Grass Roots

by Stuart Woods

  “Did Larry Moody, in your presence, make any sort of advances toward Miss Cole?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say anything to her at all that did not concern the repair of the furnace and the replacement of the thermostat?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Please don’t suppose, Miss Walker; you were there.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “So the conversation was a perfectly normal one concerning the repair of the furnace, with no untoward remarks on the part of Larry Moody?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, Miss Walker, do you regard yourself as infallible with regard to judging the attitudes of men toward women?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then is it possible that another person present, a reasonable person, might have put a different light on whatever … glances might have passed between Larry Moody and Sarah Cole?”

  “Well I didn’t … ”

  “Please, Miss Walker, we’re talking about another possible view. Might another reasonable person have viewed this meeting differently?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And after Larry Moody left the Center, having done his proper job, and when you remarked to Sarah Cole about him, she said, and I quote, ‘Don’t worry. He didn’t bother me.’ ”

  The young woman was sullen. “Yes, but—”

  “So Sarah Cole, by her own account, wasn’t bothered by Larry Moody. But you were bothered?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Miss Walker, do you approve of white men being attracted to black women?”

  She seemed to have difficulty speaking. “I guess it’s all right,” she said finally.

  “Miss Walker, have you ever had a white boyfriend?”

  Elton Hunter was on his feet. “Objection.”

  “This is proper exploration of the witness’s attitudes,” Will said.

  “Overruled,” the Judge said. “Witness will answer.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Have you ever been asked out by a white man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever accept such an invitation from a white man?”

  “No.”

  Will was careful to keep his voice conversational, not to seem to badger the girl. “Miss Walker, would it be fair to say that you are uncomfortable with the idea of a white man asking out a black woman?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” she admitted quietly, looking down at her hands.

  “Then wouldn’t it be fair to say that you are uncomfortable with the idea of a white man being attracted to a black woman?”

  “I suppose so,” she said again.

  “And isn’t it just possible that your interpretation of the meeting of Larry Moody and Sarah Cole might have been affected by your strongly held attitude?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said firmly.

  Will looked at her in silence for a moment. “Thank you, Miss Walker,” he said sympathetically, “that will be all.”

  Will returned to the defense table and sat down.

  Larry Moody leaned over and whispered, “You won that one.”

  “If we’re lucky, it might be a tie,” Will said under his breath.

  “We’ll take one hour for lunch,” the Judge said.

  16

  “The prosecution calls Roosevelt Watkins,” Elton Hunter said.

  Roosevelt Watkins took the stand and was sworn. He was dressed in a neat gray suit that looked new. He looked amiably at Elton Hunter, then turned and smiled at Will, who smiled back.

  “Mr. Watkins,” Hunter began.

  “Just call me Roosevelt,” the black man said. “Everybody calls me that. Fact, I met Franklin D. hisself, one time, and he called me Roosevelt.”

  “Fine, Roosevelt,” Hunter said. “Where do you live?”

  “I got me a place out off the La Grange highway; real comfortable place,” Roosevelt said, smiling broadly at Hunter.

  “Does your place have a view of the city landfill site?”

  “Yessir, a real good view.”

  “And on December seventeenth of last year, were you looking out your window at the landfill?”

  “You mean, when I saw the truck?”

  “That’s right, Roosevelt.”

  “Yessir, I saw it.”

  “Tell us what happened that day, please.”

  “Well, I reckon it was ‘bout quarter to seven in the evening, and I was frying up some fatback to have with my cornbread—my daughter, she fix me the cornbread. And I looked up from the stove, and I seen this light brown truck—a van, like—pull up out in the dump, and this fellar get out, and he go around to the back, and he take a big bundle out of the truck, the van, and he kind of drag it over a pile of stuff and he leave it there, and then he gets back in the van and he drive off.”

  “You say it was a big bundle that he removed from the van, Roosevelt?”

  “Yessir, pretty big.”

  “Was it as big as a woman?”

  “Yessir, if she wasn’t too big of a woman.”

  “Do you see the man who drove the van in this courtroom?”

  “Yessir, he sitting right over there next to Mr. Lee, there.” Roosevelt pointed at Larry Moody.

  “Your witness,” Hunter said to Will.

  “Good morning, Roosevelt,” Will said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lee,” he replied.

  “That’s a very handsome suit you’re wearing,” Will said.

  “Why, thank you, sir.” Roosevelt grinned. “Mr. Hunter over here give it to me.”

  The courtroom laughed, and Elton Hunter looked uncomfortable.

  “Roosevelt, you say you saw a truck?”

  “Yessir. Some calls it a van.”

  “Did you tell the sheriff you saw a truck?”

  “Yessir, he come out there the next morning when they find that girl, and he ask me. I told him I saw a truck.”

  “And did the sheriff say it was a van?”

  “Yessir, and he done took me down to the jailhouse in his car and show it to me.”

  Will let that lie; he didn’t want Roosevelt Watkins to repeat his identification of the truck. “Did the sheriff ask you to look at anybody else?”

  “Yessir, he did. A whole line of gentlemen.”

  “And did you pick one of them out as being Larry Moody?”

  “Yessir, I did.”

  “Roosevelt, how were these fellows standing when you picked them out?”

  “They was up against a wall, with a bright light shining on them.”

  “Did they have their backs to you?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Why did they have their backs to you?”

  “Well, I reckon it was because the curtains got in my way a little bit when I was looking out that window, and I only got a good look at him from the back.”

  “After you picked out Larry Moody in the lineup—from looking at his back—did the men in the lineup turn around?”

  “Yessir, they did.”

  “And was that the first time you ever saw Larry Moody’s face?”

  “Yessir, it was.”

  “Roosevelt, how far was Larry Moody from you when you picked him out of the lineup from behind?”

  “Oh, ‘bout half as far as he is from me right now.”

  “Roosevelt, do you wear glasses?”

  “No, sir,” he replied emphatically. “I got the eyes of a hawk.”

  Will pointed at the courtroom clock, which was hung on the balcony at the back of the room. “Roosevelt, can you tell me what time it is right now by looking at that clock?”

  Watkins gazed at the clock for a moment, then squinted. “Well, them little black hands is too little, I reckon.”

  Will turned to Larry Moody. “Larry, would you remove your jacket, please?”

  Larry Moody shucked off his jacket and stood.

  “Roosevelt, would you say that Larry Moody is a pretty husky fellow?”

  “Yessir, I would.”

  “
Would it surprise you if I told you that Larry is a weightlifter, that he lifts weights every day?”

  “No, sir, he look pretty strong to me.”

  “Thank you, Larry, you can put your jacket back on. Roosevelt, you said the bundle the man dragged out of the truck wasn’t too big, that if it was a woman, it would be a small woman, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, if I read you from the coroner’s report, here”—Will picked up a document from the defense table and read from it—“that Sarah Cole was five feet three inches tall and weighed a hundred and five pounds, would that sound about the size of the bundle?”

  “Yessir, I reckon that’d be ‘bout right.”

  “Now, does Larry Moody look to you as if he could pick up a girl weighing a hundred and five pounds?”

  “He sure do. He look strong to me.”

  “But the man you saw take the bundle from the truck dragged it over the mound of garbage. Is that right?”

  “That’s right,” Roosevelt said, scratching his chin and looking curious. “Mr. Moody sure don’t look like he’d have to drag her.”

  Will smiled in spite of himself. Roosevelt was a wonderful witness. “Just one more thing, Roosevelt,” Will said. “You ever been down to Milledgeville?”

  Roosevelt smiled broadly. “Oh, yessir, I done been to Milledgeville three times. The doctors say—”

  Elton Hunter, too late, was on his feet. “Objection!” he cried.

  “Withdraw the question,” Will said. “No further questions.” He returned to his seat with the knowledge that everybody in the courtroom, including the jury, knew that Milledgeville was the site of the Georgia state mental hospital, and that “going to Milledgeville” meant a person was crazy as a coot.

  He had won that round, Will reckoned. Tomorrow, though, he would have to take on the state’s scientific witnesses, and that was not going to be so clear-cut.

  17

  The doctor had been right. Mickey Keane shouldn’t have left the hospital when he did, and now he knew it. It had taken him two days of rest and slow movement before he could get around at all. Now, while he was far from whole, he could struggle behind the wheel of his new car and drive.

  “Just send me the insurance check for your old car when it comes,” Manny Pearl had said. “We’ll call the difference a bonus for nearly getting killed.”

  He sat, now, in the car, the smell of the new interior filling his nostrils, and from the mall parking lot next door, he watched the doctor’s office. He had been there for an hour when, a little after six, she left. It had been her voice on the phone, he was sure of it.

  Through the binoculars, he made a note of her license-plate number, then started his car and swung into traffic behind her red Chevrolet Beretta. Five minutes later, he followed her into a supermarket parking lot and waited while she shopped. She emerged with half a dozen heavy bags of groceries in her cart, a lot for a woman who didn’t wear a wedding ring. Suzy Adams, apparently, did not live alone.

  He followed her farther along the shopping strip and off into an area of up-market condominiums and rental units, then watched as she turned into the gate of what seemed to be a newly built complex. The gate security guard knew her, waved her through. Keane waited for her to disappear into the complex, then drove to the gate and stopped.

  The uniformed guard came out of the gatehouse. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Keane showed him his badge. “You can tell me the name of the lady who just drove through in the red Beretta.”

  “That’s Mrs. Ross.”

  “She new here?”

  “Everybody’s new here, pal. The place has only been open for three months or so. There are still some unsold units.”

  “What does Mr. Ross look like?” Keane asked.

  “What’s this about?” the guard asked.

  “Can you keep your mouth shut?”

  “Sure,” the guard said, as if his professional standing had been doubted.

  “This is a drug investigation. The lady works in a doctor’s office where larger-than-usual amounts of opiates and amphetamines have been prescribed for the past few months. I don’t know if she’s involved, but I’ve got to find out. I’ll clear her, if she’s clean.”

  “Oh, I see,” the guard said, suddenly becoming a colleague.

  “So, what does Mr. Ross look like?”

  “Tell you the truth, I’m not sure which one he is. I only know her because I issued her parking permit when she moved in. Most of the folks here, if they’ve got a sticker on the windshield, I just wave them through. That’s my orders.”

  “I see. Which unit are the Rosses in?”

  “Forty-nine C,” the guard said, checking a list. “Ground floor.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Straight ahead, first left, first right, second building on the left. Forty-nine C would be the last unit on the ground floor.”

  “Thanks,” Keane said, driving quickly on. He made the turns and came around the last corner in time to see Suzy Adams do something strange. She rang the doorbell. There was a pause, then someone opened the door from the inside, and she went in. A moment later, she came out, followed by a man.

  Keane’s pulse quickened. He was tall and skinny, had a mustache, wore sunglasses, even though it was dusk. Keane pulled into a parking spot and got the binoculars out of the glove compartment. The two were unloading groceries from Suzy’s car. The man stood still and looked carefully around him. Keane scrunched down in the seat. The man’s ears rested flat against his head, and his nose was straight. Apart from his height and weight, he looked nothing at all like Perkerson’s photograph, but the hairs were standing up on the back of Keane’s neck. Shortly, the two went inside with the groceries and shut the door.

  Now Keane had to decide what to do next. It was nearly dark out now, but he was in no shape to start sneaking around, peeking into windows; not while he was on crutches. He could call the Atlanta PD and demand a raid on the place, but it was outside the city limits and would have to be coordinated with the Marietta police. If he was wrong about this guy, he’d humiliate himself and use up whatever goodwill he might still have in the department. Or he could sit here and wait.

  He waited, increasingly hungry and needing a bathroom badly, until after eleven, when the lights went out in the apartment. Tired and sore from sitting in the car so long, Keane drove home. He would come back in the morning and wait the man out. Sooner or later, he’d have to leave the apartment, and then Keane could get a closer look, maybe nail him. Right now, though, he needed a toilet, some food, a drink, and some sleep.

  18

  At seven A.M. on Tuesday, Will got into a car with Tom Black. He was a little fuzzy, having spoken to two civic clubs and done six telephone interviews with radio stations around the state, all after a full day of the trial. This morning, before court, Tom had scheduled a sausage-and-biscuits breakfast hosted by a Greenville women’s club.

  “The news is not good this morning,” Tom said immediately. “Our most recent poll, taken this past Sunday, shows us stalled at fifty for Calhoun, forty-seven for you, and three percent undecided. The TV stuff has brought us that far. We didn’t seem to actually get hurt in the debate, but we didn’t help ourselves much, either.”

  “I don’t know what else to do,” Will said. “We’ve put everything we could scrape up into TV; my every moment between now and next Tuesday is scheduled; what haven’t we done?”

  “I don’t know,” Tom said. “We’ve got something new in this poll, though. Moss did an extra layer of questions for all the people who say they’re voting for Calhoun. Turns out, eight percent of his voters say they’re voting for Calhoun only because they suspect you of being a homosexual. That’s enough to give him the election.”

  “Oh, no,” Will groaned. “I thought we had put that to rest a long time ago.”

  “Not when Calhoun keeps harping on it all the time.”

  “Maybe if I were on trial for
murdering Sarah Cole instead of Larry Moody, that would convince the doubters.”

  “Only if you were convicted,” Tom said wryly. He pulled into a convenience store. “I want to get a paper,” he said. Moments later, he came back, grinning. “Maybe this will help.” He tossed the paper to Will.

  On the front page was a photograph taken on the courthouse steps, a close-up of Will and Charlene Joiner. She was looking up at him, her chin tucked down, her eyes lifted. The effect was riveting.

  “Christ,” Will said, “this is all I need.” The photograph made him very uncomfortable. Since Katharine Rule’s reappearance on the scene, he had been feeling increasingly guilty about his fling with Charlene, and even more worried that it might come to light.

  Tom laughed. “Don’t knock it; we need it. You know, yesterday Kitty predicted that Charlene was going to become the media star of this trial, and now I believe it. That girl photographs even better than she looks in person, and that ain’t bad. Charlene ought to be in the movies. You notice, they managed to get a nice profile of her tits in that shot.”

  “Well, Charlene is something of a wild card in this trial; she’s my best hope for convincing the jury that Larry Moody would have no desire to rape Sarah Cole, not with Charlene at home.” He stopped speaking and slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Oh, shit,” he moaned, “I think I’ve just figured out why Larry is charged only with murder, not rape.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of Charlene. I think I’ve underestimated Elton Hunter. He knows Charlene is Larry’s alibi, but he knows I’ll try to make her a sort of sexual alibi, too. He’s going to do everything possible to keep rape out of this.”

  “Then what’s he going to use for a motive?”

  “I don’t know,” Will said glumly. “I wish I did.”

  *

  Elton Hunter called the sheriff and elicited his testimony on the arrest and identification of Larry Moody and the removal of the carpeting from his van. Will had no objections to the testimony, and the sheriff stepped down.

  “The State calls Dr. Edward Rosenfeld,” Elton Hunter said.

  A handsome man in his thirties took the stand and was sworn.

  “Doctor,” Hunter began, “how are you employed?”

  “I am an associate director of the Georgia State Crime Laboratory,” the doctor replied.