“Oh, I’m so afraid. What if they arrest you for what you did last week? For driving Tom around while he was wanted?”
“I don’t think they will. I’ve been helping the FBI and the Louisiana State Police with some important cases. They don’t want me in custody. The sheriff in Natchez could give me some hassle, but I don’t think he wants to get crossways with the feds over one dried-up old Texas Ranger.”
The hiss of bad connection comes over the speakers. Then Carmelita says, “Walter, I’m so worried. You’ve risked so much for Tom already. I know he’s your friend, but . . .”
“But what, darlin’? Spit it out.”
“Are you sure Tom didn’t hurt that nurse? Not even as a—how you say, mercy?”
“Mercy killing.”
“Sí. Are you certain, in your heart?”
This time the silence drags so long that my pulse begins pounding in my ears. Then Walt speaks words that I know he will regret for the rest of his life.
“Carmelita . . . the truth is, I don’t know what happened in that house that night. And part of me doesn’t want to know. The truth is, even if he did kill her, I wouldn’t do anything different than I’ve done. I know you don’t understand it, but the man is my friend. And I owe him. From Korea, and for a lot more.”
“I know,” Carmelita says. “I’m not trying to nag you. I just worry.”
“I know. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Shad raises his hand, and his assistant stops the tape.
Beside me, my mother has lowered her head, surely to mask tears. In the witness box, Walt looks out over the crowd with the same iron self-control he always displays. But inside he is dying.
“Your Honor,” Shad says, “I have no further questions for this witness.”
Walt starts to get up, but Judge Elder says, “You haven’t been released, Captain.”
Judge Elder looks at the defense table. “Mr. Avery?”
“No questions, Your Honor.”
Walt just manages to hold himself in the chair until Judge Elder says, “You may step down.”
Joe Elder watches Walt walk away like a weathered statue of a cowboy brought to life: his chin held high, his eyes scanning the crowd, zeroing in on anyone who stares at him. I suspect that, like most men in the room, Joe Elder is wondering just what he would have done had he found himself in that ambulance on that freezing night.
At first I can only see the back of my father’s head, but then he turns to watch every step of Walt’s journey out of the courtroom. As Walt passes the bar, pain flickers in his face, but beyond him I see my father’s eyes, and they are filled with forgiveness.
“Mr. Johnson,” prompts Judge Elder. “You may call your next witness.”
Shad comes to his feet, his hands at his side.
“Your Honor, the State rests.”
My first reaction is relief—pure, unbounded relief that Dad is not going to be subjected to a parade of relatives of deceased patients claiming that he helped to kill their loved ones. But before I can think too much about this, Judge Elder looks down at Quentin and says, “Mr. Avery, are you ready to proceed with your opening statement?”
“Your Honor, I am. But I have two issues. First, I’m having some medical issues, and I’d like to deal with those before my opening statement. Second, my first witness is flying in from out of state, and he only landed in Baton Rouge a half hour ago. He’s at least forty-five minutes away. Further, I only intend to make very brief remarks in my open. For those reasons, if the court is amenable, I would prefer to make my opening statement tomorrow morning, and then proceed directly with my first witness.”
Many judges would agree to this, but Joe Elder says, “Is your medical problem acute, Mr. Avery?”
Quentin seems surprised by the question. “It’s . . . well, more of a chronic issue, Judge.”
“It’s not yet four o’clock, Mr. Avery. Unless you have an acute emergency, we can’t afford to waste the court’s valuable time due to inadequate travel arrangements for your witness.”
Quentin appears so shocked by Elder’s response that he’s at a loss for words.
In the resulting vacuum, the judge says, “I will grant a ten-minute recess if you need to take medication or deal with any physical needs. But after that, you will proceed with your opening statement.”
To my surprise, Quentin actually turns and looks back at me, but I can’t read his eyes. Is he asking me to help him decide what to do?
“No, thank you, Judge,” he says, turning back to the bench. “I’ll proceed with my statement now.”
“Very well.” Elder gives Quentin a suspicious look. “You may begin.”
And with that, “Preacher” Quentin Avery whirs around the defense table, stops beside the podium, and faces a jury that, like me, must wonder just what this unpredictable attorney’s idea of an opening statement might be.
Chapter 42
“Lord, our district attorney likes to talk, doesn’t he?”
Quentin has stationed his wheelchair beside the podium, but I’m sure this is only his initial position. He will almost certainly move around the courtroom during his statement, seizing and releasing the territory between judge, jury, and the spectators like a wily field general, pressing home every advantage that his handicap gives him. “I guess when you graduate from a high-dollar law school like Harvard, you just can’t resist exercising all those fine, big words they teach up there.”
“Mr. Avery,” Judge Elder breaks in, “you know better than that.”
“My apologies, Judge. In my younger days I used to pride myself on my own verbal facility, but I’ve gotten so old now that I have to get straight to the point. When you’re liable to have to run to the restroom any minute, like me, you can’t take time to gild the lily.”
Quentin rolls his chair out into the open space before the jury box and smiles at them like a kindly patriarch about to address his relations at a family reunion.
“Where do I begin, ladies and gentlemen? To tell you the truth, my head is spinning. As best I can remember, we started out yesterday morning in Natchez, Mississippi, in 2005, and we ended up this afternoon by the side of a road in North Korea in 1950. I can hardly get my bearings. So while I try, I’m going to tell you a story about my daddy.
“Yesterday and today, while the district attorney’s witnesses paraded in and out of that box, I kept thinking back to my childhood. World War Two was going on, and I was nine or ten years old. This was a frightening time in the world, with nobody quite sure what was true and what wasn’t. Well, I got into trouble at school with some other boys, and then I managed to get out of it. I did that by using my quick wits and quicker tongue. I was pretty proud of myself, yes sir. Downright smug, probably. But you couldn’t keep nothing from my daddy. By four thirty that evening, Daddy knew everything that had happened. And he sat me down on our old porch and said something I never forgot. He said, ‘Son, half the truth is a whole lie.’”
Quentin falls silent, seemingly lost in a reverie about his father.