“Who pays Sistrunk?”

“I’m assuming he has a contract with that woman. If she wins, he’ll take a percentage.”

“What the hell is Rufus Buckley doing slinking around the case?”

“He’s the local counsel for Sistrunk.”

“Hitler and Mussolini. They trying to offend every single person in Ford County?”

“Apparently so.”

“And it will be a jury trial, right?”

The lawyer answered, “Oh yes. Seems like everyone wants a jury trial, including Judge Atlee.”

“Why Judge Atlee?”

“It’s simple. Takes the monkey off his back. He doesn’t have to make the decision. You’re gonna have big winners and big losers, and with a jury verdict no one can blame the judge.”

“I’ll lay ten-to-one odds right now the jury finds against that woman.”

The lawyer said, “Let’s wait, okay? Let’s give it a few months so Judge Atlee will have time to put everyone in their box, get things organized and planned and set for a trial. Then right before it starts we’ll set up a pool and lay odds. I enjoy taking your money. What, four Super Bowls in a row now?”

“How they gonna find twelve people who know nothing about this case? Everybody I know’s got an opinion, and you can be damned certain every African within a hundred miles is angling for a cut. I heard Sistrunk wants to move the trial to Memphis.”

The lawyer said, “It can’t be moved out of state, knucklehead. But he has requested a change of venue.”

“Didn’t Jake try and move the Hailey case? To a friendlier county, one with more black voters?”

“He did, but Judge Noose declined. Hailey was a far bigger case than this one, though.”

“Maybe. It didn’t have twenty million bucks on the line.”

The Democratic geezer asked the lawyer, “You think Jake can win this case for that woman?”

Everyone stopped talking for a second and looked at the lawyer. He’d been asked the same question at least four times in the past three weeks while sitting at the same table. “Depends,” he said gravely. “If Sistrunk is in the courtroom, there’s no way they win. If it’s just Jake, then I’d give him a fifty-fifty chance.” And this from a lawyer who never went to court.

“I hear he’s got a secret weapon these days.”

“What kind?”

“They say Lucien Wilbanks has returned to the bar. And not for drinking. He’s supposedly hanging around Jake’s office.”

The lawyer said, “He’s back. I’ve seen him in the courthouse digging through old land records and wills. Hasn’t changed a bit.”

“That’s sad to hear.”

“Did he appear to be sober?”

“Somewhat.”

“Surely Jake won’t let him near the jury.”

“I doubt if Judge Atlee will allow him in the courtroom.”

“He can’t practice law, can he?”

“No, he was permanently disbarred, which means, in his case, he has to wait eight years before he can apply for reinstatement.”

“It’s permanent, but for eight years?”

“Yep.”

“That makes no sense.”

“That’s the law.”

“The law, the law.”

“Who said, ‘The first thing we should do is kill all the lawyers’?”

“I think it was Shakespeare.”

“I thought it was Faulkner.”

To which the lawyer replied, “When we start quoting Shakespeare, it’s time for me to leave.”

The phone call came from Floyd Green at Parchman. By a vote of 3 to 2, the Parole Board had decided to release Dennis Yawkey. There was no explanation. Floyd made some vague references to the mysterious workings of the Parole Board. Jake knew the State had a long, sordid tradition of cash for pardons, but he refused to believe the Yawkey family could have been sophisticated enough to pull off a bribe.

Ten minutes later, Ozzie called with the same news. He conveyed his disbelief and frustration. He told Jake that he, Ozzie, would personally drive to Parchman the following day to retrieve Dennis, and that he would have two hours alone with the boy in the car. He would make every threat possible, and forbid the kid to enter the city limits of Clanton.

Jake thanked him and called Carla.

18

Rufus Buckley parked his weathered Cadillac on the other side of the square, as far from Jake’s office as possible. For a moment he sat in his car and remembered how much he loathed the town of Clanton, its courthouse, its voters, and especially his history there. There was a time, not too many years earlier, when the voters adored him and he considered them part of his base, the foundation from which he would launch a statewide race for governor, and from there, well, who knew? He’d been their district attorney, a young hard-charging prosecutor with a gun on each hip, a noose in hand, and no fear of the bad guys. Find ’em, haul ’em in, then watch Rufus string ’em up. He campaigned hard on his 90 percent conviction rate, and his people loved him. Three times they had voted for him in overwhelming numbers, but the last time around, last year with the bitter Hailey verdict still fresh on their minds, the good people of Ford County turned him out. He also lost badly in Tyler, Milburn, and Van Buren Counties, pretty much the entire Twenty-Second District, though his home folks in Polk County limped to the polls and gave him a pathetic sixty-vote margin.

His career as a public servant was over—though, at the age of forty-four, he could at times almost convince himself there was a future, that he was still needed. By whom and for what he wasn’t certain. His wife was threatening to leave if he ever again declared himself a candidate for anything. After ten months of puttering around a small quiet office and watching the paltry traffic on Main Street, Rufus was bored, defeated, depressed, and going out of his mind. The phone call from Booker Sistrunk had been a miracle, and Rufus leapt at the chance to plunge into some controversy. The fact that Jake was the enemy only made the case richer.

He opened the door, got out, and hoped no one would recognize him. How the mighty had fallen.

The Ford County Courthouse opened at 8:00 a.m., and five minutes later Rufus walked through the front door, as he had done so many times before in another life. Back then he was respected, even feared. Now he was ignored, except for the slightly delayed glance from a janitor who almost said, “Say, don’t I know you?” He hustled upstairs and was pleased to find the main courtroom unlocked and unguarded. The hearing was set for 9:00 a.m. and Rufus was the first one there. This was by design because he and Mr. Sistrunk had a plan.

It was only his third visit back since the Hailey trial, and the horror of losing hit low in the bowels. He stopped just inside the large double doors and took in the vastness of the empty, awful courtroom. His knees were spongy and for a second he felt faint. He closed his eyes and heard the voice of the court clerk, Jean Gillespie, read the verdict: “As to each count of the indictment, we the jury find the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity.” What a miscarriage! But you can’t gun down two boys in cold blood and then say you did it because they deserved it. No, you have to find a legal reason for doing so, and insanity was all Jake Brigance had to offer.