by Bev Marshall
Bill Calloway was relaxation in the flesh. He leaned back in the big leather chair and crossed his legs. “Fine. Will this be your first murder trial?”
How did he know this wasn’t a routine assignment for me? “Yes. I was on the society page, but the hard news reporter moved away. I expect my position is temporary.” I hoped so.
“But aren’t you the fellow who found out that Stoney Barnes is sterile and reported it to the sheriff? That’s not cub reporter work. You’re obviously an astute young man.”
I swelled a little with the compliment, but then wondered if he were saying that — if not for me — the sheriff wouldn’t have arrested his client. I had told Sheriff Vairo that here was Stoney’s motive. I had said, “Here’s our Othello snuffing out the life of his Desdemona.” Then, when the sheriff had looked at me with blank eyes, I said, “Jealousy! Murderous jealousy.”
“Mrs. Barnes is the one who told me about Stoney’s condition,” I said.
Calloway leaned forward and clasped his hands over the legal pad in front of him. “Yes, and I’m grateful for her assistance in helping our case along.”
I didn’t understand his cheerful tone nor how her blunder could be construed as something to be grateful for. “Helping your case?” My pen was poised on my pad, but I hadn’t stroked the first curve of one letter until now. I wrote, “Mrs. Barnes helping how?”
“Yes, since the child wasn’t conceived by the husband, painful as it is for Stoney Barnes, he now knows that a love triangle existed. His wife, Sheila, such a pretty name, had taken a lover.” He smiled at me like he was about to hand me the keys to a new automobile or give me some other extravagant gift. “She had unwisely taken a lover, who went up to her house for a forbidden tryst after her husband left for work. When she rebuffed him and threatened to expose him, he murdered her.”
I was writing as fast as my pen would allow. My voice came out loud and adolescent. “Who? Who was the lover?”
Calloway’s smile stretched wider. “Oh, we’ll find out eventually. I’ve got an investigator working on it. For now, you just print what you have there. That’s the true story of what really happened to that poor girl.”
After I left the bank offices, I drove straight to the jail and told Clyde Vairo what Calloway had said to me. “Who do you think it is? Who’s the lover?”
Clyde looked annoyed. He needed a shave and he rubbed his cheeks like the stubble was worrying him. “Hell, I don’t know. I don’t have any evidence of who was sleeping with her, except maybe the papa, and I haven’t any hard proof of that.”
“Can I see Stoney? Interview him in his cell?”
“Yeah, you can go back there, but he ain’t talked much since I locked him up. Just sits on his cot kinda staring at the floor like he don’t know where he’s at. His lawyer was here a long time this morning. I reckon he talked to him, but he hasn’t spoke more’n a few words to me or Sam.”
I’d never gone through the locked door that led to the cells behind the sheriff’s office, and I wasn’t prepared for the stench of urine and stale whiskey and unwashed armpits that assaulted us when the sheriff opened the door. Sheriff Vairo motioned me to follow him down the dark hall that divided the two cells. I looked first to my left where I saw two Negroes sitting on the floor throwing dice. A third black man lay on the stained mattress with his forearm resting across his eyes. They were all barefoot. The man holding the dice wore overalls with no shirt; his hair was shot with gray patches around his temples and ears, and he cocked his head and nodded to me as we passed. The man sitting across from him was much younger and his unbuttoned shirt revealed a huge raised scar that crossed his chest like a hyphen. He greeted us with a lift of his hand and the word “Boss.” The third prisoner ignored us, and I decided most of the liquor smell was rising from his damp khaki pants.
Turning to my right I saw Stoney Barnes leaning against the back wall of his cell. Like the sheriff, he needed a shave, but his beard was much darker and heavier. When he saw me, he pushed himself off the wall and walked on his sock feet across to the bars between us. Behind him I could see a mattress partially covered with a rumpled tan blanket, a pillow with no case, a tin slop bucket, a roll of tissue paper beside it, and beyond that a small cardboard box with the words “Astor Golden Delicious” written on its side. Barnes wore loose-fitting jeans with no belt, a blue and green checked shirt with gray buttons, and white socks. He stepped back when Sheriff Vairo opened the door to the cell. “Call me when you’re done,” he said to me, closing the door behind me.
I stood, uncertain as to jailhouse etiquette. After a moment, I stretched out my hand. “You may not remember me. I’m Leland Graves, reporter for The Lexie Journal. I spoke with you at your house, the day of… the day your wife was found.”
The boy smiled at me and took my hand. “I remember now. Yeah, you was asking me about how was I gonna feel that night.” He leaned against the bars and crossed his ankles. “I reckon you want to know how I feel now being locked up in here.”
I pointed to the cot. “May I?” He nodded, and I straightened the blanket a bit and sat on the very edge of the cot and took out my pen and pad. “Yes, I am interested in how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking.”
He began to pace, completing a square. He walked past the bars to the back wall, in front of the bucket and box, back toward the bars inches from my feet. I followed him with my eyes up, across, down, across. I tried not to breathe too deeply each time he passed. Looking around the cell, I saw that there was nowhere to wash. “So you were taken by surprise when you were arrested?”
“Yeah. I reckon I was. Didn’t know anybody thought I done it, except old man Carruth.” He stopped pacing and looked at me. “I didn’t do it. Write that down.” Then he continued on his route around his cell. “I was in the peanut patch, pulling peanuts for Mr. Cotton. He said it was best for me not to come down to milk yet what with Sheila’s memory still there. So I was out pulling peanuts, the sun weren’t high yet, it weren’t hot, and I was kinda enjoying being out there alone, and then I looked up and seen the sheriff and Mr. Cotton coming. The sheriff had his hand on his hip like he was ready to draw on me. I ain’t sure ’bout what he said for exact, but he said something like, ‘Stoney, I got to take you in.’ And I says, ‘What for, Sheriff?’ and he says, ‘Murder.’” He shook his head and his dark hair fell across his forehead. “I couldn’t get my mind around what he was saying, but I held out my wrists for them cuffs and said, ‘All right then. Let’s go.’”
The sun, which had been obscured by cloud cover all day, suddenly broke out and an elongated rectangle of light shone through the window, and now Stoney walked in and out of the light as he traversed his course. Dark, light, his face clear and vivid and then shadowed and dim. His monologue followed the same pattern. He smiled speaking of his mother, telling me that she brought his supper to him every night. Then his voice slowed and his tone was mournful. “But I didn’t get no bail. I ain’t never going home again unless a jury says I’m innocent.”
“You think you’ll be found not guilty?”
He hesitated. His mouth moved and he nodded as if a disembodied voice was telling him what to say. I suspected the person who was speaking was Calloway. “Can’t nobody prove I done it.”
Stoney’s voice held no conviction and brought to my mind a child’s voice denying his naughtiness. “I spoke with your lawyer, Mr. Calloway, and he says that you weren’t aware of your wife’s infidelity. You didn’t suspect that she was having an affair with someone, some other man?”
Stoney walked to where I sat and stood looking down on me. His eyes frightened me, and I’m sure I shrunk back from him just a bit. “No! She never let on nothing. She and me, we, we was happy.” He looked up at the ceiling as though his wife was there nodding agreement. “She were happy, said so all the time. I satisfied her in ever’ way.” He looked back down on me. “Ever’ way. She didn’t need no other man for that.”
His reaction was, I knew, typic
al of a man cuckolded by another. Although I had only experienced a physical relationship with a woman twice, I understood how painful it must be for him to realize that his wife had lain in another’s arms.
The stench was getting to me, and my stomach wasn’t going to stay settled in place much longer. I needed to ask the question I’d come here for. “Do you know who your wife was seeing? Who the father of the baby is?”
Stoney held onto the bars and turned his back on me. His voice was low and angry and frightening. “Yeah, I know all right. I know him. It’s his fault Sheila’s dead. He killed her, not me.”
I stood up, but stayed safely away from him. “And what is his name?”
Stoney turned and stared at me with such intense hatred spread over his face that I thought for a moment he was going to say my name. But he lifted his hands to his head and ran his fingers through his thick mane of blue-black hair. It was as if he’d just awakened from sleep and realized where he was. His eyes opened wider, revealing his fear. “I ain’t supposed to be talking to nobody about my case. You better go.”
CHAPTER 30
ROWENA
I might have known Kevin Landry, the prosecutor for Stoney’s case, would pick today of all days to come out here to talk about the murder trial. Lloyd thinks the world of him, but I know his type. He’s too ambitious for my taste. The good Lord knows I believe in doing your best in this world, getting ahead to give your children a bright future, but his hungering after success is all for himself. Those two children of his look like ragamuffins running around the churchyard, and Eloise, his poor wife, wears run-down heels and doesn’t have a decent hat. Last Sunday she had on a cloche that I could see had been patched with thread that didn’t match. Lloyd says that a district attorney doesn’t have to be a family man to be qualified for the job, and we ought to be glad he’s more interested in putting criminals in jail than he is in fashion.
I’ll admit he’s plenty smart. And with me he was quite the gentleman. You would think he was a knight come to do my bidding as his fair lady. The first thing he said after I brought him a cup of coffee was that I would not be receiving a subpoena due to my “delicate condition.” He admired nearly every piece of furniture in the house and he did recognize the copy of Gainsborough’s “Mrs. Siddons” hanging over the piano. After two bites of my pound cake, he said he’d greatly appreciate it if I would pass my recipe to Eloise. Even so, I just don’t like him. Here lately, lots of folks are getting on my nerves, especially Lloyd. He can’t remember two items on a grocery list, and when I asked him to move the couch from beneath the window because the morning sun is fading the fabric, he acted like I’d asked him to move the moon from the sky.
Kevin Landry finally got around to asking me what-all I knew about the murder. I told him we were never as shocked in our whole lives as we were when we found out Stoney was the one who killed Sheila. He asked me if I would be willing to come down to his office and give a deposition about Sheila telling me she was p.g. and how she was going to give Stoney the news on the night she was murdered. He also asked about the morning Stoney reported her missing and what he’d looked like, exactly what he said. I told him so many weeks had passed now that I couldn’t be sure my memory would be all that good, but that I’d try my best.
Lloyd came in and Kevin changed like a chameleon. Really, he could be an actor on stage. He went from soft and refined to a man right at home walking over pastures, stomping on cow piles. I looked at his immaculate wing tips and knew his lie. “How’s the dairy business?” he asked Lloyd in this booming voice. Lloyd said fine, and then Kevin asked him about our Ayrshires and said he’d heard they were the finest breed of milk cow in the world. I got up to refill his coffee, and by the time I came back into the front room, Kevin had taken out the pad he had written my words on and was writing down what Lloyd said he knew about Stoney and Sheila.
“So that morning, you were an hour late getting down to the barn?”
Lloyd frowned. He didn’t like having to admit to that. “Yeah. That one time.”
The two of them talked on a while about what would be Lloyd’s testimony when he was called to the witness chair, and then Kevin took out another smaller pad and said, “I’ve got Bill Calloway’s witness list here, and I’d like to talk about it with you, Lloyd,” he glanced over at me, “in private.”
I never felt so insulted in my life. I looked to Lloyd to say that he was a man with no secrets from his wife, but he ducked his head and mumbled, “All right.” I stood up. Without a word, I lifted Kevin Landry’s cup from the table, opened the front door, and walked out onto the porch. I broke the cup. I don’t think I meant to, but somehow it fell from my hand and crashed on the brick walk. I had gotten out the good Haviland china with the patterned rose chain that I only used for special occasions, and when I saw the broken flowers, I burst into tears. I hated Stoney then more than I believe I’ve ever hated anyone. This was all his fault. Everything bad that had come into my life was his doing. I wished I could go into that courtroom and testify against him. I wanted to see his face when the jury found him guilty.
Lloyd looked upset when he came out with Kevin Landry. His face was crimson and he took out his handkerchief and wiped his palms. I was cool to both of them. I stood with my chin in the air, holding the broken shards of china, and nodded only slightly as they came down the steps to me. Before he got back into his automobile, Kevin thanked me for my hospitality, but he didn’t mention the recipe again. I turned and went up the steps and back into the house to wait for Lloyd to come inside. He would tell me what had just transpired in my own home, and had been kept from me.
But Lloyd didn’t tell me a thing. He tried to pretend that Kevin Landry had just wanted the privacy to avoid talking about the ugly details of Sheila’s death in front of a “lady so delicate.” That was the way Lloyd put it. I wasn’t fooled one bit. His face wasn’t that color because of me. He made hurried excuses and scuttled down to the barn like a rat running for grain.
By the time Lloyd returned for his dinner, I was loading my suitcase into Mama’s Buick. I told him that I was going to live with Mama whom I could trust and who didn’t keep secrets from me. I didn’t risk looking at his or Annette’s faces as Mama backed over the camellia bush and turned out onto Carterdale Road.
Annette
Daddy really goofed up this time. I didn’t know what the fuss was about, but whatever it was must have been a doozy. We both knew Mama’s mind was teetering, and I judged that Stoney’s upcoming trial had sent her over the cliff. Or it could have been the baby that made her plummet over the edge.
It seemed like overnight, her stomach had ripened like a prize pumpkin that couldn’t sit still on the vine. One minute all of her baby-filled womb would be riding below her breastbone and the next it would lurch over to her left side, nearly throwing her off balance. Other times Mama’s belly would quiver and then roll across the front of her like a lava flow. The baby wouldn’t stop its acrobatic feats long enough for poor Mama to sleep anywhere. She tried the couch, the guest bed, the porch daybed, and then she moved into my own sanctuary. One morning I had found her there crying all over my pillowcase.
I tiptoed in. “Mama?”
She wiped her wet cheeks and sat up on my bed. “I’m a freak. Just a sideshow freak.”
She was really, so I studied the yellow-ruffled curtains and wondered what was an appropriate response to an ugly truth. Finally, I decided to blame it on the baby. “You’re not the freak, Mama.” I pointed to her lurching stomach. “It is.” Mama’s face crumbled and she began to cry loud enough for Daddy to hear her down at the barn. I tried to help with good advice. “Maybe you could try listening to some waltzes or lullabies. Sing it to sleep like we did for Lil’ Bit when he got overtired.”
Mama laid back down. I wanted her out of my bed and back in hers, but I didn’t know how to evict her. She mumbled something. “What?”
“Lil’ Bit. I want him, not, not,” she gasped, just saying the tr
eacherous words, “not this crazy baby.” Then she covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t mean that, Annette. You know I don’t mean it.”
I thought she certainly did mean it, but I said, “I know you don’t. Grandma said this baby is unsettled because of all the goings-on since it started sprouting up inside you. It may have heard all the talk about Sheila’s murder, the funeral, Stoney getting arrested.” My selfish motives rose up then. “And you’ve been mad at me a lot lately. The baby might be agitated by all your fussing. You need to start paying more attention to what you’re doing and saying.”
As I said these words, something momentous happened. A new element turned up inside me, a purple mist that coated all of my organs with a radiant glow. This powerful aura, floating out of my body, soared out into the room and wafted around me. It smelled like magnolia blossoms, so sweet that my best perfume seemed as putrid as stinkweed. I turned away from Mama, scared she would ruin the moment. I walked to my dresser and searched my face in the mirror looking for evidence of my transformation. Although I looked the same physically, there was a hint of something new and different about this girl with more womanly eyes than any near twelve-year-old I knew. Maturation was coming on me like a blizzard in July. I could nearly feel my breasts growing, hair sprouting between my legs and under my arms. The color of womanhood is purple, I thought, and now as a full-grown woman, I could give advice, point out Mama’s errors and mistaken ideas. I pivoted toward her and saw submission on her face.
She nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I have been upset throughout most of this baby’s time on earth. With you, I was calm, had no more to worry about than what day I would prune the roses.” She sat up and tried to hug her knees. Her face took on the glow of soft memories. “Your daddy was different back then too. He would lie with his head on my stomach and talk to you like he could see you laughing when he told a corny joke.” Mama was smiling big now, and I felt a wonderful relief inside my purple body. “And you know, we did listen to Brahms and Handel and Strauss. Doris and Leda and Mama and I would sit on the sofa and drink sassafras tea while the music drifted out from the console radio. My papa would come in and take turns dancing with us girls. And then your daddy would come to take me home, and he would cock his hat, offer me his arm like a swell, and we’d dance down the hall out to the buggy we had back then.” She was crying again, but the tears were the nice surprising kind that people aren’t so quick to wipe away.
