Between Black and White Read online

  “What about your mother?” Tom asked. “Did she ever—?”

  “She left,” Bo interrupted. “Two weeks later I woke up and she was gone. Not even a note.”

  “Why?” Tom asked.

  “I really don’t know. I . . . was never as close to Momma as I was Daddy. Sometimes before Daddy was killed, I’d be playing in the house or outside, and I’d catch Momma staring at me like she was mad or something, even when I hadn’t done anything.” He shook his head. “But I don’t know exactly why she left. I’ve always thought it was because she was scared. I overheard her talking to my Aunt Mabel a few days after the hanging. Said she knew she was next. Said ‘that monster ain’t goin’ stop till I’m as dead as Roosevelt.’” He sighed again. “She was gone the next morning.”

  “How—?” Tom started, but Bo raised a hand up to stop him.

  “I’m getting there.” He crossed his arms and squeezed them tight against his body, staring down at the table again. “Aunt Mabel woke me up that morning, and it was still dark outside. Said I needed to put some clothes on and pack my bags. I was goin’ go stay with her and Booker for a while. I asked about Momma, and Mabel said Momma wanted me to stay with her and Booker for a few days. She was trying to sound calm, but her voice seemed off. Like she was out of breath. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know how bad until I got outside and saw Uncle Booker. He was standing by his truck, holding a shotgun, watching the road that led up to the shack. I had never seen my uncle with a weapon of any sort, not even a knife. He was the pastor at the Bickland Creek Baptist Church, and he always preached against violence. He didn’t even go rabbit or squirrel hunting.” Bo shook his head. “But he had a gun that day. Aunt Mabel picked me up and carried me out of the house, and Uncle Booker wasn’t even watching us. He had his gun on his shoulder, his eyes moving up and down the road. Once I was in the truck, I sat in between them, and they didn’t say a word on the way to their house. I must have asked a hundred questions about Momma, but they were stone silent. The only sound I heard was the vibration of the steering wheel that came from Booker’s hands, which were shaking like crazy.

  “When we got back to their house, which was the parsonage next to Bickland Creek Baptist, Booker took me inside the sanctuary, and we sat in the first pew, looking up at the pulpit. He didn’t say anything for a long time.” Bo’s lip started to quiver. “Then he told me that Sister—that’s what he called my momma—had left the previous night, and she had asked Booker and Mabel to take care of me. I asked him where she had gone, and he said he didn’t know. I asked him when she would be back, and he said he wasn’t sure. Then he told me that I was welcome to stay at the parsonage for as long as I wanted.” Bo paused, returning his eyes to Tom. His whole body had tensed at the retelling, and his glare was harsh. Tom had to look away for a second. “That turned out to be thirteen years,” Bo finally continued. “I never heard from my momma again.”

  “I’m sorry, Bo,” Tom said, feeling another pang of guilt. Bocephus Haynes was probably his best friend in the world. How could I not know that his mother had abandoned him?

  “It’s not something I share with a lot of people,” Bo said, seeming to sense Tom’s thoughts.

  Watching his friend, Tom had the strange premonition that perhaps Bo’s father’s death, while unimaginably horrific for a young boy to watch, might in some ways have been easier to deal with than his mother’s abandonment. The lynching was black and white. He could explain it because he saw it. But his mother leaving . . . How could a five-year-old boy ever understand that?

  “I’m sorry, Bo. I . . . can’t imagine.” It was all Tom could think to say, and it was the truth.

  Bo nodded and wiped his eyes. “They were good to me, Booker and Mabel,” he said. “Never pretended they were my parents, and for the most part never told me what to do. They fed me, kept me in decent clothes, and made sure I went to school.” Bo smiled. “And their kids, LaShell and especially Booker T., became like siblings. LaShell was older. A beautiful girl. Milk-chocolate skin with these thick lips and big”—Bo made a gesture with both palms over his chest—“breasts. I remember walking in the bathroom one day when she had forgotten to lock the door and catching her coming out of the shower, those boobies just bouncing like basketballs.” Bo laughed, and Tom heartily joined in. Both men were relieved to release some of the tension that had enveloped the small room.

  “Booker T. now, he was my boy,” Bo continued. “Big old baby-faced son of a gun. Grew up to be a refrigerator of a man, just like that defensive lineman for the Bears. Remember ol’ William Perry? Anyway, we were inseparable growing up.” He shook his head. “A lot of the black folks at the church shied away from me after Daddy died and Momma left. Almost like I had some kind of disease or something they didn’t want to catch. But not Booker T. He didn’t treat me no different than he had before. He . . . was my only friend during elementary and middle school. My brother.”

  “Did things change in high school?” Tom asked.

  Bo shrugged. “Not with Booker T. He was still my brother and always will be. But things did change with everyone else. In the ninth grade I grew seven inches. By tenth grade I was six foot four and weighed over two hundred pounds. I went from being a benchwarmer on the junior high football team to starting at linebacker as a sophomore at Giles County High. At the beginning of my senior year, Coach Bryant came to Pulaski and watched me play. The next week Coach Gryska, one of the Man’s assistants, called the parsonage and offered me a scholarship to play for Alabama.”

  Tom gave a knowing smile. Clem Gryska had also recruited him to play at Alabama almost twenty years before Bo.

  “You met Jazz toward the end of college, right?” Tom asked.

  “Yeah. Jazz grew up in Huntsville and ran track at Alabama. I met her at an athletic banquet a few months after I blew my knee out.” Bo smiled at the memory. “Funny, I met you and Jazz in a span of a few weeks during the worst part of my college career.”

  Tom remembered that Coach Bryant had asked him to talk with Bo about his future after the knee injury. Tom had requested that Bo shadow him during some classes, and Bo had reluctantly agreed, still sullen over the loss of a possible career in the National Football League. Bo’s attitude changed when the Tuscaloosa district attorney asked for Tom’s help on some evidence issues in a murder trial, and Tom arranged for Bo to be a runner for the prosecutor during the trial.

  “I’ve never seen a student who wanted to be a lawyer more than you,” Tom said. “Once you watched that criminal trial—”

  “I was hooked,” Bo finished the thought. “When I saw that jury hand down a guilty verdict and the sheriff’s deputies lead the defendant away in shackles, all I could think about was Andy Walton being done the same away. I remember I ran back to the campus after that verdict. I didn’t have a car back then, so I pretty much walked wherever I went unless I hitched a ride. When I got to Jazz’s apartment, I was dripping with sweat and out of breath, and she had to fix me some water before I hyperventilated. Once I had cooled off, I told her I was going to law school. That I didn’t care how long it took or what my grades were, I was going to be a lawyer. A lawyer, goddamnit!” Bo slammed his fist down on the table, and for a flickering moment Tom saw the twenty-two-year-old student he’d first met those many moons ago. Bright-eyed with an energy that knew no bounds.

  “How did Jazz react?”

  “She said I could do whatever I wanted. That I, Bocephus Haynes, could do whatever I wanted and she’d be proud of it.” He paused, looking past Tom to nowhere in particular. “Then she told me she loved me for the first time.” Bo sighed. “Honestly, Professor, I think it was the first time since I was five years old that anyone had said those words to me. I mean . . . I knew that Uncle Booker and Aunt Mabel loved me, but they didn’t say it. And Booker T. and LaShell were kids. That’s just not something kids say to each other. I thought I must have misheard Jazz, so I leaned close to her and asked her to repeat what she had said. Then she t
ook my face in both her hands and said, ‘I love you, Bocephus Haynes. I love you.’”

  A hush fell over the room as Tom gave the memory its proper respect. Finally, in a voice just above a whisper, Bo said, “I wish I could say that I hugged her and told her that I loved her too, but . . . I didn’t. I was scared, and I just stood there, my face blank. Like I’d just gotten off a roller coaster and was going to be sick. But Jazz . . . she didn’t act disappointed. She just smiled and whispered in my ear that her roommate was gone for the afternoon. Then she led me by the hand into her bedroom . . .”

  Bo leaned back in his chair, and his eyes met Tom’s. “I applied to law school the next week and . . . you pretty much know the rest.”

  “You were the best student I ever taught,” Tom said. Then, knowing it was time to move the conversation from memory lane to present day, Tom leaned his elbows on the table and squinted at his friend. “Bo, what specifically is the business you came back to Pulaski to finish?”

  Bo’s bloodred eyes blazed with fury. “To put Andy Walton and every one of the bastards that lynched my daddy in a prison cell.” He paused. “And to find out the real reason my father was killed.”

  For several seconds Tom said nothing, processing everything he’d just been told.

  Then, taking a deep breath, he asked the question he’d waited thirty minutes to ask. “What happened the night Andy Walton was killed, Bo?”

  “Honestly . . .” Bo began, shaking his head. “I’m not exactly sure. I . . .” He paused and looked at Tom. “It’s going to sound bad, Professor.”

  “I don’t care,” Tom said. “To be able to defend you, I have to know everything you remember.”

  Bo sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I went to Kathy’s Tavern on First Street, intending to get drunk and then go to the clearing.”

  “The clearing—”

  “Where my father was lynched,” Bo interrupted. “I go every year on the anniversary of his death.”

  “So what happened at Kathy’s?”

  Bo grimaced. Then he relayed his confrontation with Andy Walton and the conversation with Ms. Maggie afterward.

  When he was through, Tom let out a low whistle. “Jesus, why didn’t you just handwrite a confession?”

  Neither of them laughed.

  “You really quoted line and verse the ‘eye for an eye’ line from the Bible?”

  Bo nodded.

  “And then he’s found hanging from a noose on his farm from the exact tree where your father was lynched.”

  Again, Bo nodded. “The same limb, according to Ennis. I . . . had pointed it out to him on a number of prior occasions when I tried to get the sheriff’s department to reopen the investigation.”

  Tom pulled at his hair, trying not to despair but hearing the words of Helen Lewis play in his mind. Bo came back to Pulaski for revenge.

  “Bad, huh?” Bo asked, but Tom ignored him.

  “You said the four eyewitnesses to the confrontation were the bartender Cassie . . .”

  “Dugan,” Bo said, completing the sentence as Tom wrote the name down on a yellow legal pad. “The others were Clete Sartain—who was probably in the Klan with Andy, though I can’t confirm that—Andy’s wife, Ms. Maggie, and his brother-in-law, George Curtis.”

  Tom wrote each name on the pad, one under the other. “OK, that gives me a place to start. What happened after Kathy’s?”

  Bo shrugged. “I got a pint of Jim Beam from my office and took a walk. Ended up at our house on Flower Street that’s now for sale. Just feeling sorry for myself . . . and tying one on pretty good.” He sighed. “Then I went to the clearing on Walton Farm where my father was lynched. I don’t remember much about being there that night, but I know I was there. It had rained a good bit beforehand, and I noticed that my loafers were muddy the next morning.” Bo paused and looked down at the table. “That’s really all I can recall.”

  “So you threatened to kill him in front of four eyewitnesses, and you admit to being at the murder scene?”

  Bo made no response. He just continued to stare at the table.

  “Was anyone with you when you went to the farm or . . . at any time after you left Kathy’s?”

  Bo shook his head. “No. I was alone.”

  Damnit, Tom thought. He began to pace back and forth over the concrete floor, working through the problems in his mind. Bo had no alibi, he had motive out the yin-yang, and the physical evidence, which they probably wouldn’t see until the preliminary hearing, was described by the sheriff as “conclusive and overwhelming.” Tom quickly came to a stark and rather obvious conclusion. I’m in way over my head.

  He returned to his seat and looked his friend dead in the eye. “Bo, I appreciate your faith in me and Rick, but you really need an experienced criminal defense attorney to take this on, preferably someone with local ties. Have you thought about—?”

  “I am an experienced criminal defense attorney,” Bo interrupted. “What I need is a good trial lawyer who can talk to a Giles County jury. Someone who hasn’t been roughed up by the General and . . . someone I trust. I realize that we’ll need to retain local counsel, but I don’t want a Pulaski lawyer as lead.” He paused, looking Tom dead in the eye. “I want you.”

  When Tom didn’t say anything, Bo chuckled, and the bitterness in his laugh was palpable. “I don’t blame you for being scared. I’d be scared too if you asked the same of me in the face of the story I just told you.” He paused. “I am scared.”

  “Bo—” Tom started, but Bo held up his hand to stop him.

  “Professor, I haven’t made a lot of friends in the legal community in this town over the years. Some of that is probably because I’m the only black trial lawyer in Pulaski. Even though we’re in 2011, I can still feel a subconscious awkwardness around my white brethren of the bar.” He shrugged. “And some of it is just me. I practice alone. I’ve never had a partner, and I typically blow off the social functions the bar puts on. And I am unapologetically aggressive and relentless when it comes to working a case. That approach has made me a successful attorney.” He paused. “But it hasn’t made me many friends . . . and it’s probably cost me my wife and family.”

  “Are things with Jazz really over?”

  Bo sighed. “I don’t know. Right now we are separated, and Jazz is living with her parents in Huntsville. She’s enrolled T. J. and Lila in the city schools there for the year, so . . . it ain’t looking good.” Bo chuckled bitterly. “I doubt that being charged with capital murder is going to help my cause.”

  “When did things start going south?”

  Bo shrugged. “They’ve been strained for a long time. She has always thought my obsession with my father’s murder wasn’t fair to her, to our family . . . and she’s probably right. When the kids really started getting dragged into it, she finally had enough.”

  Tom felt another pang of guilt as he saw the anguish on his friend’s face. All that time he was looking out for my butt last year, his own life was in shambles.

  Tom tried to shake off his shame and stay on point. “Bo, I’m sure any number of high-profile criminal defense attorneys from across the country would take this case.”

  Bo creased his eyebrows. “You think a jury in Pulaski, Tennessee is going to believe some Yankee lawyer over their own elected district attorney?”

  “But that happens all the time,” Tom said. “Remember the OJ case. He had lawyers from all over the place.”

  Bo smiled and kept his eyes on Tom. “The Juice’s jury was mostly black and all from Los Angeles, and the lead attorney was a brother from LA.”

  “You don’t think a high-profile lawyer will be convincing to a jury in Giles County, and you don’t believe a local attorney will take the case,” Tom said, attempting to sum up Bo’s thoughts.

  “Not exactly. I’m sure there are a couple criminal defense guys in town that would represent me if the price was right, and we’ll probably have to associate one of them as local counsel regardless. But . . .”


  “Not as first chair,” Tom offered.

  “I’d be bringing a knife to a gunfight,” Bo said, shaking his head and sighing. “The General has not lost a case since she took office eight years ago.” He paused. “What I need is a lead lawyer who hasn’t been manhandled by Helen but who still knows the terrain and can talk to the folks on the jury on their level. You’re from Hazel Green, Professor. That’s less than thirty miles from here as the crow flies, forty-five by car. You may live and work in Tuscaloosa, but your roots are in this neck of the woods.”

  For several seconds neither of them said anything. Then Bo finally broke the silence. “Professor, I know taking on a capital murder case in another state several hours from Tuscaloosa will be a hardship on your new firm, so I’ll agree to pay whatever fee you quote. If it were me, I’d charge a flat fee of two hundred fifty thousand dollars, half now and half when it’s over. Win, lose, or draw. I’m certainly prepared to pay that sum or more. You just name the price.”

  “Bo, you don’t have to pay—” Tom started, but Bo slammed his fist down on the table.

  “Yes, I do. You get what you pay for in this world, and I don’t want my lawyers going hungry.”

  “Bo, this is your life,” Tom said, exasperation finally getting the better of him. “I’ve tried exactly one case in the last forty years. My partner has tried one case in his whole career. Yes, I’m from this neck of the woods, which I guess will help a little, but as your friend, I’d advise you to think this through a little longer and retain counsel with more experience.”