“I wanted to let you know that Class turned down a deal to testify against Paul,” I say, sitting down in a comfortable chair across from his desk.
“He still insists he’s not guilty and that Paul never approached him about anything.”
Dickerson leans back in his chair and flexes his fingers like a concert pianist about to rip into the Warsaw Concerto.
“Of course he did,” he says.
“Butterfield has absolutely nothing on Paul except one tape of him and Willie that one time.
It’s an abomination that Paul was ever charged. I knew this is what the legal system would come to with them in charge.”
I study Dick’s diploma from Columbia. Beside it is proof that he took his undergraduate degree from Washington and Lee. It is hard not to be impressed. Dick can probably lecture for a week without notes on the history of Southern efforts to block integration.
“When you get some time after this trial,” I say, watching his fingers fly over the keys, “I’ll go over with you what I’ve found so far.
Paul’s not hurt any, but I can’t say I’ve found anything to help Class.”
Dick gives me a distracted smile.
“I appreciate it, Gideon. I know you’re busy, too. Call me next week and we’ll get together. I know you’re doing all the work right now.”
“It’s all right,” I assure him.
“I’ve enjoyed being back over here.”
“I hear you’re seeing Miss. Angela,” he says, glancing at me and smiling.
“She’s struggled like a lot of people over here, and I’m sorry she’s selling her house. It’s people like her we can’t afford to lose.”
I admit that we have gone out a time or two, but as I have with John, I minimize the relationship.
Dick is both too polite to say more and anxious to get back to work, so I let him. As I walk back to the parking lot at the courthouse where I left the Blazer, I marvel at Dick’s capacity for self-delusion. What does he expect to happen over here? Does he think whites will suddenly stop moving out and come to terms with the black political domination that is sure to come in every area? Two members of the city council are white; the county judge, Terry Keith, is white, but unless there is some kind of major turnaround about to take place, the handwriting is on the wall. And what would he think of my relationship with Angela thus far? Dick sees himself as honorably old-fashioned and surely would be shocked if he knew that Angela had taken me to her brother-in-law’s bed with a
fistful of rubbers in her purse.
During the rest of April I have occasion to see Dick several times as I plow through the list of plant workers and check and double-check their alibis. Some, despite Eddie Ting’s entreaties, have no interest in talking to me or, when they have, express the view that Class is guilty. Whatever their views or attitudes, time after time their alibis check out. Though his schedule is busier than my own, as the trial approaches, Dick, when he can, begins to take an active role in the investigation.
But between us, we uncover very little that suggests that Woodrow Bonner has not done a thorough job in meticulously documenting the whereabouts of each worker in the plant the day of the murder. So long as Bledsoe continues to stick to his story, Dick has little to worry about.
As we continue to meet together on a weekly basis to compare notes, he seems mainly interested in keeping tabs on what I am doing, and for good reason. If I can’t come up with another suspect and Class testifies as expected, Paul has nothing to worry about.
What keeps the month of April from seeming like a complete waste of time is my steadily growing relationship with Angela. Though I do not spend a night at her house and am wearing out myself and the Blazer commuting, I see her two and sometimes three times a week and have taken to stopping at Bear Creek’s one supermarket, where occasionally I see Alvaro Ruiz in the meat department setting out cuts of beef and pork.
One rainy, unforgettable Saturday we drive to Memphis and spend almost the entire day in a motel. Depending on her mood, she can be aggressive, and I glimpse the passionate girl I knew thirty years ago and
experienced that bizarre afternoon in her brother-in-law’s bed.
Other times she becomes moody and depressed, which I relate to Dwight’s death and her fears about the future. Though she has had no offers on the house, she has begun to work on it, and more than once has come to her door with eggshell-white paint on her face and hands. Having gotten a full-price offer from a middle-class black couple on my house (with no fixing up) after it had been listed for only a week, I am sympathetic to her plight but have no suggestions about how to move it.
Bear Creek is hardly a seller’s market.
I have met her boys, who have been home for a weekend. Although neither is as mature as Sarah, they seem like good kids and both are closer to her than I would have thought. I caught Brad wiping away a tear as he hugged Angela when they were going back to school a couple of Sundays ago. Distressed by their mother’s plans to sell the farm and further disrupt their lives by moving, they have begun to privately pressure her to stay in Bear Creek. Like many Delta-raised children, their manners are so good they can get on your nerves. Accordingly, both boys have been polite and courteous to me but are naturally suspicious since lately I seem to be at their mother’s house every time they call. At first, Angela maintained the fiction that I was “just an old friend” but has begun to admit that we are going out.
Since the Blazer is over here all the time, they could easily discover the truth simply by asking the neighbors how their mother is doing. The Saturday night they were home, Angela instructed me to show them Sarah’s picture, and they were suitably impressed. I guess they figure that if I have a daughter that beautiful I can’t be too bad.
Angela has encouraged them to look for summer jobs in Jonesboro since if she gets an offer she could close on the house within a matter of weeks.
Having so much time to think during the long two-hour drives back and forth, I have begun to admit to myself that I am falling in love with her.
Despite a certain amount of baggage, she seems to be getting used to the idea that I am serious about her. She has let me know that I nearly blew it by kissing her that first day, and I realize now how unsettling it was for her. Would I act differently if I had the chance to do it over again? I tell myself that I would, but hardly from the purest of motives. There is an undeniable sexual attraction between us, something that time hasn’t dimmed.
Both of us will be relieved when the trial is over because we are on opposite sides there. She believes that Paul is innocent while I am convinced he is not, despite the fact that I have no more proof of that than the day I took this case over. I try to convince her that a year from now we won’t even remember the case, but she knows that’s garbage.
If he is found innocent, it will simply be viewed by the whites as another battle in the never-ending racial conflict, but if a jury convicts him, it will be etched in the memory of everyone who ever lived here.
On May 3, I get a call at my office from Darla Tate, who, to her credit, has continued to be helpful by furnishing me updated addresses and telephone numbers of plant employees. In the past week or two I have
fudged the truth a bit by suggesting that I fully expect Class to be acquitted, hoping probably futilely that this news will have the effect of convincing her she should decide to climb aboard his freedom train and testify that it could have been some other employee’s voice she heard that day she was in the bathroom. Today there is an excitement in her voice that I haven’t heard before, but it is hard to take her too seriously.
While everybody has a theory in this case, the only evidence still points at Class. In an earlier conversation, I told her that I haven’t found out much that wasn’t already in the prosecutor’s file.