Chapter 103
AFTER CAREFUL DELIBERATION, Jonah Curtis had chosen to wear a navy blue suit, a crisp white shirt, and a bright red tie. He didn’t look exactly like an American flag, but all the colors were there for the patriotic effect he intended for his opening statement to the jury.
“Gentlemen, I did not come to Eudora to make history,” he began. “I was sent here by the Supreme Court of the state of Mississippi to seek justice. If in the name of justice you reach the verdict I truly believe you must reach, the state will ask you to assign a degree of punishment that you feel is appropriate for these crimes.”
“Let us begin, though, not at the ending,” he said, “but at the beginning. A hot summer night. You know what that means, surely I don’t have to tell you. Talking to a Mississippi man about the heat is like talking to a fish about the water.”
This little joke brought an involuntary smile to two or three faces among the jury.
“So there we are on that hot summer night. Sweltering. Down in the Quarters, inside a poor man’s house.
“And here, on a bed in the parlor, an old man lies dying.
His granddaughter is tending to him, his trembles and tremors, his rackety cough.”
All the men on the jury were watching him now, even those whose expressions revealed their innate distaste for a Negro attorney dressed in a suit.
“On the porch of this home, there are two gentlemen standing guard. These are not fighters or thugs. One is an attorney, well known to the most powerful men in our nation’s capital. The other is the inventor of the Stringer Automatic Baler, the most successful businessman in Eudora—heck, let’s be honest—in all of south Mississippi.”
There was a patter of quiet chuckling; everyone in the courtroom shot a look at L.J., beaming at this description of him.
“These gentlemen have come to the Quarters on this night,” Jonah said, “because the dying man is their friend. They’ve heard rumors of trouble. They have a well-reasoned fear that some kind of tragedy is in the offing.
“Lord, it’s hot. The old man struggles to breathe. The granddaughter cannot help the tears that come to her eyes. The old man is all she has on this earth.
“Then there comes a sound, the sound of hoofbeats on the road. There are men on horses, raising a cloud of dust in the darkness.”
A couple of the jurors looked ostentatiously bored, and a man in the back row was already dozing. But the others seemed attentive, and a few were even transfixed, as if Jonah were telling them a scary story.
And that’s exactly what he was doing.
“Suddenly, gentlemen, all is pandemonium—uproar and violence and chaos. Men firing guns everywhere. Glass flying. Women screaming. Suddenly there are men all around the house, trying to shoot their way in. Trying to kill the old man. Trying to kill his granddaughter.
“The old man is terrified. The young woman throws herself over him, shielding his body with her own. The assault lasts only a few minutes, but it seems like hours and hours.”
Jonah paused. He studied the faces of the jurors, each one in turn.
Finally he spoke again, in a hushed whisper.
“Two men lie dead on the ground. One is a man who’s been a friend and neighbor to you all, all his life—Luther Cosgrove, an employee of Mr. Stringer for nearly thirty years. He lies dead in the side yard, shot in the face by the men on horseback. The other is a much younger man from out in the county, a fellow named Jimmie Cooper, who had come to that house of his own free will that night and volunteered to stand guard over that dying old man. Jimmie Cooper lies dead on the ground in front of the house.”
Jonah paused and shook his head sorrowfully, as if he couldn’t believe the price Jimmie and Luther had paid.
“But then there is a miracle,” he said. “Three of the killers are arrested. For once, they are not allowed to pull on their Klan hoods and go riding off into the darkness, unmolested, unpunished. For once, there are men who are interested in capturing the killers, in bringing them to justice—in bringing them here today, to face trial before a jury of their peers. And that, of course, is where you gentlemen come into the story.”
He turned, pointed his finger at the defendants. “There they are. Mr. Chester Madden. Mr. Henry North. Mr. Lincoln Stephens.”
The defendants put on the smirk they had evidently practiced beforehand, but they couldn’t hold it. Their nerves and the silence in the room got the best of them.
It was now time for the most difficult, delicate portion of the opening statement. Jonah and I had spent hours in the War Room going back and forth over this part, trying to find the best way to say what he needed to say.
“Gentlemen, you may have noticed there is one fact I left out of my account,” Jonah said. “You may think it’s the most important fact of all. And that is the fact that these defendants are white men. They attacked a colored family in a colored neighborhood. One of the men they killed was white. The other was black. I didn’t mention any of this to you.
“And do you know why? I’ll tell you why—because the pursuit of justice knows no color! The pursuit of justice admits only that which is fair, and honest, and true.
“This case is not about race. It is not about the black versus the white. This case is much easier than that. It’s a simple matter of justice.
“Now, as the prosecutor representing the great state of Mississippi, it will be my job to show you how these three men attacked and pillaged, how they came to the Eudora Quarters planning to kill, intending to kill. How they planned and then executed the deliberate, premeditated murder of two men on a hot, awful night in the Quarters. On a night when these three men, and all the ones who got away, were hoping that justice had taken a holiday. Well, justice has not taken a holiday here in Eudora!”
I heard a sound from the jury box. Glancing over, I was astounded to see one of the jurors, old Lester Johnson, a retired teller from the First Bank of Eudora, clapping. So taken was he by Jonah’s presentation that he was applauding. The sound was very loud in the room.
Then there was a louder sound: the gavel coming down BANG!
My father jumped to his feet. “Lester!” he shouted. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
Chapter 104
“WELL, WELL, WELL,” Maxwell Hayes Lewis said slowly. Then he rose from his chair to begin his opening statement.
Those three words were all it took for me to realize what he was up to.
Lewis was appropriating the style of Clarence Darrow, a Chicago labor lawyer renowned all over the nation as the “lawyer’s lawyer.” Darrow was the most effective courtroom presenter of the day, his style casual, colloquial, at times downright homey, with ample doses of country wisdom and sentiment tossed in.
Lewis scratched his head, then slid his hand down, cupping his face in his hand, squeezing his cheek, as if he were sitting in his study, lost in thought.
Then he appeared to notice the jury for the first time, and ambled over.
“Now, Mr. Curtis here says, and I quote, ‘the pursuit of justice knows no color. The pursuit of justice admits only that which is fair, and honest, and true.’ ”
He turned around and stared hard at Jonah. But when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Thank you for saying that, Mr. Curtis. All I have to say to that is, Amen.”
The jurors visibly relaxed. The lawyer had brought them to a point of tension, then eased up.
“But let me tell you fellows where Mr. Curtis and I are absolutely not in agreement,” he said.
Lewis’s face was glistening with perspiration, and he hadn’t been talking a minute yet. He mopped his face with a handkerchief, a gesture that afforded him a dramatic pause.
“We are not in agreement on the story itself. Mr. Curtis tells a tale of night riders galloping in and shooting up a house in a frenzy of violent and lawless behavior. I have another version of that story to tell you. Now, the story I have to tell you is about eight upstanding white citizens of Pike County. Three of them we
re wrongly accused and arrested, the three gentlemen you see before you today.
“But on the night in question, there were eight. They climbed up on their horses, calmly, and in a neighborly way they rode over to Abraham Cross’s house. Why did they go there? Were they looking for trouble? Well, no—the trouble had already come and found them.”
He paused, turned around, and walked the other way along the jury box, meeting the eyes of each man in turn.
“Those eight men rode over that night to investigate a complaint against Mr. Cross’s nephew, a Mr. Richard Cross, known as Ricky, a Negro who was suspected of molesting and raping a young white girl of the Cedar Bend community.
“Understand, my friends, that the prosecutor’s story and this story fit together perfectly. The entire evening can be seen, from one perspective, as a gigantic misunderstanding. If the people in that house in the Quarters had not shot first and asked questions later—if they’d all been informed that they harbored a rapist in their midst, if they’d known about the assault on the girl, and the legitimate reasons my clients had for going to Mr. Cross’s house that night—why, none of this would have happened.
“But even so, it did happen. And it is a tragedy.
“And yet, gentlemen, it is not murder. I am here to tell you about Abraham Cross—a dying man, according to Mr. Curtis, although just for your information he is still alive and well, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you all get to meet him. I’m going to show you how Mr. Cross and his granddaughter and his hired gunmen, some of whom are in this room trying to intimidate you gentlemen here today…”
As he said this he was looking directly at L. J. Stringer and me.
“… I will show you how this armed band of Negroes and their white friends set about to deny my clients any access at all to the suspected man. How they, in fact, attacked my clients, and sought to visit great bodily harm upon them—even though my clients had a written legal warrant deputizing them and empowering them to question the accused, they were set upon by a pack of armed men.
“My clients fired their own weapons, gentlemen, in self-defense. The case is simple. It’s what is known in our game as ‘open and shut.’ My clients are facing these terrible charges, they have been jailed and denied their most basic rights as Americans, as Mississippians.”
You could see the jurors straightening with pride as he said this. “And all because of a story! A fable! A fiction, my friends. Mr. Jonah Curtis is a very eloquent lawyer, gentlemen, anyone can see that, but what he’s telling you is nothing more than a bedtime story!”
Several jurors laughed out loud.
“That is right, gentlemen of the jury. A bedtime story. We have two versions being told here. Mr. Curtis has told you a fairy story, and I have told you the truth. As God above knows it to be!”
Chapter 105
“GODDAMN THEM, BEN. Goddamn them all to hell!”
L.J. slammed his fist on the dining room table, rattling the crystal goblets. “Goddamn their lying, cheating asses!”
L.J. was doing all the shouting. Jonah and I were standing back, watching him scream in a way only rich men can. We didn’t try to stop him or calm him down.
“The biggest lie of all,” L.J. said, “is when he says these White Raiders had some kind of official warrant to come into that house after Ricky.”
Jonah looked at me. “All right, Ben, how is Lewis going to demonstrate that in a credible fashion?”
“Easy,” I said. “He’ll put Phineas Eversman on the stand.”
“The policeman?”
“Chief of police, and the only full-time officer on the force,” I reminded him. “He’ll put Phineas on and Phineas will lie through his teeth.”
Jonah looked quizzical. “I thought Eversman was on our side. Or at least neutral.”
“He was on our side for exactly one night,” I explained. “He only arrested those men because L.J. pushed him into it. He’s been looking for a way out ever since.”
I speared a slice of Virginia ham before passing the platter to L.J.
“It didn’t look like it would rain tonight, did it?” said Jonah.
“Not to me,” L.J. replied. “Why?”
“That sure does sound like thunder outside,” Jonah said.
I walked over to the window and pulled back the drapes. First I was surprised; then I was frightened.
“What is it, Ben?”
“About thirty, forty fellows with guns,” I said, “and a few with pitchforks. They appear to be just standing there, watching the house.”
“That’s a mighty big crowd for Eudora,” L.J. said.
“No,” I said. “It’s a mighty big mob.”
Chapter 106
THE MOB CAUSED US no trouble that night. For about an hour they watched us watching them through the windows, then they turned and went away. Every few minutes I peeked out the window, but the streets of Eudora stayed quiet and dark that night.
The next morning the trial began in earnest. I spent a long minute studying the face of Henry Wadsworth North, trying to match the man with what I remembered of the boy on the day Mama took sick. Too many years had intervened. This sallow, blotchy-faced fat man bore only a vague resemblance to the surly kid I remembered from Jenkins’ Mercantile.
Jonah called his first witness: Abraham Cross.
Abraham was wearing his best church suit, of speckled brown wool, and a matching fedora. He rolled in in a rickety wheelchair Moody had borrowed from a crippled neighbor of L.J.’s, a nice woman who sympathized with us.
“Now, Mr. Cross,” Jonah said, “why don’t you take us back to the night of August twenty-fifth. Tell us what you remember.”
Abraham nodded. “Well, sir, I was in the parlor, a-layin’ in my bed, and Moody was tendin’ after me—”
“Excuse me, sir,” Jonah said. “Who is Moody?”
“Moody Cross. My granddaughter. She looks after me.”
“Thank you, sir. Please go on.”
“Like I say, I was a-layin’ in my bed. Not quite sure if I’d been sleeping or not. But then sure enough I come awake. Sound like the cavalry done showed up outside the house. A bunch of horses, I don’t know how many. And men shootin’ off guns, and yellin.’ Like to scared me half to death—and I don’t need to be any closer to dead than I already am.”
Laughter rolled through the courtroom, from whites and Negroes. My father slammed down the gavel to kill it.
Abraham continued telling his story in precise, unwavering detail. Without any prompting from Jonah, he pointed out and positively identified two of the defendants.
“That one there, I saw him through the front window,” he said, pointing at the defense table.
Jonah asked him to be more specific.
“That one on the right,” he said. “Stephens. He shot Jimmie Cooper dead.”
“You’re sure it was Mr. Stephens you saw?”
“No doubt about it,” said Abraham. “And then that one there—Mr. Madden—he come into the parlor where I was, with another one of them Raiders. A man he called Harold.”
“And what did Mr. Madden do?”
“He says to this Harold, ‘You watch this old nigger real good. Keep your gun on his neck.’ Then he went back outside, Madden did.”
“And the one he called Harold—he stayed there with you?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Did he keep a gun on you?”
“Yes, sir. Up against my skull. And he grabbed Moody too. Not in a nice way.”
“And how did you respond to that, Mr. Cross?”
Abraham scratched his old head, closed his eyes for a moment. Then he spoke.
“Well, sir, to tell you the truth I didn’t have to respond.”
“And why is that?”
“Because a minute later, Ben Corbett come into the room, and my granddaughter Moody…”
He stopped.
“Please continue,” Jonah said.
“She pushed a kitchen knife into Harold’s back.”
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Chapter 107
“SO, LET ME SEE if I’ve got this straight, Mr. Cross.”
Maxwell Hayes Lewis stood up to begin his cross-examination of Abraham.
“You were lying in your living room, half asleep. Or maybe you were asleep and dreaming part of the time, you’re not really certain. You woke up… or you think you woke up… you looked out that window and saw a man you thought was Mr. Stephens pulling the trigger on a pistol.”
Jonah said, “Your Honor—”
“Overruled,” my father said.
“This is supposed to be a cross-examination,” Jonah said. “Could he get to a question sometime today?”
“I said overruled,” my father repeated.
“Oh, I’m asking him a question,” Lewis said. “I’m asking him if I’ve got his story straight. Mr. Cross, you said you saw this man shooting a pistol. But in fact you never saw him shoot anyone. You never saw anyone take a bullet from Mr. Stephens’s gun, did you? You can’t follow the path of a bullet with your eyes.”
“Your Honor—”
“Hush.” My father waved his hand as if Jonah were a fly that needed swatting. He turned to Abraham. “Answer the question. Are you sure who you saw?”
Abraham worked his jaw, as if chewing a wad of tobacco. Then he spoke.
“I know it was Mr. Stephens shooting, ’cause I saw him clear as day. I heard Jimmie when he fell and hit the roof. I knew that’s who it was ’cause I’d watched him climb up on the roof. And I saw him again, when he fell.”
Good for you, Abraham, I cheered silently. Give it back to him. Stick him with the truth.
“And that’s the way you remember it?” Lewis said.
“Yes, sir. But not only that. That’s how it was.”
“How is your memory these days, Mr. Cross?”
“Sharp as a serpent’s tongue, sir,” he said.
That got a chuckle from the spectators.
Lewis smiled too. “How old are you now, Mr. Cross, sir?”
Alex Cross's Trial Page 18