m not going to waste the jury’s valuable time with this nonsense.”

  “I next call Eugene Randall,” said Cotton.

  A nervous Eugene was on the stand. The hat Lou had given him was clutched tightly in his hands.

  “Now, Eugene, you went to the mine the day Jimmy Skinner was killed to get some coal, correct?”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “You use dynamite to get the coal out?”

  “Yep, most folks do. Coal make good heat. Lot better’n wood.”

  “How many times you reckon you’ve used dynamite in that mine?”

  Eugene thought about this. “Over the years, thirty times or mo’.”

  “I think that makes you an expert.”

  Eugene smiled at this designation. “I reckon so.”

  “How exactly do you go about using the dynamite?”

  “Well, I put the stick’a dynamite in a hole in the wall, cap it, roll out my fuse, and light the fuse with the flame from my lantern.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  “That shaft curves in a couple places, so’s I sometimes wait round the curve if I ain’t using much dynamite. Sometime I go outside. Noise’s starting to hurt my ears now. And blast kick the coal dust up bad.”

  “I bet it can. In fact, on the day in question, you did go outside. Right?”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “And then you went back inside to get Jimmy, but were unsuccessful.”

  “Yes, suh,” Eugene answered, looking down.

  “Was that the first time you’d been in the mine in a while?”

  “Yes, suh. Since the first of the year. Past winter ain’t that bad.”

  “Okay. Now, when the explosion went off, where were you?”

  “Eighty feet in. Not to the first curve. Got me the bad leg, ain’t moving fast no more.”

  “What happened to you when the explosion occurred?”

  “Throwed me ten feet. Hit the wall. Thought I be dead. Held on to my lantern, though. Ain’t know how.”

  “Good Lord. Ten feet? A big man like you? Now, do you remember where you put the dynamite charge?”

  “Don’t never forget that, Mr. Cotton. Past the second curve. Three hunnerd feet in. Good vein of coal there.”

  Cotton feigned confusion. “I’m not getting something here, Eugene. Now, you testified that on occasion you would actually stay in the mine when the dynamite went off. And you weren’t injured then. And yet here, how is it that you were over two hundred feet from the dynamite charge, around not just one but two shaft curves, and the explosion still knocked you ten feet in the air? If you were any closer, you probably would’ve been killed. How do you explain that?”

  Eugene too was thoroughly bewildered now. “I can’t, Mr. Cotton. But it done happened. I swear.”

  “I believe you. Now, you’ve heard Lou testify as to being knocked down while she was outside the mine. Whenever you were waiting outside the mine, that ever happen to you when the dynamite went off ?”

  Eugene was shaking his head before Cotton finished his question. “Little bit of dynamite I used ain’t have nowhere near that kind’a kick. Just getting me some for the bucket. Use more dynamite come winter when I take the sled and mules down, but even that wouldn’t come out the mine like that. Lord, you talking three hunnerd feet in and round two curves.”

  “You found Jimmy’s body. Was there rock and stone on it? Had the mine collapsed?”

  “No, suh. But I know he dead. He ain’t got no lantern, see. You in that mine with no light, you ain’t know which way in or out. Mind play tricks on you. He ain’t prob’ly even see Jeb pass him heading out.”

  “Can you tell us exactly where you found Jimmy?”

  “ ’Nuther hunnerd twenty feet in. Past the first curve, but not the second.”

  Farmer and merchant sat and stood side by side as they watched Cotton work. Miller fiddled with his hat and then leaned forward and whispered into Goode’s ear. Goode nodded, looked at Eugene, and then smiled and nodded again.

  “Well, let’s assume,” said Cotton, “that Jimmy was close to the dynamite charge when it went off. It could have thrown his body a good ways, couldn’t it?”

  “If ’n he close, sure could.”

  “But his body wasn’t past the second curve?”

  Goode stood up. “That’s easily explained. The dynamite explosion could have thrown the boy past the second curve.”

  Cotton looked at the jury. “I fail to see how a body in flight can negotiate a ninety-degree curve and then proceed on before coming to rest. Unless Mr. Goode is maintaining that Jimmy Skinner could fly of his own accord.”

  Ripples of laughter floated across the courtroom. Atkins creaked back in his chair, yet did not smack his gavel to stop the sounds. “Go on, Cotton. This is getting kind’a interesting.”

  “Eugene, you remember feeling bad when you were in the mine that day?”

  Eugene thought about this. “Hard to recollect. Maybe a little pain in the head.”

  “Okay, now, in your expert opinion, could the dynamite explosion alone have caused Jimmy Skinner’s body to end up where it did?”

  Eugene looked over at the jury and took his time in eyeing them one by one. “No, suh!”

  “Thank you, Eugene. No further questions.”

  Goode approached and put the palms of his hands on the witness box and leaned close to Eugene.

  “Boy, you live with Miss Cardinal in her house, don’t you?”

  Eugene sat back a bit, his gaze steady on the man. “Yes, suh.”

  Goode gave the jury a pointed look. “A colored man and a white woman in the same house?”

  Cotton was on his feet before Goode finished his question. “Judge, you can’t let him do that.”

  “Mr. Goode,” said Atkins, “y’all might do that sort of t
hing on down Richmond way, but we don’t in my courtroom. If you got something to ask the man about this case, then you do it, or else sit yourself down. And last time I checked, his name was Mr. Eugene Randall, not ‘boy.’ ”

  “Right, Your Honor, certainly.” Goode cleared his throat, stepped back, and slid his hands in his pockets. “Now, Mister Eugene Randall, you said in your expert opinion that you were two hundred feet or so from the charge, and that Mr. Skinner was about half that distance from the dynamite and such. You remember saying all that?”

  “No, suh. I says I was eighty feet in the mine, so’s I was two hunnerd and twenty feet from the charge. And I says I found Diamond a hunnerd and twenty feet from where I was. That mean he be a hunnerd feet from where I set the dynamite. I ain’t got no way to tell how far he got blowed.”

  “Right, right. Now, you ever been to school?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “No, suh.”

  “So you never took math, never did any adding and subtracting. And yet you’re sitting up here testifying under oath to all these exact distances.”

  “Yep.”

  “So how can that be for an uneducated colored man such as yourself ? Who’s never even added one plus one under the eye of a teacher? Why should this good jury believe you up here spouting all these big numbers?”

  Eugene’s gaze never left Goode’s confident features. “Knowed my numbers real good. Cipher and all. Takeaway. Miss Louisa done taught me. And I right handy with nail and saw. I hepped many a folk on the mountain raise barns. You a carpenter, you got to know numbers. You cut a three-foot board to fill a four-foot space, what ’xactly have you done?”

  Laughter floated across the room again, and again Atkins let it go.

  “Fine,” said Goode, “so you can cut a board. But in a pitch-dark twisting mine how can you be so sure of what you’re saying? Come on now, Mister Eugene Randall, tell us.” Goode looked at the jury as he said this, a smile playing across his lips.

  “ ’Cause it be right there on the wall,” said Eugene.

  Goode stared at him. “Excuse me?”

  “I done marked the walls in that mine with whitewash in ten-foot parcels over four hunnerd feet in. Lotta folk up here do that. You blasting in a mine, you better durn sure know how fer you got to go to get out. I knowed I do ’cause I got me the bad leg. And that way I ’member where the good coal veins are. You get yourself on down to the mine right now with a lantern, mister lawyer, you see them marks clear as the day. So’s you can put down what I done said here as the word of the Lord.”

  Cotton glanced at Goode. To him the Commonwealth’s attorney looked as though someone had just informed him that heaven did not admit members of the legal Bar.

  “Any further questions?” Atkins asked Goode. The man said nothing in response but merely drifted back to his table like an errant cloud and collapsed in the chair.

  “Mr. Randall,” said Atkins, “you’re excused, sir, and the court wants to thank you for your expert testimony.”

  Eugene stood and walked back to his seat. From the balcony Lou observed that his limp was hardly noticeable. Cotton next called Travis Barnes to the stand.

  “Dr. Barnes, at my request you examined the records pertaining to Jimmy Skinner’s death, didn’t you? Including a photograph taken outside the mine.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Can you tell us the cause of death?”

  “Massive head and body injuries.”

  “What was the condition of the body?”

  “It was literally torn apart.”

  “You ever treated anybody injured by a dynamite explosion?”

  “In coal mining country? I say I have.”

  “You heard Eugene testify. In your opinion, under those circumstances, could the dynamite charge have caused the injuries you saw on Jimmy Skinner?”

  Goode did not bother to rise to offer his objection. “Calls for speculation from the witness,” he said gruffly.

  “Judge, I think Dr. Barnes is fully competent to answer that question as an expert witness,” said Cotton.

  Atkins was already nodding. “Go on ahead, Travis.”

  Travis eyed Goode with contempt. “I well know the sorts of dynamite charges folks up here use to get a bucket of coal out. That distance from the charge and around a shaft curve, there is no way that dynamite caused the injuries I saw on that boy. I can’t believe nobody figured that out before now.”

  Cotton said, “I guess a person goes in a mine and dynamite goes off, they just believe that’s what killed him. You ever seen such injuries before?”

  “Yes. Explosion at a manufacturing plant. Killed a dozen men. Same as Jimmy. Literally blown apart.”

  “What was the cause of that explosion?”

  “Natural gas leak.”

  Cotton turned and looked dead-on at Hugh Miller.

  “Mr. Goode, unless you care to take a shot, I’m calling Mr. Judd Wheeler to the stand.”

  Goode looked at Miller, betrayed. “No questions.”

  A nervous Wheeler fidgeted in the witness box as Cotton approached.

  “You’re Southern Valley’s chief geologist?”

  “I am.”

  “And you headed up the team that was exploring possible natural gas deposits on Miss Cardinal’s property?”

  “I did.”

  “Without her permission or knowledge?”

  “Well, I don’t know about—”

  “Did you have her permission, Mr. Wheeler?” Cotton snapped.

  “No.”

  “You found natural gas, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And it was something your company was right interested in, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, natural gas is getting to be very valuable as a heating fuel. We mostly use manufactured gas, town gas they call it. You get that from heating coal. That’s what fuels the streetlights in this town. But you can’t make much money with town gas. And we have seamless steel pipe now, which allows us to send gas in pipelines a long way. So yes, we were very interested.”

  “Natural gas is explosive, right?”

  “If properly used—”

  “Is it, or isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Exactly what did you do in that mine?”

  “We took readings and did tests and located what appeared to be a huge field of gas in a trap not too far underneath the surface of that mine shaft and about six hundred feet in the mine. Coal, oil, and gas are often found together because all three result from similar natural processes. The gas always lies on top because it’s lighter. That’s why you have to be careful when you’re mining coal. Methane gas buildup is a real danger to the miners. Anyway, we drilled down and hit that gas field.”