“Are you—”
Her arm pointed past me. “If you would just step two doors down and get me my sister Verna.” Shoulders hunched tight, she turned without waiting for my response. On top of the television stood framed color photographs—studio portraits of George in his army uniform, Cooper in his graduate gown, a daughter with two small girls in Easter dresses—and she paused there, then took the picture of Cooper with her toward the dark back of the house.
For the next half hour, I sat outside on their porch in an aluminum beach chair, my neck tucked down into my overcoat, while behind me the house groaned with the grief and prayers of her gathering family and neighbors and minister. They’d stop in their hurry up the walkway, nod at me nervously, then quickly step inside. I didn’t want to go back in the house, which Mrs. Hall had asked me to leave, but I couldn’t make myself walk away, sick with a feeling that something else horrible would happen if I left her there. I’d sent Wes Pendergraph to Jordan's apartment. Three of the young vigilants came back with her in his patrol car and helped her up the steps. She moved like a blind woman. Wes said she hadn’t spoken after he told her. I didn’t try to talk to her now. The other three couldn’t tell me much; they kept insisting that somebody must have followed Coop when he left Raleigh—though they’d seen nobody suspicious hanging around. All they’d done was stand on the side-walk in front of the Governor's Mansion and hand out copies of With Liberty and Justice. They’d waved signs at the Supreme Court judge when his car sped through the gates. After Coop had left them, they’d driven to a restaurant, then returned to Hillston. They said Alice was probably still in Raleigh; she’d gone to the library. I didn’t try to question them further, just offered my sympathy. None of them acknowledged it.
Ten minutes later, Isaac Rosethorn's Studebaker bucked to a smoky stop across the street. He stumbled out, tugging impatiently at his bad leg. I met him at the curb, where Wes sat in his squad car waiting for further radio reports from downtown.
Isaac said, “I just heard at the courthouse. A fellow who’d been over at University Hospital when they brought Coop in.” He gave a yank to straighten his frayed black tie. “Poor woman. Poor woman.” His eyes burned in their deep shadowed sockets. “Is it definite? He was shot?”
“Yes. It's like a goddamn nightmare. You better go in and see about getting word to George at the prison before somebody like Bubba Percy does.”
“I already called Warden Carpenter; he’ll let me spend ‘a few minutes’ with George tonight.”
“You want a ride out there?”
“No.” He yanked off his gloves, linted with loose tobacco, and pushed them at his baggy coat pockets. “Slim, what I want from you is to try not to feel responsible for this”
“I am responsible.” Angry, I scooped one of his gloves up from the sidewalk where it had dropped, and slapped it into his hand. “I’m the chief of police in this city, and when one of its citizens gets shot to death driving his fuckin’ car home, I am responsible.”
“Well, we’ll argue that another time.” He used the glove in a halfhearted attempt to buff the tops of his oxfords. “Nomi. Does she know how Cooper was killed?”
“I told her, yes.”
“God help us all.” The old man lifted his head to the starless early winter night. “Stupid, endless stupid evil…” He twisted to look at the house. “What are you still doing here?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe I was waiting for you.”
His arm hugged through mine. “Here I am. Now, how did it happen?”
We walked together toward the porch while I summed up what little I knew. “Looks like Coop left the demonstration in Raleigh early. Mentioned having to meet somebody in Hillston. None of these kids seem to know who. He was hit just before coming over that rise on I-28, you know, about a mile west of the Shocco Bridge. Jumped the divider and went head-on into a semi. The driver's still unconscious, and the hospital's not hopeful.”
Isaac watched the silhouettes moving slowly behind the Halls’ front windows. “Witnesses?”
I said that we had two drivers who’d stopped, plus the one who’d called in the accident on his C.B. But all any of them had seen was Coop's Subaru smashed into the oncoming truck just after it happened. This stretch of 28 was heavily wooded, uninhabited, and a search through the area hadn’t turned up a thing. According to Dick Cohen, our medical examiner, the shell was fired at too short a range to have come from the woods, or probably even from across the median strip; his guess was that someone had fired from the passenger side of a vehicle traveling in the same direction down the Interstate. The bullet had entered under Coop's left ear, passed through his brain, and out the right temple. No slug had been found, and given the extent of the wreckage, we couldn’t even tell if the bullet was still in the Subaru.
Isaac poked at my arm. “Listen. One of those witnesses saw the car that fired at him. Had to. Cars can’t evaporate. Maybe didn’t see it when, but right before, or after, they shot him. That car had to have been following Cooper, and it had to pass Cooper. And it had to keep going.” Isaac shook his yellow-stained finger in my face. “You stay on the witnesses, Cuddy, stay on them.”
I said the possibility of some psycho firing at random from his car window couldn’t be ruled out yet.
“Oh, don’t feed me your municipal pabulum!” Isaac jerked off his fur hat in disgust. “It's because of George's reprieve. A black man named Hall was supposed to die today, and somebody felt cheated! Why, I heard ignoramuses this morning who thought George had been pardoned outright, and they were mad about it. It's the Klan, the Invisible Empire. Arrest the vermin!”
“We’re already going down our list, checking alibis, but, Isaac, a lot, a whole lot of people in this town, in this state, hated Cooper Hall's guts. I can’t go arrest them just for being racist.” I pulled my coat collar higher around my neck. “So you listen, I want Mrs. Hall out of here, okay? Her, and Jordan, too. I don’t have the resources to protect them.”
He stopped me with a wide paw across my breastbone. “You’re expecting more?”
“Goddammit, I didn’t expect this! Plus, the press is going to surround the place any minute now. If you already heard about it at the courthouse—” I saw Wes Pendergraph waving me over to the patrol car. “Go on in, will you, Isaac, I’ll be there in a second.”
Wes had changed out of his bloody uniform, but Cooper Hall's death was still in his eyes. He hung up the radio mike, and leaned from the open car door. “Chief, it's bad. About five minutes ago. The truck driver died in O.R. You know, he's just coming over the hill, and then—he's dead. Lived in Athens, Georgia. Had a wife and three kids. She's already on a plane flying up to the hospital and doesn’t even know it's too late.”
I kicked at the tire. “Okay, Wes, get Nancy White, tell her to go to the airport, meet this woman's plane.”
“Do you want Nancy to tell her, or let the doctors?”
“Oh, Jesus wept…. Maybe we should all quit the force…. Look, tell Nancy it's up to her. Either way.” I started to walk off, but Wes called me back.
“Chief, McInnis called from Raleigh. He saw this Willis Tate. Says the guy's out for us; they’d brought him and his three friends in about noon on that harassing incident at the prison last night, and they still haven’t posted bail.” Wes checked his opened notebook. “The names you wanted checked from the Trinity Church arrests; one's in Fort Bragg and the other two got air-tights from employers, all day long.”
“Well, that's seven maniacs down, and a couple hundred buddies of theirs to go. Any word from Dick Cohen on the autopsy?”
“Yes, sir, he's not finished, but Hall was definitely shot through the head, one wound.”
“Rifle or pistol, can he tell?”
“He didn’t say. Lieutenant Foster is still working on the Subaru. He thinks there was at least one more bullet fired that missed the victim, exited through the windshield. The search squad left the site, but he went back.”
“Etham'
s still out there in the woods? It's pitch-dark.”
“I guess so.”
I tried to reach Etham Foster by radio, but he didn’t answer. He often wouldn’t answer in his lab either; you had to go downstairs to root him out, and even then he’d take his time swiveling around from his microscope, his six-and-a-half-foot frame S-curved over a high stool; his black elongated fingers, that had once made a basket-ball look like an orange, tweezing with patient precision a fluff of fabric from a shoe sole, a fleck of blood from a coat sleeve. I told Wes to keep calling him, to tell him to come back to headquarters. “And look here, soon as you can, you go get something to eat.” But he said he wasn’t hungry, and I knew how he felt.
At seven Isaac was still inside with Mrs. Hall and the others, and by now the news-seekers, professional and amateur, were inching past the edges of the Hall yard, blustering their way to the porch, where two big deputies the county sheriff had sent over, uninvited, blocked the steps. The “Evening Edition” and “Action News” vans arrived almost simultaneously, perhaps drawn by the secret synchronicity that puts the same covers on Time and Newsweek. Right after them, a crew from Raleigh's CBS affiliate and an Associated Press stringer drove up in a cab. Carol Cathy Cane spotted me and shoved her bearded cameraman past Bubba Percy. Thrusting her mike at my chin, Carol, a tall young woman who thought she resembled Jane Fonda, looked about as revved as a college cheerleader at the homecoming game. She never took a breath. “This is Carol Cathy Cane for ‘Action News.’ We’re here with Police Chief C.R. Mangum at the home of the slain civil rights activist, Cooper Hall, brother of condemned murderer George Hall whose execution—”
“Evening Edition” and CBS smashed their mikes against hers, while Bubba yelled, “Cuddy, is that confirmed? It wasn’t just a crack-up, he was shot?!”
I said, “Mr. Hall was involved in a head-on collision on I-28. He died at the scene. The driver of the truck struck by Hall's vehicle has now been pronounced dead by Haver University Hospital. There is evidence of—”
Shifting from cheerleading to offensive line tactics, Carol Cane jostled around “Evening Edition.” “Our sources at University Hospital say Hall was definitely shot!”
“There is evidence of a bullet wound. We’re waiting for the autopsy report before making any official statement.”
The stringer shoved back at Cane. “Was the killing racially motivated? Do you see a connection between this shooting and the governor's surprise stay of George Hall's execution yesterday?”
More questions piled on before I could answer his. “Wasn’t there a Klan-instigated assault on Hall last night at Dollard State Prison?” “Is the Hall family inside?” “Coop Hall told Channel Seven two months ago that racist threats had been made on his life. Did the police make any attempt at all to investigate those charges?”
“Carol, every effort will be made—and has been made—to pursue all leads regarding racist threats against Mr. Hall, or anybody else in Hillston.” I heard a motorcycle approach. One of the mikes hit the side of my mouth when I pulled my head up to see over the cameras. While I was talking, I watched Jack Molina park the cycle, then get stopped at the curb by Wes Pendergraph. “And I urge anyone with any information about this tragedy—now, however insignificant it may seem to you—especially anybody who was traveling from the direction of Raleigh into Hillston on I-28 this afternoon, to please come forward.
“This is a sad, horrible loss of two lives here today. You can believe that whoever is responsible is going to be caught. That's all I have to say now. Except I want to ask you media folks to let Mrs. Hall alone; she's with her family and her minister. I know you can imagine how she's feeling.”
Bubba Percy had slid around behind me, and was running toward the back of the house, when Eli Johnson, a 280-pound sheriff's deputy, leaned over the porch rail and grabbed him by the back of his Burberry. I motioned to Wes to let Molina through, then helped shoulder a way for him up the steps. It was thirty degrees, Molina's breath fogged his round wireless spectacles, but he wasn’t wearing a coat over his sports jacket, so at first I thought he was trembling from cold; one look at his eyes showed me it was rage. It burned like sparks out of his face, even his hair looked electric. He said, “I just heard. The goddamn Nazis.”
Carol Cane swung her cameraman to face us. “You’re Jack Molina, aren’t you?” When he nodded, she twirled her finger to signal the video to start taping. “This is Professor Jack Molina, Andrew Brookside's campaign manager—”
“I’m not his campaign manager—” Molina began.
“—And, am I right, Dr. Molina, you’re a member of the Save George Hall Committee started by his brother Cooper? What's your response to today's tragedy?”
I’d thought Molina would brush by her, but instead, his glittering huge eyes stared straight into the lens atop the young cameraman's shoulder. “Yes, this is a tragedy.” His voice was sharp and slow, not at all like his conversational voice, so reverberant that everyone turned to look. “A tragedy for the Halls, and a tragedy for Hillston. A tragedy that's happened too many times for too many years in this country, and made too many martyrs. Martyrs to the white hate of groups like the Klan and Brodie Cheek's Constitution Club. Martyrs to the white indifference of powerful political interests that allow that hate to go unpunished!”
CBS started taping too, and Molina turned his face to the new camera. “Cooper Hall was killed today because he stood up against prejudice and against injustice, because he fought for his brother George, and for all black victims of our racist society. George Hall was sentenced to die because he was black. And Coop Hall is dead because he was black!”
A murmur swelled from the small neighborhood crowd stirring on the sidewalk.
He had everybody's attention. Like I said, I’d heard Jack Molina give speeches even back when he was in college. He was good. He was also dangerous—maybe mostly to himself. Linking the right-wing radio preacher Brodie Cheek with the Constitution Club, a conservative fund-raising association to which some of the most important political figures in the state belonged, and equating either one with the Klan, was about as far left of the most radical remark Andy Brookside had ever made as Che Guevara was to J.F.K. And trust Bubba Percy to dive right for the bottom line. He asked Molina, “Are you speaking for Andy Brookside?”
Molina answered the cameras. “I’ve come here to offer Mrs. Hall the personal condolences of President Brookside, who shares the horror and outrage we all feel tonight. Shares it more fully because the same ugly elements responsible for the Halls’ tragedy are the ones who have from the beginning of his campaign opposed, slandered, and threatened Andy Brookside.”
Bubba looked puzzled, an unfamiliar expression on his satisfied face. “Wait a minute, are you implying that your candidate's political opponents are in any way connected with what's happened to Coop Hall?”
Molina shook his head, but the pause he took first was long enough for anybody who wanted to, to think that's exactly what he meant. Then he raised his arm, and spoke over the tops of the cameras to the growing cluster of blacks in the yard and street. “I’m saying racist fear and hate don’t want Andy Brookside to be governor! I’m saying racist fear and hate killed Coop Hall!”
“That's right!!” yelled a man's voice from the crowd, and another shouted, “Yeah!”
The Associated Press stringer muttered to Bubba Percy, “What's this guy doing, a campaign kickoff or what?”
“The fuck I know,” admitted Bubba. “Looks like he picked up about ten votes out there in the yard.”
Behind us, a shadow moved from the front door, and the news crews leapt forward to see who it was. Isaac Rosethorn squeezed toward the steps, motioning for me. Carol Cane got her mike as close as she could. “Sir! Is Mrs. Hall in there? Can you give us a statement? Could we speak with her?”
Isaac's fat fingers closed around the microphone, lifting it right out of Carol's hand, as if he thought it were connected to a P.A. system. His rumbling baritone made the �
��Action News” cameraman jerk his headphones away from his ears. “Folks! My name is Isaac Rosethorn, and I’m the Halls’ attorney.” He rubbed his fleece of white hair for a while. “Mrs. Hall thanks you for your sympathy and your concern for her family's grief. She's in bed now, under her physician's care. Nobody will be making any other statements tonight. Except this. Nothing is going to deter our struggle to win a new trial for George Hall, the new trial his slain brother was fighting for.”
The stringer asked, “What did George Hall say when he was told about his brother's murder?”
Isaac sighed. “If you want to ask him that, well, you’ll have to go to Dollard Prison and do it.”
With a terrible shriek, Cadmean's factory whistles pierced the air again. I gestured at the two deputies as I pushed to the top step to shout over the noise. “Okay, everybody, that's all! Any further reports, you’ll get them as soon as we have them. No more questions.” Eli Johnson and his partner began helping our force move the news people back through the yard, and five minutes later, they were all gone, either because they had all they wanted, or didn’t figure they could get more, or just couldn’t hear over the C&W whistles. The crowd faded back into the shadows of Mill Street.
Isaac Rosethorn, swaying bearlike on the top step of the Hall's porch, reached for Molina on the step below him, pulling him back by a wad of his jacket. “What did you think you were doing just now, Jack?” The mildness of his tone was incongruous with his tight grip on the much smaller man. “This isn’t a political platform, this is a woman's home. She just lost her son.”
Twisting around, Molina jerked free. “I was saying exactly what her son would have wanted me to say.”
Rosethorn dropped his hands to his sides, then put them in his pockets. “Possibly. But I’m not so sure Coop would have wanted you to say it for Andy Brookside.”
Molina stepped around the old lawyer without replying.
Time's Witness Page 10