The Last Juror (8 page)

“And so …”

“Highway 401 runs through some lowland near Padgitt Island, real swampy. There’s a bridge over Massey’s Creek, and when the fire trucks came flyin’ up to the bridge they found a pickup layin’ on its side, like it had rolled over. The road was completely blocked; couldn’t go around because there was nothin’ but swamps and ditches.” He smacked his lips and poured more from the bottle. It was time for me to say something, but whatever I said would be completely ignored anyway. This was the way Baggy preferred to be prompted.

“Whose pickup was it?” I asked, the words barely out of my mouth before he was shaking his head as if the question was completely off the mark.

“The fire was ragin’ like hell. Fire trucks backed up all along 401 because some clown had flipped his pickup. Never found him. No sign of a driver. No sign of an owner because there was no registration. No tags. The vehicle ID had been sanded off. The truck was never claimed. Wasn’t damaged much either. All this came out at trial. Ever’body knew the Padgitts set the fire, flipped one of their stolen trucks to block the road, but the insurance company couldn’t prove it.”

Down below Sheriff Coley had found his bullhorn. He was asking the people to please stay off the street in front of our office. His shrieking voice added urgency to the situation.

“So the insurance company won?” I said, anxious to get to the end.

“Helluva trial. Went on for three days. Wilbanks can usually cut a deal with one or two people on the jury. Been doin’ it for years and never gets caught. Plus he knows ever’body in the county. The insurance boys were up from Jackson, and they didn’t have a clue. The jury stayed out for two hours, came back with a verdict for the claim, a hundred grand, and for good measure, tacked on a million in punitive damages.”

“One point one million!” I said.

“You got it. The first million-dollar verdict in Ford County. Lasted about a year until the Supreme Court took an ax to it and cut out the punitive.”

The notion of Lucien Wilbanks having such sway over jurors was not comforting. Baggy neglected his bourbon for a moment and gazed at something below. “This is a bad sign, son,” he finally said. “Really bad.”

I was his boss and didn’t like to be referred to as “son,” but I let it slide. I had more pressing matters at hand. “The intimidation?” I said.

“Yep. The Padgitts rarely leave the island. The fact that they’ve brought their little show on the road means they’re ready for war. If they can intimidate the newspaper, then they’ll try it with the jury. They already own the Sheriff.”

“But Wilbanks said he wants a change of venue.”

He snorted and rediscovered his drink. “Don’t bet on it, son.”

“Please call me Willie.” Odd how I was now clinging to that name.

“Don’t bet on it, Willie. The boy’s guilty; his only chance is to have a jury that can be bought or scared. Ten to one odds the trial takes place right here, in this building.”

______

A
fter two hours of waiting in vain for the ground to shake, the town was ready for lunch. The crowd broke up and drifted away. The expert from the state crime lab finally arrived and went to work in the printing room. I wasn’t allowed in the building, which was fine with me.

Margaret, Wiley, and I had a sandwich in the gazebo on the courthouse lawn. We ate quietly, chatted briefly, the three of us keeping an eye on our office across the street. Occasionally someone would see us and stop for an awkward word or two. What do you say to bombing victims when the bomb doesn’t go off? Fortunately, the townsfolk had had little practice in that area. We collected some sympathy and a few offers of help.

Sheriff Coley ambled over and gave a preliminary report on our bomb. The clock was of the wind-up alarm variety, available in stores everywhere. At first glance the expert thought there was a problem with the wiring. Very amateurish, he said.

“How will you investigate this?” I asked with an edge.

“We’ll check for prints, see if we can find any witnesses. The usual.”

“Will you talk to the Padgitts?” I asked, even edgier. I was, after all, in the presence of my employees. And though I was scared to death, I wanted to impress them with how utterly fearless I was.

“You know somethin’ I don’t?” he shot back.

“They’re suspects, aren’t they?”

“Are you the Sheriff now?”

“They’re the most experienced arsonists in the county, been burning buildings for years with impunity. Their lawyer threatened me in court last week. We’ve had Danny Padgitt on the front page twice. If they’re not suspects, then who is?”

“Just go ahead and write the story, son. Call ’em by name. You seem determined to get sued anyway.”

“I’ll take care of the paper,” I said. “You catch the criminals.”

He tipped his hat to Margaret and walked away.

“Next year’s reelection year,” Wiley said as we watched Coley stop and chat with two ladies near a drinking fountain. “I hope he has an opponent.”

______

T
he intimidation continued, at Wiley’s expense. He lived a mile from town on a five-acre hobby farm, where his wife raised ducks and watermelons. That night as he parked in his drive and was getting out of his
car, two goons jumped from the shrubs and assaulted him. The larger man knocked him down and kicked him in the face, while the other one rummaged through his backseat and pulled out two cameras. Wiley was fifty-eight years old and an ex-Marine, and at some point in the melee he managed to land a kick that sent the larger assailant to the ground. There they exchanged blows and as Wiley was gaining the upper hand the other thug banged him over the head with one of his cameras. Wiley said he didn’t remember much after that.

His wife eventually heard the ruckus. She found Wiley on the ground, semiconscious, with both cameras shattered. In the house, she put ice packs on his face and determined that there were no broken bones. The ex-Marine did not want to go to the hospital.

A deputy arrived and made a report. Wiley had caught only a glimpse of his attackers and he’d certainly never seen them before. “They’re back on the island by now,” he said. “You won’t find them.”

His wife prevailed, and an hour later they called me from the hospital. I saw him between X rays. His face was a mess, but he managed to smile. He grabbed my hand and pulled me close. “Next week, front page,” he said through cut lips and swollen jaws.

A few hours later I left the hospital and went for a long drive through the countryside. I kept glancing at my mirror, half-expecting another load of Padgitts to come roaring up, guns blazing.

It was not a lawless county, where organized criminals
ran roughshod over the law-abiding people. It was just the opposite—crime was rare. Corruption was generally frowned upon. I was right and they were wrong, and I decided I’d be damned before I knuckled under. I’d buy myself a gun; hell, everybody else in the county carried two or three. And if necessary I’d hire a guard of some sort. My paper would grow even bolder as the murder trial approached.

CHAPTER 8

P
rior to the bankruptcy, and my unlikely rise in prominence in Ford County, I had heard a fascinating story about a local family. Spot never pursued it because it would’ve required some light research and a trip across the railroad tracks.

Now that the paper was mine, I decided it was too good to pass up.

Over in Lowtown, the colored section, there lived an extraordinary couple—Calia and Esau Ruffin. They had been married for over forty years and had raised eight children, seven of whom had earned PhD’s and were now college professors. Details on the remaining one were sketchy, though, according to Margaret, his name was Sam and he was hiding from the law.

I called the house and Mrs. Ruffin answered the phone. I explained who I was and what I wanted, and she seemed to know everything about me. She said
she’d been reading the
Times
for fifty years, front to back, everything including the obits and the want ads, and after a moment or two offered the opinion that the paper was in much better hands now. Longer stories. Fewer mistakes. More news. She spoke slowly, clearly, with precise diction I had not heard since I left Syracuse.

When I finally had an opening, I thanked her and said I’d like to meet and talk about her remarkable family. She was flattered and insisted that I come over for lunch.

Thus began an unusual friendship that opened my eyes to many things, not the least of which was Southern cuisine.

______

M
y mother died when I was thirteen. She was anorexic; there were only four pallbearers. She weighed less than a hundred pounds and looked like a ghost. Anorexia was only one of her many problems.

Because she did not eat, she did not cook. I cannot remember a single hot meal she prepared for me. Breakfast was a bowl of Cheerios, lunch a cold sandwich, dinner some frozen mess I usually ate in front of the television, alone. I was an only child and my father was never at home, which was a relief because his presence caused friction between them. He preferred to eat, she did not. They feuded over everything.

I never went hungry; the pantry was always full of peanut butter and cereal and such. I occasionally ate
with a friend and I always marveled at how real families cooked and spent so much time at the table. Food was simply not important around our house.

As a teenager I existed on frozen dinners. At Syracuse it was beer and pizza. For the first twenty-three years of my life, I ate only when I was hungry. This was wrong, I soon learned in Clanton. In the South, eating has little to do with hunger.

______

T
he Ruffin home was in a nicer section of Lowtown, in a row of neatly preserved and painted shotgun houses. The street addresses were on the mailboxes, and when I rolled to a stop I was smiling at the white picket fence and flowers—peonies and irises—that lined the sidewalk. It was early April, I had the top down on my Spitfire, and as I turned off the ignition I smelled something delicious. Pork chops!

Calia Ruffin met me at the low swing-gate that opened into her immaculate front lawn. She was a stout woman, thick in the shoulders and trunk, with a handshake that was firm and felt like a man’s. She had gray hair and was showing the effects of raising so many children, but when she smiled, which was constantly, she lit up the world with two rows of brilliant, perfect teeth. I had never seen such teeth.

“I’m so glad you came,” she said, halfway up the brick walkway. I was so glad too. It was about noon. Typically, I had yet to eat a bite, and the aromas wafting from the porch were making me dizzy.

“A lovely house,” I said, gazing at the front of it. It was clapboard, painted a sparkling white, and gave the impression that someone was usually hanging around with a brush and bucket. A green tin-roofed porch ran across the entire front.

“Why, thank you. We’ve owned it for thirty years.”

I knew that most of the dwellings in Lowtown were owned by white slumlords across the tracks. To own a home was an unusual accomplishment for blacks in 1970.

“Who’s your gardener?” I asked as I stopped to smell a yellow rose. There were flowers everywhere—edging the walkway, along the porch, down both sides of their property line. “That would be me,” she said with a laugh, teeth gleaming in the sunlight.

Up three steps and onto the porch, and there it was—the spread! A small table next to the railing was prepared for two people—white cotton cloth, white napkins, flowers in a small vase, a large pitcher of iced tea, and at least four covered dishes.

“Who’s coming?” I asked.

“Oh, just the two of us. Esau might drop by later.”

“There’s enough food for an army.” I inhaled as deeply as possible and my stomach ached in anticipation.

“Let’s eat now,” she said, “before it gets cold.”

I restrained myself, walked casually to the table, and pulled back a chair for her. She was delighted that I was such a gentleman. I sat across from her and was ready to yank off the lids and dive headfirst into whatever I
found when she took both my hands and lowered her head. She began to pray.

It would be a lengthy prayer. She thanked the Lord for everything good, including me, “her new friend.” She prayed for those who were sick and those who might become so. She prayed for rain and sun and health and humility and patience, and though I began to worry about the food getting cold I was mesmerized by her voice. Her cadence was slow, with thought given to each word. Her diction was perfect, every consonant treated equally, every comma and period honored. I had to peek to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I had never heard such speech from a Southern black, or a Southern white for that matter.

I peeked again. She was talking to her Lord, and her face was perfectly content. For a few seconds, I actually forgot about the food. She squeezed my hands as she petitioned the Almighty with eloquence that came only from years of practice. She quoted Scripture, the King James Version for sure, and it was a bit odd to hear her use words like “thou” and “thine” and “whither” and “goest.” But she knew precisely what she was doing. In the clutches of this very holy woman, I had never felt closer to God.

I couldn’t imagine such a lengthy devotional over a table crowded with eight children. Something told me, though, that when Calia Ruffin prayed everybody got still.

Finally, she ended with a flourish, a long burst in which she managed to appeal for the forgiveness of her
sins, which I presumed were few and far between, and for my own, which, well, if she only knew.

She released me and began removing lids from bowls. The first contained a pile of pork chops smothered in a sauce that included, among many ingredients, onions and peppers. More steam hit my face and I wanted to eat with my fingers. In the second there was a mound of yellow corn, sprinkled with green peppers, still hot from the stove. There was boiled okra, which, she explained as she prepared to serve, she preferred over the fried variety because she worried about too much grease in her diet. She was taught to batter and fry everything, from tomatoes to pickles, and she had come to realize that this was not altogether healthy. There were butter beans, likewise unbattered and unfried, but rather cooked with ham hocks and bacon. There was a platter of small red tomatoes covered with pepper and olive oil. She was one of the very few cooks in town who used olive oil, she said as she continued her narrative. I was hanging on every word as my large plate was being tended to.