Let the Circle Be Unbroken (8 page)

Jeremy answered for us. “They was in the courthouse, Stacey. Cassie, she . . . she was drinking the water and Christopher-John and Little Man, they was using the toilet.”

Stacey’s face changed. He glanced anxiously from Jeremy to Christopher-John, Little Man, and me, then back to Jeremy. “Anybody see ’em?”

Jeremy shook his head. “Don’t think so. I—I better be gettin’ back.” He turned to go, but as he did so, he looked at me. That awful pain was still there. Then he hurried up the courthouse steps, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he walked. I had hurt him and I knew it. No matter how angry I was at him, I should never have called him what I had.
Still, he had wronged me badly, pulling on me like he had, and I wasn’t about to forget it.

“Stacey, you know what that doggone Jeremy done? He grabbed my arm like this here,” I said, replaying the scene by taking hold of Stacey’s upper arm, “and jus’ come jerking me ’way from that water and I wasn’t even finished—”

Stacey pulled his arm from my grasp. “Jus’ hush up, Cassie. Hush up!” he snapped. “That water in there and them toilets, they belong to the white folks, and the white folks don’t want no colored folks using neither one. Somebody’d caught y’all, we’d be in a real mess of trouble. Papa say folks done got killed for less. Doggonit, I was afraid of this! Papa gonna wear us all out as it is. You think I want him worrying ’bout somethin’ a whole lot worse?”

“But—”

“Don’t wanna hear no buts! Y’all just stay next to me from now on, ya hear?” Little Man and Christopher-John stared up at Stacey in bewilderment. Moe looked on, his face sympathetic, his manner backing Stacey. “Ya hear?” Stacey repeated, demanding an answer.

Little Man and Christopher-John gave him one, but I was too puzzled to answer. There was so much to learn, too much of it bad. Water was water, a toilet a toilet. Were the people crazy?

Stacey seemed to read the question in my eyes for he nodded, the scowl of anger etching deeper into his face. “Let’s get on back,” he said and directed us toward the tree where the old man still sat. “T.J.’s in the courtroom.”

From our perches in the trees which overlooked the courtroom, we could see T.J. sitting beside Mr. Jamison. He looked even skinnier than he had been when I had last seen him four months ago, and he seemed nervous, biting at his lower lip and jumping visibly at the sounds around him. As the proceedings began, he glanced back at his parents, then turned stiffly to face the prosecutor, Mr. Hadley Macabee.

The first witness called was Mrs. Jim Lee Barnett. Her story was that she and her husband had gone to their second-floor living quarters above the Mercantile shortly after six, as was their custom, had supper, and retired about eight o’clock. They were awakened about an hour later by noises
from below. With Mr. Barnett leading the way, they went downstairs to investigate and found three Negroes standing there and the store’s safe open. Mr. Barnett, trying to stop the burglary, had attacked one of the Negroes, but a second Negro holding an axe had hit him on the back of his head with the blunt of the axe. Once Mrs. Barnett saw her husband down, she had attacked the men herself, but was swiftly knocked out by one of them. When she came to, she found her husband still unconscious and bleeding badly from the head wound. The men were gone. At this point she started screaming and ran outside for help.

When Mr. Macabee asked Mrs. Barnett who were the first to come to her aid, she replied that at the time she was quite dazed and couldn’t remember everyone, but she did remember Mr. Courtney Jones, proprietor of the pool hall, and R.W. and Melvin Simms.

Mrs. Barnett’s testimony was liberally laced with tears and emotion, and it was clear that most of the court spectators greatly sympathized with her. The jury members sat with their backs to us, so we could not see their faces, but I had no doubt that they too were sympathetic. Even I, as much as I disliked the woman and felt no loss at all for her bigoted husband, felt pity for her.

But not for long.

Once Mr. Macabee had finished with Mrs. Barnett, Mr. Jamison, speaking loudly enough to be heard by everyone, yet evoking a calm quiet that seemed almost a whisper, began to question her. He was very gentle, apologizing that he had to ask her to relive that night again, but that he needed to know exactly what she and her husband had done upon hearing the noises in the store. Mrs. Barnett seemed leery of Mr. Jamison at first, but recounted that night’s events as she had been asked.

She repeated that they got up.

“Yes,” said Mr. Jamison.

And went to their bedroom door.

“Yes.”

And through the living room—

“Yes.”

And to the hall and down the stairs—

“Just a minute, Mrs. Barnett,” Mr. Jamison gently interrupted. “Did you turn on the light first? As I recall, there is a light switch at the top of the stairs leading down to the store.”

Mrs. Barnett frowned in thought, trying to remember, then she said: “No sir, we didn’t turn it on ’cause it hadn’t been working for more’n a month. The one downstairs worked, but not that one. Jim Lee—bless his heart—had been intending to fix it, but never got ’round to it. It still ain’t fixed.”

Mr. Jamison bowed his head slightly as if in respect for the kind intentions of the departed, then probing just as gently asked if the light was on downstairs in the store.

Again Mrs. Barnett was thoughtful. No, she conceded, as if to a friend, the light was not on. She and Mr. Barnett always turned it off before retiring and the thieves had not turned it on.

“Then, Mrs. Barnett, how did you see?”

“Oh, we had a flashlight,” she answered matter-of-factly. “We always kept one by the bed. An oil lamp too. Never could tell when the electricity might go out.”

“I see. You had a flashlight. . . . You didn’t tell me.” Mr. Jamison’s tone was not one of accusation but of feelings hurt by her neglecting to confide that bit of information to him.

“I’m sorry,” apologized Mrs. Jim Lee Barnett.

“What about your glasses, Mrs. Barnett? Did you have time to put them on? I notice that most times when I’ve seen you, you have them on . . . like now.”

“Yessir, I always wear them. Had to since I was a young girl. Nearsighted, you know—”

“And did you wear them that night?”

There was silence as Mrs. Barnett pondered the question. “You know, I don’t believe I did. No, I didn’t, ’cause the flashlight was on Jim Lee’s side of the bed and I didn’t have no light. I remember reaching for my specs, trying to feel them on the nightstand with my hand, but I was so nervous and Jim Lee was already at the door going into the living room, and I was ’fraid he was goin’ downstairs by hisself.”

“So you didn’t have on your glasses—which you say you need—and you did have a flashlight, and you started down the stairs—”

“That’s right.”

“And did you and your husband go straight down the stairs and into the store—”

“Yes—”

“—or did you stop on the stairs, just for a moment or two?”

“Come to think of it, you know we did stop. That’s when we saw them.”

“Saw whom?”

“The nigras.”

“I see. About how far would you say you were from the intruders? Could you tell us in relationship to the courtroom?”

Mrs. Barnett frowned again. “’Bout as far back as them middle benches there, I’d reckon.”

Mr. Jamison nodded. “About twenty feet then.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“And just where were the intruders standing when you first saw them?”

“Well, one of them was at the gun counter and them other two was by the safe.”

“You stated previously that one of the intruders struggled with Mr. Barnett and another one hit him from behind with the axe. Now which two men were involved in this? The ones at the safe, or did the one from the counter join in?”

“It was them two by the safe, but I figure that other one would’ve joined in if he’d’ve gotten a chance.”

“Just answer the question, Clara,” Judge Havershack said from his bench. “Wade didn’t ask you about what that fella
would’ve
done.”

Mrs. Barnett heaved an exasperated sigh.

“It was the two by the safe,” Mr. Jamison repeated. “Did that third person—the one by the gun counter—strike Mr. Barnett at all or attempt to harm him physically in any way?”

Mrs. Barnett conceded that he had not.

“Now, Mrs. Barnett, when your husband went down the steps, did he still have the flashlight?”

“He did. Used it to defend hisself ’gainst them murderers. Dropped it when he fell. Light stayed on though, so’s I was able to see.”

“Mrs. Barnett, you said that you saw three Negroes. I understand from Dr. Crandon that for many people with uncorrected myopic vision—nearsightedness—everything is blurred from a distance of twenty feet and that they would not be able to define any facial features. Were you able to distinguish the facial features of the intruders?”

“I know a nigra when I see one!” she snapped.

“Yes, ma’am, no doubt, but could you describe these particular Negroes to us?”

“They was black, that’s all I know.”

“But you did not see their features?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“What about other features, such as height? Could you distinguish the height of the intruders at the distance of twenty feet?”

Mrs. Barnett seemed uncertain.

“Mrs. Barnett, I wonder if you’d take off your glasses so that we can try a little experiment?”

Mrs. Barnett turned toward Judge Havershack, a surging rebellion on her face, and Mr. Macabee stood to object.

“What’s this leading up to, Wade?” asked Judge Havershack.

“Mrs. Barnett has told us she didn’t have on her glasses. I think that we all need to know just how much she could see.”

The judge considered. “All right,” he decided. “Take off your glasses please, Clara.”

Mrs. Barnett let out another sigh and took them off. Mr. Jamison then went down the aisle and spoke to several men seated on a bench near the center of the courtroom. The men stood and came into the aisle; R.W. and Melvin Simms were among them. Mr. Jamison asked Mrs. Barnett if she recognized any of the men. Mrs. Barnett squinted fiercely, but finally admitted she couldn’t see who they were. He then asked if any of the men were the same height as the intruders. She was not to worry, he said, that the men standing were white; they were simply helping out the court. With no hesitation, Mrs. Barnett dismissed three of the men as being either too tall or too short. She said the remaining two were the right height. The two were R.W. and Melvin.

“And how can you be so certain about the height?” Mr. Jamison asked her.

“’Cause Jim Lee and them two he was fighting with were
near to the same height. Jim Lee was five ten. Them two gentlemen standing next to you look to be near the same height as you from here, and Jim Lee and you was the same.”

“How tall was the man behind the counter?”

“Well, I didn’t much pay attention to him. He never got close to Jim Lee.”

Mr. Jamison turned to Melvin and R.W. and asked them their heights. They blanched, looking uneasy. “It’s just to get a fix on the height of the intruders, gentlemen,” Mr. Jamison assured them. “Nothing personal.” The Simmses glared at him suspiciously, but gave their heights: five feet nine inches and five feet ten and a half inches.

Mr. Jamison then asked that T.J. be brought down the aisle. Slowly T.J. stood and I saw that his hands, which he had kept under the table, were cuffed; his legs were free. Led by Deputy Haynes, he walked toward Mr. Jamison and stood beside R.W. and Melvin Simms. The courtroom was silent as everyone noted the difference in size. T.J. was much shorter and smaller.

“Mrs. Barnett, look at T.J. carefully now,” Mr. Jamison directed. “Having just identified men of five ten and a half, and five nine of being the approximate height of the men who fought and struck your husband, can you say that T.J. was one of these men?”

Mrs. Barnett bit into her lip. There could be only one answer. But Mrs. Barnett said, “I don’t know . . . it was dark. . . .”

“Not that dark. You yourself said that throughout there was light from the flashlight. That you could see. Now, was T.J. one of the men?”

Mrs. Barnett put on her glasses and replied crisply, “I can’t be certain.” Mr. Jamison gazed at her with great
patience. “Well . . . maybe he wasn’t. . . .  I can’t be sure. . . .”

“Can’t you?” Mr. Jamison’s voice was suddenly stern. “You just told this court that the two men who—”

Mr. Macabee jumped up and objected. He said that Mrs. Barnett had already given her answer and that should satisfy the court. Judge Havershack agreed. He ordered R.W. and Melvin to sit down and for Deputy Haynes to bring T.J. back to the defender’s table.

Mr. Jamison turned again to Mrs. Barnett. Softly, he said, “Mrs. Barnett, I know you want—as does most everyone in this room including myself—the murderer of your husband to pay for his terrible crime. Now, with that in mind, I want you to think very carefully about this next question.” He paused as if trying to put the question right in his mind before saying it. But to my surprise, he asked no question right then. Instead, he walked over to the court table and opened a thin box and lifted out its contents. Walking back to Mrs. Barnett, he displayed what was in the box: two black stockings.

“Mrs. Barnett, these as you know are ladies’ stockings. They were found in the trash outside your door the day after your husband was murdered. Such items are, of course, usually worn in times of grief.” He nodded at Mrs. Barnett, who crimsoned just a bit and tucked her own blackened legs farther inward to her chair. “Or sometimes just to give an aura of blackness. Now, ma’am, please forgive the personal question, but outside your time of mourning as now, have you worn stockings of this coloring?”

Mrs. Barnett said she hadn’t, and to Mr. Jamison’s question as to whether or not she had been in mourning at any time during the past year and had perhaps just thrown away such stockings, she again said she had not.

“Now, Mrs. Barnett, please look at my hand.” Mr. Jamison held up his hand for her to see, then slipped it inside one of the stockings. “What color does my hand appear to be?”