“When did you throw it away?”
“When I foun out it was leakin.”
“Was that before you left for Miami?”
“Two, three days before. Leaked gas all over the garage floor, had to wipe it up ’fore it started a fire.”
“Threw it away where?”
“In the garbage.”
“When is the garbage picked up at your house?”
“Mondays and Thursdays.”
“So if this was two or three days before you left for Miami, the old can would’ve been picked up on Thursday.”
“I reckon.”
“And you say you put the new can, filled with gasoline, in your garage that Saturday morning.”
“Thass what I did.”
“Where in the garage?”
“On a shelf there. Over my workbench.”
“You’re positive you didn’t take that can with you to Miami?”
“Positive.”
“Okay, let’s talk about Bonn a little, shall we? That was where you met your wife, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“In a bar there.”
“And began dating her?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And fell in love with her, is that right?”
“Yessir.”
“Then why’d you leave Bonn without even calling her?”
“Whut?”
“Lloyd Davis...”
“I called her ten, twenty times the day before I left. I kept askin her to marry me, she kept...”
He shook his head.
“You asked her to marry you while you were still in Bonn?”
“I did. A hunnerd times. A thousan times.”
“And?”
“She said she needed t’think it over.”
“Which apparently she did.”
“I don’t know whut you mean.”
“I mean three months later she came here looking for you.”
“Thass right.”
“Insisted that you marry her or else she’d go drown herself.”
For the first time since I’d known Harper, he smiled. The smile transformed his face entirely. Nothing could have made him appear handsome or even faintly attractive, but the smile brightened his eyes and changed him from a creature of hulking menace to someone suddenly very human.
“Yeah,” he said, pleased with the memory. “Used t’say that all the time, Michelle. If I wouldn’ta married her, she’da gone drown herself.”
“Any reason for such a threat?”
“Well, it was only jokin, you know.”
“She wasn’t pregnant, was she?”
“Pregnant? Michelle? Nossir, she was not.”
“Had you had sexual relations with her in Bonn?”
“Well, I don’t see as that’s any of your business, Mr. Hope.”
“Maybe it isn’t. But if we’re going to keep you out of the electric chair—”
“I dinn lay a finger on Michelle till after we was married.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thass the truth. Some kissin, some huggin, but never nothin further’n that. Michelle was a virgin when I married her. Had to teach her like she was a chile. I swear to God, Mr. Hope, wasn’t nothin funny goin on ’tween her an’ me in Bonn.”
“How’d you feel about her and other men?”
“Whut other men? Wasn’t nobody in Michelle’s life but me. She was a proper wife, Mr. Hope. Anybody says otherwise is lyin.”
“But you were very jealous of her, isn’t that true?”
“Had no reason to be jealous. Why would a man be jealous of a wife was proper in every respeck?”
“You never argued with her about what you thought might be improprieties on her—”
“I don’t know whut that word means, impo... whutever you said.”
“You never thought she paid too much attention to other men?”
“Never. ’Cause she didn’t, plain and simple. She loved me, Mr. Hope. Woman who’s crazy ’bout a man don’t go payin ’tention to no—”
“She was still crazy about you after a year and a half of marriage, right?”
“Yessir.”
“No problems, right?”
“Well, it wun’t ezzactly the way it used to be, but...”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, you know how it is when two people get married, they...are you married, Mr. Hope?”
“I used to be.”
“Then you know how it is. Things get diff’runt, is all. That don’t mean two people don’t still love each other, it means juss they’s got to work out whutever it is ain’t the same no more.”
“What was it that wasn’t the same?”
“Well, personal little things. Mr. Hope, this ain’t got nothin to do with I’m sposed to’ve killed Michelle. Nothin at all. They wun’t no trouble ’tween us that’d cause me to go killin her. None a’tall.”
“What personal things were wrong between you?”
“Personal means personal. It means you don’t go discussin them with your minister, or with your doctor, or even with your lawyer either.”
“Were they matters that could’ve been discussed with a minister or a doctor?”
“They were personal, Mr. Hope, an’ that’s that, so let’s juss forget it.”
“Okay, let’s talk about your service overseas. You were with the military police, is that right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Were you unusually cruel to anyone you took into custody?”
“Nossir.”
“Did you use your club on drunks?”
“Nossir.”
“Never beat up any soldiers who’d—”
“Never.”
“I’m getting conflicting stories, Mr. Harper.”
“From who?”
“From you, and Sally Owen, and Lloyd Davis. The only thing everybody seems to agree on is that you were in Miami on the morning of Sunday the fifteenth. Aside from that—”
“Thass juss where I was.”
“But aside from that—”
“I don’t know why anybody would want to lie about me an’ Michelle, or whut kinda person she was, or whut kinda person I am. Wun’t nothin wrong with our marriage, we loved each other, we respected each other, an’ anybody says it wun’t that way is a plain and simple liar. Now whut I want to know, Mr. Hope, is why they ain’t lettin me out of here. Thass why I been tryin to reach you all day long while you was in Miami with people who tole you nothin but lies about me an’ Michelle. I want to know whut you doin to get me out of here. That sum’bitch jailer told me this wun’t be comin to trial till maybe January sometime, am I spose to sit here all that time? Why’d you send that peachfuzz kid to the judge with me this mornin? I coulda told you beforehand no judge’d let a kid like that talk him into settin bail for me. When you gonna get me out, man, thass whut I want to know.”
“There’s nothing I can do about getting you out,” I said. “Nothing in the law obligates the court to grant bail. Bail was denied in your case because the court considers the crime a particularly brutal one. That’s why they can put you in the electric chair, Mr. Harper, the fact that the crime was ‘especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.’ I’m quoting directly from the statutes, the aggravating circumstances of the crime are what make it a capital offense. Which is why I’d like you to reconsider everything you just said to me, and if any of it wasn’t the truth—”
“All of it was the truth.”
“Then everybody else is lying. Do you know a man named Luther Jackson?”
“Nossir.”
“He says he saw you on the beach with Michelle the night she was murdered.”
“He’s mistaken.”