No Defense (28 page)

“Who brought the tape and the tape player to
the bam on September 5?”

“Reese did.”

“Who turned it on and off that night?”

“He did.”

“What happened the first time it was turned
on?”

“I spoke. I said that he and I were at a
barn off Route 23, that Reese was going to make a statement about
the murders of Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson.”

“May I play the first minute or so of the
tape marked as Exhibit One for Identification now, Your Honor?”

“Go ahead,” Judge McNabb said.

Chip sighed audibly as Junior carried the
tape player back to his table and put it down there.

Junior turned on the machine. A voice
exploded out of the speaker.

Dorr, who appeared to be in pain, reached
for his ear and adjusted his hearing aid.

“Sorry,” Junior said, turning the machine
down. He rewound the tape and started over. The beginning of the
tape was exactly as Dorr had described it. Junior turned off the
machine.

“Is that an accurate recording of what you
said at the beginning of the taping with Dean Reese on the evening
of September 5?” Junior resumed his pacing again.

“Yes, it is.”

“What happened next?” Junior asked.

“Dean Reese just talked. I listened. The
tape recorded him.”

“May I play a bit more?” Junior asked Judge
McNabb.

“Yes.”

Junior then played another few seconds of
the tape. A man’s voice said, “My name is Dean Gilbert Reese and
this is my statement to Agent Dorr.”

“Is that Dean Reese speaking, Mr. Dorr?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yes.”

“Is that an accurate recording of the first
words he spoke into the tape recorder on the night of September
5?”

“Yes.”

“I move that State Exhibit One for
Identification be admitted into evidence,” Junior said.

Chip stood again. “I must object again, Your
Honor, to anything on that recording that Mr. Reese may or may not
have said being admitted into evidence,” he argued, his face
growing bright red as he became genuinely incensed. “It is
preposterous and patently unfair. Reese is not here for me to
cross-examine, and for the many reasons hearsay is inadmissible you
should exclude any part of the tape made by Dean Reese, the most
significant being we can’t see him, listen to him, and judge his
credibility here in the courtroom. Even a madman can sound sane on
a tape. But then, when you see him, you know the truth.”

Junior stood up but apparently had second
thoughts about what he was about to say and sat back down.

“I’m afraid I must grant Mr. Fuller’s motion
on behalf of the State and admit the tape subject to your
inspecting it, Mr. Tuckahoe,” the judge said. “I know Reese is not
here to cross-examine, and if there were a jury I might hesitate a
little more on this ruling. But as you requested, there is no jury.
I assure you I am capable of weighing accurately the probative
value of the tape. The defense has until Monday morning, five days
counting today, to examine the tape and make any further objections
at that time. That’s plenty of time, don’t you think? You may play
Exhibit One, Mr. Fuller,” Judge McNabb said.

Chip sat down, shaking his head in dismay.
My father whispered something to him and then they, like the rest
of us, waited to hear the tape.

Junior turned on the machine and Dean
Reese’s voice filled the courtroom.

“My name is Dean Reese,” he said. “I want to
set the record straight about what happened to those boys, Turnbow
and Johnson, who got killed last week, because I know who they’ll
try to blame.” Reese had a more noticeable twang than most of the
people around Tallagumsa. We all talked with heavy southern
accents, but his voice had a rough, redneck quality to it that fit
perfectly the physical description of Reese given earlier. He
sounded like a good old boy.

I dreaded hearing whatever his eerie
presence was about to reveal. We’d gone into this trial assuming
nothing Reese said would be admitted. How bad would it be?

“This is how it happened, the truth and the
whole truth,” Reese said. “On the night of August 27, 1963, I was
home with my wife, Liz, and our baby, watching TV, when the
doorbell rang. It was my friend, Sheriff Newell Hagerdorn. The
sheriff’s car was out front. Floyd Waddy was sitting in it,
waiting. I waved hi to him. ‘Wanna go get a drink?’ Newell asked
me. We spend a lot of time hanging out together. We’re buddies, you
know. ‘Aren’t you working?’ I asked him. ‘Yeah, but nothing’s going
on,’ he said, so I told my wife I was going and went on with them.
I thought we were going to a bar to drink, but there was a case of
beer in the back seat. We drove around and drank, and after a while
Newell asked, did I want to drive. ‘Sure,’ I said. So we stopped
and I got in the driver’s seat and Newell took the passenger seat.
Floyd stayed in back. I started driving. We all drank beer. ‘What
do you think about them nigger boys trying to integrate the
university?’ Newell asked me. ‘Not much,’ I said. The radio was
playing ‘Johnny Angel’ and I wanted to listen to the song, not to
talk, but then Newell said, ‘Drive on over to Old Highway 49;
they’re going to be going that way and we can give them a scare.’
We did, and we were laughing and having some fun driving up and
down the road, honking and singing, when what do you know, we see a
car up ahead, and Newell said, ‘Put on the sirens,’ so I did.
Newell asked Floyd for the shotgun out of the back and told me to
pull up alongside the car. I did, we saw who it was, then he shot,
twice. I thought he was just trying to scare them, but he hit the
one who was driving. Their car swerved and hit a tree and crashed
to a stop. ‘Shit, man,’ Floyd said. ‘Quick. Pull over.’ So I did.
We all got out. The one driving was dead, but the other one got out
of the car and began running away. Newell ran after him and shot
him, bam, bam, bam, three times, I think. Then Newell ran back,
jumped in the car, and said, ‘Let’s go. Take Floyd home, then I’ll
drop you off.’ And that’s it. That’s what happened. We dropped
Floyd off, then went to my house. I got out and told Newell I’d
take the gun and get rid of it. I took it and gave it to Agent Dorr
instead.”

As the tape played, Judge McNabb’s head had
fallen forward, revealing the spottiness of his hair transplants.
He didn’t even look up again when the tape ended. The courtroom was
still. Feeling something warm on my chin, I reached up and touched
it. I looked at my hand. My lip was bleeding. I must have been
chewing on it for some time. I took a Kleenex out of my purse and
dabbed at it. Judge McNabb slowly raised his head. His face was
pale, and beads of sweat rested on his lip and forehead.

Daddy wrote something on Chip’s yellow pad
and pushed the pad over to Chip. Chip read it and shrugged.

I turned slightly to look at my family
across the courtroom, a few rows behind me. Jane, of course, was no
longer there: Earlier that morning the judge had sent her to wait
in the witness room. Buck’s face was obscured by the handkerchief
he was using to wipe his forehead. Eddie looked right at me. Much
to my surprise he looked upset and sad. Mother was staring straight
ahead, one hand resting lightly on her throat. She appeared to be
in a world of her own.

“Mr. Dorr, is that the same statement you
heard Dean Reese give on the night of September 5?”Junior
asked.

“Yes, it is. Hard to forget that.”

“Has anything been added or omitted?”

“No.”

“Did you see Dean Reese again after
that?”

“No. He died the next day.”

“Did you have occasion to talk to anyone
else in Tallagumsa during the course of your investigation?”

“Yes, Dean’s wife, Liz Reese.”

“When?”

“A day or two after he died.”

“Can you tell us about that?”

“We dropped by unannounced, as no one ever
answered our phone calls. She was hysterical. She had bruises on
her legs and a black eye too. She was crying like a wild woman-you
know, out of control. She had a little baby there with her, who was
crying too. There were clothes everywhere and several open
suitcases. She didn’t say anything except she blamed us for giving
her husband the power to cause so much pain. She was angry and
asked us to leave her alone.”

“Did the FBI continue its investigation
thereafter?”

“No. We closed the investigation
mid-September 1963.”

“Why?” Junior asked.

“My superior, Carl Best, decided that we
didn’t have a chance of bringing or winning a case, given the
circumstances. Even with the best federal civil rights cases, we
often couldn’t get indictments out of a local federal grand jury in
the South. A conviction was even harder back then. Our policy was
to negotiate and persuade as much as possible, to accomplish voting
rights and integration with as little violence as possible.
Accusing the sheriff of a small southern town of murder wasn’t
likely to make us too popular. With Dean Reese dead, we didn’t seem
to have much choice. We could only do so much, and we had plenty of
other problems to deal with in the South.”

“Did you agree with his decision?”

“I understood it. It wasn’t my job to agree
or disagree.”

“No further questions,” Junior said. He
walked slowly back to his chair, cracked the knuckles of his right
hand, and sat down.

“Are you going to cross-examine, Mr.
Tuckahoe?” Judge

McNabb asked Chip.

“Yes, sir,” Chip said, rising.

“Well, it’s almost noon,” Judge McNabb said,
“so why don’t we adjourn for lunch. I have a motion in another
matter at one o’clock to attend to. Court is adjourned until two
o’clock.”

“All rise,” the bailiff said.

As we rose, Judge McNabb left the room. I
rushed out as fast as I could, pushing past the few people who
tried to leave before me. It was starting to drizzle as I walked
quickly to my car and drove away.

I had not bothered to go out to the memorial
after Ben told me of the defacement but was desperate to see it
now. I sped out Old Highway 49 and pulled over at the tree.

A storm was gathering. The sky was rapidly
growing dark with distant lightning followed by a roll of thunder
every five or so minutes. Behind the tree the corn that had been
planted in the spring and grown through the summer was gone. Cows
or pigs had been turned out to feed on the stalks after the ears
were picked, leaving the fields barren and dusty.

I got out of the car, trying hard not to
think of Dean Reese’s voice describing that night fifteen years
ago. I didn’t believe a thing he’d said, but I found his words
replaying in my head over and over, as if I’d brought the tape
player with me.

The memorial was ruined. Someone had
splattered the metal plaque and the stand on which it rested with
blood-red paint. Even worse, a big red thick-lipped smile had been
painted around the gash in the tree. I couldn’t even cry. It was
too late for that.

A black storm cloud opened, dropping a
torrent of rain. As a lightning bolt landed nearby, I ran back to
the car, still fully intending to stay at the memorial for the
entire break. After a few minutes, however, the scene Dean Reese
had described as having occurred on this very spot seemed to come
to life in front of me. Behind the heavy sheets of rain, I watched
the boys’ car crash into the tree and the sheriff’s car pulling
over next to it. I squeezed my eyes shut tight for a moment, then
sped away, leaving the tree, the memorial, the dead boys, and their
murderer behind me.

By one-forty I was back in the courtroom in
my seat in the first row behind the empty defense table. I was
waiting, trying to concentrate on my throbbing lip to the exclusion
of all else, when my father and Chip walked by.

Daddy stopped and put his hand on my
shoulder. “Where’d you run off to?” he asked. “We were looking for
you at the Steak House.”

“I had something I had to do at the house,”
I lied.

He smiled knowingly.

I’d never been able to lie to him and get
away with it.

The spectators filed into the gallery
quietly, their voices muted by an almost palpable undercurrent of
suspense and expectation.

“How long did Dean Reese provide information
to the FBI, Mr. Dorr?” Chip asked when he began his
cross-examination of the FBI agent. Chip stood next to his chair.
On the table within reach of his right hand were several sharpened
pencils, a yellow pad, and a small pile of papers.

“One year, maybe a little more.”

“Did you ever bring a case-by that I mean,
indict anyone based on any information Dean Reese gave you-prior to
this case, that is?”

“No.”

“Did you ever learn anything about the Klan
from him, anything that you didn’t already know?”

“No.”

“Did you feel he was a reliable source of
information?”

“We wouldn’t have paid him if we didn’t,”
Mr. Dorr said.

“Didn’t he ever give you information which
turned out to be false?”

“Sure, but that’s not unusual. Informants
give us what they have, based on what they hear. Sometimes it turns
out to be false.”

“Didn’t he provide false evidence to you in
another civil rights case?” Chip asked.

“There was an occasion on which Mr. Reese
provided information that turned out not to be accurate
information, yes.”

“When was that? Before or after the
Turnbow-Johnson murders?”

“The spring before, in the murder of a
prominent black man in Mississippi, Medgar Evers.”

“Didn’t Dean Reese purposefully mislead you
in that matter?”

“I don’t know that to be the case. The
information he gave us wasn’t accurate, that’s all.” Dorr, starting
to look tired, rested his elbow on the edge of the stand and his
chin on his hand.

“But isn’t it true that the person who Dean
Reese claimed had killed Medgar Evers was the
same person
who’d fired Reese from a garage job in Mississippi the year
before?”