The Trial of Dr. Kate (30 page)

“No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“How long have you known Army Johnson?”

“All my life.”

“Do you find him attractive?”

“Not particularly.”

“What would you say if I told you that a lot of people in Round Rock think you’ve had a crush on Army Johnson since you were a little girl?”

“Objection! The defense is badgering the witness, Your Honor, introducing hearsay gossip that’s completely irrelevant. Miss Under-wood is not on trial here.”

“Sustained. Make your point soon, Mr. Watson.”

Jake leaned against the rail and spoke in a soft voice. “Did you once say to your sister, ‘If anything ever happens to you, I’m going to marry Army?’”

“No, that’s silly!”

“Remember that you’re under oath to tell the truth. Do you know what the word
perjury
means?”

“Yes.”

“So let me ask you again. Did you ever make a statement like that to your sister?”

Trudy’s eyes flashed, and she stared at Thelonious. He looked at his notes. She didn’t say anything, just sat silently staring over the heads of the spectators.

Jake said, “We’re waiting, Trudy.”

“I might have.”

“Might or did?”

“Did. Once. We were joking.”

“About your sister’s death?”

“No! We wouldn’t joke about that.”

“Okay. You’ve told Mr. Flatt that your sister suspected her husband and Dr. Kate were having an affair. She was suspicious because Army Johnson went to Kate’s clinic from time to time and brought her things from Nashville and sometimes Knoxville. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any knowledge of what those things might be?”

“No.”

“You realize that Kate, Army, and your sister had been good friends since high school.”

“They were friends once.”

“Not recently?”

“Lillie didn’t think of them as friends.”

“Even though she continued to have Dr. Kate take care of her, and even though she and her husband invited the doctor to their house on many occasions?”

“There ain’t no other doctor up here, and it was Army who invited her, not Lillie.”

“Do you have any personal knowledge of an affair between Army Johnson and Kate Marlow?”

“I’ve seen them together, seen those looks. I saw Kate crying, and I saw Army put his arm around her shoulder. I’m not dumb.”

Jake grinned and stepped back from the rail to address the jury. “No, you’re not dumb, Trudy. But I think you might be trying to make a case for something that doesn’t exist.”

Trudy looked at Jake with venom in her eyes. Jake ambled over to the jury box, relaxed and at ease, and placed his right hand on the rail. “Let’s talk about the syringe. Dr. Kate was a very good student. She made the equivalent of straight A’s through medical school. I think most of us would agree that she’s a smart woman. Would you?”

“How would I know?”

“Let’s assume for the moment that she is. Do you really believe that a smart person would kill someone and then leave the murder weapon in plain sight?”

“Objection! The witness is not a forensic expert. She’s not knowledgeable in the thinking of criminals.”

“Sustained. The jury will disregard Mr. Watson’s last question.”

“Are you jealous of Dr. Kate—of her friendship with Army Johnson?”

“Why would I be jealous of an old woman?”

A wave of snickers arose from the spectators, and Judge Grant brought his gavel down hard. “Order!”

Jake glanced up at the judge. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

“You may step down, Miss Underwood,” the judge said.

Thelonious said, “The prosecution rests its case, Your Honor.”

Judge Grant brought his gavel down and said, “Court is recessed for lunch. We will start promptly at two o’clock, when Mr. Watson will present his defense.”

A
t the City Café, Shenandoah picked up two BLT sandwiches, two orders of French fries, and a couple of Cokes. On the way to Hank’s house, she swung by the garage, but the big door remained closed and Bobby’s pickup was nowhere in sight.

Since Sheriff Kingman had made an ass of himself, Austin and Shenandoah had decided that Austin should stay away from the downtown area, so they met at Hank’s house.

Austin was sitting under a hickory tree reading his law book when Shenandoah walked up. “Hope you like BLTs,” Shenandoah said.

“Sure. The bacon down here is kind of fatty, though, don’t you think?”

“I guess. I never thought much about it. Seen Hank?”

“Earlier. Said he was going to somebody’s house. Hattie Mae?”

“That’s where I stay. I’ve grown really attached to the old girl—and her dog. Most obnoxious and ugly creature you ever saw. He looks like death eating a cracker, as we say in Parsons County. English bull. I’ve got a soft spot for him too.”

“Funny name, Hattie Mae.”

“Typical southern name. The dog’s called Mr. Applebee. Don’t ask me why.”

Austin laughed. “South’s a strange place. There are a few things I like about it, though.”

“The fried chicken and the girls?”

“Particularly the girls. You got a boyfriend?”

Shenandoah shrugged. She’d called Bobby’s house when she first got up, but his mother said he was at the garage. When she called there, she didn’t get an answer.

“I think so,” she said. “He’s kind of upset with me right now. Maybe it’ll pass. I’m not sure, though. He’s stubborn as a mule.”

“Like your doctor friend?”

“Kate’s headstrong and stubborn in a good way. I’ve seen her in action, and she knows what she’s doing.”

“Thelonious doesn’t like her. They say she’s pretty.”

“More regal in my mind. You know—a lot of grace.”

“What’s your boyfriend like?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. For one thing he’s a senior at a small college down in Cookeville, a math major—”

Shenandoah heard tires squealing and looked up to see Jasper Kingman’s patrol car come to a stop in front of Hank’s house. The lanky sheriff got out of the vehicle and swaggered to where Austin and Shenandoah were sitting. Both of them stood.

“What’re you nitwits doing in colored town?” the sheriff asked.

“Minding our own business. Something you can’t seem to do,” Shenandoah said.

“Were you at the jail last night?”

“Yes.”

“What in the hell made you people think I’m running a damn clinic? I don’t give a shit if every nigger in the county bleeds to death. Good riddance as far as I’m concerned.”

“What are you, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan? How in the hell did you get elected sheriff?” Shenandoah asked.

“You’ve been away too long, Shenandoah. Don’t know your own people anymore. Go back to Memphis.”

Jasper Kingman walked back to his cruiser and slammed the door. As Shenandoah knew he would, the sheriff spun his tires on the dry pavement.

“That man makes me a nervous wreck,” Austin said.

“I hate his fucking guts,” Shenandoah said.

As they ate their sandwiches, Shenandoah realized she had almost two hours before she was due back in court. Although her visit to Junior had gone better than she had expected, the thought of visiting her relatives in Beulah Land weighed heavy on her mind.

“It’s a while before court starts and I’ve got somewhere to go,” Shenandoah said. “See you tomorrow.”

* * *

Shenandoah drove out the highway to the site of her birth. She parked on the shoulder of the asphalt near the pump she’d drawn sulfur-laced water from as a child. That one pump served everyone in Beulah Land. She stood at the foot of the hill and looked up at the tarpaper shacks of the Coleman, Crouch, and Smith families. Just looking at the place made her stomach churn.

Several scantily clad children played in the dirt and eyed her suspiciously as she climbed the hill to Junior’s hut. She knocked on the door, and her aunt Bertha answered. She stood a few inches taller than Shenandoah and outweighed her by at least seventy-five pounds. Her hands were as big as hams, and her fingernails were long, chipped, and dirty. She squinted at Shenandoah with dark brown eyes that would have benefited from glasses. Her gray-streaked brown hair lay plastered to her skull. She looked like she was seventy, although in truth Shenandoah knew that she was only in her early fifties.

Shenandoah stared into Bertha’s dark eyes and said, “Hello, Aunt Bertha. It’s Shenandoah.”

“When I seen Junior yesterday, he said you was in town. Come in, child. I ain’t set eyes on you since you was a teenager.”

As Shenandoah followed her aunt into the shack, childhood memories swept through her mind like a summer thunderstorm. The home had changed little in the years she’d been gone. The few windows still lacked screens, and flies buzzed in and out. Kerosene lamps were the only source of light, and the furniture, old and in poor repair, was scattered haphazardly about the room. An ancient icebox occupied one corner.

“Tell me about yourself, honey. We been wondering about you for a long time.”

“I live in Memphis and work for a newspaper. Junior said Gilbert has a new baby.”

“Cute little fellow. They call him Jamie. Come on and we’ll go see him.”

The two of them climbed the hill to her uncle Gilbert’s almost identical shack. The door stood open, and they walked in. Gilbert’s wife, Gilda, was an emaciated woman with a leathery face, deep blue, watery eyes, and limp brown hair that hung below her shoulders. She wore a dress made from Martha White flour sacks. Her feet, like Bertha’s, were bare. Gilda spoke softly because of a hearing loss that made her own voice seem loud to her. Most people had a difficult time understanding her. Thick, yellow, and foul-smelling pus frequently ran from her ears, and much of the time, her ear canals stayed blocked with plugs of cotton to absorb the wetness.

When Gilda saw Shenandoah and Bertha, she said in a whisper, “Howdy, Bertha. That you, Shenandoah?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come here, child, and let me get a good look at you.”

Shenandoah went to where Gilda sat in a rickety rocking chair. She realized the woman was breastfeeding her new baby. Her breast was thin and long, and it looked as if it held little milk. The baby boy sucked and pulled on it with pink little fingers.

“You look good, honey—nice and strong. I want Jamie to be healthy and strong like you.”

“He’s a cute baby, Aunt Gilda. I know you’re proud of him.”

“I am, and Gilbert is too.”

“How is Uncle Gilbert? What’s going on with Uncle Lester and Aunt Lulu?”

“Gilbert’s working on the loading dock at the shirt factory, and Lester’s at the stockyard in Nashville. They’re doing right well for Coleman men.”

Shenandoah couldn’t wait to get out of the foul-smelling shack. Glancing at her watch, she said, “I’m really sorry for stopping for such a short time, but I have to get back to the courthouse. It was good seeing you both. Say hello to Gilbert and Lester for me.”

As she strolled down the hill, the dirty children staring at her, Shenandoah wondered,
What would my life be like if I’d stayed in Round Rock? Would I be married to an illiterate third cousin? Or even Ashley Crouch?

She stopped at the rusty hand pump and looked up at the tarpaper shacks. She felt ashamed of herself for the haughty attitude she’d held toward her relatives all those years. She knew that her IQ was a stroke of luck and that somehow she had been endowed with ambition. These poor people worked with what they had and did the best they could. Who was she to look down on them? If it hadn’t been for Frances Washington, she’d still be here living hand-to-mouth, just as they were.

Shenandoah shook her head as if to clear her mind and drove back to the courthouse. She’d just passed a sharp curve in the road when the Dodge pickup came roaring out of nowhere and hit her back bumper, causing her car to spin out of control. She desperately fought the steering wheel until she managed to keep from sliding off the road. The pickup hit her again, and she floored the accelerator. Shenandoah managed to increase her lead, but the Dodge kept right behind her.
Jesus Christ, the bastard’s going to kill me.

The Bel Air’s speedometer needle passed one hundred just as Shenandoah saw that she was heading into a curve. She slammed on the brakes. The car shook violently but didn’t slow. She had no choice but to ride the curve out. The car went into a four-wheel drift and then turned backward. She had lost complete control of the Bel Air, and it was taking the remainder of the curve in reverse. Shenandoah blinked and saw the Dodge fly by her and leave the road. It jumped the shoulder, plowed through a fence, hit a tree stump, flipped onto its top, and came to rest in a plowed field.

By this time, the Bel Air had slowed enough that Shenandoah was able to stop it in the middle of the blacktop. Steam streamed from her radiator and the hood had popped up. She opened the driver’s door and crawled out. She shook all over, and there was blood on her forehead. She grabbed her shoulder bag and ran into the field toward the overturned pickup.

When she reached the Dodge, she saw that the driver had been thrown into the passenger seat and appeared to be unconscious. The window was open, so Shenandoah reached into the cab and grabbed the driver’s shoulder. She pulled the driver out and rolled the unconscious body over onto its back.

The driver was a woman. She had short black hair and was wearing bib overalls and engineering boots. Shenandoah felt a shock of recognition. The woman opened her eyes and stared at Shenandoah with hatred etched into the muscles of her face.

“Lisbeth Crouch?” Shenandoah asked. “Is that you?”

Nodding, Lisbeth Crouch sat up on the bare dirt and rubbed her shoulder. “Yes, it’s me, bitch. I thought I’d finally killed you.”

Shenandoah was in a state of shock. She hadn’t seen Lisbeth since she’d left Round Rock before the war. “Why on earth would you want to kill me? The last time you tried to get me, I had a two-year-old kid in the truck. You could have killed that innocent child!”

“I didn’t see a kid in the damn truck. And I’m going to kill you because I hate you. Because I hate you with all my soul.”

“That makes no sense, Lisbeth—I’ve never done anything to you—never hurt you.”