فصل 09

CHAPTER NINE

Preparations

In early July, Judge Noose instructed Jean, the court clerk, to contact one hundred and fifty voters as possible jury members. The defense had asked for a large number from which to select the twelve, and Noose agreed. Jean and two deputy clerks spent Saturday studying the list of voters, selecting possible people. Noose also told Jean that she must not give the list to anyone - not even her old friend Jake Brigance. This trial was too important to give the Klan a chance to start frightening possible jurors - or to let the lawyers start choosing the jurors before the day of jury selection.

However, Judge Noose did not know about Harry Rex Vonner’s ability to get hold of information. At ten o’clock the next day, Harry Rex pushed open the door of Jake’s office and threw a copy of the jury list onto his desk.

“Don’t ask,” he said.

Beside each name he had made notes: “Don’t know,” “Hates niggers,” or “Works at the shoe factory - probably against Carl Lee.”

Jake read each name slowly, trying to remember faces or the kind of person they were. There were only names - no addresses, ages, jobs. Most of the names sounded white.

“What do you think?” asked Harry Rex.

“Hard to tell. Mostly white, but we expected that. Where did you get this?”

“I already said - don’t ask. I know twenty-six names. That’s the best I can do.”

“You’re a true friend, Harry Rex.”

“I’m a prince. Are you ready for the trial?”

“Not yet. But I’ve found a secret weapon.”

“What?”

“You’ll meet her later.”

As they finished their conversation, Ellen Roark came into the office.

“Good morning, Row Ark,” Jake said. “I want you to meet a good friend, Harry Rex Vonner.”

Harry Rex shook her hand and looked her up and down - he clearly thought she was very attractive.

“Nice to meet you. What was your first name?”

“Call her Row Ark,” Jake said. “She’ll clerk here until the Hailey trial’s finished.”

“That’s nice,” said Harry Rex - still looking at Ellen, not at Jake.

“Harry Rex is a local lawyer, Row Ark. And one of the many you cannot trust.”

“What did you hire a female law clerk for, Jake?” he asked.

“Row Ark’s brilliant in criminal law, like most third-year law students. And she’s very cheap.”

“Do you have something against females, sir?” Ellen asked.

“No ma’am. I love females. I’ve married four of them.”

She looked at his big, dirty shoes, the cheap socks that had dropped around his ankles, his dirty cotton trousers, his old dark bluejacket, his pink wool tie that fell a long way above his fat stomach, and she said to Jake, “I think he’s sweet!”

“I might make you wife number five,” Harry Rex said.

“The attraction is purely physical,” she said.

“Careful,” Jake said. “There’s been no sex in this office since Lucien left! How’s the research?”

“There are dozens of insanity cases, and they’re all very long, I’ve done about half. I planned to work on the others here.”

Harry Rex moved toward the door.

“Nice meeting you, Row Ark, I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks, Harry Rex,” said Jake. “See you soon.”

Three miles from Jake’s office was a small, neat white country house where Ethel and Bud Twitty had lived for almost forty years. It was a pleasant house with pleasant memories of raising children who were now living in the North.

The house was quieter now. Bud hadn’t worked for years, not since his first illness in 1975, when he had had a heart attack, followed by two more. He knew that he would not live long, and he had accepted the fact. On Monday night, he sat on the front porch listening to the football game on the radio. Ethel was working in the kitchen. Toward the end of the ball game, he heard a noise. He turned the sound down on the radio. Probably just a dog. Then another noise. He stood and looked toward the garden.

Suddenly, an enormous figure in black with red, white, and black war paint across his face jumped onto the porch and pulled Bud to the ground. Bud’s shout for help was not heard in the kitchen. Another man joined the first one and they pulled the old man down the steps and into the garden. One held him and the other hit him in the stomach and face. Within seconds he was unconscious.

Ethel heard noises and ran through the front door. She was caught by a third member of the gang, who twisted her arm violently behind her, and put his hand over her mouth. She couldn’t scream or talk or move, and was held there watching the two men beat her husband. On the sidewalk ten feet behind the violence stood three figures, each wearing the white Klan robes. They came out of the darkness and watched the beating.

After an impossibly long, horrible minute the beating slowed down. “Enough,” said the white figure in the middle. The men left and Ethel ran down the steps and held her unconscious husband in her arms.

Jake left the hospital after midnight. Bud was still alive, but he had suffered another serious heart attack as well as the broken bones.

Ethel had shouted and screamed at Jake, blaming him for everything.

“You said there was no danger!” she screamed. “It’s all your fault!”

Jake had looked around the small waiting room at the friends and relatives. All eyes were on him. Yes, they seemed to say, it was all his fault.

Carl Lee Hailey and his wife were angry too. Gwen had no money to pay her bills, and Carl Lee had no money to pay for his defense, but they had heard that Reverend Agee had collected over six thousand dollars from black churchgoers to help Carl Lee. Why had they not received any of the money yet, they demanded.

Jake had arranged a meeting with Reverend Agee after Gwen visited his office to ask for help with the bills she could no longer pay. He had telephoned the Reverend and asked him to come to his office to talk about the defense. Ozzie Walls had brought Carl Lee across the square too. Reverend Agee had tried to frighten Carl Lee, to tell him he was ungrateful - the church was keeping the money for any future defense. Ozzie helped the Reverend to see that he was making a mistake.

“I agree with Carl Lee and Gwen. Reverend Agee, you ain’t done right, and you know it.”

“That hurts, Ozzie, coming from you. It really hurts.”

“Let me tell you what’s going to hurt a lot more than that. Next Sunday, Carl Lee and I will be in your church. Carl Lee will do the talking. He’ll tell all your people that the money they’ve given so generously has not left your pocket - that Gwen and the children are going to lose their house because you’re keeping the money people gave. He’ll tell them that you lied to them. He may talk for an hour or so. When he’s finished, I’ll say a few words. I’ll tell them what a lying, dishonest nigger you are. I’ll tell them about the time you bought that stolen car in Memphis for a hundred dollars and almost got sent to jail. I’ll tell them about the money you get from the funeral business. And, Reverend, I’ll tell…”

“Don’t say it, Ozzie,” Agee begged.

“I’ll tell them a dirty little secret that only you and me and a certain woman of bad character know about.”

“When do you want the money?”

“As soon as you can get it,” Carl Lee demanded.

Ozzie could be very persuasive sometimes.

The Klan were also making preparations. At around nine o’clock that evening, they met to discuss their next steps. They would have a big march at the beginning of the trial and, like Jake, had been able to get a copy of the list of possible jurors. They planned to visit a few and make sure that they remembered their duty to protect the interests of the white race.

Later that same evening, at Lucien’s house, Jake, Ellen, Harry Rex, and Lucien sat round the table on the porch. Lucien, at the head of the table, went through the jury list commenting on every name he recognized. He was drunker than normal.