Between Black and White Page 22

  “So she didn’t drive,” George offered, holding out his palms again. “A lot of my in-town patients like to walk to the office if it’s a pretty day.”

  “George, we’ve checked, and Martha Booher does not live at any house within a three-mile radius of your office, nor was she staying as a guest at any of those homes.”

  George shrugged. “Then maybe she had a friend drop her off. Or maybe she took a cab.”

  “Not many cabs in the area that would be running that early in the morning,” Ennis said.

  George knew that Martha Booher had ridden the bus into Pulaski, so he didn’t want to offer that as a suggestion. He held out his palms. “I don’t know how I can help you, Ennis. I don’t remember anything about my encounter with Ms. Booher other than she was an attractive woman.”

  “We think she took the bus,” Ennis said, his eyes boring into George’s.

  “This all sounds very interesting, Ennis,” George began, feigning boredom and faking a yawn, “but I don’t see how any of it concerns me.”

  Slowly, Ennis stood and brushed past George to the front door. After he grabbed the knob, he snapped his fingers and looked over his shoulder at George. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. George, why did you destroy your sign-in book with Booher’s name on it? Dabsey said she always kept the sign-in book until the end of the month, but this one was gone when she arrived for work on Monday.”

  “I spilled coffee on it,” George said.

  “Convenient,” Ennis said, nodding. Then, opening the door, he spoke without looking at George. “George, I’m only going to ask this once. Is JimBone Wheeler the fixer Larry was talking about at the farm the night of Andy’s funeral?”

  George paused for two seconds while Ennis waited in the opening. Summoning all the strength he had in his voice, George said, “No. Ennis, I swear to God.”

  Sheriff Ennis Petrie turned his head and glared at George.

  “I swear to God,” George repeated.

  Ennis sat in his patrol car for several minutes after the confrontation, watching George Curtis’s house. That prick had better not be lying to me . . .

  George was dirty. Ennis knew it. But the bastard was also slippery as a minnow’s dick. Like with the coffee spill on the sign-in book, George always had an answer for everything. Which is a good thing, Ennis tried to tell himself. If George is lying and he and Larry did hire JimBone, he’ll have himself covered.

  Which should cover me too.

  Sighing, Ennis eased the squad car forward. One thing that made no sense was how any of this related to the murder of Andy Walton. As General Lewis said every time Bo’s defense team mentioned the possibility that JimBone Wheeler might be involved, every ounce of physical evidence at the crime scene pointed to Bo Haynes as Andy’s killer.

  Ennis’s cell phone buzzed. He grabbed the phone off the passenger-side seat. “Yeah?”

  “Sheriff, this is Lonnie Dupree down at the bus station. I was calling about the video your office requested.”

  “What?” Ennis asked.

  “The video. Deputy Springfield asked me to pull last Friday’s surveillance tape of riders getting off and on the buses.”

  “OK, Lonnie. Thanks for getting back to us. What do you have?”

  “We’ve got her,” Lonnie said, his voice rising with excitement and pride.

  “What?”

  “The girl in the flyer,” Lonnie said. “She’s on the tape.”

  52

  When Tom entered the courtroom on Tuesday morning, he immediately noticed the cameras in back, already in place to film every second of the trial. Sweeping his eyes around the courtroom, he saw that there was not a single open space on either the ground floor or the balcony. Sold out, he thought, limping toward the defense table, where Rick Drake was flipping through his outline for the opening statement while Bo sat stoically in his chair.

  “Ready to be famous?” Tom asked, and Rick gave a nervous laugh. He had practiced his opening deep into the night and knew it by heart.

  “Remember the mantra from trial team?” Tom asked.

  “Calm, slow, Andy,” Rick said, taking a deep breath.

  “Glad you were paying attention,” Tom said, slapping him on the back. Before big trial team competitions, Tom had always advised his students to repeat the line “Calm, slow, Andy” to themselves. It was a visual intended to help them relax. If they spoke to the jury in the same calm and slow manner that Andy Griffith used in talking to Barney or Opie, they would have a relaxed and confident effect.

  “Any word from Ray Ray?” Rick asked, and Tom shook his head.

  “No, but he’ll be here,” Tom said.

  “Speak of the devil,” Rick said, pointing behind Tom to the doors of the courtroom. Tom turned to see Ray Ray Pickalew walking toward them, his head down and his hands in his pockets.

  “Glad you could make it, sunshine,” Tom said.

  Ray Ray grunted. “Not in the mood, Tommy.”

  He passed by them and plopped down in the chair next to Bo. Like before, Rick smelled the powerful odors of mouthwash and aftershave, which were still not able to completely mask the scent of alcohol beneath the surface.

  “Any luck last night?” Tom asked.

  Ray Ray turned and looked at him with bloodshot eyes. “Not yet. But I’m close.”

  53

  By the time the jury was in the box on Tuesday morning, the Giles County Courthouse Square was covered in a sea of white robes and hoods. The Klansmen were split up into what their leader referred to as “brigades.”

  All of the men in the Lawrenceburg brigade had assembled that morning at the First Church of God. They had been dropped off by the church bus two hours ago on the south side of the Giles County Courthouse square directly in front of the Sam Davis statue. Some of the men had not worn their hoods on the bus ride over, but most had. It seemed that the majority did not want their faces to be shown on television, and they all knew that cameras would be everywhere.

  One of the men who left his hood on was Cappy Limbaugh, the owner of the Sleepy Head Inn in Lawrenceburg. Cappy had gotten his girlfriend to watch the front desk for him so he could participate in the rally. Cappy was almost sixty years old and had been a member of the Klan back in the ’70s. Eventually, though, he’d grown tired of the Klan and its changing leaders and directions. He’d gotten out in 1982 and had never looked back. Cappy had decided that there was no point or percentage in being associated with a group that hated black people. Hell, black people needed a motel room too. At the Sleepy Head, if you had the money, Cappy had the room. He didn’t give a damn about your color, race, creed, or sexual orientation. If there was one thing he’d learned in his fifty-nine years, it was that money talked and everything else was pure grain bullshit.

  And it was money that had put him on the bus that morning. One of his regular patrons wanted to march with the crazies and had paid Cappy a handsome sum to go along so that no one would ask questions.

  Rubbing sweat from behind the back of his neck, Cappy turned to his customer, who had sat next to him on the bus ride over and had marched beside him throughout the morning. “Hotter than hell out here, huh?”

  Underneath the hood given him by Dr. George Curtis, JimBone Wheeler nodded. “It’s only going to get hotter.”

  54

  Helen Lewis gave a thirty-minute opening statement that was both powerful and effective. She methodically laid out the state’s case step-by-step, focusing first on Bo’s motive to commit the crime and then using a flow chart to list all of the physical evidence against Bo. She finished with the theme of her case.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this case is about revenge. The defendant, Bocephus Aurulius Haynes, carried around a burning hate for Andy Walton for forty-five years. You will hear his own cousin tell you that the defendant promised on many occasions that he would one day kill Andy Walton. That day turned out to be August 19, 2011. After a heated confrontation with the victim earlier in the night at Kathy’s Taver
n, the defendant could no longer keep his hate under control. He decided to take the law into his own hands and finally exact revenge on Andrew Davis Walton.” Helen paused and took a moment to glare at the defense table and in particular Bo. “I am confident that when you hear and see the mountain of evidence against the defendant, you will find him guilty of murder. Thank you.”

  Helen strode confidently back to the prosecution table and took her seat.

  “Thank you, General Lewis,” Judge Connelly said. Then she nodded toward the defense table. “The defendant will now give his opening statement.”

  As Rick stood, he felt a hand grab hold of his own. He looked and saw Bo’s intense eyes, which were so black they reminded him of the water at midnight in Destin Harbor. “Pure, dog. Be pure. Be you.”

  Rick nodded and blinked his eyes. He felt emotion welling in his chest and fought it off. Be me, he told himself. Be me . . .

  “May it please the court,” Rick began, talking from behind his chair at the defense table and then moving in front of the table. “Your Honor.” He looked at Judge Connelly. “General.” He moved his eyes to Helen Lewis, who stared back as if she were looking right though him. “Members of the jury.” Slowly, he directed his eyes to the twelve men and women who would decide the case, holding his gaze on the schoolteacher, Millie Sanderson. “There are two victims in this case. The first is obviously Andrew Davis Walton. The second is . . . Bocephus Haynes. Mr. Haynes, would you please stand.”

  Bo stood to his full height of six feet four inches, and Rick walked to the side of the table and put his arm around him. During trial competitions, the Professor had always instructed them to make sure they put their hands on the defendant in a criminal case. It was important for the jury to see the defense lawyer touch the accused. For the jury to know that, regardless of whatever monstrous crime the defendant had been charged with, he was still a person. A human being. “This is Bocephus Haynes. In August 1966, a mob of the Tennessee Knights of the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in Bo’s family’s yard. Then, threatening to torch the house if Bo’s father didn’t come outside, these men dragged Bo’s father, Franklin Roosevelt Haynes, to a tree in a clearing just a half mile away.” Rick paused. “There they kicked him and beat him and . . . hanged him. Bo Haynes was five years old at the time. Five . . . years . . . old. Much too young to have seen such a gruesome tragedy.” Rick paused, and as they had rehearsed the night before, Bo sat down. “But old enough to recognize a familiar voice. The men who lynched Bo’s father wore the robe and hood of the Ku Klux Klan. They could not be recognized by appearance, but Bo knew the voice of the one who did the talking. Bo grew up on Walton Farm. His father worked the fields, while his mother worked in the house with Mrs. Walton. Five-year-old Bo Haynes had heard Andy Walton’s voice every day of his short life. He knew it, but the sheriff of this county at that time would not prosecute Mr. Walton based on the word of a five-year-old boy.”

  Rick paused, moving out from the table and standing in the well of the courtroom, that place right in front of the jury. “General Lewis is right. Bocephus Haynes has lived with the tragedy of his father’s murder for forty-five years. Can you even imagine what this man has gone through in his life?” Rick glanced at Bo, then back to the twelve jurors, again meeting Millie Sanderson’s eye. “So let’s examine that life more closely. Bocephus Haynes attended elementary school and high school here in Pulaski, graduating from Giles County High. He obtained a scholarship to play football at Alabama, where he played for Coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.” Rick noticed that Woody Brooks, the retired juror who Ray Ray had said voted for Obama, had his arms folded across his chest but was nodding. “Law school followed at Alabama, where Bo graduated in the top ten percent of his class. Bo had offers from all the big Birmingham firms and several firms in Nashville, but he turned them all down. From the day he set foot in a law school class, Bocephus Haynes knew he would always return here. To Pulaski. His home.” Rick moved a couple of steps to his right for effect, maintaining eye contact with Woody. “For twenty-five years Bo has practiced law in Giles County, raising a family with his wife, Jasmine, right here in Pulaski.” Rick gestured to the front row of the gallery, just a few feet from the defense table, where Jasmine Haynes sat with T. J. Unprompted, Jazz stood from her seat and leaned over the railing, placing her hand on Bo’s shoulder. Rick noticed that she wore the same orange corsage over her heart as she’d worn the day before, though today her dress was hunter green. Bo squeezed his wife’s hand and then she returned to her seat.

  Surprised but grateful for the gesture, Rick paused so that the jury could take in the moment. All twelve sets of eyes were now trained on the defendant’s wife, and Millie Sanderson appeared to smile without opening her mouth. All it takes is one, Rick thought, knowing that for Bo to be found guilty the jury’s verdict had to be unanimous. If just one juror held to a belief that Bo was innocent, the court would declare the case a mistrial and Bo would win. Rick sensed, as Ray Ray had suggested, that Millie was the soft spot in the jury pool.

  After several seconds Rick cleared his throat and returned his eyes to the jury. “For the past ten years Bo Haynes has made every single edition of Super Lawyers magazine as one of the top fifty attorneys in the state of Tennessee.” Rick walked to the defense table, and Tom handed him the magazine. “In fact, in 2006 he made the cover of Super Lawyers.” Rick held the magazine up for the jurors to see. It was a picture of Bo in a charcoal-gray pinstripe suit, standing in the exact spot where Rick now stood. In the well of the jury. “The cover reads ‘Pulaski’s Bocephus Haynes: Bulldog for Justice.’” Rick paused, hoping the words sunk in. “In addition to summarizing Bo’s heroics in the courtroom, this article goes into great length about why Bo came back to Pulaski. Bo is quoted as saying ‘I came back to Pulaski because I wanted to make sure the men who murdered my father were brought to justice. I won’t rest until every single one of them is in jail.’”

  Rick set the magazine back on the table and again faced the jury. “Bo Haynes has never hidden why he came home. But General Lewis has the terminology wrong. Bo didn’t come back for revenge. He came back for justice. Bo is a lawyer. One of the very best in this state. He, more than anyone else, knows that justice is done in a courtroom. Justice . . . is delivered by you.” Rick held out his palms to the jury. “Bo’s mission has always been for the men who lynched his father to be brought to answer before you. And while making a living and raising a family in Pulaski these past twenty-five years, Bo has tirelessly investigated the circumstances of his father’s death, trying to do just that.”

  Rick paused and walked closer to the defense table. “Bocephus Haynes is innocent. As he sits in this courtroom and throughout this trial, Bocephus Haynes is innocent. He is innocent and will remain innocent until the prosecution”—Rick pointed at Helen Lewis for emphasis—“proves to each and every one of you beyond a reasonable doubt that he murdered Andy Walton in cold blood on the morning of August 19, 2011. I am confident that the state will not be able to meet its burden.”

  Rick approached the jury. “What General Lewis spent the majority of her time talking about was motive. The prosecution asks you to believe that Bo Haynes, a man who has spent a lifetime practicing law in this very courtroom, took the law into his own hands.” Rick paused, glaring at the prosecution table while he continued. “What the prosecution chooses to ignore is that there were other men with motive to kill Andy Walton.” Rick let that teaser hang in the air for a second before turning to face the jury. “One of the last people to see Andy Walton alive was Darla Ford, a dancer at the Sundowners Club. Darla will take the witness stand and tell you that just two weeks prior to Andy Walton’s murder, Mr. Walton told her that he intended to confess to the 1966 lynching of Haynes’s father. That left fourteen days for any one of the other Klansmen who helped Andy Walton murder Roosevelt Haynes in 1966 to take the law into his own hands again. To silence Andy Walton and frame Bo Haynes for the crime.”

  Rick took a couple
of steps back, letting the information sink in. “I ask you to hear all of the evidence before you make up your mind. There are two sides to this story. Two very different sides.” He paused. “And two victims. Andy Walton . . . and Bocephus Haynes. Thank you.”

  Rick gave a slight bow and walked back to the defense table. Under the table he felt Bo nudge him with his knee.

  “Great job,” Bo whispered.

  Rick turned to his left, but Ray Ray was staring straight ahead into space. Over Ray Ray’s shoulder, Rick caught the Professor’s eye, who nodded his approval, and Rick nodded back. He had planted every seed they had. Now it was up to the witnesses to bring in the crop.

  “General Lewis,” Judge Connelly said, interrupting Rick’s thoughts, “please call your first witness.”

  55

  Emanual’s Stop is the local Greyhound bus station in Ethridge, Tennessee. It sits on Highway 43—right in the heart of Amish country.

  Deputy Hank Springfield leaned against his squad car out in front of the station and spoke in clipped tones to Detective Wade Richey and Powell Conrad. Hank was wired, having barely slept the night before. The tape that Lonnie Dupree had retained at the bus stop in Pulaski showed Martha Booher arriving there at 8:45 a.m. the previous Friday. By looking at the bus schedule, Hank, with Lonnie’s help, had determined that the bus Booher had taken would have embarked from Ethridge that morning at 8:00 a.m., with stops in Pulaski, Franklin, and Nashville.

  “So you’re thinking that if she caught a bus here”—Powell paused to gesture at the farms located on both sides of the highway, some of which were currently being tilled by Amish men—“she has to be here. Why would she come here to catch a bus? I can see why she might want to stop here, especially if she was a tourist. But why would she start her journey here at eight in the morning unless . . . ?” He held out his palms.