I heard a sound from the jury box. Glancing over, I was astounded to see one of the jurors, old Lester Johnson, a retired teller from the First Bank of Eudora, clapping. So taken was he by Jonah’s presentation that he was applauding. The sound was very loud in the room.
Then there was a louder sound: the gavel coming down BANG!
My father jumped to his feet. “Lester!” he shouted. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
Chapter 104
“WELL, WELL, WELL,” Maxwell Hayes Lewis said slowly. Then he rose from his chair to begin his opening statement.
Those three words were all it took for me to realize what he was up to.
Lewis was appropriating the style of Clarence Darrow, a Chicago labor lawyer renowned all over the nation as the “lawyer’s lawyer.” Darrow was the most effective courtroom presenter of the day, his style casual, colloquial, at times downright homey, with ample doses of country wisdom and sentiment tossed in.
Lewis scratched his head, then slid his hand down, cupping his face in his hand, squeezing his cheek, as if he were sitting in his study, lost in thought.
Then he appeared to notice the jury for the first time, and ambled over.
“Now, Mr. Curtis here says, and I quote, ‘the pursuit of justice knows no color. The pursuit of justice admits only that which is fair, and honest, and true.’ ”
He turned around and stared hard at Jonah. But when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Thank you for saying that, Mr. Curtis. All I have to say to that is, Amen.”
The jurors visibly relaxed. The lawyer had brought them to a point of tension, then eased up.
“But let me tell you fellows where Mr. Curtis and I are absolutely not in agreement,” he said.
Lewis’s face was glistening with perspiration, and he hadn’t been talking a minute yet. He mopped his face with a handkerchief, a gesture that afforded him a dramatic pause.
“We are not in agreement on the story itself. Mr. Curtis tells a tale of night riders galloping in and shooting up a house in a frenzy of violent and lawless behavior. I have another version of that story to tell you. Now, the story I have to tell you is about eight upstanding white citizens of Pike County. Three of them we
re wrongly accused and arrested, the three gentlemen you see before you today.
“But on the night in question, there were eight. They climbed up on their horses, calmly, and in a neighborly way they rode over to Abraham Cross’s house. Why did they go there? Were they looking for trouble? Well, no—the trouble had already come and found them.”
He paused, turned around, and walked the other way along the jury box, meeting the eyes of each man in turn.
“Those eight men rode over that night to investigate a complaint against Mr. Cross’s nephew, a Mr. Richard Cross, known as Ricky, a Negro who was suspected of molesting and raping a young white girl of the Cedar Bend community.
“Understand, my friends, that the prosecutor’s story and this story fit together perfectly. The entire evening can be seen, from one perspective, as a gigantic misunderstanding. If the people in that house in the Quarters had not shot first and asked questions later—if they’d all been informed that they harbored a rapist in their midst, if they’d known about the assault on the girl, and the legitimate reasons my clients had for going to Mr. Cross’s house that night—why, none of this would have happened.
“But even so, it did happen. And it is a tragedy.
“And yet, gentlemen, it is not murder. I am here to tell you about Abraham Cross—a dying man, according to Mr. Curtis, although just for your information he is still alive and well, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you all get to meet him. I’m going to show you how Mr. Cross and his granddaughter and his hired gunmen, some of whom are in this room trying to intimidate you gentlemen here today…”
As he said this he was looking directly at L. J. Stringer and me.
“… I will show you how this armed band of Negroes and their white friends set about to deny my clients any access at all to the suspected man. How they, in fact, attacked my clients, and sought to visit great bodily harm upon them—even though my clients had a written legal warrant deputizing them and empowering them to question the accused, they were set upon by a pack of armed men.
“My clients fired their own weapons, gentlemen, in self-defense. The case is simple. It’s what is known in our game as ‘open and shut.’ My clients are facing these terrible charges, they have been jailed and denied their most basic rights as Americans, as Mississippians.”
You could see the jurors straightening with pride as he said this. “And all because of a story! A fable! A fiction, my friends. Mr. Jonah Curtis is a very eloquent lawyer, gentlemen, anyone can see that, but what he’s telling you is nothing more than a bedtime story!”
Several jurors laughed out loud.
“That is right, gentlemen of the jury. A bedtime story. We have two versions being told here. Mr. Curtis has told you a fairy story, and I have told you the truth. As God above knows it to be!”
Chapter 105
“GODDAMN THEM, BEN. Goddamn them all to hell!”