“I don’t like the way this questioning is going,” Mac said. “Tell me more about her, not her ideas about me.”
“Okay. She is willing to help someone else even if it inconveniences her. I call it a servant’s heart.”
Mac looked at David. When he was twenty-five years old, identifying whether a woman had servantlike qualities never appeared on his radar screen. Yet Laura had been much the same. He’d always considered himself extremely lucky that she gave him a second look.
“She’s cute, too.” David added. “And funny. I like being around her.”
“Take her to the Canton,” Mac said. “They have a great selection of south China dishes. Ask for Lu and tell him you know me. He’ll recommend something good.”
Mac drained the last drops from his mug. “By the way, how many white shirts do you own?” he asked.
“Three.”
“Do you wash and iron them yourself?”
“That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?”
Mac smiled. “David, you do as good a job ironing shirts as any young male on a tight budget I’ve ever seen. However, for purposes of the upcoming trial, I want you to have your shirts laundered and starched.” Mac pulled out his wallet and handed David four new one-hundred-dollar bills.
David’s eyes opened wide when he saw the amount of money in his hand. “Are you sure? I don’t need this much to get extra starch in my collars.”
“Buy three more shirts and three more ties. I like the tie you wear every day, but I have the pattern completely memorized and would like a change in landscape. Pick out whatever you want, except no cartoon characters or pictures of food. There is a one-hour cleaner open Saturday afternoons on Jackson Street.”
“I’ve seen it.”
“And buy Mindy some flowers. She deserves a big bouquet after working for me.”
Mac pulled his car into Anna’s driveway. Hunter was playing basketball. His face lit up when he saw Mac.
“Hey,” he said. “I’ve made some new arrows.”
“I want to see them later. First, let’s play a game of horse.”
“Don’t you want to go inside?”
“Not yet. Your mother probably isn’t ready.”
“Yeah. It always takes her a long time to get ready when we go somewhere.”
“You first.” Mac loosened his tie.
Mac was rusty, and if he hadn’t been able to shoot a backward over-the-head shot, perfected years before in previous games of horse, Hunter would have made short work of him. They were tied at h-o-r-s when Anna, dressed in a fancy black dress and white pearls, opened the front door.
“It was his idea,” Hunter yelled quickly. “I told him to go inside.”
“I believe you,” Anna answered. “Finish him off, Hunter. Try one from the drain spout.”
Hunter stood on the concrete splash block and swished the net. The pressure on Mac mounted. He was almost too large to stand on the block, but he took aim and banked in a lucky shot. Hunter missed his next attempt and Mac stood in the middle of the driveway and turned away from the goal.
“Watch this, Mom. He’s only missed once.”
Looking over his shoulder at the goal and then staring down the driveway, Mac threw the ball over his head and through the net. Marking the spot with his toe, he waited for Hunter to stand in his footsteps. The boy imitated Mac’s every move, but when he let go of the ball, it bounced off the front of the rim.
“You win,” Hunter said. “I’m going to work on that backward shot before we play again.”
“Come in the house before you give him any more ideas,” Anna said. “If Hunter learns how to hit that crazy shot, it means I’ll have to work on it, too.”
“Or you can outlaw it,” Mac said. “That’s what my boys did until they learned how to shoot it better than I could. Then they made it legal, and I never won again.”
Mac followed Anna into the living room. She looked very elegant, not like any psychologist Mac had ever seen. “We can go as soon as Jean gets back from an errand,” she said.
Before Mac could sit down, Hunter returned with his new arrows. Mac took the multicolored straight sticks and inspected them. “Good work. Have you shot them yet?”
“Not much. I was waiting for you. It will be light outside for a few more minutes.”
Mac looked to Anna. “Do Hunter and I have time to shoot a few arrows in the backyard?”
“Dinner can wait a few more minutes. Just be sure to keep your eyes open and don’t try to shoot behind your back. I’ll come referee.”
Anna’s small backyard sloped up gradually away from the house. On a large cardboard box Hunter had drawn the outline of something that vaguely resembled a wild boar with long tusks. The side of the feral beast was decorated with a bull’s-eye and numbered rings from ten to one hundred.
“Nice target,” Mac said. “The bull’s-eye would be a hard shot. How far away do we stand?”
“At the edge of the patio. You go first.”
Pulling a long-forgotten phrase from his memory bank of childhood etiquette, Mac said, “No, it’s your house.”
“But you’re my guest,” Hunter answered correctly.
Mac picked an arrow, took careful aim, and let it fly. It missed the target area but struck the animal in the eye.
“I didn’t get any points, but I think I killed it. Are you sure you want to watch this?” he asked Anna. “It could get gory.”
“I’m fine as long as it’s cardboard.”
Hunter took the bow and lodged an arrow just outside the ten-point ring.
Mac made a ten-point shot and handed the bow back to Hunter, who also shot his next arrow into the same area.
“One more each,” the boy said.
Mac thought about deliberately missing the target. When his sons were very young, he often played below his capability to encourage them, but Hunter was eleven, and Mac decided to play it straight. He took his time and hit the twenty ring.
“Thirty points,” Hunter said. “I need to hit a thirty or better.”
Mac held his breath and hoped for a thirty as he watched Hunter, one eye squeezed shut, draw down on the target. The arrow hit the line between the twenty and thirty rings. Hunter ran up to the target. “What do you think?” he asked.
Mac pulled out the arrow and inspected the hole. “It’s more toward the thirty than the twenty. We always played if it’s on the line it goes up, not down.”
“Yes,” Hunter pumped his fist. “That was my best arrow.”
“Jean’s here,” Anna said.
“I want a rematch on a sunny day,” Mac said. “I think the dim light bothered my shot.”
To reach downtown Chattanooga, Mac drove west on Brainerd Road to a tunnel cut through a long hill named Missionary Ridge. The restaurant was situated on a bluff overlooking the Tennessee River, and a sharp wind swept off the water and buffeted them as they walked across the parking lot toward the front door.
Kincaid’s was a small, intimate, very expensive place. Mac had made reservations, and the maître d’ seated them at a table with an unobstructed view of the beautiful panorama. The lights of a long, narrow barge reflected off the water below.
“This is perfect,” Anna said, settling into her chair.
“Good.”
A young waiter brought water and menus. Anna ordered the salmon, and Mac chose a steak.
After they ordered, Mac told Anna about David Moreland. “He’s been an asset in preparing for the trial—very intelligent, but he has some unusual ideas about religion.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“He talks to God.”
“That’s not odd; it’s a simple definition of prayer.”
“But he believes that God talks back. Do you he think he might be delusional?”
Anna laughed. “Maybe, or he could be a normal Christian.”
The waiter brought their meal. The salmon was fresh and the steak a shade under medium.
“Good steak
,” Mac said after his first bite. “How’s the salmon?”
“As good as I remembered.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, enjoying the food and the view.
“Do you cook?” Anna asked after a few bites.
“Nothing fancy. I eat out during the day and snack at night; it helps keep my weight under control.”
“I bet I can guess your age and weight,” she said.
“Go ahead,” Mac braced himself.
“Two hundred and fifty-six,” she said confidently.
“Do I look that fat?” Mac put down the bite he was about to eat.
“No, two hundred pounds and fifty-six years.”
“That’s close on the weight and exact on the years.”
“I had some help.”
“Who?”
“Your receptionist.”
They watched a cabin cruiser tie up for the night at the docks. Lights ablaze, other boats moved slowly across the water,
“Have you ever wanted to do that?” Anna asked.
“Ride in a motorboat down the Tennessee River?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe if it was as wild as the Mississippi in Mark Twain’s day, but there is too much development along the river to suit me. How about you?”
“I’m not a river or lake person. I love the beach, and I’d like to see tropical fish in their natural habitat and do some snorkeling.”
“Where would you go?”
“The Caribbean, Australia, the Red Sea.”
They talked. Mostly about Hunter. Mac gave Anna his perspective on their hike to Jacks River Falls, leaving out the memories of his own past.
“Hunter remembered everything you told him,” Anna said. “He wants me to see the daffodils at the abandoned homestead when they bloom next spring.”
“It’s a nice spot.”
They finished their meal with a pair of cappuccinos and split a piece of cheesecake.
It was cooler when they stepped outside. Mac turned on the car’s heater.
“Let’s drive over the ridge,” Anna said.
“Okay.”
There was a way through and a way over Missionary Ridge. Bypassing the road to the tunnel, they quickly climbed until the lights of the city were spread out in the valley below.
“Turn here,” Anna said as they approached a side street.
Mac made the turn.
“Go past two streets on the left and take the third left.”
“Don’t get us lost.”
“You’re in my territory now.”
Mac took the turn.
“Go to the end of the street. There is a gray stone house built near the edge of the bluff. Turn there.”
Mac turned into the driveway and stopped the car.
“Now what?”
“Some friends of mine live here, but they’re out of town. I wanted you to see the city from this vantage point. Do you have a coat I could borrow?”
“My red Bulldog jacket is still in the backseat.”
“That will do. It’s too dark for a Tennessee fan to see me and fire his squirrel rifle at me.”
Anna put on the red coat, and they walked along a slate path to a white gazebo that seemed to hang in space over the cliff. It was a spectacular nighttime panorama. They could see the river in the distance; its winding course traced by the lights of buildings along the bank. To the northwest, Chattanooga’s modest skyscrapers were clustered in a huddle of silver and gray spires, and across the whole landscape, a twinkling carpet of streetlights illuminated the slopes of Lookout Mountain.
The wind was blowing harder across the top of the ridge, and as they stood in the gazebo, Anna wrapped her arms tightly around herself and stood in front of Mac to block some of the wind. Mac stood watching the lights below them.
“Thank you for telling me about your family the other night,” she said.
Mac looked straight ahead; the tiny sparkles slightly blurred before his vision.
“There is a perspective on things from up here,” she continued, her back still to him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“That God is over everything. He can see the end from the beginning.”
“If he knows the future, why doesn’t he do something about evil?”
“He did. He sent Jesus.”
“That’s not an answer. Bad things still happen.”
“And he offers healing to those who come to him.”
Mac thought again about Archie’s sermon, but its impact had faded. “I want to believe that God is good, but I can’t see that he’s helped me. I’ve been waiting on time to heal my wounds.”
Anna turned and looked up into Mac’s face. “Time doesn’t heal wounds; it only watches them take different shapes and forms until they look so different that where they came from is often obscured. The real capacity to heal inner wounds comes from heaven, not earth. Only the power of Jesus can go to the deep places and bring healing.”
Mac listened without responding.
They were quiet on the drive back to Anna’s house. Mac was troubled. He had opened long-closed doors to another person and faced again what lurked behind them. Not that Anna Wilkes meant to hurt him, but like a doctor probing a sore place, she kept putting her finger in a wound as wide and deep as the Missionary Ridge tunnel. It didn’t take a degree in psychology to figure out that a part of him died on a cold December afternoon nine years before. And then she told him Jesus was his only source of help—how vague. Counseling might give perspective. A pill he could understand. A bullet would end everything. But Jesus. How did that work? His frustration built.
Turning into Anna’s driveway and stopping the car, he said, “I don’t want every time we talk to be a religious counseling session.”
Surprised, Anna said, “Of course. I wasn’t—”
Mac cut her off. “Thanks for your concern, but don’t try to fix me.”
“Sorry. Thanks for dinner.”
She was out the door and up the steps before he could say another word.
Mac stared at the closed door for a few seconds. Mad at himself, he jerked the car into reverse and backed quickly down the driveway.
Inside the house, Anna leaned against the door and closed her eyes. She went into the darkened living room and sat on the piano bench. She lightly touched a couple of random keys. Wrapped in her bathrobe, Jean appeared in the doorway.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Great time at dinner, but then I pushed too hard about the Lord as the source of his healing. He rejected it.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions. Give him time.”
Anna shook her head. “No. I think time is his enemy, not his ally. He’s probably opened up with me as much as he has with anyone, but there’s something deeper gnawing away at him, and I don’t know what it is.”
“How is your heart?”
“Confused about the whole situation and my role in it. He’s a decent man who has problems, but that doesn’t mean I’m supposed to help fix them. That’s what he just told me in the driveway. Maybe he’s right.”
Anna softly struck another sequence of notes on the piano. “He hides his depression, but I know it’s there. It’s familiar to me; I can almost touch it, but I’m missing an obvious key.”
Suddenly, Anna put her hand over her mouth. “Oh no!”
“What is it?” Jean asked sharply.
“The other night, he asked me if I wished it had been quicker . . .” “What?”
“Jack’s death. It makes sense now.” She looked up at her aunt. “Mac is thinking of suicide, too.”
28
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.
UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT VI
Mac didn’t have time to ruminate about his time with Anna. A young man’s life was in his hands, and he hoped Dr. Anna Wilkes was professional enough not to allow any personal conflict between them to inte
rfere with her testimony on behalf of Pete. He skipped church on Sunday and spent several hours at the office making final preparation for the opening stages of the trial.
The following morning, the citizens of Echota County required to report for jury duty began arriving at the courthouse shortly after 8:00. Jurors’ cars and trucks lined the streets in front and to the sides of the city square, and by 8:50 A.M., the normally quiet courtroom took on the air of a giant family reunion. In a small Southern town like Dennison Springs, a week of court involving a murder case generated a lot of local interest. No matter the jurors’ backgrounds—retired, unemployed, textile worker, businessman, homemaker—the things that normally shaped their individuality had to take a backseat to their designation as members of the jury pool. For some, jury duty offered an excuse to be off work; for others, it was a major disruption of personal and business plans. It was a time when American society made clear the jobs with the highest intrinsic importance for the future of the nation—schoolteachers and mothers of young children were routinely excused from jury service. CEOs of corporations were not.
The lawyers stood in the open area in front of the judge’s bench. Pete Thomason, dressed in a suit and freed of manacles and leg chains, sat alone with a deputy by his side on a bench against the wall.
Joe Whetstone introduced his two assistants to Mac. Mac did the same with David.
Sheriff Bomar stood and announced in a loud voice, “All rise.”
An immediate hush stilled the noisy room and everyone stood as the Honorable William L. Danielson swept into the room in his black robe, took his place, and said, “Be seated.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I want to thank you for your willingness to serve as jurors for the fall term of Echota County Superior Court. We will be trying criminal cases during the next two weeks. We have a capital murder case on the docket that will take most or all of this week, and our first order of business will be to select a jury in that case. Madam Clerk, please administer the oath to the jurors.”
In a high-pitched voice that carried to the back of the large room, the clerk, a tall, middle-aged woman with black hair, called out, “Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you shall give true answers to all questions as may be asked by the court or its authority, including all questions asked by the parties or their attorneys, concerning your qualifications as jurors in the cases now pending before this court? So help you God.”
The Trial Page 23
