Sissy

by Madelyn Bennett Edwards

"Go on, Mr. Bevy." Luke took a couple of steps to the side of the podium and glanced at the Judge, who was writing something on his pad.

  "Well they start to speed up, and I couldn't keep up, so I fell in the ditch, and the present that was under my arm came a-loose, and I started screaming, not because I was being dragged, but because of the present. You understand?"

  "Yes, sir," Luke said. "I understand."

  "Well, they was dragging me through the mud and dirt, and it had rained the night before, and I was filthy, and there was mud and stuff in my mouth and nose, and it got to where I couldn't breathe. Then the truck stopped, right in the middle of the road, and that man jumped out holding the end of the rope. But by the time he got to me, I had gotten loose and was on the run. I'm little, and I'm fast." Bevy laughed at himself. He was short and slim, and could probably run like lightning.

  The bailiff appeared with a paper cup and handed it to Mr. Bevy. He drank almost all of whatever was in the cup. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

  "Did you get away?"

  "I thought I did, but when I was almost to my house, that blue truck caught up with me, and that man was swinging a long board out the window, trying to hit me upside the head." He put his hand on the side of his head and shook it back and forth as though he couldn't believe what he was saying. "But I ducked like a boxer, and when he swung it again I caught hold of it and pulled and it out of his hand, and I dropped it and ran the rest of the way to my house."

  "What did you do next?"

  "I went inside and locked the door, and I called the police." The way he said police sounded like 'PO-lease' with an accent on 'po.' I wanted to laugh, but I knew I'd cause a scene.

  "Did the police come to your house?"

  "Shore did." He nodded his head to emphasize he'd actually called the cops and they'd actually showed up. "They come to my house, and I tole them what happened, and I got in their car, and we went back and looked through the ditch for my little girl's present. It was all torn up and muddy, but we cleaned up the doll, and it was okay, except one arm was missing."

  "What did the police do?"

  "They took me down to the station and took down my story." He grinned as though he'd just won the lottery. "They believed me because of the doll. They said they would go looking for the blue truck, but I never heard from them again."

  "So there's a police report?"

  "Shore is."

  "And were you able to identify the men who attacked you?"

  "I didn't know their names, but I gave some good descriptions." He nodded again. "And I memorized the license plate while I was being pulled behind that truck through the mud. 37L402. So, I know the police could locate it somehow."

  "Thank you, Mr. Bevy." Luke went back to his seat. "No more questions, judge."

  "Any redirect?"

  "No, Your Honor, but I reserve the right to recall Mr. Bevy if necessary." Perkins stood up behind his table and addressed the judge.

  "Of course." The judge dismissed Mr. Bevy with his regular instructions about being available. “We’ll adjourn for the day.”

  The jury left the courtroom, followed by everyone in the gallery.

  I waited for Luke outside the courtroom, and when he came through the door, he was talking to Peter Swan and walked right past me as though he didn't see me. He didn't nod or smile or acknowledge me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ***

  Witnesses

  THE FIRST WITNESS on Tuesday was a white man named Daniel Tyler. He said he saw Tucker Thevenot in Keith Rousseau's truck at about noon on June 30.

  "Do you know Mr. Thevenot?" Luke asked Mr. Tyler.

  "Yes, sir." Tyler's blonde hair was cut in layers, like a girl's shag, short over his ears and long in the back. His eyes were light brown, and he had a mustache that made his face look dirty. He was pudgy, but not fat, about 5'10", with a barrel chest and skinny legs. He talked like a redneck from across the river. "We went to high school together. He didn't play football with me, but I knew him, and sometimes we'd go out together in a group."

  Luke asked him when he graduated from high school, and he said 1969, which made him close to Susie's age. Luke asked Tyler whether he'd seen Thevenot since graduation.

  "Oh, yes. I see him a lot." Daniel Tyler looked at Thevenot and nodded. Thevenot nodded, too, but I could only see the back of his head and one side of his face. "He's a regular at the bar where I bartend. I'm off on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I don't know if he goes on those nights, but the rest of the nights he comes in. Sometimes he grabs a beer and leaves, sometimes he hangs around and plays pool with some of the other guys who hang out there."

  "So you see him on a regular basis." Luke's statement caused Perkins to object. The judge sustained, and Luke apologized. "So would you say you'd recognize Mr. Thevenot if you saw him outside of the bar?"

  "Of course." Tyler nodded. "I see him around town, and we always speak. I wouldn't consider him a friend, just an acquaintance."

  "And do you know Keith Rousseau, too?"

  "Sure do. He and Tucker are best buddies. They're always together, usually in Keith's old blue Chevy truck."

  "When was the last time you saw them together in that truck?"

  "Oh, last weekend, at the bar." Tyler nodded, and the judge bent to the side and said something to his clerk.

  "Did you see them together last summer, on June 30?" Luke walked to the table and picked up a typed piece of paper.

  "Yes, I remember that date because I typically drive in front of St. Alphonse's Catholic Church on my way to work, and I go in early on Saturdays because it's very busy." He grinned at Luke. "I remember seeing lots of cars there at noon, and a bride in a white dress got out of a car. There were three girls in long pink dresses, so I figured it was a wedding. I drove past the church, maybe a hundred yards, and Keith Rousseau went by going the other way. I waved to him and saw Tucker sitting shotgun with his arm hanging out the opened window. Keith stopped his truck, and I stopped too, rolled down my window, and we talked right there in the street in front of the priest's house, next door to the church. I went on to work, and I don't know where they went."

  "Did you see them again that day?" Luke clicked his ballpoint pen behind his back.

  "Yes, they came to the bar at about one fifteen or one thirty. I know because I opened up at one o'clock and they came in soon after that. They were my first customers and, for a while, the only customers in the bar. They sat on bar stools and ordered beers, and I chatted with them for a while."

  "Did they say anything unusual?"

  "Not really, but they were laughing a lot, like they had an inside joke. When I asked them what was so funny, they said, 'You ever kill a nigger?' I said, no, of course not."

  "Did they say anything else?"

  "Not to me, but later I overheard them telling another customer that they killed a nigger." Tyler started to say something else, but Perkins jumped up.

  "Objection, Your Honor. Hearsay." Perkins shouted.

  "Sustained." The judge bent towards Daniel Tyler and said something I couldn't hear. Daniel nodded, and Luke said he was done with the witness.

  "Redirect, Mr. Perkins?" DeYoung asked.

  "Just a couple of questions, Your Honor." Perkins stood with his legs spread, his hands on the podium. "You said you aren't friends with the defendant that you consider him an 'acquaintance,' is that right?"

  "Yes, sir." Tyler ran his hand through his hair and blinked a couple of times, like he had a tic. "I mean, I see him a lot, but we don't socialize. I've never been to his house and he ain't been to mine."

  "Have you ever been in the woods with him?"

  "A few times. There were lots of us, and he was there, yes."

  "Did you ever go with him to chase women?"

  "I wasn't going to talk about that because I didn't want to get him in more trouble than he's already in." Tyler licked his lips and looked at Thevenot, then back at Perkin
s.

  "No more questions, Your Honor." Perkins sat down quickly as though he knew he'd opened a door he shouldn't have. I think he had expected the questioning to go a different way, maybe he was trying to prove that Daniel Tyler and Tucker Thevenot were closer friends than they were, but somehow Tyler's answer surprised Perkins.

  "Redirect?" Judge DeYoung looked at the prosecution table. Luke and Peter Swan were huddled together, their heads almost touching the table.

  "Can you give me two minutes, please, Your Honor?" Luke looked up at the judge but kept his shoulders crouched over the table.

  "I'll give you one minute." Judge DeYoung looked at his watch. I noticed he wore it on his right arm, so I figured he was left-handed, like Rodney. I'd read that left-handed people, on average, are smarter than right-handers and that lefties are more likely to become doctors, lawyers, and professional baseball players. I wondered whether that was true. I made a mental note to notice lefties and whether they seemed smarter than the average bear.

  "May we approach, Your Honor?" Luke stood up. The judge motioned to the attorneys to gather around his bench. They huddled together, and the judge said he and the lawyers were going to have a brief meeting in his chambers and would return shortly.

  "Y’all come this way, counsel." He motioned for them to follow him through the door behind the bench, which was directly across the hall from his offices. They were gone about ten minutes.

  The judge returned through his back door the lawyers through the main door into the courtroom.

  "Alright, Mr. McMath, if you want to resume your questioning of Mr. Tyler, please, at the appropriate time, we'll hear an objection, and then we'll take care of it."

  "Mr. Tyler, when you went with Mr. Thevenot and others in the woods, did some of the men leave to go chase women?" Luke stood straight, his tailored grey suit falling perfectly from his broad shoulders to his narrow hips. I wished I could see his face, but his backside looked pretty good, too.

  "Well, that's what I thought it was, at first." Tyler sat on the edge of his chair, and the microphone picked up his voice loud and clear. "But it wasn't women they was chasing, it was Negroes."

  "Objection, Your Honor." Perkins stood up, but there was no anger in his voice, almost resignation. I wondered what they had discussed in the judge's chambers that caused Perkins to look defeated.

  The judge asked the jury and Daniel Tyler to step out of the courtroom. Blanchard, alternate juror, aka Jesus, looked relieved and I could picture him running down the stairs to get outside so he could smoke. The judge heard Perkins's objection and denied it. The judge and lawyers had another bench conference, off the record. After the jury returned, and Luke asked Tyler, again, about chasing women, Perkins stood up and objected again. The judge asked what grounds and Perkins stuttered. The jury and Daniel Tyler had to leave the courtroom two more times while Perkins and the judge argued about the objection.

  Luke said that Perkins opened the door for the questioning, and the Judge agreed. Luke sounded confident, no stuttering or stammering from him, no sir! "If they had stayed with establishing the relationship between Mr. Tyler and Mr. Thevenot, that would have been fine, but Mr. Perkins insisted on bringing up the trips to the woods. And if that wasn't enough, he asked about the 'chasing' thing that we've already heard about from other witnesses."

  "Any response, Mr. Perkins?" The judge looked from Luke to Perkins.

  "Your Honor. This testimony…to The State…" Perkins tried to find words but was fighting a losing battle. The judge finally made Perkins understand that the objection was overruled. The jury returned, and Luke continued his questioning.

  "Mr. Tyler, I'm going to repeat the question, and the judge agrees that you can answer it," Luke spoke slowly, his voice was clear and strong. "Mr. Tyler, when you went with Mr. Thevenot and others in the woods, did some of the men leave to go 'chase women'?"

  "Your Honor," Perkins stood up, red in the face "I'm going to call for a mistrial."

  "Hold up. Wait a minute. Repeat that, Mr. Perkins." The judge looked at the defense table as though he was unsure of what he'd heard. Everyone in the courtroom inhaled.

  "We'd like to motion this court at this time for a mistrial." Perkins and his law partner were both on their feet behind the defense table.

  "Alright, ladies and gentlemen." The judge looked at the jurors and motioned to the door. "You'll have to get back outside."

  The jury and the witness left the room

  The judge was aggravated. Perkins argued that the line of questioning was inadmissible and not pertinent to the case. Luke argued that Perkins opened the door. The judge reminded the lawyers that, in his chambers, he had decided in favor of the prosecution on the issue. Perkins agreed that the judge had overruled his objection, but this was a motion for a mistrial.

  Perkins and his partner were still on their feet.

  The judge cited two cases that had similar testimony where one side or the other had opened the door to questions that the court had tried to keep minimal. He got very technical, and I quit listening until he said, "The motion for mistrial is denied. Objection to the ruling by the court is noted, and error is assigned." Whatever that meant. "Bring back the jury."

  *

  "Mr. Tyler, before the recess I'd asked you about going with Mr. Thevenot to chase women." Luke's voice was even and confident.

  "Like I said, that's what I thought they did, but I hadn't gone with them because I had a wife and kid. Then I got a divorce, and one night we were in the woods and we were drinking a good bit, and Rousseau and Thevenot said it was time to load up for the 'chase.' I got in the back of Rousseau's truck with three other guys. Thevenot rode in the front seat, shotgun."

  "And do you remember where you went that night?"

  "Yes, sir." Tyler licked his lips and took a sip of water from the now ever-present paper cup the bailiff made sure was on the witness stand. "We went to town and headed down one of the streets towards the Indian Park. About halfway down those three or four streets is what they call the Park Quarters."

  "What happened when you went on this 'chase'?"

  "Well, it was dark and, there's no street lights down there." Tyler said there were two black men walking down the street and that they must have heard the truck because they turned around and saw the truck and took off running. "They ran through the ditch and between houses. It was like they knew that blue truck."

  "Objection. The witness doesn't know that for sure." Perkins was on his feet again.

  "Sustained." The judge noted something then turned to the witness. "Continue, Mr. Tyler. Just don't say something you don't know to be true."

  Tyler looked at Luke. "Well the two men disappeared, but Keith, well he drove around the block just as those two appeared on the next street. Tucker, he had a rope, and he lassoed one of the guys, and Keith stepped on the gas pedal and started dragging that guy down the road while the other one ran after us trying to catch up."

  "What did you do?" Luke's arm went up in the air, and I knew he was pushing his hair back off his forehead.

  "At first, I froze. I couldn't believe what was happening." Tyler took a deep breath and looked at the judge, who nodded to encourage him. "I couldn't believe what they were doing."

  "Why were you in disbelief?"

  "Well, I never seen anyone treat another human being that way." Tyler looked confused.

  "Do you believe black people are human beings?"

  "Object." Perkins was on his feet.

  "Overruled, Mr. Perkins." Judge DeYoung looked aggravated. "Please sit down and let Mr. McMath continue his questioning. I'll stop him if it gets off track."

  "Thank you, Your Honor." Luke looked from DeYoung to the witness. "You may answer the question, Mr. Tyler. Do you believe black people are human beings?"

  "Yes, sir." Tyler paused, thinking of how to phrase his words. "Back in high school, I went to school before integration, you see. Well, back then I didn't thi
nk much about black people one way or the other. They'd do the jobs white people didn't want to do, and as long as they stayed away from us, I didn't think much about them."

  "Did your opinion change? And if so, why?"

  "Your Honor, can we agree that this line of questioning is…?" Perkins was on his feet again.

  "Mr. Perkins, I asked you to remain seated." DeYoung's face was red. "I said I would stop Mr. McMath if he gets out of line. Please, Mr. McMath, continue." Perkins sat down, and Luke took a deep breath.

  "You can answer the question, Mr. Tyler. Did your opinion about black people change after high school, and if so, why?"

  "Yes, sir." He took a sip of his water. "You see, I can't read real good. They say it's dyslexia, or something like that but I can do numbers, so that's why I'm good at taking money, making change, memorizing drink recipes, stuff like that. So, after high school, I couldn't go to college, then I got this job as a helper in the bar. I was just a clean-up person at first." Tyler went on to explain how he'd bussed tables and washed dishes and that the cook took Tyler under his wings and taught him how to make a few things, like burgers and fries.

  "That man, L'Roy, was kind to me. And as I moved up to bartender, then manager, he stayed with me. He works harder than three men, he's always happy, he loves his wife and two girls, he sings all the time, and he lifts my spirits when I'm down. He's black as the ace of spades, but I don't see that no more. I see him as a friend and a good person. He made me a better person."

  "So what happened the night you went on the 'chase' with Mr. Thevenot?" Luke stood on the side of the podium and leaned against it on one elbow, his other hand in the pocket of his slacks.

  "I jumped out of the truck and tried to stop it, but they just kept going." Tyler looked like he wanted to cry. You could hear a fly buzzing around in the gallery, it was so quiet. "When they finally stopped, that poor man was all bloody, his face was ripped up, one of his legs looked to be broken. I ran to him and removed to rope from his waist. Thevenot thought I was helping him out by retrieving his rope, but I was disturbed. I wanted to help the man. His friend got there just as Keith started to drive away. One of the guys in the back of the truck yelled, 'Wait up, Tyler's not in the truck,' and Keith backed up so I could get in.