Between Black and White Read online

  Tom smiled and opened the beer. Though it was a little early in the day for a cold one, Tom figured it was best to be agreeable. After all, he was about to ask the man for a favor. “Oh . . . maybe five years. Didn’t we meet up after the spring game in Tuscaloosa a few years back?”

  Ray Ray took a sip of beer and gazed down at the pier. “Actually, I saw you after that . . . at Julie’s funeral.”

  Tom winced. He remembered little about his wife’s funeral. Everything a blur of handshakes, hugs, and pain. “That’s right,” he said, feeling a lump in his throat.

  “Sure was sorry about that. Goddamn cancer . . .” Ray Ray had lost his sister and mother to breast cancer.

  “How . . . is Doris doing?” Tom asked, and Ray Ray took a long swallow of beer, wiping his mouth and looking out at the river.

  “Same,” Ray Ray said. “Still at the nursing home. The Alzheimer’s has completely taken over now. She don’t remember me at all. Used to, I’d have one day every two weeks that she’d say, ‘Ray Ray, where the hell am I?’” He chuckled bitterly. “Now I don’t even get that. I even tried that thing the guy did in the movie. What’s it called . . . ?”

  “The Notebook,” Tom offered.

  Ray Ray snapped his fingers. “That’s right. The Notebook. Well, I tried that mess. Wrote the whole story of our courtship out and read it to her every morning. Course it wasn’t as pretty a tale as the one in the movie. Anyway . . . she don’t remember shit, and I’ve stopped going out there every day. Now I go every Friday at lunch and then come out here.” He stopped and took down the rest of his beer in one swallow. Then he crushed it in his hand and set it beside the cooler next to two similarly crushed cans. He opened another one and set his foot on top of the cooler, still watching the water. “No one ever said life was fair, Tommy old boy. I put Doris through hell for thirty years. Boned pretty much every secretary I ever had, drank like a fish, and chased cases and tail like there was no tomorrow. And then one day I wake up and tell Doris it’s all over. I’m quitting the booze. The other women. All of it. She cries and we go on a second honeymoon trip to the Keys.” He took a sip of beer. “A week after we get back, the clerk at Davis & Eslick grocery tells me that Doris is down there and can’t remember why she came. The rest . . . well, you know the rest, Tom.

  “Jesus Christ, listen to me,” Ray Ray said after several seconds of silence. He took another long sip of beer and turned to Tom. “So how’s Musso doing?”

  Again, Tom winced. “Dead. He killed a bobcat on my farm last year. Saved my life actually, because the bobcat was rabid and was going for me. He died from his wounds.”

  Ray Ray whistled. “Goddamn. Sure sorry to hear that Tom. Damn, I loved that dog too.”

  “It was hard not to love Musso,” Tom said, clearing his throat. “Got me a new dog, though. Bo gave me a white and brown bulldog last year. I named him Lee Roy.”

  Ray Ray smiled. “Good name.” Then just like that the smile was gone. “You came out here because of Bo.”

  Tom nodded.

  “He’s in a world of shit,” Ray Ray said. “I mean a fucking F5 shit tornado.”

  “He is,” Tom agreed.

  “So are you out here as his friend or his lawyer?” Ray Ray asked, and the wide grin was back. Had his face been painted white and his lips red, he would’ve looked a little like one of the main villains from the Batman movies. In fact, Coach Bryant had always referred to Ray Ray as Joker.

  “Both,” Tom said. “I plan to make my notice of appearance tomorrow morning.” He paused. “I need local counsel.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Ray Ray said, standing abruptly and walking past Tom up the pier. “Hell . . . fucking . . . no!” he bellowed from halfway down the pier.

  Tom watched Ray Ray ascend a rocky hill toward his one-story cabin. Thirty seconds later he was pacing back down the hill, shaking his head the entire way. In his right hand he held a large bottle of brown liquid.

  “Tommy, you are dumber than a box of hammers, you know that?” Ray Ray said. The bottle was a handle of Evan Williams whiskey.

  “Drinking the good stuff I see,” Tom said.

  “Fuck you,” Ray Ray said, taking a pull off the bottle and handing it to Tom.

  “I’ll pass,” Tom said, holding his hand up. “I’m still working on this beer.”

  “Whatever,” Ray Ray muttered. He started to lift the bottle to his lips but then set it on the pier. He plopped down in the chair again and reached into the cooler and popped the top on another beer.

  “What can you tell me about Andy Walton’s murder?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing really,” Ray Ray said, squinting at Tom. “Just what’s been in the papers. General Lewis is usually pretty good about keeping a closed lid on information in important cases.”

  This Tom believed, having just been stonewalled by the General herself. “Well, how about Andy Walton? What can you tell me about him and his family?”

  Ray Ray belched, picked up the bottle of whiskey on the ground, thought about it, and then put the bottle back down. “Goddamnit.” He wiped his mouth and sighed. “The Curtis family was actually settled in Pulaski long before Andy Walton showed up. In fact, the parcel of land now called Walton Farm was where Maggie Curtis and her brother, George, were raised as kids. Andy was from Selmer, Tennessee, over in McNairy County. He made a fortune running bootleg whiskey before Buford Pusser became sheriff. Instead of going to war with Buford like the other State Line Mob folks did, Andy came over this way and started buying up land and businesses. When George and Maggie’s daddy was about to lose the farm, Andy bought the old man out and all the surrounding land too.” Ray Ray laughed as the sun began to seep behind a few clouds and the sound of thunder echoed from a good distance away. “It’ll be on us in a few minutes,” he said.

  “How did Andy end up with Maggie?”

  Again, Ray Ray laughed. “Some say old man Curtis offered her as part of the deal.” He shook his head. “I never bought that. I think Ms. Maggie just couldn’t bear to part with that land or the status associated with owning it. I think she made the deal with Andy more so than the old man, and Andy took it because a wife like Maggie could help him in a new town. She was big in the church. The DAR. All the little foofoo women’s clubs.”

  “What happened to George?”

  “He was in medical school when the old man was losing the farm, so there wasn’t anything he could do to help.” Ray Ray shrugged. “I’ll say this for George, he’s a survivor. I’m sure he had to be bitter that the family farm went to Andy, but he moved on and opened his medical practice after the old man’s death and has been a local fixture ever since. But . . .”

  “But what?’ Tom asked.

  “I don’t know, he’s just a strange bird. Never married. Lives in a small house two doors down from his office. Kind of a loner. Outside of going to medical seminars every so often in different places, I’ve never known him to leave town.”

  “Can he shoot a twelve-gauge?” Tom asked, smiling.

  Ray Ray chuckled. “I ’spect everybody in Giles County can shoot a shotgun.”

  “We need another suspect,” Tom said.

  Ray Ray shook his head and again grabbed the bottle of whiskey. He took a long pull off the bottle and wiped his mouth. “No. What you need is to be talking a plea deal with the General, Tommy boy.”

  It had begun to rain, and Ray Ray fished out an umbrella from behind his chair and opened it. “We probably need to move this party inside.”

  “Ray Ray, I need you, man. I’m filing the notice of appearance tomorrow morning. Can I put your name on it?”

  Thunder clapped hard from the east, and a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Ray Ray Pickalew gave the umbrella handle to Tom and stepped out from under the cover. “I’m just a washed-up old drunk, Tom. Bo will tell you. I’d be a cancer to his defense. You need a criminal defense guy anyway, not a divorce thug like me. Go with Lou Horn. His office is a block north of mine. Or Dick Selby. Horn and Selby have ca
ses against Helen all the time.”

  “Which means she has both of their dicks in a jar above her mantle at home,” Tom said. “You’ve beaten her before, Ray Ray. And you know this county like the back of your hand.”

  “He’s guilty, Tom,” Ray Ray said, the alcohol slurring his words. “It’s a barking dog of a case. Have you read the papers? Helen ain’t going to stop until Bo is lethally injected. You understand what I’m saying.”

  “He’s our friend,” Tom said.

  “Wrong,” Ray Ray said. “He’s your friend.” He took another sip from the bottle, closing his eyes and grimacing as the liquid burned his throat. “If I was lit on fire and Bo had to piss, he might shoot a few drops my way, but that’s the extent of our relationship. The last time I tangled with Bo in court, we about ended up in a fistfight on the steps of the courthouse.”

  “That’s because you’re a brawler, Ray Ray. And that’s what Bo needs now.”

  Ray Ray laughed and took another belt of whiskey. He was soaking wet. “What Bo needs is a Catholic priest. Now get the hell off my pier, Tommy.”

  “Ray Ray—”

  “Go on,” Ray Ray said, gesturing with the bottle and sloshing whiskey out of it before taking another sip. “Get. I’ve had enough of this mess. I’d rather drink myself to death than fight at the Alamo, and that’s what going to war with Helen Lewis in Giles County will be like.”

  “OK, Ray Ray,” Tom said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ll leave you here with your buddy Evan Williams. But before you get too far gone, I want you to ask yourself a question. What would the Man think about all this?”

  “Tom, I’m warning you—”

  “What would Coach Bryant say about you just turning your back on life? Sitting out on this pier and drinking yourself to death.”

  Ray Ray heaved the handle of whiskey at Tom, and Tom ducked down, the bottle whizzing past his ear and falling into the river. “Get the fuck off my property.”

  Tom turned and began to walk away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ray Ray. I’ll be at Bo’s office. Just meet me there around nine thirty.”

  “I’ll meet you in hell, Tommy. That’s the next time you’ll see me.”

  As Tom pulled his Explorer out of the gravel drive, he could still see Ray Ray sitting on the pier, the rain pelting down on him. It looked like he was talking to himself.

  For a split second Tom considered the possibility of associating one of the criminal defense lawyers Ray Ray had mentioned. Horn or Selby. Then as the rain continued to pound the windshield, Tom shook his head.

  Ray Ray Pickalew had a lot of problems. He was a drunk. A womanizer. And he’d been written up a couple of times by the Tennessee Bar for ethical violations. A saint he was not, and he probably couldn’t teach a class on criminal law.

  But he’s not afraid of a fight, and the nastier the better, Tom thought. Once engaged, Ray Ray would be on this case like stink on a pig, and there would be only one acceptable outcome.

  Winning.

  He’ll come around, Tom thought, nodding his head and pulling onto Highway 31. Just give it some time . . .

  On the pier Ray Ray Pickalew lay on his back, gazing up at the cloudy sky. His legs dangled off the dock, and he was humming a song to himself. He had taken his rain-drenched shirt off, and the wooden dock would probably have been uncomfortable if he wasn’t piss drunk. He closed his eyes, seeing Doris for a split second. In her bathing suit in the Keys, sitting on the bed, watching him get dressed. Then . . . at the nursing home, the orderly coming in to change her diaper. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing an image of his secretary Bonnie’s tits into his brain. It didn’t hold. The images kept coming, a whirlwind of them, mostly of Doris at the nursing home. Slowly and painfully forgetting who she was until there was none of her left. The day he knew her mind was gone for good, he had sat on this same pier all night with a pistol in his hand. Putting the barrel in his mouth a few times but never doing the deed. Never pulling the trigger . . .

  Before he passed out, he saw another image. One that came to him in black and white like an old TV reel. Tommy McMurtrie, sweat pouring off his forehead under his helmet as he took his place on the defensive line. Then Trammell under center, looking at Ray Ray down the line of scrimmage just before the ball was snapped and giving him the slightest of nods. Then the ball . . . in the air, a perfect spiral, hitting Ray Ray right in the hands.

  Then he was running, the football tucked tight under his arm.

  Then a loud sound, like rushing water in his ears, and a crimson 54 rolling over him.

  “Bingo!” came a faraway voice. “That a boy, Lee Roy. That’s a way we do it. Now let’s do it again.”

  Then he was on the ground, nose pressed to the grass, blinking, managing to roll over, the wind knocked out of him. Then the voice again, louder and coming from high on the tower. “Hey, Pickalew. Get up. Next play, Joker. Get up.”

  Was it the voice of God or the voice of the Man?

  In 1960 Ray Ray Pickalew hadn’t been sure if there was a difference. Now, just before he passed out on his pier along the Elk River, he still wasn’t so sure.

  11

  The Giles County Jail had a “consultation room,” where defense lawyers could meet with their clients. The room was not much bigger than a closet, decorated with the same yellow cinder-block walls as the holding cell.

  When they were alone, seated in aluminum chairs and saddled up to a square-shaped folding table, the two men just looked at each other for several seconds. Tom was stunned by his friend’s appearance. Bo wore orange prison clothes, and his eyes burned red from lack of sleep. His shoulders hunched forward as he placed his elbows on the table, and his fatigue was palpable. In addition to shock, Tom felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He had not seen Bo in over a year, not since Bo left Tom’s farm in Hazel Green after dropping off Lee Roy in a small crate the previous June.

  Finally, Tom broke the silence. “You look like crap.”

  Despite his predicament, Bo chuckled, and the sound warmed Tom’s heart. “Thanks for doing this, Professor. So how did the morning go?”

  For the next few minutes Tom took Bo through his conversation with Helen Lewis and his discussion afterward with Rick. The only detail he omitted was his trek to the Elk River to see Ray Ray.

  “Sounds like the General,” Bo said, shaking his head. “Our first peek at her case will be at the prelim. She always builds a stone wall around the evidence.”

  “Bo, so far you haven’t told me much over the phone. We can’t wait for the prelim to start our investigation. I need some leads.” He paused. “What can you tell me about the night of Andy Walton’s murder?”

  Bo sighed and looked down at the table. “I got myself in a real fix.”

  “In order to help you, Bo, I have to know the deal. Why are you in here?”

  “The deal, Professor . . . is complicated.”

  “Tell me.”

  Bo kept his eyes fixed on the table and smiled. “You remember what I told you last year in Hazel Green about why I came back to Pulaski to practice?”

  “Unfinished business,” Tom said. “Your father was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, and you . . . saw it happen.” Tom paused. “You never told me the whole story.”

  “I will now,” Bo said, raising his head and looking at Tom with bloodshot eyes.

  “I was only five years old when they hung my daddy. We lived on Walton Farm. My momma worked at the Big House as a housemaid for Ms. Maggie, and my daddy worked the fields. Anyway, on the night of August 18, 1966 there was a big party to celebrate Ms. Maggie’s birthday. Momma was working late at the Big House, and I was home with Daddy. One second I was listening to the radio and throwing a baseball up in the air. Next thing I see these men—I’ve always said there were twenty of them, but it could’ve been ten or twelve. Things look bigger to a five-year-old. Anyway, you get the drift. They had the robes. The hoods. They burned a cross in the front yard and told my daddy to get out there or they would
set the house on fire. Before he walked out the door, Daddy told me not to watch, but I didn’t listen. I followed them . . . and I saw it all.

  “They drug him about a half mile from the house to this clearing that had a pond that me and some of the other farmhands’ kids would swim in during the summer, encased in a large thicket of trees. They tied my daddy’s hands behind his back and put him on top of a horse and walked the horse over to one of the trees on the edge of the clearing. I swear, Professor, when I saw my daddy tied up, I wanted to run. I wanted to but . . . my feet wouldn’t move. You know that nightmare you have where you can’t move? I lived it. I watched those bastards wrap that rope around a tree branch and tie a noose around my daddy’s neck, and . . . I couldn’t move.

  “The leader of the men wore a red hood, and I recognized his voice. I had been around Andy Walton all my life, and I knew that the man under the red hood was Andy. Well, Andy says to my daddy—I’ll never forget it—he says, ‘Roosevelt, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan understand that you have laid your filthy nigger hands on a white woman.’” Bo mimicked the voice. “My daddy then spits in Andy’s face and says, ‘That ain’t what this is about. You and me both know what this is really about,’ but Andy punches him in the nose before he can say anything else. Then Andy whispered something in my daddy’s ear and kicked the horse.

  “I . . . I really can’t remember exactly what happened next. My feet started working when I saw Daddy hanging. All I remember is grasping at his legs, crying, and hearing those bastards laugh. Then I saw a boot coming at my face . . .” He paused, shaking his head. “Next thing I know I’m waking up by that clearing, and my daddy is gone. I see his clothes are down by the bank of the pond, so I dive in. I . . .” Bo’s voice had started to shake. “I . . . found his body . . . at the bottom of the pond.”

  Bo sighed, looking at Tom. “I told my momma everything that happened, but she was scared. She didn’t want to go to the police. Said they wouldn’t do nothing.” He paused. “She was right. When she wouldn’t go, I got my Uncle Booker, my momma’s brother, to drive me down to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff back then was a man named Hugh Packard. A friendly sort but bought and paid for by Andy Walton. He said he couldn’t prosecute anyone if I couldn’t say that I saw who it was. He laughed and said he’d be run out of town on a rail if he prosecuted Andy Walton ’cause a five-year-old boy recognized his voice. And besides, it looked like a clear case of drowning.” Bo shook his head. “And that’s what they ruled it. Drowning.”