And him?
Him I have not named and will not do so now.
To leave him unnamed, I know, contradicts the most fundamental rule of what used to be my business. With all their implicit associations, names are like ions that plate gold. Merely dropping a name into a set of few facts is often enough to tell a full story. Think about names on honor-roll lists.
But I will not now. I named him the first time. Naming him now, naming him again, would make him more human than he is and me less so than I am.
Further, I will not comment. Except to tell one last story. About why I wrote this. About why, despite what most think, a verdict is never the final word.
Readers, usually with a certain vindictive tone, are always pleased to point out that the paper and I got it wrong when we ran that interview and analysis before the verdict came back. Just another example of the press not getting things right, they like to say, printing just bad things, even about good people, like Crandall and Wood.
Well, Wood is a good man, and he called me the night before Secrist sentenced the Defendant to enough consecutive life sentences to assure the public he would die alone in a crate. Wood said the Defendant had asked me to ride along with Moze and him to the state prison system’s processing center to do another interview.
I said I would pass. It was Marley’s call to make and I probably should’ve told him about it, but I had been there and I had done that and I could not think of a single way talking to him again would benefit readers or me.
I told Wood, though, I knew a reporter who would jump at the chance and look better doing it. I gave him Janelle’s number, and she wrote a pretty good story, a point-counterpoint, in which she followed each long quote from him with a long, italicized quote from the testimony of Lottie or Jake or some other State witness.
The best remedy for foul speech is more speech, so First Amendment fans say, in other contexts, of course. Wish I’d thought of it.
I saw Moze when he got back. After things settled and time healed a wound here and there, Moze let me watch him eat French toast again. Dreamer that he is, Moze asked me if I knew Janelle’s number, maybe he’d look her up. And kid deputy that he remained, despite the entire experience, he wiped syrup from his face, and he said he listened to every word the Defendant told Janelle in the car, and now he just had to wonder, did that jury get it right?
“From what I heard, I just don’t know,” Moze said. “Maybe he’s not guilty.”
Sweet Jesus.
So call this a prayer. For the wisdom of juries. And maybe—just maybe—for a fat boy redeemed.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Craig Scott, Cathy Kissling, and Robert Kissling for their time, their careful reading of the manuscript, and their thoughtful comments. They helped me see aspects of the story I had not seen previously, even after the all the years I spent on this book, and so made it better. They cannot be faulted for those instances when I did not take their advice or act on it to the extent they might have wished. That’s always on me.
And, of course, I remain grateful to Jane Gastineau, not only for everything else she adds to my life, but also, in this case, for gently prodding me to see this through.
Fourth Person No More Page 39
