Mississippi Blood

  “Mr. Turner,” Quentin says gently. “I think we get the point. Your stepfather was no saint, as he said himself.”

  Lincoln nods intently, as though trying to focus through the furnace glow of his anger on some wavering point beyond it.

  “What about your mother’s will, Mr. Turner?”

  After several seconds, Lincoln looks up, and this time it’s Quentin who rolls back about a foot in the face of his withering stare. “Mama made a new will, just like her letter said. And I burned it. I burned it as soon as I got to Natchez that morning.” Lincoln looks over Quentin at the spectators. “Who in this room wants to condemn me for that? All my life, Mama told me she was going to take care of me. She often talked about her will and said she was going to do all she could for Cora and me. And she meant to, right up until a couple of weeks before she died. Right up until that white reporter got her alone and filled her head with crazy dreams about Jimmy. My mama was sick, man. She was on drugs! She was dying, and that Henry Sexton took advantage of her just like Junius Jelks used to cheat them old folks in the nursing homes in Chicago. I deserved that money, people. Cora did, too. Mama wanted us to have it, and then a smooth-talking white man came along and cheated her out of her life savings on her deathbed. Do you think I should have stood by and let that crook walk away with my mama’s life savings? When my auntie can’t hardly pay her electric bill?” Lincoln looks down at Quentin. “Do you really believe that?”

  Quentin sits silent in his wheelchair, seemingly cowed by the intensity of Lincoln’s indignation. This is exactly what I was afraid of, though I didn’t know Lincoln would go quite so far in expressing his righteous anger. But Jelks’s testimony so enraged him that he seems unconcerned by the prospect of being charged with fraud, or whatever the charge will be for destroying his mother’s valid will.

  I want Quentin to put an end to this, but there’s really no way to do it. If he tries to shut Lincoln up, Shad can simply walk up on redirect and let him finish whatever he wants to say. Quentin knows this, of course. That’s why he let Lincoln get up in the first place. My mother has leaned across Annie to speak urgently to Mia, and I can guess what she’s telling her, but Annie’s having none of it. If Mom wants Annie out of this court, she’s going to have to miss the proceedings herself, which she’s unwilling to do.

  Lincoln turns to the jury, his eyes glinting with tears. It’s unexpectedly moving to see such a large and muscular man reduced to this.

  “Listen to me, folks,” he implores. “Please listen to this, if nothing else. What Tom Cage and his lawyer are doing is just what Junius Jelks taught me to do. What every good con man and magician does. They’re getting you to look at one thing—one hand—so you don’t see what the other hand is doing. But it’s that other hand that’s dipping into your pocket, or pulling the fifth ace from a sleeve. That other hand does the real business, see? Don’t let yourselves be taken in! Don’t be suckers.”

  Lincoln blinks at the twelve bovine faces like a prophet trying to get through to a crowd of tired peasants. “People have been talking about Tom Cage like he’s some kind of saint. The patron saint of downtrodden black folks. Don’t you know why? Who’s going to convict a saint of murder? Nobody. But have you ever asked yourself why he’s spent his life doing things for black people? Did you ever wonder if what drives him might be guilt, and not Christian charity?”

  Lincoln jabs his forefinger toward the audience. “I’ve talked to people in this town! Everybody from Natchez talks about the light in my mama’s eyes. They say she could light up a whole room. But by the time I knew her, that light was all but gone. She was just a husk of a woman sitting in front of the TV after work, drinking cheap wine and crying over stupid movies. I saw that light flicker up a few times, when I’d bring home a good report card or something. But that was all. Mama hardly left that apartment after I was ten years old, except to go to work or the liquor store. Always sent me out to get her cigarettes. I’ve seen pictures of her taken down here . . . she looked like a movie star. But by the time she was thirty-five, she looked fifty years old. Ten years after that, she looked like a bag lady. You think that’s easy for me to say?” Lincoln closes his big hand into a fist and hammers it against his heart. “It’s not. But I say it to let you know what Tom Cage did to her. He filled her full of hope for something she could never have, and then he snatched it away! He made her lie to protect his reputation, and his white family. He made her lie to keep me invisible. He stole the life out of her, the same way Jelks stole people’s last dollar!”

  Hearing a shuffle to my right, I turn. Mom is actually holding her hands over Annie’s ears. For a moment I consider getting up and leading Annie out. But she’s already heard this much, and I’m not about to miss the remainder of Lincoln’s soliloquy. As he continues, though, my mind sticks on the things he said last, and I realize that I’m no longer picturing Viola Turner as the nurse I knew so long ago, but as Serenity Butler. What would it take to completely break down a woman with Serenity’s strength, beauty, and intelligence? By all accounts, Viola had possessed each of those gifts.

  “Take the word of a man raised by a con man and educated to be a lawyer,” Lincoln goes on. “And what is a lawyer but a con man with a degree?”

  Several jury members nod at this.

  “Quentin Avery has spent all this time getting you focused on Mama’s will so that you won’t focus on the one thing that really matters—the crime that brought us here—my mama’s murder. And not one thing he’s said has disproved a single fact about what happened on the night Mama died.”

  “It was you who brought us here,” Quentin says, just loud enough to be heard by the jury. “And I think we’re all beginning to understand why. You’re a very angry man. And while that may not be the main issue before the bar, perhaps it should be. The courts, Mr. Turner, do not exist to be used for personal revenge.”

  “Objection,” says Shad. “Judge, we’ve gotten far afield of the central issue. Mr. Turner is right, his mother’s will is a matter for the chancery court, not this venue.”

  “You may be wrong about that,” Judge Elder says ominously. “But this has gone far enough. Mr. Avery, bring this to a close.”

  Quentin rolls his chair to within three feet of the witness box. I’m put in mind of a veteran lion tamer getting dangerously close to the beast he wants to manipulate.

  “Are there any other lies you wish to confess, Mr. Turner? If so, now’s your chance.”

  “I’ve said what I had to say.”

  “All right, then. No further questions, Judge.”

  “Mr. Johnson?” says Judge Elder.

  “Nothing further, Your Honor.”

  Elder turns to Lincoln. “You may step down.”

  As Lincoln walks back to his seat, where his aunt Cora waits like a woman who has suffered a mild stroke, the silence in the room reminds me of some public venue where someone has done something shocking and no one is quite sure whether they did it because they’re uncouth or because they’re mentally ill. By any conventional assessment, Junius Jelks proved that two of the State’s main witnesses lied on the stand for the basest of reasons. That alone has introduced sufficient reasonable doubt into the case to trigger an acquittal. But somehow Lincoln’s impassioned plea to the jury—uttered so obviously against his own interest—has raised the specter that despite his and Cora’s venal lies, my father might still be guilty of murder.

  “Tell him to rest his case,” Rusty says in my ear. “Hurry! Quentin looks like he’s going to call another witness!”

  A horrifying prospect causes me to rise from my seat and risk Judge Elder’s wrath by moving through the rail to kneel beside Quentin’s wheelchair. “You’re not still thinking of calling Dad to the stand?”

  “Calm down,” Quentin says irritably. “And get back to your seat. I have things well in hand.”

  “So quit while you’re ahead!”

  “Go back to your seat, Penn.”

  “You’ve won, damn i
t.”

  “If you think that, you’ve misjudged the issues in this trial.” Quentin glances toward the judge. “The defense calls Mr. Vivek Patel to the stand.”

  “Who the hell is that?” I hiss.

  “You’re about to find out.” With a shove off my shoulder, Quentin rolls away from me.

  As I take my seat, a dark-skinned Indian man sits in the witness box and takes the oath, though as a Hindu he does not put his hand on the Bible, and he “affirms” rather than “swears” that he will tell the truth. He seems eerily calm compared to the jurors and spectators, who just witnessed Lincoln’s spectacular tirade. His dark eyes gleam with intelligence, and he waits for the first question like he has all day to spend in court.

  “Mr. Patel, would you tell us your occupation?”

  “Yes, sir. I own a motel in Jefferson County, on Highway 61. Between Fayette and Port Gibson.”

  “How far away is that from Natchez?”

  “Twenty-eight miles.”

  “What’s the name of your motel?”

  “The Belle Meade Inn.”

  “Mr. Patel, have you been sitting in court during the past fifteen minutes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you see the man testifying before I called you up here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you ever seen that man before today?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where?”

  “He was a guest at my motel.”

  “When was this?”

  Mr. Patel removes a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

  “What is that you’re looking at, Mr. Patel?”

  “It’s a photocopy of my guest register.”

  “I see. Please go on.”

  “Yes . . . the man who testified before me stayed at my motel just over three months ago. Last December.”

  “Do you have the exact dates?”

  “Yes.” The man checks the paper in his hand. “He checked in on December ninth, and he checked out on December thirteenth.”

  Quentin pauses to let the jury grasp the significance of these dates. “Are you aware that this is a murder trial, Mr. Patel?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you aware of the date on which the victim in this case was killed?”

  “Yes, sir. December twelfth of last year.”

  “Precisely. And at that time, the man you identified had been staying at your motel for four days?”

  “Exactly so.”

  Rusty’s hand closes on my arm again, this time with painful force. Like me, he has sensed that the ocean swell that began during Junius Jelks’s testimony is now about to smash into Lincoln Turner—and Shad Johnson’s case—with shattering force. “What name did he register under?”

  Patel consults the register again. “Keith Mosley.”

  “Keith Mosley? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Holy fuck,” Rusty breathes. “Lincoln killed his mother.”

  “Bullshit,” I say under my breath, but we both turn to look at Lincoln, who is sitting with the mute stillness of a mahogany carving.

  “Did you ask for ID when he registered?” Quentin goes on.

  “Of course.”

  “What did he show?”

  “A driver’s license.”

  “Then what was he doing here all that time?” Rusty whispers.

  “Waiting for his mother to die,” I think aloud. “Waiting for Dad to kill her. So he could bring us here.”

  “No, man. I think he killed her. For the money.”

  “From what state?” asks Quentin.

  “Illinois.”

  “In the name of Keith Mosley?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And how did he pay you? With a credit card?”

  “No, sir. Cash.”

  “Cash. Did you find that suspicious?”

  “No, sir. Many of my guests prefer to pay in cash.”

  “I see. Are you positive that the man you have pointed out is the same man who registered as Keith Mosley?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And how is it that you came to be here today?” Quentin asks.

  “Well . . . at the beginning of the week, or Tuesday rather, my wife called me over to where she was reading the newspaper—”

  “Excuse me, what paper was that?”

  “The Natchez paper. The Examiner.”

  “Thank you. Please continue.”

  “There was a picture of this man in the paper. And my wife said, ‘Vivek, this looks like the man who stayed with us last December.’ When I looked at the photo, I instantly agreed. But then I noticed that he was called by another name in the caption, and in the story.”

  “What name was that?”

  “Mr. Lincoln Turner. This puzzled me, and I tried to convince myself that we were mistaken. But then my wife began to read every detail of the story, and the trial. She went on the Internet and studied back issues of the newspaper. She found another picture of the man, and I showed both pictures to one of our housekeepers at the motel. She identified Mr. Turner immediately as Keith Mosley.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I telephoned the authorities.”

  “The city police, or the sheriff’s office?”

  “The municipal police, but they referred me to the sheriff’s office.”

  “And what did the sheriff’s office tell you?”

  “They told me I was mistaken.”

  Quentin pauses again to let this sink in, and he cuts his eyes at Sheriff Byrd as he does so. “How could they be so sure?”

  “I do not know, sir.”

  “You told them everything you told us here today?”

  “Most assuredly, sir.”

  “But they wouldn’t listen.”

  “Objection,” Shad says. “Leading.”

  “I’ll rephrase,” Quentin says smoothly. “What action did the sheriff’s office take, if any?”

  “None, to my knowledge, sir.”

  Judge Elder is glaring at Billy Byrd.

  “What did you do then?” Quentin asks.

  “I tried to forget about it.”

  “And could you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “My wife would not let me. My wife . . . once she gets hold of something, there’s no stopping her. It was she who told me I should contact the attorney for the defense of Dr. Cage.”

  “And why would she suggest that?”

  “As I said, she had been following the trial. And she understood that Mr. Mosley—or Mr. Turner, rather—had claimed that he only arrived in Natchez on the morning his mother died. That in itself was not technically false, since my motel is in an adjacent county. However, he also claimed to have just arrived from Chicago on that morning, which I knew to be false.”

  Quentin is nodding slowly. “It surprises me a little that you took the action you did, Mr. Patel. Not many Americans are so eager to come forward with information that might put them in the middle of a criminal trial.”

  Patel gives a very formal nod. “I understand, sir. Indeed, our housekeeper said she wanted no part of this, once she learned why I had asked her about the photograph.”

  “But that didn’t deter you?”

  “No, sir. This is a most serious matter. If a man gives false witness under oath, it is the duty of every citizen to point this out. The law cannot work impartially otherwise.”

  Quentin smiles with something like wistful admiration. “You’re right, Mr. Patel. In the way that converts make the most scrupulous religious practitioners, I often find that immigrants make the most dutiful American citizens.”

  Mr. Patel sits a little straighter. “Thank you, sir.”

  Quentin nods at the Indian man, then looks up at Judge Elder and says, “I tender the witness.”

  I do not envy Shadrach Johnson.

  Shad rises with slow deliberation and crosses from the prosecution table to the lectern, his expression proje
cting an air of accusation.

  “Mr. Patel, were you offered anything in exchange for your testimony today?”

  The innkeeper looks perplexed. “Exchange, sir?”

  “Shad’s not going to get anywhere with that,” Rusty whispers. “Not with this guy.”

  “He’s just stalling for time.”

  “Do you have a relative who might be incarcerated, for example? Someone Mr. Avery might be able to help you with, on a pro bono basis?”

  As the thrust of the question comes to him, Patel’s face darkens. “I have no relations in prison, sir!”

  “What about your housekeepers? I’ll bet at least some of them have legal trouble. Or their husbands?”

  “Regrettably, yes. I help where I can. But Mr. Avery has offered me no assistance of any kind.”

  “I see.” Shad paces out the space between the witness stand and the lectern, apparently intent on some line of thought. Suddenly he stops and looks at the motel owner. “Mr. Patel, do you have security cameras in your motel?”

  “Only at the check-in desk.”

  If I were Shad, I would not ask the next question, but he’s seen one level deeper than I on this issue. “Have you gone back and checked your tapes for Mr. Turner’s face?”

  “I have.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “The time we are speaking of was three months ago. We recycle our tapes every sixty days, to save money. Regrettably, we do not have a recording of Mr. Turner checking in. We do have his receipts and the register, though.”

  “You mean you have Keith Mosley’s receipts and signature.”

  The helpful look vanishes from Mr. Patel’s face, replaced by one of consternation. “I stand by my testimony, sir. It is the same man.”

  “He’s lying,” Lincoln says from his seat behind Shad’s table. “He made a mistake.”

  “Silence, Mr. Turner,” Judge Elder says.

  “I recognize his voice as well,” Mr. Patel says with almost feminine snippiness.