Jerl didn’t have a word to say all the way back to town. He was doing plenty of thinking, and by the time I shoved him in a jail cell, he’d about decided he was still Jerl Brownlee, cock of any walk.
He watched me lock the cell door with hooded eyes. Then his battered lips twisted in a sneer. “You yokels don’t think for a minute this is going to work out your way, do you?”
“Looks like it might,” I said.
“You dumb rube,” he said. “With my dough, I’ll have the choice of the finest legal brains from New York to Los Angeles. There are jurors to buy, judges for sale. There are a thousand loopholes in the law, and ten thousand technicalities. With my loot, I can fight this thing to the highest courts in the land, no matter how long it takes. So before you wallow in any naive sentiments about the workings of justice or pat yourself on the back, deputy-boy, just answer me one question. Have you ever heard of a millionaire ending up in the electric chair or gas chamber?”
His question was still rattling around in my head a few minutes later as I trudged across the dark street The “Closed” sign was still on the door of Mom Roddenberry’s cafe, but there were lights in the flat overhead where she and Pretty had lived. I fumbled for the banister of the outside stairway that led up the side of the building to the flat.
The old lady answered my knock, searched my face for a minute, and invited me into a plain, but comfortable and clean parlor.
I sat down on a studio couch. Mom eased to the edge of a chair across from me. A hard stillness came to the apartment.
“Gaither,” she said, “you did catch him. He’s locked up. I’ve already heard.”
“Yes, ma’am. But I got a dreadful feeling that rich boy will get out of this.”
“Why, lad, we know he done it! Cold-blooded and mean. Pretty said he did — and she wouldn’t tell a lie with her dying breath.”
“I know, but we run up the first stump right there. We got a witness that says that she said it. They call it hearsay evidence. The lawyers he can afford will cut our case to nothing.”
The old lady thought about it, hands crimping like talons. Then she raised her slatey gray eyes. “Might be a game two can play, Gaither.” I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Would a mountain jury convict an old woman if she was temporarily pixilated by the murder of her daughter?”
The hairs stiffened on the back of my neck as I began to get the drift.
She rose slowly. “Mom Roddenberry’s cafe always supplies meals for the jail prisoners across the street. Tonight you got a prisoner. I’m going down now, Gaither, and fix his supper. I reckon that’s why you came over, to fetch the prisoner his tray?”
I gulped. “Well, ma’am... Come to think of it, yes.”
“A real mouth-watering meal for the man...” She patted my shoulder in passing. “But don’t you dast get forgetful and throw the scraps to Red Runner and Old Bailey.”
“No, ma’am,” I promised. “I reckon such a fine pair of dogs deserve better than scraps tonight.”