Witch Ball

by Adele Elliott

  "Don't be so sad, Kay," Fleur said. "There is no real death, just a big change. We escape from the body, like flight from imprisonment. Anyway, they are still around us. Love doesn't die."

  "That makes me feel better."

  "Even little animals stay around us. I am sure they all go to heaven, but Michael-Ray comes back to visit. I feel him rub against my legs, and I am quite sure that Jimmy-James talks to him as well. I recognize the distinct meow he used when they played together, so different from when they were hungry, or chasing a chameleon."

  Shadows lengthened. Crickets near the water began their courting call-and-response. We saw a policeman making his last rounds to clear out the cemetery before locking the gates for the night.

  "Aunt Fleur, maybe we should ask him what's happening with the murder investigation. And if they have any leads on who killed Michael Ray."

  She appeared to find this amusing. "Not a good idea," she said, as she returned our snack things to the basket.

  Right before we left, Mom kissed her fingers then touched her mama's headstone.

  32

  It was beginning to look like school would start with Coach's murder still hanging over the city. Parents threatened to keep their children from participating in extracurricular activities. Most mothers work these days. This means that they might be late for after-school pick-up. Everyone was terrified of what could happen if the kids had to wait alone after football or cheerleading practice.

  The City Council meetings in August were filled with contentious attacks on the mayor and council members. Petitions circulated in an attempt to remove the current office-holders. Everyone knew that that was pointless. Once someone gets on the City Council, they are impossible to unseat. There are no term limits.

  Columbus Police Chief Roger Gordon gave a press conference stating that the murder was a rare occurrence, the first in years. It was unlikely to happen again. Mayor Perkins stood stoically behind the Chief as he spoke. When the meeting was broadcast on local TV, they both appeared stiff and uncomfortable. Many people took that as a sign that they were without any leads, and fearful of the voters' anger.

  Maybe the police department was giving up, but The Packet didn't let it rest. They follow the crime beat, and this was the biggest story in memory. Residents around the coach's Northside "clubhouse" were interviewed again and again. They were encouraged to try to remember anything strange about the night of the murder.

  Most people didn't want to talk to the media, especially to that paper, known as "The National Inquirer of Columbus." However, one woman, Mrs. Miller, who lived across the street, said she saw a group of boys go in around 11:30 or 12:00 that night, maybe a bit later. "Of course, that's not at all unusual," she was quoted as saying to The Packet's reporter. "Boys come and go at all hours."

  "What made you notice?" the reporter asked. "Is there anything else you remember?"

  "I had missed the 10:00 p.m. news, and was trying to stay awake for the rebroadcast at 1:00 a.m. I was drinking sweet tea to stay awake, so I had to get up to go to the bathroom several times. I kept looking out the picture window in front. Because there seemed to be a lot of activity that night, headlights flashing on and off, more noise than usual."

  "Did you recognize anyone? A familiar car?" The Packet's story contained every detail. They are known for including absurd points that interest no one. (My Dad says he thinks the reporters get paid by the word.)

  "Yeah, I know most of the kids' cars. They are usually beat up. Earlier I had seen a nicer truck, but it wasn't there long, so it could have been at the house next door."

  "Do you remember the color of the truck?"

  "I don' know. Light, I think—white, silver; somethin' like that."

  "What about the noise?"

  "That was later. Some boys, three or four, showed up. They came out of the house real quick-like. I noticed how fast they piled into the car. I remember chuckling. That house is supposed to have ghosts in it. They ran like they'd seen a haunt."

  "Can you remember what the boys looked like?"

  "It was dark. I went back to the TV; didn't want to miss the news again."

  The Packet published a photo of Mrs. Miller peeking through the flowered curtains of her front window. There was a picture of the Coach's house, too. They must have snapped the picture just as the sun was setting. It looked lonely and spooky, with jagged shadows under the bushes and crossing the lawn.

  33

  Much to my surprise, Eric phoned me several times during the next few days. I had decided that I couldn't be friends with someone who hated Aunt Fleur, so I'd been avoiding him the same way he had stayed away from me earlier in the summer.

  When I finally chose to speak to him, he asked to meet me by the river. His voice was shaky, childlike. I felt that there was something that he had to say. I also felt some remorse, more than I cared to admit. After all, I had worked a spell to make him like me. Now, I wanted nothing to do with him. I was beginning to see how painful dating could be.

  Eric was sitting on a bench facing the water. He handed me a tall paper cup from the coffee house. It was frozen mocha, light and creamy, with slivers of crushed ice.

  "Truly, I've been thinking about you a lot. School will start in a couple of weeks. We probably won't be seeing each other much. This may be my last chance to talk to you." He ran his finger in circles in the cup's sweat.

  "Go ahead." I was curious to hear this, hoping and fearing that he might finally have something personal to say. It was too late now to have a romantic relationship. For some reason, I needed to hear that he had felt something for me.

  "I guess you can figure out why I was so creeped out by your aunt."

  "I suppose that in some way she must have reminded you of Coach Russell."

  "And those weirdo friends..."

  I started to defend them but decided to keep my mouth shut.

  "Truly, remember when we went to the movie?" How could I forget? "Well, that night, I had something else to do. I took you home early because I was going to meet some guys, old friends from the track team."

  "That's nice." I didn't really care.

  "We were scoping out the Huddle House parking lot to check out the freaks who hang out there late at night. But I saw your aunt, and I just ran away."

  "Eric, this is a very small town. Naturally we run into people we recognize."

  "Yeah, well I ran away that time. But not the next time. After Coach's death, I was so enraged..."

  "Enraged? I thought you hated him?"

  "I hated him. But that doesn't mean I could kill him!" He threw his empty cup with a force that landed it several feet from the shore. We watched it slowly fill with water and sink into the muddy river.

  "It was horrible! His face was purple. His eyes were open. I'll remember that face as long as I live!"

  "Eric, what are you saying?! No one saw Coach's body except the police. How could you have seen him?"

  "I can't keep that secret anymore. I saw the body."

  Suddenly, I was frightened. The murderer had to see Coach. Could I be sitting next to a murderer?

  "After Skip killed himself, things changed. That night, after we went to the movie, Greg and Butch and I went to confront Coach. I don't know what we were going to do. Try to make him stop hurting guys, I guess."

  My stomach churned. The coffee felt like a storm deep inside me.

  "He was already dead when we found him, so we just got out of there as fast as we could."

  It was beginning to make sense. He might be telling the truth. Mrs. Miller said some boys had run out of the house in a hurry. They probably didn't have time to kill him.

  "Why didn't you say anything? Or go to the police?"

  "We were scared." He no longer looked handsome to me.

  "Maybe you could have helped. Anyway, everyone knows that old lady across the street saw some boys come and go that night. What if she can identify you?"

  "I just don't know. I've been so angry...at Coac
h, at everyone." He faced me. His mouth turned down at the corners. "Truly, I am guilty of one thing."

  They say confession is good for the soul. But I'm not sure it's good for the one hearing the confession. I thought of those movies where the cops shine a bright light on someone to make them come clean. This confession was making me feel queasy. Do cops feel this way, or priests? It was almost as if I were stained by Eric's confession. I wanted to get as far away from him as I could, but my knees had turned to putty. I couldn't move.

  "Eric, I'd better go home," I said, doubting that my legs would support me.

  "I have something else to tell you, Truly. This is so hard to say."

  I knew something terrible was coming, and did not want to hear it.

  I wished I could stick my fingers in my ears, and scream.

  "Truly, you're a sweet girl. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but I have to. I was one of the people who beat up your aunt."

  The world around us became intense and vivid. I remember everything, the pink and cream clouds in wispy curls against the pale sky, the flutter of reeds as the river's tiny waves lapped against them. Behind us, children squealed, their high-pitched voices full of delight. I couldn't look at Eric.

  "I know you don't understand, but I felt like we were fighting back."

  August in Mississippi is a horrible month. The sun is relentless. Blacktop covering the streets melts into a sticky mess. Yet, a chill rushed through my body, and I shivered.

  None of this made sense to me. I had to find my voice. "How could you think an old lady would be capable of murder?"

  "She, or he, I don't know what to say, is a freak. I can't imagine what she might do. She could be a witch, or a murderer, or anything."

  "Eric, you have to go the police."

  "I can't."

  "If you don't, I will."

  "What if they don't believe me?"

  "They have to. They just have to."

  34

  I did not believe that Eric was a murderer. I thought he was telling the truth, but I was not completely sure why I believed him. He seemed so helpless, and I knew he needed my friendship now. That's the strange thing—I was angry at him, repulsed by his actions, but at the same time, wanted to help him.

  I convinced Eric that we should go to my father's office to call the police. I got my feet under me, and we walked the seven blocks to City Hall without speaking. It felt like seven miles.

  Dad took us into a conference room, where Eric told him everything, the mugging of Fleur, the discovery of Coach's body. It all spilled out of him in a flood of emotion and relief. Dad phoned Eric's father.

  Hunter Alexander was not the man I expected. He was shorter than my Dad, with dirty fingernails and greasy hair. When Mom told me about how he had betrayed her all those years ago, I thought that I would hate him forever. Now, I saw tears in his eyes, and only felt sorry for him.

  Our fathers sat so close to each other that their shoulders almost touched. That, too, was unexpected, as if they had forgotten that they were once enemies, rivals in love. This afternoon they were just fathers, teammates in defense of a boy. They listened together to Eric's account, then called the police. Two uniformed officers came immediately and arrested Eric on suspicion of the murder of Lewis Russell. His "partners in crime," Greg Carson and Butch Hollis, were soon picked up as well.

  The Commercial Dispatch handled the arrests as a straight news report. For them it was a "just the facts, ma'am" sort of story. They didn't editorialize or rush to judgment. However, The Packet sensationalized their article with lots of re-hashed details about the murder. In their account, the attack on the "victim" was grisly and brutal. They claimed to have formerly undisclosed crime-scene photos. No one actually believed this, because everyone knows that The Packet has no scruples and would have published any pictures they possessed weeks ago.

  The "gang" members, as they were referred to by The Packet, were vigilantes, with motive and opportunity. These "thugs" were out to avenge the sexual abuse of track team members that had been going on for years. According to this paper, the suicide of Skip Daigle was "the last straw, sending them into a murderous rage."

  I had trouble picturing Eric, or the others, as villains, deeply entrenched in a life of crime. To me, they were still boys. However, Eric was nineteen, Butch and Greg were eighteen. According to Mississippi law they were adults and would be tried as such.

  Many people considered this a crime of revenge, therefore warranted. In Columbus, and most of Mississippi, justice can be very personal. The law moves too slowly. It is generally accepted that sometimes there is nothing wrong with speeding things up. Because of this deeply rooted conviction, the boys received a great deal of public support. Men were quoted as saying things like, "I would' done it myself, if I knower about it.", or "that pervert deserved what he got."

  Sadly, this attitude incriminated Fleur as well. As a homosexual man, who dressed as a woman, she was considered a freak of the highest order. Most people found it impossible to distinguish between being gay and being a pedophile. By this logic, Fleur was "asking for it," that is, to be attacked. As I said before, there isn't much sympathy for anyone who is "different." The Bible is filled with quotes about homosexuality, and it seems that everyone in Columbus knows them all by heart.

  I knew that Eric had a lot of passion. However, I had only seen it when he talked about The Underground Railroad, and escaped slaves. When it came to getting excited about things closer, like when I wanted so badly for him to kiss me, he was way too reserved. Now, he had real reasons to indentify with the slaves—abuse, and being forced to commit acts that are repulsive. I wonder if he thought of it that way?

  In many ways, the cloud over the city was lifted. Eric, Greg, and Butch were now the prime suspects, possibly the only suspects. They were in police custody, so the people of Columbus could relax. The population was out of danger from the murderers.

  There were still many curious details that were difficult to explain. In Mississippi almost everyone owns a gun, which raised the question of why anyone would be strangled.

  There was a demand for quick justice. A trial date was set for early in October. Judge James Sanders would hear the case.

  35

  School started, but I found it hard to concentrate on anything except Eric's trial. I became a sort of celebrity of the junior class because I knew Eric and was close to the whole incident. Much to my surprise, the kids were more fascinated by Aunt Fleur than they were grossed out by her "uniqueness." Some wanted to meet her, and the girls, especially, were anxious to learn about spells.

  I was invited to every party, even some thrown by seniors. That would have been important to me just six or eight weeks ago. Now, I was flattered but not overly excited. I was concerned with more important matters.

  My dad also became deeply involved. He and Hunter Alexander worked together as if they had been partners for many years. Dad's connections at City Hall gave him insight about which lawyer to employ. They were lucky to get Patrick Adams, known for his tenacity.

  Mr. Adams is a local. He graduated from Columbus High, then attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford. He was a cum laude graduate in college, and in the top ten of his class in law school. His education credentials might be impressive, but they are not as important as being a son of Columbus.

  I could tell that Dad was really getting into the whole situation. He told Mom and I that being convicted would ruin the lives of these three boys. "I can't let that happen," he said, "because I believe that they are innocent of murder."

  Mom just grunted. Dad may have put their high school history behind him; however, it was apparent that she had not.

  "Kay," he said, "why don't you come to Adams' office when we meet tomorrow afternoon? I think we are making great progress."

  "Maybe next time," she said into her book.

  I was thinking that Dad would have made a good attorney. I said, "I know the emphasis is on the murder, but other things
happened too. Like the brick thrown through Fleur's window...and the killing of Michael-Ray."

  "Yes, Gertrude, we know all about that. Eric and his friends claim to have had nothing to do with it. They say they didn't do those things."

  "But if they didn't do it, then who did?"

  "Gertrude, you have to understand that a broken window, or even a dead cat, is not nearly as important as a murder."

  Mom didn't contribute anything to the conversation.

  36

  The evidence against them for the real crime was circumstantial at best. They all confessed to the attack on Aunt Fleur and her friends, but steadfastly maintained that they were not murderers.

  Mrs. Miller, the lady from across the street who saw several boys going into Coach's house on the night of the murder, turned out to be worthless as a witness. She could not swear that these were the same boys that she saw. She couldn't even remember how many she saw.

  The motive for murder was not strong enough. Eric and Greg and Butch all admitted to hating the coach. They were angry about Skip's suicide. They knew first-hand how much emotional damage Coach had done to so many kids. According to them, Skip's death was only the tip of the iceberg.

  The case against them was weak. If they had so much fury in them, enough to kill someone, why didn't they do it sooner? And when they attacked Fleur and her friends, they beat them, hurt them badly, but did not go far enough to kill. Why did they kill the coach?

  It was evident too (in my opinion) that they were still children. Although they were all old enough to be tried as adults, I could only see them as boys, not as men. This is probably why I felt sorry for them. I suppose that Dad did, too. Most people realized that they weren't totally guiltless. I think the boys were guilty of unsophisticated thinking (not exactly a crime). They couldn't distinguish between being gay and being a pedophile. Of course, they were not alone in that respect; most of Columbus shared the belief, and used Biblical quotes to back up that judgment.