Hard Twisted (29 page)

Christ almighty, she heard the sheriff say.

The lawyer eased her upward from the chair. They walked together, to the open doorway where the matron stood frowning, and where the sheriff soon returned with a thin Negro woman, and behind them both the attendant bearing a mop and heavy pail.

We'll wait out here, the sheriff told them.

Lottie breathed the courthouse air that smelled of floor wax and polished brass. She leaned over double with her hands on her knees. Papers lifted from a bulletin board as a door opened somewhere down the hall. The fresh air helped to revive her.

I'm sorry, she finally said.

That's all right. We should have warned you.

When the two inside at last emerged, the Negro woman stopped and bent and swiped at Lottie's boots with a rag.

There you go, chile, she said. You all better now.

When they reentered the storeroom, the dust and cardboard
smell had been supplanted by the ketone scent of disinfectant, and at the long table in back, the light shone brightly on the newly wetted floor. They stopped and waited a moment, and then when Lottie had breathed and nodded, they stepped forward and assumed their places as before.

I'm afraid the clothes are missing, the lawyer said. Burned, we suspect.

She nodded.

Did your father have any distinguishing features that might still be evident? A tattoo, maybe? Or a broken bone?

His finger. Lottie pointed. His pinkie finger was all broke and crooked.

Both men leaned closer to inspect the ivory pegs of metacarpal and phalanx that formed the skeletal hand. They raised their faces in unison.

Bingo, said the sheriff.

She attended the prison chapel service on the Sunday morning next, held in what appeared to be a cafeteria, a dozen or more folding chairs arrayed in rows with women on the left and men on the right and guards between them in the center aisle. The minister facing them all on a low wooden riser. He paired his hands and spoke to the prisoners of hope and redemption, and he read to them from Psalm 130:

I trust in the Lord;
my soul trusts in his Word.

My soul waits for the Lord
more than sentinels wait for the dawn.

On Monday afternoon she was escorted to the visitors' area, where she sat in a hard chair at a scarred wooden table and faced across a framed wire screen her uncle Mack, who rose at her entrance and who sat again and set his hat on his knee.

Look at you, he said. All growed up and haired over.

Tears ran hot on her cheek. She looked away, down the long table to where a young Negro man, the day's other visitor, held an infant child aloft for its mother's inspection.

I knew I should of never let you go with him, her uncle said, fingering his hat. He was never cut out to be no father.

It weren't your fault.

Hell.

I'm the one's to blame. I'm the one took up with that no-account—

Hush. You just hush your pretty mouth.

They watched together as the baby wriggled and drooled, the mother leaning forward with black and shining eyes.

I'm goin to hell. I know that much at least.

You are no such thing.

I am. I know I am.

Lucile, you listen to me. Your grandpa Garrett never had a day of school in his life, but I reckon he was just about the smartest man I ever knew. And he used to say that folks would do a lot more prayin could they find a soft spot for their knees.

She wiped at her face with a sleeve.

Have they said how long they're gonna keep you here?

She shrugged. I never did ask Mr. Pharr.

Mr. Pharr. Her uncle shook his head. I don't know about you, but Mr. Pharr strikes me as the kind of lawyer whose most important case is the next one.

Sir?

Never mind. I'll talk to him myself. The way I see it, he'll owe us both before this thing is over.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Again they watched the baby.

It don't really matter, Lucile. You understand that, right?

Sir?

Even if that little bastard walks, they'll just hang him up in Utah. Helpin to convict him here is the best thing you can do for yourself. And maybe for him too.

She nodded.

Right?

They say I got to face him in the courtroom.

Hell, that ain't nothin. I'm guessin you've faced worse than that. A lot worse than that, thanks to him.

She nodded.

Come on, Lucile. Don't you go weak north of the ears.

She smiled. No, sir, I won't.

All right then. Meanwhile, is there anythin you need? Women's things? They's a drugstore just down the street.

No, sir. They give me all of that for free.

All right then. What's still botherin you?

She shrugged. I don't know. Daddy's Bible, I guess. I had it in the car when we got arrested. It was wrapped up in my bedroll. I'll bet if you was to ask Mr. Pharr, he could get it for me.

The baby had begun to squall. They watched as the matron came to shush it and the man jerked his arm and words were exchanged. Moments later, a guard stepped from the door behind the man, tapping a truncheon in his palm.

Her uncle rose from his chair.

Put not your trust in princes, he told her, donning and leveling his hat. I think you'll find that writ somewheres in old Dillard's Bible.

She knew that the trial had begun by the hubbub in the street. Cars arrived and parked and then others double-parked. Horns honked. Pedestrians streamed from the train station and crowded the courthouse entrance and queued up in a line along the sidewalk. She saw the flash-pop of photography and heard the milling of the crowd. And in the afternoon, she watched the entire process play out again in reverse.

The matron brought her a newspaper the next afternoon, the
Greenville Morning Herald
. The headline read 11 JURORS SECURED IN ‘SKELETON' MURDER IN HOPKINS. She said it was from Mr. Pharr.

Lottie sat on her cot and read. The article stated that the defense motions had all been denied, and that eleven of the twelve jurors had already been selected. It said that

questions propounded by District Attorney Henry Pharr indicated that the State would demand the death penalty. The defense, on the other hand, will challenge the attempted identity of the skeleton found in an isolated spot last December as that of Dillard Garrett.

The matron appeared again on Thursday morning, this time with an oblong box under her arm. She set it on the cot. Lottie opened the string and folded back the paper and held to her chin a long, blue dress with a ruffled collar.

It's from Mr. Pharr, the woman said. Wish he'd send one to me.

She was led down the corridor to catcalls and wolf whistles from the cells of the other women. A crowd was waiting for her on the other side of the gate, and newsmen called to her by name in the stairwell amid jostling and shouting and a frenzied crush of bodies.

She walked a narrow gauntlet in the third-floor hallway. A man lifted a child onto his shoulders. A woman reached a hand to touch the hem of Lottie's dress.

Four men were waiting for her in the conference room. Henry Pharr rose from the head of the table as the door closed and the noise of the hallway died out behind her.

Lucile. He crossed the room to take her hand. These are my colleagues Mr. Lowrie and Mr. Norwood. And you already know Mr. Fannin.

The men all nodded as he led her to an empty chair. Pharr consulted his watch as he returned to the head of the table.

We've only got a few minutes, so please listen carefully. When we leave here, you'll go with Mr. Norwood. On his signal, you'll walk into the courtroom from a side door and you'll go straight to the witness stand. That's the chair between the jury box and the judge's bench. Remain standing to be sworn, and then sit down. I'll take over from there. I'll take you through your sworn statement, and all you have to do is answer my questions fully and truthfully. You think you can do that?

She looked at the other faces.

If you have any questions, now's the time to ask them.

Is it true Clint's gonna hang?

The lawyer chuckled. No, he won't hang. That I can guarantee. If the jury returns a prison term, he'll go to Huntsville. If the jury returns a death sentence, and if the verdict is upheld on
appeal, then he'll go to the electric chair. That's a perfectly humane and painless way to die, I can assure you.

She did not respond.

What's the matter?

Nothin.

Don't be shy. Say what's on your mind.

It's just that I was learned that only God says who should live and who should die.

Pharr shifted in his seat. He glanced at the others. Well. If only Mr. Palmer had been so enlightened. Then we wouldn't be here, would we?

Wedding, said the man named Lowrie.

Oh, yes. There will be a motion made by the defense to bar your testimony on the ground that you are the common-law wife of the defendant. In the state of Texas, a wife can't give evidence against her husband. The judge will deny the motion, subject to what we call an offer of proof. So once you're on the stand, I'll ask you straight out whether you and Mr. Palmer were ever married. The answer is no, I hope.

There were more chuckles around the table.

All right then. Once I'm finished with my questions, then a defense lawyer will cross-examine. Mr. Hartwell, in all likelihood. He'll try to chip away at your testimony and look for inconsistencies. But there won't be any, because you're going to tell it just like you did in your statement to the grand jury. Isn't that right?

She nodded. All right.

Good girl. Anything else before we go?

How long will it take?

All day would be my guess. But don't worry, there's a lunch break at noon.

And what happens when it's over?

Well. When it's over, with any luck, we'll have a conviction.

More chuckles, and another shifting of bodies.

I meant to me. What happens to me?

Oh. Well, assuming your cooperation, then your attachment as a material witness will be vacated at that point. Right, Bill?

Should be.

Vacated?

Exactly. Any other questions?

But the district attorney was already standing, and the others were standing, and the three men moved as one, straightening ties and buttoning jackets. Pharr turned to her and winked. Then the door opened and they were gone, swallowed by the tumult in the hallway.

The hallway had emptied by the time she left the conference room. She could see the entrance to the courtroom, where a uniformed guard was posted, and a where a cluster of men jostled for a view through the window. She recognized, on a bench along the wall opposite, the ordered profiles of Helen Smith and Lonnie Kincaide and old Mrs. Nations.

They turned right, then left again down a dimly lit side hall where a sign read COURT PERSONNEL ONLY. Norwood raised a finger and went on ahead. He opened a door and he peered inside and then he closed the door again.

Okay, come on.

She heard her name called, and when she stepped through the oaken door, she was awash in lights and in a sea of eager faces. Of the judge and the jurors. Of the bailiff and the clerk and the stenographer. Of the lawyers huddled at their tables. And of the
murmuring spectators who filled the wooden benches to overflow beyond the gated railing. All of them watching her. All of them already judging.

The judge rapped his gavel. Pharr stood and gestured with his head and she half-turned and walked to the empty chair and sat and then stood again when the clerk approached with a heavy Bible that he held out before her.

Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give in the cause now pending shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Lottie nodded. Yes, sir.

Please be seated.

Not until the clerk had stepped aside and the room had settled and sharpened into focus did she notice Palmer where he sat.

His hair was neatly barbered, and his face was shaved, and he wore a pressed gray suit and a silk necktie with a matching blue handkerchief, looking for all the world like a banker, or like another one of the lawyers, or like some honored guest at whose behest all around him had assembled.

His eyes, blue and unblinking, locked on to hers.

Lottie raised her chin and met his gaze and held it. And after a long moment Palmer looked away again, the smile fading to nothing at all.

Hard Twisted
, although based upon real people and true events, is entirely a work of fiction.

My first exposure to the saga of Clint Palmer and Lottie Garrett came in somewhat dramatic fashion when, on November 26, 1994, while hiking with friends in the remote recesses of John's Canyon, in San Juan County, Utah, I stumbled upon a pair of human skulls.

Frozen under a pewter sky, muffled in the stillness of a late-autumn snowstorm, we bent to inspect our macabre discovery. As we did, a rolling thunderclap shook the ground under our feet.

They were old Indian skulls, we knew, judging by the shape and the dental condition. Navajo or Ute or Paiute, from the location. But how had they got here? And what of the jagged fractures, suggestive of bullet holes, that were visible on the backside of each?

That chance discovery began a personal odyssey that would play out in fits and starts over fifteen-odd years, setting me onto the trail of what I would come to regard as one of the great, untold stories of the American West.

The first leg of that journey took me to Mexican Hat, Utah, and to the doorstep of the incomparable Doris Valle—octogenarian,
amiable curmudgeon, and erstwhile proprietress of the Valle Trading Post, a remote and windswept vanguard hard on the banks of the San Juan River. Her history of the region,
Looking Back Around the Hat
(1986), provided me with my first account of the murders of William E. Oliver and Norris “Jake” Shumway, an incident she styled the Tragedy in John's Canyon. As Doris put it: