For, a response, Binkie writes a number on the back of his card.
“This is my home phone number,” he says, handing it to me.
“You can reach me there or here.”
Why is the guy doing this? As far as I am concerned, he’s in the driver’s seat. Yet, maybe he believes that Dade will be giving up enough. I stand up, eager to get out of here and get on the phone. I offer him my hand.
“The judge won’t have any trouble with six years?”
Binkie stands and despite the condition of his hands crushes my fingers with a grip I couldn’t come close to if I worked out for the next decade.
“I don’t think so. It’s not as if he hurt her, too.”
“I should be able to sell his parents,” I say, reasonably optimistic. Once they hear about this morning’s results, they’ll have to be realistic about the chances of going to trial.
“I hope so,” he says, his face suddenly gloomy.
“May be we ought to be caning criminals like they do in Singa pore. Locking kids up and throwing away the key isn’t the answer. Something the hell’s wrong with this country.
It didn’t use to be like this.”
The least I can do is agree.
“I guess not,” I say.
“We’ve been going downhill for years. When you’re right in the middle of it, you don’t notice it though.”
Binkie shrugs and picks up his cup again. He didn’t ask for my philosophy of life.
“Get him to take this deal,” he says.
“Though I haven’t tried a rape case involving a black before,” he adds, his voice dry, “I doubt if a jury in these parts will be defense oriented in a case like this.”
I doubt it, too.
“How many blacks am I likely to have?”
Binkie reaches into his desk and pulls out some papers.
“This is the jury list. It’ll save you a trip to the Clerk’s office if you haven’t already been,” he says handing me papers with some jury data information on them.
“You might have a couple.”
That’s two more than I thought.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
I leave Binkie’s office, wondering if he is just fundamentally decent or whether, for some reason I don’t know about, he is scared to try this case, too.
17
I reach Roy Cunningham at his grocery from Barton’s office. In a weary voice, Roy explains that he has no help.
Lucy has taken their youngest child, Lashondra, to a doctor in Memphis because of an ear infection. Though I know this is an inappropriate time to talk, I insist on telling him what happened at the hearing this morning.
Already the court’s decision to prevent me from introducing evidence of Robin Perry’s affair with her professor seems far in the past, but it is a necessary part of the story if I am to prepare Roy and Lucy to accept a six-year prison sentence for their son. He listens without comment as if I were explaining a minor technicality instead of what I fear is the turning point in the case.
“But just a few minutes ago,” I say over a customer’s voice in the background, “the prosecutor offered us a deal. He’ll let Dade plead guilty to a charge of carnal abuse and a six-year prison term. On this kind of charge that could mean with maximum credit for good behavior he could be out in just a year. My opinion is that it’s something we need to think about. By the way, Dade’s on the road headed for home. He doesn’t know about the prosecutor’s offer yet.”
“He’s not guilty!” Roy Cunningham yells into the phone. I wish Lucy were there. She is the realist in the family and will understand what we’re up against.
Before I can respond, Roy orders, “Just a second!”
I hear the cash register ring, and my brain slips into idle while Roy again talks to a customer. I should have waited for Lucy to return from Memphis, but I want Roy especially to have as much time as possible to get used to the idea of a plea bargain before he sees his son. If I have learned anything about Dade, it is that like most kids his age, he has had too many things going his way the last few years to believe the worst can and will happen.
“Go on!” Roy says finally.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say brutally, “whether he’s guilty or not. What matters is what the jury will do. After all is said and done, what this case comes down to is whether the jury, which will be mostly white, will believe Robin or Dade. And now we’re in the position of having to go into the trial without a plausible explanation of why she would make this story up.”
“She could have had a dozen reasons!” Roy sputters.
“And they’ll all be speculation,” I say.
“We don’t have any hard evidence.”
There is silence on the other end for a moment.
“He’ll probably never play pro ball,” Roy says.
“Even if he got a tryout, he’d be at a terrible disadvantage.”
“That’s true,” I say, wishing I could sugarcoat themes sage but knowing I can’t.
“But if they want to make an example of him, they can give him life.”
I hear the jangle of multiple voices in the background, and Roy says, his voice now heavy with resentment, “I’ll talk to Lucy and we’ll call you back.”
“Call me at home or my office,” I instruct him.
“I’d like to drive over and talk to you.”
“We’ll call you later today,” Roy says curtly, dismissing me.
I hang up, wondering if I’m botching this. I should have driven over there and talked to Lucy and not even bothered with Roy. The men in the family have too much pride to act in their own best interest.
Fearful of being caught in a snowstorm in the mountains, I don’t stick around to visit with Barton, who has a client in with him, and drive east with a heavy foot, re playing over and over the events of this morning. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to trust Lauren Denney. I knew that from the moment she walked into Danny’s mat afternoon. Turning south off Highway 16 onto the Pig Trail, I see a band of snow-swollen clouds that appears almost to touch the roof of the Blazer. All I need is a slick road on these turns. Lauren. Sex oozed from her that day.
Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe sex was oozing from me and she never was as confident as she seemed. This morning she was a nervous, apologetic schoolgirl. Still, what choice did I have but to try to use her? What bothers me is that if I truly thought about it, I would have admit ted to myself that she was probably lying even before I talked to Jenny Taylor. Down deep, do I know that Dade is lying, too?
The snow holds off, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the sign for Interstate 40. The sky is lighter in the east. One year is not a lifetime, though it will seem that way to Dade and to Roy, who can close his eyes and see Dade being named all-pro wide receiver. I can, too, damn it. Part of me wants me to say to them that we should stiff Binkie’s offer and go for it. As I slow down behind a Buick Skylark, I hit a patch of ice and almost shimmy off the pavement down a steep embankment, but the Blazer straightens out at the last moment. I slow down to thirty.
Fear. It does wonders for your judgment.
At home there is no one to greet me. I have just missed Sarah, who begins work at five during the holidays at her old video store, and, of course, Woogie now makes his home in Hutto. I check the thermostat, which Sarah has turned up to seventy-five, and rotate the switch to sixty eight If Sarah had her way, we could have a greenhouse in here. When she starts paying for her own utilities, she won’t think I keep the house so cold. I walk into the kitchen before I realize I don’t need to check Woogie’s bowl to make sure he has water. I miss the old kitten eater. Marty called New Year’s Day to say that he was doing great. He goes anywhere he wants. Dogs, she reminds me, practically run the town.
As I am checking the mail (a Christmas card from my old friend Skip, still in Atlanta and gay, fat, and happy, he says. He didn’t use to be fat), the phone rings. It is Lucy, who asks if I would mind driving over tomorrow mo ming to help them decide if Dade should take the prosecutor’s offer. Her voice holds no clue as to how she feels.