Gideon - 05 - Blind Judgement

by Grif Stockley

  Butterfield proclaims, “Corliss Williamson was ready for every game. These guys play only when they feel like it.”

  I ask him how come he doesn’t have a framed, autographed picture of Nolan Richardson on the wall like the sheriff, and Butterfield laughs and puts his feet up on his desk, saying one is in his filing cabinet.

  “Woodrow has threatened to arrest me if I try to put mine up.”

  I nod, appreciating his willingness to acknowledge the rivalry between him and the sheriff.

  From what I’ve seen of Bonner, he doesn’t have enough of a sense of humor to joke about it. Without missing a beat, Butterfield says casually, “If your client is willing to testify at the trial that Paul Taylor hired him to murder Willie Ting, I’ll knock his charge down to second-degree murder.”

  Butterfield hasn’t changed expression. This is no time for me to be cute. Though the maximum sentence is twenty years for second-degree murder, Class could be eligible for parole in five years. I reply bluntly, “I’ll talk to him. When do you need an answer?”

  Butterfield, who seems the type to dress for the occasion, whatever it is, fingers the vest of his three-piece gray pinstriped suit.

  “No later than this time next week,” he says, his voice going flat and betraying an intensity I haven’t seen before.

  Suddenly I realize that behind his almost folksy, deferential manner,

  Butterfield knows exactly what he is doing. This friendliness is just his way of dealing with white folks. Wanting to know if he has his own reasons for prosecuting Paul, I ask, “Did you know the Taylors once were the richest planters in this part of the state?”

  Butterfield again retreats behind a smile and makes a show of stretching his long frame as if he is tired.

  “I know lots of things about east Arkansas. Some good, some bad.”

  I wonder what he knows about my history over here.

  “It’s easy to make a case that the bad ole days were pretty bad,” I say, hoping to encourage him to talk.

  Instead, he says, his voice bland, “That’s all in the past. Better to get along. Y’all didn’t like the bad ole days much either. They were hard on everybody.”

  I think to myself this guy must be a pretty smooth campaigner among whites. What good does it do to throw the past up to somebody if you want his vote? If Butterfield is one of the blacks who wants to take over completely, he isn’t admitting it.

  “Getting along isn’t so easy,” I say.

  “Bear Creek is living proof of that.”

  Butterfield holds up his right hand and wiggles his fingers.

  “But we’re stuck with each other. I tell my campaign audiences to try to move their index fingers while keeping the ones on each side still.

  You can’t do it. That’s how we are in east Arkansas.”

  I smile politely. One of the flies in Butterfield’s metaphorical ointment is the rate at which whites are leaving places like Bear Creek. This guy isn’t going to give away shit. If he weren’t running for office, he might tell me what he really thinks about the Arkansas Delta, but all I will get now are platitudes.

  I get to my feet and tell him that I’ll be in touch as soon as I can but no later than Thursday.

  He says he’ll be in Helena and gives me his office number there. I leave the courthouse, pleased with this conversation. Second-degree murder is quite a leap from capital murder. Bledsoe may say he is innocent, but a few years in Cummins Prison compared to death row will cause him to reconsider. For whatever reason, Butterfield wants Paul in the worst way. If I have anything to do with it, he will get him.

  I speed the thirteen miles to Brickeys. Bledsoe is healthy again and surprised but glad to see me.

  I waste no time in telling him about my conversation with Butterfield.

  “He needs your testimony to convict Paul Taylor,” I explain, after I tell him the offer.

  “That’s why he is willing to give you a reduced sentence.”

  Bledsoe, who has begun to lose some weight, shakes his head.

  “I can’t say nothin’ that will help,” he mutters, ” ‘cause he didn’t hire me, and I didn’t do it.”

  I squint at him as if the truth might become clearer if I could bring him into focus better.

  What does he have to gain by lying? Maybe much more than I know. I say, hastily, “I don’t want you to tell me right now what you want to do. You think about this offer. If I could guarantee you an acquittal, I would have told Butterfield where he could go with his offer. I can’t do that. There’re innocent men who have been murdered by the state. If you insist on a trial, I can’t sit here and promise you that won’t happen to you.”

  “More than a dozen people could have framed me,” he says, his voice choking into a whisper.

  “Aren’t you gonna show that in court?”

  I nod.

  “I’ll do my best. Class, but there’s a big difference between telling a jury you might have been framed and proving that you actually were.

  Juries hear alibis all the time, and frankly one of the weakest and most ineffective is that a suspect was framed, unless there’s some real evidence to support it. So far, I haven’t been able to find any, or anyone or anything that proves you were home between two and four that

  afternoon. We still have a couple of months before the trial, and something may turn up, but things don’t look good.”

  Class sighs heavily.

  “What about Vie Worthy?”

  “I still haven’t talked to him,” I admit, “but you know as well as I do that Willie wouldn’t have let him within five yards of him if he had shown up at the plant. Whoever killed him was somebody he knew and at least halfway trusted.”

  His despair changes to anger, “You think it was me!” Admittedly, my faith in him was stronger three weeks ago, but I say, “Personally, I don’t think it was you, but you know as well as I do, it’s not what I think but what the jury thinks, and so far all the evidence is going to show is that the only fingerprints on the knife that killed Willie were yours, and you’re the only worker in the plant who can’t show you didn’t have an opportunity to kill Willie. Now that may change, but that’s the way it is now.”

  Class shakes me by asking, “If I plead guilty, will you give some of the money back we paid you? Latrice can’t support her and the baby on what she gets from that store.”

  I shake my head. I can’t let him make a decision based on money.

  “If you take this deal, and, in fact, it’s only a recommendation by the prosecutor, you have to tell the judge you’re pleading guilty because you are guilty, not just saying you are.” As soon ?s I recite this

  familiar phrase, “pleading guilty because you are guilty,” I realize how hypocritical the criminal law is. The judge is essentially telling a defendant he must stand trial if he believes he is innocent. But what innocent person in his right mind would risk a trial where the penalty could be death and the evidence appears overwhelming?

  Class, clearly puzzled, scratches his head. I have confused him. He asks, “Can’t I plead guilty, no matter what?”

  “You’re not supposed to, because you are lying to the court if you say you’re guilty when you’re not. On the other hand, I don’t see how justice is served if an innocent man can’t avoid a death sentence by pleading guilty and getting a reduced sentence. In other words, I’m telling you, if I were in a situation where I was innocent and was offered a reduced sentence but was pretty certain I’d get the death penalty if I went to trial, I’d say I was guilty.”

  He looks down at his feet.

  “And you think I’ll be convicted?” Butterfield is testing me by making this early offer. It’s a smart move, but he doesn’t know how smart.

  “It’s too early to say.

  There may be evidence by the time we get to the trial that exonerates you.”

  “But it’s my decision, isn’t it?” Class asks.

  “Yeah, it’s your decision,” I say.

  �
�I’ll think about it,” Class says, dismissing me.

  I drive back to Blackwell County, resisting the urge to call Angela.

  She wants to go slow. I can do that.

  Saturday afternoon spring is definitely in the air.

  It has made it all the way to 78 this afternoon.

  Even as unobservant as I am, I notice the trees beginning to bud and some daffodils blooming in the yards on Orchard Lane. Bear Creek before the mosquitoes arrive can be a nice place. As a kid here, my memory seems stuck in the sweltering summers of the Delta.

  In Angela’s yard there is a for sale sign. I wonder how much her house is worth. With so many others leaving, undoubtedly not as much as she wants. Angela greets me at the door with a warm smile. She is wearing a pair of shorts and a sleeveless blouse and nothing on her feet.

  “Well, you look comfortable,” she says, giving me the once over. I am wearing a pair of jeans and a pullover short-sleeved shirt that Sarah gave me for Christmas.

  And you look sexy, I think, but don’t say. I glance over my shoulder across the street. The house is dark, but Mrs. Petty must be in there somewhere peering out at us. As gorgeous as today is, I would have thought she would have been outside puttering in the flower bed around her house.

  “Do you think Mrs. Petty approves of you entertaining in short pants?”

  The smile on Angela’s face disappears.

  “She died in her sleep while I was in Atlanta. Her sister found her. I wasn’t here to go to her funeral.”

  I try not to stare at Angela’s legs. They look great.

  “She probably died of boredom,” I comment, “because you weren’t here for her to spy on.”

  Angela laughs.

  “You’re terrible. We’re all snoops here. You know that.”

  I turn my head away and stare at the sign in her yard.

  “Bad timing, wasn’t it? Now her house goes on the market at the same time.” Angela says dryly, “I can tell you’re really broken up over this.”

  Death. It’s seldom convenient.

  “You don’t seem all that upset either,” I observe.

  “She had a long life,” Angela says.

  “Not everybody does.”

  Since it is too pleasant to stay inside, we end up in her backyard drinking margaritas. I must have passed some test for Angela to show me off this way. In the next hour before it grows dark from the small brick patio she waves casually to her neighbors on both sides. I don’t know them, though doubtless with a couple of phone calls they can find out who I am if they don’t already know. Whatever the reason, Angela seems more relaxed. She admits to feeling better now that she’s made the decision to leave Bear Creek.

  “When the house sells, I’m going to move. I thought the boys would be angry, but they weren’t.”

  “They’re probably relieved,” I say, licking salt from the rim of the glass.

  “Farming sounds like hard work. Where are you moving?” I ask, not having anticipated this decision so quickly.

  Angela picks at a spot on the arm of the deck chair.

  “Maybe Atlanta, maybe Memphis. The problem is, I haven’t seen a lot of job ads for farmers’ wives.”

  So that is why she went to visit her old college roommate.

  “Have you thought about Little Rock?” I ask, trying to see her eyes for a clue to what she is thinking.

  “Now that your boys are in college, you don’t have to worry about the

  schools. It’s the center of the state. Granted, there are bad areas, but there are plenty of safe neighborhoods, too. You could easily get a job as a bookkeeper.”

  She looks up at me, her face solemn as an owl’s.

  “I have thought about it,” she says.

  “But I don’t want you to think I’m chasing you, Gideon.”

  I laugh at the thought.

  “If our relationship so far is your idea of a chase, I figure I’m safe until the turn of the century.”

  Instead of smiling, her eyes fill with tears.

  “I’m so scared. I know it’s stupid, but I’ve lived here thirty years.

  It hasn’t been easy, but we made it.

  Now, all I do is lie awake thinking: What if I can’t sell the house?

  What if Cecil and Nancy can’t even pay me the first year? Who wants to hire a fifty-year-old woman from the Arkansas Delta who never held a job in her life?”

  I reach over and pat her right hand, which has a death grip on her chair.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I say, not understanding until this moment how little self-confidence Angela has had. Maybe for good reason. Her life with Dwight wasn’t a bowl of cherries, and as good as she looks, most employers would rather have a perky twenty-two year-old who is already a whiz with spreadsheets than a widow trying to support two kids in college.

  Over a delicious dinner of pasta and salad, Angela pumps me about the case. I tell her what I’ve been doing the last week, but feel I shouldn’t reveal to her that Butterfield has offered Class a deal. It is not that I don’t trust her, but even I have my limits of violating client confidentiality.

  She sips from a glass of the California zinfandel I brought along and then asks, her voice wistful, “Isn’t there a chance that the case against Paul could be dropped? If they don’t have any evidence other than the tape?”

  I eye my empty glass and decide against another one.

  “I have no idea,” I say cautiously, but as usual made slightly irritable by her concern for Paul.

  “Why do you care so much?”

  “Even if he is found innocent, his family will be tarred by this for the rest of their lives,” Angela says passionately.

  “I may be leaving here soon, but some people won’t. It isn’t right!”

  Again, she breaks into tears, and this time I am allowed to lead her into her sons’ bedroom. She turns on a light between the twin beds and turns to me, her face mostly in shadow.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask, wondering if she will be upset tomorrow.

  For an answer, she kisses me and pulls me down on the bed on top of her. For once, we do not talk about Bear Creek or the lawsuit. Sober, I leave about eleven and make the two-hour drive back to Blackwell County. Even though Mrs. Petty is dead, her ghost may be watching.

  Wednesday morning Class finally tells me he has decided to reject Butterfield’s offer.

  “I don’t want to do that now,” he says vaguely, rubbing his eyes as he stares at me through the glass. He has been complaining he can’t sleep more than a couple of hours a night.

  My reaction is mixed, to say the least. I’d love to get Paul, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if my client perjured himself.

  “Even if Butterfield tells me this is the only offer he will make, I don’t necessarily believe it,” I say.

  “It depends on how bad he wants to get Paul Taylor If he does, he’ll call me right before the trial.”

  Bledsoe leans back in his chair and folds his arms. He wants me to get

  out of here and get to work.

  Twenty minutes later at the courthouse in Bear Creek, Butterfield takes my news calmly.

  “I’ll just have to manage without him,” he says, the tone of his voice as amiable as ever.

  I hem and haw around, but I can’t get him to give me any indication that this rejection closes the door permanently. Pokerfaced, Butterfield stands and shakes my hand, dismissing me.

  “It’ll be an interesting trial. Did you hear what happened in Helena yesterday?”

  I nod, feeling a little weak. Butterfield got a first-degree murder charge to stick against a black woman accused of murdering her husband.

  Usually, that kind of charge is knocked way down by the time the jury comes back.

  “It sounds like you did a good job.”

  “I get lucky every now and then,” he says, escorting me out of his office. If he is upset, I can’t tell it.

  I head over to Dickerson’s o
ffice and find him alone behind a computer modifying jury instructions for a civil trial beginning next week in Blytheville, in the northeast corner of the state. I wonder if he has ever come to his office without wearing a tie. Dick is definitely from

  the old school, which holds that an attorney’s name in bold type in the yellow pages is a betrayal of the ideals of the profession.

  “I wanted to let you know that Class turned down a deal to testify against Paul,” I say, sitting down in a comfortable chair across from his desk.

  “He still insists he’s not guilty and that Paul never approached him about anything.”

  Dickerson leans back in his chair and flexes his fingers like a concert pianist about to rip into the Warsaw Concerto.

  “Of course he did,” he says.

  “Butterfield has absolutely nothing on Paul except one tape of him and Willie that one time.

  It’s an abomination that Paul was ever charged. I knew this is what the legal system would come to with them in charge.”

  I study Dick’s diploma from Columbia. Beside it is proof that he took his undergraduate degree from Washington and Lee. It is hard not to be impressed. Dick can probably lecture for a week without notes on the history of Southern efforts to block integration.

  “When you get some time after this trial,” I say, watching his fingers fly over the keys, “I’ll go over with you what I’ve found so far.

  Paul’s not hurt any, but I can’t say I’ve found anything to help Class.”

  Dick gives me a distracted smile.

  “I appreciate it, Gideon. I know you’re busy, too. Call me next week and we’ll get together. I know you’re doing all the work right now.”

  “It’s all right,” I assure him.

  “I’ve enjoyed being back over here.”

  “I hear you’re seeing Miss. Angela,” he says, glancing at me and smiling.

  “She’s struggled like a lot of people over here, and I’m sorry she’s selling her house. It’s people like her we can’t afford to lose.”