Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (54 page)

“I’m beginning to believe, Your Honor, that we could deliberate until hell freezes over and not get a verdict.”

Sonny Seiler moved for a mistrial, but Judge Oliver brusquely denied it. Instead, over Seiler’s objections, he read a “Dynamite Charge” to the jury, which essentially told them in blunt terms to stop dawdling and come to a unanimous decision. He then adjourned the proceedings until ten o’clock the next morning, admonishing the jurors, as he had done many times before, not to read, listen to, or watch news reports of the trial, and not to discuss the case with anyone.

Jim Williams drove home from the courthouse, but instead of going inside, he walked across the street into Monterey Square and sat down on a bench next to Minerva.

“My lawyers have fucked up again,” he said. “There’s only one juror who’s still on my side. It’s a woman.”

“How strong is she?” Minerva asked.

“I don’t know. She’s pretty ornery, I think, but she’ll be under a lot of pressure tonight. The D.A. knows who she is, and he’s desperate to break her. We’ve got to stop him.”

“Do you know where she live at?”

“I can find out. Can you protect her?”

Minerva gazed into space. “There’s things I can do.”

“Well, this time I want you to use your most potent weapons.”

Minerva nodded. “When I git through layin’ down my shit, she’ll be safe all right.”

“Do me a favor,” said Williams. “When you do whatever you’re going to do, use something that belonged to Dr. Buzzard. Like one of his old socks, or a shirt, or a comb. Anything.”

Minerva gave Williams a look of irritation. “I didn’t keep none a his socks. And if I did, I wouldn’t know where in hell to start lookin’ for ’em in that mess I got in my house.”

“Well, but you have other things of his.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t keep nothin’. I didn’t really know the man that good.”

“Now, Minerva, we’ve known each other too long for that.” Williams spoke as if he were addressing a recalcitrant child. “Those are his purple spectacles you’re wearing, aren’t they?”

Minerva heaved a sigh. “Let’s see. I think I ran across a pair a his shoes the other day. Oh Lord, I don’t know what I done with them shoes.”

“It doesn’t have to be a shoe. What else have you got?”

Minerva gazed up into the tree. “Well, somewhere, if I have the strength to look I might find something. Yeah … something.” She smiled. “I think I even got his false teeth somewhere.”

“Well, now’s the time to use them,” said Williams, a note of urgency entering his voice. “I don’t want anybody messing around with that woman tonight.”

“They may try messin’,” said Minerva, “but if they do they gonna fall sick real quick. May even die.”

“That won’t do me any good,” Williams said. “I don’t want anybody getting to her
at all.
Period. What can you do about that?”

“I will go to the flower garden later tonight,” she said. “At dead time. I’ll talk to the old man.”

“Good.”

A smile spread itself across the moonscape of Minerva’s round face. “And then when I git through dealing with your business, I’ll make him give me a number.”

“Oh, don’t do that, Minerva! You know he won’t give you one. You’ll just make him angry. No, no. Tonight’s not a good night for that.”

Minerva’s smile withered to a pout. “But I need a number to play so I can git me some money,” she said.

“All right, goddammit, I’ll give you the number myself right now!”

Minerva looked sharply at Williams.

“You’ve always said I was ‘wise,’” he said.

“Yes, I know. You was born with a veil over your face, baby. You do have the gift.”

“Tell me how many numbers you need.”

“I need a triple number—like one, two, three. It can be the same number three times or three different numbers.”

“All right,” said Williams. “Let me concentrate for a second. Then I’ll give you a number that will win you a handful of money.” Williams closed his eyes. “The numbers are … six … eight … and one.”

“Six-eight-one,” Minerva repeated.

“That’s right. Now, how much money does it take to play it? A dollar, five dollars, ten dollars?”

A flicker of doubt crossed Minerva’s face. “You might be teasin’ me.”

“I don’t tease,” said Williams. “But you haven’t answered my question. What does it take to cover the bet?”

“Six dollars.”

“How much would you win if you won?”

“Three hundred. But hey, this thing play two tracks,” she said. “Which track to play? New York or Brooklyn? Me, I play New York track. I don’t want to play six-eight-one on New York and have it come Brooklyn. Which one to play?”

“Can’t you play both?”

“Hell, no. That would take another six dollars. And listen, the man that writes the numbers for the other track, for Brooklyn, he live seventy miles from me. So I got to have a number for the New York track.”

Williams closed his eyes again. “Okay. I see it now. It’s the New York track. Play six-eight-one on the New York track. You’ll win three hundred dollars for sure. I’ll give you the six dollars to cover the bet.”

Minerva took the money.

“But remember one thing,” said Williams. “Six-eight-one will work only if you leave Dr. Buzzard alone tonight and don’t hound him for a number. If you bug him, six-eight-one will automatically become worthless.”

“I’ll leave him be, baby.”

“Good,” said Williams. “I want the two of you to concentrate on only one thing tonight. Keeping Mrs. Tyo on my side. I don’t want you or the old man wasting energy on numbers again until this thing is over.”

Minerva nodded solemnly.

“And don’t you worry about the three hundred dollars. It’s as good as in your pocket. Do you follow me?”

Minerva stuffed the six dollars into her bag. “Yeah, baby, I follow you.”

The third floor of the Chatham County Courthouse was a scene of turmoil and confusion at ten o’clock the next morning. The doors of Judge Oliver’s courtroom remained chained and pad
locked. The crowd of spectators milling around in the corridor was augmented by the presence of Sheriff Mitchell and a half dozen of his deputies. The sheriff and his men had come to the courthouse in anticipation of a guilty verdict; afterward they would escort Williams through the underground passage to jail. But the padlock on the courtroom door was unusual. It meant that the session would be delayed in starting. Something unexpected had happened. This is what it was:

At seven that morning, Spencer Lawton had received a telephone call from a paramedic who worked for LifeStar, an emergency medical service. The paramedic said that at two-thirty an anonymous woman had called the service and asked medical questions pertaining to “a shooting between an older man and a younger man.” How long would it take blood to congeal on a person’s hand? How quickly would a person die if he had been shot in the aorta? Though she refused to identify herself, the woman eventually admitted she was a juror in the Jim Williams case and that she was the only one who believed Williams was innocent. She added that the other jurors had commented that the case was about a couple of faggots and that they should just convict Williams and go home.

Lawton immediately called Judge Oliver and demanded that Mrs. Tyo be expelled from the jury for discussing the case outside the jury room and be replaced by one of the alternate jurors. This would all but guarantee a guilty verdict. Seiler, when he heard about it, insisted the judge declare a mistrial.

At ten o’clock, while the crowd buzzed in the corridor outside the locked courtroom, Judge Oliver convened a star-chamber session in his office in an effort to deal with the situation. In the presence of Lawton, Seiler, a court stenographer, and the paramedic, the judge summoned each of the jurors individually and asked them under oath if they had called a paramedic in the middle of the night to discuss the case. Each said no, including Mrs. Tyo, although when Mrs. Tyo left the room the paramedic told the judge, “That voice is familiar to me.”

Out in the corridor, speculation centered on three possibilities: that Mrs. Tyo had made the call, that the paramedic had been
duped by someone acting in league with the prosecution, and that the paramedic was in active collusion with the prosecution. Having failed to get a confession out of anybody, Judge Oliver reopened the courtroom and called the court back into session. Once again, he asked the jurors if any of them had discussed the case with a paramedic. None spoke up. Mrs. Tyo, looking distressed, held a handkerchief to her mouth. She had confided to the forewoman that she had recently suffered a heart attack and was afraid she might be on the verge of having another. Seiler moved for a mistrial. The judge rebuffed him and sent the jury, including Mrs. Tyo, back into deliberations.

In the expectation that something might happen soon, Williams went out into the corridor to wait. Minerva was sitting alone at the far end. He walked over and stood in front of her. She spoke to him as if in a trance.

“Last night I done took the old man’s teeth and buried them in that lady’s yard. Just like you said.”

“They’ve been up to mischief anyhow,” said Williams. “They’ve concocted a story, and they’re trying to throw her off the jury.”

“That would be they only hope,” said Minerva. “’Cause she ain’t switchin’ sides. That’s for sure, and I ain’t lyin’. The old man done took the case his self this time. Uh-huh. And after midnight, me and Delia worked the D.A. and the judge up one side and down the other.”

Williams smiled. “Did you play that number I gave you?”

“Didn’t have no time to play it. I been too busy.”

About noon, the judge called the jury back into the courtroom and asked if there had been any movement toward a decision. There had not. Reluctantly, he declared a mistrial and gaveled the proceedings to a close. Amid the ensuing commotion, Spencer Lawton’s voice could be heard calling out to the judge. “For the record, Your Honor, I will ask the court administrator to set this case down for a retrial as soon as possible!”

A fourth trial would set a record. Jim Williams would become
the first person ever to be tried four times for murder in the state of Georgia. The courthouse flack laughed and slapped his thighs and hooted that the matador was now bloodier than the bull. Downstairs, the television crews converged on Lawton, who, though bloody, was still unbowed. “After three trials,” he said, “the score is thirty-five to one for conviction. I’m confident that if we get a jury that is willing and able to decide, we’ll get the right verdict.” As he spoke, a small crowd gathered around him. Minerva stood on the periphery, a broad smile on her face and three crisp one-hundred-dollar bills crumpled in her hand.