Lewis Perdue - Perfect killer

"Justice outranks punishment. It brings a cultural repudiation of criminal behavior and that act brings justice-to the individual directly wronged and to society as a whole."

"But why Talmadge and why now?"

"What's happening now began in 1990, a couple of weeks before Christmas when a grand jury in Jackson indicted Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers."

I was familiar with the case. Evers had been gunned down in front of his home in 1963. An ambitious young district attorney in Hinds County, Bill Waller, brought De La Beckwith to trial and endured abuse and anonymous death threats to see justice done. Waller also resisted intense pressure from the racists who controlled the state-the Stennis/Eastland Democrats who had made their careers standing in the schoolhouse door and who thought good race relations was providing new paint to freshen up the Colored Only signs smeared across the Mississippi landscape like ugly cultural graffiti. In this atmosphere, Waller got hung juries in two separate trials. I suppose that, given the allwhite juries back then, the verdicts stood as a partial victory, and indicated that not all white people were behind Mississippi's brutal apartheid.

Less than ten years later, Mississippi elected "nigger lover" Waller as governor thanks in large part to the FBI backed up by the guns and steel of the federal government and National Guard troops. Many think the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent protests did the whole job. True enough, Dr. King and his protesters had to be the first wave to show the nation their dedication, their suffering, and to help Americans understand the evil. But they could never have succeeded without the federal muscle even the Klan had to respect.

"Bobby DeLaughter got a conviction in the Evers case," Jasmine continued. "And produced more than simple justice for Myrlie Evers and her children. It sent a tremendous signal that Mississippi had changed, and if we got a conviction here, it might happen everywhere. Lightbulbs went off all over the South, and pretty soon we had convictions in the Birmingham church bombings and in a whole lot of other Klan killings. All the way up to Indianapolis and Pennsylvania."

"A compelling case, counselor," I said.

"Feed one person's hunger for justice and you can feed a whole people. Its a fishand-loaves thing."

We came out of the dense landscaping at the top of the hill to find a rambling, three-story building with extensive porticoes, a red-tiled roof, and simulated adobe walls designed to evoke the Spanish missions to the north and south along El Camino Real.

"Impressive." She stretched the word out over several seconds.

"I wanted the best for her." I let my eyes follow along with Jasmine's. "And I'm fortunate enough to afford it."

A uniformed man waved us past a small guardhouse, and I continued on into the guest parking lot and pulled into an empty space.

"There's one problem," Jasmine said.

I put the truck into park and turned off the ignition.

"With this place?"

Jasmine shook her head. "With the Talmadge case."

"Which would be?"

"It's what bothered Mom. She looked up thoughtfully, gnawing on her lower lip as she searched for the words. "Talmadge wasn't a known hate crime gone unsolved. It had been long forgotten as an old Balance Due homicide.

"Then one day last year, an anonymous file arrives at the Greenwood PD, the evidence and information all lined up, almost too perfect to be real. Mom suspected something and started asking questions."

"Then they killed her?"

She nodded.

We sat quietly listening to the metallic ticks and creaks of the truck's engine cooling off. Then Camilla's primary physician, Jeff Flowers, walked out of the building, his white coat trailing behind and an arm extended in a broad wave.

"That's my appointment." I pulled the keys from the ignition. "Come on in and wait for a while."

"Okay," she said, then followed me across the lot.

"Professor," Flowers said with a smile as he extended his hand. "You don't look any worse for wear for a man up all night making news."

I took his hand. "Well, I feel a lot worse than I look."

I turned to Jasmine. "Jeff's the medical director and CEO here. This is his baby." I introduced him to Jasmine.

"Very pleased," Flowers said warmly as he shook her hand. "Come on in. It's nicer inside."

"Nicer?" Jasmine made a show of taking in the building and grounds, then said, "This I have to see."

We followed Flowers into the building, where he settled Jasmine in one of the private reception rooms.

"The phone there has my cell and pager number and my assistant marked on the speed dial," he told her. "Make sure to call one if you need anything."

"Thank you."

Flowers gave her a little bow, then held the door for me. I stepped into the corridor.

"Sorry to be so harried, Professor," Flowers said to me as he took the lead, heading toward Camilla's suite. The days had long passed when he had been the bright student in the front row of my neurophysiology class at UCLA, but he still insisted on calling me professor in an honorific way that made me uncomfortable.

"It happens to me as well."

He picked up his pace. "Your wife is not doing well. In the past fourteen hours, she's acquired a nasty inflammation around the enteral site of the transgastric jejunostomy. We began immediate and aggressive antibiotic treatment, but there's no sign of a response so far."

I nodded as we detoured around a housekeeping cart and made a right-hand turn into a stairwell leading up to the front wing with the ocean-view rooms.

The transgastric jejunostomy feeding tube entered an incision in Camilla's abdomen and threaded though her stomach into the upper part of her small intestine. Acidic gastric fluids can leak outward from the incision and erode the tissue; bacteria can infiltrate from outside.

"Not surprising," I said. "It's actually hard to believe she's gone six years without this."

"That's not all, Professor" Flowers said seriously. "Her renal function has declined noticeably and there are signs of developing pneumonia. We don't know yet whether those are connected to the wound infection, but the lab is working on it as their top priority."

My hopes rose and fell with his prognosis. For six years I had wrestled with the fatigue and resentment tied to Camilla's endless hover between life and death. Years ago, Flowers had discussed removing Camilla's feeding tube. But I loved her deeply despite the evidence that the Camilla I had known no longer inhabited the still-breathing body she had left behind. Also, in the back of my mind, loomed the AMA's ethical statement that "there is no ethical distinction between withdrawing and withholding life-sustaining treatment."

The feeding tube had been installed in the relatively early days when there was hope Camilla might recover. But once installed, removing made me executioner or murderer. Other things restrained me as well. Before Camilla, I had lived like a kite without a string, soaring and diving wildly, hitting enormous heights and knowing the terror and pain of watching the earth rush up at me, all jagged, hard, and sharp. Camilla had been the string to my kite. Even the idea of Camilla had allowed me the same discipline for the past six years. Living without her terrified me.

"We've also seen changes in her EEGs I don't understand," Flowers continued as we reached the top of the stairs and made directly to Camilla's suite. "I'm hoping you can shed some light on them."

We entered the door leading into the suite's sitting room. The Pacific Ocean glowed through the broad windows, showing a top-heavy container ship on the distant horizon heading toward Point Conception. Closer in, I made out the brilliant geometry of a red-and-while sailboat spinnaker and, nearer still, a squad of surfers astride their boards waiting for a good wave.