by Stuart Woods
“I can promise you,” he said to Annie and Jim Parker, “that Butts and Ward are not going to just walk away from this.” He meant what he said, but later, at home, he admitted his worst fears to Patricia.
“This is going to be hard, Trish, and I want you to know what’s ahead, because you’re going to hear about it from everybody, and what you’ll hear may not bear much resemblance to what really happened.”
“How do you think this is going to affect the election?” she asked.
“Mr. Holmes isn’t going to like it much, but I’m not going to worry about that any more. This might have happened because I was too worried about getting elected, so except for the commitments I’ve already made and can’t gracefully get out of, from this moment I’m through campaigning. I’ve said all I have to say, and I think folks know where I stand. They can take me or leave me, but I’m going to spend my time for the next few weeks doing everything I can to see that Sonny Butts and Charley Ward go to jail for as long as possible. I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself if I didn’t do that.”
19
BILLY CALLED Hugh Holmes early on Sunday morning, and they met before Sunday School. Holmes listened without expression to Billy’s account of the events of the night before. Billy kept looking for a reaction, but found none. Finally, when the lawyer had told him everything, including the steps he proposed to take, Holmes spoke.
“Billy, there’s no advice I can give you that would do you any good. A bad thing has happened, and you feel morally bound to do something about it. I can’t advise you not to do what you propose, even though it might cost you the election. I think you understand the political risk you’re running, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Well, then, damn the torpedoes, and I’ll do my best to minimize the damage.”
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.” Billy left Holmes’s house relieved that he had the banker’s support rather than his opposition.
Brooks Peters was on the phone at seven on Sunday morning, and at eight the Delano Ministerial Association met in his dining room. He told them what had happened, and they prayed together for a few minutes. When the meeting was over, he had their unanimous support for a resolution addressed to the city council in the form of an open letter.
He preached the sermon he had planned for that Sunday, and at the end he read the resolution, virtually at the same moment that it was being read in eight other churches, as agreed. The resolution read, “It has come to our attention that the death of a prominent member of our Negro community has occurred as a result of an incident at the Delano city jail. We call upon the city council to conduct a thorough investigation of this incident to determine whether the police officers involved were acting properly in the line of duty, and whether the death of this man was justified.”
It wasn’t a very tough resolution, Brooks thought, but under the circumstances it would serve the purpose. There would be talk of nothing else at Sunday dinners all over Delano.
Early Sunday afternoon Billy telephoned Bert Hill, the county prosecutor. Hill had already heard about the killing.
“Skeeter Willis called me half an hour ago. He’s already been down there and taken a statement from Butts and Ward, and he says he’ll have a report for me tomorrow.”
“Bert, did he give you any idea of what the statement consisted of?”
“None at all. He didn’t make an arrest, though. That ought to tell you something. Mind you, I’m not going to rely entirely on Skeeter’s report in deciding whether to pursue an indictment. Billy, do you think you could do me a favor and take some statements from the other people involved? Annie Parker and the doctor and anybody else who has any information?”
“I’ll be glad to, Bert. Tom Mudter is already writing up his report.”
“That would really help me out a lot. This grand jury is probably going to be finished up this week, and I know you want a quick resolution to this situation.”
“I sure do, Bert. We all do down here. I’ll take statements tomorrow morning and have them typed and to you by evening. There’ll be three witnesses: Annie Marshall, Tom Mudter, and H. W. Fowler. They’ll appear on request; you won’t have to subpoena them.”
“Good. That’ll save time. I’ll tack this business on the end of their work load. They should get to it this week, but it’s possible it could run over to next Monday or Tuesday.”
“Thanks, Bert.”
On Monday morning, Sonny Butts and Charley Ward met with the city council, a meeting called at the request of the police officers. As soon the meeting had been called to order, Sonny was given the floor. Dressed in a freshly pressed uniform, he stood erect before them, commanding their attention.
“Gentlemen, Officer Ward and I asked for this meeting because of rumors circulating in town about an incident that took place at the police station on Saturday night. This morning I want to read a statement to you which describes the events of Saturday night.”
There was a general nod of agreement.
Sonny began. “Last Saturday night, at approximately ten o’clock, Officer Ward and I approached one Marshall Parker on Main Street. We wished to question him informally about events which occurred some weeks ago when a report of illegal whiskey at his place of business was telephoned to the sheriff’s office.
“Parker became hostile and abusive, and it became necessary for us to subdue and handcuff him before removing him to the police station and booking him on a charge of assault. The station logbook will show such a booking.
“At the station his handcuffs were removed and questioning proceeded, but Parker remained hostile and became violent and wild. Officer Ward and I tried desperately for several minutes to subdue Parker, using reasonable force, but as we were about to handcuff him he produced a knife and came at me. Officer Ward then had no other alternative but to draw his service revolver and shoot the prisoner.
“Even after he had been shot once in the abdomen, Parker continued to fight, but we were able to subdue him. We then took him immediately to the office of Dr. Thomas Mudter for medical attention, where he died a short time later of his wound. “We wish to stress that at no time did we use other than reasonable force in dealing with the prisoner, and that a firearm was used only when all other methods had failed.
“Immediately after the incident I informed Sheriff Willis of what had happened and requested an immediate investigation by his office. He has informed me that his investigation supports my actions and those of Officer Ward, and that his report has been forwarded to the county prosecutor.
“Since that report is still subject to grand-jury action, Officer Ward and I request that Officer Ward and I not be required to comment beyond this statement until the matter has been resolved by the grand jury. This will protect our legal rights in the meantime.
“We further request that the city council delay any further action in this matter until the grand jury has met on it.”
Sonny knew before he finished that he had them. By taking action first, before they did, he had effectively stalled them. Within a matter of minutes the council had voted to suspend the officers only if indicted and fire them only if convicted.
Now he had to worry about the grand jury, and that worried him a lot.
Billy had finished taking statements from Annie Parker, Tom Mudter, and Mr. Fowler and was waiting for them to be typed, when he heard of the council’s decision. He had thought the least that would happen was that Butts would be fired, but now it would take an indictment just to suspend him.
Billy had lost the first round without throwing a punch.
20
BOB BLANKENSHIP sat alone in the offices of the Delano Messenger and pounded out a final sentence to a blistering editorial on his Remington Noiseless. The editorial would cap the front-page story of Marshall Parker’s arrest and death at the hands of the Delano police. It was the first time since he had bought the paper that he had run a front-page editorial, and he looked for
ward to the commotion it would cause.
He stacked the pages neatly in his out tray, from which they would be collected the following morning to be set in type, and switched off the desk lamp. The newspaper office was now lit only partly by the street lamp.
Blankenship stretched and took a deep breath. He loved the smell of ink that permeated his place of work. It smelled, well— professional. He rolled down his sleeves, retrieved his seersucker jacket from the hat rack in the corner, checked the lock on the front door, and walked out the rear entrance. As he turned to insert his key in the back-door lock, he heard the scrape of a shoe on the gravel of the alley behind him. As he turned to see who was there, something hard was rammed into the small of his back, shoving him against the door.
“Ain’t no need to turn around,” a voice said, low and menacing. “Just stand right there if you don’t want to get blowed in half.” A hand took him by the back of his shirt collar and moved him roughly away from the door, against the brick wall of the building. He heard the sound of other feet. “Go on in there and see what you can find,” the voice said, apparently addressing someone else. Blankenship heard someone open the door and enter the building.
“Look, we’ve got maybe fifty dollars of classified-ad money in a tin box under the front counter. Just take it and go, okay?” He said it without moving. He was being pressed hard against the brick.
“You just shut up, Blankenship.”
He was quiet. After a couple of minutes he heard the second man walking toward the door.
“Looka here,” the second voice said. “A front-page editorial. How ‘bout that.” Blankenship heard the paper being ripped to shreds.
The gun was pressed even harder into his back. Oh, Jesus, he thought, they’re going to shoot me right here. A weakness started to come over him, and his bowels felt loose. He sagged against the wall, but the hand at his neck held him straight.
“Now, you listen here,” the voice said. “There ain’t going to be no editorials, you got that? You take sides with the niggers and you won’t write nothing no more, ‘cause you’ll be dead. There ain’t going to be no editorials, and what you write better sound right to white folks, you hear me?” the gun jabbed him in the back harder.
Blankenship nodded weakly.
“What’s that? Speak up.”
“I hear you,” Blankenship said.
“No editorials?”
“No editorials, no sides. Don’t shoot me, please.”
The hand yanked him away from the wall, shoved him through the back door into the building, slammed the door, and locked it behind him with his key. “We’ll be looking for the paper on Thursday to see what you print, you hear? And if you don’t want your brains blowed out, you don’t say nothing to nobody about this.” He stood still until he heard footsteps away from the door and, a moment later, a car door slamming further down the alley. An engine started, then faded away.
Blankenship sat down heavily at his desk and reached for the phone. He banged on the receiver to get the operator to answer faster, then he stopped and hung up the phone. Who was he calling? The police? The sheriff? The phone rang, and he picked it up.
“Mr. Blankenship, this is the operator. Did you want to make a call? I’m sorry, I was tied up on long distance.”
“No,” he said wearily. “I don’t want to make a call. Never mind.” He hung up. Who would he call? Brooks Peters? Could a Baptist preacher help him? Billy Lee? Who would Billy call? What could he prove? Nothing. He hadn’t recognized either of the voices.
He was ashamed of the fear he felt. He had spent most of the war editing a camp newspaper for basic trainees at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Nobody had ever pointed a gun at him before. He rested his head on the desk in the crook of his arm, like a schoolchild taking a nap.
On Tuesday, Marshall Parker was buried at Galilee Baptist Church, the little frame building in the countryside bordering Braytown. Billy and Patricia, Eloise, Henry and Carrie Fowler, Brooks Peters, Tom Mudter, and Hugh Holmes were the only white faces in attendance, a pew having been reserved for them.
Annie Parker conducted herself with the same stoicism she had shown since the moment she had learned that Marshall was dead. Marshall’s father, Jim Parker, wept quietly through the service.
Holmes, who had attended many black funerals in his time, was surprised at the restraint shown by the congregation, which overflowed into the outdoors. There was none of the wailing and open display of grief he had expected. A heavy sadness seemed to press upon the congregation.
Billy Lee could not have felt worse if he himself had been the murderer.
Late Thursday afternoon, Patricia Lee answered the phone at the new house. The extension had just been put in.
“Is that Miz Lee?” It was a woman’s voice, white, country.
“Yes, this is Patricia Lee.”
“They gon’ come out there tonight.”
“What? Who’s coming out here?”
The woman’s voice sounded very far away, and frightened. “I don’t want you to get hurt. They gonna burn it; he said they gonna burn it.”
“What? Burn what? Who is this?”
“It ain’t nobody. I just wanted to tell you. I don’t want nobody to get hurt.” The woman hung up.
Patricia put the phone back on the cradle and looked at her watch. Nearly five-thirty. Billy had gone to Greenville to talk with Bert Hill; then he was speaking to the Rotary Club in Warm Springs on the way back, after that there was a meeting at somebody’s house. These were meetings he had committed himself to long before. If she called him he would cancel and come home immediately. She didn’t want that. He needed to be campaigning, if things were as close as Mr. Holmes thought they were. She left the house, got into her car, and drove to Delano.
She parked in the alley behind McKibbon’s Hardware and went in. She walked to the sporting-goods department. McKibbon finished with a customer and followed her.
“Hey there, Patricia. How you doing? You looking for something in a fishing rod?”
“I’m fine, Mac. I’m looking for something in a shotgun.”
He went to the glass gun case and slid it open. “Something for Billy? His birthday or something?”
“Something for me, thank you. Billy hates shotguns.”
McKibbon peered at her over his glasses. “For you?”
She laughed. “Mac, I’ve shot more birds than you’ve had hot dinners. Let’s have a look at the twelve-bore, there.”
“The double-barrel?” He fished it from the rack and handed it to her, looking doubtful.
She broke the gun, peered down the barrels, hefted it, held it against her shoulder, and aimed.
“That’s a Browning, prewar. Fellow sold it to me last month. It’s in real nice shape, real light, too.”
“Well, it’s no Purdy, but it’s all right, I suppose. How much?”
“Have to get a hundred and twenty-five for that one. You picked the best one in the store, right off.”
“Throw in a couple of boxes of shells and done,” she said.
“Fair enough, I reckon.”
She began writing him a check. “Let me have a box of number-nine bird shot and one of double-aught buckshot.”
He plunked the boxes down onto the counter. “Doubleaught, huh? You must have some pretty big birds out there on your place.”
“The biggest,” she said, crooking the shotgun under her arm and scooping up the shells, “white-sheeted yellowbellies.”
“Huh?”
She paused at the back door. “And Mac, if you tell Billy I bought this, I’ll come back and use it on you.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Mum’s the word, Patricia. Mum’s the word.”
It was just past eleven o’clock before she heard the cars. She hadn’t really believed they would come, but she was glad they had. She was mad as hell.
She slipped out of and behind the darkened trailer, as the cars turned into the drive and stopped, dousing their lights. Th
ey didn’t need the headlights, because she had turned on every light in the new house, including the outdoor flood lamps that illuminated the drive.
She knelt behind the trailer and set both boxes of shells on an upturned cement block. She loaded with the number-nine bird shot and snapped the gun shut, slipping off the safety. She stretched out prone. The double-aught buckshot stood open and ready, just in case they came at her.
She could see the men now, lighting torches. My God, they were really wearing bed sheets, she thought. How absurd. The men, eight of them, spread out and walked abreast up the newly planted lawn. They stopped short of the driveway, and one of them stepped forward of the others. “Billy Lee,” he shouted, “come out and answer the justice of the Klan.”
Patricial judged that about sixty yards separated them from her. She cradled the shotgun in her left hand, her forearm vertical, her elbow well planted. She aimed low at the speaker and squeezed off a round. The shot scattered, as she had thought it would, and the leader and one other man caught some pellets. There was a roar of cursing and yelling. She shifted her aim to the right a bit and fired again, peppering another man. They were running now, one of them clutching at his backside. She stood up and quickly reloaded.
She stood at the corner of the trailer and fired both barrels into the air. The noise was tremendous. She managed to reload and fire two more rounds before they were able to reach the cars and tear out of the drive.
She sat down on the steps of the trailer. She was trembling, she noticed, but she had never in her life felt more jubilant. She did not notice another car drive past, driven by Ralph McKibbon of McKibbon’s Hardware, who was laughing so hard he was crying. On the front seat beside him was an unplugged pump shotgun, loaded with buckshot, which he was glad not to have had to use. He could not wait to tell his wife about this.
After a few minutes Patricia went into the trailer, cleaned the shotgun, and hid it and the shells. When Billy came home she was in bed reading.
“Hello, how did it go?”