A Time to Stand

by Robert Whitlow

“Before I answer, let me mention something else that’s going to affect your case. For many years Georgia had a unique statute designed to help law enforcement officers in situations like yours. A police officer under investigation for a shooting that occurred while he or she was in the line of duty had the right to hear all the testimony presented by the grand jury and make a statement before them without being subject to cross-examination. The law changed in 2016. Now, you can still appear and testify if you want to; however, you can be questioned under oath by both the district attorney and individual members of the grand jury without the ability to have an attorney present. That’s a huge change and makes it much riskier for a law enforcement officer to enter the grand jury room.”

  “Should I take that chance?” Luke asked. “I don’t want to make things worse.”

  “Basic human psychology tells us it’s harder to think badly of someone we know than of a total stranger. If you testify, it will be a chance for the members of the grand jury to meet you before deciding what to do about the charges. It would be better for the lawyer who ends up representing you to advise you on those issues.”

  “Would you consider taking the case?” Luke asked hopefully. “I don’t have a lot of money, but to have someone with your experience—”

  “I agreed to meet with you as a courtesy,” Grayson replied with a slight smile. “I’ve handled my fair share of felony criminal cases, but it would take a lot to convince me to hop on that saddle at this point in my career.”

  Grayson was calm yet confident. Luke could easily imagine the older lawyer speaking to a jury in a grandfatherly tone that pulled the barbs from a criminal charge. His refusal to consider taking the case was deflating.

  “Do I have your permission to share the information in the recorded interview with other lawyers who might be willing to help?” Grayson continued.

  “Sure.” Luke shrugged. “But also tell them this: I want someone who is going to fight for me. I don’t want a lawyer who takes my money and then tries to bull-rush me into a plea bargain.”

  “Understood. And we also need to make sure any lawyer brought on board won’t abandon you if Deshaun Hamlin dies and you end up being charged with murder.”

  After listening to Aunt Josie talk about the Jackson House, Adisa decided to go there. Located at the west end of the main street through the center of town, the restaurant had been offering southern cuisine since the 1940s.

  Saturday lunch was a slow time for the local restaurant. The busiest day of the week was Sunday dinner, and the busiest day of the year was Mother’s Day, when the owners rolled out a special buffet and placed fresh flowers in the middle of each table. Seating was first come, first served, and Adisa slipped into a booth with yellow plastic seats. A teenage girl with dingy blond hair caught up in a haphazard ponytail came over with a glass of water in her hand.

  “Do you want to hear the specials?” the girl asked in a lazy tone of voice and continued before Adisa answered. “We have fried pork chops and stewed okra and cauliflower casserole as the extra vegetable.”

  “Cauliflower casserole?” Adisa asked.

  “It’s the same as the broccoli and squash casseroles except they put cauliflower in it.”

  Adisa decided to stick to the dishes Aunt Josie had mentioned at the hospital and ordered a three-veggie plate of sweet potatoes, creamed corn, and collard greens.

  “Corn bread or roll?” the girl asked.

  “Corn bread. Isn’t that the only kind of bread to eat with collard greens?”

  “I guess,” the girl replied. “Nothing but water to drink?”

  “Water is fine.”

  The waitress left. The other customers in the restaurant included a group of four construction workers—one white, two Latino, and one black—sitting together at a table with their hard hats on the floor; several couples; and an extended family of twelve who had pushed three tables together. The large family had already received their food. There were two babies learning to eat, and small piles of discarded food were accumulating beneath their high chairs. Adisa took out her phone and began checking her office e-mails.

  “Adisa Johnson?” a female voice asked, causing Adisa to look up.

  Standing beside the table was a slightly overweight woman in her late forties with curly brown hair that dipped down her forehead. She was wearing black designer glasses that barely held on to her pixie nose.

  “Ms. Galloway?” Adisa asked.

  “Maybe I haven’t changed as much as I’d feared,” the civics teacher replied with a laugh. “It’s been a long time since you were a junior in high school, but I recognized you as soon as I walked into the restaurant.”

  “Would you like to join me?” Adisa asked, peering around the teacher.

  “No, I’m meeting Lydia Fletchall in a few minutes, but I’ll sit down until she gets here.” The teacher slid into the seat opposite Adisa. “Lydia and I were roped into working on the graduation ceremony in a few weeks. You’d think it would run itself. I mean, how many ways can a student walk across the stage, grab a diploma, and shake Dr. Cartwright’s hand before heading down to Daytona for a week? But we have to buy the decorations for the podium and make sure each student’s name is correctly spelled on the program given to the parents.”

  Adisa remembered her own graduation and how she couldn’t wait to move on to the next chapter of her life in college.

  “Where’s your high school diploma?” Ms. Galloway continued.

  “I think it’s in a drawer at my aunt Josie’s house.”

  “I’d understand if it’s disappeared. You’ve gotten fancier sheepskins since then. But you were always a star. How is your aunt doing?”

  “She’s in the hospital.”

  Adisa summarized Aunt Josie’s status.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Ms. Galloway said. “I hope she gets better soon. She was great to you and your sister. I keep up with Shanika on social media. Her twins are as cute as two kids can be.”

  Ms. Galloway had a genuine interest in her students’ lives that was natural.

  “And I know you’ve been busy with your law career,” Ms. Galloway continued. “It’s such a coincidence that I run into you today after reading the article this morning in the Atlanta paper about the criminal case you handled. I’ve watched TV shows about newly discovered DNA evidence, and it was exciting thinking about you being in the center of such an interesting case. You’ve come a long way since we took a field trip to Grayson, Baxter, and Williams. Didn’t you end up working there during the summer?”

  “Yes, and it was a great experience.” Adisa took a sip of water. “I haven’t seen the newspaper article.”

  “Oh, let me buy you a copy.” Ms. Galloway immediately slid out of the booth. “There’s a box for the AJC on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.”

  “I can do it,” Adisa protested. “Or check the article online.”

  “No, you need to hold it in your hands.”

  The waitress arrived with Adisa’s meal.

  “Enjoy your food while it’s hot,” the teacher said. “Cold collards are hard for even a die-hard southerner to eat.”

  Ms. Galloway scurried out the door. Adisa sampled the collards, which had been cooked with ham hocks, not bacon. She sprinkled a few drops of pepper vinegar on the green mixture to add spicy heat. It was easy to understand why they were one of Aunt Josie’s favorites. The teacher returned.

  “This is the last copy,” she said, triumphantly holding up the newspaper.

  “Thanks,” Adisa replied.

  The front door of the restaurant opened and Lydia Fletchall, an English teacher who had bled red ink on Adisa’s compositions, entered.

  “Gotta go,” Ms. Galloway said to Adisa. “Great seeing you. The article is on A2.”

  The teacher left. Opening the first section to page 2, Adisa immediately saw her photograph, which must have been lifted from the law firm website. Directly beside her was the mug-shot photo of Leroy Larimore. The tit
le of the article was “The Two-Edged Sword of DNA Evidence.” Sharon Rogers’s byline appeared beneath the heading.

  The first two paragraphs of the article accurately described Adisa’s involvement in the case and what had happened in Judge Boswell’s courtroom when she presented the exonerating DNA evidence. The reporter identified Adisa as “an associate with the prestigious national law firm of Dixon and White.” In the transition to the third paragraph, the reporter dropped a bomb—“DNA evidence is a double helix that can both give and take away.” She then claimed that Leroy Larimore’s DNA sample linked him to at least four sexual assaults on women occurring over an eighteen-month period two decades earlier in Louisiana. It took a column and a half for the reporter to lay out how the DNA sample submitted months earlier to CODIS and used to connect Vester Plunkett to the assault on Mr. Chesney had in turn implicated Larimore in cold case investigations of the sexual assaults in Louisiana. The article concluded:

  Ms. Johnson asserted that other criminal acts by her client in South Carolina were no longer relevant and emphasized Larimore’s right to compensation from the State of Georgia for his wrongful incarceration. It’s unclear if Johnson knew about the pending charges against her client in Louisiana at the time she argued for his immediate release from custody. Neither Johnson nor anyone else at Dixon and White returned repeated calls for comment. Fulton County assistant district attorney Mark Kildare confirmed that Larimore is being held without bond at the Fulton County Jail pending an extradition request from the Louisiana attorney general’s office.

  Adisa read the story again, more slowly this time. Apart from the allegations about crimes committed by Larimore in Louisiana, which were as much news to her as to any reader of the paper, it was factually accurate. Disturbingly, the reporter clearly insinuated that Adisa’s sole goal was to win her case and hinted at her agenda to bury Larimore’s past. Failure to contact Rogers and specifically deny knowledge of any sexual assaults made her look uncooperative at best and deceptive at worst. What made it worse was the implication that the law firm didn’t deny involvement in a cover-up. Adisa’s unselfish pro bono activity was swallowed whole by her client’s other crimes.

  Adisa refolded the paper and laid it beside her food. She ate a bite of lukewarm creamed corn that was a bit too peppery. Across the room, Ms. Galloway was chatting away with her colleague. As she ate, Adisa tried to digest how the law firm would respond to the newspaper exposé. It appeared likely that Catherine had never returned the reporter’s phone call, either.

  Her appetite dulled by the article, Adisa managed to eat most of the food on her plate. As she carried her bill up to the cash register, she waved at Ms. Galloway, who sent her on her way with a bright smile.

  Getting into her car, Adisa wondered if she should call Catherine Summey immediately. Catherine used Saturday afternoons to organize the activities of her team for the following week. With the upcoming turnover in personnel, her boss’s task would be more complicated than usual, and Adisa decided it would be best not to pile something else on her plate. If Catherine had read the article and was concerned about it, she would contact Adisa.

  There were several florists in Campbellton. Bohannan Flowers was owned by a member of her aunt’s church, and Mr. and Mrs. Bohannan provided the majority of wreaths and sprays for weddings and funerals at Woodside Gospel Tabernacle. Adisa parked in front of the simple building. A bell connected to the door dinged when Adisa entered. A few moments later, Mrs. Bohannan appeared from the back of the store.

  “Look who’s here!” the friendly black woman in her fifties exclaimed.

  “Hey, Mrs. Bohannan,” Adisa replied.

  Mrs. Bohannan’s face suddenly fell. “Is Josie okay?”

  Adisa quickly filled her in.

  “Joe and I have been out of town and just got back last night,” Mrs. Bohannan said with a concerned look on her face. “Let me put something together for you to take to her hospital room. I know exactly what she’ll like, and there won’t be a charge.”

  “That’s nice of you,” Adisa replied. “But I need some flowers to take to the cemetery. Aunt Josie hasn’t missed a decoration Sunday for as long as I can remember.”

  “Of course—what do you want?”

  Adisa glanced around at the overwhelming options in vases and two large refrigerated display cases.

  “Do you have an idea what she bought last year?” Adisa asked.

  “Just a minute.”

  Mrs. Bohannan disappeared into the rear of the shop. Adisa sniffed and inhaled the competing aromas of a large selection of flowers crammed into a small space. In organizing her plants, Aunt Josie paid attention not just to color and type, but also to scent, separating them by enough space that each fragrance had an olfactory opportunity. Mrs. Bohannan returned with a slip of paper in her hand.

  “She doesn’t like the peony sprays but always orders a dahlia mix for spring decoration. I have some very nice reds, blues, and yellows.”

  “I’m sure that will be fine,” Adisa said absentmindedly when Mrs. Bohannan finished. “I’ll take a picture on my phone and show it to Aunt Josie when she’s alert.”

  “Last year she ordered six sprays for the gravestones.” Mrs. Bohannan paused and lowered her voice. “Of course, some of the old graves in that cemetery never got a proper marker and it’s a guess where folks are really buried. Josie will drop a flower here and there and hope she hits the right spot.”

  Adisa had witnessed this activity in the past. The oldest part of the cemetery had a slave section, and Aunt Josie could trace her roots to the days when involuntary servitude of black people was the normal way of life in Nash County.

  “When should I pick up the flowers?” Adisa asked.

  Mrs. Bohannan glanced at a large clock with a cracked plastic cover hanging on the wall beside one of the refrigerated cases.

  “Are you going to go to the cemetery after church tomorrow? If so, I can bring them with me so they’ll be as fresh as possible. That’s what several customers like to do.”

  Adisa hadn’t considered the possibility of attending the local church as part of her weekend.

  “Would it be too much trouble if I picked them up today?” she asked. “I’m going to be spending my time at the hospital until I go back to Atlanta.”

  “Sure. Give me a couple of hours. We don’t close on Saturday until six o’clock.”

  Adisa left the shop and headed toward the hospital. As she was pulling into the parking lot, her cell phone vibrated. It was Catherine Summey.

  TEN

  “WHERE ARE YOU?” Catherine asked as soon as Adisa answered the call.

  “In Campbellton visiting my aunt,” Adisa answered. “She’s still in the hospital.”

  The phone was silent for a moment.

  “Catherine?” Adisa asked.

  “Yes, I’m here. I just came out of a partners’ meeting. Toward the end, Linwood brought up the article about you in the AJC.”

  Adisa’s heart sank. “I had no idea Larimore’s DNA would be linked with any sexual assault cases in Louisiana,” she said. “He told me about the juvenile court charges in South Carolina, and I ran a detailed background check on our database that came up empty except for a few traffic tickets.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. But the firm doesn’t care about the facts as much as it does perception. Linwood was playing golf this morning with some of his buddies at the Piedmont Driving Club. They grilled him about the law firm getting tangled up in liberal causes and trying to get sex offenders off the hook. One even pulled up the firm mission statement on his phone and asked Linwood if we truly believed it.”

  Adisa couldn’t remember the specific language on the website banner, but she knew it had something to do with “serving the needs of corporate America in an ever-changing global business environment.”

  “Linwood didn’t want to approve the pro bono work in the first place and reluctantly caved in when I pushed for it,” Catherine continued.

&
nbsp; “You pushed me, too,” Adisa responded, then immediately regretted her words.

  “Linwood pointed out the same thing to me, which gave me a chance to deflect blame from you.”

  “Thanks,” Adisa said quickly.

  “I also pointed out that it would have been impossible for you to uncover the connection between our client and the crimes in Louisiana. That seemed to calm Linwood down a little bit. When will you be back in Atlanta?”

  “Monday morning, unless you think I should return sooner.”

  “No, that’s fine. I think everything was okay by the end of the meeting. Linwood isn’t the only vote in the room. Anyone who’s worked with you appreciates your abilities.”

  The compliment and reassuring words didn’t release the tension caused by a huge knot in Adisa’s stomach. She regretted even the light lunch she’d eaten.

  “Thanks for standing up for me,” she said. “I should have called the reporter.”

  “Yes. Even a brief response denying any knowledge of the mess in Louisiana would have helped. But let’s hope it blows over. The firm has much more important matters that deserve our attention.”

  Adisa trudged from her car to the hospital. Entering her aunt’s room, she stepped into the middle of an occupational therapy session. Shanika was standing at the foot of the bed as a young man with a shaved head worked with Aunt Josie.

  “Ms. Adams, try once more to bring the spoon from the plate to your mouth with your right hand.”

  Aunt Josie managed to raise her right hand halfway to her mouth before it flopped back onto the bed.

  “This is aggravation,” she muttered.

  “Aggravating,” Shanika corrected her.

  “That, too,” Aunt Josie replied. “My tongue is twisted up something fierce.”

  “You’re doing great,” the therapist said. “Don’t be discouraged. Practice what we’ve gone over, but don’t wear yourself out. I’ll be back in the morning.”

  Aunt Josie barely acknowledged Adisa’s presence before closing her eyes. Adisa gave Shanika a questioning look, and the girls stood in silence for several moments.