The Last Juror

Chapter 31

Five years and two months after Lester Klump, Sr., and Lester Klump, Jr., first set foot in the Hocutt House, they finished the renovation. The ordeal was over, and the results were splendid.

Once I accepted their languid pace, I settled in for the long haul and worked hard selling ad copy. Twice, during the last year of the project, I had unwisely attempted to live in the house and somehow exist in the midst of the debris. In doing so I had little trouble with the dust, the paint fumes, the blocked hallways, the erratic electricity and hot water, and the absence of heating and air conditioning, but I could never adapt to the early morning hammers and handsaws. They were not early birds, which, as I learned, was unusual for contractors, but they did start in earnest each morning by eight-thirty. I really enjoyed sleeping until ten. The arrangement didn’t work, and after each attempt to live in the big house I sneaked back across the gravel drive and returned to the apartment, where things were somewhat quieter.

Only once in five years was I unable to pay the Klumps on time. I refused to borrow money for the project, though Stan Atcavage was always ready to loan it. After work each Friday I would sit down with Lester Senior, usually on a makeshift plywood table in a hallway, and over a cold beer we would tally up the labor and materials for the week, add 10 percent, and I would write him a check. I filed his records away, and for the first two years kept a running total of the cost of the renovation. After two years, though, I stopped adding the weekly to the cumulative. I didn’t want to know what it was costing.

I was broke but I didn’t care. The money pit had been sealed off; I had teetered on the brink of insolvency, dodged it, and now I could begin stashing it away again.

And I had something magnificent to show for the time, effort, and investment. The house had been built around 1900 by Dr. Miles Hocutt. It had a distinctive Victorian style, with two high gabled roofs in the front, a turret that ran up four levels, and wide covered porches that swept around the house on both sides. Over the years the Hocutts had painted the house blue and yellow, and Mr. Klump, Sr., had even found an area of bright red under three coats of newer paint. I played it safe and stayed with white and beige and light brown trim. The roof was copper. Outside it was a rather plain Victorian, but I would have years to jazz it up.

Inside, the heart-pine floors on all three levels had been restored to their original beauty. Walls had been removed, rooms and hallways opened up. The Klumps had finally been forced to remove the entire kitchen and build another from the basement up. The fireplace in the living room had actually collapsed under the pressure of relentless jackhammering I turned the library into a den and knocked out more walls so that upon entering the front foyer you could see through the den to the kitchen in the distance. I added windows everywhere; the house had originally been built like a cave.

Mr. Klump admitted he had never tasted champagne, but he happily chugged it down as we completed our little ceremony on a side porch. I handed him what I hoped would be his last check, we shook hands, posed for a photograph by Wiley Meek, then popped the cork.

Many of the rooms were bare; it would take years to properly decorate the place, and it would require the assistance of someone with far more knowledge and taste than I possessed. Half-empty, though, the house was still spectacular. It needed a party!

I borrowed $2,000 from Stan and ordered wine and champagne from Memphis. I found a suitable caterer from Tupelo. (The only one in Clanton specialized in ribs and catfish and I wanted something a bit classier.)

The official invitation list of three hundred included everybody I knew in town, and a few I did not. The unofficial list was comprised of those who’d heard me say, “We’ll have a huge party when it’s finished.” I invited BeeBee and three of her friends from Memphis. I invited my father but he was too worried about inflation and the bond market. I invited Miss Callie and Esau, Reverend Thurston Small, Claude, three clerks from the courthouse, two schoolteachers, an assistant basketball coach, a teller at the bank, and the newest lawyer in town. That made a total of twelve blacks, and I would’ve invited more if I had known more. I was determined to have the first integrated party in Clanton.

Harry Rex brought moonshine and a large platter of chitlins that almost broke up the festivities. Bubba Crockett and the Foxhole gang arrived stoned and ready to party. Mr. Mitlo wore the only tuxedo. Piston made an appearance, and was seen leaving through the back door with a carry-out bag filled with rather expensive finger food. Woody Gates and the Country Boys played for hours on a side porch. The Klumps were there with all their laborers; it was a fine moment for them and I made sure they got all the credit. Lucien Wilbanks arrived late and was soon in a heated argument about politics with Senator Theo Morton, whose wife, Rex Ella, told me it was the grandest party she’d seen in Clanton in twenty years. Our new Sheriff, Tryce McNatt, dropped by with several of his uniformed deputies. (T. R. Meredith had died of colon cancer the year before.) One of my favorites, Judge Reuben V. Atlee, held court in the den with colorful stories about Dr. Miles Hocutt. Reverend Millard Stark of the First Baptist Church stayed only ten minutes and left quietly when he realized alcohol was being served. Reverend Cargrove of the First Presbyterian Church was seen drinking champagne, and appeared to have a taste for it. Baggy passed out in a second-floor bedroom, where I found him the next afternoon. The Stukes twins, who owned the hardware store, showed up in brand-new, matching overalls. They were seventy years old, lived together, never married, and wore matching overalls every day. There was no dress requirement; the invitation said, “Open Attire.”

The front lawn was covered with two large white tents, and at times the crowd spilled from under them. The party began at 1 P.M., Saturday afternoon, and would’ve gone past midnight if the wine and food had lasted. By ten, Woody Gates and his band were exhausted, there was nothing left to drink but a few warm beers, nothing to eat but a few tortilla chips, and nothing left to see. The house had been thoroughly seen and enjoyed.

Late the next morning, I scrambled eggs for BeeBee and her friends. We sat on the front porch and drank coffee and admired the mess made just hours before. It took me a week to clean up.

Through the years in Clanton I’d heard plenty of horror stories of imprisonment at the state penitentiary at Parchman. It was in sprawling farmland in the Delta, the richest farming region in the state, two hours west of Clanton. Living conditions were wretched — cramped barracks that were suffocating in the summer and frigid in the winter, ghastly food, scant medical care, a slave system, brutal sex. Forced labor, sadistic guards, the list was endless and pathetic.

When I thought of Danny Padgitt, which I did often, I was always comforted by the belief that he was at Parchman getting what he deserved. He was lucky he hadn’t been strapped to a chair in a gas chamber.

My assumption was wrong.

In the late sixties, in an effort to ease the overcrowding at Parchman, the state had built two satellite prisons, or “camps” as they were known. The plan had been to place a thousand nonviolent offenders in more civilized confinement. They would obtain job training, even qualify for work release. One such satellite was near the small town of Broomfield, three hours south of Clanton.

Judge Loopus died in 1972. During the Padgitt trial, his stenographer had been a homely young woman named Darla Clabo. She worked for Loopus for a few years, and after his death left the area. When she walked into my office late one afternoon in the summer of 1977, I knew I had seen her somewhere in the distant past.

Darla introduced herself and I quickly remembered where I’d seen her. For five straight days during the Padgitt trial she had sat below the bench, next to the exhibit table, taking down every word. She was now living in Alabama, and had driven five hours to tell me something. First, she swore me to absolute secrecy.

Her hometown was Broomfield. Two weeks earlier she had been visiting her mother when she saw a familiar face walking down the sidewalk around lunchtime. It was Danny Padgitt, strolling along with a buddy. She was so startled she tripped on the edge of a curb and almost fell into the street.

They walked into a local diner and sat down for lunch. Darla saw them through a window, and decided not to go in. There was a chance Padgitt might recognize her, though she wasn’t sure why that frightened her.

The man with him wore the uniform that was common in Broomfield — navy slacks, a short-sleeved white shirt with the words “Broomfield Correctional Facility” in very small letters over the pocket. He also wore black cowboy boots and no gun whatsoever. She explained that some of the guards who handled the prisoners on work release had the option of carrying a weapon. It was hard to imagine a white man in Mississippi voluntarily declining to carry a gun if given the option, but she suspected that perhaps Danny didn’t want his own personal guard to be armed.

Danny was wearing white dungarees and a white shirt, possibly issued by the camp. The two enjoyed a long lunch and appeared to be good friends. From her car, Darla watched them leave the diner. She followed from a distance as they took a leisurely stroll for a few blocks until Danny entered a building that housed the regional office of the Mississippi Highway Department. The guard got into a camp vehicle and drove away.

The following morning, Darla’s mother entered the building under the pretext of filing a complaint about a road in need of repair. She was rudely informed that no such procedure existed, and in the ensuing brouhaha managed to catch a glimpse of the young man Darla had carefully described. He was holding a clipboard and appeared to be just another useless pencil pusher.

Darla’s mother had a friend whose son worked as a clerk at the Broomfield camp. He confirmed that Danny Padgitt had been moved there in the summer of 1974.

When she finished with the story, she said, “Are you going to expose him?”

I was reeling, but I could already see the story. “I will investigate,” I said. “Depends on what I find.”

“Please do. This ain’t right.”

“It’s unbelievable.”

“That little punk should be on death row.”

“I agree.”

“I did eight murder trials for Judge Loopus, and that one really sticks with me.”

“Me too.”

She swore me to secrecy again, and left her address. She wanted a copy of the paper if we did the story.

At six the next morning I had no trouble jumping out of bed. Wiley and I drove to Broomfield. Since both the Spitfire and the Mercedes were likely to draw attention in any small town in Mississippi, we took his Ford pickup. We easily found the camp, three miles out of town. We found the highway department office building. At noon we took our positions along Main Street. Since Padgitt would certainly recognize either one of us, we faced the challenge of trying to hide on a busy street in a strange town without acting suspicious. Wiley sat low in his truck, camera loaded and ready. I hid behind a newspaper on a bench.

There was no sign of him the first day. We drove back to Clanton, then early the next morning left again for Broomfield. At eleven-thirty, a prison vehicle stopped in front of the office building. The guard went inside, collected his prisoner, and they walked to lunch.

On July 17, 1977, our front page had four large photos — one of Danny walking along the sidewalk sharing a laugh with the guard, one of them as they entered the City Grill, one of the office building, one of the gate to the Broomfield camp. My headline howled: NO PRISON FOR PADGITT — HE’S OFF AT CAMP.

My report began:

The story was as venomous and slanted as I could possibly make it. I bullied the waitress at the City Grill into telling me that he had just eaten a cheeseburger with french fries, that he ate there three times a week, and that he always picked up the check. I made a dozen phone calls to the highway department until I found a supervisor who knew something about Padgitt. The supervisor refused to answer questions, and I made him sound like a criminal himself. Penetrating Broomfield camp was just as frustrating. I detailed my efforts and tilted the story so it sounded as though all the bureaucrats were covering up for Padgitt. No one at Parchman knew a damned thing, or if they did they were unwilling to talk about it. I called the highway commissioner (an elected official), the warden at Parchman (thankfully an appointed position), the Attorney General, the Lieutenant Governor, and finally the Governor himself. They were all too busy, of course, so I chatted with their bootlickers and made them sound like morons.

Senator Theo Morton appeared to be shocked. He promised to get right to the bottom of it and call me back. At press time, I was still waiting.

The reaction in Clanton was mixed. Many of those who called or stopped me on the street were angry and wanted something done. They truly believed that when Padgitt had been sentenced to life and led away in handcuffs, that he would spend the rest of his days in hell at Parchman. A few seemed indifferent and wanted to forget Padgitt altogether. He was old news.

And among some there was the frustrating, almost cynical lack of surprise. They figured the Padgitts had worked their magic once more, found the right pockets, pulled the right strings. Harry Rex was in this camp. “What’s the big fuss, boy? They’ve bought Governors before.”

The photo of Danny walking down the street, free as a bird, frightened Miss Callie considerably. “She didn’t sleep last night,” Esau mumbled to me when I arrived for lunch that Thursday. “I wish you hadn’t found him.”

Fortunately, the Memphis and Jackson newspapers picked up the story, and it took on a life of its own. They turned up the heat to a point where the politicians had to get involved. The Governor and the Attorney General, along with Senator Morton, were soon jockeying to lead the parade to get the boy sent back to Parchman.

Two weeks after I broke the story, Danny Padgitt was “reassigned” to the state penitentiary.

The next day, I received two phone calls, one at the office, one at home while I was asleep. Different voices, but with the same message. I was a dead man.

I notified the FBI in Oxford, and two agents visited me in Clanton. I leaked this to a reporter in Memphis, and soon the town knew that I had been threatened, and that the FBI was investigating. For a month, Sheriff McNatt kept a patrol car in front of my office around the clock. Another one sat in my driveway during the night.

After a seven-year hiatus, I was carrying a gun again.

Chapter 32

There was no immediate bloodshed. The threats were not forgotten, but as time passed they became less ominous. I never stopped carrying a gun — it was always within reach — but I lost interest in it. I found it hard to believe that the Padgitts would risk the severe backlash that would come if they knocked off the editor of the local paper. Even if the town was not entirely enamored of me, as opposed to someone as beloved as Mr. Caudle, the uproar would create more pressure than the Padgitts were willing to risk.

They kept to themselves like never before. After the defeat of Mackey Don Coley in 1971, they once again proved quite adept at changing tactics. Danny had given them enough unwanted attention; they were determined to avoid anymore. They retrenched even deeper into Padgitt Island. They increased security in the wasted belief that the next sheriff, T. R. Meredith, or his successor, Tryce McNatt, might come after them. They grew their crops and smuggled them off the island in planes, boats, pickups, and flatbed trucks ostensibly loaded with timber.

With typical Padgitt shrewdness, and sensing that the marijuana business might become too risky, they began pumping money into legitimate enterprises. They bought a highway contracting company and quickly turned it into a reliable bidder for government projects. They bought an asphalt plant, a Redi-Mix concrete plant, and gravel pits around the northern part of the state. Highway construction was a notably corrupt business in Mississippi, and the Padgitts knew how to play the game.

I watched these activities as closely as possible. This was before the Freedom of Information Act and open-meetings laws. I knew the names of some of the companies the Padgitts had bought, but it was virtually impossible to keep up with them. There was nothing I could print, no story, because on the surface it was all legitimate.

I waited, but for what I wasn’t certain. Danny Padgitt would return one day, and when he did he might simply disappear into the island and never be seen again. Or he might do otherwise.

Few people in Clanton did not attend church. Those who did seemed to know exactly which ones did not, and there was a common invitation to “come worship with us.” The farewell, “See you on Sunday,” was almost as common as “Y’all come see us.”

I got hammered with these invitations during my first years in town. Once it was known that the owner and editor of the Times did not go to church, I became the most famous derelict in town. I decided to do something about it.

Each week Margaret put together our Religion page, which included a rather extensive menu of churches arranged by denominations. There were also a few ads by the more affluent congregations. And notices for revivals, reunions, potluck suppers, and countless other activities.

Working from this page, and from the phonebook, I made a list of all the churches in Ford County. The total was eighty-eight, but it was a moving target since congregations were always splitting, folding here and popping up over there. My goal was to visit each one of them, something I was sure had never been done, and a feat that would put me in a class by myself among churchgoers.

The denominations were varied and baffling — how could Protestants, all of whom claimed to follow the same basic tenets, get themselves so divided? They agreed basically that (1) Jesus was the only son of God; (2) he was born of a virgin; (3) lived a perfect life; (4) was persecuted by the Jews, arrested and crucified by the Romans; (5) that he arose on the third day and later ascended into heaven; (6) and some believed — though there were many variations — that one must follow Jesus in baptism and faith to make it to heaven.

The doctrine was fairly straightforward, but the devil was in the details.

There were no Catholics, Episcopalians, or Mormons. The county was heavily Baptist, but they were a fractured bunch. The Pentecostals were in second place, and evidently they had fought with themselves as much as the Baptists.

In 1974, I’d begun my epic adventure to visit every church in Ford County. The first had been the Calvary Full Gospel, a rowdy Pentecostal assemblage on a gravel road two miles out of town. As advertised, the service began at ten-thirty, and I found a spot on the back pew, as far away from the action as I could get. I was greeted warmly and word spread that a bona-fide visitor was present. I did not recognize anyone there. Preacher Bob wore a white suit, navy shirt, white tie, and his thick black hair was wound around and plastered tightly at the base of his skull. People started hollering when he was giving the announcements. They waved their hands and shouted during a solo. When the sermon finally began an hour later, I was ready to leave. It lasted for fifty-five minutes, and left me confused and exhausted. At times the building shook with folks stomping the floor. Windows rattled as they were overcome with the spirit and yelled upward. Preacher Bob “laid hands” on three sick folks suffering vague diseases, and they claimed to be healed. At one point a deacon stood and in an astounding display began uttering something in a tongue I had never heard. He clenched his fists, closed his eyes tightly, and let loose with a steady, fluent flow of words. It was not an act; he wasn’t faking. After a few minutes, a young girl in the choir stood and began translating into English. It was a vision God was sending through the deacon. There were those present with unforgiven sins.

“Repent!” Preacher Bob shouted, and heads ducked.

What if the deacon was talking about me? I glanced around and noticed that the door was locked and guarded by two more deacons.

Things finally ran out of gas, and two hours after I sat down I bolted from the building. I needed a drink.

I wrote a pleasant little report about my visit to Calvary Full Gospel and ran it on the Religion page. I commented on the warm atmosphere of the church, the lovely solo by Miss Helen Hatcher, the powerful sermon by Preacher Bob, and so on.

Needless to say, this proved to be very popular.

At least twice a month, I went to church. I sat with Miss Callie and Esau and listened to the Reverend Thurston Small preach for two hours and twelve minutes (I timed every sermon). The briefest was delivered by Pastor Phil Bish at the United Methodist Church of Karaway — seventeen minutes. That church also got the award for being the coldest. The furnace was broken, it was January, and that may have helped shorten the sermon. I sat with Margaret at the First Baptist Church in Clanton and listened to Reverend Millard Stark give his annual sermon on the sins of alcohol. With bad timing, I had a hangover that morning and Stark kept looking at me.

I found the Harvest Tabernacle in the back room of an abandoned service station in Beech Hill, and I sat with six others as a wild-eyed doomsayer named Peter the Prophet yelled at us for almost an hour. My column that week was quite brief.

The Clanton Church of Christ had no musical instruments. The ban was based on Scripture, it was later explained to me. There was a beautiful solo, which I wrote about at length. There was also no emotion whatsoever in the service. For a contrast, I went to the Mount Pisgah Chapel in Lowtown, where the pulpit was surrounded by drums, guitars, horns, and amplifiers. As a warmup for the sermon, a full-blown concert was given with the congregation singing and dancing. Miss Callie referred to Mount Pisgah as a “lower church.”

On my list, number sixty-four was the Calico Ridge Independent Church, located deep in the hills in the northeastern part of the county. According to the Times archives, at this church in 1965 a Mr. Randy Bovee was bitten twice by a rattlesnake during a late Sunday night worship service. Mr. Bovee survived, and for a while the snakes were put away. The legend, however, flourished, and as my Church Notes column gained popularity, I was asked several times if I intended to visit Calico Ridge.

“I plan to visit every church,” was my standard reply.

“They don’t like visitors,” Baggy warned me.

I had been greeted so warmly in each church — black or white, large or small, town or country — that I could not imagine Christian folks being rude to a guest.

And they weren’t rude at Calico Ridge, but they weren’t too happy to see me either. I wanted to see the snakes, but from the safety of the back row. I went on a Sunday night, primarily because legend held that they did not “take up the serpents” during daylight hours. I searched the Bible in vain for this restriction.

There was no sign of any serpents. There were a few fits and convulsions below the pulpit as the preacher exhorted us to “come forth and moan and groan in sin!” The choir chanted and hummed to the beat of an electric guitar and a drum, and the meeting took on the spookiness of an ancient tribal dance. I wanted to leave, especially since there were no snakes.

Late in the service, I caught a glimpse of a face I’d seen before. It was a very different face — thin, pale, gaunt, topped with grayish hair. I couldn’t place it, but I knew it was familiar. The man was seated in the second row from the front, on the other side of the small sanctuary, and he seemed out of touch with the chaos of the worship service. At times he appeared to be praying, then he would sit while everyone else was standing. Those around him seemed to accept him and ignore him at the same time.

He turned once and looked directly at me. It was Hank Hooten, the ex-lawyer who’d shot up the town in 1971! He’d been taken in a straitjacket to the state mental hospital, and a few years later there’d been a rumor that he had been released. No one had seen him, though.

For two days after that, I tried to track down Hank Hooten. My calls to the state mental hospital went nowhere. Hank had a brother in Shady Grove, but he refused to talk. I snooped around Calico Ridge, but, typically, no one there would utter a word to a stranger like me.

Chapter 33

Many of those who worshiped diligently on Sunday mornings became less faithful on Sunday nights. During my tour of churches, I heard many preachers chide their followers to return in a few hours to properly complete the observance of the Sabbath. I never counted heads, but as a general rule about half of them did so. I tried a few Sunday night services, usually in an effort to catch some colorful ritual such as snake handling or disease healing or, on one occasion, a “church conclave” in which a wayward brother was to be put on trial and certainly convicted for fancying another brother’s wife. My presence rattled them that night and the wayward brother got a reprieve.

For the most part, I limited my study of comparative religions to the daylight hours.

Others had different Sunday-night rituals. Harry Rex helped a Mexican named Pepe lease a building and open a restaurant one block off the square. Pepe’s became moderately successful during the 1970s with decent food that was always on the spicy side. Pepe couldn’t resist the peppers, regardless of how they scalded the throats of his gringo customers.

On Sundays all alcohol was banned in Ford County. It could not be sold at retail or in restaurants. Pepe had a back room with a long table and a door that would lock. He allowed Harry Rex and his guests to use the room and eat and drink all we wanted. His margaritas were especially tasty. We enjoyed many colorful meals with spicy dishes, all washed down with strong margaritas. There were usually a dozen of us, all male, all young, about half currently married. Harry Rex threatened our lives if we told anyone about Pepe’s back room.

The Clanton city police raided us once, but Pepe suddenly couldn’t speak a word of English. The door to the back room was locked, and partially hidden too. Pepe turned off the lights, and for twenty minutes we waited in the dark, still drinking, and listened to the cops try to communicate with Pepe. I don’t know why we were worried. The city Judge was a lawyer named Harold Finkley, who was at the end of the table slogging down his fourth or fifth margarita.

Those Sunday nights at Pepe’s were often long and rowdy, and afterward we were in no condition to drive. I would walk to my office and sleep on the sofa. I was there snoring off the tequila when the phone rang after midnight. It was a reporter I knew from the big daily in Memphis.

“Are you covering the parole hearing tomorrow?” he asked. Tomorrow? In my toxic fog I had no idea what day it was.

“Tomorrow?” I mumbled.

“Monday, September the eighteenth,” he said slowly.

I was reasonably certain the year was 1978.

“What parole hearing?” I asked, trying desperately to wake myself up and put two thoughts together.

“Danny Padgitt’s. You don’t know about it?”

“Hell no!”

“It’s scheduled for ten A.M. at Parchman.”

“You gotta be kidding!”

“Nope. I just found out. Evidently, they don’t advertise these.”

I sat in the darkness for a long time, cursing once again the backwardness of a state that conducted such important matters in such ridiculous ways. How could parole even be considered for Danny Padgitt? Eight years had passed since the murder and his conviction. He had received two life sentences of at least ten years each. We assumed that meant a minimum of twenty years.

I drove home around 3 A.M., slept fitfully for two hours, then woke up Harry Rex, who was in no condition to be dealt with. I picked up sausage biscuits and strong coffee and we met at his office around seven. We were both ill-tempered, and as we plowed through his law books there were sharp words and foul language, not aimed at each other, but at the blurry and toothless parole system passed by the legislature thirty years earlier. Guidelines were only vaguely defined, leaving ample wiggle room for the politicians and their appointees to do as they wished.

Since most law-abiding citizens had no contact with the parole system, it was not a priority with the state legislature. And since most of the state’s prisoners were either poor or black, and unable to use the system to their advantage, it was easy to hit them with harsh sentences and keep them locked up. But for an inmate with a few connections and some cash, the parole system was a marvelous labyrinth of contradictory laws that allowed the Parole Board to pass out favors.

Somewhere between the judicial system, the penal system, and the parole system, Danny Padgitt’s two “consecutive” life terms had been changed to two “concurrent” sentences. They ran side by side, Harry Rex tried to explain.

“What good is that?” I asked.

“It’s used in cases where a defendant has multiple charges. Consecutive might give him eighty years in jail, but a fair sentence is ten. So they run ’em side by side.”

I shook my head in disapproval again, and this irritated him.

I finally got Sheriff Tryce McNatt to answer the phone. He sounded as hung over as we were, though he was a strict teetotaler. McNatt knew nothing about the parole hearing. I asked him if he planned to attend, but his day was already filled with important meetings.

I would have called Judge Loopus, but he’d been dead for six years. Ernie Gaddis had retired and was fishing in the Smoky Mountains. His successor, Rufus Buckley, lived in Tyler County and his phone number was unlisted.

At eight o’clock, I jumped in my car with a biscuit and a cup of cold coffee.

An hour west of Ford County the land flattened dramatically and the Delta began. It was a region rich in farming and poor in living conditions, but I was in no mood to take in the sights and offer social commentary. I was too nervous about crashing a clandestine parole hearing.

I was also nervous about setting foot inside Parchman, a legendary hellhole.

After two hours, I saw fences next to fields, then razor wire. Soon there was a sign, and I turned into the main gate. I informed a guard in the booth that I was a reporter, there for a parole hearing. “Straight ahead, left at the second building,” he said helpfully as he wrote down my name.

There was a cluster of buildings close to the highway, and a row of white-frame houses that would fit on any Maple Street in Mississippi. I chose the Admin A building and sprinted inside, looking for the first secretary. I found her, and she sent me to the next building, second floor. It was just about ten.

There were people at the end of the hallway, loitering outside a room. One was a prison guard, one was a state trooper, one wore a wrinkled suit.

“I’m here for a parole hearing,” I announced.

“In there,” the guard said, pointing. Without knocking, I yanked open the door, as any intrepid reporter would, and stepped inside. Things had just been called to order, and my presence there was certainly not anticipated.

There were five members of the Parole Board, and they were seated behind a slightly elevated table with their name plates in front of them. Along one wall another table held the Padgitt crowd — Danny, his father, his mother, an uncle, and Lucien Wilbanks. Opposite them, behind another table, were various clerks and functionaries of the Board and the prison.

Everyone stared at me as I stormed in. My eyes locked onto Danny Padgitt’s, and for a second both of us managed to convey the contempt we felt for the other.

“Can I help you?” a large, badly dressed ole boy growled from the center of the Board. His name was Barrett Ray Jeter, the chairman. Like the other four, he’d been appointed by the Governor as a reward for vote-gathering

“I’m here for the Padgitt hearing,” I said.

“He’s a reporter!” Lucien practically yelled as he was standing. For a second I thought I might get arrested on the spot and be carried deeper into the prison for a life sentence.

“For who?” Jeter demanded.

“The Ford County Times,” I said.

“Your name?”

“Willie Traynor.” I was glaring at Lucien and he was scowling at me.

“This is a closed hearing, Mr. Traynor,” Jeter said. The statute wasn’t clear as to whether it was open or closed, so it had traditionally been kept quiet.

“Who has the right to attend?” I asked.

“The Parole Board, the parolee, his family, his witnesses, his lawyer, and any witnesses for the other side.” The “other side” meant the victim’s family, which in this setting sounded like the bad guys.

“What about the Sheriff from our county?” I asked.

“He’s invited too,” Jeter said.

“Our Sheriff wasn’t notified. I talked to him three hours ago. In fact, nobody in Ford County knew of this hearing until after twelve last night.” This caused considerable head-scratching up and down the Parole Board. The Padgitts huddled with Lucien.

By process of elimination, I quickly deduced that I had to become a witness if I wanted to watch the show. I said, as loudly and clearly as possible, “Well, since there’s no one else here from Ford County in opposition, I’m a witness.”

“You can’t be a reporter and a witness,” Jeter said.

“Where is that written in the Mississippi Code?” I asked, waving my copies from Harry Rex’s law books.

Jeter nodded at a young man in a dark suit. “I’m the attorney for the Parole Board,” he said politely. “You can testify in this hearing, Mr. Traynor, but you cannot report it.”

I planned to fully report every detail of the hearing, then hide behind the First Amendment. “So be it,” I said. “You guys make the rules.” In less than one minute the lines had been drawn; I was on one side, everybody else was on the other.

“Let’s proceed,” Jeter said, and I took a seat with a handful of other spectators.

The attorney for the Parole Board passed out a report. He recited the basics of the Padgitt sentence, and was careful not to use the words “consecutive” or “concurrent.” Based on the inmate’s “exemplary” record during his incarceration, he had qualified for “good time,” a vague concept created by the parole system and not by the state legislature. Subtracting the time the inmate spent in the county jail awaiting trial, he was now eligible for parole.

Danny’s caseworker plowed through a lengthy narrative of her relationship with the inmate. She concluded with the gratuitous opinion that he was “fully remorseful,” “fully rehabilitated,” “no threat whatsoever to society,” even ready to become a “most productive citizen.”

How much did all this cost? I couldn’t help but ponder that question. How much? And how long had it taken for the Padgitts to find the right pockets?

Lucien went next. With no one — Gaddis, Sheriff McNatt — not even poor Hank Hooten — to contradict or possibly throttle him, he launched into a fictional recounting of the facts of the crimes, and in particular the testimony of an “airtight” alibi witness, Lydia Vince. His reconstructed version of the trial had the jury waivering on a verdict of not guilty. I was tempted to throw something at him and start screaming. Maybe that would at least keep him somewhat honest.

I wanted to shout, “How can he be remorseful if he’s so innocent?”

Lucien carped on about the trial and how unfair it had been. He nobly took the blame for not pushing hard for a change of venue, to another part of the state where folks were unbiased and more enlightened. When he finally shut up two of the board members appeared to be asleep.

Mrs. Padgitt testified next and talked about the letters she and her son had exchanged these past eight, very long years. Through his letters, she had seen him mature, seen his faith strengthen, seen him long for his freedom so he could serve his fellow man.

Serve them a stronger blend of pot? Or perhaps a cleaner corn whiskey?

Since tears were expected she gave us some tears. It was part of the show and appeared to have little sway over the Board. In fact, as I watched their faces I got the impression that their decision had been made a long time ago.

Danny went last and did a good job of walking the fine line between denying his crimes and showing remorse for them. “I have learned from my mistakes,” he said, as if rape and murder were simple indiscretions where no one really got hurt. “I have grown from them.”

In prison he had been a veritable whirlwind of positive energy — volunteering in the library, singing in the choral group, helping with the Parchman rodeo, organizing teams to go into schools and scare kids away from crime.

Two Board members were listening. One was still asleep. The other two sat in trancelike meditation, apparently brain dead.

Danny shed no tears, but closed with an impassioned plea for his release.

“How many witnesses in opposition?” Jeter announced. I stood, looked around me, saw no one else from Ford County, then said, “I guess it’s just me.”

“Proceed, Mr. Traynor.”

I had no idea what to say, nor did I know what was permissible or objectionable in such a forum. But based on what I had just sat through, I figured I could say anything I damned well pleased. Fat Jeter would no doubt call me down if I ventured into forbidden territory.

I looked up at the Board members, tried my best to ignore the daggers from the Padgitts, and jumped into an extremely graphic description of the rape and the murder. I unloaded everything I could possibly remember, and I put special emphasis on the fact that the two children witnessed some or all of the attack.

I kept waiting for Lucien to object, but there was nothing but silence in their camp. The formerly comatose Board members were suddenly alive, all watching me closely, absorbing the gruesome details of the murder. I described the wounds. I painted the heartbreaking scene of Rhoda dying in the arms of Mr. Deece, and saying, “It was Danny Padgitt. It was Danny Padgitt.”

I called Lucien a liar and mocked his memory of the trial. It took the jury less than an hour to find the defendant guilty, I explained.

And with a recollection that surprised even me, I recounted Danny’s pathetic performance on the witness stand: his lying to cover up his lies; his total lack of truthfulness. “He should’ve been indicted for perjury,” I told the Board.

“And when he had finished testifying, instead of returning to his seat, he walked to the jury box, shook his finger in the faces of the jurors, and said, ‘You convict me, and I’ll get every damned one of you.’ “

A Board member named Mr. Horace Adler jerked upright in his seat and blurted toward the Padgitts, “Is that true?”

“It’s in the record,” I said quickly before Lucien had the chance to lie again. He was slowly getting to his feet.

“Is that true, Mr. Wilbanks?” Adler insisted.

“He threatened the jury?” asked another board member.

“I have the transcript,” I said. “I’ll be happy to send it to you.”

“Is that true?” Adler asked for the third time.

“There were three hundred people in the courtroom,” I said, staring at Lucien and saying with my eyes, Don’t do it. Don’t lie about it.

“Shut up, Mr. Traynor,” a Board member said.

“It’s in the record,” I said again.

“That’s enough!” Jeter shouted.

Lucien was standing and trying to think of a response. Everyone was waiting. Finally, “I don’t remember everything that was said,” he began, and I snorted as loudly as possible. “Perhaps my client did say something to that effect, but it was an emotional moment, and in the heat of the battle, something like that might have been said. But taken in context—”

“Context my ass!” I yelled at Lucien and took a step toward him as if I might throw a punch. A guard stepped toward me and I stopped. “It’s in black-and-white in the trial transcript!” I said angrily. Then I turned to the Board and said, “How can you folks sit there and let them lie like this? Don’t you want to hear the truth?”

“Anything else, Mr. Traynor?” Jeter asked.

“Yes! I hope this Board will not make a mockery out of our system and let this man go free after eight years. He’s lucky to be sitting here instead of on death row, where he belongs. And I hope that the next time you have a hearing on his parole, if there is a next time, you will invite some of the good folks from Ford County. Perhaps the Sheriff, perhaps the prosecutor. And could you notify members of the victim’s family? They have the right to be here so you can see their faces when you turn this murderer loose.”

I sat down and fumed. I glared at Lucien Wilbanks and decided that I would work diligently to hate him for the rest of either his life or mine, whichever ended first. Jeter announced a brief recess, and I assumed they needed time to regroup in a back room and count their money. Perhaps Mr. Padgitt could be summoned to provide some extra cash for a Board member or two. To irritate the Board attorney, I scribbled pages of notes for the report he’d prohibited me from writing.

We waited thirty minutes before they filed back in, everyone looking guilty of something. Jeter called for a vote. Two voted in favor of parole, two against, one abstained. “Parole is denied at this time,” Jeter announced, and Mrs. Padgitt burst into tears. She hugged Danny before they took him away.

Lucien and the Padgitts walked by, very close to me as they left the room. I ignored them and just stared at the floor, exhausted, hungover, shocked at the denial.

“Next we have Charles D. Bowie,” Jeter announced, and there was movement around the tables as the next hopeful was brought in. I caught something about a sex offender, but I was too drained to care. I eventually left the room and walked down the hallway, half-expecting to be confronted by the Padgitts, and that was fine too because I preferred to get it over with.

But they had scattered; there was no sign of them as I left the building and drove through the main gate and back to Clanton.

Chapter 34

The parole hearing was front page news in The Ford County Times. I loaded the report with every detail I could remember, and on page five let loose with a blistering editorial about the process. I sent a copy to each member of the Parole Board and to its attorney, and, because I was so worked up, every member of the state legislature, the Attorney General, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Governor received a complimentary copy. Most ignored it, but the attorney for the Parole Board did not.

He wrote me a lengthy letter in which he said he was deeply concerned about my “willful violation of Parole Board procedures.” He was pondering a session with the Attorney General in which they would “evaluate the gravity of my actions” and possibly pursue action that would lead to “far-reaching consequences.”

My lawyer, Harry Rex, had assured me the Parole Board’s policy of secret meetings was patently unconstitutional, in clear violation of the First Amendment, and he would happily defend me in federal court. For a reduced hourly rate, of course.

I swapped heated letters with the Board’s lawyer for a month before he seemed to lose interest in pursuing me.

Rafe, Harry Rex’s chief ambulance chaser, had a sidekick named Buster, a large thick-chested cowboy with a gun in every pocket. I hired Buster for $100 a week to pretend he was my own personal legbreaker. For a few hours a day he would hang around the front of the office, or sit in my driveway or on one of my porches, any place where he might be seen so folks would know that Willie Traynor was important enough to have a bodyguard. If the Padgitts got close enough to take a shot, they would at least get something in return.

After years of steadily gaining weight and ignoring the warnings of her doctors, Miss Callie finally relented. After a particularly bad visit to her clinic, she announced to Esau that she was going on a diet — 1,500 calories a day, except, mercifully, Thursday. A month passed and I couldn’t discern any loss of weight. But the day after the Times story on the parole hearing, she suddenly looked as though she’d lost fifty pounds.

Instead of frying a chicken, she baked one. Instead of whipping mashed potatoes with butter and thick cream and covering them with gravy, she boiled them. It was still delicious, but my system had become accustomed to its weekly dose of heavy grease.

After the prayer, I handed her two letters from Sam. As always, she read them immediately while I jumped into the lunch. And as always, she smiled and laughed and then finally wiped a tear. “He’s doing fine,” she said, and he was.

With typical Ruffin tenacity, Sam had completed his first college degree, in economics, and was saving his money for law school. He was terribly homesick, and weary of the weather. To boil it all down, he missed his momma. And her cooking.

President Carter had pardoned the draft dodgers, and Sam was wrestling with the decision to stay in Canada, or come home. Many of his expatriate friends up there were vowing to stay and pursue Canadian citizenship, and he was heavily influenced by them. There was also a woman involved, though he had not told his parents.

Sometimes we began with the news, but often it was the obituaries or even the classifieds. Since she read every word, Miss Callie knew who was selling a new litter of beagles and who wanted to buy a good used riding mower. And since she read every word every week, she knew how long a certain small farm or a mobile home had been on the market. She knew prices and values. A car would pass on the street during lunch. She would ask, “Now, what model is that?”

“A ’71 Plymouth Duster,” I would answer.

She would hesitate for a second, then say, “If it’s real clean, it’s in the twenty-five-hundred-dollar range.”

Stan Atcavage once needed to sell a twenty-four-foot fishing boat he’d repossessed. I called Miss Callie. She said, “Yes, a gentleman from Karaway was looking for one three weeks ago.” I checked an old section of the classifieds and found the ad. Stan sold him the boat the next day.

She loved the legal notices, one of the most lucrative sections of the paper. Deeds, foreclosures, divorce filings, probate matters, bankruptcy announcements, annexation hearings, dozens of legal notices were required by law to be published in the county paper. We got them all, and we charged a healthy rate.

“I see where Mr. Everett Wainwright’s estate is being probated,” she said.

“I vaguely remember his obituary,” I said with a mouthful. “When did he die?”

“Five, maybe six months ago. Wasn’t much of an obituary.”

“I have to work with whatever the family gives me. Did you know him?”

“He owned a grocery store near the tracks for many years.” I could tell by the inflection in her voice that she did not care for Mr. Everett Wainwright.

“Good guy or bad buy?”

“He had two sets of prices, one for the whites, a higher one for Negroes. His goods were never marked in any way, and he was the only cashier. A white customer would call out, ‘Say, Mr. Wainwright, how much is this can of condensed milk?’ and he’d holler back, ‘Thirty-eight cents.’ A minute later I would say, ‘Pardon me, Mr. Wainwright, but how much is this can of condensed milk?’ And he’d snap, ‘Fifty-four cents.’ He was very open about it. He didn’t care.”

For almost nine years I’d heard stories of the old days. At times I thought I’d heard them all, but Miss Callie’s collection was endless.

“Why did you shop there?”

“It was the only store where we could shop. Mr. Monty Griffin ran a nicer store behind the old moviehouse, but we couldn’t shop there until twenty years ago.”

“Who stopped you?”

“Mr. Monty Griffin. He didn’t care if you had money, he didn’t want any Negroes in his store.”

“And Mr. Wainwright didn’t care?”

“He cared all right. He didn’t want us, but he would take our money.”

She told the story of a Negro boy who loitered around the store until Mr. Wainwright struck him with a broom and sent him away. For revenge, the boy broke into the store once or twice a year for a long time and was never caught. He stole cigarettes and candy, and he also splintered all the broom handles.

“Is it true he left all his money to the Methodist church?” she asked.

“That’s the rumor.”

“How much?”

“Around a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Folks say he was trying to buy his way into heaven,” she said. I had long since ceased to be amazed at the gossip Miss Callie heard from the other side of the tracks. Many of her friends worked as housekeepers over there. The maids knew everything.

She had once again nudged the conversation to the topic of the afterlife. Miss Callie was deeply concerned about my soul. She was worried that I had not properly become a Christian; that I had not been “born again” or “saved.” My infant baptism, which I could not remember, was thoroughly insufficient in her view. Once a person reaches a certain age, the “age of accountability,” then, in order to be “saved” from everlasting damnation in hell, that person must walk down the aisle of a church (the right church was the subject of eternal debate) and make a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

Miss Callie carried a heavy burden because I had not done this.

And, after having visited seventy-seven different churches, I had to admit that the vast majority of the people in Ford County shared her beliefs. There were some variations. A powerful sect was the Church of Christ. They clung to the odd notion that they, and only they, were destined for heaven. Every other church was preaching “sectarian doctrine.” They also believed, as did many congregations, that once a person obtained salvation then it could be lost by bad behavior. The Baptists, the most popular denomination, held firm in “once saved always saved.”

This was apparently very comforting for several backslidden Baptists I knew in town.

However, there was hope for me. Miss Callie was thrilled that I was attending church and absorbing the gospel. She was convinced, and she prayed about me continually, that one day soon the Lord would reach down and touch my heart. I would decide to follow him, and she and I would spend eternity together.

Miss Callie was truly living for the day when she “went Home to glory.”

“Reverend Small will preside over the Lord’s supper this Sunday,” she said. It was her weekly invitation to sit with her in church. Reverend Small and his long sermons were more than I could bear.

“Thank you, but I’m doing research again this Sunday,” I said.

“God bless you. Where?”

“The Maranatha Primitive Baptist Church.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s in the phone book.”

“Where is it?”

“Somewhere down in Dumas, I think.”

“Black or white?”

“I’m not sure.”

Number seventy-eight on my list, the Maranatha Primitive Baptist Church, was a little jewel at the foot of a hill, next to a creek, under a cluster of pin oaks that were at least two hundred years old. It was a small white-frame building, narrow and long, with a high-pitched tin roof and a red steeple that was so tall it got lost in the oaks. The front doors were open wide, beckoning any and all to come worship. A cornerstone gave the date as 1813.

I eased into the back pew, my usual place, and sat next to a well-dressed gentleman who’d been around for as long as the church. I counted fifty-six other worshipers that morning. The windows were wide open, and outside a gentle breeze rushed through the trees and soothed the rough edges of a hectic morning. For a century and a half people had gathered there, sat on the same pews, looked through the same windows at the same trees, and worshiped the same God. The choir — all eight — sang a gentle hymn and I drifted back to another century.

The pastor was a jovial man named J. B. Cooper. I’d met him twice over the years while scrambling around trying to put together obituaries. One side benefit to my tour of county churches was the introduction to all the ministers. This really helped spice up my obits.

Pastor Cooper gazed upon his flock and realized I was the only visitor. He called my name, welcomed me, and made some harmless crack about getting favorable coverage in the Times. After four years of touring, and seventy-seven rather generous and colorful Church Notes, it was impossible for me to sneak into a service without getting noticed.

I never knew what to expect in these rural churches. More often than not the sermons were loud and long, and many times I wondered how such good people could drag themselves in week after week for a tongue-lashing Some preachers were almost sadistic in their condemnation of whatever their followers might have done that week. Everything was a sin in rural Mississippi, and not just the basics as set forth in the Ten Commandments. I heard scathing rebukes of television, movies, cardplaying, popular magazines, sports events, cheerleader uniforms, desegregation, mixed-race churches, Disney — because it came on Sunday nights — dancing, social drinking, postmarital sex, everything.

But Pastor Cooper was at peace. His sermon — twenty-eight minutes — was about tolerance and love. Love was Christ’s principal message. The one thing Christ wanted us to do was to love one another. For the altar call we sang three verses of “Just As I Am,” but no one moved. These folks had been down the aisle many times.

As always, I hung around afterward for a few minutes to speak with Pastor Cooper. I told him how much I enjoyed the service, something I did whether I meant it or not, and I collected the names of the choir members for my column. Church folk were naturally warm and friendly, but at this stage of my tour they wanted to chat forever and pass along little gems that might end up in print. “My grandfather put the roof on this building in 1902.” “The tornado of ’38 skipped right over us during the summer revival.”

As I was leaving the building, I saw a man in a wheelchair being pushed down the handicap ramp. It was a face I’d seen before, and I walked over to say hello. Lenny Fargarson, the crippled boy, juror number seven or eight, had evidently taken a turn for the worse. During the trial in 1970 he had been able to walk, though it was not a pretty thing to behold. Now he was in a chair. His father introduced himself. His mother was in a cluster of ladies finishing up one last round of goodbyes.

“Got a minute?” Fargarson asked. In Mississippi, that question really meant “We need to talk and it might take a while.” I sat on a bench under one of the oaks. His father rolled him over, then left us to talk.

“I see your paper every week,” he said. “You think Padgitt will get out?”

“Sure. It’s just a question of when. He can apply for parole once a year, every year.”

“Will he come back here, to Ford County?”

I shrugged because I had no idea. “Probably. The Padgitts stick close to their land.”

He considered this for some time. He was gaunt and hunched over like an old man. If my memory was correct, he was about twenty-five at the time of the trial. We were roughly about the same age, though he looked twice as old. I had heard the story of his affliction — some injury in a sawmill.

“Does that frighten you?” I asked.

He smiled and said, “Nothing frightens me, Mr. Traynor. The Lord is my shepherd.”

“Yes he is,” I said, still warm from the sermon. Because of his physical condition and his wheelchair, Lenny was a difficult person to read. He had endured so much. His faith was strong, but I thought for a second that I caught a hint of apprehension.

Mrs. Fargarson was walking toward us.

“Will you be there when he’s released?” Lenny asked.

“I’d like to be, but I’m not sure how it’s done.”

“Will you call me when you know he’s out?”

“Of course.”

Mrs. Fargarson had a pot roast in the oven for Sunday lunch, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was suddenly hungry, and there was, as usual, nothing remotely tasty in the Hocutt House. Sunday lunch was typically a cold sandwich and a glass of wine on a side porch, followed by a long siesta.

Lenny lived with his parents on a gravel road two miles from the church. His father was a rural mail carrier, his mother a schoolteacher. An older sister was in Tupelo. Over roast and potatoes and tea almost as sweet as Miss Callie’s, we relived the Kassellaw trial and Padgitt’s first parole hearing. Lenny may have been unconcerned about Danny’s possible release, but his parents were deeply worried.

Chapter 35

Big news hit Clanton in the spring of 1978. Bargain City was coming! Along with McDonald’s and the fast-food joints that followed it around the country, Bargain City was a national chain rapidly marching through the small towns of the South. Most of the town rejoiced. Some of us, though, felt it was the beginning of the end.

The company was taking over the world with its “big box” discount warehouses that offered everything at very low prices. The stores were spacious and clean and included cafés, pharmacies, banks, even optometrists and travel agents. A small town without a Bargain City store was irrelevant and insignificant.

They optioned fifty acres on Market Street, about a mile from the Clanton square. Some of the neighbors protested, and the city council held a public hearing on whether to allow the store to be built. Bargain City had met opposition before, and it had a well-oiled and highly effective strategy.

The council room was packed with people holding red-and-white Bargain City signs — BARGAIN CITY — A GOOD NEIGHBOR and WE WANT JOBS. Engineers, architects, lawyers, and contractors were there, with their secretaries and wives and children. Their mouthpiece painted a rosy picture of economic growth, sales tax revenues, 150 jobs for the locals, and the best products at the lowest prices.

Mrs. Dorothy Hockett spoke in opposition. Her property was adjacent to the site and she did not want the invasion of noise and lights. The city council seemed sympathetic, but the vote had long since been decided. When no one else would speak against Bargain City, I stood and walked to the podium.

I was driven by a belief that to preserve the downtown area of Clanton we had to protect the stores and shops, cafés and offices around the square. Once we began sprawling, there would be no end to it. The town would spread in a dozen directions, each one siphoning off its own little slice of old Clanton.

Most of the jobs they were promising would be at minimum wage. The increase in sales tax revenues to the city would be at the expense of the merchants Bargain City would quickly drive out of business. The people of Ford County were not going to wake up one day and suddenly start buying more bicycles and refrigerators simply because Bargain City had such dazzling displays.

I mentioned the town of Titus, about an hour south of Clanton. Two years earlier, Bargain City opened there. Since then, fourteen retail stores and one café had closed. Main Street was almost deserted.

I mentioned the town of Marshall, over in the Delta. In the three years since Bargain City opened, the mom-and-pop merchants of Marshall had closed two pharmacies, two small department stores, the feed store, the hardware store, a ladies’ boutique, a gift shop, a small bookstore, and two cafés. I’d had lunch in the remaining café and the waitress, who’d worked there for thirty years, told me their business was less than half of what it used to be. The square in Marshall was similar to Clanton’s, except that most of the parking spaces were empty. There were very few folks walking the sidewalks.

I mentioned the town of Tackerville, with the same population as Clanton. One year after Bargain City opened there, the town was forced to spend $1.2 million on road improvements to handle the traffic around the development.

I handed the Mayor and councilmen copies of a study by an economics professor at the University of Georgia. He had tracked Bargain City across the South for the previous six years and evaluated the financial and social impact the company had on towns of less than ten thousand. Sales tax revenues remained roughly the same; the sales were simply shifted from the old merchants to Bargain City. Employment was roughly the same; the clerks in the old stores downtown were replaced by the new ones at Bargain City. The company made no substantial investment in the community, other than its land and building. In fact, it would not even allow its money to sit in local banks. At midnight, every night, the day’s receipts were wired to the home office in Gainesville, Florida.

The study concluded that expansion was obviously wise for the shareholders of Bargain City, but it was economically devastating for most small towns. And the real damage was cultural. With boarded-up stores and empty sidewalks, the rich town life of main streets and courthouse squares was quickly dying.

A petition in support of Bargain City had 480 names. Our petition in opposition had 12. The council voted unanimously, 5–0, to approve it.

I wrote a harsh editorial and for a month read nasty letters addressed to me. For the first time, I was called a “tree-hugger.”

Within a month, the bulldozers had completely razed fifty acres. The curbs and gutters were in, and a grand opening was announced for December 1, just in time for Christmas. With money committed, Bargain City wasted no time in building its warehouse. The company had a reputation for shrewd and decisive management.

The store and its parking lot covered about twenty acres. The outparcels were quickly sold to other chains, and before long the city had approved a sixteen-pump self-serve gas station, a convenience store, three fast-food restaurants, a discount shoe store, a discount furniture store, and a large grocery store.

I could not deny advertising to Bargain City. I didn’t need their money, but since the Times was the only countywide paper, they had to advertise in it. (In response to a zoning flap I stirred up in 1977, a small right-wing rag called the Clanton Chronicle was up and running but struggling mightily.)

In mid-November, I met with a representative of the company and we laid out a series of rather expensive ads for the opening. I charged them as much as possible; they never complained.

On December 1, the Mayor, Senator Morton, and other dignitaries cut the ribbon. A rowdy mob burst through the doors and began shopping as if the hungry had found food. Traffic backed up on the highways leading into town.

I refused to give it front page coverage. I buried a rather small story on page seven, and this angered the Mayor and Senator Morton and the other dignitaries. They expected their ribbon cutting to be front and center.

The Christmas season was brutal for the downtown merchants. Three days after Christmas, the first casualty was reported when the old Western Auto store announced it was closing. It had occupied the same building for forty years, selling bicycles and appliances and televisions. Mr. Hollis Barr, the owner, told me that a certain Zenith color TV cost him $438, and he, after several price cuts, was trying to sell it for $510. The identical model was for sale at Bargain City for $399.

The closing of Western Auto was, of course, front page news.

It was followed in January by the closing of Swain’s pharmacy next to the Tea Shoppe, and then Maggie’s Gifts, next door to Mr. Mitlo’s haberdashery. I treated each closing as if it were a death, and my stories had the air of obituaries.

I spent one afternoon with the Stukes twins in their hardware store. It was a wonderful old building, with dusty wooden floors, saggy shelves that held a million items, a wood-burning stove in the back where serious things got debated when business was slow. You couldn’t find anything in the store, and you weren’t supposed to. The routine was to ask one of the twins about “the little flat gizmo that screws into the washer at the tip of that rod thing that fits into the gadget that makes the toilet flush.” One of the Stukes would disappear into the slightly organized piles of debris and emerge in a few minutes with whatever it took to make the toilet flush. Such a question could not be asked at Bargain City.

We sat by the stove on a cold winter day and listened to the rantings of one Cecil Clyde Poole, a retired Army major, who, if put in charge of national policy, would nuke everyone but the Canadians. He would also nuke Bargain City, and in some of the roughest, most colorful language I’d ever heard he ripped and blasted the company with great gusto. We had plenty of time to talk because there were almost no customers. One of the Stukes told me their business was down 70 percent.

The following month they closed the doors to the store their father had opened in 1922. On the front page, I ran a photo of the founder sitting behind a counter in 1938. I also fired off another editorial, sort of a wise-ass “I-told-you-so” reminder to whoever was out there still reading my little tirades.

“You’re preachin’ too much,” Harry Rex warned me over and over. “And nobody’s listenin’.”

The front office of the Times was seldom attended. There were some tables with copies of the current edition strewn about. There was a counter that Margaret sometimes used to lay out ads. The bell on the front door rang all day long as people came and went. About once a week a stranger would venture upstairs where my office door was usually open. More often than not it was some grieving relative there to discuss an upcoming obituary.

I looked up one afternoon in March 1979 and there was a gentleman in a nice suit standing at my office door. Unlike Harry Rex, whose entrance began on the street and was heard by everyone in the building, this guy had climbed the stairs without making a sound.

His name was Gary McGrew, a consultant from Nashville, whose area of expertise was small-town newspapers. As I fixed a pot of coffee, he explained that a rather well-financed client of his was planning to buy several newspapers in Mississippi during 1979. Because I had seven thousand subscribers, no debt, an offset press, and because we now ran the printing for six smaller weeklies, plus our own shoppers’ guides, his client was very interested in buying The Ford County Times.

“How interested?” I asked.

“Extremely. If we could look at the books, we could value your company.”

He left and I made a few phone calls to verify his credibility. He checked out fine, and I collected my current financials. Three days later we met again, this time at night. I did not want Wiley or Baggy or anyone else hanging around. News that the Times was changing hands would be such hot gossip that they’d open the coffee shops at 3 A.M. instead of 5.

McGrew crunched the numbers like a seasoned analyst. I waited, oddly nervous, as if the verdict might drastically change my life.

“You’re clearing a hundred grand after taxes, plus you’re taking a salary of fifty grand. Depreciation is another twenty, no interest because you have no debt. That’s one-seventy in cash flow, times the standard multiple of six, comes to one million twenty thousand.”

“And the building?” I asked.

He glanced around as if the ceiling might collapse any moment. “These places typically don’t sell for much.”

“A hundred thousand,” I said.

“Okay. And a hundred thousand for the offset press and other equipment. The total value is somewhere in the neighborhood of one-point-two million.”

“Is that an offer?” I asked, even more anxious.

“It might be. I’ll have to discuss it with my client.”

I had no intention of selling the Times. I had stumbled into the business, gotten a few lucky breaks, worked hard writing stories and obituaries and selling pages of ads, and now, nine years later, my little company was worth over a million dollars.

I was young, still single though I was tired of being lonely and living alone in a mansion with three leftover Hocutt cats that refused to die. I had accepted the reality that I would not find a bride in Ford County. All the good ones were snatched up by their twentieth birthday, and I was too old to compete at that level. I dated all the young divorcées, most of whom were quick to hop in the sack and wake up in my fine home, and dream about spending all the money I was rumored to be making. The only one I really liked, and dated off and on for a year, was saddled with three small children.

But it’s funny what a million bucks will do to you. Once it was in play, it was never far from my thoughts. The job became more tedious. I grew to resent the ridiculous obituaries and the endless pressure of the deadlines. I told myself at least once a day that I no longer had to hustle the street selling ads. I could quit the editorials. No more nasty letters to the editor.

A week later, I told Gary McGrew that the Times was not for sale. He said his client had decided to buy three papers by the end of the year, so I had time to think about it.

Remarkably, word of our discussions never leaked.

Chapter 36

On a Thursday afternoon in early May, I received a phone call from the attorney for the Parole Board. The next Padgitt hearing would take place the following Monday.

“Convenient timing,” I said.

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“We publish every Wednesday, so I don’t have time to run a story before the hearing.”

“We don’t monitor your paper, Mr. Traynor,” he said.

“I don’t believe that,” I snapped.

“What you believe is irrelevant. The Board has decided that you will not be permitted to attend the hearing. You violated our rules last time by reporting on what happened.”

“I’m banned?”

“That’s correct.”

“I’ll be there anyway.”

I hung up and called Sheriff McNatt. He, too, had been notified of the hearing, but wasn’t sure if he could attend. He was hot on the trail of a missing child (from Wisconsin), and it was obvious he had little interest in getting mixed up with the Padgitts.

Our District Attorney, Rufus Buckley, had an armed robbery trial scheduled for Monday in Van Buren County. He promised to send a letter opposing the parole, but the letter never made it. Circuit Judge Omar Noose was presiding over the same trial, so he was off the hook. I began to think that no one would be there to speak in opposition to Padgitt’s release.

For fun I asked Baggy to go. He gasped, then quickly let loose with an impressive list of excuses.

I walked over to Harry Rex’s with the news. He had an ugly divorce trial starting Monday in Tupelo; otherwise he might have gone with me to Parchman. “The boy’s gonna be released, Willie,” he said.

“We stopped it last year,” I said.

“Once the parole hearings start, it’s just a matter of time.”

“But somebody has to fight it.”

“Why bother? He’s gettin’ out eventually. Why piss off the Padgitts? You won’t get any volunteers.”

Volunteers were indeed hard to find as the entire town ducked for cover. I had envisioned an angry mob packing into the parole board hearing and disrupting the meeting.

My angry mob consisted of three people.

Wiley Meek agreed to ride over with me, though he had no interest in speaking. If they were serious about banning me from the room, Wiley would sit through it and give me the details. Sheriff McNatt surprised us with his presence.

Security was tight in the hall outside the hearing room. When the Board attorney saw me he became angry and we exchanged words. Guards in uniforms surrounded me. I was outnumbered and unarmed. I was escorted from the building and placed in my car, then watched by two thick-necked ruffians with low IQs.

According to Wiley, the hearing went like clockwork. Lucien was there with various Padgitts. The Board attorney read a staff report that made Danny sound like an Eagle Scout. His caseworker seconded the nomination. Lucien spoke for ten minutes, the usual lawyerly bullshit. Danny’s father spoke last and pleaded emotionally for his son’s release. He was desperately needed back home, where the family had interests in timber, gravel, asphalt, trucking, contracting, and freight. He would have so many jobs and work so many hours each week that he couldn’t possibly get into more trouble.

Sheriff McNatt gamely stood up for the people of Ford County. He was nervous and not a good speaker, but did a credible job of replaying the crime. Remarkably, he neglected to remind the Board members that a jury drawn from the same pool of people who elected him had been threatened by Danny Padgitt.

By a vote of 4–1, Danny Padgitt was paroled from prison.

Clanton was quietly disappointed. During the trial, the town had a real thirst for blood and was bitter when the jury didn’t deliver the death penalty. But nine years had passed, and since the parole hearing it had been accepted that Danny Padgitt would eventually get out. No one expected it so soon, but after the hearing we were over the shock.

His release was influenced by two unusual factors. The first was that Rhoda Kassellaw had no family in the area. There were no grieving parents to arouse sympathy and demand justice. There were no angry siblings to keep the case alive. Her children were gone and forgotten. She had lived a lonely life and left no close friends who were willing to press a grudge against her murderer.

The second was that the Padgitts lived in another world. They were so rarely seen in public, it was not difficult to convince ourselves that Danny would simply go to the island and never be seen again. What difference did it make to the people of Ford County? Prison or Padgitt Island? If we never saw him, we wouldn’t be reminded of his crimes. In the nine years since his trial, I had not seen a single Padgitt in Clanton. In my rather harsh editorial about his release, I said “a cold-blooded killer is once more among us.” But that wasn’t really true.

The front page story and the editorial drew not a single letter from the public. Folks talked about the release, but not for long and not very loudly.

Baggy eased into my office late one morning a week after Padgitt’s release, and closed the door, always a good sign. He’d picked up some gossip so juicy that it had to be delivered with the door shut.

On a typical day I arrived for work around 11 A.M. And on a typical day he began hitting the sauce around noon, so we usually had about an hour to discuss stories and monitor rumors.

He glanced around as if the walls were bugged, then said, “It cost the Padgitts a hundred grand to spring the boy.”

The amount did not shock me, nor did the bribe itself, but I was surprised that Baggy had dug up this information.

“No,” I said. This always spurred him to tell more.

“That’s what I’m tellin’ you,” he said smugly, his usual response when he had the scoop.

“Who got the money?”

“That’s the good part. You won’t believe it.”

“Who?”

“You’ll be shocked.”

“Who?”

Slowly, he went through his extended ritual of lighting a cigarette. In the early years, I would hang in the air as he delayed whatever dramatic news he had picked up, but with experience I had learned that this only slowed down the story. So I resumed my scribbling.

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise, I guess,” he said, puffing and pondering. “Didn’t surprise me at all.”

“Are you gonna tell me or not?”

“Theo.”

“Senator Morton?”

“That’s what I’m tellin’ you.”

I was sufficiently shocked, and I had to give the impression of being so or the story would lose steam. “Theo?” I asked.

“He’s vice chairman of the Corrections Committee in the Senate. Been there forever, knows how to pull the strings. He wanted a hundred grand, the Padgitts wanted to pay it, they cut a deal, the boy walks. Just like that.”

“I thought Theo was above taking bribes,” I said, and I was serious. This drew an exaggerated snort.

“Don’t be so naive,” he said. Again, he knew everything.

“Where did you hear it?”

“Can’t say.” There was a chance that his poker gang had cooked up the rumor to see how fast it would race around the square before it got back to them. But there was an equally good chance Baggy was on to something. It really didn’t matter, though. Cash couldn’t be traced.

Just when I had stopped dreaming of an early retirement, of cashing in, walking away, jetting off to Europe, and backpacking across Australia, just when I had resettled into my routine of covering stories and writing obits and hawking ads to every merchant in town, Mr. Gary McGrew reentered my life. And he brought his client with him.

Ray Noble was one of three principals in a company that already owned thirty weekly newspapers in the Deep South and wanted to add more. Like my college friend Nick Diener, he had been raised in the family newspaper business and could talk the talk. He swore me to secrecy, then laid out his plan. His company wanted to buy the Times, along with the papers in Tyler and Van Buren Counties. They would sell off the equipment in the other two and do all the printing in Clanton because we had a better press. They would consolidate the accounting and much of the ad sales. Their offer of $1.2 million had been at the high end of the appraisal.

Now they were offering $1.3 million. Cash.

“After capital gains, you’ll walk away with a cool million,” Noble said.

“I can do the math,” I said, as if I closed such deals on a weekly basis. The words “cool million” were rumbling through my entire body.

They pressed a little. Offers were on the table for the other two papers, and I got the impression that the deal wasn’t exactly coming together as they wished. The key element was the Times. We had better equipment and a slightly larger circulation.

I declined again and they left; all three of us knew it was not our last conversation.

Eleven years after he fled Ford County, Sam Ruffin returned in much the same manner as he left — on a bus in the middle of the night. He’d been home for two days before I knew it. I arrived for my Thursday lunch and there sat Sam, rocking on the porch, with a smile as wide as his mother’s. Miss Callie looked and acted ten years younger now that he was safely back home. She fried a chicken and cooked every vegetable in her garden. Esau joined us and we feasted for three hours.

Sam now had one college degree under his belt and was planning on law school. He had almost married a Canadian woman but things blew up over her family’s heated opposition to the union. Miss Callie was quite relieved to hear of the breakup. Sam had not mentioned the romance in letters to his mother.

He planned to stay in Clanton for a few days, very close to home, venturing out of Lowtown only at night. I promised to talk to Harry Rex, to fish around and see what I could learn about Trooper Durant and his sons. From the legal notices we printed, I knew that Durant had remarried, then divorced for the second time.

He wanted to see the town, so late that afternoon I picked him up in my Spitfire. Hiding under a Detroit Tigers baseball cap, he took in the sights of the small town he still called home. I showed him my office, my house, Bargain City, and the sprawl west of town. We circled the courthouse and I told him the story of the sniper and Baggy’s dramatic escape. Much of this he’d heard in letters from Miss Callie.

As I dropped him off in front of the Ruffin home, he said, “Is Padgitt really out of prison?”

“No one’s seen him,” I said. “But I’m sure he’s back home.”

“Do you expect trouble?”

“No, not really.”

“Neither do I. But I can’t convince Momma.”

“Nothing will happen, Sam.”

Chapter 37

The single shot that killed Lenny Fargarson was fired from a 30.06 hunting rifle. The killer could have been as far as two hundred yards away from the front porch where Lenny died. Thick woods began just beyond the wide lawn around the house, and there was a good chance whoever pulled the trigger had climbed a tree and had a perfectly concealed view of poor Lenny.

No one heard the shot. Lenny was sitting on the porch, in his wheelchair, reading one of the many books he borrowed each week from the Clanton library. His father was delivering mail. His mother was shopping at Bargain City. In all likelihood, Lenny felt no pain and died instantly. The bullet entered the right side of his head, just over the jaw, and created a massive exit wound above his left ear.

When his mother found him, he’d been dead for some time. She somehow managed to control herself and refrain from touching his body or the scene. Blood was all over the porch, even dripping onto the front steps.

Wiley heard the report on his police scanner. He called me with the chilling announcement, “It has begun. Fargarson, the crippled boy, is dead.”

Wiley swung by the office, I jumped in his pickup, and we were off to the crime scene. Neither of us said a word, but we were thinking the same thing.

Lenny was still on the porch. The shot had knocked him out of his wheelchair and he lay on his side, with his face toward the house. Sheriff McNatt asked us not to take photos, and we readily complied. The paper would not have used them anyway.

Friends and relatives were flocking over, and they were directed by the deputies to a side door. McNatt used his men to shield the body on the front porch. I backed away and tried to take in that horrible scene — cops hovering over Lenny while those who loved him tried to get a glimpse of him as they hurried inside to console his parents.

When the body was finally loaded onto a gurney and placed in an ambulance, Sheriff McNatt came over and leaned on the pickup next to me.

“Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” he said.

“Yep.”

“Can you find me a list of the jurors?”

Though we had never printed the names of the jurors, I had the information in an old file. “Sure,” I said.

“How long will it take you?” he asked.

“Give me an hour. What’s your plan?”

“We gotta notify those folks.”

As we were leaving, the deputies were beginning to comb the thick woods around the Fargarson home.

I took the list to the Sheriff’s office, and we looked over it together. In 1977, I had written the obituary for juror number five, Mr. Fred Bilroy, a retired forest ranger who died suddenly of pneumonia. As far as I knew, the other ten were still alive.

McNatt gave the list to three of his deputies. They dispersed to deliver news that no one wanted to hear. I volunteered to tell Callie Ruffin.

She was on the porch watching Esau and Sam wage war over a game of checkers. They were delighted to see me, but the mood quickly changed. “I have some disturbing news, Miss Callie,” I said somberly. They waited.

“Lenny Fargarson, that crippled boy on the jury with you, was murdered this afternoon.”

She covered her mouth and fell into her rocker. Sam steadied her, then patted her shoulder. I gave a brief description of what happened.

“He was such a good Christian boy,” Miss Callie said. “We prayed together before we began deliberating.” She wasn’t crying, but she was on the verge. Esau went to fetch her a blood pressure pill. He and Sam sat beside her rocker while I sat in the swing. We were all bunched together on the small porch, and for a long time little was said. Miss Callie lapsed into a long, brooding spell.

It was a warm spring night, under a half-moon, and Lowtown was busy with kids on bikes, neighbors talking across fences, a rowdy basketball game under way down the street. A gang of ten-year-olds became infatuated with my Spitfire, and Sam finally ran them off. It was only the second time I had been there after dark. “Is it like this every night?” I finally asked.

“Yes, when the weather’s nice,” Sam said, anxious to talk. “It was a wonderful place to grow up. Everybody knows everybody. When I was nine years old I broke a car windshield with a baseball. I turned tail and ran, ran straight home, and when I got here Momma was waiting on the front porch. She knew all about it. I had to walk back to the scene of the crime, confess, and promise to make full restitution.”

“And you did,” Esau said.

“Took me six months to work and save a hundred and twenty bucks.”

Miss Callie almost smiled at the memory, but she was too preoccupied with Lenny Fargarson. Though she hadn’t seen him in nine years, she had fond memories of him. His death truly saddened her, but it was also terrifying.

Esau fixed sweet tea with lemon, and when he returned from the inside of the house he quietly slid a double-barrel shotgun behind the rocker, within his reach but out of her sight.

As the hours passed, the foot traffic thinned and the neighbors withdrew. I decided that if Miss Callie stayed at home she would be a very difficult target. There were houses next door and across the street. There were no hills or towers or vacant lots within sight.

I didn’t mention this, but I’m sure Sam and Esau were having the same thoughts. When she was ready for bed, I said my good nights and drove back to the jail. It was crawling with deputies, and had the carnival-like atmosphere that only a good murder could bring. I couldn’t help but flash back nine years to the night Danny Padgitt was arrested and hauled in with blood on his shirt.

Only two of the jurors had not been found. Both had moved, and Sheriff McNatt was trying to track them down. He asked about Miss Callie and I said she was safe. I did not tell him Sam was home.

He closed the door to his office and said he had a favor to ask. “Tomorrow, can you go talk to Lucien Wilbanks?”

“Why me?”

“Well, I could, but, personally, I can’t stand the bastard, and he feels the same way about me.”

“Everybody hates Lucien,” I said.

“Except...”

“Except... Harry Rex?”

“Harry Rex. What if you and Harry Rex go talk to Lucien? See if he will act as go-between to the Padgitts. I mean, at some point I gotta talk to Danny, right?”

“I guess. You’re the Sheriff.”

“Just have a chat with Lucien Wilbanks, that’s all. Feel him out. If it goes well, then maybe I’ll talk to him. It’s different if the Sheriff goes bargin’ in at first.”

“I’d rather be lashed with a bullwhip,” I said, and I wasn’t joking.

“But you’ll do it?”

“I’ll sleep on it.”

Harry Rex wasn’t too thrilled with the idea either. Why should both of us get involved? We kicked it around over an early breakfast at the coffee shop, an unusual meal for us but then we didn’t want to miss the first tidal wave of downtown gossip. Not surprisingly, the place was packed with anxious experts who were repeating all sorts of details and theories about the Fargarson murder. We listened more than we talked, and left around eight-thirty.

Two doors down from the coffee shop was the Wilbanks Building. As we walked by, I said, “Let’s do it.”

Pre-Lucien, the Wilbanks family had been a cornerstone of Clanton society, commerce, and law. In the golden years of the last century, they owned land and banks, and all of the men in the family had studied law, some at real Ivy League schools. But they had been in decline for many years. Lucien was the last male Wilbanks of any consequence, and there was an excellent chance he was about to be disbarred.

Ethel Twitty, the longtime secretary, greeted us rudely, almost sneering at Harry Rex, who mumbled to me under his breath, “Meanest bitch in town.” I think she heard him. It was obvious they had been catfighting for many years. Her boss was in. What did we want?

“We want to see Lucien,” Harry Rex said. “Why else would we be here?” She rang him up as we waited. “I don’t have all day!” Harry Rex snapped at her at one point.

“Go ahead,” she said, more to get rid of us than anything else. We climbed the steps. Lucien’s office was huge, at least thirty feet wide and long with ten-foot ceilings and a row of French doors overlooking the square. It was on the north side, directly across from the Times, with the courthouse in between. Thankfully, I couldn’t see Lucien’s balcony from my porch.

He greeted us indifferently, as if we had interrupted a long serious meditation. Though it was early, his cluttered desk gave the impression of a man who’d worked all night. He had long grayish hair that ran down his neck, and an unfashionable goatee, and the tired red eyes of a serious drinker. “What’s the occasion?” he asked, very slowly. We glared at each other, both conveying as much contempt as possible.

“Had a murder yesterday, Lucien,” Harry Rex said. “Lenny Fargarson, that crippled boy on the jury.”

“I’m assuming this is off the record,” he said in my direction.

“It is,” I said. “Completely. Sheriff McNatt asked me to stop by and say hello. I invited Harry Rex.”

“So we’re just socializing?”

“Maybe. Just having a little gossip about the murder,” I said.

“I got the details,” he said.

“Have you talked to Danny Padgitt lately?” Harry Rex asked.

“Not since he was paroled.”

“Is he in the county?”

“He’s in the state, I’m not sure exactly where. If he crosses the state line without permission he violates the conditions of his parole.”

Why couldn’t they parole him to, say, Wyoming? It seemed odd that he would be required to stay close to where he committed his crimes. Get rid of him!

“Sheriff McNatt would like to talk to him,” I said.

“Oh does he? Why should that concern you and me? Tell the Sheriff to go talk to him.”

“It’s not that simple, Lucien, and you know it,” Harry Rex said.

“Does the Sheriff have any proof against my client? Any evidence? Ever hear of probable cause, Harry Rex? You can’t just round up the usual suspects, you know? Takes a little more than that.”

“There was a direct threat against the jurors,” I said.

“Nine years ago.”

“It was still a threat, and we all remember it. Now, two weeks after he’s paroled, one of his jurors is dead.”

“That’s not enough, fellas. Show me more and I might consult with my client. Right now there’s nothing but naked speculation. Plenty of it, but this town’s always good for a flood of gossip.”

“You don’t know where he is, do you, Lucien?” Harry Rex said.

“I assume he’s on the island, with the rest of them.” He used the word “them” as if they were a bunch of rats.

“What happens if another juror gets shot?” Harry Rex pressed on.

Lucien dropped a legal pad on his desk and rested there on his elbows. “What am I supposed to do, Harry Rex? Call the boy up, say ‘Hey, Danny, I’m sure you’re not killin’ your jurors, but, if by chance you are, then, hey, be a good boy and stop it.’ You think he’ll listen to me? This wouldn’t have happened if the idiot had followed my advice. I insisted that he not take the stand in his own defense. He’s an idiot, okay, Harry Rex! You’re a lawyer, God knows you’ve had idiot clients. You can’t do a damned thing to control them.”

“What happens if another juror gets shot?” Harry Rex repeated.

“Then I guess another juror will die.”

I jumped to my feet and headed for the door. “You’re a sick bastard,” I said.

“Not a word of this in print,” he snarled behind me.

“Go to hell,” I yelled as I slammed his door.

Late in the afternoon Mr. Magargel called from the funeral home and asked if I could hustle over. Mr. and Mrs. Fargarson were there, picking out a casket and making the final arrangements. As I had done many times, I met them in Parlor C, the smallest viewing room. It was seldom used.

Pastor J. B. Cooper of the Maranatha Primitive Baptist Church was with them, and he was a saint. They leaned on him for every decision.

At least twice a year, I met with a family after the tragic death of a loved one. It was almost always a car wreck or some gruesome farm injury, something unexpected. The surviving members were too shocked to think clearly, too wounded to make decisions. The strong ones simply sleepwalked through the ordeal. The weak ones were often too numb to do anything but cry. Mrs. Fargarson was the stronger of the two, but the horror of finding her son with half his head blown off had reduced her to a shuddering ghost. Mr. Fargarson just stared at the floor.

Pastor Cooper gently extracted the basics, many of which he already knew. Since his spinal injury fifteen years earlier, Lenny had dreamed of going to heaven, of having his body restored, of walking every day hand in hand with his Savior. We worked on some language to this effect, and Mrs. Fargarson was deeply appreciative. She handed me a photo, one of Lenny sitting by a pond with a fishing pole. I promised to put it on the front page.

As always with grieving parents, they thanked me profusely and insisted on hugging me tightly as I tried to leave. Mourners cling to people like that, especially at the funeral home.

I stopped by Pepe’s and bought an array of Mexican carryout, then drove to Lowtown, where I found Sam playing basketball, Miss Callie asleep inside, and Esau guarding the house with his shotgun. Eventually, we ate on the porch, though she only nibbled at the foreign food. She wasn’t hungry. Esau said she’d eaten little during the day.

I brought my backgammon board and taught Sam the game. Esau preferred checkers. Miss Callie was certain any activity that involved the rolling of dice was patently sinful, but she wasn’t up to a lecture. We sat for hours, deep into the night, and watched the rituals of Lowtown. School had just turned out for the summer, the days were longer and hotter.

Buster, my part-time pit bull, drove by every half hour. He would slow in front of the Ruffins, I’d wave as if things were fine, he’d ease away and return to the driveway of the Hocutt House. A patrol car parked two doors down from the Ruffin house and sat for a long time. Sheriff McNatt had hired three black deputies, and two of them had been assigned to keep an eye on the home.

Others were watching as well. After Miss Callie went to bed, Esau pointed across to the street to the darkened screened porch where the Braxtons lived. “Tully’s over there,” he said. “Watchin’ everythin’.”

“He told me he’d stay up all night,” Sam said. Lowtown would be a dangerous place to start a gunfight.

I left after eleven, crossed the tracks, and drove the empty streets of Clanton. The town pulsed with tension, with anticipation, because whatever had been started was far from over.

Chapter 38

Miss Callie insisted on attending the funeral of Lenny Fargarson. Sam and Esau objected strenuously, but, as always, once she made up her mind, then all conversations were over. I discussed this with Sheriff McNatt, who summed things up by saying, “She’s a grown lady.” He knew of no other jurors who planned to attend, but then it was difficult to monitor such things.

I also called Pastor Cooper to forewarn him. His response was, “She will be very welcome in our little church. But get here early.”

With rare exceptions blacks and whites did not worship together in Ford County. They fervently believed in the same Lord, but chose very different styles of worshiping him. The majority of whites expected to be outside the church building at five past noon on Sunday, and seated for lunch by twelve-thirty. Blacks really didn’t care what time the service broke up, or what time it began for that matter. On my church tour I visited twenty-seven black congregations and never saw a benediction before 1:30—3 P.M. was the norm. Several simply went all day, with a short break for lunch in the fellowship hall, then back to the sanctuary for another round.

Such zealotry would have killed a white Christian.

But funerals were very different. When Miss Callie, along with Sam and Esau, walked into the Maranatha Primitive Baptist Church, there were a few quick stares but nothing more. Had they walked in on a Sunday morning for regular worship, there would have been resentment.

We arrived forty-five minutes early, and the lovely little sanctuary was almost filled. I watched through the tall open windows as the cars kept coming. A loudspeaker had been hung from one of the ancient oaks, and a large crowd gathered around it after the building was full. The choir started with “The Old Rugged Cross,” and the tears began flowing. Pastor Cooper’s soothing message was a gentle warning for us not to question why bad things happen to good people. God is always in control, and though we are too small to understand His infinite wisdom and majesty, He will one day reveal Himself to us. Lenny was with Him now, and that was where Lenny longed to be.

They buried him behind the church, in an immaculate little cemetery inside a wrought-iron fence. Miss Callie clutched my hand and prayed fervently when the casket was lowered into the ground. A soloist sang “Amazing Grace,” then Pastor Cooper thanked us for coming. There was punch and cookies in the fellowship hall behind the sanctuary, and most of the crowd hung around for a few minutes to visit, or to have one last word with Mr. and Mrs. Fargarson.

Sheriff McNatt caught my attention and nodded as if he wanted to talk. We walked to the front of the church where no one could hear us. He was in uniform with his standard toothpick in his mouth. “Any luck with Wilbanks?” he asked.

“No, just the one meeting,” I said. “Harry Rex went back yesterday and got nowhere.”

“I guess I’ll talk to him,” he said.

“You can, but you won’t get anywhere.”

The toothpick shifted from one side of his mouth to the other, in much the same way Harry Rex could slide his cigar over without missing a word. “We got nothin’ else. We’ve combed the woods around the house, not a track or a trace of anything. You’re not printin’ this, are you?”

“No.”

“There are a bunch of ol’ loggin’ trails deep in the woods around the Fargarson place. We’ve tiptoed everyone of ’em, found absolutely nothin’.”

“So your only evidence is a single bullet.”

“That and a dead body.”

“Has anybody seen Danny Padgitt?”

“Not yet. I keep two cars up on 401, where it turns to go into the island. They can’t see everything, but at least the Padgitts know we’re there. There are a hundred ways off and on the island, but only the Padgitts know them all.”

The Ruffins were slowly moving toward us, talking to one of the black deputies.

“She’s probably the safest one,” McNatt said.

“Is anybody safe?”

“We’ll find out. He’ll try again, Willie, you mark my word. I’m convinced of it.”

“Me too.”

Ned Ray Zook owned four thousand acres in the eastern part of the county. He farmed cotton and soybeans, and his operations were large enough to maintain sufficient profits. He was rumored to be one of the few remaining farmers who made good money from the soil. It was on his property, deep in a wooded area, in a converted cattle barn, that Harry Rex had taken me nine years earlier to watch my first and last cockfight.

Sometime during the early hours of June 14, a vandal entered Zook’s vast equipment shed and partially drained the oil from the engines of two of his big tractors. The oil was collected in cans and hidden among the supplies, so when the operators arrived around 6 A.M. for the day’s work there was no sign of foul play. One operator checked the oil as he was supposed to do, saw the shortage, thought it odd, said nothing, and added four quarts. The other operator had checked his the afternoon before, as was his habit. The second tractor ground to a sudden halt an hour later, as its engine locked up. Its operator hiked half a mile back to the shed and reported the breakdown to the farm manager.

Two hours later, a green-and-yellow service truck bounced along the field road and maneuvered itself close to the disabled tractor. Two servicemen slowly got out, inspected the hot sun and cloudless sky, then walked around the tractor for an initial look. They reluctantly opened up the panels of the service truck and began removing tools and wrenches. The sun baked them and they were soon sweating.

To make their day somewhat more pleasant, they turned on the radio in their truck and cranked up the volume. Merle Haggard could be heard wafting across the soybean field.

The music muffled the crack of a distant rifle shot. It hit Mo Teale directly in the upper back, ripped through his lungs, and tore a hole in his chest as it exited. Teale’s partner, Red, said over and over that the only thing he heard was a fierce grunt just a second or two before Mo fell under the front axle. He thought at first that something from the tractor had snapped loose in a violent way and injured Mo. Red dragged him to the truck and raced away, much more concerned about his buddy than what might have injured him. At the equipment shed, the farm manager called an ambulance, but it was too late. Mo Teale died there, on the concrete floor of a small, dusty office. “Mr. John Deere” we’d called him during the trial. Middle of the front row, bad body language.

At the time of his death he was wearing the same type of bright yellow uniform shirt he’d worn every day of the trial. It made for an easy target.

I saw him at a distance, through the open door. Sheriff McNatt allowed us inside the shed with the now standard prohibition against taking photos. Wiley had left his cameras in his pickup.

Once again Wiley had been monitoring the police scanner when the report came across — “Got a shooting at Ned Ray Zook’s farm!” Wiley was always near his scanner, and in those days he wasn’t alone. Given the high state of anxiety in the county, every scanner was being listened to and every possible shooting was reason to hop in the pickup and go for a look.

McNatt soon asked us to leave. His men found the cans of oil that had been drained by the vandal, and they found a window that had been pried open for entry into the shed. They would dust for fingerprints and find none. They would look for footprints on the gravel flooring, and find none. They would scour the woods around the soybean field and find no sign of the killer. In the dirt beside the tractor they did find the 30.06 shell, and it was quickly matched with the one that killed Lenny Fargarson.

I hung around the Sheriff’s office until well after dark. As expected it was a busy place, with deputies and constables loitering about, comparing stories, creating new details. The phones rang nonstop. And there was a new wrinkle. Random townsfolk, unable to control their curiosity, began stopping by and asking anyone who would listen if there was anything new.

There was not. McNatt barricaded himself in his office with his top boys and tried to decide what to do next. His priority was the protection of the surviving eight jurors. Three were already dead — Mr. Fred Bilroy (of pneumonia), and now Lenny Fargarson and Mo Teale. One juror had moved to Florida two years after the trial. At that moment, each of the eight had a patrol car parked very near their front doors.

I left and went to the office to work on the story about the murder of Mo Teale, but I was sidetracked by the lights at Harry Rex’s. He was in his conference room, knee-deep in depositions and files and all sorts of lawyerly debris, the sight of which always gave me an instant headache. We grabbed two beers out of his small office refrigerator and went for a drive.

In a working-class section of town known as Coventry we drove along a narrow street and passed a house with cars parked like fallen dominoes in the front yard. “That’s where Maxine Root lives,” he said. “She was on the jury.”

I vaguely remembered Mrs. Root. Her small redbrick house had no front porch to speak of, so her neighbors were scattered around the carport in folding lawn chairs. Rifles were visible. Every light in the house was on. A patrol car was parked by the mailbox, two deputies leaning on its hood, smoking cigarettes and watching us very closely as we drove by. Harry Rex stopped and said, “Evenin’, Troy,” to one of the deputies.

“Hey, Harry Rex,” Troy said, taking a step toward us.

“Quite a party they got goin’, huh?”

“It’d take a fool to start trouble around here.”

“We’re just passin’ by,” Harry Rex said.

“Better keep movin’,” Troy said. “They got itchy fingers.”

“Take care.” We eased away and swung around behind the livestock barn north of town where a long shady lane dead-ended near the water tower. Halfway down, the street was lined on both sides with cars. “Who lives here?” I asked.

“Mr. Earl Youry. He sat on the back row, farthest from the spectators.”

A crowd was huddled on the front porch. Some sat on the steps. Others were in lawn chairs out on the grass. Somewhere in that pack Mr. Earl Youry was hidden and very well protected by his friends and neighbors.

Miss Callie was no less defended. The street in front of her house was packed with cars and barely passable. Groups of men sat on the cars, some smoking, some holding rifles. Next door and across the street the porches and yards were filled with people. Half of Lowtown had gathered there to make sure she felt secure. There was a festival atmosphere, the feeling of a unique event.

With white faces, Harry Rex and I received closer scrutiny. We didn’t stop until he could speak with the deputies, and once they approved our presence the pack relaxed. We parked and I walked to the house where Sam met me at the front steps. Harry Rex stayed behind, chatting with the deputies.

She was inside, in her bedroom, reading her Bible with a friend from church. Several deacons were on the porch with Sam and Esau, and they were anxious for details of the Teale murder. I filled them in with as much as I could tell, which wasn’t much at all.

Around midnight, the crowd began to slowly break up. Sam and the deputies had organized a rotation of all-night sentries, armed guards on both the front and back porches. There was no shortage of volunteers. Miss Callie never dreamed her pleasant and Godfearing little home would become such an armed fortress, but under the circumstances she could not be disappointed.

We drove the anxious streets to the Hocutt House, where we found Buster asleep in his car in the driveway. We found some bourbon and sat on a front porch, swatting an occasional mosquito and trying to appreciate the situation.

“He’s very patient,” Harry Rex said. “Wait a few days when all these neighbors get tired of porch sittin’, when everybody relaxes a little. The jurors can’t live long locked inside their homes. He’ll wait.”

One chilling little fact that had not been released was a service call received by the tractor dealership a week earlier. At the Anderson farm south of town a tractor had been disabled under similar circumstances. Mo Teale, who was one of four chief mechanics, had not been sent to repair it. Someone else’s yellow shirt had been watched through the scope of a hunting rifle.

“He’s patient and meticulous,” I agreed. Eleven days had passed between the two murders, and no clues had been left behind. If it was indeed Danny Padgitt, there was a stark contrast between his first murder — Rhoda Kassellaw — and his last two. He’d advanced from a brutal crime of passion to cold-blooded executions. Perhaps that’s what nine years in prison had taught him. He’d had plenty of time to remember the faces of the twelve people who’d sent him away, and to plan his revenge.

“He’s not finished,” Harry Rex said.

One murder might be considered a random act. Two meant there was a pattern. The third would send a small army of cops and vigilantes onto Padgitt Island for an all-out war.

“He’ll wait,” Harry Rex said. “Probably for a long time.”

“I’m thinking about selling the paper, Harry Rex,” I said.

He took a long drink of bourbon, then said, “Why would you do that?”

“Money. This company in Georgia is making a serious offer.”

“How much?”

“A lot. More than I ever dreamed of. I wouldn’t work for a long time. Maybe never.”

The idea of not working hit him hard. His daily routine was ten hours of nonstop chaos with some very emotional and high-strung divorce clients. He often worked nights, when the office was quiet and he could think. He made a comfortable living, but he certainly scraped for every penny. “How long have you had the paper?” he asked.

“Nine years.”

“Kinda hard to imagine the paper without you.”

“Maybe that’s a reason to sell it. I don’t want to be another Wilson Caudle.”

“What will you do?”

“Take a break, travel, see the world, find a nice lady, marry her, get her pregnant, have some kids. This is a big house.”

“So you wouldn’t move away?”

“To where? This is home.”

Another long sip, then, “I don’t know. Let me sleep on it.” With that, he walked off the porch and drove away.

Chapter 39

With the bodies piling up, it was inevitable the story would attract more attention than the Times could give it. The next morning, a reporter I knew from the Memphis paper arrived in my office, and about twenty minutes later one from the Jackson paper joined us. Both covered northern Mississippi, where the hottest news was usually a factory explosion or another indicted county official.

I gave them the background on both murders, the Padgitt parole, and the fear that had gripped the county. We were not competitors — they wrote for large dailies that barely overlapped. Most of my subscribers also took either the Memphis or Jackson papers. The Tupelo daily was also popular.

And, frankly, I was losing interest; not in the current crisis, but in journalism as a vocation. The world was calling me. As I sat there drinking coffee and trading stories with those two veterans, both of whom were older than me, each of whom earned about $40,000 a year, I found it hard to believe that I could walk away right then with a million bucks. It was difficult to stay focused.

They eventually left to pursue their own angles. A few minutes later Sam called with a rather urgent, “You need to come over.”

A ragtag little unit was still guarding the Ruffin porch. All four were bleary-eyed and in need of sleep. Sam cleared me through the bivouac and we went to the kitchen table where Miss Callie was shelling butter beans, a task she always performed on the rear porch. She gave me a warm smile and the standard bear hug, but she was a troubled woman. “In here,” she said. Sam nodded and we followed her into her small bedroom. She closed the door behind us as if intruders were lurking, then she disappeared into a narrow closet. We waited awkwardly while she rattled around in there.

She finally emerged with an old spiral notebook, one that had obviously been well hidden. “Something doesn’t make sense,” she said as she sat on the edge of the bed. Sam sat beside her and I backed into an old rocker. She was flipping through the pages of her handwritten notes. “Here it is,” she said.

“We gave our solemn promises that we would never talk about what happened in the jury room,” she said, “but this is too important not to tell. When we found Mr. Padgitt guilty, the vote was quick and unanimous. But when we came to the issue of the death penalty, there was some opposition to it. I certainly didn’t want to send anyone to die, but I had promised to follow the law. Things got very heated, there were sharp words, even some accusations and threats. Not a pleasant thing to sit through. When the battle lines became clear, there were three people opposed to the death penalty, and they were not about to change their minds.”

She showed me a page in her notebook. In her clear and distinctive handwriting there were two columns — one had nine names, the other had only three — L. Fargarson, Mo Teale, and Maxine Root. I gawked at the names, thinking that maybe I was looking at the killer’s list.

“When did you write this?” I asked.

“I kept notes during the trial,” she said.

Why would Danny Padgitt be killing the jurors who refused to give him the death penalty? The ones who had effectively saved his life?

“He’s killing the wrong ones, isn’t he?” Sam asked. “I mean, it’s all wrong, but if you’re out for revenge why go after the folks who tried to save you?”

“As I said, it doesn’t make sense,” Miss Callie said.

“You’re assuming too much,” I said. “You’re assuming he knows how each juror voted. As far as I know, and I snooped around for a long time, the jurors never told anyone how the vote went. The trial was overshadowed rather quickly by the desegregation order. Padgitt was shipped off to Parchman the same day he was found guilty. There’s a good chance he’s picking off the easy ones first, and Mr. Fargarson and Mr. Teale just happened to be more accessible.”

“That’s very coincidental,” Sam said.

We pondered that for a long time. I wasn’t sure if it was plausible; I wasn’t sure of anything. Then I had another thought: “Keep in mind, all twelve jurors voted guilty, and that was just after he made his threat.”

“I suppose,” Miss Callie said, unconvinced. We were trying to make sense of something that was completely incomprehensible.

“Anyway, I need to give this information to the Sheriff,” I said.

“We promised we’d never tell.”

“That was nine years ago, Mother,” Sam said. “And no one could have predicted what’s happening now.”

“It’s especially important for Maxine Root,” I said.

“Don’t you think some of the other jurors have come forward with this same information?” Sam said.

“Maybe, but it was a long time ago. And I doubt if they kept notes.”

There was a commotion at the front door. Bobby, Leon, and Al had arrived. They had met in St. Louis, then driven all night to Clanton. We had coffee around the kitchen table, and I filled them in on the most recent developments. Miss Callie suddenly sprang to life and was pondering meals and making a list of vegetables for Esau to pick.

Sheriff McNatt was out making the rounds, visiting each juror. I had to unload on someone, so I barged into Harry Rex’s office and waited impatiently while he finished a deposition. When we were alone, I told him about Miss Callie’s list and the division of the jurors. He’d been haggling with a room full of lawyers for the past two hours, so he was in a feisty mood.

As usual, he had a different, far more cynical theory.

“Those three were supposed to hang the jury on guilt,” he said after a quick analysis. “They caved for some reason, probably thought they were doin’ the right thing by keepin’ him out of the gas chamber, but of course Padgitt ain’t thinkin’ that way. For nine years he’s been pissed because his three stooges didn’t hang the jury. He figures he’ll get them first, then go after the rest.”

“There’s no way Lenny Fargarson was a stooge for Danny Padgitt,” I argued.

“Just because he’s crippled?”

“Just because he was a very devout Christian.”

“He was unemployed, Willie. He was once able to work, but he knew his condition would only deteriorate over the years. Maybe he needed money. Hell, everybody needs money. The Padgitts have trucks full of cash.”

“I don’t buy it.”

“It makes more sense than any of your screwball theories. What are you sayin’ — somebody else is pickin’ off the jurors?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Good, because I was about to call you a flamin’ dumbass.”

“You’ve called me worse.”

“Not this morning.”

“And under your theory, Mo Teale and Maxine Root also took cash from the Padgitts, then double-crossed Danny on the issue of guilt, then reversed themselves on the issue of death, and will now pay the ultimate price because they didn’t hang the jury to begin with? Is that what you’re saying, Harry Rex?”

“Damned right!”

“You’re a flaming dumbass, you know that? Why would an honest, hardworking, crime-hating, church-going man like Mo Teale agree to take money from the Padgitts?”

“Maybe they threatened him.”

“Maybe! Maybe they didn’t!”

“So what’s your best theory?”

“It’s Padgitt, and it just so happens that the first two he picked off happened to be two of the three who voted no to the death penalty. He doesn’t know how the vote went. He was in Parchman twelve hours after the verdict. He’s made his list. Fargarson was first because he was such an easy target. Teale was second because Padgitt could choose the setting.”

“Who’s third?”

“I don’t know, but these folks won’t stay locked in their homes forever. He’ll bide his time, let things die down, then secretly start making plans again.”

“He could have some help, you know.”

“Exactly.”

Harry Rex’s phone had never stopped ringing. He glared at it during a pause, then said, “I got work to do.”

“I guess I’ll go see the Sheriff. See you later.” I was out of his office when he yelled, “Say, Willie. One other thing.”

I turned to face him.

“Sell it, take the money, go play for a while. You’ve earned it.”

“Thanks.”

“But don’t leave Clanton, you hear?”

“I won’t.”

Mr. Earl Youry ran a road grader for the county. He graded the rural roads that ran into very remote places, out from Possum Ridge and far beyond Shady Grove. Since he worked alone, it was decided that he should hang around the county barn for a few days where he had many friends, all of whom had rifles in their trucks and were on high alert. Sheriff McNatt huddled with Mr. Youry and his supervisor and worked out a plan to keep him safe.

Mr. Youry called the Sheriff and said he had important information. He admitted his recollection was less than thorough, but he was certain that the crippled boy and Mo Teale had been adamant in their refusal to impose the death penalty. He remembered that they had a third vote, maybe it was one of the women, maybe the colored lady. He just couldn’t recall exactly, and, after all, it had been nine years. He posed the same question to McNatt — “Why would Danny Padgitt be killing the jurors who refused to give him the death penalty?”

When I walked into the Sheriff’s office, he had just finished his conversation with Mr. Youry, and he was as bewildered as he should have been. I closed the door and relayed my conversation with Miss Callie. “I saw her notes, Sheriff,” I said. “The third vote was Maxine Root.”

For an hour we rehashed the same arguments I’d had with Sam and Harry Rex, and again it made no sense. He did not believe that the Padgitts had bought or intimidated either Lenny or Mo Teale; he wasn’t so sure about Maxine Root since she came from a rougher family. He more or less agreed with me that the first two killings had been coincidental, and that Padgitt, in all likelihood, did not know how the jurors had voted. Interestingly, he claimed that he found out about a year after the verdict that it had been a 9–3 split on the issue of death, and that Mo Teale had become almost violently opposed to such a sentence.

But, both of us conceded, with Lucien Wilbanks involved it was entirely possible Padgitt knew more about the deliberations than we did. Anything was possible.

And nothing made sense.

While I was sitting in his office, he called Maxine Root. She worked as a bookkeeper at the shoe factory north of town, and had insisted on going to work. McNatt had been in her office that morning, inspecting the place, talking with her boss and coworkers, making sure everyone felt safe. Two of his deputies were outside the building, watching for trouble and waiting to haul Maxine back home at quitting time.

They chatted on the phone like old friends for a few minutes, then McNatt said, “Say, Maxine, I know that you and Mo Teale and the Fargarson boy were the only three who voted against the death penalty for Danny Padgitt...” He paused as she interrupted.

“Well, it’s not important how I found out. What’s important here is that makes me real nervous about your safety. Extra nervous.”

He listened to her for a few minutes. As she rambled on he interrupted occasionally with such things as: “Well, Maxine, I can’t just charge out there and arrest the boy.”

And, “You tell your brothers to keep those guns in their trucks.”

And, “I’m workin’ on the case, Maxine, and when I get enough evidence I’ll get a warrant for his arrest.”

And, “It’s too late to give him the death penalty, Maxine. You did what you thought was right at the time.”

She was crying when the conversation ended. “Poor thing,” McNatt said, “her nerves are shot to hell.”

“Can’t really blame her,” I said. “I’m ducking under windows myself.”

Chapter 40

The funeral for Mo Teale was held at the Willow Road Methodist Church, number thirty-six on my list and one of my favorites. It was barely in the city limits of Clanton, south of the square. Because I had never met Mr. Teale, I did not go to his funeral. However, there were many in attendance who had never met him.

Had he died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-one, it would have been sudden and tragic and his final service would have drawn an impressive crowd. But being gunned down in a revenge killing by a freshly paroled murderer was simply too much for the curious to resist. The mob included long-forgotten high school acquaintances of Mr. Teale’s four adult children, and meddling old widows who seldom missed a good funeral, and out-of-town reporters, and several gentlemen whose only contact with Mo was the fact that they owned John Deere tractors.

I stayed away and worked on his obituary. His oldest son had been kind enough to stop by the office and give me the details. He was thirty-three — Mo and his wife jump-started their family — and he sold new Fords over in Tupelo. He stayed for almost two hours and desperately wanted me to assure him that Danny Padgitt was about to be hauled in and stoned.

Interment was at the Clanton cemetery. The funeral procession stretched for blocks and, for good measure, swung by the square and proceeded down Jackson Avenue, just outside the Times. It did not disrupt traffic at all — everyone was at the funeral.

Using Harry Rex as an intermediary, Lucien Wilbanks arranged a meeting with Sheriff McNatt. I was specifically mentioned by Lucien, and specifically not invited. Didn’t matter; Harry Rex took notes and told me everything, with the understanding that nothing would get printed.

Also present in Lucien’s office was Rufus Buckley, the District Attorney who had succeeded Ernie Gaddis in 1975. Buckley was a publicity hog who, though reluctant to meddle in Padgitt’s parole, was now anxious to lead the mob to lynch him. Harry Rex despised Buckley, and the feelings were mutual. Lucien despised him too, but then Lucien disliked virtually everyone because everyone certainly disliked him. Sheriff McNatt hated Lucien, tolerated Harry Rex, and was forced to work the same side of the street with Buckley, though he loathed him in private.

Given those conflicting sentiments, I was quite pleased not be invited to the meeting.

Lucien began by saying that he had talked with both Danny Padgitt and his father, Gill. They had met somewhere outside of Clanton and away from the island. Danny was doing fine, working each day in the office of the family’s highway contracting firm, that office being conveniently located within the safe harbor of Padgitt Island.

Not surprisingly, Danny denied any involvement in the murders of Lenny Fargarson and Mo Teale. He was shocked by what was happening and angry that he was widely considered to be the chief suspect. Lucien emphasized that he grilled Danny at length, even to the point of irritating him, and he never showed the slightest hint of dishonesty.

Lenny Fargarson was shot on the afternoon of May 23. At that time, Danny was in his office, and there were four people who could vouch for his presence there. The Fargarson home was at least a thirty-minute drive from Padgitt Island, and the four witnesses were certain that Danny was either in his office or very close to it throughout the afternoon.

“How many of these witnesses are named Padgitt?” McNatt asked.

“We’re not giving names, yet,” Lucien said, stonewalling as any good lawyer should.

Eleven days later, on June 3, Mo Teale was shot at approximately nine-fifteen in the morning. At that precise moment, Danny was standing beside a newly paved highway in Tippah County, getting documents signed by one of the Padgitt construction foremen. The foreman, along with two laborers, was willing to testify as to exactly where Danny was at that moment. The highway job was at least two hours away from Ned Ray Zook’s farm in eastern Ford County.

Lucien presented airtight alibis for both murders, though his small audience was very skeptical. Of course the Padgitts would deny everything. And given their capacity to lie, break legs, and bribe with serious cash, they could find witnesses for anything.

Sheriff McNatt voiced his skepticism. He explained to Lucien that his investigation was continuing, and if and when he had probable cause, he would get his arrest warrant and descend upon the island. He had spoken several times with the state police, and if a hundred troopers were necessary to flush out Danny, then so be it.

Lucien said that would not be necessary. If a valid arrest warrant was obtained, he would do his best to bring the boy in himself.

“And if there’s another killing,” McNatt said, “this place will erupt. You’ll have a thousand rednecks crossin’ the bridge and shootin’ every Padgitt they can find.”

Buckley said that he and Judge Omar Noose had spoken twice about the killings, and he was reasonably confident that Noose was “almost ready” to issue a warrant for Danny’s arrest. Lucien attacked him with a barrage of questions about probable cause and sufficient evidence. Buckley argued that the threat by Padgitt during his trial was ample reason to suspect him of the murders.

The meeting deteriorated as the two argued heatedly over nitpicking legalities. The Sheriff finally broke it up by announcing he’d heard enough and walked out of Lucien’s office. Buckley followed. Harry Rex hung around and chatted with Lucien in a much more relaxed setting.

“You got liars protectin’ liars,” Harry Rex growled as he paced around my office an hour later. “Lucien tells the truth only when it sounds good, which, for him and his clientele, is not very often. The Padgitts have no concept of what the truth really is.”

“Remember Lydia Vince?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The slut at the trial, the one Wilbanks put on the stand, under oath. She told the jury Danny was in her bed when Rhoda was murdered. The Padgitts found her, bought her testimony, and handed her to Lucien. They’re all a bunch of lying thieves.”

“Then her ex got shot, right?”

“Just after the trial. Probably got hit by one of the Padgitt goons. No evidence other than the bullets. No suspects. Nothing. Sounds familiar.”

“McNatt didn’t buy anything Lucien said. Neither did Buckley.”

“And you?”

“Naw. I’ve seen Lucien cry before in front of juries. He can be very persuasive at times, not often, but occasionally. I got the impression he was working way too hard to convince us. It’s Danny, and he’s got some help.”

“Does McNatt believe that?”

“Yep, but he has no proof. An arrest is a waste of time.”

“It’ll keep him off the streets.”

“It’s temporary. With no proof you can’t keep him in jail forever. He’s patient. He’s been waiting for nine years.”

Though the pranksters were never identified, and they had enough sense to take their secret to their graves, there was considerable speculation in the months that followed that they were the two teenaged sons of our Mayor. Two youngsters were seen sprinting away from the scene, much too fast to be caught. The Mayor’s boys had a long and colorful track record as creative and brazen jokesters.

Under the cover of darkness, they boldly sneaked through a thick hedgerow and came to a stop less than fifty feet from the corner of the front porch of Mr. Earl Youry’s house. There they watched and listened to the crowd of friends and neighbors camped out on the front lawn, protecting Mr. Youry. They waited patiently for just the right moment to launch their attack.

A few minutes after eleven, a long strand of eighty-four Black Cat firecrackers was tossed in the general direction of the porch, and when they began popping Clanton almost erupted into an all-out war. Men yelled, ladies screamed, Mr. Youry hit the planks and scurried into his house on all-fours. His sentries out front rolled over in their lawn chairs, clawed around for their guns, and hid low in the grass as the Blacks Cats bounced and popped in a smoky frenzy. It took thirty seconds for all eighty-four to finish exploding, and during that time a dozen heavily armed men were darting behind trees, pointing their guns in every direction, ready to shoot anything that moved.

A part-time deputy named Travis was jolted from his sleep on the hood of his patrol car. He yanked out his .44 Magnum and dashed low and hard in the general direction of the Black Cats. Armed neighbors were scampering everywhere in Mr. Youry’s front yard. For some reason, and neither Travis nor his supervisor ever revealed the official explanation, if in fact there was one, he fired a shot into the air. A very loud shot. A shot heard well above the firecrackers. It caused another itchy finger, someone who never admitted to pulling the trigger, to unload a.12-gauge shotgun shell into the trees. No doubt many others would have commenced firing and who knows how many might have been slaughtered had not the other part-time deputy, Jimmy, screamed loudly, “Hold your fire, you idiots!”

At which point the gunfire ceased immediately, but the Black Cats had a few rounds left. When the last one popped the entire gang of vigilantes walked over to the smoldering patch of grass and inspected things. Word spread that it was just fireworks. Mr. Earl Youry peeked through the front door and eventually eased outside.

Down the street, Mrs. Alice Wood heard the assault and was running to the rear of her house to lock the door when the two youngsters blew by her back entrance, sprinting and laughing furiously. She would report that they were about fifteen and white.

A mile away, in Lowtown, I had just walked down the steps of Miss Callie’s front porch when I heard the distant explosions. The late shift — Sam, Leon, and two deacons — jumped to their feet and gazed into the distance. The forty-four sounded like a howitzer. We waited and waited, and when all was still again Leon said, “Sounds like firecrackers.”

Sam had sneaked inside to check on his mother. He came back and said, “She’s asleep.”

“I’ll go check it out,” I said. “And I’ll call if it’s anything important.”

Mr. Youry’s street was alive with the red and blue lights of a dozen police cars. Traffic was heavy as the other curious fought to get near the scene. I saw Buster’s car parked in a shallow ditch, and when I found him a few minutes later he told me the story. “Coupla kids,” he said.

I found it funny, but I was in the distinct minority.

Chapter 41

In the nine years since I’d bought the Times, I had never left it for more than four days. It went to press every Tuesday. was published every Wednesday, and by every Thursday of my life I was facing a formidable deadline.

One reason for its success was the fact that I wrote so much about so many in a town where so little happened. Each edition had thirty-six pages. Subtracting five for classifieds, three for legals, and about six for advertisements, I was faced each week with the task of filling approximately twenty-two pages with local news.

The obits consumed at least one page, with me in charge of every word. Davey Bigmouth Bass took two pages for sports, though I often had to help with a summary of a junior high football game or an urgent story about a trophy buck shot by some twelve-year-old. Margaret put together one page for Religion and one page for Weddings and another for classifieds. Baggy, whose production nine years earlier had been feeble at best, had succumbed almost completely to booze and was now good for only one story each week, which, of course, he always wanted on the front page. Staff reporters came and went with frustrating regularity. We usually had one on board, sometimes two, and they were often more trouble than they were worth. I had to proofread and edit their work to the point of wishing I had simply done it myself.

And so I wrote. Though I’d studied journalism, I had not noticed a propensity to produce vast amounts of words in short periods of time. But once I suddenly owned the paper, and it was time to sink or swim, I discovered an amazing ability to crank out windy and colorful stories about almost everything, and nothing. A moderately severe car wreck with no fatalities was front page news with breathless quotes from eyewitnesses and ambulance drivers. A small factory expansion sounded like a boon to the nation’s Gross National Product. A bake sale at the Baptist Ladies’ WMU could run for eight hundred words. A drug arrest sounded as if the Colombians were advancing unchecked upon the innocent children of Clanton. A blood drive by the Civitan Club carried the urgency of a wartime shortage. Three stolen pickups in one week had the feel of organized crime.

I wrote about the people of Ford County. Miss Callie’s was my first human interest story, and over the years I tried to run at least one a month. There was a survivor of the Bataan death march, the last local veteran of World War I, a sailor who had been at Pearl Harbor, a retiring minister who’d served one small country congregation for forty-five years, an old missionary who’d lived for thirty-one years in the Congo, a recent graduate who was dancing in a musical on Broadway, a lady who’d lived in twenty-two states, a man who’d been married seven times and was anxious to share his advice with future newlyweds, Mr. Mitlo — our token immigrant, a retiring basketball coach, the short-order cook at the Tea Shoppe who’d been frying eggs forever. And on and on. These stories were immensely popular.

However, after nine years the list of interesting people in Ford County had very few names on it.

I was tired of writing. Twenty pages a week, fifty-two weeks a year.

I woke up each morning thinking of either a new story or a new angle for an old one. Any bit of news or any unusual event was inspiration to puff up a piece and stick it somewhere in the paper. I wrote about dogs, antique trucks, a legendary tornado, a haunted house, a missing pony, Civil War treasure, the legend of a headless slave, a rabid skunk. And all the usual stuff — court proceedings, elections, crime, new businesses, bankrupt businesses, new characters in town. I was tired of writing.

And I was tired of Clanton. With some reluctance the town had come to accept me, especially when it became obvious I wasn’t leaving. But it was a very small place, and at times I felt suffocated. I spent so many weekends at home, with little to do but read and write, that I became accustomed to it. And that frustrated me greatly. I tried the poker nights with Bubba Crocket and the Foxhole gang, and the redneck cookouts with Harry Rex and company. But I never felt as though I belonged.

Clanton was changing, and I was not happy with its direction. Like most small towns in the South, it was sprawling in all directions with no plan for its growth. Bargain City was booming, and the area around it was attracting every fast-food franchise imaginable. Downtown was declining, though the courthouse and the county government would always draw people. Strong political leaders were needed, folks with vision, and they were in short supply.

On the other hand, I suspected the town was weary of me. Because of my preachy opposition to the war in Vietnam, I would always be considered a radical liberal. And I did little to diminish this reputation. As the paper grew and the profits increased, and as a direct result my skin got thicker, I editorialized more and more. I railed against closed meetings held by the city council and the county Board of Supervisors. I sued to get access to public records. I spent one year bitching about the almost complete lack of zoning and land-use management in the county, and when Bargain City came to town I said way too much. I ridiculed the state’s campaign finance laws, which were designed to allow rich people to elect their favorites. And when Danny Padgitt was set free, I unloaded on the parole system.

Throughout the seventies, I was always on a soapbox. And while this made for interesting reading and sold papers, it also transformed me into something of an oddity. I was viewed as a malcontent, one with a pulpit. I don’t think I was ever a bully; I tried hard not to be. But looking back, there were fights I started not only out of conviction but also out of boredom.

As I grew older, I wanted to be a regular citizen. I would always be an outsider, but that didn’t bother me anymore. I wanted to come and go, to live in Clanton as I saw fit, then leave for long periods of time when I got bored. Amazing how the prospect of money can change your future.

I became consumed with the dream of walking away, of taking a sabbatical to some place I’d never been, of seeing the world.

The next meeting with Gary McGrew was at a restaurant in Tupelo. He’d been to my office several times. One more visit and the staff would start whispering. Over lunch we again looked at my books, talked about his client’s plans, negotiated this point and that one. If I sold, I wanted the owner to honor the new five-year contracts I’d given to Davey Bigmouth Bass, Hardy, and Margaret. Baggy would either retire soon or die of liver poisoning. Wiley had always been a part-timer, and his interest in chasing subjects for photos was waning. He was the only employee I’d told about the negotiations, and he had encouraged me to take the money and run.

McGrew’s client wanted me to stay on for at least a year, at a very high salary, and train the new editor. I would not agree to this. If I walked away, then I walked away. I didn’t want a boss, and I didn’t want the local heat that would come for selling the county’s paper to a large firm from outside the state.

Their offer was at $1.3 million. A consultant I’d hired in Knoxville had valued the Times at $1.35 million.

“Confidentially, we’ve bought the papers in Tyler and Van Buren Counties,” McGrew said, late in a very long lunch. “Things are falling into place.”

He was being almost completely honest. The owner of the paper in Tyler County had agreed in principle, but the documents had not been signed.

“But there’s a new wrinkle,” he said. “The paper in Polk County might be for sale. Frankly, we’re taking a look at it if you pass. It’s quite a bit cheaper.”

“Ah, more pressure,” I said.

The Polk County Herald had four thousand readers and lousy management. I saw it every week.

“I’m not trying to pressure you. I’m just putting everything on the table.”

“I really want a million and a half bucks,” I said.

“That’s over the top, Willie.”

“It’s high, but you’ll earn it back. Might take a little longer, but look ten years down the road.”

“I’m not sure we can go that high.”

“You’ll have to if you want the paper.”

A sense of urgency had arisen. McGrew hinted at a deadline, then finally said, “We’ve been talking for months now, and my client is anxious to reach a conclusion. He wants to close the deal by the first of next month, or he’ll go elsewhere.”

The tactic didn’t bother me. I was tired of talking too. Either I sold, or I didn’t. It was time to make a decision.

“That’s twenty-three days from now,” I said.

“It is.”

“Fair enough.”

The long days of summer arrived, and the insufferable heat and humidity settled in for their annual three-month stay. I made my usual rounds — to the churches on my list, to the softball fields, to the local golf tournament, to the watermelon cuttings. But Clanton was waiting, and the wait was all we talked about.

Inevitably, the noose around the neck of each remaining juror was loosened somewhat. They quite naturally got tired of being prisoners in their homes, of altering their lifelong routines, of having packs of neighbors guard their homes at night. They began to venture out, to try and resume normal lives.

The patience of the killer was unnerving. He had the advantage of time, and he knew his victims would grow weary of all that protection. He knew they would drop their guard, make a mistake. We knew it too.

After missing three consecutive Sundays, for the first time in her life, Miss Callie insisted on going to church. Escorted by Sam, Esau, and Leon, she marched into the sanctuary on Sunday morning and worshiped the Lord as if she’d been gone a year. Her brothers and sisters embraced her, and prayed for her fervently. Reverend Small revised his sermon on the spot and preached on God’s protection of his followers. Sam said he went on for almost three hours.

Two days later, Miss Callie slid into the backseat of my Mercedes. With Esau beside her and Sam riding shotgun, we hurried out of Clanton with a deputy behind us. He stopped at the county line, and an hour later we were in Memphis. There was a new shopping mall east of town that was all the rage, and Miss Callie dreamed of seeing it. Over a hundred stores under one roof! For the first time in her life, she ate a pizza; she saw an ice rink, two men holding hands, and a mixed-race family. She approved only of the ice rink.

After a full hour of Sam’s atrocious navigating, we finally found the cemetery in south Memphis. Using a map from the guardhouse, we eventually located the grave of Nicola Rossetti DeJarnette. Miss Callie placed a bouquet of flowers she’d brought from home on the grave, and when it became apparent she planned to spend some time there, we walked away and left her in peace.

In memory of Nicola, Miss Callie wanted Italian food. I had reserved a table at Grisanti’s, a Memphis landmark, and we had a long, delightful dinner of lasagna and ravioli stuffed with goat cheese. She managed to overcome her bias against bought food, and, to protect her from sin, I insisted on paying for it.

We didn’t want to leave Memphis. For a few hours we had escaped the fear of the unknown and the anxiety of the waiting. Clanton seemed a thousand miles away, and that was too close. Going back late that night, I found myself driving slower and slower.

Though we didn’t discuss it, and the conversation grew quieter the closer we got to home, there was a killer loose in Ford County. Miss Callie’s name was on his list. If not for the two dead bodies, that would have been impossible to believe.

According to Baggy, and verified by research in the Times archives, there had been no unsolved murders that century. Almost every killing had been some impulsive act where the smoking gun had been seen by witnesses. Arrests, trials, and convictions had been prompt. Now, there was a very smart and very deliberate killer out there, and every one knew his intended victims. For such a law-abiding, God-fearing community, it was inconceivable.

Bobby, Al, Max, and Leon had, at various times, argued strenuously for Miss Callie to go stay with any of them for a month or so. Sam and I, and even Esau, had joined in these rather vigorous requests, but she would not budge. She was in close contact with God, and he would protect her.

In nine years, the only time I lost my temper with Miss Callie, and the only time she rebuked me, was during an argument about spending a month in Milwaukee with Bobby. “Those big cities are dangerous,” she had said.

“No place is as dangerous as Clanton right now,” I had replied.

Later, when I raised my voice, she told me she did not appreciate my lack of respect, and I quickly shut up.

As we crossed into Ford County late that night, I began watching my rearview mirror. It was silly, but then it wasn’t. In Lowtown, the Ruffin home was guarded by a deputy parked in the street, and a friend of Esau’s on the porch.

“It’s been a quiet night,” the friend said. In other words, no one had been shot or shot at.

Sam and I played checkers for an hour on the porch while she went to sleep.

The waiting continued.

Chapter 42

Nineteen seventy-nine was a year for local elections in Mississippi, my third as a registered voter. It was much quieter than the first two. The Sheriff’s race was uncontested, something that was unheard of. There had been a rumor that the Padgitts had bought a new candidate, but after the parole debacle they backed off. Senator Theo Morton drew an opponent who brought me an ad that screamed the question — WHY DID SENATOR MORTON GET DANNY PADGITT PAROLED? CASH! THAT’S WHY! As much as I wanted to run the ad, I had neither the time nor the energy for a libel suit.

There was a constable’s race out in Beat Four with thirteen candidates, but other than that the races were fairly lethargic. The county was fixated on the murders of Fargarson and Teale, and, more important, on who might be next. Sheriff McNatt and the investigators from the state police and state crime lab had exhausted every possible clue and lead. All we could do was wait.

As July Fourth approached, there was a noticeable lack of excitement about the annual celebration. Though almost everyone felt safe, there was a dark cloud hanging over the county. Oddly, rumors persisted that something bad would happen when we all gathered around the courthouse on the Fourth. Rumors, though, had never been born with such creativity, nor spread as rapidly, as in the month of June.

On June 25, in a fancy law office in Tupelo, I signed a pile of documents that transferred ownership of the Times to a media company owned in part by Mr. Ray Noble of Atlanta. Mr. Noble handed me a check for $1.5 million, and I quickly, and somewhat anxiously, walked it down the street, where my newest friend, Stu Holland, was waiting in his rather spacious office in the Merchants Bank. News of such a deposit in Clanton would leak overnight, so I buried the money with Stu, then drove home.

It was the longest one-hour drive of my life. It was exhilarating because I had cashed in at the market’s peak. I had squeezed top dollar out of a well-heeled and honorable buyer who planned to make few changes to my newspaper. Adventure was calling me, and I now had the means to answer.

And it was a sad drive because I was giving up such a large and rewarding part of my life. The paper and I had grown and matured together; me as an adult, it as a prosperous entity. It had become what any small-town paper should be — a lively observer of current events, a recorder of history, an occasional commentator on politics and social issues. As for me, I was a young man who had blindly and doggedly built something from scratch. I suppose I should’ve felt my age, but all I wanted to do was find a beach. Then a girl.

When I returned to Clanton, I walked into Margaret’s office, closed the door, and told her about the sale. She burst into tears, and before long my eyes were moist as well. Her fierce loyalty had always amazed me, and though she, like Miss Callie, worried way too much about my soul, she had grown to love me nonetheless. I explained that the new owners were wonderful people, planned no drastic changes, and had approved her new five-year contract at an increased salary. This made her cry even more.

Hardy did not cry. By then he had been printing the Times for almost thirty years. He was moody, cantankerous, drank too much like most pressmen, and if the new owners didn’t like him then he’d simply quit and go fishing. He did appreciate the new contract though.

As did Davey Bigmouth Bass. He was shocked at the news, but rallied nicely at the idea of earning more money.

Baggy was on vacation somewhere out West, with his brother, not his wife. Mr. Ray Noble had been reluctant to agree to another five years’ of Baggy’s sluggish reporting, and I could not, in good conscience, make him a part of the deal. Baggy was on his own.

We had five other employees, and I personally broke the news to each of them. It took all of one afternoon, and when if it was finally over I was drained. I met Harry Rex in the back room at Pepe’s and we celebrated with margaritas.

I was anxious to leave town and go somewhere, but it would be impossible until the killings stopped.

For most of June, the Ruffin professors scrambled back and forth to Clanton. They juggled assignments and vacations, trying their best to make sure at least two or three of them were always with Miss Callie. Sam seldom left the house. He stayed in Lowtown to protect his mother, but also to keep his own profile low. Trooper Durant was still around, though he was married again and his two renegade sons had left the area.

Sam spent hours on the porch, reading voraciously, playing checkers with Esau or whoever stopped by to help guard things for a while. He played backgammon with me until he figured out the strategy, then he insisted that we bet a dollar per game. Before long I owed him $50. Such blatant gambling was a deadly secret on Miss Callie’s porch.

A hasty reunion was put together for the week before July Fourth. Because my house had five empty bedrooms and a woeful lack of human activity, I insisted that it be filled with Ruffins. The family had grown considerably since I first met them in 1970. All but Sam were married, and there were twenty-one grandchildren. The total came to thirty-five Ruffins, not counting Sam, Callie, and Esau, and thirty-four made it to Clanton. Leon’s wife had a sick father in Chicago.

Of the thirty-four, twenty-three moved into the Hocutt House for a few days. They drifted in from different parts of the country, mostly up North, coming in shifts at all hours of the day, with each new arrival greeted with great ceremony. When Carlota and her husband and two small children arrived at 3 A.M. from Los Angeles, every light in the house came on and Bobby’s wife, Bonnie, began cooking pancakes.

Bonnie took over my kitchen, and three times a day I was sent to the grocery store with a list of things she urgently needed. I bought ice cream by the ton and the kids soon learned I would fetch it for them at any hour of the day.

Since my porches were long and wide and seldom used, the Ruffins gravitated toward them. Sam brought Miss Callie and Esau over late in the afternoons for serious visiting. She was desperate to get out of Lowtown. Her warm little house had become a prison.

At various times, I heard her children talk with great concern about their mother. The obvious threat of somehow getting shot was discussed less than her health. Over the years she had managed to lose somewhere around eighty pounds, depending on whose version you heard. Now it was back, and her blood pressure had the doctors concerned. The stress was taking its toll. Esau said she slept fitfully, something she blamed on medications. She was not as spry, didn’t smile as much, and had noticeably less energy.

It was all blamed on the “Padgitt mess.” As soon as he got caught and the killings stopped, then Miss Callie would bounce back.

That was the optimistic view, the one generally shared by most of her children.

On July 2, a Monday, Bonnie and company prepared a light lunch of salads and pizzas. All available Ruffins were there, and we ate on a side porch under slow-moving and practically useless wicker fans. There was a slight breeze, however, and with the temperature in the nineties we were able to enjoy a long lazy meal.

I had yet to find the right moment to tell Miss Callie that I was leaving the paper. I knew she would be shocked, and very disappointed. But I could think of no reason why we couldn’t continue our Thursday lunches. It might even be more fun counting the typos and mistakes made by someone else.

In nine years we had missed only seven, all due to illness or dental work.

The lazy postmeal chatter suddenly came to a halt. There were sirens in the distance, somewhere across town.

The box was twelve inches square, five inches deep, white in color with red and blue stars and stripes. It was gift package from the Bolan Pecan Farm in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, sent to Mrs. Maxine Root by her sister in Concord, California. An Independence Day gift of real American pecans. It came by mail, delivered by the postman around noon, placed in the mailbox of Maxine Root, then hauled inside, past the lone sentry sitting under a tree in the front yard, and into the kitchen where Maxine first saw it.

It had been almost a month since Sheriff McNatt had quizzed her about her vote on the jury. She had reluctantly admitted that she had not been in favor of the death penalty for Danny Padgitt, and she recalled that the two men who stuck with her were Lenny Fargarson and Mo Teale. Since they were now dead, McNatt had delivered the grave news that she might be the next victim.

For years after the trial, Maxine had wrestled with the verdict. The town was bitter over it and she felt the hostility. Thankfully, the jurors kept their vows of silence, and she and Lenny and Mo avoided any additional abuse. With the soothing passage of time, she had been able to distance herself from the aftermath.

Now the world knew how she’d voted. Now a crazy man was stalking her. She was on leave from her job as a bookkeeper. Her nerves were shot; she couldn’t sleep; she was sick of hiding in her own home; sick of a yard full of neighbors gathering every night as if it was time for a social event; sick of ducking under every window. She was taking so many different pills that they were all counteracting each other to the point that nothing worked.

She saw the box of pecans and started crying. Someone out there loved her. Her precious sister Jane was thinking about her. Oh how she’d love to be in California with Jane at that very moment.

Maxine started to open the package, then had a thought. She went to the phone and dialed Jane’s number. They had not talked in a week.

Jane was at work, thrilled to hear from her. They chatted about this and that, then about the horrible situation in Clanton. “You’re a dear to send the pecans,” Maxine said.

“What pecans?” Jane asked.

A pause. “The gift box from Bolan Pecans down in Hazelhurst. A big one, three pounds.”

Another pause. “Not me, sis. Must’ve been someone else.”

Maxine hung up moments later and examined the box. A sticker on the front said — A Gift from Jane Parham. Of course she knew of no other Jane Parhams.

Very gently, she picked it up. It seemed a bit heavy for a three-pound tin of pecans.

Travis, the part-time deputy, happened by the house. He was accompanied by one Teddy Ray, a pimple-faced boy with an oversized uniform and a service revolver that he had never fired. Maxine hustled them into the kitchen where the red, white, and blue box sat benignly on the counter. The lone sentry was also tagging along, and for a long minute or so the four of them just stared at the package. Maxine recounted verbatim her conversation with Jane.

With great hesitation, Travis picked up the box and shook it slightly. “Seems a might heavy for pecans,” he observed. He looked at Teddy Ray, who’d already gone pale, and at the neighbor with a rifle, who seemed ready to duck at anything.

“You think it’s a bomb?” the neighbor asked.

“Oh my God,” Maxine mumbled and appeared ready to collapse.

“Could be,” Travis said, then gawked down in horror at what he was holding.

“Get it outside,” Maxine said.

“Shouldn’t we call the Sheriff?” Teddy Ray managed to ask.

“I guess so,” Travis said.

“What if it’s got a timer or something?” asked the neighbor.

Travis hesitated for a moment, then with the voice of absolutely no experience, said, “I know what to do.”

They stepped through the kitchen door onto a narrow porch that ran the length of the rear of the house. Travis carefully placed the box at the very edge, three feet or so above the ground. When he removed his .44 Magnum, Maxine said, “What are you doing?”

“We’re gonna see if it’s a bomb,” Travis said. Teddy Ray and the neighbor scurried off the porch and took up a safe position in the grass about fifty feet away.

“You’re gonna shoot my pecans?” Maxine asked.

“You got a better idea?” Travis snapped back.

“I guess not.”

With most of his body inside the kitchen, Travis leaned out through the screen door with his thick right arm, and his rather large head, and took aim. Maxine was right behind him, crouching low and peeking around his waist.

The first shot missed the porch entirely, though it took the breath out of Maxine. Teddy Ray shouted, “Nice shot,” and he and the neighbor had a quick laugh.

Travis aimed and fired again.

The explosion ripped the porch completely from the house, tore a gaping hole in the back wall behind the kitchen, and sprayed shrapnel for a hundred yards. It shattered windows, peeled up planks, and it wounded the four observers. Teddy Ray and the neighbor both took bits of metal in their chests and legs. Travis’s right arm and his firing hand were mangled. Maxine was hit twice in the head — one piece of glass ripped off the lobe of her right ear, and a small nail penetrated her right jaw.

For a moment, they were all unconscious, knocked silly by three pounds of plastic explosives packed with nails, glass, and ball bearings.

As the sirens continued to wail across town, I went to the phone and called Wiley Meek. He was just about to call me. “They tried to blow up Maxine Root,” he said.

I told the Ruffins there’d been an accident and left them on the porch. When I got near the subdivision where the Roots lived, the main roads were blocked and traffic was being turned away. I hustled over to the hospital and found a young doctor I knew. He said that there were four injured, none of whom appeared to be in grave danger.

Judge Omar Noose was holding court in Clanton that afternoon. In fact, he later said that he heard the explosion. Rufus Buckley and Sheriff McNatt met with him for over an hour in chambers, and what they discussed was never revealed. As we waited in the courtroom, Harry Rex and most of the other lawyers loitering there were certain that they were debating how to handle an arrest warrant for Danny Padgitt when there was so little proof that he’d done anything wrong.

But something had to be done. Someone had to be arrested. The Sheriff had a population to protect; he had to take action, even if it wasn’t entirely proper.

We got a report that Travis and Teddy Ray had been transported to one of the hospitals in Memphis for surgery. Maxine and her neighbor were under the knife at that very moment. Again, it was the opinion of the doctors that no life was in jeopardy. Travis might lose his right arm, though.

How many people in Ford County knew how to make package bombs? Who had access to explosives? Who had motive? As we argued these questions in the courtroom, they were evidently being argued back in chambers as well. Noose, Buckley, and McNatt were all elected officials. The good people of Ford County needed their protection. Since Danny Padgitt was the only conceivable suspect, Judge Noose finally issued a warrant for his arrest.

Lucien was notified, and he took the news without objection. At that moment, not even Padgitt’s lawyer could argue with the strategy of bringing him in for processing. He could always be released later.

A few minutes after 5 P.M., a convoy of police cars blew out of Clanton and headed for Padgitt Island. Harry Rex now owned a police scanner (there were quite a few new ones in town) and we sat in his office, sipping beer, listening to it squawk with unchecked fury. It had to be the most exciting arrest in the history of our county, and many of us wanted to be there. Would the Padgitts block the road and thwart the arrest? Would there be gunfire? A small war?

From the chatter, we were able to follow most of what was happening. At Highway 42, McNatt and his men were met by ten “units” of the state highway patrol. We assumed a “unit” meant nothing more than a car, but it sounded far more serious. They proceeded to Highway 401, turned onto the county road that led to the island, and at the bridge where everyone expected some dramatic showdown, there sat Danny Padgitt in the car with his lawyer.

The voices on the scanner were quick and anxious:

“He’s with his lawyer!”

“Wilbanks?”

“Yep.”

“Let’s shoot both of them.”

“They’re gettin’ out of the car.”

“Wilbanks is holdin’ up his hands. Smart-ass!”

“It’s Danny Padgitt, all right. Hands held high.”

“I’d like to knock that smile off his face.”

“They got the cuffs on him.”

“Dammit!” Harry Rex yelled across his desk. “I wanted some gunfire. Just like in the old days.”

We were at the jail an hour later when the parade of red and blue lights came swarming in. Sheriff McNatt had wisely placed Padgitt in the patrol car of a state trooper; otherwise his deputies might have roughed him up during the ride. Two of their colleagues were in surgery in Memphis, and feelings were pretty raw.

A mob had gathered outside the jail. Padgitt was jeered and cursed as he was rushed inside, then the Sheriff angrily told the hotheads to go home.

Seeing him in handcuffs brought a great sense of relief. And the news that he was in custody was like a balm for the entire county. The heavy cloud had been lifted. Clanton came to life that night.

When I returned to the Hocutt House after dark, the Ruffin clan was in a festive mood. Miss Callie was as relaxed as I’d seen her in a long time. We sat on the porch for a long time, telling stories, laughing, listening to Aretha Franklin and the Temptations, even listening to an occasional burst of fireworks.

Chapter 43

Unknown to anyone, Lucien Wilbanks and Judge Noose struck a deal in the hectic hours before the arrest. The Judge was worried about what might happen if Danny Padgitt chose to retreat into the safety of the island, or, worse, resist the arrest with force. The county was a powder keg waiting for a match. The cops were ready for blood because of Teddy Ray and Travis, whose gunslinging stupidity was being temporarily ignored while they recovered from their wounds. And Maxine Root came from a notoriously rough family of loggers, a large fierce clan known to hunt year round, live off their land, and leave no grudge unchallenged.

Lucien appreciated the situation. He agreed to deliver his client on one condition — he wanted an immediate bail hearing. He had at least a dozen witnesses who were willing to provide “airtight” alibis for Danny, and Lucien wanted the folks in Clanton to hear their testimony. He truly believed that someone else was behind the killings, and it was important to convince the town.

Lucien was also one month away from being disbarred in an unrelated mess. He knew the end was coming, and the bail hearing would be his last performance.

Noose agreed to a hearing and set it for 10 A.M. the next day, July 3. In a scene eerily reminiscent of one nine years earlier, Danny Padgitt once again packed the Ford County Courthouse. It was a hostile crowd, anxious to get a look at him, hopeful that he might be strung up on the spot. Maxine Root’s family arrived early and sat near the front. They were angry, thick-chested, bearded men in overalls. They frightened me, and we were ostensibly on the same side. Maxine was reported to be resting well and expected home in a few days.

The Ruffins had little to do that morning, so the excitement at the courthouse could not be missed. Miss Callie herself insisted on arriving early and getting a good seat. She was happy to be downtown again. She wore a Sunday dress and delighted in sitting in such a public gathering surrounded by her family.

The reports from the hospital in Memphis were mixed. Teddy Ray had been sewn together and was recuperating. Travis had had a rough night, and there was much concern about saving his arm. Their comrades were in the courtroom in full force, waiting for another chance to scowl at the bomb maker.

I saw Mr. and Mrs. Fargarson sitting in the rear, two rows from the back, and I couldn’t begin to comprehend what they were thinking.

There were no Padgitts present; they had enough sense to stay clear of the courtroom. The sight of one of them would’ve touched off a riot. Harry Rex whispered that they were huddled together upstairs in the jury room, with the door locked. We never saw them.

Rufus Buckley arrived with his entourage to represent the State of Mississippi. One advantage in selling the Times was that I would never be forced to spend time with him. He was arrogant and pompous, and everything he did was designed to get him to the Governor’s office.

As I waited and watched the courtroom fill up, I realized it was the last time I would cover such a proceeding for the Times. I found no sadness in that. I had mentally checked out, mentally spent some of the money. And now that Danny was in custody, I was even more anxious to escape Clanton and go see the world.

There would be a trial in a few months. Another Danny Padgitt circus, but I doubted seriously if it would be held in Ford County. I didn’t care. It would be a story for someone else.

At 10 A.M., all seats were filled and a thick row of spectators lined the walls. Fifteen minutes later, there was a shuffle behind the bench, a door opened, and Lucien Wilbanks emerged. It had the feel of a sporting event; he was a player; we all wanted to boo. Two bailiffs quickly followed him, and one announced, “All rise for the Court!”

Judge Noose ambled forth in his black robe and sat on his throne. “Please be seated,” he said into the microphone. He surveyed the crowd and seemed astonished at the number of us out there.

He nodded, a side door opened, and Danny Padgitt, handcuffed, shackled at the ankles, and sporting the orange jail jumpsuit he’d worn before, was led in by three deputies. It took a few minutes to unlock him from his various restraints, and when he was finally free he leaned over and whispered something to Lucien.

“This is a bail hearing,” Noose announced, and the courtroom was still and quiet. “There’s no reason why it cannot be handled judiciously and briefly.”

It would be much briefer than anyone anticipated.

A cannon exploded somewhere above us, and for a split second I thought we’d all been shot. Something cracked sharply through the heavy air of the courtroom, and for a town so jittery to begin with we all froze in one horrible snapshot of disbelief. Then Danny Padgitt grunted in a delayed reaction, and all hell broke loose. Women screamed. Men screamed. Someone yelled, “Get down!” as half the spectators ducked low, some hitting the floor. Someone shouted, “He’s been shot!”

I lowered my head a few inches, but I didn’t want to miss anything. Every deputy yanked out a service revolver and looked in a different direction for someone to shoot. They pointed up and down, front and back, here and there.

Though we argued about it for years, the second shot was no more than three seconds behind the first. It hit Danny in the ribs, but it had not been necessary. The first had gone through his head. The second shot drew the attention of a deputy in the front of the courtroom. I was ducking even lower, but I saw him pointing to the balcony.

The double doors to the courtroom flew open, and the stampede was on. In the hysteria that followed, I stayed in my seat and tried to take in everything. I remember seeing Lucien Wilbanks hovering over his client. And Rufus Buckley on his hands and knees, scurrying in front of the jury box in an effort to escape. And I’ll never forget Judge Noose, sitting calmly at the bench, reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose, watching the chaos as if he saw it every week.

Each second seemed to last a minute.

The shots that hit Danny were fired from the ceiling above the balcony. And, though the balcony was filled with people, no one saw the rifle drop down a few inches ten feet above their heads. Like the rest of us, they were preoccupied with getting a first glance at Danny Padgitt.

The county had patched and renovated the courtroom at various times over the decades, whenever a few spare bucks could be squeezed from the coffers. Back in the late sixties, in an effort to improve the lighting, a dropped ceiling had been installed. The sniper found the perfect spot on a heating duct just above a panel in the ceiling. There, in the dark crawl space, he waited patiently, watching the courtroom below through a five-inch slit he’d created by lifting one of the water-stained panels.

When I thought the shooting was over, I crept closer to the bar. The cops were yelling for everybody to get out of the courtroom. They were shoving people and barking all sorts of contradictory instructions. Danny was under the table, attended to by Lucien and several deputies. I could see his feet, and they were not moving. A minute or two passed, and the confusion was subsiding. Suddenly, there was more gunfire; thankfully, now it was outside. I looked out a courtroom window and saw people scampering into the stores around the square. I saw an old man point upward, sort of above my head, to something on the top of the courthouse.

Sheriff McNatt had just found the crawl space when he heard shots above him. He and two deputies climbed the stairs to the third floor, then slowly took the cramped circular stairway through the dome. The door to the cupola was jammed shut, but just above it they could hear the anxious footsteps of the sniper. And they could hear shell casings hit the floor.

His only target was the law offices of Lucien Wilbanks, specifically the upstairs windows. With great deliberation he was blowing them out, one by one. Downstairs, Ethel Twitty was under her desk, bawling and screaming at the same time.

I finally left the courtroom and hustled downstairs to the main floor, where the crowd was waiting, uncertain what to do. The police chief was telling everyone to stay inside. Between bursts of gunfire, the chatter was fast and nervous. When the shooting started, we gawked at one another. Each one of us was thinking, “How long will this go on?”

I huddled with the Ruffin family. Miss Callie had fainted when the first shot jolted the courtroom. Max and Bobby were clutching her, anxious to get her home.

After holding the town hostage for an hour, the sniper ran out of ammunition. He saved the last bullet for himself, and when he pulled the trigger he fell hard on the small passage door in the floor of the cupola. Sheriff McNatt waited a few minutes, then managed to shove the door up and open. The body of Hank Hooten was naked again. And as dead as fresh roadkill.

A deputy ran down the stairs and yelled, “It’s over! He’s dead! It’s Hank Hooten!”

The bewildered expressions were almost amusing. Hank Hooten? Everyone said the name but no words came out. Hank Hooten?

“That lawyer who went crazy.”

“I thought he got sent away.”

“Isn’t he in Whitfield?”

“Thought he was dead.”

“Who’s Hank Hooten?” Carlota asked me, but I was too confused to give an answer. We spilled outside under the shade trees and lingered for a while, not certain whether we should stay in case there was another incredible event, or go home and try to comprehend the one we’d just lived through. The Ruffin clan left quickly; Miss Callie was not feeling well.

Eventually, an ambulance carrying Danny Padgitt pulled away from the courthouse and left in no hurry whatsoever. The removal of Hank Hooten was a bit more demanding, but with time they wrestled down his corpse, then rolled it out of the courthouse on a gurney, covered from head to toe with a white sheet.

I walked to my office, where Margaret and Wiley were sipping fresh coffee and waiting for me. We were too stunned to engage in intelligent conversation. The entire town was muted.

I eventually made some phone calls, found who I wanted, and around noon left the office. As I drove around the square, I saw Mr. Dex Pratt, who owned the local glass company and ran an ad in the Times every week, on the balcony at Lucien’s, already removing the French doors and replacing panes. I was sure Lucien was home by then, already hitting the sauce on his porch, from where he could see the dome and the cupola of the courthouse.

Whitfield was three hours to the south. I wasn’t sure if I would make it that far, because at any moment I was likely to turn right, head west, cross the river at Greenville or Vicksburg, and be somewhere deep in Texas by dusk. Or take a left, head east, and find a very late dinner somewhere close to Atlanta.

What madness. How did such a pleasant little town end up in such a nightmare? I just wanted out.

I was near Jackson before I came out of my trance.

The state mental hospital was twenty miles east of Jackson on an interstate highway. I bluffed my way through the guardhouse, using the name of a doctor I’d located fishing around with the phone.

Dr. Vero was very busy, and I read magazines for an hour outside his office. When I informed the girl at the desk that I was not leaving, and that I would follow him home if necessary, he somehow found the time to squeeze me in.

Vero had long hair and a grayish beard. His accent was clearly upper midwest. Two diplomas on his wall tracked him through Northwestern and Johns Hopkins, though in the dingy light of his debris-strewn office I couldn’t read the details.

I told him what had happened that morning in Clanton. After my narrative he said, “I can’t talk about Mr. Hooten. As I explained on the phone, we have a doctor-patient privilege.”

“Had. Not have.”

“It survives, Mr. Traynor. It’s still alive, and I’m afraid I can’t discuss this patient.”

I’d been around Harry Rex long enough to know that you never took no for an answer. I launched into a long and detailed account of the Padgitt case, from the trial to the parole to the last month and the tension in Clanton. I told the story of seeing Hank Hooten late one Sunday night in the Calico Ridge Independent Church, and how no one seemed to know anything about him during the last years of his life.

My angle was that the town needed to know what made him snap. How sick was he? Why was he released? There were many questions, and before “we” could put the tragic episode behind “us,” then “we” needed the truth. I caught myself pleading for information.

“How much will you print?” he asked, breaking the ice.

“I’ll print what you tell me to print. And if something’s off-limits, just say so.”

“Let’s take a walk.”

On a concrete bench, in a small shaded courtyard, we sipped coffee from paper cups. “This is what you can print,” Vero began. “Mr. Hooten was admitted here in January 1971. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic, confined here, treated here, and released in October 1976.”

“Who diagnosed him?” I asked.

“We now go off the record. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“This must be confidential, Mr. Traynor. I must have your word on this.”

I put away my pen and notepad and said, “I swear on the Bible that this will not be printed.”

He hesitated for a long time, took several sips of his coffee, and for a moment I thought he might clam up and ask me to leave. Then he relaxed a little, and said, “I treated Mr. Hooten initially. His family had a history of schizophrenia. His mother and possibly his grandmother suffered from it. Quite often genetics play a role in the disease. He was institutionalized while he was in college, and remarkably, managed to finish law school. After his second divorce, he moved to Clanton in the mid-sixties, looking for a place to start over. Another divorce followed. He adored women, but could not survive in a relationship. He was quite enamored with Rhoda Kassellaw and claimed he asked her to marry him repeatedly. I’m sure the young lady was somewhat wary of him. Her murder was very traumatic. And when the jury refused to send her killer to death, he, shall I say, slipped over the edge.”

“Thank you for using layman’s terms,” I said. I remembered the diagnosis around town — “slap-ass crazy.”

“He heard voices, the principal one being that of Miss Kassellaw. Her two small children also talked to him. They begged him to protect her, to save her. They described the horror of watching their mother get raped and murdered in her own bed, and they blamed Mr. Hooten for not saving her. Her killer, Mr. Padgitt, also tormented him with taunts from prison. On many occasions I watched by closed circuit as Mr. Hooten screamed at Danny Padgitt from his room here.”

“Did he mention the jurors?”

“Oh yes, all the time. He knew that three of them — Mr. Fargarson, Mr. Teale, and Mrs. Root — had refused to bring back a death penalty. He would scream their names in the middle of the night.”

“That’s amazing. The jurors vowed to never discuss their deliberations. We didn’t know how they voted until a month ago.”

“Well, he was the assistant prosecutor.”

“Yes, he was.” I vividly remembered Hank Hooten sitting beside Ernie Gaddis at the trial, never saying a word, looking bored and detached from the proceedings. “Did he express a desire to seek revenge?”

A sip of coffee, another pause as he debated whether to answer. “Yes. He hated them. He wanted them dead, along with Mr. Padgitt.”

“Then why was he released?”

“I can’t talk about his release, Mr. Traynor. I wasn’t here at the time, and there might be some liability on the part of this institution.”

“You weren’t here?”

“I left for two years to teach in Chicago. When I returned eighteen months ago, Mr. Hooten was gone.”

“But you’ve reviewed his file.”

“Yes, and his condition improved dramatically while I was away. The doctors found the right mix of antipsychotic drugs and his symptoms diminished substantially. He was released to a community treatment program in Tupelo, and from there he sort of fell off our radar. Needless to say, Mr. Traynor, the treatment of the mentally ill is not a priority in this state, nor in many others. We are grossly understaffed and underfunded.”

“Would you have released him?”

“I cannot answer that. At this point, Mr. Traynor, I think I’ve said enough.”

I thanked him for his time, for his candor, and once again promised to protect his confidence. He asked for a copy of whatever I printed.

I stopped at a fast-food place in Jackson for a cheeseburger. At a pay phone I called the office, half-wondering if I’d missed more shootings. Margaret was relieved to hear my voice.

“You must come home, Willie, and quickly,” she said.

“Why?”

“Callie Ruffin has had a stroke. She’s in the hospital.”

“Is it serious?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Chapter 44

A county bond issue in 1977 had paid for a handsome renovation to our hospital. At one end of the main floor there was a modern, though quite dark, chapel where I’d once sat with Margaret and her family as her mother passed away. It was there that I found the Ruffins, all eight children, all twenty-one grandchildren, and every spouse but Leon’s wife. Reverend Thurston Small was there, along with a sizable contingent from the church. Esau was upstairs in the intensive care unit, waiting outside Miss Callie’s room.

Sam told me that she had awakened from a nap with a sharp pain in her left arm, then numbness in her leg, and before long she was mumbling incoherently. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital. The doctor was certain it was initially a stroke, one that precipitated a mild heart attack. She was being heavily medicated and monitored. The last report from the doctor had been around 8 P.M.; her condition was described as “serious but stable.”

Visitors were not allowed, so there was little to do but wait and pray and greet friends as they came and went. After an hour in the chapel, I was ready for bed. Max, third in the birth order but the undeniable leader, organized a schedule for the night. At least two of Miss Callie’s children would be somewhere in the hospital at all times.

We checked with the doctor again around eleven, and he sounded reasonably optimistic that she was still stable. She was “asleep” as he put it, but upon further questioning admitted that they had her knocked out to prevent another stroke. “Go home and rest,” he said. “Tomorrow could be a long day.” We left Mario and Gloria in the chapel, and moved en masse to the Hocutt House where we ate ice cream on a side porch. Sam had taken Esau home to Lowtown. I was delighted that the rest of the family preferred staying at my place.

Of the thirteen adults there, only Leon and Carlota’s husband, Sterling, would touch alcohol. I opened a bottle of wine, and the three of us passed on the ice cream.

Everyone was exhausted, especially the children. The day had begun with an adventure to the courthouse for a peek at the man who’d been terrorizing our community. That seemed like a week ago. Around midnight, Al gathered the family together in my den for one last word of prayer. A “chain prayer” as he called it, in which every adult and child gave thanks for something and asked for God’s protection of Miss Callie. Sitting there on my sofa, fervently holding hands with Bonnie and with Mario’s wife, I felt the presence of the Lord. I knew my beloved friend, their mother and grandmother, would be fine.

Two hours later I was lying in bed, wide awake, still hearing the sharp crack of the rifle in the courtroom, the thud of the bullet as it hit Danny, the panic that followed. I rewound and replayed every word of Dr. Vero’s, and wondered in what manner of hell poor Hank Hooten had been living for the past few years. Why had he been set loose on society again?

And I worried about Miss Callie, though her condition seemed to be under control and she was in good hands.

I eventually slept for two hours, then eased downstairs where I found Mario and Leon drinking coffee at the kitchen table. Mario had left the hospital an hour earlier; there’d been no change. They were already plotting the stringent weight reduction plan the family would impose on Miss Callie when she was back home. And she would begin an exercise program that would include long walks each day around Lowtown. Regular checkups, vitamins, lean foods.

They were serious about this new health regimen, though everyone knew that Miss Callie would do exactly as she wished.

A few hours later, I began the chore of boxing up the things and junk I’d collected in nine years, and cleaning out my office. The new editor was a pleasant lady from Meridian, Mississippi, and she wanted to get started by the weekend. Margaret offered to help, but I wanted to go slowly and reminisce as I emptied drawers and files. It was a personal moment, and I preferred to be alone.

Mr. Caudle’s books were finally removed from the dusty shelves where they had been placed long before I arrived. I planned to store them somewhere at home, in case an ancestor of his showed up and asked questions.

My emotions were mixed. Everything I touched brought back a story, a deadline, a trip deep into the county to chase a lead, interview a witness, or meet someone I hoped would be interesting enough for a profile. And the sooner I finished the packing, the closer I would be to walking out of the building and catching an airplane.

Bobby Ruffin called at nine-thirty. Miss Callie was awake, sitting up, sipping some tea, and they were allowing visitors for a few minutes. I hurried to the hospital. Sam met me in the hall and led me through the maze of rooms and cubicles in ICU. “Don’t talk about anything that happened yesterday, okay?” he said as we walked.

“Sure.”

“Nothing exciting. They won’t even allow the grandkids in; afraid that would make her heart rate go crazy. Everything is real quiet.”

She was awake, but barely. I had expected to see the bright eyes and brilliant smile, but Miss Callie was barely conscious. She recognized me, we hugged, I patted her right hand. The left one had an IV. Sam, Esau, and Gloria were in the room.

I wanted a few minutes alone so I could finally tell her I was selling the paper, but she was in no condition for such news. She’d been awake for almost two hours, and she obviously needed more sleep. Perhaps in a day or so we could have a lively chat about it.

After fifteen minutes, the doctor showed up and asked us to leave. We left, we came back, and the vigil continued throughout the Fourth of July, though we were not allowed inside the ICU again.

The Mayor decided there would be no fireworks for the Fourth. We’d heard enough explosions, suffered enough from gunpowder. Given the town’s lingering jumpiness, there was no organized objection. The bands marched, the parade went on, the political speeches were the same as before, though with fewer candidates. Senator Theo Morton was a conspicuous no-show. There was ice cream, lemonade, barbecue, cotton candy — the usual food and snacks on the courthouse lawn.

But the town was subdued. Or maybe it was just me. Maybe I was just so tired of the place that nothing seemed right about it. I certainly had the remedy.

After the speeches, I left the square and drove back to the hospital, a little detour that was becoming monotonous. I spoke to Fuzzy, who swept the hospital parking lot, and to Ralph, who washed the windows of the lobby. I stopped by the canteen and bought another lemonade from Hazel, then spoke to Mrs. Esther Ellen Trussel, who was manning the front information desk on behalf of the Pink Ladies, the hospital’s auxiliary. In the waiting room on the second floor I found Bobby with Al’s wife; they were watching television like two zombies. I had just opened a magazine when Sam came running in.

“She’s had another heart attack!” he said.

The three of us jumped to our feet as if we had somewhere to go.

“It just happened! They got the red team in there!”

“I’ll call the house,” I said, and stepped to the pay phone in the hall. Max answered the phone, and fifteen minutes later the Ruffins were streaming into the chapel.

The doctors took forever before giving us an update. It was almost eight P.M. before her treating physician entered the chapel. Doctors are notoriously hard to read, but his heavy eyes and wrinkled brow conveyed an unmistakable message. As he described a “significant cardiac arrest” the eight children of Miss Callie deflated as a group. She was on a respirator, no longer able to breathe by herself.

Within an hour, the chapel was full of her friends. Reverend Thurston Small led a nonstop prayer group near the altar, and people joined it and left it as they wished. Poor Esau sat on the back row, slumped over, thoroughly drained. His grandchildren surrounded him, all very quiet and respectful.

For hours, we waited. And though we tried to smile and be optimistic, there was a feeling of doom. It was as if the funeral had already begun.

Margaret stopped by and we chatted in the hallway. Later, Mr. and Mrs. Fargarson found me and asked to speak to Esau. I led them into the chapel, where they were welcomed warmly by the Ruffins, all of whom expressed great sympathy for the loss of their son.

By midnight we were numb and rapidly losing track of time. Minutes dragged by, then I would look at the clock on the wall and wonder where the past hour went. I wanted to leave, if only to walk outside and breathe fresh air. The doctor, however, had warned us to stay close.

The horror of the ordeal hit when he gathered us around and gravely said it was time for a “final moment with the family.” There were gasps, then tears. I’ll never forget hearing Sam say out loud, “A final moment?”

“This is it?” Gloria asked in absolute terror.

Frightened and bewildered, we followed the doctor out of the chapel, down the hall, up a flight of stairs, all of us moving with the heavy feet of someone marching to his own execution. The nurses helped herd us through the maze in ICU, their faces telling us what we dreaded the most.

As the family filed into the cramped little room, the doctor touched my arm and said, “This should be just for the family.”

“Right,” I said, stopping.

“It’s okay,” Sam said. “He’s with us.”

We packed around Miss Callie and her machines, most of which had been disconnected. The two smallest grandchildren were placed at the foot of her bed. Esau stood closest to her, gently patting her face. Her eyes were closed; she did not appear to be breathing.

She was very much at peace. Her husband and children touched some part of her, and the crying was heartbreaking. I was in a corner, wedged behind Gloria’s husband and Al’s wife, and I simply could not believe where I was or what I was doing.

When Max got his emotions under control, he touched Miss Callie’s arm and said, “Let us pray.” We bowed our heads and most of the crying stopped, for a moment anyway. “Dear Lord, not our will but yours. Into thine hands we commend the spirit of this faithful child of God. Prepare a place for her now in your heavenly kingdom. Amen.”

At sunrise, I was sitting on the porch outside my office. I wanted to be alone, to have a good cry in private. The crying around my house was more than I could bear.

As I had dreamed of traveling the world, I had the recurring vision of returning to Clanton with gifts for Miss Callie. I’d bring her a silver vase from England, linens from the Italy she would never see, perfumes from Paris, chocolates from Belgium, an urn from Egypt, a small diamond from the mines of South Africa. I would present these to her on her porch, before we had lunch, then we would talk about the places they came from. I would send her postcards at every stop. We would review my photographs in great detail. Through me, she would vicariously see the world. She would always be there, waiting eagerly for my return, anxious to see what I’d brought her. She would fill her home with little pieces of the world, and own things that no one, black or white, had ever owned in Clanton.

I ached with the loss of my dear friend. Its suddenness was cruel, as it always is. Its depth was so immense that I could not, at that time, imagine a recovery.

As the town slowly came to life below me, I walked to my desk, shoved some boxes out of the way, and sat down. I took my pen, and for a long time stared at a blank notepad. Eventually, slowly, with great agony, I began the last obituary.

Author’s note

Very few laws remain the same. Once enacted, they are likely to be studied, modified, amended, then often repealed altogether. This constant tinkering by judges and lawmakers is usually a good thing. Bad laws are weeded out. Weak laws are improved. Good laws are fine-tuned.

I took great liberty with a few of the laws that existed in Mississippi in the 1970s. The ones I mistreated in this book have now been amended and improved. I misused them to move my story along. I do this all the time and never feel guilty about it, since I can always disclaim things on this page.

If you spot these mistakes, please don’t write me a letter. I acknowledge my mistakes. They were intentional.

Thanks to Grady Tollison and Ed Perry of Oxford, Mississippi, for their recollections of old laws and procedures. And to Don Whitten and Mr. Jessie Phillips of The Oxford Eagle. And to Gary Greene for technical advice.