The Last Juror (21 page)

Lucien didn’t flinch and Padgitt tried not to. He looked at the jurors with as much venom as he could convey, but he was getting more of it in return.

“You may be seated,” His Honor said, then turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your service so far. This completes the guilt-or-innocence phase of the trial. Now we move to the capital phase in which you will be asked to decide whether this defendant gets a death sentence or life in prison. You will now return to your hotel, and we will recess until nine in the morning. Thank you and good night.”

It was over so quickly that most of the spectators didn’t move for a moment. They led Padgitt out, in handcuffs this time, and his family seemed completely bewildered. Lucien had no time to chat with them.

Baggy and I went to the office where he began
typing with a fury. The deadline was days away, but we wanted to capture the moment. Typically, though, he faded after half an hour when the sour mash called. It was almost dark when Ginger returned, in tight jeans, tight shirt, hair down, a look that said “Take me somewhere.”

We stopped at Quincy’s again, where I bought another six-pack for the road, and with the top down and the warm muggy air blowing by us, we headed for Memphis, ninety minutes away.

She said little, and I didn’t poke around. She had been forced by her family to attend the trial. She hadn’t asked for this nightmare. Luckily, she’d found me for a little fun.

I’ll never forget that night. Racing the dark empty backroads, drinking a cold beer, holding hands with a beautiful lady who’d come looking for me, one I’d already slept with and was sure to do so again.

Our sweet little romance had but a few hours left. I could almost count them. Baggy thought the penalty phase would take less than a day, so the trial would end tomorrow, Friday. Ginger couldn’t wait to leave Clanton and shake the dust off her shoes, and of course there was no way I could leave with her. I’d checked an atlas—Springfield, Missouri, was far away, at least a six-hour drive. Commuting would be difficult, though I’d certainly try if she wanted me to.

But something told me Ginger would vanish from my life as quickly as she had appeared. I was sure she had a boyfriend or two back home, so I wouldn’t be welcome.
And if she saw me in Springfield she would be reminded of Ford County and its horrible memories.

I squeezed her hand and vowed to make the most of those last few hours.

In Memphis, we headed for the tall buildings by the river. The most famous restaurant in town was a rib place called the Rendezvous, a landmark owned by a family of Greeks. Almost all of the good food in Memphis was cooked by either Greeks or Italians.

Downtown Memphis in 1970 was not a safe place. I parked in a garage and we hustled across an alley to the door of the Rendezvous. Smoke from its pits boiled from vents and hung like thick fog among the buildings. It was the most delicious smell I had ever encountered, and I, like most other patrons, was famished by the time we walked down a flight of stairs and entered the restaurant.

Thursdays were slow. We waited five minutes, and when they called my name we followed a waiter as he zigzagged around tables, through smaller rooms, deeper into the caverns. He winked at me and gave us a table for two in a dark corner. We ordered ribs and beer and groped each other while we waited.

The guilty verdict was a huge relief. Anything else would’ve been a civic disaster, and Ginger would’ve fled town and never looked back. She would flee tomorrow, but I had her for the moment. We drank to the verdict. For Ginger it meant justice had indeed prevailed. For me, it meant that too, but it also gave us another night together.

She ate little, which allowed me to finish my slab of ribs and go to work on hers. I told her about Miss Callie and the lunches on her porch, about her remarkable children, and her background. Ginger said she adored Miss Callie, same as she adored the other eleven.

Such admiration would not last long.

______

A
s I had expected, my father was holed up in the attic, which is what he had always called his office. It was really the top floor of a Victorian tower at the front corner of our shabby and ill-maintained home in midtown Memphis. Ginger wanted to see it, and in the darkness it looked much more imposing than in daylight. It was in a wonderful, shady old neighborhood filled with declining homes owned by declining families surviving gamely in genteel poverty.

“What does he do up there?” she asked. We were sitting in my car, with the engine off, at the curb. Mrs. Duckworth’s ancient schnauzer was barking at us four doors down.

“I told you already. He trades stocks and bonds.”

“At night?”

“He’s doing market research. He never comes out.”

“And he loses money?”

“He certainly doesn’t make any.”

“Are we going to say hello?”

“No. It’ll just piss him off.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Three, four months ago.” Visiting with my father was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment. I was consumed with lust and anxious to get started. We drove out of the city, into the suburbs, and found a Holiday Inn next to the interstate.

CHAPTER 19

F
riday morning, in the hallway outside the courtroom, Esau Ruffin found me and had a pleasant surprise. Three of his sons, Al, Max, and Bobby (Alberto, Massimo, and Roberto), were with him, anxious to say hello to me. I had spoken to all three a month earlier when I was doing the feature on Miss Callie and her children. We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. They politely thanked me for my friendship with their mother, and for the kind words I’d written about their family. They were as soft-spoken, pleasant, and as articulate as Miss Callie.

They had arrived late the night before to give her moral support. Esau had talked to her once all week—each juror had been given one phone call—and she was holding up well but worried about her blood pressure.

We chatted for a moment as the crowd pushed toward the courtroom and walked in together. They sat
directly behind me. A few moments later when Miss Callie took her seat, she looked at me and saw her three sons. The smile was like a bolt of lightning. The fatigue around her eyes vanished immediately.

During the trial, I had seen in her face a certain amount of pride. She was sitting where no black person had ever sat, shoulder to shoulder with fellow citizens, judging a white person for the first time in Ford County. I’d also had hints of the anxiety that comes with venturing into untested waters.

Now that her sons were there to watch, pride filled her face, and there was no evidence of fear. She sat a bit straighter, and though she’d missed nothing in the courtroom so far, her eyes darted everywhere, anxious to capture what was coming and finish her task.

Judge Loopus explained to the jurors that in the penalty phase the State would offer evidence of aggravating circumstances in support of its request for the death penalty. The defense would offer mitigating proof. He did not expect it to take long. It was Friday; the trial had already lasted forever; the jurors and everybody else in Clanton wanted Padgitt shipped off so life could return to normal.

Ernie Gaddis correctly gauged the mood in the courtroom. He thanked the jurors for their proper verdict of guilty and confessed that he felt no further testimony was necessary. The crime was so heinous that nothing more aggravating could be added to it. He asked the jurors to remember the graphic photos of Rhoda in the swing on Mr. Deece’s front porch, and the
pathologist’s testimony about her vicious wounds and how she died. And her children, please don’t forget her children.

As if anybody could.

He delivered an impassioned plea for the death penalty. He gave a brief history of why we, as good solid Americans, believed so strongly in it. He explained why it was a deterrent and a punishment. He quoted Scripture.

In almost thirty years of prosecuting crimes in six counties, he had never seen a case that so mightily begged for the death penalty. Watching the faces of the jurors, I was convinced he was about to get what he asked for.

He wrapped it up by reminding the jurors that each had been selected on Monday after promising that they could follow the law. He read them the law enacting the death penalty. “The State of Mississippi has proven its case,” he said, closing the thick green law book. “You have found Danny Padgitt guilty of rape and murder. The law now calls for the death penalty. You are duty bound to deliver it.”

Ernie’s spellbinding performance lasted for fifty-one minutes—I was trying to record everything—and when he finished I knew the jury would hang Padgitt not once but twice.

According to Baggy, in a capital case the defendant, after protesting his innocence throughout the trial and being nailed by the jury, usually took the stand and said he was very sorry for whatever crime he’d been denying
all week. “They beg and cry,” Baggy had said. “It’s quite a show.”

But Padgitt’s disaster the day before precluded him from getting near the jury. Lucien called to the witness stand his mother, Lettie Padgitt. She was a fiftyish woman with pleasant features and short graying hair, and she wore a black dress as if she was already mourning the death of her son. Led by Lucien, she unsteadily began testimony that seemed scripted down to every pause in her cadence. There was Danny the little boy, fishing every day after school, breaking his leg falling from a tree house, and winning the spelling bee in the fourth grade. He was never any trouble in those days, none at all. In fact, Danny had caused no trouble at all growing up, a real joy. His two older brothers were always into something, but not Danny.

The testimony was so silly and self-serving that it bordered on ridiculous. But there were three mothers on the jury—Miss Callie, Mrs. Barbara Baldwin, and Maxine Root—and Lucien was aiming for one of them. He needed just one.

Not surprisingly, Mrs. Padgitt was soon in tears. She would never believe that her son had committed such a terrible crime, but if the jury felt so, then she would try and accept it. But why take him away? Why kill her little boy? What would the world gain if he were put to death?

Her pain was real. Her emotions were raw and difficult to watch, to sit through. Any human being would feel sympathy for a mother about to lose a child. She finally
collapsed and Lucien left her sobbing on the witness stand. What began as a stilted performance ended in a gut-wrenching plea that forced most of the jurors to lower their eyes and study the floor.

Lucien said he had no other witnesses. He and Ernie made brief final summations, and by 11 A.M. the jury once again had the case.

______

G
inger disappeared into the crowd. I went to the office and waited, and when she didn’t show I walked across the square to Harry Rex’s office. He sent his secretary out for sandwiches and we ate in his cluttered conference room. Like most lawyers in Clanton, he’d spent the entire week in the courtroom watching a case that meant nothing to him financially.

“Is your gal gonna stick?” he asked with a mouth full of turkey and Swiss.

“Miss Callie?” I asked.

“Yeah. She okay with the gas chamber?”

“I have no idea. We haven’t discussed it.”

“She’s got us worried, along with that damned crippled boy.”

Harry Rex had quietly involved himself in the case in such a way that one would think he was working for Ernie Gaddis and the State. But he wasn’t the only lawyer in town secretly abetting the prosecution.

“It took them less than sixty minutes to find him guilty,” I said. “Isn’t that a good sign?”

“Maybe, but jurors do strange things when it’s time to sign a death warrant.”

“So? Then he’ll get life. From what I hear about Parchman, life there would be worse than the gas chamber.”

“Life ain’t life, Willie,” he said, wiping his face with a paper towel.

I put my sandwich down while he took another bite.

“What is life?” I asked.

“Ten years, maybe less.”

I tried to understand this. “You mean a life sentence in Mississippi is ten years?”

“You got it. After ten years, less with good time, a murderer sent to prison for life is eligible for parole. Insane, don’t you think?”

“But why—”

“Don’t try and understand it, Willie, it’s just the law. Been on the books for fifty years. And what’s worse is the jury doesn’t know it. Can’t tell ’em. Want some coleslaw?”

I shook my head.

“Our distinguished Supreme Court has said that the jury, if it knows how light a life sentence really is, might be more inclined to give the death penalty. Thus, it’s unfair to the defendant.”

“Life is ten years,” I mumbled to myself. In Mississippi, the liquor stores are locked up on Election Day, as if the voters would otherwise get drunk and elect the wrong people. Another unbelievable law.

“You got it,” Harry Rex said, then finished his
sandwich with one huge bite. He pulled an envelope off a shelf, opened it, then slid a large black-and-white photo across to me. “Busted, buddy,” he said with a laugh.

It was a photo of me, making my quick exit from Ginger’s room at the motel on Thursday morning. I looked tired, hungover, guilty of something, but also oddly satisfied.

“Who took this?” I asked.

“One of my boys. He was working on a divorce case, saw your little Communist car pull in that night, decided to have some fun.”

“He wasn’t the only one.”

“She’s a hot one. He tried to shoot through the curtains, but couldn’t get an angle.”

“Shall I autograph it for you?”

“Just keep it.”

______

A
fter three hours of deliberation, the jury slipped a note to Judge Loopus. They were deadlocked and making little progress. He called things to order, and we raced across the street.

If the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict for the death penalty, then, by law, the judge imposed a life sentence.

Fear pervaded the crowd as we waited for the jurors. Something was going wrong back there. Had the Padgitts finally found their mark?