“Yes,” he agreed. “I owe her that.”
“How quiet it stays is up to them. And to Judge Knott too, of course.” She gave me an inquiring look.
“Your call,” I said again, feeling better about it this time, now that some solid legal ground had appeared beneath that ethical quicksand.
Cyl stood then and smoothed the wrinkles from her linen dress. “I’ll be in touch.”
He nodded and the last of my indignation dissipated.
I’d been flippant about the damage to his reputation, but Cyl was right. It would be a real waste if the act of a scared young man twenty years ago did indeed damage the reputation of the leader he’d become.
Isaac Mitchiner wasn’t the only victim here.
Rain was still falling when we left the building and scurried over to the covered portico in front of the auditorium.
Ralph Freeman was just coming out with his umbrella in hand and he shook his head as we drew nearer.
“I can understand why you might skip the political speeches, but don’t tell me you aren’t eating either?”
“Hungry?” I asked Cyl. “Or do you want to leave?”
She shook her head. “Don’t take this wrong, Deborah, because I do appreciate what you did, the things you said, but—” She turned to Ralph. “If you’re ready to go, Reverend, would you mind giving me a lift back to the courthouse?”
“I’d be glad to.” He opened his umbrella and held it over her.
I watched them go and yes, damn it, I was taking it wrong... if feeling as if I’d been slapped was taking something wrong.
“She didn’t mean it personally,” said Adderly, who had come up behind us and witnessed the whole scene. “Sometimes being with whites is just too stressful.”
“Now you’re going to argue for reverse segregation?” I asked.
“No, but I wouldn’t mind if white folks could appreciate that it isn’t a one-way street, that integration brings losses for us, too. I’m never going to quit working for a North Carolina where all blacks can feel comfortable everywhere, no matter who’s sitting at the table with us—a North Carolina where we can quit having to be a credit to our race every minute of every day because there’s always some honky ready to say ‘Ain’t that just like a nigger?’ if we aren’t. But until that happens, there have to be times and places where we can sink down and lay our burdens aside and know for sure that nobody’s sitting in judgment but God.”
“Black churches,” I said.
He nodded. “And black friends.”
I could see his point, but bedamned if I had to like it.
✡ ✡ ✡
Disconsolately, I stepped inside the lobby to retrieve my umbrella just as Reid was coming in. He grabbed my arm with a big smile.
“Hey, Deb’rah! Sherry said you saw Langston King’s will, too. Guess what?”
“Sister Williams is going to let the land revert?”
His face fell. “How’d you guess?”
“Just a wild stab.”
“I drove over to Cotton Grove—the rain was coming down in buckets, too—and explained it to Mrs. Williams and then she and I went to see Mrs. Avery. She didn’t know about the reversion clause and she wasn’t real sure it was the right thing to do, Mrs. Avery, I mean. We really had to sell the idea to her and then she and Mrs. Williams had to pray on it awhile before she finally agreed. We’re going to start the paperwork first thing tomorrow morning.”
“That’s nice.”
“Hey, you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look a little down.”
“It’s the weather. And it’s been a long day.”
“I don’t suppose you got a chance to talk to Dwight?”
“Actually, I did,” I said. “Unfortunately, half your client’s alibi is over in Dobbs Memorial with his jaw wired shut and the other half’s on her way back to Massachusetts.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Trust me. I’m not,” I said and related what Dwight had told me earlier that afternoon.
He listened intently, shaking his head in dismay. “I’ll see if we can get a court reporter there tomorrow to take his deposition.”
“It’s none of my business,” I said, “but if it were me, I wouldn’t be in too big a hurry about this.”
“How come?”
“Dwight may want to believe that Starling and Bagwell set those fires, but he won’t disregard a solid alibi and last night’s beating ties in with the story A.K. told me at least three hours before the beating occurred. Give him a chance to convince himself and Dwight’ll turn around and convince ATF. Bet you a nickel he’ll have talked with Jerry Farmer and Bobbie Jean Pritchett, too, by tomorrow night.”
“Bet,” said Reid. “And I hope I lose.”
23
Real angels never look for the angles.
—Booker Grove Methodist Church
If I’d found him, I probably could’ve collected my nickel from Reid when I broke for the afternoon recess the next day.
As I crossed the atrium that connects the new part of the courthouse with the old 1920s part, I almost banged into a hefty young white man who began with an apology and ended with a pleased smile on his face. “Judge Knott! Glad to see your hair’s none the worse for all those sparks.”
It was the volunteer fireman who’d hauled out the pulpit on one shoulder the night Balm of Gilead burned.
I fumbled for his name. “You’re Donny, right? Donny Turner?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he beamed, “and I owe you an apology. I didn’t know I was ordering around a judge that night.”
“No problem,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Just fine. Hey, maybe you can help me?”
“Sure. What do you need?”
He took a crumpled slip of paper from his jeans pocket. “I got a call to come see Special Agent Ed Gardner? In Major Dwight Bryant’s office? You happen to know where that would be?”
“Well, you could have gone in directly from the street behind, but there’s a staircase. Let me show you.”
I led him through double glass doors, along a wide hall, down the stairs and through another set of glass doors. As we walked, Donny Turner kept up a running chatter on why he was there. He didn’t seem to be completely sure.
“I reckon they want to get an in-depth report of what it was like when them churches was actually burning? From one of the troops? Somebody as was right there, don’t you reckon?”
“You were at all three?”
“Well, not that little one with the trailer. Burning Heart of God? Boy, that was a real appropriate name, won’t it? Naw, none of us got to that one. We was all at Mount Olive, working on that fire, when the little ’un went.”
Donny Turner’s Colleton County accent was as thick as Daddy’s—wasn’t is always won’t, fire is far—and he was bad for making every other sentence sound like a question, but I grew up on those sounds and I’ve never needed a translator.
“Did you know Charles Starling or Raymond Bagwell?” I asked.
“Oh, sure. Charles, anyhow. He was a year behind me but we rode the same school bus and we carpooled after I got my license. Till he quit school? Man, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heared he was the one done it.”
“Really?” I halted on the stairs and stared at him.
Surprised, Donny stopped, too. His eyes met mine briefly, then darted away. “Well, no, I guess not really. He was sorta wild in school, always breaking the rules? He was the one spray-painted our bus when we was in middle school? And you know his momma kicked him out of the house ’cause he kept burning holes in everything with his cigarettes and I heared he was real mad with Balm of Gilead ’cause they stole his granddaddy’s land?”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard, too.” I said.
“Maybe that’s how come they want to talk to me? ’Cause I know Charles could’ve done it?”