The Last Juror (20 page)

“Where’d you buy this shirt, Mr. Padgitt?”

Danny froze, uncertain as to whether he should deny it was his, or admit ownership, or try and recall where he bought the damned thing.

“You didn’t steal it, did you?” Ernie roared at him.

“I did not.”

“Then answer my question, and please try to remember you’re under oath. Where did you buy this shirt?” As Ernie talked he held the shirt in front of him with his fingertips, as if the blood was still wet and might spot his suit.

“Over in Tupelo, I think. I really don’t remember. It’s just a shirt.”

“How long have you owned it?”

Another pause. How many men can remember when they bought a particular shirt?

“A year or so, maybe. I don’t keep notes on clothes.”

“Neither do I,” Ernie said. “When you were in bed with Lydia that night, had you removed this shirt?”

A very cautious, “Yes.”

“Where was it while the two of you were, uh, having relations?”

“On the floor, I guess.”

Now that it was firmly established that the shirt was his, Ernie was free to slaughter the witness. He pulled out the report from the state crime lab, read it to Danny, and asked him how his own blood came to be stained on the shirt. This led to a discussion about his driving abilities, his tendency to speed, the type of vehicle, and the fact that he was legally drunk when he flipped his truck. With Ernie pounding away, I doubt if a case of driving under the influence had ever sounded so deadly. Not surprisingly, Danny had a thin skin and began to bristle at Ernie’s pointed and sardonic questioning.

On to Rhoda’s bloodstains. If he was in bed with Lydia, with the shirt on the floor, how in the world did Rhoda’s blood find its way from her bedroom to Lydia’s, a half mile away?

It was a conspiracy, Danny said, advancing a new theory and digging a hole he would never get out of. Too much time alone in a jail cell can be dangerous for a guilty criminal. Well, he tried to explain, someone either stained his shirt with Rhoda’s blood, a theory that lightened up the crowd considerably, or, it was more
likely that some mysterious person who examined the shirt was simply lying, all in an effort to convict him. Ernie had a field day with both scenarios, but he landed his heaviest blows with a series of brutal questions about why Danny, who certainly had the money to hire the best lawyers around, didn’t hire his own expert to come to court and explain the tainted blood exams to the jury.

Perhaps no expert was found because no expert could reach the ridiculous conclusions Padgitt wanted.

Same for the semen. If Danny had been producing it over at Lydia’s, how could it arrive at Rhoda’s? No problem—it was part of a broad conspiracy to nail him for the crime. The lab reports were fabricated; the police work was faulty. Ernie hammered him until we were all exhausted.

At twelve-thirty, Lucien stood and suggested a break for lunch. “I’m not done!” Ernie yelled across the courtroom. He wanted to finish the annihilation before Lucien could get his hands on his client and try to rehabilitate him, a task that seemed impossible. Padgitt was on the ropes, battered and gasping for air, and Ernie was not going to a neutral corner.

“Continue,” Judge Loopus said, and Ernie suddenly shouted at Padgitt, “What did you do with the knife?”

The question startled everyone, especially the witness, who jerked backward and quickly said, “I, uh—” then went silent.

“You what! Come on, Mr. Padgitt, tell us what you did with the knife, the murder weapon.”

Danny shook his head fiercely and looked too scared to speak. “What knife?” he managed to say. He could not have looked guiltier if the knife had dropped out of his pocket onto the floor.

“The knife you used on Rhoda Kassellaw.”

“It wasn’t me.”

Like a slow and cruel executioner, Ernie took a long pause and huddled with Hank Hooten again. He then picked up the autopsy report and asked Danny if he remembered the testimony of the first pathologist. Was his report also a part of this conspiracy? Danny wasn’t sure how to answer. All of the evidence was being used against him, so, yes, he figured it must be bogus as well.

And the piece of his skin found under her fingernail, that was part of the conspiracy? And his own semen? And on and on; Ernie hammered away. Occasionally, Lucien would glance over his shoulder at Danny’s father with a look that said, “I told you so.”

Danny’s presence on the stand allowed Ernie to once more trot out all the evidence, and the impact was devastating. His weak protests that everything was tainted by a conspiracy sounded ridiculous, even laughable. Watching him get thoroughly decimated before the jury was quite gratifying. The good guys were winning. The jury seemed primed to pull out rifles and form a firing squad.

Ernie tossed his legal pad on his table and appeared ready for lunch, finally. He jammed both hands into his front pockets, glared at the witness, and said, “Under
oath, you’re telling this jury you didn’t rape and murder Rhoda Kassellaw?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“You didn’t follow her home from the state line that Saturday night?”

“No.”

“You didn’t sneak in her patio door?”

“No.”

“And hide in her closet until she put her children to bed?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t attack her when she came in to put on her night clothes?”

“No.”

Lucien stood and said angrily, “Objection, Your Honor, Mr. Gaddis is testifying here.”

“Overruled!” Loopus snapped at the defense table. The Judge wanted a fair trial. To counteract all the lying done by the defense, the prosecution was being allowed considerable freedom in describing the murder scene.

“You didn’t blindfold her with a scarf?”

Padgitt was continually shaking his head as the narrative approached its climax.

“And cut off her panties with your knife?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t rape her in her own bed, with her two little children asleep not far away?”

“I did not.”

“And you didn’t wake them with your noise?”

“No.”

Ernie walked as close to the witness chair as the Judge would allow, and he looked sadly at his jury. Then he turned to Danny and said, “Michael and Teresa ran to check on their mother, didn’t they, Mr. Padgitt?”

“I don’t know.”

“And they found you on top of her, didn’t they?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Rhoda heard their voices, didn’t she? Did they yell at you, beg you to get off?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“And Rhoda did what any mother would do—she yelled for them to run, didn’t she, Mr. Padgitt?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“You weren’t there!” Ernie bellowed, and the walls seemed to shake. “Your shirt was there, your footprints were there, you left your semen there! You think this jury is stupid, Mr. Padgitt?”

The witness kept shaking his head. Ernie walked slowly to his chair and pulled it from under the table. As he was about to sit, he said, “You’re a rapist. You’re a murderer. And you’re a liar, aren’t you, Mr. Padgitt?”

Lucien was up and yelling. “Objection, Your Honor. This is enough.”

“Sustained. Any further questions, Mr. Gaddis?”

“No, Your Honor, the State is finished with this witness.”

“Any redirect, Mr. Wilbanks?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“The witness may step down.” Danny slowly got to
his feet. Long gone was the smirk, the swagger. His face was red with anger and wet with sweat.

As he was about to step out of the witness box and return to the defense table, he suddenly turned to the jury and said something that stunned the courtroom. His face wrinkled into pure hatred, and he jabbed his right index finger into the air. “You convict me,” he said, “and I’ll get every damned one of you.”

“Bailiff!” Judge Loopus said as he grabbed for his gavel. “That’s enough, Mr. Padgitt.”

“Every damned one of you!” Danny repeated, louder. Ernie jumped to his feet, but could think of nothing to say. And why should he? The defendant was strangling himself. Lucien was on his feet, equally uncertain about what to do. Two deputies raced forward and shoved Padgitt toward the defense table. As he walked away he glared at the jurors as if he might just throw a grenade right then.

When things settled, I realized my heart was pounding with excitement. Even Baggy was too stunned to speak.

“Let’s break for lunch,” His Honor said, and we fled the courtroom. I was no longer hungry. I felt like racing to my apartment and taking a shower.

CHAPTER 18

T
he trial resumed at 3 P.M. All the jurors were present; the Padgitts hadn’t knocked one off during lunch. Miss Callie gave me a grin, but her heart was not in it.

Judge Loopus explained to the jury that it was now time for the closing arguments, after which he would read to them his formal instructions, and they should have the case to decide in a couple of hours or so. They listened carefully, but I’m sure they were still reeling from the shock of being so flagrantly intimidated. The entire town was reeling. The jurors were a sampling of us, the rest of the community, and to threaten them was to do the same to everyone.

Ernie went first, and within minutes the bloody shirt was back in play. He was careful, though, not to overdo it. The jurors understood. They knew the evidence well.

The District Attorney was thorough but surprisingly brief. As he made his last appeal for a verdict of guilty,
we watched the faces of the jurors. I saw no sympathy for the defendant. Fargarson, the crippled boy, was actually nodding as he followed along with Ernie. Mr. John Deere had uncrossed his arms and was listening to every word.

Lucien was even briefer, but then he had far less to work with. He began by addressing his client’s final words to the jury. He apologized for his behavior. He blamed it on the pressure of the moment. Imagine, he asked the jurors, being twenty-four years old and facing either life in prison or, worse, the gas chamber. The stress on his young client—he always referred to him as “Danny” as if he was an innocent little boy—was so enormous that he was concerned about his mental stability.

Since he could not pursue the goofy conspiracy theory advanced by his client, and since he knew better than to dwell on the evidence, he spent half an hour or so praising the heroes who’d written our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The way Lucien interpreted the presumption of innocence and the requirement that the State prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt made me wonder how any criminal ever got convicted.

The State had the chance for a rebuttal; the defense did not. So Ernie got the last word. He ignored the evidence and did not mention the defendant, but chose instead to talk about Rhoda. Her youth and beauty, her simple life out in Beech Hill, the death of her husband, and the challenge of raising two small children alone.

This was very effective, and the jurors were absorbing every word. “Let’s not forget about her,” was Ernie’s refrain. A polished orator, he saved the best for last.

“And let’s not forget about her children,” he said as he looked into the eyes of the jurors. “They were there when she died. What they saw was so horrible that they will be forever scarred. They have a voice here in this courtroom, and their voice belongs to you.”

Judge Loopus read his instructions to the jury, then sent them back to begin their deliberations. It was after 5 P.M., a time when the shops around the square were closed and the merchants and their customers were long gone. Traffic was normally light, parking was easy.

But not when a jury is out!

Much of the crowd lingered on the courthouse lawn, smoking, gossiping, predicting how long a verdict would take. Others crowded into the cafés for a late coffee or an early dinner. Ginger followed me to my office where we sat on the balcony and watched the activity around the courthouse. She was emotionally wasted and wanted to do nothing but get out of Ford County.

“How well do you know Hank Hooten?” she asked at one point.

“Never met him. Why?”

“He caught me during lunch, said he knew Rhoda well, said he knew for a fact that she was not sleeping around, especially not with Danny Padgitt. I told him I did not believe for an instant that she was seeing that scumbag.”

“Did he say he dated her?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t say, but I got the impression he did. When we were going through her things, a week or so after the funeral, I found his name and phone number in her address book.”

“You’ve met Baggy,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Well, Baggy’s been around forever, thinks he knows it all. He told me Monday when the trial started that Rhoda and Hank were seeing each other. He said Hank’s been through a couple of wives, likes to be known as a ladies’ man.”

“So he’s not married?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll ask Baggy.”

“I guess I should feel better knowing my sister was sleeping with a lawyer.”

“Why would that make you feel better?”

“I don’t know.”

She’d kicked off her heels and her short skirt was even higher up her thighs. I began to rub them, and my thoughts drifted away from the trial.

But only for a moment. There was a commotion around the front door of the courthouse, and I heard someone yell something about a “verdict.”

______

A
fter deliberating for less than one hour, the jury was ready. When the lawyers and spectators were in place, Judge Loopus told a bailiff, “Bring ’em in.”

“Guilty as hell,” Baggy whispered to me as the door
opened and Fargarson came limping out first. “Quick verdicts are always guilty.”

For the record, Baggy had predicted a hung jury, but I didn’t remind him of that, not then anyway.

The foreman handed a folded sheet of paper to the bailiff, who then gave it to the Judge. Loopus examined it for a long time, then leaned down close to his microphone. “Would the defendant please rise,” he said. Both Padgitt and Lucien stood, slowly and awkwardly, as if the firing squad was taking aim.

Judge Loopus read, “As to count one, the charge of rape, we the jury find the defendant, Danny Padgitt, guilty. As to count two, the charge of capital murder, we the jury find the defendant, Danny Padgitt, guilty.”