James PATTERSON - Alex Cross’s Trial

“Yes, Your Honor,” Jonah said.

“And I’m sure the defense is ready.”

“Defense is certainly ready, Your Honor,” said Maxwell Hayes Lewis.

“Then without further ado–” my father began.

Jonah Curtis stood up and dared to interrupt him again.

“Your Honor, begging the court’s pardon, I feel compelled to state for the record that the prosecution has not seen a fair and representative jury selection here today.”

My father’s voice was dangerously soft. “All right. I have warned you, Mr. Curtis, and I will not warn you again. I am in charge of this trial. I am in charge of this courtroom. I have ruled that this jury is fit to serve.”

“But Your Honor–”

Suddenly my father rose up and bellowed, “ And I will not warn you again! Try me, my friend! Just try me once more! Challenge my jurisdiction again, and I will declare a mistrial here and summarily dismiss all the charges. Which, I remind you, is within my power.”

My father turned on his heel and swept out of the room. I knew the drill: he would walk straight into his office and pull off his robe. His clothes would be damp with sweat. I pictured him settling into his swivel chair in that office lined with law books, oak filing cabinets, diplomas, and certificates of appreciation. On his desk he permitted himself one personal touch: the sad-beautiful honeymoon photograph of him and Mama, arm in arm on the boardwalk at Biloxi.

While the defendants stood shooting the breeze with their jailers, Lewis took a detour by our table.

“I guess they didn’t teach y’all everything up in those Ivy League law schools,” he said. “Down here, we believe the first responsibility of a good criminal attorney is to make friends with the judge.”

“Oh, they tried to teach us that,” Jonah said. “I guess I just didn’t do a good job of learning it.”

“Me either,” I said. “And I’ve had decades of practice with the man.”

Loophole Lewis chuckled genially and brought out a couple of cigars from an inside pocket. “May I offer you boys a Partagás? Best quality, fresh off the boat from Havana. I’m sure you enjoyed a few of these fellows when you were down in Cuba, Ben.”

“No, sir,” I said mildly. “We didn’t have much time for smoking cigars.” I was about to say more when I saw Conrad Cosgrove pushing into the courtroom through the crowd.

“Mr. Corbett,” he said. “A messenger brought this to the house. I figured you’d want to see it right away.”

Conrad handed over a small envelope.

On the front, in an elegant hand, were the words BENJAMIN CORBETT, PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE.

The words engraved on the back flap were just as simple: THE WHITE HOUSE.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me,” I said. I didn’t wait for an answer.

AS I WALKED down the courthouse steps, a reporter from the New Orleans Item took my elbow to ask how I thought the first day had gone.

“Exactly as expected,” I said. “Justice will be served here.” I took my arm back and kept walking.

I followed the cinder path around the side of the building. The giant oak trees in the square provided the only real shade in the center of town. I felt twenty degrees cooler the moment I stepped under their branches and took a seat on a bench.

I sliced the edge of the envelope with my fingernail. Inside was a single typewritten sheet on gold-embossed White House stationery.

Dear Capt. Corbett,

The eyes of America are upon you, and upon the proceedings in Eudora. I can assure you that with my own (four) eyes I am personally watching you and the trial at every moment.

I know you will continue to do your best, and I know that you will succeed in this endeavor, as we succeeded together during the late War.

Ben, know that your president is with you every inch of the way.

Sincerely yours, I remain

Your obt. servant,

Theodore Roosevelt, Pres’t.

I smiled at the president’s little joke about his “four eyes,” but when I realized the meaning of his subsequent words, my stomach took a nervous dive. As if I didn’t have enough tension to deal with, now the president of the United States was “personally watching” me “at every moment.”

I read the letter again and put it back in the envelope.

A voice called, “Mr. Corbett, sir.”

I looked to both sides and saw no one.

Again the voice: “Mr. Corbett? Over here, sir, behind you .”

I TURNED AROUND QUICKLY to find a tall, slender colored man standing on the sidewalk. He was perhaps ten years older than me and beautifully dressed, down to the club scarf in his pocket and the jeweled pin in his necktie.

“May I have a word with you for a moment, sir?” he asked.

“Well, of course,” I said. “Come have a seat.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Corbett, I can’t. That park is White Only.”

I had forgotten – or maybe I’d never realized – that the old wooden benches, the little fountain, the shade of the big old eudoras, all were reserved for the exclusive use of white Eudora.

I walked across the grass to the man and extended my hand. “Ben Corbett.”

“I’m a correspondent for the Indianapolis Cross, ” he said.

“Ah yes,” I said. “I’ve read your paper. Y’all have published some of the best general reports I’ve seen on the question of lynching.”

“Why, thank you, sir,” he said. “I’m honored that you’ve heard of us.”

“Welcome to Eudora,” I said.

“Oh, it’s not my first time,” he said. “I grew up in Eudora.”

I looked at him harder. I rattled around in my memory, but I couldn’t place where I had seen him before.

“I used to work for Mr. Jenkins at the mercantile store,” he said.

All at once I knew him.

I said. “Is that – Marcus? Is that you?”

His eyes lit up. “You remember me?”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll ever forget you, Marcus,” I said.

I reached out my arms and embraced him. He was surprised, but he let me do it, and even patted me on the back.

“You were the only one who helped my mother,” I said. “You helped me get her to Dr. Frederick. If you hadn’t, she might have died.”

Marcus told me that his family had left Eudora for the Midwest not long after the time of Mama’s stroke. They wound up in central Indiana, where his father worked for a cattle farmer. Marcus went on to study English at the Negro teachers college in Gary and had landed a job with the largest colored newspaper in the state.

And now, he said, he had convinced his editors to send him to Mississippi to cover the White Raiders Trial because he had a personal interest in one of the defendants. “Henry North,” he said. “I knew him. You did, too.”

“I did?”

Marcus said, “Do you remember that redheaded boy that worked with me at Jenkins’ Mercantile? He helped us carry your mama out that day. That boy is Henry North.”

Sure, I remembered the loutish boy. He was thin and raw-boned in those days. He had said Mama was drunk, to leave her where she lay.

“I remember the day your mama took sick,” Marcus said, “like it was yesterday. You weren’t more than about seven years old, but you acted like a grown man. You answered old Sanders back like he deserved. And you helped me carry her to the doc. I always knew you were going to turn into a fine man.”

I was speechless. Marcus’s words made me feel humble. The truth was that after years of remembering Marcus’s example every day, as my mother had told me to do, I hadn’t thought about him in quite a while.