I had long known that the trial was a media boondoggle; what I hadn’t fully realized, until I explored the exhibits in the basement, was how thoroughly orchestrated a publicity stunt it had been, from start to finish. Tennessee’s 1925 antievolution law was real enough, and so was the ACLU’s interest in challenging it. What was nearly pure hokum was the trial itself. It was the brainchild of local businessmen, Chamber of Commerce types who dreamed of putting Dayton on the map in a big way. When similar challenges to the new law began gathering momentum in other, larger Tennessee cities, the Dayton boosters maneuvered to get the date of the Scopes trial moved up, so Knoxville and Chattanooga wouldn’t steal Dayton’s thunder. Even the defendant, earnest young John Scopes, was a ringer: Scopes taught chemistry, not biology; he was persuaded to play the part of educational martyr as his contribution to the town’s economic salvation. Several students were carefully coached to confirm that, yes indeed, Mr. Scopes taught that man was descended from apelike ancestors. At one point, when a technicality came to light that threatened to nullify the charge against Scopes, Darrow-the Great Defender! — hastened to assure the court that the defense did not want the charge dismissed. Darrow hoped for a guilty verdict, one he could appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In short, the noble script of Inherit the Wind notwithstanding, this landmark case in American jurisprudence was as carefully choreographed as any professional wrestling exhibition.
As planned, evolution lost in the local court, so presumably Christianity won. But the victory, even at the time, rang hollow. Bryan-who’d taken the witness stand to defend the truth of the Bible-was portrayed in the press as a “pitiable, punch-drunk warrior.” Six days after the trial, the Great Commoner died in a house on a side street in Dayton.
Finding out how thoroughly the “landmark” trial was a sham and a gimmick was a bit demoralizing; I hated to learn that our court system was as susceptible to self-serving manipulation and grandstanding as, say, political campaigns. On the other hand, the debunking did put my banana cream pie in a broader historical perspective. If Bryan was the Great Commoner and Darrow the Great Defender, maybe-just maybe-history would remember Brockton as the Great Meringuer. At the very least, I might be able to land a celebrity endorsement deal with Sara Lee pies.
CHAPTER 37
THE DAYLIGHT FILTERING THROUGH the dusty screens of the cabin was even dimmer than usual when I awoke the morning after Jess’s funeral. I rolled across the lumpy mattress and pressed my face to the window. Through the grime on the glass and the dust and cobwebs on the screen, I thought-though it was hard to be sure-that I saw dark clouds scudding above the treetops. That meant I would have to work on my textbook revisions indoors, by kerosene lamp. Although the image seemed romantic, in an Abe Lincoln sort of way, I knew that a day of hunching over to read fine print by flickering lamplight would leave me with knotted shoulders and a screaming headache. As I wrestled with my choices-the case of cabin fever I’d get if I didn’t work, versus the aching head and neck I’d get if I did-the cellphone Jeff had loaned me began to ring. The display read PRIVATE NUMBER, so I considered not answering-what if a reporter had somehow gotten hold of the number? By the third ring, though, I decided I was being excessively paranoid. Somebody was out to get me, and I did want to be cautious, but I didn’t want paranoia to run away with me.
“Hello?”
“Bill? It’s Art.”
I felt my shoulders relax, not simply because it wasn’t a reporter, but because it was someone who actually still had faith in me. I’d called and left my number on Art’s voice mail and Miranda’s voice mail; I’d also given it to Peggy, my secretary, and Burt DeVriess and his assistant Chloe. That small circle of people, plus Jeff, seemed to represent the sum total of human beings whose loyalty and faith I retained. It wasn’t many, but they were all good people to have in my corner. Well, Burt DeVriess was an unsavory person to have in my corner, but nonetheless a crucial one.
“Hi, Art. How goes the pursuit of the pedophiles?”
“I set up a date yesterday with one of my boyfriends. We were supposed to meet at the food court at the mall. He stood me up. I’m feeling rejected.”
“You think he got suspicious? Figured out that Tiffany was really a cop?”
“Maybe. But I think he’s just skittish in general. I sent him a hurt-feelings e-mail last night, and he wrote back to apologize. Made some lame excuse about work. Sometimes it takes two or three times before these guys follow through-I’m not sure if they’re just chickens, or if they have some tiny shreds of conscience. But I’ve told him we need to take a break from each other for a week or so.”
“You playing hard to get?”
“No. I’ve taken some time off, actually. I thought maybe there might be a higher and better use of my investigative talents.”
“Higher and better than catching child molesters? What would be better than that?”
“Figuring out who killed Jess. Figuring out who’s setting you up. I’m off all week. How about we rough out some sort of plan?” Art’s generosity astonished me and moved me. “Bill? You still there?”
I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. Thank you, Art. Thanks.”
“You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “I would.”
“Okay, then, we’re even. You got any bright ideas for how we track down this diabolical killer?”
“Not so far.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I didn’t figure you would. Lucky for us, I do.”
“That is lucky. Whatcha got?”
“I keep thinking the Willis murder must be tied to Jess’s,” he said. “No pun intended. Jess had just released Willis’s name to the media, and it’s the one case you and Jess were working on together. Right?”
“Right. I keep thinking about Willis’s mother. The way she acted was really strange. It’s like she was less upset over the fact that he was dead than over the way Jess described him to the media. Almost as if his reputation were more important than his life.”
“Grief’s a funny thing, though,” he said. “People express it in wildly different ways. That could’ve been some weird version of denial.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but if so, then killing Jess might have been an extension of it-taking that assault on Jess to the extreme. That would fit with the threatening note that got thrown through my window, too.”
“But didn’t you say that came from one of those creationist protesters?”
“Looked that way,” I said, “but maybe she was trying to throw me off the scent. Then again, there’s another possibility.”
“Namely?”
“The cop that caught Craig Willis in the act. Given that he rushed in, didn’t follow procedures, and even roughed the guy up a bit, he sounds like a bit of a cowboy. Might he be capable of killing Willis, once the case got thrown out?”
“Maybe,” said Art. “The line between good cop and bad cop can be mighty easy to cross. You bend a rule here and there, pretty soon you’re breaking ’em right and left. Be a mighty big leap, though, to go from exterminating a pedophile to murdering a medical examiner-and then framing a forensic scientist for it.”
“Hmm. That does seem like a stretch.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “Let me try to track him down and have a talk with him. If nothing else, he might have some ideas about other folks who may have wanted Willis dead, and whether any of them were capable of the rest of this stuff.”
“You want me to go with you?”
“Naw,” he said. “Let me talk to him, cop-to-cop. You think you’d be taking a chance if you went and talked to Mrs. Willis?”
I felt more nervous than I cared to admit. “I’ll be okay,” I said, hoping Art would think better of it, try talking me out of it. He didn’t.
“Let’s touch base after lunch,” he said. “I’ll give you a call around one unless I hear something from you before then. By the way, do you know w
here Mrs. Willis lives?”
“Um, no.”
“That’s okay. I just happen to have her address handy.” He read it off-she lived on a street of small bungalows near West High School, and I knew the neighborhood well.
Relieved not to be facing a day of flickering eyestrain, I downed a bowl of Cheerios (Honey Nut, which I’d chosen over Jeff’s objections), took a quick shower in the bath house, and donned a pair of khakis and a polo shirt for the trip to Knoxville. I was still the best-dressed person in the park-a truly startling distinction for me-but at least I’d scaled back from church clothes (and arrest clothes) to business casual.
One lane of I-75 South was closed for repaving, so traffic was crawling today. The drive back to Knoxville, which normally took thirty minutes, required nearly an hour this time. I got off at the Papermill Drive exit-also a bottleneck, as it had been for a couple of years now, during a massive interchange reworking-and wound through small residential streets to Sutherland Avenue, the main artery that led to West High and Mrs. Willis’s neighborhood. I had just parked across the street from her house when she emerged from the front door. She was wearing work clothes-blue jeans and a dingy T-shirt and boots-and carry ing pruning shears. She headed for a hedge of boxwoods lining the front of the yard and began hacking at the new growth with a vengeance.
My camera was in a bin in the passenger-side floorboard; on impulse, I fished it out and zoomed in on her face. She looked nearly as angry as the day she had stormed into my office, and the look brought the altercation back vividly into my memory. You know, I thought, I bet there’s a lot of rage inside that woman. Any mother whose son turns out to be a child molester, and then gets murdered-be enough to turn anybody pretty hateful. I snapped a few photos, then stowed my camera and got out of the car.
“Mrs. Willis,” I called as I crossed the street, “could I talk to you for a minute?”
She turned slowly, and when she recognized me, her eyes flashed. “What do you want?”
“I’d like to talk to you about Dr. Carter,” I said.
“Dr. Carter’s dead,” she snapped, “and I’m glad. And you’re going to jail for killing her, and I’m glad of that, too.”