Mississippi Blood

  “I am disinheriting you because I have finally found a cause for which I would give anything, even my life. There is a reporter down here working on Jimmy’s and Luther’s disappearance, still working after all these years. A white man named Henry Sexton. He and a producer are trying to make a movie about the case, and they need money to finish it. I have looked into this man’s eyes, and I trust him in a way I have never trusted anyone but my brother. So I am taking what little money I’ve managed to save and giving it to Mr. Sexton, in the hope that Jimmy’s killers will finally be brought to justice, and the truth brought to light at last. I am still giving Cora and Lincoln small bequests, but less than half of what they were going to get before. You, on the other hand, have no need of money since you are in prison and may well die there. Bribing judges and buying drugs do not count as legitimate needs.

  “Cora and I have finally reconciled after all the years of silence since what happened around Mama’s death. I have secured a new will, and I am trusting Cora to make sure my wishes are followed. I believe she’ll do it, but just in case, I have taken one further step to be sure you can’t twist her to your own ends once more. But that’s my business. It’s already done, so don’t try to talk me out of it. My mind is made up. Jimmy was the only one who stayed true to me, and to Mama and Daddy.

  “As for us, I thought you broke my son’s heart when you told him that story about the rape, but I understand now that you broke him long before that. I only wish I’d known then, so I could have left you in time to help him. You have so much charm, but there’s something in you that brings out the worst in people. You tempted my sister into adultery, and you even turned my own son against me. I know Cora was at fault also, but she was weak, and you took advantage. That’s what you do, Junius, you exploit human weakness. I know better than to hope that prison will change you any more than it did before, but I pray that you will someday find faith, or at least peace, behind those walls.

  “I know I am not without blame in what happened to us. My heart was broken before you and I ever met, and that may be what doomed us. I don’t know. When you think of me, try not to be angry. We shared some joy in those early years. I still remember my first winter of snow, how magical it was to a Mississippi girl. I only learned to dread it later, much as I did with you. I suppose everything has both good and bad qualities. In spite of all, I thank you for the comfort you gave to me and my boy during the hard times in the beginning, and I forgive you for your weakness.

  “May you find peace before you go to where I am going soon.

  “Vee.”

  “I don’t suppose that was a very easy letter to read,” Quentin says softly.

  “No, sir.”

  “And why did he read it?” Shad cries. “No man would read that without getting something in return. Especially a convicted con man!”

  “I didn’t hear an objection, Your Honor,” Quentin says gently.

  “Nor did I,” says Judge Elder. “Take your seat, Mr. Johnson.”

  As I watch Shad sit, I realize that Lincoln, rather than trying to disappear into his seat, like Cora, is sitting ramrod straight and staring at Junius Jelks as though he means to kill him with his eyes. The ramifications of Jelks’s testimony—and Viola’s letter, if authentic—are just beginning to sink into my brain. Before I can reflect upon them further, Quentin drives the knife home.

  “Mr. Jelks, did you inherit any money from your wife upon her death?”

  A small, strange smile lights the old con man’s face. “I did.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten thousand, eight hundred dollars.”

  “Did that surprise you?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Did you inquire of anyone why this apparent mistake had been made?”

  Jelks’s only response is a low laugh.

  “Answer the question,” orders Judge Elder.

  “No, I did not.”

  “Given what your wife’s letter had said about disinheriting you, what did you think had happened? Did you think she’d had a change of heart?”

  “Objection,” says Shad. “Leading.”

  “Sustained.”

  “What did you think had happened, Mr. Jelks?”

  “Objection!” Shad shouts. “Vague.”

  “Overruled.”

  “I figured Lincoln had learned something from me after all.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Quentin asks, with the soft implacability of an ocean swell that will soon build into a tidal wave that could sweep all before it.

  “That boy had been working cons even before he knew what he was doing. By the time he was six, he was as good as anybody I ever saw. He could run up to a lady crying he was lost and come back with her pocketbook and her watch, and her not miss them till five blocks later.”

  Jelks actually has pride in his voice, but the image he conjured only serves to tell me how radically different my childhood was from that of my half brother.

  “I figured he’d found a way to lose Viola’s new will,” Jelks continues, “so the old one would stay in effect.”

  “Objection, Judge!” Shad presses. “Witness is speculating and has no knowledge of any such event.”

  “Sustained.”

  Jelks chuckles low. “I know it probably killed Lincoln to give me that eleven grand. But there wasn’t no way around it, see? He still got twice as much for himself than if he’d let Vee give the lion’s share to that white reporter.”

  “I’ve warned you about speaking out of turn, Mr. Jelks,” Judge Elder snaps. “The jury will disregard the witness’s last comments.”

  “Right,” Rusty says in my ear. “Quentin was planning this all along, Penn. He let them spend two days hanging themselves.”

  “Mr. Jelks,” Quentin says, “when your wife’s will was probated, why didn’t you come forward with the letter you read today?”

  Jelks shakes his head, but then he goes through the steps for the sake of form. “I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. And Vee was doing me wrong, changing her will like that. Illinois is one of the only states in the whole country where you can stop a spouse from inheriting. Anyhow, I sure didn’t blame Lincoln any.”

  Quentin’s sigh is freighted with a lifetime’s weariness of dealing with self-serving convicts. “You were still Viola’s spouse at the time she changed that will, Mr. Jelks. But in any case . . . is there anything you want to say before I hand you over to the district attorney?”

  Junius Jelks looks down at the letter in his lap, then out over the crowd. “Only this. Viola was right about me. I wasn’t no saint, as you can see from these guards I got with me. But then, I couldn’t afford to be. Lord, was it hard to look her in the face knowing how far you’d fallen short of what she expected—and deserved. But Vee was wrong about her brother, Jimmy. By dying young, that boy stayed a kind of saint to Viola. But it was him and Luther that got her in trouble with the Klan, got her raped and such. Not me. Ain’t that something?”

  Quentin turns to Shad and gives him the first completely unshrouded look he has given anyone since the beginning of the trial. It’s as though a man wearing a cloak has suddenly thrown it back to reveal a gleaming sword. Shad actually slides a couple of inches back in his chair.

  But Junius Jelks isn’t finished. Just as Quentin opens his mouth to tender the witness, Jelks looks down at my father and says, “Doc, I don’t know if you injected that poison or not, but you damn sure killed Viola. I drug on her my whole life, but you broke her heart before I ever laid eyes on her. It was you who killed her. At least my conscience is clean on that.”

  Quentin gapes at Junius Jelks, probably reflecting, as most trial lawyers have, that even a good witness can be a double-edged sword. “Your witness,” he says finally.

  Shad sits blinking in confusion, like a young boxer after catching a surprise hook from an aging champion.

  As Quentin rolls back toward the defense table, Rusty catches his eye and gives him a covert thu
mbs-up. Quentin doesn’t deign to acknowledge the signal. Even in the wheelchair, his regal bearing makes it clear that he exists above both the criticism and praise of men like Rusty Duncan.

  Shad stands and approaches the witness box, walking right past the lectern and taking a combative stance that makes clear he feels only disdain, even disgust, for Junius Jelks.

  “Why are you telling us all this now, Mr. Jelks?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, sir, that a man like you doesn’t do anything for free. What have you been promised in exchange for your testimony?”

  Jelks smiles in tacit agreement. “I see. Well, nobody paid me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Did anyone make you promises of any kind?”

  “Well, sure. Mr. Avery there promised to look into my case and see if he might be able to get my sentence reduced, on account of what that judge done. How he went to jail for taking bribes, and such. But that’s all.”

  “That’s all?” Shad asks with theatrical verve, looking at the jury.

  “Is that illegal?” Jelks asks, with perfectly acted sincerity, and only then does Shad realize that he has stepped on a spring-loaded land mine.

  Judge Elder is staring at Shad as though waiting for the answer, but Shad isn’t about to give one unless ordered to from the bench.

  “Mr. Johnson?” he prompts.

  “Yes, Judge?”

  “The witness asked a question. I think the jury would probably like to know the answer.”

  Shad looks at the floor and swallows what must have been an acid retort, but when he raises his head, he says, “No, that’s not strictly illegal. However, it certainly raises the probability that this witness would never have come forward without such an inducement.”

  “And the jury will be instructed to consider that,” says Judge Elder, “in due course. Please continue.”

  “Mr. Jelks,” Shad muses, “what if your testimony today results in you losing your inheritance? How will you feel about that?”

  Jelks shrugs philosophically, the gesture of a pragmatic man who can calculate the odds of any proposition before most people even understand the question. “Mr. Johnson, money don’t mean much to a man facing thirteen more years behind bars. Not a man my age. Even a small chance of freedom is worth fifty times the paper I’ve got rotting in the bank.”

  “Obviously. And given your feeling about this, is there anything you would not do to hasten your release from prison?”

  “Probably not.”

  “You would lie on the witness stand?”

  “Of course. I might even kill somebody, if he was the only thing standing between me and freedom.”

  Loud murmurs come from the crowd behind me. Shad faces the jury and again turns his palms up, as if to say, What are we to do with such a man?

  “But my wife wouldn’t lie for any reason,” Jelks says with conviction. “Except maybe to protect her child. She wrote that letter, sir. Nobody can prove different.”

  “I didn’t ask you a question, Mr. Jelks.”

  “I don’t care, Mister Johnson. But I sure thank you and all these good people for getting me a day outside that stink-hole of a prison. I almost feel alive again.”

  Judge Elder looks as though he’s endured all he intends to from Junius Jelks, but what can he do? The man’s headed back to prison anyway, and it’s better for Mississippi taxpayers if his room and board are paid by the State of Illinois. “Any further questions, Mr. Johnson?” Elder asks.

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “No redirect, Mr. Avery?”

  “None.”

  “The witness is released. Will a marshal please get this man out of my courtroom?”

  As two marshals walk to the witness box to escort Junius Jelks from the court, I hear a commotion behind me, and I turn. Behind the prosecution table, Lincoln Turner has risen from his seat and is staring at the man he once believed was his father. He looks as though he might bull-rush Jelks at any moment.

  I’m about to suggest that a bailiff get between the two when Lincoln says in a clear voice: “Judge, I want to speak.”

  Even the marshals escorting Jelks pause as Judge Elder looks down at Lincoln.

  “You had your time on the stand, Mr. Turner. Though I suspect you may find yourself back in court before too long. Please sit down.”

  But Lincoln doesn’t sit down. In fact, it looks like it might take a squad of cops to make him sit. I have seen that look on faces in court before—more than once on the faces of men who opened fire on defendants.

  “Judge?” I say, coming to my feet, but Elder has finally picked up on the escalation. He motions for me to sit even as he speaks to the bailiff.

  “Bailiff, if that man does not sit down, you will remove him from the court. And if he attempts to follow the witness out of this room, stop him.”

  The armed bailiff seems flummoxed by the turn this trial has taken, but he steps away from the wall with his right hand on the butt of the pistol at his belt.

  As I take my seat, I realize that Quentin is staring at Lincoln with an uncertain look on his face. With an electric shock I realize what he’s thinking. As calmly as I can, I move out of my chair and lean over the rail toward Quentin.

  “Rest your case, Q. It’s over. You just destroyed the State’s witnesses.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he says, still looking at Lincoln. “I only wounded them.”

  “Quentin—”

  “If I rest now, Shad can call Lincoln up on rebuttal and let him say whatever he wants.”

  “I doubt he’ll risk that.”

  “Then you’re a fool.”

  Quentin is right: Shad has the technical right to recall Lincoln to the stand. It would be unusual in a Mississippi trial, but if Shad thinks Lincoln can rehabilitate himself to any degree, he might give it a shot. And knowing Quentin’s penchant for control, he will not cede to his enemy the power to choreograph Lincoln Turner’s final appearance before the jury.

  “Your Honor,” Quentin says after only a few seconds’ reflection, “the defense recalls Lincoln Turner.”

  Judge Elder’s long face whips around to Quentin as though the old lawyer had suddenly started barking like a dog. I can almost hear him asking, Are you sure? But of course he doesn’t.

  “Please take the stand, Mr. Turner,” Judge Elder commands.

  Rusty grabs my left forearm and squeezes tight. “What the fuck is Quentin doing?”

  “Playing chess. Very risky chess.”

  “Chess, my ass. Trial lawyers are like painters. Every one of ’em needs a guy with a hammer standing behind him to hit him on the head when the painting’s finished.”

  “I agree, buddy. Be my guest.”

  But Rusty, despite his passion, knows there’s nothing we can do to save Quentin from himself—or my father from Quentin—if indeed they need saving.

  As Lincoln Turner walks to the witness stand, the bright-eyed man who during lunch tried to sell me a tape that could free my father looks as remote as the convict the marshals are escorting through the back door. His eyes now see nothing immediately before him; they’re focused on the vanished past and a provisional future.

  They’re the eyes of a man with nothing left to lose.

  Chapter 55

  “Mr. Turner,” Quentin says from his place by the defense table, “I can see—indeed we all can see—that you are very anxious to speak. I can understand that, after the testimony of your . . . your former stepfather. I have recalled you because I don’t want to silence anyone who can contribute to our understanding of the full truth in this case. I only ask one thing from you, and I ask it with the gravest possible concern. Please . . . remember that you are still under oath.”

  “I know that,” Lincoln says with unalloyed bitterness.

  “I don’t say that to insult you, but to remind you that in passion men often say things they later wish to take back.”

  As if Lincoln has not already said a dozen such thi
ngs . . .

  “I know what I want to say, old man.”

  “Mr. Turner!” Judge Elder says sharply. “Watch your tone, or you’ll pay a price.”

  Quentin looks at Lincoln a few more seconds, then nods once and rolls his chair toward the witness box.

  “Mr. Turner, did you destroy that second will?”

  “I did.”

  The collective gasp at this frank admission is like a wind at my back. I’m stunned enough, because I’m pretty sure that act could buy Lincoln two years in the county jail, and maybe longer, since his mother would have been considered elderly and vulnerable at the time.

  “I’ll tell you about that in a minute,” Lincoln says. “But first I want to tell you about Junius Jelks.”

  Shad looks like he might have a heart attack any second, but he knows there’s nothing he can do to stop this—only delay it.

  “Mr. Turner,” Quentin says for form’s sake, “would you describe your familial relationship with Junius Jelks?”

  “That man,” Lincoln says, shaking his head, “for most of my life, I thought he was my father. But he wasn’t. He pretended to be, when it suited him. And he taught me a lot, the way a father’s supposed to teach his son. He taught me that a lie was better than the truth, that stealing was better than working, that winning meant nothing if you hadn’t cheated to do it. Winning without cheating was just luck, he said, and any dumb sucker can get lucky.

  “That term, ‘con man,’ it doesn’t sound bad, does it? Makes you think of some slick Hollywood actor. But that’s the biggest lie of all. Like Mama’s letter said, Junius Jelks preyed on the weak his whole life, like a jackal in the desert. He cheated old people and the sick. He steered runaway kids to pimps for a cut of the take. He used me to help him do that, even before I knew what I was doing. He fleeced every immigrant and minority class there is—used their ignorance like a gun against them. I’ve seen him talk thirteen-year-old girls right out of their clothes. He can fake his way through five languages and doesn’t know a one of them. ‘Caveat emptor!’ he used to yell after he’d taken somebody. ‘Let the buyer beware!’”