James PATTERSON - Alex Cross’s Trial

FROM THE DAY after my hanging, someone was always awake and on guard at Abraham Cross’s house. During the day and the evening, Abraham and Moody took turns keeping watch from the front-porch rocker. Since I was the cause of all this, I took the dead man’s shift, from midnight till dawn.

Some nights I heard Abraham stirring, and then he would come out to sit with me for an hour or two.

One night, along about four a.m., I thought I heard his soft tread on the floorboards.

I looked up. It was Moody standing there.

“Mind a little company?” she said.

“I don’t mind,” I said.

She sat down on the bench beside the rocker. A foot or two away from me – a safe distance.

We sat in our usual silence for a while. Finally I broke it. “I’ve been busting to ask you a question, Moody.”

“Wouldn’t want you to bust,” she said. “What is it?”

“Is that the only dress you own?”

She burst out laughing, one of the few times I’d made her laugh.

It was the same white jumper she’d worn the day I met her and every day since. Somehow it stayed spotless, although she never seemed to take it off.

“Well, if you really want to know, I got three of these dresses,” she said. “All three just alike. Of all the questions you could have asked me, that’s the one you picked?” she said. “You are one peculiar man, Mr. Corbett.”

“I sure wish you would call me Ben. Even your grandfather calls me Ben now.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t do everything he does,” she said. “I’ll just keep on calling you Mr. Corbett.”

At first I thought it was moonlight casting that delicate rim of light around her face, lighting up her dark eyes. Then I realized that it was dawn breaking, the first streak of gray in the sky.

“I’ll be moving back to Maybelle’s tomorrow,” I said. “It’s time.”

Moody didn’t reply.

“It’ll be better for Abraham once I’m out of here,” I said. “And for you.”

No answer.

I said, “The only reason those bastards come around is because I’m here.”

Nothing. She stared out at the street.

“Thanks to y’all, I’m much better now. I’m feeling fine. I’ve got some decisions to make.”

Her silence and stubbornness just went on and on, and I gave up trying to pierce it. I sat back and watched the gray light filling in all the blank dark spaces.

I think we sat another ten whole minutes without a word. The sun came up and cast its first shadows of the day.

At last Moody said, “You know I ain’t never gonna sleep with you.”

I considered that for a moment.

“I know,” I said. “Is it because I’m white?”

“No,” she said. “Because I’m black.”

“I AM JUST AS SORRY AS I can be, Mr. Corbett, but we simply have no rooms available at this time,” Maybelle said to me. “We are full up.”

The dilapidated rooming house seemed strangely deserted for a place that was completely occupied.

“But Abraham came by and paid you while I was incapacitated,” I said.

“Your money is in that envelope on top of your baggage,” she said, pointing at my trunk and valises in a dusty corner of the center hall. “You can count it, it’s all there.”

“You accepted my money,” I said, “but now that I need the room, you’re throwing me out? That makes no sense.”

Up till now, Maybelle had maintained her best polite southern-lady voice. Now the tone changed. Her voice dropped three notes.

“Look, I ain’t gonna stand here and argue with the likes of you,” she said. “I don’t know how I could make it any clearer. We got no rooms available for you . So if you don’t mind, I will thank you to go on and leave the house now.”

“I can’t carry this trunk by myself,” I said.

“Why don’t you get one of your nigger friends to help you,” she snapped. “That’s what I would do.”

“I’ll take the valises and send someone back for the trunk,” I said.

I stuffed the envelope in my pocket, picked up a bag in each hand, and walked out into the blazing noonday sun of Eudora. Now what?

Sweet tea . That’s what I needed, a frosty glass of tea. And time to think things through. I went to the Slide Inn Café and sat at my usual table. I sat there for almost twenty minutes. I could not seem to get the attention of a waitress. Miss Fanny wouldn’t even meet my eye.

Oh, they saw me. The waitresses cast glances at me and whispered among themselves. The other customers – plump ladies in go-to-town dresses, rawboned farmers, little girls clinging to their mamas’ skirts – they saw me too. When I dared to look back at them, they turned away. And I remembered what Abraham had said: There’s cowards in both places. That’s why the bullies can have their way.

Finally, Miss Fanny approached with a glass of tea, dripping condensation down its sides.

She spoke in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry, Mr. Corbett. We don’t all feel the same way about you. Personally, I got nothing against you. I like you. But I ain’t the owner. So you’d best just drink this tea and be on your way. You’re not welcome here.”

“All right, Miss Fanny,” I said. “Thanks for telling me.”

I drank the tea in a few gulps. I put a quarter on the table. I hoisted my valises and walked out into the street.

As I passed Miss Ida’s notions shop, I saw Livia Winkler coming out.

“Miz Winkler,” I said, touching the brim of my hat.

She suddenly looked flustered. Averting her eyes, she turned around and hurried back into the shop.

I crossed the street, to the watering trough in front of Jenkins’ Mercantile. I scooped up a handful of water and splashed my face.

“That water is for horses, mules, and dogs,” said a voice behind me. I turned.

It was the same fat redheaded man who with his two friends had jumped me at this very place, when they were holding those boys’ heads underwater.

This time he held a branding iron in his hand.

I was too exhausted to fight. I was hot. I was still a bit weak and wobbly from everything I had been through. But Red didn’t know that. I straightened up to full height.

“Use your brain,” I said. “Turn around and walk away. Before I brand you .”

We stared each other down. Finally he broke it off – shook his head in disgust, spat on the sidewalk near my shoes, and walked away. He looked back once. I was still there, watching him go.

Then I turned and headed in the direction of the one person in Eudora I believed would help me.

“WELL, DAMN, BEN! I could have used some warning, you know? I got about the biggest family and the littlest house in the whole town, and you want to move in here? Damn it all to hell, Ben!”

That was the warm greeting I got from Jacob Gill, my oldest friend in the world, my hope for a roof over my head that night.

“Sorry, Jacob,” I said, “but I didn’t know anywhere else to go.”

He looked me over. I looked right back at him. Finally he crossed some line in his mind. He sighed, picked up one of my valises, carried it through the tiny parlor and into the tiny dining room.

“I reckon this is the guest room now,” he said, and finally offered up a half smile. “I’ll get some blankets; we can make a pallet on the floor – unless you want to sleep out in the smokehouse. Got nothing hanging in there, it might be more private for you.”

“This will be fine,” I said.

Jacob’s house was a sad sight on the inside. The few pieces of furniture were battered old castoffs held together with baling wire and odd ends of rope. The cotton batting was coming out of the cushions on the settee. In the kitchen, a baby’s cradle gave off an unpleasant aroma. A skinny cat nosed around the pantry, no doubt hoping to meet a mouse for lunch. Jacob said, “You want a drink?”