Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

by John Berendt

  Despite his bitterness, Williams was confident that his appeal would be successful. If it was not, he had an idea or two how he might seek revenge on Savannah. He would use Mercer House as the instrument. “I might turn the house over to a charitable society,” he mused, “to be used as a drug-rehabilitation center. It’s big enough to handle several hundred addicts a day, wouldn’t you say? The addicts could use Monterey Square as an outdoor waiting room. It would drive the neighbors wild, especially the socially conscious Adlers. But they could hardly object to such a public-spirited gesture.”

  And what if Danny Hansford’s mother won her $10 million lawsuit against him? Would the house not fall into her hands? “Danny’s mother will never live in Mercer House,” Williams declared, “because I will destroy it first. It won’t be easy, because the house is very solid; the interior walls are made of brick. What I would do is this: I would cut a large hole in the ceiling of each of the four corner rooms on the main floor, all the way through to the second floor. Then I would put acetone in each of the cutout holes and blow the place to bits. I’ve been assured I could demolish the entire house that way. In Georgia, arson is a crime only if it’s done for the insurance. Mercer House is not insured. Danny’s mother might get a nice piece of property, but there won’t be a house on it.”

  At the same time Jim Williams was calculating where to drill the holes in the floor of Mercer House, the Georgia Supreme Court was focusing its attention on a hole that was already there—the bullet hole in the bedroom floor upstairs. This was the hole allegedly made by Danny Hansford during his rampage through the house a month before he was killed. It was the hole about which the arresting officer, Corporal Anderson, had testified, “I couldn’t determine if that was a fresh bullet hole or an old one.” Seizing on that remark, Spencer Lawton had suggested that the bullet hole was an old one and that Williams had faked the incident to lay the groundwork for killing Hansford in “self-defense” a month later.

  Some weeks after the guilty verdict was handed down, Bobby Lee Cook received an envelope from an anonymous source in the district attorney’s office. Inside was a copy of the police report written by Corporal Anderson on the night of the earlier incident. The report contained the statement: “We did find a fresh bullet hole in the floor.” It contradicted his sworn testimony at the trial.

  The defense had obtained an edited copy of Anderson’s written report by court order before the trial, but Lawton had whited out that particular line. When Bobby Lee Cook saw the complete text, he immediately realized that Lawton’s excision amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. He made it the central argument in his appeal before the Georgia Supreme Court. The court responded angrily. It cited the “patent inconsistency” of Corporal Anderson’s two statements about the bullet hole and denounced Lawton’s attempt to cover it up. “We cannot and will not approve corruption of the truth-seeking function of the trial process,” the unanimous ruling read. “Judgment reversed. A new trial must be ordered.”

  Chapter 18

  MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL

  For all the commotion over the reversal of Jim Williams’s conviction, the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling appeared to be little more than a temporary reprieve. The hole in the floor had been an unimportant detail in the trial; the main points of evidence in Spencer Lawton’s case against Williams still remained intact. It seemed obvious that Williams would have to mount a stronger defense in his second trial, or the outcome would likely be another conviction.

  Williams was exultant nonetheless. He boasted that the reversal had vindicated him completely. He gloated that the wording of the ruling proved that Spencer Lawton and the police were liars. Williams dropped hints that, indeed, his defense would be stronger the second time around. “Things will be going my way from here on,” he would say with a wink and a sly look. “Certain ‘forces’ are at work.” He deliberately left his listeners wondering whether he meant to say simply that public sympathy had shifted in his favor or, more darkly, that the fix was in.

  One evening, Williams invited me to drop in at Mercer House. I found him sitting at his desk in his study having a vodka and tonic. He regaled me with stories about two of his latest pet subjects—the “corrupt” Spencer Lawton and the “biased and stupid” Judge Oliver. Then he came around to the subject of the mysterious forces working on his behalf.

  “You know, I never had any doubt that the Supreme Court would throw out my conviction,” he said. “I knew all along they would do it. I was absolutely sure of it. Do you know why? Because I refused to allow myself even to think they would reject my appeal. If I had thought about it, if I had dwelt on it, if I had become depressed and imagined the worst, then the worst would have happened.” I could feel Williams watching me closely, weighing my reaction.

  “Concentration,” he went on. “That’s what it was. Just like the little experiment I told you about at Duke University, with the dice. I improved the odds in my case the same way the men at Duke did with the dice, the same way I do when I play my little game of Psycho Dice—through mental kinetics.

  “You may think all this is nonsense,” he went on. “Most people do, and all I can say to them is: Fine, don’t believe it, I’m not out to prove anything—but you’re overlooking a valuable power available to anyone.” Williams smiled enigmatically, but I could tell he was not joking.

  “Of course, I have had help,” he said. “I’m not the only person who has been concentrating on my behalf. I’ve had the assistance of someone very expert in these things. And I can tell you that when my second trial comes up, the judge, the D.A., and whoever gets to sit on that jury will be at the receiving end of some very powerful vibrations.”

  Williams took a handful of dimes out of his pocket and put nine of them in a neat stack on the desk blotter.

  “I use the word ‘vibrations’ for want of a better word,” he said. “These vibrations, these thought waves—whatever you want to call them—will be generated by me and by a woman named Minerva. She’s an old and very dear friend. She lives in Beaufort, South Carolina—about forty-five minutes from here. I am going to pay her a visit tonight.”

  Williams opened a drawer and took out a bottle of water. “This is rainwater,” he said. “Minerva told me to bring it with me tonight. She also told me to bring the dimes. These things will be coming into play later on tonight.” Williams looked up at me. “If you’re game, you’re welcome to come along. It will take two or three hours at most. Interested?”

  “Sure, why not?” I said. As soon as I had said it, I thought of a dozen reasons why not, but it was too late. Half an hour later, we went out through the back of Mercer House to the carriage house, where a green Jaguar sports car was parked on an oriental carpet. Williams set his vodka and tonic on the control panel and eased the car out into Wayne Street. In moments we were gliding through the quiet streets of Savannah, up and over the Talmadge Bridge and into the darkness of the South Carolina low country.

  The light from the dashboard cast a pale glow on Williams’s face. “If I told you that Minerva was a witch doctor or a voodoo priestess, I’d be close,” he said. “She’s that and more. She was the common-law wife of Dr. Buzzard, the last great voodoo practitioner in Beaufort County. Whether you know it or not, you are in the heart of voodoo country. This whole coastal area has been loaded with it since the slaves brought voodoo with them from Africa.

  “Dr. Buzzard died a few years ago, and Minerva carries on his practice. For years, Dr. Buzzard was king of the low-country root doctors. He was a commanding presence—tall, erect, and rail thin. He had a goatee, and he wore purple-tinted glasses. No one who saw those eyes staring through those purple lenses ever forgot them. He was especially effective ‘defending’ clients in criminal cases. He’d sit in the courtroom and glare at hostile witnesses as he chewed the root. Sometimes they’d change their stories when they got on the stand and saw Dr. Buzzard staring at them. Either that or they’d just turn tail and run. Dr. Buzzard would fo
cus his energies on the jury and the judge too. I know a judge in Savannah who says he can tell when rootworkers are involved in a case, because his bench will be dressed down. He’ll find roots and herbs and bones arranged around it.

  “Dr. Buzzard made a good living. People would pay him to put curses on their enemies, or to remove a curse that their enemies had put on them. In some cases, he was paid by both parties. The money piled up. Dr. Buzzard built two big churches on Saint Helena Island and always drove around in big flashy cars. He was quite a ladies’ man, too, and in his last years Minerva became his mistress.” Williams took a sip from his drink, then set it back in its holder on the control panel.

  “When Dr. Buzzard died, Minerva put on his purple glasses and set herself up as a root doctor. She uses some of his techniques and some of her own too. She gets her special status—and some of her spiritual powers—by having direct access to Dr. Buzzard in perpetuity. She goes to his grave and calls on his spirit constantly.”

  Williams said he did not, himself, believe in voodoo. “I don’t put much stock in the hocus-pocus part of it, the herbs and roots and powdered bones and frogs’ tongues and all that. They’re only props. But I do have respect for the spiritual force behind it. Minerva told me to bring nine shiny dimes tonight and some ‘fresh water that ain’t run through no pipe.’ The dimes were easy, but her instructions about the water meant I either had to get it from a stream or find some rainwater. There happened to be rainwater in a basin in my courtyard. That’s what’s in the bottle.”

  “Would she know the difference if you had just filled it with tap water?” I asked.

  “Not from the look or the taste,” he said. “But she’d know in an instant just by looking at my face.”

  The town of Beaufort was dark and still. Williams drove along the main street, passing the great old houses that faced across the harbor toward the Sea Islands—eighteenth-century mansions of brick, tabby, and wood. Halfway between Savannah and Charleston, Beaufort had once been a major shipping center, but it was now an almost forgotten, perfectly preserved, gemlike little village. We cruised along the narrow streets, passing rows of handsome white houses gleaming in the darkness. The tidy, well-manicured section of town gave way shortly to unpaved streets and tiny run-down cottages. We pulled up in front of a wooden shanty with a swept-sand front yard. The house was unpainted except for the door and windows, which were a light blue. “Haint blue,” said Williams. “It keeps the evil spirits out.” The house was dark. Williams knocked lightly and then pushed the door open. The flickering light from a TV set was the only illumination in the cluttered front room. Pungent cooking smells, of pork and greens, filled the air. A man lay asleep on a daybed. He stirred as we entered. A young black woman came into the room through a curtained doorway carrying a plate of food. She nodded toward the back of the house without saying a word, and we walked on through.

  Minerva was sitting in a small room under a bare light bulb. She was like a sack of flour. Her cotton dress was stretched tight over her round body. Her skin was a pale brown, and her face was as round as a tranquil moon. Her gray hair was pulled back in a bun except for two little pigtails, one hanging over each ear. She wore a pair of purple-tinted, wire-rimmed glasses. The table in front of her was piled high with bottles, vials, twigs, boxes, and odd bits of cloth. The floor was littered with shopping bags, some bulging, some empty. When she saw Williams, she broke into a broad, gap-toothed smile and motioned for us to sit down on two folding chairs.

  “I been waitin’ on you, baby,” she said in a half-whispered voice.

  “Well, how’ve you been, Minerva?” Williams asked.

  Minerva’s face clouded over. “I been dealin’ with a lot a graveyard dirt.”

  “Not again!” said Williams.

  Minerva nodded. “Mm-hmmm. There’s a lot a grudgefulness and deceitfulness.” Minerva spoke in a faraway voice. It came from so deep within her that the words sounded as if they had been uttered eons ago on a distant planet and were just now reaching the earth through her. “My son’s ex-wife. She had three children with him. She drive by and throw graveyard dirt on my porch. I gets it by the bucketful. That’s how come I be blocked a lot. Business gets po’. Then my boy gets in trouble with the police. I can’t sleep. And I been raisin’ hell with my old man that’s dead.”

  “Dr. Buzzard?”

  “Yeah, him,” said Minerva. “I need to git me some money, and I been playin’ the numbers, so I can git some. I always go to him and I pay him a dime for him to give me a number. But he won’t give me one for shit. I cuss he ass out. I don’t know why he don’t want me to git no money.”

  Minerva put aside a small wax doll she’d been working on. “Well, it looks like we’re back in business again, you and me, don’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Williams. “Now we’ve got a second trial to work on.”

  “Yes, I know that.” Minerva leaned forward and brought her face close to Williams. “He’s workin’ hard against you, baby!”

  “Who is?” Williams was startled. “Not Dr. Buzzard!”

  “No, no,” Minerva said. “The boy. The dead boy.”

  “Danny? Well, it doesn’t surprise me. He planned this whole thing. He knew I was getting tired of his damn games. He knew I had twenty-five thousand dollars in cash at the house that night, because I was going to Europe on a buying trip. It was his big chance. He could kill me and take it.”

  Minerva shook her head. “That boy is workin’ hard against you.”

  “Well, can you do something about it?”

  “I can try,” she said.

  “Good. Because there’s something else I want you to do too,” said Williams.

  “What’s that, baby?”

  “I want you to put a curse on the district attorney.”

  “Well, of course. Tell me his name again.”

  “Spencer Lawton. L-A-W-T-O-N.”

  “Yeah. I worked his name before. Tell me what’s goin’ on with him since we got you off.”

  “He’s desperate. He’s been district attorney now for two years, and he’s never won a case himself in court. He’s mortified. People are laughing at him.”

  “They gonna keep on laughin’. Did you bring them things like I told you to?” Minerva asked.

  “Yes,” said Williams. “I did.”

  “Water that ain’t run through no pipe?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And did you put it in a quart jar? With no label on it? And no metal cap?”

  “Yes.”

  “And those nine shiny dimes?”

  “They’re in my pocket.”

  “Okay, baby. Now I want you to sit down and do somethin’ for me.” Minerva gave Williams a quill pen and a bottle of red ink labeled Dove’s Blood. “Write Spencer Lawton’s name on this piece of paper seven times. Connect the two names as one. Dot no i’s and cross no t’s. Now, you do that while I do some work over here.”

  Minerva began filling a plastic shopping bag with odd items—two trowels, pieces of cloth, some bottles. Somewhere on the table, under all the piles of stuff, a telephone rang. Minerva dug out the receiver.

  “Hello. Uh-hunh. Okay, now listen to me.” She spoke in a half-whisper. “She want you back, but she want you runnin’ behind her, beggin’. Remember what I told you. Before you sleep with her again, put a tablespoon of honey in the bath and take a honey bath. After you have sex, dry yourself off with that piece of muslin cloth I gave you. Hang it up to dry. Do not wash it. Later on, wrap it around a purple onion and tie the corners with a square knot. Huh? I say, a square knot. That knot I showed you. Two knots makes one. Okay. Then all you got to do is bury the cloth where she will walk over it or pass by. Uh-huh. Now, darlin’, don’t you depend on her to give you too much money. ’Cause she won’t give you none. That’s why her and her husband don’t git along. Uh-uh. She ain’t gonna be issuin’ out no money. And listen, be careful about your personal belongings—your dirty socks, your dirty undershorts, your hair, pic
tures of your head. She might try to take them to someone like me. Put a picture of her in your wallet in a secret place, between things, with her head upside down. Do that for me. Uh-hunh. That’s right. And let me know. Bye-bye.”

  Minerva looked across the table at Williams. “You done, baby?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Okay. Now, you know how dead time works. Dead time lasts for one hour—from half an hour before midnight to half an hour after midnight. The half hour before midnight is for doin’ good. The half hour after midnight is for doin’ evil.”

  “Right,” said Williams.

  “Seems like we need a little of both tonight,” said Minerva, “so we best be on our way. Put the paper in your pocket where the dimes is, and take your bottle of water. We goin’ to the flower garden.”

  Minerva picked up her shopping bag and headed out the back door. We followed close behind as she made her way down the lane with a slow and ponderous stride. As she approached the next house, an old man got up from a chair on the porch and went inside. A window in another house closed. A door shut somewhere. Two men standing beside an oleander bush parted when they caught sight of Minerva and withdrew into the darkness. In a few moments, we reached the end of the lane. The sliver of a new moon hung like a slender cradle over a grove of tall, dark trees. We were at the edge of a graveyard. On the far side, a hundred yards beyond the trees, a floodlit basketball court cast a pale gray light into the graveyard. A boy was bouncing a ball and taking shots at the basketball hoop. Thunk, thunk, thunk … proinnng. Otherwise, the graveyard was deserted.