Up Jumps the Devil

4

« ^ » It is indeed astonishing, how far ignorance, partiality, and prejudice will often carry people.“Scotus Americanus,” 1773

As so often happens, I no sooner meet someone than he appears in my courtroom.

Wednesday morning, the first day of November, I looked up from the papers before me to see young Billy Wall called to the defendant’s table for issuing worthless checks. A very young, very pregnant woman with short brown curls sat on the bench beside him and she gave his arm an encouraging pat as he stood up and came forward.

The prosecuting witness was Curtis Thornton, a cheerful balding man who owned Thornton Tires, a truck and tractor tire service between Dobbs and Cotton Grove. Mr. Thornton is no stranger here. He’s one of those easy-going businessmen who freely extend credit, accept anybody’s check, and then use district court as their collection agency when the check bounces or the debt isn’t paid.

There’s been some talk about changing the setup and requiring such businessmen to hire private collection agencies or pay the court a fee, but until the laws are changed, all I can do is lecture the Thorntons of the world about their trusting natures and order the defendants to make restitution or go to jail.

Thornton took the stand and testified that this was the second time Billy Wall had made payments with a bad check. “Much as I hate to press charges against such a hardworking young man, Your Honor, you know I do have a business to maintain.”

Speaking in his own defense, Billy Wall was clearly embarrassed to be standing before me so soon after we’d met out at Jap Stancil’s pumpkin patch. He’d crammed his Royster fertilizer cap in the hip pocket of his jeans and his knuckles were rawboned as he leaned his hands against the table. He looked so much like one of my nephews as he earnestly explained how he’d gotten a little behind this fall that I couldn’t help feeling sympathetic toward him.

“My truck needed some work and a set of new tires, too, if I’m going to haul corn up to Washington, and then I had to pay my labor cash or they wouldn’t ready the corn. I swear I’ll give him his money soon as I get back next week, but, Judge, I just ain’t got it till then.”

I could have laid a fine on him in addition to court costs and restitution, but it seemed to me that if Mr. Thornton was going to keep on handing out credit so freely, he could just wait another week for the sixteen hundred dollars Billy Wall owed him. “But I don’t want to see you back in here with Mr. Thornton again,” I warned.

“No, ma’am,” he promised. “Thank you, ma’am.”

As he turned away, his young wife stood up to meet him with a relieved smile, and she, too, murmured thanks to me.

I smiled back and handed the judgment papers over to the clerk, then looked expectantly at Tracy Johnson, the assistant district attorney who was prosecuting today’s calendar. She seemed to be in yet another whispered conference between two attorneys. Court’s busy enough without these constant interruptions.

“What’s the holdup, people?” I asked impatiently.

“Sorry, Your Honor,” said Tracy, without a smidgin of sorrow in her tone as she reached for the next shuck. She’s been an ADA about a year longer than I’ve been on the bench. Tall, blond, knockout gorgeous. Or would be if she’d take off those ugly oversized glasses. She thinks they make her look more professional.

I shifted my gaze to the two attorneys who’d taken advantage of the six-second break that occurs when I sign a judgment and hand the paper over to the recording clerk. Sometimes there are legitimate and urgent reasons for a lawyer to speak with the ADA while court’s in session, but sometimes it’s just a matter of the lawyer’s convenience. Give them too much leeway and they’ll wind up conducting a lot of their business on your time.

“Mr. Whitbread? Mr. Stephenson? Either of you have clients on this morning’s calendar?”

Reid Stephenson’s my own cousin and former law partner and he was too familiar with my testy tone not to say “No, ma’am” and sit himself down, but Edward (“Big Ed”) Whitbread thought he had enough charm to get away with it. He gave me an ingratiating smile as he continued to lean over Tracy’s shoulder. “Your Honor, if I could just—”

“Unless this pertains to the next case, I suggest you speak to Ms. Johnson when we recess,” I said crisply. He probably had business elsewhere and hoped to clear up a small but crucial point with Tracy so he wouldn’t have to wait around till I was ready to recess.

“Sorry, Your Honor.” He lumbered over to squeeze his ample backside in between Reid and another colleague on the attorneys’ bench.

“Call your next case, Ms. Johnson.”

The next thirty-five minutes moved briskly as we disposed of some more guilty pleas. Pimply-faced black and white kids of both sexes stood penitently before my bench, nervous that they were about to lose their driver’s licenses before they’d even worn the new off. Unless they’ve done something really stupid like passing a stopped school bus, roaring through a residential section, or deliberately running a red light, I usually enter a prayer for judgment continued so that they don’t get points against their insurance or licenses.

At ten-thirty, a grandmotherly white woman came forward with a timid air. She didn’t look like a leadfoot even though she was charged with doing 57 in a 45 mph zone. Probably hadn’t noticed when a 55 zone changed to a 45.

“How do you plead?” I asked.

She hesitated nervously and seemed to be on the edge of blank panic.

I leaned forward and spoke as gently as I could. “Guilty or not guilty, ma’am?”

“Guilty,” she blurted. “But I’d sure appreciate it if you could offer up a prayer for my redemption?”

The attorneys and law officials seated on the side benches burst into laughter and I couldn’t stop my own lips from twitching as I said, “You haven’t been with us before, have you, ma’am?”

Bewildered, she shook her head.

I explained what a prayer of judgment was (basically a suspended sentence—the temporal equivalent of “go in peace and sin no more”), entered hers, then announced a fifteen-minute recess.

Three lawyers swarmed toward Tracy.

As I stepped through the courtroom door and out into the corridor, I, too, was waylaid by people who wanted my signature on various documents. I signed a search warrant, a couple of show causes, and a temporary restraining order against a well-known merchant here in Dobbs who always treats his wife with old-fashioned courtesy. At least, that’s how he always treats her in public. According to her attorney, he’d broken her nose last night. For the second time in two years.

I haven’t been on the bench long enough not to still be surprised by the violence that can rage behind a lovely facade of heirloom silver and Queen Anne mahogany.

Eventually I made it to the rest room off the small office assigned to me this week, and when I emerged, I found Merrilee Yadkin Grimes clicking up and down in turquoise high heels in front of the bare desk. She’s a Clairol auburn, a perfect size four body inside that turquoise suit, and five or six years older than me.

(“Than I,” comes Aunt Zell’s voice in my head. Aunt Zell fights a losing battle with my grammar.)

“Hey, Merrilee, what’s up?” I asked. Dallas’s cousin works in Raleigh, a middle manager of something with the Department of Transportation, and would normally be in her own office on a Monday morning.

“It’s not what’s up, but what’s out,” she said, her little Yadkin eyes flashing.

I suddenly remembered that today was finally supposed to be the probable-cause hearing for Cherry Lou Stancil and Tig Wentworth.

The wheels of justice turn slowly in a death penalty case, which was what Douglas Woodall, our district attorney, said he was going for. It had been set back twice now. First, Doug was waiting for results from the SBI lab, then Cherry Lou’s court-appointed attorney had to argue a case in federal court.

“Don’t tell me Judge Longmire didn’t find probable cause,” I said.

“Oh, they’ve both been charged with first-degree murder all right,” Merrilee said angrily, “but he turned her loose on bail.”

“How’d she raise it? I thought John Claude—”

“Not on the land,” said Merrilee. “On Dallas’s rig. He bought it brand-new three years ago and her lawyer argued that it’s community property till they prove her guilty. And she gets to stay in the house and use Dallas’s bank account till then, too.”

“The law does say innocent till proven guilty, Merrilee.”

“Innocent?” She was outraged. “When everybody in Colleton County knows she bought that shotgun just to kill poor Dallas?”

“Did he set bail for Wentworth?”

“No. Mr. Woodall said he’d made enough threats against Ashley and her brother to be a danger to society and that even if he didn’t kill somebody else, he’d probably try to run off, so they’re going to keep his sorry tail in jail with no bail.”

All those -ail words brought a rueful smile to her lips and made her face look five years younger under its artful makeup.

I glanced at my watch. I’d been out of the courtroom nine minutes and I still didn’t have my cup of coffee. Interesting as all this was, I could probably hear the rest of the details over lunch with Roger Longmire.

“I’m sorry, Merrilee,” I said, “but if you’re wanting me to do something about Cherry Lou’s bail—”

“No, no, it’s not that. What I really stopped by for was to see if there’s some way to put a stop on Uncle Jap’s bank account. Maybe get them to give me his power of attorney or whatever you call it before all his money’s gone?”

For a moment I wondered where Jap Stancil got enough cash money for Merrilee to worry about. Then I remembered the ornamental corn and how his share was probably going to bring him five or six thousand.

“Oh yes. I saw him with the Wall boy a couple of weeks ago. He sounded pretty cogent to me about their business deal.”

“I don’t mean Billy Wall even if Uncle Jap hasn’t seen a penny of the sales yet. The way he’s carrying on though, it’s just as well. Every penny’d be right down the drain.”

“Don’t tell me he’s started drinking again? I thought he swore off for good at the funeral.”

Jasper Stancil had pulled some monumental drunks in his day, but Daddy said he’d already tapered off even before Dallas was killed.

“Allen’s got him started again,” said Merrilee with returning anger. “You know Allen Stancil, don’t you? Uncle Jap’s brother’s boy?”

She paused and I could almost see her mind grasp at the tendrils of old gossip. “In fact, didn’t you date him or something once?”

“Water over the dam,” I said hastily. “What’s he done now?”

“I thought he was just here for a sympathy visit, but he’s settled into Uncle Jap’s spare room like he’s here to stay. He’s got Uncle Jap drinking, got him fixing up that old repair shop, got him thinking he’s forty again. Petey and I stopped by last week on the way to church to take Uncle Jap a plate of my fresh ham and sweet potatoes. Half the time he forgets to eat. I signed him up for meals-on-wheels so he’d get lunch through the week, but I like to make sure he eats on the weekend, too. I thought sure Allen would have gone by now, but there he was, cleaning out that garage—on Sunday, too!—like he owned the place. He’s just as sorry as he ever was and I wish there was some way to get him to leave before he drags other people down with him.”

High heels clicking on the bare tiles, Merrilee was back pacing again.

It didn’t take me but a moment to understand the real reason for her agitation. Like Allen and Dallas, Pete Grimes also had a rough, hardscrabble childhood, only there had been no Miss Elsie to mitigate his father’s drunken rages or to comfort him with a mother’s pitying love. Pete’s trashy mother had fought his even trashier father for the last drink in the bottle and it never worried either of them if the kids went off to school hungry, dirty and ragged. They didn’t care if the kids went to school at all, long as they weren’t being pestered by truant officers.

Even though he drank too much and drove too fast and ran with a rough crowd after he grew up, Pete was never as bad as some of those older Grimes boys and he had a gruff charm that convinced Merrilee he was worth saving. Must be something in their blood that makes Yadkin women such redemptionists: first Miss Elsie, then Merrilee. On the other hand, there’s a reason why so many country songs tell of wild men tamed by the love of a good woman, and Pete Grimes isn’t the first roughneck to run through a couple of bad marriages before taking happily to a well-ordered life. Such a man appreciates regular meals, a tidy house, and a woman who can lead him to Jesus.

In fact, Pete thinks Merrilee’s a saint for loving him and he’ll tell anybody who’ll listen how grateful he is to her. “She raised me up,” he says. “I’d be in jail or dead by now if it wasn’t for her.”

But Merrilee lives in fear that Pete might backslide and she tries to keep him away from bad influences like Allen.

“And now Uncle Jap’s saying he’s going to hire Charlie Holt to come fix that old hydraulic lift like he’s got half the wealth of the world and he doesn’t, Deb’rah. Except for a little bitty Social Security check, all he has is his corn money and what he picks up selling pumpkins and turnip salad at the flea market. But Allen’s going to use him just like he uses everybody and what’s poor old Uncle Jap going to do if he has to go in a nursing home or something? Last time he got to drinking so bad, the doctor said his liver couldn’t hold out much longer.”

She didn’t wait for my answer. “So what I want you to tell me is, how can I get Uncle Jap’s power of attorney? Or maybe get me named his guardian?”

“You can’t,” I said bluntly. “Not unless he agrees to it or you can show that he’s mentally incompetent. And even that might not do it if his nephew wanted to fight you for it. After all, he’s Mr. Jap’s closest kin. You’re only related through Mr. Jap’s wife and she’s dead.”

“But I was blood kin to Dallas and I’m the one that’s been looking after Uncle Jap for years,” Merrilee argued. “Ever since Aunt Elsie died, whenever Dallas went on the road, he went easy, knowing I’d check on his daddy while he was gone. Even after he married Cherry Lou and brought her back here to that nice house he built for Mary Otlee, I’m the one Uncle Jap always called if he needed anything, not her. And certainly not Allen Stancil. What’s he ever done his whole life but crash in on Dallas and Uncle Jap every time he gets fired or wrecks his car or needs to hide out from some woman?”

“Everybody knows how good you’ve been to Mr. Jap,” I assured her, “but unless you can show that he’s no longer competent, he can stand on top of the courthouse and fling his money to the four winds if he wants to and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Merrilee looked horrified at the thought.

I looked at my watch.

I’d been out fourteen and a half minutes, so no coffee for me this morning.

Darned if Allen wasn’t doing it to me again.

By lunchtime, we’d disposed of all the Guilty pleas and made a start on the Not Guiltys.

Administering justice is like shoveling smoke. Justice Learned Hand said that.

Shoveling smoke. That’s exactly what it seems like sometimes—the same petty offenses over and over, and yeah, I got caught but here’s why it’s not really my fault, Your Honor: I was just going with the flow; my speedometer was off; somebody was tailgating me and I had to keep out of their way; that stop sign I run was hid behind some bushes/too far off the shoulder/won’t there the last time I come through that crossing; if that lady didn’t slam on her brakes, I wouldn’t have rear-ended her; the only reason the officer stopped me is because I’m black/a teenager/a senior citizen/driving a red sports car.

Actually, I’m always just a little sympathetic to that last excuse. Ask any cop. A bright red car is four times more likely to get pulled for speeding than a nondescript blue one. I myself haven’t had a single ticket since I smartened up and reluctantly traded my red Corvette for a dark green Firebird.

Of course, except for the Possum Creek bottom and one other back-country stretch, I’ve pretty much quit speeding since I came to the bench. And for the record, no, I never asked anybody to fix a ticket for me before that. You can’t preach responsibility to others and then weasel out of the consequences of your own actions.

Unlike our new “family values” congressman who washed in on the ultraconservative tidal wave last year.

When his car passed another in a no-passing zone and caused an oncoming van to flip over, he swore to the patrolman that his wife was driving, even though five witnesses had him behind the wheel and two more said they saw him changing places with her immediately after the accident. The DA kindly offered to let him plead nolo contendere and he took the deal because, and I quote, “I didn’t want to spend the next six months proving that my wife was guilty,” which, I suppose, says something about family values?

Some local wags said his greatest fear was that Jesse Helms would find out he’d been caught going left of the center, while others went out and made up a bumper sticker that said MY WIFE WAS DRIVING.

Fortunately, I didn’t have anything quite that colorful on the day’s docket. We finished up shortly before four and I went looking for Dwight Bryant. He’s not seeing anyone right now and with Kidd a hundred miles away and most of my women friends tied up at night, I’m usually at loose ends during the week, too.

I found him at his desk in the sheriff’s department. “Want to drive over to Raleigh and catch the early show at the Longbranch?”

“Can’t. I’m overseeing security at East Dobbs’s football game tonight. It’s a makeup game.”

As Sheriff Bo Poole’s chief of detectives, Dwight wasn’t exactly earning a shabby salary and I raised my eyebrows. “Moonlighting?”

“Yeah,” he said dejectedly. “Got a call from Jonna last week. Cal’s front teeth are coming in crooked and he’s going to need braces.”

Braces on top of the maximum child support for his income bracket? Wasn’t going to leave him much walking-around money. Most of Dwight’s friends think Jonna took him to the cleaners in their “amicable” divorce, but we never hear him gripe about it.

I was ready to gripe for him. “Cal inherits her teeth, and she can’t pay for the braces?”

He shrugged. “What can I tell you? C’est la damn vie.”

Sitting in domestic court a few days later, I thought of Dwight as I listened to a long string of excuses from the men who’d been hauled before me because they refused to recognize their responsibilities toward the children they had fathered. One man with a half a pound of gold around his neck and wrists explained that he’d gotten behind on his child support because he had to buy a new suit and a plane ticket to California. His brother was getting married and he was the best man.

Best man.

Right.

Three more said they’d been laid off. No jobs, no money.

I could have sent them to jail, but why should taxpayers support them and their kids, too? Instead, I’ve picked up on something a colleague over in Goldsboro’s been trying. When deadbeat dads (and the occasional deadbeat mom) quit paying because they aren’t working, the Honorable Joe Setzer fills their days with community service. They get to sweep gutters, pick up litter, rake leaves, mop floors, or wash windows—eight hours a day, zero pay. After a few days of working for free, most of these young men miraculously find jobs that let them resume their child support obligations.

Along with everything else today, I also had a contested paternity suit from a few weeks earlier. Clea Beecham, the mother; Timothy Collins, the alleged father; and Brittany Beecham, a perfectly adorable two-year-old baby girl.

The young mother swore that Collins was the only man she’d been with for six months before the baby was conceived.

Collins admitted that he’d lived with Ms. Beecham during the pertinent time period, “But I’m not the first guy she ever slept with and I certainly wasn’t the last. That’s why we broke up. She was seeing the same guy she’d been with before me.”

As is not unusual in proceedings like this, both parties had insisted on blood tests and I’d agreed to the postponement. My good friend Portland Brewer was representing Timothy Collins and from that kitten-in-cream look in her eye this morning, I didn’t really have to hear the testimony to know that the blood test had turned out well for her client. She stepped forward now to question the witness, a qualified technician from one of the medical labs in the Research Triangle who had taken the stand with a thin manila folder.

Mrs. Diana Henderson was in her early forties. She wore a black skirt and a white silk blouse that was neatly knotted at the neck. Despite her businesslike air of competence as the clerk swore her in, Mrs. Henderson hadn’t entirely forgotten she was a woman. Her blouse was demurely styled, but so sheer that when she twisted around to retrieve a dropped document, I could clearly see the lace on her slip and even a dark mole on her left shoulder blade. That plain black skirt did nothing to disguise her slender hips, and her black patent T-straps had three-inch heels that drew attention to her slender ankles. Ash blond hair fell softly around her thin face.

Not the most attractive face, unfortunately. She had nice eyes, but her nose was too long and her chin was almost nonexistent.

Her voice was music though—soft, yet every word distinct and deliberate as she told in measured tones how she’d taken blood samples from Mr. Collins and Ms. Beecham and the baby girl. She described the tests she’d performed and explained how the results proved conclusively that Mr. Collins could not possibly be this baby’s father.

Ms. Beecham’s attorney gamely tried to get the technician to admit that the tests weren’t absolutely positively one hundred percent accurate, but Mrs. Henderson wasn’t having it “While they can’t prove conclusively who the father is,” she said authoritatively, “they do prove who the father isn’t. There is no way that the man who provided this blood sample could have fathered this particular child.”

As I thanked Mrs. Henderson and dismissed the case, young Timothy Collins triumphantly kissed his new girlfriend—at least I assume from the length of the kiss that she was not his sister.

And judging by the baffled yet grimly determined expression on Clea Beecham’s face, I had a feeling I’d be seeing her back in court as soon as her attorney could serve papers on her other ex-lover.

They left my courtroom and a social worker came forward to petition for the termination of parental rights to two young half-brothers barely out of diapers. The mother was a seventeen-year-old crack addict who left the boys alone for hours at a time. They had been in foster care several times. The final straw for Social Services was when she left them locked in a closed car on a hot September day and they nearly suffocated before someone noticed and broke open the door.

Several witnesses, including her own aunt, took the stand to testify as to her unfitness to care for the boys.

“I’d take ’em myself,” said the aunt, as tears cut new furrows in her cheeks, “ ’cepting I’m already raising one for my boy and two for my girls and I just can’t do no more.”

Both fathers were unknown.

The mother had not bothered to come to court.

The woman who had fostered the boys almost from birth wanted to adopt them permanently. After testifying on the sorry state of the boys’ health and physical dirtiness each time they were returned to her care, she took a seat on the front row and watched me anxiously.

I went back through both case jackets and still saw nothing to indicate that the natural mother had half the maternal instincts of the average alley cat. Carrying a child in her womb for nine months doesn’t automatically turn any female into a mother; and much as we’d like to think every baby’s wanted and loved, wishing’s never made anything so.

The foster mother had only a grade-school education, but Social Services called her a decent, caring person. God knows those boys could use some decency and caring.

I signed the termination forms and called for the next case.

Shoveling smoke.