The Dreams of Ada (12 page)

So then Mr Smith said: you was at the keg party and Odell came in and ask you if you wanted to go smoke a joint then you went out to E.T. and ya’ll discused it and ya’ll went out to MacKanalies and ya’ll went in and took her out and then did you see any one. I said no cause it wasnt in my dream. Then they cep on at me about it. So I lied and said I seen a guy leaning up aginst the Ice Mechine. Then he said, Then yall left and went down Arlington to Mississippi and turned off to Richardson loop. Then went to the power plant. Then I said we stoped on Mississippi then Carol jumped out. Then the OBI agent said Carol did not jump out he was there all the time. Then he said then what did we do when we got to the power plant. I said that Odell was kissing her and she told him to quit. Then I told him to leve her alone. Then he said If I dont like it I could go home. Then I said for him to take me home. Then he said you are home then I looked out the window and I was home. Then the OBI agent said come on now. You staid at the power plant and you and Odell got out and Carol got out of the back of the pickup and you’ all started to rape her.

Then he said who raped her first Odell. I said nobody raped her cause it was a dream. Then I told them again that Carol jumped out on Mississippi and we was at the power plant then Odell started to kissing her then I told him to leve her alone then. He said If I dont like it I could go home. Than Mr. Smith stoped me and said, Carol didnt jump out on Mississippi that he was in the back of the pick laying down wasnt he. I said no that he got out on Mississippi. Then the OBI agent said Odell raped her and you helt her didnt you. So they cep on at me and finly I said, I lied again I helt her down and Odell raped her and that he cut her on her side. Then Mr. Smith said why didnt you try to stop him. Then I said, I couldnt cause this was just a dream. Then the OBI agent said after Odell raped her who wraped her next. Then Mr. Smith said you raped her didnt you. Then I said I didnt rape her cause it wasnt in my dream. Then the OBI agent said come on now you did to rape her didn’t you. So then I lied again and I said I couldnt rape her. Then Mr Smith said you couldnt rape her cause you new she new you. So then Mr. Smith said, you cut her didnt you. So I lied and said, I couldnt rape her then she broke away from me and I coaght her and we fell on the ground and I bit her on the tit. I just said it to see there expreshens on there face.

Then Mr Smith cep on at me about cuting her. So then I lied and said that I cut her on her arm and on her side but they were jest scratches. Then I said she broke away from me and she ran and I cought her and bit her on her tit then Odell and Carol grabed her off me and took her back to the pickup. Then Mr Smith said that is when Carol raped her wasnt it. So I lied and said yes. Then he said what did you do. I said I went home. Then the OBI said, you watched and you didn’t go home. So then I said, this is a bunch of bull this was only a dream. So then Mr Smith said you went home and you came back then what was they doing to her. Then I thought up a funny lie and I told them that Carol was raping her and Odell was standing at the side of the pickup and Odell was laughing saying Carol is scruewing a dead corps. I said it to see the expreshons on their face. Then Mr Smith said what did you do with her. So I lied and said I helped put her on Odell’s sholder and Carol grabed her legs and they started walking down twards the woods and I went back home. So then Mr Smith ask me if we ever discussed it. I told him no that it was just a dream.

Then he said I bet its been eating your heart out wondering what they did whith her. I said, no that its never botherd me cause I knew it was just a dream. So then I told them about standing at the sink trying to get something black off my arm and it woke me up. All the time they was going along with me about a dream. And they know they had me to lie and add on to my dream cause they told me what to say. Then Mr. Smith said it was blood wasnt it. I said, no I dont know what it was but it was scaring me that’s what woke me up. Then I said, cant you see that this was only a dream I had. Then the OBI agent said, It was to blood wasnt it. So I lied and said, I guess so, but whatever it was I was having a heck of a time getting it off!

Then they went out and got a man. And he came in with a projector. Then they started sitting it up. Then Mr. Smith said, soposen were did they take her. I said, they didnt take her any-were cause it was a dream. Then he said, suposenly were they might have taken her. So I thought I would lie and tell them that they might have taken her to the house or to this concreak slab. So they could see that it was a dream and let me go. So I told them she might be at that house or that concreak slab down by Sandy. So then the OBI said, what concreak slab so I told him were it was and he said a concreak bunker. I said, I guess that is what you call it. Then the OBI agent got on the phone and called the Ada p.d. and told them to go look down there. I thought for surley they would let me go when they seen she wasnt down there and see it was a dream and run me out. So then they got the projector hooked up and I ask Mr. Smith what day this was. I was refering what day he came and talked to me, and that was the night I had my dream. So then he said, Sat. Apr 28. So then the OBI agent said, I’m tired of hearing this dream B.S. I just want you to tell what happend in your dream. So then I said, OK if that is what you want to know about. So then I gave my statement. Then during my statement I know I did say this was just a dream. They must have cutten it out cause I was looking down at the mick when I said it or I might not of said it lowed enough cause I didn’t want them to hear me say it. Then when I said, I wouldn’t have done it if I wasnt doped on or something It was an expresohn, verifying that they would see my statement was a lie cause I don’t do dope and they could check me and I dont have anything wrong with me.

They can see that Im not nutts. God knows that I didnt do it. And that I’m not the kind of guy to do something like that. He knows I dont have the heart, or dont have the gutts to do something like that. I just give the statement so they could see that it was a dream and let me go.

So getting back to what happened. Mr. Smith said, after I give the statement, you just wished that this was a dream it realy happened. I about laughed in his face. But I said, I know it was a dream and you will find that out. Then Mr Smith ask me if I would come to Ada with them and show them that this was a dream. So I said, OK. So then he started to put handcuffs on me. I ask him why he was putting them on me for. He said for your protection just in case someone sees you that they would think you was a prisoner instead of a snitch. So I thought that was well enough excuse. So then he put them on me. So then we was on our way back to Ada when I started talking to them about it and I said, I will show you that this was a dream. I also told him that I was lieing adding on my dream so they could see it was a lie. Then the OBI agent said, I don’t want to hear this dream B.S. If you got something to talk about talk about something else.

So then we got back to Ada. And Mr Smith said, show me that this was just a dream. So then we went to the power plant. And I showed them. I said were they caried her there was no road. And were she ran from me theres a fince their. So I said see this was just a dream. Then I thought I had them convinsted that it was a dream. Cause they was acting as if they seen it was a dream. Then the OBI agent said, well see what Odell and Carol has to say about this. Then I said, they wont have anything to say about this cause it was a dream. Then he said, we’ll see. Then they brought me to jail I about died when they brought me here. I thought that we was going to come down and I show them that it was a dream and they let me go. Then they brought me and put me in jail. So then I called my sister and told her I was in jail and not to worie I will be out tomarow when they see that this was a dream. So then I came back and they locked me up. They never did tell me I was under arest for the murder of that girl. I still to this day dont understand why they think I might of done it.

On and on he wrote, filling page after page. When he was through, he went back and wrote across the top of the first page: “This statement is the truth nothing but the truth so help me God.”

The fact that the police had taped confessions from Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot had been well publicized; the fact that the two young men had repudiated the statements almost immediately had not yet been made public. Since they had not yet been formally charged with any crime, they had not had an opportunity in public to plead not guilty. With all the problems with the tapes—the fact that Odell Titsworth could not have been involved, the fact that the burned-out house had been burned down long before—the police knew they would have a much stronger case if they could find physical evidence to substantiate the tapes: Denice Haraway’s body or her bloodstained clothing, or a murder weapon—something. So they searched continually, mostly in the area west of town, and found nothing. Dennis Smith would be sitting at his desk when suddenly a place leaped into mind that they had not searched. He would get into a squad car immediately and go out there and look. And would find nothing. Mike Baskin would lie awake at night, wondering where the body could be, and would get an idea. The first thing in the morning, he would go to the site—and would find nothing. With six months gone since the disappearance, the detectives began to feel they would never find the body unless Ward or Fontenot told them where it was.

One day they got an idea. They went to see Ward in the county jail, Baskin carrying a plastic garbage bag. Confronting Tommy, the detective reached into the bag and pulled out a skull, then a femur, then another bone. He said, or implied, that these were Denice Haraway’s. He asked Tommy to tell them where the rest of her bones were, so her family could bury her.

Tommy said it wasn’t her. Or that if it was, he didn’t know anything about it. He did not crack under the eerie pressure and tell them where the body was, as the detectives had hoped.

They had borrowed the bones from the biology lab at East Central University, where Denice Haraway may at one time have studied them; where her husband, a sometime biology major, almost certainly had.

5

MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE

T
he police were not the only ones obsessed. Denice Haraway’s missing body—assuming that she was dead—began to invade the darkening dreams of Ada.

One woman saw vividly in a dream where the body lay. She did not want to get involved in the case. But her dream gnawed at her. She telephoned her lawyer and told him of her dream; she asked the lawyer to relay the information to the police, without revealing her name. The lawyer called Dennis Smith. Though the place the woman had dreamed about had already been searched several times, Smith dutifully went out there and looked again. He found nothing.

A school teacher named Arlene Cameron dreamed she saw Denice Haraway’s body lying on wooded slopes a few acres from her home, in a nearby village called Happyland. She told her dream to her neighbor in Happyland, Maxine Wolf—Tricia’s mother-in-law, who was building a small makeshift farm out there. Arlene asked Maxine if she should tell the police; Maxine advised against it. “Look what happened to Tommy when he told the police a dream,” she said. For Maxine had told Arlene the family’s view of the case.

Arlene was well acquainted with the police view; her boyfriend at the time was a deputy sheriff.

Maxine suggested that the two women go over and look for the body themselves. And they did. They put on pants and shirts and spent a long autumn afternoon tramping through the foliage, kicking aside the fallen leaves, looking for a body which, if they found it, would be greatly decomposed. Arlene was convinced from what she had seen in the newspaper and on television, and from what she had heard from her boyfriend, that Tommy Ward was guilty; Maxine Wolf wanted very much for him to be innocent, because she loved Tricia; Tricia had been good for Bud. Side by side with conflicting involvements, the two women searched, their arms and legs whispering through the leaves. They found no corpse in Happyland.

In town, Tricia Wolf was having different kinds of dreams. She dreamed one night that she saw her brother Tommy being strapped into a chair. She watched helplessly as he was injected with a lethal poison, which is the prescribed method of execution in Oklahoma. She saw him slump over in the chair. He was dead.

She woke up, her heart thumping wildly; she was in her own bed.

Two nights later she had the same dream again. It seemed just as real the second time.

For Tricia, if not for the others, the dreams of the night were rivaled by the nightmares of the day. Her daughter Rhonda came home from school screaming every day because of the taunting of the other kids. Bud came home from the mill with new stories of slurs by the other workers. And there was the incessant ringing of the telephone. People they hadn’t seen for years kept calling to ask if the Tommy who had been arrested was their Tommy, if the Tommy who had killed that girl was their Tommy. Yes, she would tell them, Tommy had been arrested. But no, she would say, he hadn’t killed that girl.

One woman called to gossip about the strange rumors floating around town about what might have happened to the body: that it had been buried in a wet cement wall out by the Ideal Cement plant; that it had been placed in an acid pit at the Reeves Packing Plant, near the power station, and had been dissolved. Tricia did not care to hear these tales.

The acid-pit theory would soon be the most persistent story in town—this despite the fact that there is no acid pit. There is near the packing plant a pit into which the blood of the slaughtered animals runs. There is no acid in it, nothing that would dissolve a body.

The case made some people wish that Nigger Sairy were still alive. A gnarled black woman who lived at Fourth Street and Broadway in the old colored section, Nigger Sairy had been feared by the children of Ada, who believed that she kidnapped kids and killed them and sold them for chopped meat. This they could prove by the mysterious letters painted on the three posts in front of her house: R, O, E. In fact, that was her name—Sarah Roe. But Nigger Sairy had the respect of many adults because she was a seer who specialized in envisioning where lost objects or animals could be found. Many is the Ada farmer who will swear he braved the mysteries of Nigger Sairy’s house, which contained her own self-made coffin, and was told precisely where he could find his missing hog or heifer. If Nigger Sairy were still alive, some people believed, she could tell the police where Denice Haraway was. But Nigger Sairy was long since dead.

Tricia’s own fervent belief was that Denice Haraway was still alive: that she had run off somewhere, perhaps with a lover, perhaps for some other reason. Just because nobody had heard from her, that didn’t mean she was dead. Rumors to that effect were floating through the town as well: that she had been seen in Oklahoma City; that she had been seen in Texas. Sometimes Tricia’s sympathetic friends would call to report these rumors. These gave Tricia hope.

Strangers, too, called. One day an old woman on the phone asked Tricia if she was the sister of that Thomas Ward who killed that girl. Tricia didn’t know who the woman was, or how she knew she was Tommy’s sister, since her name had been Wolf, not Ward, for eleven years.

“Are you his sister?” the woman persisted.

“It hasn’t been proved. He didn’t do it,” Tricia said.

“It’s terrible that he killed that girl,” the woman said.

“This isn’t funny,” Tricia said.

“I don’t think it’s funny that he killed that girl,” the woman said.

Tricia hung up the phone, wondering what she was doing even talking to this woman. She went over to Maxine’s, to get away from the ringing phone. For days afterward she burst out crying every time she heard in her mind the old woman’s voice.

Maxine, soon after, got a different kind of telephone call. It was from a friend and fellow churchgoer, Mildred Gandy, who lived in a trailer at the Brook Mobile Home Park, a large trailer court off Country Club Road, about a mile from McAnally’s. Mildred Gandy told Maxine she had seen Denice Haraway out at the trailer court, just a few trailers away. She was standing there with two guys, Mrs. Gandy said. This had been back in the spring, Mrs. Gandy told Maxine—but it was two days after the Haraway girl supposedly was killed. She hadn’t told the police, she said, because she did not want to get involved. But since Tommy had been arrested, she thought she ought to tell Maxine.

Maxine excitedly told Tricia of the call. It reinforced their belief that Denice Haraway was still alive. It was something else to tell Tommy’s lawyer—as soon as they could find him a lawyer.

Barney Ward—no relation to Tommy Ward or his family—grew up in Ada. In high school he was in an accident that left him permanently blind. Despite this, he went on to graduate from East Central—where as a stunt he flew an airplane one day—and then from law school. He set up shop in Ada as a criminal attorney. In thirty-three years at the bar he had earned a reputation as the best criminal lawyer in town. A large, stocky man, he was a familiar figure at the courthouse, always walking slowly on the arm of his female legal assistant, black glasses shielding his eyes. His office was in the American Building, diagonally across the street from the courthouse; there his assistant read to him whatever material he needed in the preparation of his cases. He was known to be sympathetic to poor people in trouble.

Barney Ward was the first choice of Tricia and Joel to defend Tommy. Joel called the lawyer’s office from Tricia’s house; his legal assistant took the call. For many long minutes Joel explained the situation—Tommy’s tale of his dream, all the information that had not been in the news accounts. The assistant asked Joel to hold on. He held while for many more long minutes the assistant relayed the information to the attorney. Then she got back on the phone. She said that Mr. Ward was sorry, but that he would not be able to take the case.

Barney Ward did not know the defendants. But he had heard the scuttlebutt: that they were not very bright, that they had repudiated the confessions. And it was public knowledge that no body, no physical evidence whatever, had yet been found. Unlike most of the town, he was not convinced that they were guilty. But he had his own problems about taking the case. One was financial. The case gave every promise of being long and arduous and time-consuming, of being a losing proposition financially. More important, he knew Dr. Haraway, who was a familiar figure around town. Whoever defended these boys would earn the undying bitterness of the Haraway family. And in a town that small, he would continue to run into the Haraways. In his younger days Barney Ward might have sacrificed such considerations to his desire for legal and social justice. But now he felt he was too old for that sort of strain. So he turned it down. There were other attorneys who could defend the boys.

The second attorney Joel called reflected a different attitude, the one that pervaded most of Ada’s legal community. “Frankly,” the lawyer told Joel coldly, “I’d rather prosecute.”

Though they did not want to settle for a court-appointed attorney, Bud and Tricia went to see Assistant District Attorney Chris Ross, to find out how the system worked, should it become necessary. They knew Chris Ross; they had been in the same foster-parent class. The visit sent a shudder of apprehension through the law offices of Ada. No one wanted to defend Tommy Ward. One consideration was money. The fee an attorney received from the state, if appointed in a capital case, was only $2,500—chicken feed, in the eyes of most of the lawyers. And defending Tommy Ward, most of the lawyers feared, would be devastating to their livelihoods. They received most of their income not from criminal cases but from civil suits: divorces, accident and injury cases. The town was convinced that the suspects were guilty; the town was outraged about what, according to the taped confessions, had been done to Denice Haraway. Whoever defended these boys was likely to see much of his civil practice drop away.

That was the scuttlebutt in the law offices and in the courthouse and in the restaurants near the courthouse where the lawyers and the judges often ate—the Feed Store, Mercy’s sandwich shop. Several attorneys said they would quit the bar before they would defend Tommy Ward or Karl Fontenot.

For several days, Tricia and Bud and Joel and Miz Ward did not know what to do. Then, at the feed mill, Bud heard about Don Wyatt. He heard it from several people: Don Wyatt had represented them in accident cases, workmen’s compensation cases, and had won. He was not afraid to take on the big factories, the big insurance companies. They needed someone who was not afraid. Why not give Don Wyatt a call, over at Wyatt & Addicott?

Joel did. Don Wyatt told him over the phone that his fee to represent Tommy would be $25,000, that $3,000 would have to be paid as a retainer; the rest would have to be paid within a year.

Joel called Tricia, told her what Wyatt had said. The fee seemed enormous. But they had to get Tommy out of this trouble; they were sure he was innocent. Perhaps, if they couldn’t raise $25,000, the lawyer would take Miz Ward’s house on Ashland Avenue. Joel wired Tricia some money from Tulsa. They got in touch with their sister Melva out in California, told her what was going on. Melva, too, was convinced that Tommy could not have done such a thing. She wired the rest of the money. Tricia took the $3,000 to Don Wyatt’s office on Arlington.

The lawyer wasn’t in. She left the money with his receptionist. A few hours later, Wyatt phoned her. There had been some misunderstanding, he said. He would need a $3,000 retainer if he agreed to take the case. But he had not yet agreed to take it. First he wanted to talk to Tommy, he said. Then he would decide. Meanwhile, she’d better come and get the money.

Tricia went and got the money and drove back home, at a loss as to what to do next.

In their taped statements, both Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot said the crime had been committed with Odell Titsworth’s truck. Since the police were convinced within a matter of days that Titsworth could not have committed the crime, they were left with yet another problem: what pickup had been used? And where was it now? Neither Ward nor Fontenot owned a truck. A check of motor vehicle records indicated that Titsworth did not own a pickup, but that one of his sisters, Melba, did. The police obtained a search warrant for it. On the Monday after the arrests they located the pickup. It was parked outside a sumptuous two-story sprawling home at 110 Mayfair Way; the home of Don Wyatt, attorney.

Marie Titsworth, Odell’s mother, had been cleaning the houses of well-off Ada residents for eight years. For six of those years one of her employers had been Don Wyatt. On Wednesday evenings and on Saturdays she dusted and vacuumed his large suite of offices. On Mondays she cleaned his home. The relationship between the busy attorney and his wife, and the small, gentle Indian woman, had become through the years one of total trust and affection.

That Monday, Mrs. Titsworth had borrowed her daughter’s truck to get to work, as she often did. Midway through the day, as she was cleaning the lawyer’s house, with the Wyatts away at work, she happened to glance out the front window, and noticed a police car parked outside; parked right behind her truck, blocking it. As she continued with her cleaning, her vacuuming, she glanced frequently out the window. The police car remained where it was. Finally she went outside, to see what the problem was.