Alex Cross's Trial Read online

  “Mama always said I come into Miss’ippi the same year Miss’ippi joined up with the United States.”

  “And Mississippi became a state in 1817,” said Lewis. “So that would make you…”

  “Eighty-nine,” Abraham said. “Same as Miss’ippi.”

  Another laugh. If the jury was anything like the audience, some of them had to be enjoying Abraham’s company.

  Lewis ambled over to his desk, picked up a piece of paper, and carried it to the bench. “Your Honor, if it please the court, I submit article number one as physical entry and evidence, a warrant from the chief of police to search the premises of one Abraham Cross in the Eudora Quarters.”

  “Very well,” my father said. He took pleasure in sliding the document into the maw of his heavy iron stamp, bringing down the lever to imprint his seal and admit it into evidence.

  He handed the warrant back to Lewis, who carried it to Abraham.

  “Mr. Cross, would you please take a look at this document?”

  Abraham slowly settled his spectacles onto the bridge of his nose and took the paper from Lewis.

  “Mr. Cross, do you know how to read?”

  Abraham straightened up and glared at him. “I’ve been reading the Good Book since I was five years old.”

  “In that case, would you please be so kind as to read that for me—the sentences printed at the top, in the heavy ink.”

  Abraham read: ‘‘This warrant renders unto the bearers the unchallenged right to examine all house, home, and household goods of the residence denoted below, by order of the Chief of Police in the township of Eudora, Mississippi.’ ”

  Abraham looked up at the attorney towering over his wheelchair.

  Lewis said, “Please read the name on the line marked ‘Residence.’ ”

  “It’s my name. ‘Abraham Cross.’ ”

  Lewis stuck his thumbs through his suspenders, a pose exactly like the photograph of Clarence Darrow I’d seen in the American Legal Companion.

  “Now, Mr. Cross, when have you seen this document before?”

  “Never in my life,” Abraham said.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Yes, sir, he said. He was sure. Lewis asked him the question five different ways. Jonah tried to object and was gaveled into silence.

  “Didn’t Mr. Stephens hand this document to you when he arrived at your house that night, Mr. Cross?”

  Ah, here we go. Jonah jumped up. Objection overruled. He seemed to have reached a silent agreement with Judge Everett Corbett: he would be allowed to keep making objections as long as he understood he would be instantly overruled on every one.

  “Mr. Cross, isn’t it true that you saw this document, you read it, and you threw it on the ground?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Didn’t you tell Mr. Stephens that if he wanted to search your house, he’d have to shoot you first?”

  “No, sir. I did not.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “He didn’t bring no paper. They rode up and started shooting. If Mr. Stephens said he did that, he is a liar. And if you say he did it, sir, you would be a liar too.”

  Chapter 108

  AFTER ABRAHAM FINISHED testifying and Moody took him home to put him back to bed, Jonah challenged the admissibility of Phineas Eversman’s search warrant.

  My father looked mildly amused. “It’s a search warrant, Mr. Curtis. It looks like a thousand others that I’ve seen over the years,” he said.

  Since his profane outburst in the direction of the applauding juror, I thought, my father had been unusually patient with Jonah. He must have realized how bad that eruption would look once all these “ two-bit newspaper reporters” put it into print.

  Jonah decided to tack in another direction. “Your Honor, I know you are well aware that under the rules of civil procedure, all documents entered as evidence must be shared with all counsel before commencement of trial,” he said. “The first time I saw this was a few minutes ago.”

  My father peered down his nose at the spectacle of a Negro lawyer daring to cite civil procedure to him. “Now, Mr. Curtis, you being from up in Jackson and all, and educated up in the North, well, I’m sure you are accustomed to practicing before the big-city courts like they have up there, with your civil procedures and all that,” he said. I had seen him perform this act before: the simple country judge, working his way through the facts of the case with nothing but his good ol’ horse sense. “But down here in Eudora,” he went on, “we do things in a simple and logical fashion. Mr. Lewis hands me a document, I take a look at it. I ask myself if it looks authentic. In this case I thought it did, and I admitted it into evidence. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see it earlier—Mr. Lewis, you should’ve showed it to him—but I’m not going to throw it away or declare a mistrial on account of a thing like that. Mr. Curtis, is that all right with you? Yes? Let’s proceed.”

  He was so folksy, so mock-reasonable, that it made my stomach queasy. It was obvious that this judge was not the least bit worried about being overturned on any appeal. That could only be because he knew there would never be an appeal: Sheriff Reese and his deputy were Klansmen, and Phineas Eversman, the only other law enforcement officer in Pike County, had crossed over to their side. The defendants would be acquitted, they would go free, and no one would ever disturb them on these murder charges again.

  “Now, I want both sides to listen,” my father said. “I’m going to recess this proceeding until tomorrow morning. Just because every reporter in America is interested in this case, doesn’t mean I don’t have other matters to adjudicate. This afternoon I will devote myself to the trial of a man who’s been charged with public drunkenness and urination. I’m going to have to settle a fence-line dispute between a planter and one of his colored sharecroppers. And I’m going to listen to that old German butcher, Henry Kleinhenz, tell me one more time why Sam Sanders should not be allowed to sell chicken parts at the general store.”

  He banged his gavel once.

  “Until tomorrow, nine o’clock. Sharp.”

  Chapter 109

  “ALL RISE! THIS COURT stands adjourned!”

  My father swept out of the room. Everyone in the courtroom started talking at once, the newspaper reporters pushing through the crowd, hastening to beat each other to the telegraph stations at the depot.

  Through the window I saw that the sunny morning was giving way to dark-bottomed clouds. Everyone had been hoping for rain, if only to cool things off for an hour or two before the sun heated it all up again.

  Maxwell Hayes Lewis stepped over to the prosecution table.

  “Mr. Curtis, gentlemen—I just want to say, I am mighty sorry for forgetting to show that search warrant to you fellows before we got started this morning.”

  I looked him right in the eye. “Ah, Mr. Lewis, that is perfectly understandable. I’m sure you were too busy manufacturing that warrant this morning to bother showing it to us.”

  Lewis chuckled. “Ben, I am sorry to see you have become such a cynic.”

  “Let me tell you something, Mr. Lewis.” I straightened all the way up so as to look down on him from the maximum height. “You got Phineas to fake a warrant for you, and you found some justice of the peace who was happy to sign it and postdate it, and you got my father to admit it into evidence with a wink and a nod. But Jonah has a whole bunch of witnesses who saw what your clients did that night. They saw the death and destruction. And they will testify.”

  The affable smile disappeared from Lewis’s face. He was gathering his wits for a comeback when Conrad Cosgrove burst into the near-empty courtroom, shouting.

  “Mr. Stringer! Mr. Corbett! Come on out here, you got to see this!”

  I followed the others down the center aisle to the doorway. Outside, the trees in the square were swaying in the breeze from the oncoming storm. A soft patter of rain had just started to fall.

  Right in front of the door, in the center of the lawn fronting the courthouse, was a sight
I had never witnessed before.

  A huge cross was planted there.

  And it was burning.

  Chapter 110

  THAT EVENING A nervous and troubled prosecution team met for supper in the dining room of the Stringer home. Allegra, who usually took her meals with the children, decided to join us.

  “Louie, isn’t it just amazing how our Ella can turn one little handful of crabmeat into a she-crab soup worthy of Galatoire’s in New Orleans?” Allegra said.

  I was thinking, I never knew his name was Louie. Even way back in grammar school, he was always L.J.

  L.J. had no time to answer. At that moment a rock exploded the glass of the window above the dining table and skipped across the room. A second rock smashed through the window beside it, then a third. Glass flew everywhere.

  “The girls!” Allegra screamed and hurried up the stairs.

  I ran after L.J. into the center hall. He opened his gun cabinet and took out three rifles: one for me, one for him, one for Jonah.

  L.J. moved quietly along the walls of the front rooms, reaching up to cut off the gaslights so that we could see out and the people outside couldn’t see in.

  I saw at least fifty men milling about out there. They looked like the mob from the previous night, only larger. And they were chanting:

  Free the Raiders!

  Let ’em go!

  Free the Raiders!

  Let ’em go!

  They carried rifles, pistols, and pitchforks, and torches to light their way. I saw some of them holding big branches they must have pulled down from the trees on their way. One man had a bullwhip he kept cracking with a pop like a pistol shot.

  Free the Raiders!

  Let ’em go!

  L.J. stuck his head around the window frame. “Let the jury decide who goes free,” he shouted.

  A rock came hurtling across the veranda to shatter the porcelain urn on a pedestal behind me. Another rock crashed through a stained-glass panel beside the front door.

  “L.J., get your head in!” Jonah cried. “Don’t be a fool. Or a martyr.”

  L.J. stood in full view of the mob, waving his arms, trying to quiet them down, but soon realized that Jonah was right. He stepped back from the window.

  “You’ve got to get Allegra and the girls out of here,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’ll have Conrad hitch up the carriage. Allegra’s got a sister up in Pricedale. This whole town has gone crazy.”

  As L.J. ran from the room, Jonah turned to me. “This town was crazy long before tonight,” he said.

  I was sorry to say that I had to agree.

  Chapter 111

  JONAH AND I watched from the rear balcony as L.J.’s carriage clattered down the back drive and onto the Old Laurel Road. The crowd in front continued chanting for another half hour or so, but then the rain picked up and extinguished their torches, and their anger, at least for tonight.

  Before long I was seated in the ground-floor parlor with a snifter of brandy and a pot of coffee. Two of L.J.’s house-men were sweeping up the broken glass and bringing in planks to nail over the windows. Quite the sight. And quite the night.

  A knock came at the door. I looked up to see Nelson, one of the houseboys.

  “There’s a Miz Begley here to see you, sir,” he said.

  I went and met Elizabeth in the front alcove. Her bonnet was glistening from the rain, and she looked uncharacteristically disheveled.

  She reached out and took my hand. “Oh, Ben, I was in the courtroom today,” she said. “It’s awful, just awful. We all see what’s happening. How can I help?”

  I led her to L.J.’s study, toward a green damask sofa, where we sat. Elizabeth untied the bow of her bonnet and shucked it off. Her hair went flowing onto her shoulders.

  “I want to help you Ben. Please let me in. These hangings, all of it, has got to stop. Most of us in town want it to stop.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Elizabeth. L.J. just took Allegra and their kids out of town.”

  “Don’t push me away again. Please. I live here. I have more to gain, and to lose, than you do. Ben?”

  After a brief silence, I told her about a plan that had been forming in my head. It was quite a daring one, and I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.

  “Elizabeth,” I said. “You already are a help to me. Just knowing that I have your support and trust means everything to me.”

  Chapter 112

  SINCE THE NIGHT we had convinced Phineas to arrest the White Raiders, I’d known that if this trial ever came about, winning three guilty verdicts would be close to impossible. But this was the first time I had ever considered that it might be completely impossible.

  I couldn’t think of a way to combat all the lies, the false testimony, the faked documents, the bigoted jurors—and, of course, the overwhelming and nearly laughable prejudice of the presiding judge.

  Jonah Curtis, on the other hand, seemed to be clinging to his little tiny ray of hope. He kept urging me to have the courage to stand by him; he intended to fight Loophole Lewis to the bitter end.

  So it was that Jonah went after every scrap of evidence with passion, intelligence, and no little amount of cunning. He did constant battle with my increasingly impatient father. On the third day of the trial, everyone was astonished when Judge Corbett actually upheld one of Jonah’s objections. “Don’t let that give you any ideas,” my father growled.

  The next day Jonah put an emotional Conrad Cosgrove on the stand.

  “That’s right, Mr. Curtis,” Conrad said, “they was at least eight of ’em coming from all directions. They never said a word, they just started shootin’ everything and everybody in sight.”

  And later: “Yes, sir, Mr. Curtis, I seen my brother Luther take that man’s boot to his head at least six, seven times. Hard enough and long enough to kill him. I was standing closer to him than I am right now to you.”

  But then Maxwell Hayes Lewis always got his chance at rebuttal.

  “Now, Mr. Cosgrove, my dear Mr. Cosgrove, would you say that your opinion of what happened that night is influenced at all by your sorrow at the death of your brother?”

  Conrad pondered the question, then shook his head. “No, sir. I do feel sad that Luther is dead, but that doesn’t have a thing to do with my opinion about what happened that night.”

  It was a small trap, but Conrad had walked right into it.

  Loophole Lewis pounced. “So the testimony you gave to Mr. Curtis just now was your opinion, not fact?”

  “Well, sir,” Conrad said slowly, “it is my opinion, like you said, but it’s based on what I saw. And that’s just a fact.”

  “But you’re not absolutely certain of those facts, are you? How could you be?”

  Jonah climbed to his feet again. “Your Honor, Mr. Lewis is purposely trying to confuse this witness.”

  Judge Corbett looked over his spectacles. “If the witness is so easily confused,” he said, “then perhaps you made a mistake calling Mr. Cosgrove to testify in the first place.”

  And so it went. In that steamy courtroom, ripe with the smell of sweat and Rose of Sharon eau de toilette, the good people of the Eudora Quarters took the stand and swore to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. And they did. And then Maxwell Lewis ripped them apart.

  One by one, Loophole Lewis plowed his way through our witness list. Whether defiant or docile when they took the stand, every one of those witnesses eventually stepped down looking foolish, stupid, or wrong.

  It happened every single time.

  At last Jonah stood up.

  “If it please the court, the people call Miss Moody Cross to the stand.”

  Chapter 113

  MY GOD. She was dressed like a grown-up.

  I had never seen her wearing anything but one of the three identical white jumpers she rotated through the laundry basket so that she always appeared to be wearing the same spotlessly clean dress. Today she looked like a grown woman: a formal blue skirt, a neat white blou
se. On her feet were lace-up boots polished to a high shine. She wore white gloves and a straw hat.

  Last night we had gone over and over the questions we would ask. “Just tell the truth,” Jonah kept saying, “and everything will be fine.”

  “What are you talking about?” she scoffed. “In that courtroom the truth ain’t worth a bucket of piss.”

  “Charming,” I said. “Try not to say that.”

  Jonah said, “The truth is the only weapon we have, Moody. So we have to use it.”

  “Maybe so,” she said.

  I should have listened more carefully to that phrase of hers.

  Under Jonah’s patient questioning, Moody told the same story her grandfather had told. The same story Cosgrove told. The same story every one of the witnesses from the Quarters had told.

  By the time Jonah turned to Maxwell Lewis and said, “Your witness,” the gentlemen of the jury looked about ready for some dinner and a nice nap.

  Lewis said, “Miss Cross, are you a permanent resident of the house where your grandfather lives, over there in the Quarters?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s right. I live with him and take care of him.”

  All morning I had been noticing that Moody sounded more mature. She had managed to hide the edge of anger that so often came into her voice. She was speaking carefully, politely.

  “I wouldn’t really call it a house, though,” she added. “It’s more like a shack. But we do all right.”

  “Now, would you say your first notice of the alleged intruders on that night was when they rode up, supposedly shooting their weapons and yelling?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” she said in a very clear voice. “I would say my first notice was when Mr. North there, and Mr. Stephens, knocked on the door and showed me their search warrant.”

  Chapter 114

  SWEET JESUS IN heaven! Jonah and I had never discussed this with her. We had certainly never planned for her to say such a thing. But say it she had: