The Sacrifice (33 page)

“How did you know what to say to me?”

“Oh, it came a little bit at a time during the service. Then when I started talking with you, more followed behind. It takes faith to talk to someone like this, but you are so sweet that it wasn't hard at all. You were willing to listen. Some folks are too afraid to come out from where they're hiding to let the Lord tell them how much he loves them. Do you want some carrot cake? Gladys Hornsby brought it, and it's almost as good as my sister's recipe.”

After they finished eating, Scott talked to five or six other people about the shots fired during the baptism. Their comments were so similar that it all ran together. He never got the tape recorder out of his vehicle. It was midafternoon before he and Kay said good-bye to Bishop Moore and drove out of the church parking lot.

“Well, that was a bust,” Scott sighed as they rounded a curve and the church disappeared from view. “I didn't find out anything new. I'd hoped someone at the church would give me a new angle to use in Lester's case. I couldn't even corroborate what I already know.”

Kay spun toward him in her seat. “What! This has been one of the most incredible days of my life! I wouldn't have traded the time at the table with Mrs. Kilgore for ten thousand dollars. And the church service was good, too. Just because you didn't find out anything about your case doesn't mean there weren't plenty of opportunities to find out about other important things.”

Scott started to reply but nothing appropriate came to mind. They rode in silence for several minutes.

When they reached the main highway and turned left, Kay spoke. “Why didn't you ask Mrs. Kilgore if she had anything from God to tell you?”

Scott had considered it. But after dodging a bullet from Bishop Moore, he didn't want to get winged by a word from the dessert-loving prophetess.

“If she'd had something, she would have brought it up.”

“When did you become an expert about these things?”

Scott kept his mouth shut. Lawyers can pretend to become experts about a lot of things, but it was time to invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.

24

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.

W
ILLIAM
W
ORDSWORTH

O
n his way to the office Monday morning, Scott passed the courthouse and wondered what his feelings would be in one week. If Lynn Davenport stayed true to her word,
State v. Garrison
would be the first case called for trial, and Scott would have the responsibility of choosing twelve people to decide Lester's fate. On his desk at the office was a thick stack of questionnaires completed by prospective jurors. For some of them, jury service would be a twenty-dollar-a-day opportunity to be someone important. Others viewed the civic duty as a major disruption and called the clerk's office with creative reasons to avoid serving.

Shortly before lunch, he made a final note on his legal pad about the questionnaires and stood up to stretch. Scott wouldn't be able to flip a coin in the courtroom; he had to use a better system. He'd eliminated a few jurors from consideration because they'd been victims of a crime or had relatives who worked in law enforcement. There also might be people in the jury pool whose racial views ran parallel to Lester Garrison's. As personally distasteful as that might be, Scott needed a subtle way to ferret out those persons and try to keep them in the jury box.

One of the people summoned for jury duty was the wife of Officer Bradley, the deputy whom Lester cursed and tried to kick at the time of his arrest. Mrs. Bradley would be excused for cause, and Scott wouldn't have to use one of his strikes to remove her from the case. Many others remained in limbo. There were individuals who might not be favorably disposed toward a teenager like Lester, and the brief questionnaires didn't provide enough information to make that decision. Mr. Humphrey was Scott's most valuable resource. With his vast experience and personal knowledge of the people in Blanchard County, the older lawyer had promised to check the list and go over it with Scott later in the week.

Before he left for lunch, Scott stopped by Mr. Humphrey's office to give him an update on the case. Leland Humphrey, his feet propped on the corner of his desk, was reading a deposition and dictating a summary of the testimony.

“How did it go at the church on Sunday?” the older lawyer asked. “I thought about you at twelve o'clock when I was walking out of church with my brother and his wife in New Bern.”

“We were at the midway point of Bishop Moore's sermon at twelve o'clock.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“I learned a lot. Nothing about the case.”

Mr. Humphrey chuckled. “I'm sorry you had to go by yourself.”

“I didn't go alone. I invited the teacher who is helping coach the mock trial team at the high school. She loved it.”

Mr. Humphrey's left eyebrow shot up. “Who is the teacher?”

“An old classmate named Kay Wilson. She was Kay Laramie when we were in high school together.”

“Does she know Lester Garrison?”

“Yes, he's one of her students, but I haven't talked to her about the case.”

“Why not?”

“If she knew anything, she would have mentioned it. She has two hundred students a day.”

Mr. Humphrey ran his right thumb down the outside of his suspender. “I'd ask the teacher a few questions. Maybe check some of his papers to see if he wrote anything that would be relevant.”

“Is that wise? The e-mails Davenport showed us were enough to prove a conspiracy to commit murder, and I don't want to uncover evidence that helps prove either one of the state's cases against Lester.”

“I'm not talking about evidence that hurts us. The first rule of litigation is never do anything that will hurt you more than it helps you, but there may be some favorable evidence hidden out there.” Mr. Humphrey looked at his watch. “Are you on your way to lunch?”

“Yes, sir. I'm walking down to the Eagle.”

“I'll join you.”

It was an overcast day, and the clouds held the threat of an afternoon rain. The Eagle was three blocks from the office, and the lunchtime business crowd was flowing through the front door by the time they arrived. Many business deals in Blanchard County were hatched over a plate of meat loaf, green beans, mashed potatoes, and corn bread. Some deals succeeded; others failed. A few ended up as lawsuits in the courthouse around the corner. But the food was never a point of contention.

In the back of the restaurant there were two long tables for ten. One was reserved for the Democrats, the other for the Republicans. There had been an upswing of Republicans in Blanchard County since the 1960s, and there was often a spirited debate between the two evenly matched camps. It wasn't unusual for the men at the tables to argue back and forth on a specific issue, and each group had members whose voices carried over the din of the restaurant.

Several people in the restaurant recognized Leland Humphrey, and he and Scott worked their way through the crowd to a table near the Democrats. Mr. Humphrey didn't alienate his clientele by becoming too closely identified with a single political party. He limited his political activity to influencing the selection of judicial candidates. His goal was to win in the courtroom, not at the ballot box.

They ordered their food, and Mr. Humphrey sipped his tea.

“Have I ever told you about my first jury trial?” he asked.

“No, sir, and considering what's ahead for me, it's probably the right time to tell the story. But I have one question.”

“What?”

“Is this going to help me or hurt me?”

Mr. Humphrey smiled. “You'll have to be the judge of that.”

The older lawyer settled back in his chair.

“When I started practice in Catawba, there were only eight lawyers in the whole circuit. I went to work for Harvey Kilpatrick, a friend of my grandfather who did real estate and business work. I don't think he'd been out of the deed room in years and never took a case if there was a chance it would end up in court. A baby duck mimics its mother, so when I started working for Mr. Kilpatrick, I began doing the same type of work. If you go back far enough in the records, you'll see my signature as the notary on a lot of deeds.

“After about a year in practice, I was sitting at my desk one day when our secretary told me a man had walked in off the street and wanted to talk to a lawyer. Mr. Kilpatrick was out of the office, so I decided to talk to the prospective client. It turned out the fellow was new to the area. He worked at a cotton mill, grew a big garden, and raised cows on a few acres he leased along the railroad. One of his cows had been hit by the train on the way to Raleigh, and he wanted to sue the railroad. After I interviewed him, I agreed to take the case and filed suit against the Norfolk and Southern Railroad.”

Scott chuckled. “A big case. How much was the cow worth?”

Mr. Humphrey didn't change his expression. “I don't remember the exact figure, but it was the best cow he had, practically a member of the family. I think the original complaint contained over thirty paragraphs because I wanted to make sure I wouldn't lose on a technicality. I had no idea how much dust my little lawsuit would stir up. Apparently, a lot of farmers were suing the railroad over dead cows that lined the tracks from here to Richmond. Rumor had it dishonest cattlemen were dragging carcasses of cattle who died from natural causes to the railroad tracks so they could be hit by the next train, then filing claims with the railroad. The railroad would pay instead of trying to fight, and the situation got under the skin of a corporate big shot who told his lawyers enough was enough and decided to make an example of the next dead cow case that came into the home office. That was my little lawsuit. The fact that I was a new attorney probably made the decision easier.”

The waitress brought their food while Mr. Humphrey was talking. Scott buttered a corn-bread stick.

“Who represented the railroad?”

“No one locally. A firm from Raleigh sent three lawyers who set up shop in the Palmer Hotel. One of the first things they did was file a motion to have the cow's carcass exhumed for examination.”

“An autopsy on a cow?”

“Yes.” Mr. Humphrey cut off a piece of meat loaf with his fork and looked it over before putting it into his mouth. “The judge granted their request, and I went to the farm on the day they dug it up. Nothing was secret in Catawba, and the case was a big topic of conversation. There must have been thirty men in overalls standing by when they hauled the cow back into the light. A veterinarian hired by the railroad examined the remains and made a bunch of notes in a notebook. There wasn't pretrial discovery in those days, so I didn't know what the vet was going to say until he was on the witness stand.”

“Trial by ambush,” Scott said.

Mr. Humphrey's right eyebrow shot up. “That was the accepted way. After digging up the cow, the three railroad lawyers filed motions asking the judge to dismiss the complaint. There were a couple of close calls, but the judge left me hanging on by my fingernails, and the case was put on the fall trial calendar. I talked to the two trial lawyers here in town, and they told me the key would be getting men on the jury who owned cows. Everyone knew the railroad had a lot of money, and even though my client was new to the area, the farmers would look out for one of their own. I asked around and found out all I could about the potential jurors and had a star by the names of everyone who owned at least one cow. If the juror also lived near the railroad, I put two stars by his name. When it came time to pick the jury, I was able to sneak two single stars and one double star onto the panel.

“My opening statement was stiff, but the facts were simple and it would have been hard to confuse anyone with half a brain. My client owned a cow. The railroad owned a train. The train hit the cow on my client's land. The railroad owed my client the value of the cow.”

Mr. Humphrey paused to eat a few bites. “The defense lawyer's opening statement didn't reveal anything about his trial strategy. All he said was that after hearing the evidence the jury would rule against the farmer.”

“Nothing about his veterinarian expert?”

“Not a peep. My first witness was the farmer. He had the bill of sale from his purchase of the cow and gave graphic testimony of the cow's condition after it was hit by the train. It was enough to make a grown man cry. Most of the jurors gave the chief defense lawyer a cold stare when he began questioning my client. He began by asking the farmer where he was born and went through a painstaking, detailed line of questioning that revealed every place the man had lived from infancy to the present. Everyone in the courtroom but me was about to fall asleep. Then he asked my client why he didn't butcher the cow after it had been hit by the train.”

“A mitigation of damages argument?” Scott asked.

“So I thought—for about three minutes. My client got a little red in the face and said that the cow was too mangled to salvage. Then the railroad lawyer went over to one of his associates who gave him a piece of paper. It was a claim filed by my client for the value of a cow. The only problem was that it was dated the previous year in another county where my client had admitted living. Another sheet followed. Then another. After six cows had been slaughtered by the railroad, the defense lawyer asked my client how many times he'd filed claims against the railroad for killing his cows.

“He sputtered around for a few seconds, then admitted he'd had a lot of bad luck with cows and trains. I was so relieved when the lawyer finally finished that I didn't ask any follow-up questions. The defense then called the veterinarian who said that the cow in my case was so badly diseased that it was probably dead before the train left Richmond for Atlanta. The meat was contaminated and unsafe to eat. That's why it wasn't butchered. Finally, the lawyer called a private investigator who had documents proving that my client would buy diseased cattle, create a fictitious bill of sale, and drag the stricken animals, dead or alive, to the train tracks for a date with the next locomotive. I made a feeble effort at cross-examination of the investigator, but it was pointless. My closing argument lasted five minutes. The jury stayed out thirty minutes, just long enough for everyone to smoke a cigarette.”