'Well, you never know what's down at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box, Marvin.'
He shook his head and walked away, trying to smooth the wrinkles out of the seersucker coat he held in his right hand, a good man who would forever serve causes that were not his own.
Lucas took the oath just after one o'clock. He sat very still in the witness chair, his hands splayed on his thighs, his face damp in the humidity. His throat was already streaked with color, as though it had been rouged.
'When you were first arrested, you said you hardly knew Roseanne Hazlitt. You said you didn't even know her last name. That was a lie, wasn't it?' I said.
'Yes, sir.'
'Why would you lie like that?'
'Cause she told me she was pregnant. 'Cause y'all would think it was me hurt her if y'all knew it was my baby…' He took a breath. 'I lied 'cause I didn't have no guts.'
'How'd you feel about Roseanne?'
'She was a good person. She couldn't hep the things she done, I mean, with drinking and that kind of stuff.'
'Did she tell you who might have made her pregnant?'
'Objection, hearsay,' Marvin said.
'I'll allow it,' the judge said.
'Some older guy she was seeing in town. I didn't ask. It didn't make me feel too good.'
'You thought the baby could be yours, didn't you?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Why?'
'Sir?'
'Why did you think it could be yours?'
'Cause we was making love.'
'That's not what I'm asking you, Lucas. Did you use a condom?'
He rubbed his palms on his trousers and looked at the judge.
'Answer the question, please,' she said.
'No, sir, we didn't use none,' Lucas said.
'That sounds dumb to me. Why not?'
'Objection, your honor. He's badgering and cross-examining his own client,' Marvin Pomroy said.
'Approach,' the judge said. She took off her black-framed glasses and pushed aside the microphone. 'What are you doing, Mr Holland?' she said.
'I'm going to prove my client is psychologically incapable of having committed the crime,' I replied.
'Psychologically incapable? Wonderful. Your honor, he's not only appointed himself the repository of Freudian thought, he's psychoanalyzing someone who was drunk,' Marvin said.
'Mr Holland?' the judge said.
'My client has taken the stand of his own volition, your honor. The rest of his life is at stake here. How can justice possibly be harmed by the questions I've asked?'