Cry Me A River (8 page)

“Mister,” he said. “I’m just trying to eat my dinner.” Again, the pitch of his voice was low; the tone, calm.

“Not here you ain’t,” the man told him.

“Excuse me?” Tyrone said.

“I’m gone have to ask you to leave.”

“Soon as I finish eating,” Tyrone said. His defiance angered the man, and he saw the man’s smooth tanned skin flush a dull shade of red.

“Don’t make me lay hands on you, boy.”

“Mister, I wouldn’t advise that,” Tyrone said, his tone serious.

“You threatening me?”

“No, sir,” Tyrone said. “Just telling you. That’s all.”

A moment passed and Tyrone knew the man was pondering his next move. He had inched closer to the table and now was staring directly into Tyrone’s eyes.

“You best watch yourself,” the man issued a warning. The tone of his voice was low, threatening.

“Yes, sir,” Tyrone said. “And you best do the same.”

“Jake, you gone let him talk to you like that?” the woman asked.

“Maude, why don’t you go on back over yonder and sat down,” the man said. He raised his voice for the first time, and Tyrone could tell that the situation was beginning to get next to him.

“Not long as he in here, I won’t,” she said angrily.

“He got a right to be here,” the man told her.

“What you defending him for?” she wanted to know.

“I ain’t defending nobody,” Jake snapped. “I’m just stating the fact. This is a public place, and long as he ain’t breaking no law, or causing no trouble, he got as much right to be here as you or anybody else.”

“You act like you scared of him.”

“I ain’t scared of nobody.”

“Jake “

“Maude, please!”

She looked at Jake, then at Tyrone. But before either of them uttered another word, a second man approached the table.

“Need a hand, Jake?” he asked. He was a big, burly fellow, well over six feet. He wore a large cowboy hat, a pair of faded blue jeans, a work shirt, and a pair of worn cowboy boots.

“What I need,” Jake said, “is for y’all to sat down and relax.”

“Not long as he in here,” Maude said for the second time.

“Well, Maude,” Jake said, his voice filled with impatience, “suit yourself.”

“I’m disappointed in you, Jake,” she said. “Real disappointed.”

“Sorry you feel that way,” Jake said. “But you still gone need to sat down.”

“Jake, I won’t be sitting in here, today or any other day,” she said. “From now on, me and my family will do our business elsewhere.”

She walked out, and Jake turned to the man.

“Sat down, Bobby Joe,” he said. “Please. This ain’t helping nothing.”

Bobby Joe looked at Jake, then at Tyrone, and like Maude, walked from the deli. Jake sighed, then slowly turned to Tyrone.

“I’d thank you not to come in here no more.”

Tyrone looked at him but did not speak. He slowly lifted a piece of chicken from his plate, took a bite, then looked out the window. Outside, a few dark gray clouds were moving in from the east. It looked like rain.

J
anell was with a client when Tyrone made it back to the office. She was not up front, as before, but was holding conference in Captain Jack’s office. The door was ajar, and Tyrone could see that Janell was sitting behind Captain Jack’s desk, and the white man was sitting in the same chair that Tyrone had occupied the day before. Janell and the man talked for a while; then the man left, and Janell entered the room, carrying a small cardboard box.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said politely, then set the box on her desk.

“That’s all right,” Tyrone said, rising from the couch. “I know you busy.”

“Try swamped.” She smiled.

Tyrone returned her smile. He watched her move behind the desk and open the lid of the box.

“This is everything we have on your son’s case,” she said. “The D.A. keeps the real evidence. All we have are odds and ends.”

She reached into the box and removed a thick document, and Tyrone moved closer to the desk.

“These are the trial transcripts.” She held the documents up, and when she was satisfied that Tyrone had seen them, she put them back into the box and removed a second item.

“These are sworn depositions.”

Tyrone nodded, and she put them back, then lowered her head and continued thumbing through the box; only now she did not remove anything, but simply verbalized what she saw.

“We also have witness lists, interviews, photographs, etcetera.”

“Seems like a lot to me,” Tyrone said.

“Not really,” she said. “Besides, most of it is pretty incriminating. We just couldn’t find, or offer, much in the form of exculpatory evidence.”

“You think he’s guilty, don’t you?”

“I didn’t say that,” she said quickly. But he could tell that his question had made her uncomfortable.

“Well, what are you saying?”

She sat down and folded her arms on the desk before her.

“The prosecution put on a very strong case. They didn’t make any mistakes. And we weren’t able to find any cracks. It’s as simple as that.”

“Did you look?” Tyrone asked.

“Of course,” she said, insulted.

“Where?” he wanted to know.

“Everywhere,” she said adamantly.

“Like,” he pressed.

“Mr. Stokes, why are you attacking me?”

“Why are you trying to make me believe that this is hopeless?”

“I’m not,” she said. “I welcome your help. I really do. I just want you to understand what you are up against.”

“I know what I’m up against,” he snapped. “I’m not stupid.”

“Sir, I didn’t say that you were.”

He gaped at her with a long, angry stare.

“Listen,” she said. “There are a lot of documents here. But most of them are worthless. The most damaging piece of evidence against your son was the testimony of the two eye witnesses. They both swore that they saw the victim get into your son’s truck.”

“They lied,” Tyrone said.

“Maybe,” she replied. “But they were extremely credible.”

“So, you believe them?”

“Sir, what I believe doesn’t matter,” she said. “The jury believed them, and there is nothing in that box, or anywhere else that we’ve searched, that can challenge their testimony.”

“They still live here?”

“Yes, sir, but they won’t talk to you,” she said. “We’ve tried on any number of occasions. They’re very hostile.”

“I’ll get them to talk.” Tyrone was emphatic. “You can bet on that.”

“Mr. Stokes, even if you did, it probably wouldn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“They testified under oath.”

“What difference does that make?”

“All the difference in the world.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“The courts take testimony given under oath very seriously,” she explained. “So, unless we could offer proof that the witnesses lied or proof that they were coerced into making a false statement, their recantation would
most likely be rejected. The prosecution would simply argue that they were having difficulty coping with the reality that their testimony had resulted in a person being sentenced to die. Their saying that they lied simply would not be enough.”

“Their word can kill him,” Tyrone said. “But it can’t save him.”

“Exactly,” she said. “The verdict has been upheld under appeal. So unless the governor intervenes, or unless we find conclusive evidence of your son’s innocence, he will be executed.”

There was silence.

“And I’m pretty sure that the evidence we need is not in that box,” she added.

“No reasonable doubt here,” Tyrone said, dejected.

“Mr. Stokes, we’ve moved beyond the need for reasonable doubt,” she said. “Now we need unequivocal certainty.”

“And you don’t think it’s here.”

“If it is,” she said, “I haven’t seen it. And between Mr. Johnson and me, we’ve looked through the information in that box a thousand times.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m still going to look for myself.”

“As you should,” she said.

Tyrone lifted the box and turned to leave, then stopped. In his mind loomed a memory of the deli: he was seeing the woman again; he was hearing her words, feeling her anger, remembering the tension that had hung in the room like a thick cloud of dark, billowing smoke lingering over a hot, blazing fire. He set the box back on the desk and turned and faced Janell.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“You said things got bad around here, right?”

“Right,” she said.

“How bad did they get?”

She hesitated before answering, and he sensed that his question had spurred in her images or memories that she had long since suppressed. Her beautiful brown eyes glossed with a moist, vacant tint, and he was sure that she was remembering.

“I can tell you only what I’ve heard,” she said, still not looking at him. “Like I said before, Mr. Stokes, I wasn’t working here when the case was tried.”

“I understand,” Tyrone told her. “Just tell me what you heard.”

“There was no violence, or bomb threats, or anything like that.” Her words were slow, precise, methodical. “But there was a lot of anger, most of it directed toward your son; but some of it was also directed toward your wife, and Mr. Johnson, and anyone else who associated with the Stokes family.”

“What kind of anger?” Tyrone asked.

“Verbal taunts, mostly,” she said. “The way I understand it, people started riding past your wife’s house at all hours of the night, swearing and cursing, and keeping up all kinds of racket.”

“Did anybody touch my wife?”

“No, sir,” she said. “At least not that I know of. But it still got to be too much for her to deal with. So she moved—”

“Up to her parents’ house,” Tyrone said. A light went on, and now he understood. She had not willingly moved to her parents’ house; she had been forced out of her own home.

“Yes, sir,” Janell said. “At least off and on. She stays at her house sometimes. And she came by the office every now and then. But, by and large, she rarely leaves her parents’ house. If we need her, we go to her; she does not come to us. She said that she just can’t take the ugly
stares and the whispering anymore. So, we try to accommodate her as best we can.”

“So the town turned on her before he had even been tried.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “From my understanding, it was before the trial.” Then she paused, thinking. “Yeah, it was before,” she said with assurance, then began again. “Because once the trial started, things escalated.”

“Escalated how?” Tyrone asked.

“Well, according to Mr. Johnson, two days before the trial, large groups of people began holding all-night vigils outside the courthouse.”

“White people?” Tyrone asked.

“Probably,” she said.

“A mob?”

“More like demonstrators, or protestors,” she said. “Not a mob. From my understanding of things, they were peaceful. They burned candles and sang, prayed and chanted, and displayed crime scene pictures of the victim. There was a lot of anger,” she said. “But there was no violence.”

“Just good old-fashioned jury intimidation, right?” Tyrone said.

“That’s what we argued on appeal,” she told him.

“And,” Tyrone said.

“We lost,” she said.

“Were the jurors sequestered?”

“No,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “Mr. Johnson petitioned the court, but that petition was denied as well.”

Tyrone grew tense, and he felt his slumping spirits sink as the reality of his son’s twisted ordeal registered in his weary mind and fueled the anger in his raging heart. In his mind, the picture was clear. His son had not been tried, but persecuted by a court eager to right
a wrong and calm a town by slaying the deviant that lived among them.

“He was railroaded,” Tyrone said. “Pure and simple.”

“Possibly,” she said. “But from what I’ve seen, Mr. Johnson did the best he could with what he had.”

Tyrone looked at her but did not speak.

“He defended your son like he was defending his own.”

“Hunh,” Tyrone grunted. “I don’t think so.” His voice was low, cynical.

“He really did,” she said. Her eyes were narrow; her expression, serious.

“Would he have asked his own to cop a plea?” Tyrone asked. His question caught her off guard.

She hesitated a moment then quickly said, “Probably.”

“Yeah, right,” Tyrone mumbled.

“He had no choice,” she said, looking at him with wide, pleading eyes.

“Why?” Tyrone asked. “Because he thought my son did it?”

“No,” she said. “Because he knew that he could not prove that your son didn’t. It was that simple.”

“What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?” Tyrone mumbled, more to himself than to her.

“That’s theory,” she said. “This is reality.”

Tyrone started to respond, then stopped. He lifted the box from the desk and cradled it in his arms.

“I’ll look through this tonight and bring it back tomorrow. “

“Keep them long as you like,” she said. “We have copies.”

I
t was five-thirty when he arrived home. His mother was no longer in her bedroom but had moved across the hall into the tiny living room and was sitting in the recliner with her feet propped up. Her eyes were closed, and a damp cloth was draped across her forehead. She was resting, but he could tell by the slow, steady rocking of her left foot and the occasional twitching of her closed left eye that she was not asleep.

“How you feeling this evening, Mama?” he called to her softly, as he slowly approached her chair, his eyes fixated on the callused soles of her bare feet, and his ears keenly tuned to the pained sound of her heavy, labored breathing. The sound of his voice aroused her, and she opened her eyes and slowly turned her head toward him. Their eyes met, and she smiled, then grimaced, before her lips parted and she answered his question.

“Head worrying me some,” she said. “Other than that, I do all right.”

He moved closer to the chair on which she sat and took her hand into his. Instantly, he felt the grip of her warm, moist hand tighten, followed by the soothing sensation of the tip of her tiny thumb gently caressing the back of his large, hairy hand. The skin covering her old, wrinkled hands was no longer soft. Years of cleaning white folks’ houses had made her skin hard, tough, leathery.