“Solly was screaming at you when Neil came home?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it a fact, Mrs. Zide, that before any shots were fired from your pistol, you heard the puppies barking, and you went outside and surprised two black men on the lawn, and they ran away?”
“Objection. Asked and answered,” I heard Muriel say, but without the vigor of a short time ago.
“Withdrawn,” I said. “And when you came back into the living room, the argument with Solly grew worse?”
“I don’t remember.”
I had it now. “And you took your pistol out of your handbag, Mrs. Zide, and you fired a shot over his head, into the woodwork, as a warning?”
“No.” But that look of cunning fled her face. She would have made a poor poker player.
“And then Solly broke a bottle and cut you in the face, didn’t he?”
“No.” The cunning look returned.
“And you shot him, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“He was on the terrace, and you were just inside the living room, isn’t that a fact?”
“No.”
“You shot at him three times. One shot missed and went outside —the other two struck him and killed him. Isn’t that what happened, Mrs. Zide?”
“No,” she said, and the cunning look didn’t fade. Because, I realized now, that wasn’t what had happened. My mind swerved from one possibility to another. If Solly hadn’t cut her, who had? Not Neil. I believed the worst of Neil, but not that.
“And then,” I said, “Neil took over, didn’t he?”
“Took over?” Connie looked frightened, paler than before. “No, he didn’t take over. Took over what?”
“You were hurt and couldn’t think, so Neil took over and arranged matters, isn’t that so?”
“Asked and answered,” Muriel said.
“Strike the question,” I said. “Neil made a telephone call to the home of Victor Gambrel, chief of security at Zide Industries, didn’t he?”
“No, not then.”
“Then who did call Victor Gambrel?”
“Neil did, of course,” she said, confused. “I’m sorry.”
“Victor Gambrel lived close by, in Ponte Vedra, didn’t he?”
“He may have. I don’t remember.”
“And Victor Gambrel arrived before the police did, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, I think so. Does that matter?”
“Victor Gambrel helped Neil move your husband’s body so that it looked as if he’d been shot by someone standing outside, isn’t that so?”
Again, from behind me, Muriel said, “If she knows.”
“Yes,” I said, “if you know.”
“I do know. The answer is no. That didn’t happen.”
“Victor Gambrel helped you and Neil work out the story you needed to tell the police, didn’t he?”
“No. There was no story we needed to tell.”
“You decided to blame the murder of your husband on the two black men who’d bungled the burglary of your house, isn’t that so?”
“No, I didn’t do that.”
“When you saw Darryl Morgan outside the house that night, you didn’t recognize him as a man in your employ, isn’t that so?”
“That’s true. Yes, that’s so.”
“Neil deliberately gave to the police a vague description of the two men, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t know who they were—you hadn’t seen them clearly, and Neil hadn’t seen them at all. Isn’t that correct?”
“I don’t know,” she said, as if by rote.
“And that’s why no one described Darryl Morgan as tall, or big, until after he was arrested, isn’t that correct, Mrs. Zide?”
“I don’t know.”
“And then, that night, after you’d cooked up your story, Neil called the Jacksonville Beach police, a good twenty minutes after Victor Gambrel had arrived, and Gambrel called his friend Floyd Nickerson at JSO Homicide. Isn’t that what happened? If you know.”
“I don’t know.”
“And the reason Nickerson sent Carmen Tanagra down to the cabanas to see what happened to the dog was so that he’d have the time to listen to an offer from Gambrel on behalf of Neil. Isn’t that what happened? If you know.”
“I don’t know.”
“And to your surprise, after Nickerson and Carmen Tanagra picked up Morgan and Smith at the Lil’ Champ food store, you found out that Darryl Morgan worked for you as a handyman, isn’t that so?”
“I don’t know.”
“You had no idea he and Smith would be caught, did you?”
“No.”
“You didn’t want Darryl Morgan to be blamed for the murder of your husband, did you?”
“No.”
“Because he hadn’t murdered him, isn’t that the reason?”
“No, that’s not why.”
“When you were in Baptist Hospital, the police showed you Morgan’s photograph, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“You had to identify the man in that photograph, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Because Neil told you that Nickerson had captured a man who admitted trying to burgle your house—Darryl Morgan, a man who worked for you—and the police were going to show you a photograph of him, and you had no choice: you had to identify him. Isn’t that what happened?”
“No.”
“Neil told you Morgan was violent, a career criminal, right?”
“No, I don’t remember that.”
“And by then it was too late to back out, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“In the end, what did it matter if Morgan was blamed for a murder he didn’t commit? He’d do the time anyway, for one crime or another—isn’t that what your son, Neil, and Victor Gambrel, told you in Baptist Hospital?”
“No.”
“And so it was a choice between Darryl Morgan, an uneducated, violent black criminal who wasn’t fit to do more than pick up your dog droppings, taking a fall on a first-degree murder charge, or you taking a fall on a manslaughter charge that might easily turn into murder if they found out how you hated Solly … and that was hardly a choice, was it?”
“It’s not true,” Connie said.
“But you didn’t want Morgan to die in the electric chair, did you?”
“I didn’t want that at all, Ted.”
“You wanted me to go easy on him in the trial, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She brightened suddenly; she saw a glimmer of salvation. “I did. You knew that. You remember.”
“During the jury selection, we went for a walk along the river, and you told me you didn’t want Morgan to die, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, darling.”
I felt a terrible chill, and my heart fluttered like a torn wing. Toba was there in the courtroom. Toba had heard.
But I had to go on. “You knew Morgan wasn’t guilty, didn’t you, Mrs. Zide?”
“No, Ted.”
“Wasn’t that why you begged me the way you did?”
“No, Ted.”
I switched gears again, as much to save myself as to trap her. “The argument with Solly, before he died—that final argument—that was about Neil, wasn’t it?”
“No, Ted.”
“And then Neil came in at two o’clock in the morning while it was taking place, didn’t he, Mrs. Zide?”
“He came in, yes.”
“Solly was violent, wasn’t he, Mrs. Zide?”
“Please, my sweet, don’t call me that. You know my name.”
My wife was hearing all this. I wanted to turn and look at her, to say, “Toba, it was then, not now. It’s you I love and cherish.” But I didn’t dare. I remembered Beldon’s hard warnings to me last spring in his office … something makes me feel you shouldn’t be involved… . He had known. He had tried to stop me from moving too far into the past, where dra
gons lived.
But for Darryl’s sake I had to go back. And then go on.
“Solly threatened you, Connie, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Somehow, in this argument, you enraged him to the point where you feared he’d do you bodily harm, isn’t that true?”
“He hit me, Ted.”
“In the face?”
“Yes. In the face. He cut my cheek.”
I realized now that she was telling the truth. She had turned a corner and was racing down a track and couldn’t halt herself.
As a lawyer in trial you try not to ask a question where you don’t know the answer, but we were beyond that now.
“What was the argument about, Connie?”
“You.”
Oh, God. I couldn’t back out of it.
“He knew,” she said. “And he hated you.”
But I could step aside, and I had to, once again for Darryl’s sake. “He slashed you with a knife, Connie, didn’t he?”
She wouldn’t let me. She was in control now. “I couldn’t stand him anymore,” she said. “I wouldn’t let him touch me. I told him I loved you. You never believed that, did you?”
I wanted to shut my eyes. I wanted to run away. I felt Darryl, at my side, staring up at me. I could see the wide wondering look of Judge Fleming. I felt Toba’s presence in the courtroom as a red-hot iron searing my flesh.
But I went forward, because there was no choice.
“What did he do to you, Connie?”
“I told him all that had happened. I taunted him. I told him about Cumberland Island.”
I felt my nails digging into my palms. When I unclenched my fists I half expected to see blood.
“He broke a bottle and struck you with it?”
“No.”
“What did he use?”
“I told you, Ted, he hit me with his hand.”
“You grabbed your pistol out of your handbag and fired a shot over his head, didn’t you, Connie?”
“Yes.”
“It hit the woodwork on the other side of the room, isn’t that so?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“He hit me again. He knocked me down.”
“So you shot him and killed him, to protect yourself, didn’t you?”
“No, my darling, no.”
I became aware of a commotion toward the rear of the courtroom.
My back was turned to it. Then I saw Connie’s eyes shift that way, and the judge suddenly reached for his gavel. At least I thought it was his gavel; I realized afterward that it may have been a pistol hidden under his robes. All I could think of was: Toba.
Neil Zide was in the aisle, and he had wrenched free of the bailiff, a man forty pounds heavier. Neil hurtled down the aisle into the well of the courtroom. His lips had collapsed inward against his teeth, and the blood had fled from his cheeks as if he had been struck. His hair flowed behind him like a lion’s mane.
“You swine!” he yelled at me.
Connie was crying his name, trying to stop him. The judge was shouting, “Bailiff!” Connie rose from her seat in the witness box and reeled forward toward us as Neil’s body slammed against mine and we tumbled back together against the counsel table.
The tumult subsided. The bailiffs held Neil, while the judge rapped his gavel continuously against the oak bench in order to quiet the courtroom. The muscles in Neil’s face twitched; saliva foamed at the edges of his lips.
Connie’s eyes looked stony and unfocused.
“I think this is the right time,” Muriel said to Judge Fleming, “for a short recess.”
“No!” I cried. “She wants to tell us!” I looked up at the bench, pleading. “Judge!”
Thank God, he understood. He simply nodded at me, and I turned on Connie, whose hands searched the air like the claws of a wounded animal.
I pointed at Neil. “He took the pistol from you, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“And he shot your husband.”
“He didn’t mean to.”
“Neil was enraged because Solly had hit you, isn’t that true, Connie?”
“Yes, he’s my son. He loves me. He despised Solly.”
“Connie”—I approached her without asking permission from the judge, but I thought I had the right—”who cut your face?”
“I did,” she said. “It was cut when Solly slapped me. I had to explain that. They told me to do it. I knew it would heal.”
“Who is ‘they,’ Connie? Do you mean Neil and Gambrel? Did they tell you to cut yourself?”
She just nodded, and that was good enough, or terrible enough.
“What did you use?”
“A piece of glass … it was just my cheek… I knew it would heal.”
How brave. How desperate. How insane. To keep her son from a manslaughter charge that might have turned into murder, she would scar herself and send another man to his death.
But she didn’t know they would find Darryl, I realized. She hadn’t planned it from the beginning. That was just bad luck: Nickerson was good at his job.
Nickerson . ..
I asked, “Did Neil pay off Floyd Nickerson, Connie?” And I added, gently, “If you know.”
Neil screamed, “Con! Shut up!”
A broken word rose to her lips, but she was unable to utter it. And it no longer mattered.
Chapter 33
WE STAYED IN Jacksonville for a week after the hearing. Toba was in a form of shock. The revelations in Judge Fleming’s courtroom, which the media took such pleasure in relating for the next several days, were like poison for her to absorb. I realized later that I knew what Bill Clinton felt like in the early part of his candidacy; I decided I’d never run for President.
I wanted to say to Toba, “Darling, it’s been fourteen years. That’s a lifetime ago.” But, wisely, I didn’t. For one thing, the word darling was definitely out of favor for a while. For another, infidelity of that sort doesn’t have a statute of limitations.
Toba forgave me in time, because not to do so would have crippled our lives. She thought things over and decided she loved our marriage as it was: whole. It gave her security and freedom and love, and it had a history; what better combination is there?
She was silent and tearful for that week in Jacksonville and scowled at me for the next month in Sarasota, but then one Sunday I persuaded her to go with me out in the boat. On the bay I said, “Who’s your best friend? Tell the truth.”
“You are.”
“So let’s drop anchor and do what friends do.”
She laughed at that, and the worst was over.
For us, but not for me. Day after day, when I was alone, I relived that moment in the courtroom when I had asked Connie the subject of the argument.
You.
That argument had led to Solly’s death and the malignancy of Darryl’s thirteen years on death row. Each time that realization flashed clear to me, my heart beat violently, my stomach throbbed with pain.
How much blame did I deserve? That evening when Connie had toppled into the pool, I had ended the love affair as cleanly as I knew how. I’d had no ulterior motive in going to the party; Connie had asked me with Toba, and in view of Solly’s sudden interest in my career, it seemed fair to go. By recommending me to Royal, Kelly, he had been trying to get rid of me. I saw that clearly now.
I told him I loved you… . I told him all that had happened. I taunted him. I told him about Cumberland Island.
How could I have stopped her from doing that?
There’s a price to pay for every act. In this case, the wrong man paid.
And now Connie and Neil would pay their small share. They were not arrested right there in court, but once the court reporter had delivered the transcript of the hearing to the state attorney’s office, Muriel Suarez filed charges, and the wheels of public justice began to clunk slowly forward.
The charges that could stick were only second-degree murder
and perjury. Neil hired lawyers from both Tallahassee and Washington, and the feeling around the Duval County Courthouse was that he would eventually cut a deal for fifteen years pen time, of which he’d serve two or three, and Connie would walk out the door with a suspended sentence. After all, Neil contributed heavily to both political parties, he was on the cutting edge of land development (without which Florida couldn’t survive these hard times), and he and Connie were white.
Neil’s great fear, I heard, was that he might not survive prison. There were men at Raiford who identified easily with someone who had languished on death row for more than a dozen years, and had little to lose by meting out vengeance to a white man who had done that to a brother. So be it.
As for Connie, it was rumored that she would leave Florida, and even the United States, and I believed it instantly. She had earned that ravaged face; her agony and shame weren’t feigned, and she couldn’t look anyone in the eye who knew what she had done. I imagined her growing old in some Mediterranean hideway, sitting at a table on her terrace with a drink in her hand and a confusion in her eyes as if somehow life, which once had promised so much, had failed her, cheated her. Enough people would be fond of her but she would never be sure what they knew or really thought, and she would die not knowing.
So that left Darryl.
In court that memorable day, I made a motion for his immediate release. But even Horace Fleming, unusual jurist that he was, couldn’t comply without flagrantly breaking the law. Leaning down into the clamor, he said, “Mr. Jaffe, get the transcript of this last bit from my court reporter, and make a formal motion in writing. You look a little on the ragged edge—it shouldn’t take you more than all night. The Morgan man’s got to sleep somewhere, so let him go back to the jail and bunk down one more time. It won’t kill him, and we know some things that would’ve—ain’t that right?”
He turned to Muriel Suarez. “You want to oppose that motion, State, go right ahead. I can tell you, it’ll be a hard crop to grow.”
“The state will not oppose, Your Honor,” Muriel said in a barbed voice.
I sat down with Darryl for a while in the judge’s chambers and explained the whole procedure and what his options were. He was still in handcuffs.
“You can probably sue the state and win,” I explained, “but you’ll grow a beard to your knees before it’s over. On the other hand, you file suit against Neil Zide and Connie Zide, and my blind old dog, if I had one, could win that case.”
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