Judge Elder says, “Mr. Avery?”
Quentin looks up as though surprised. “Your Honor?”
“Do you have any questions for this witness?”
“No. No questions, Judge.”
As the whole crowd murmurs in amazement, Judge Elder looks down at Quentin as though he has truly lost his mind.
Why has Quentin allowed this? I wonder. For the first time I consider standing to cross-examine a witness. Could I possibly make up some ground with Major Powers? How? I’ve had no time to prep, and my father never told me anything about the episode in the ambulance, or anything else about his wartime experience. Besides, once Quentin allowed Powers’s story to be told, the damage was done.
“You’re free to go, Major,” Judge Elder says.
Major Powers gets to his feet and marches toward the center aisle with military precision. As he passes the defense table, he pauses, looks down, then hawks and spits on my father’s chest.
No one makes a sound. No one except my mother, who emits a soft and desolate cry.
Major Powers stands his ground, as though daring Dad to rise and fight him, but my father merely looks back at him and says, “I’m sorry, Major.”
The pilot shakes his head with contempt, then walks down the aisle as though he can’t wait to get out of the state of Mississippi.
As Quentin takes a handkerchief from his coat pocket and begins wiping my father’s coat and shirt with it, pandemonium erupts in the courtroom. In the balcony I see Serenity on her feet, both hands on the rail, her eyes locked on mine as she slowly shakes her head. When Judge Elder orders a ten-minute recess so that my father can clean up, my mother sags against me, but I jump up and pull Jenny into my seat to support her. I have time for only one thing now.
Firing Quentin Avery.
Chapter 40
The crowd of spectators stunned silent by Major Powers spitting on my father are now on their feet and swirling in place like too many cattle forced into a pen. My first instinct is to pass the bar and go straight to Quentin, but a sheriff’s deputy blocks my way. Over his shoulder I see the bailiff leading Quentin and my father out of the courtroom through the judge’s chambers. With the chaos behind me, it’s not hard to see why. As the jury members file into the jury room, George Dobson, the circuit clerk, calls something to the deputy blocking my way, then beckons me into the well of the courtroom.
“What the hell’s going on in this trial, Penn?” he asks in an urgent whisper. “Thurgood Marshall’s just about got your daddy in the penitentiary. Two days ago I didn’t think Shad had a chance in hell of convicting Doc. But if that jury had to vote right now . . . Is Avery all there, or is it time for the nursing home?”
“I’m afraid it’s the latter.” I grab the clerk’s forearm. “If I can get to him before this break is over, I’m going to fire him. Can you get me out through the judge’s chambers? If I have to fight my way through this crowd, I’ll never catch Quentin in time.”
“I’d call that a critical mission.” Dobson looks over his shoulder at the guarded door. “Give it fifteen more seconds, then I’ll take you through.”
“Thanks, George. I owe you.”
Even after being led to the broad hallway between the circuit court and the chancery court via the judge’s chambers, I find myself in the midst of a milling crowd. Rising onto tiptoe, I catch sight of Quentin’s wheelchair rolling into the tax assessor’s office, a deputy walking escort. Casting aside the good manners I was raised with, I bull through the crowd and cover the distance to the door of the tax assessor’s office. Through the glass in the door I see a secretary I’ve known since I was a teenager. Spying me, she tilts her head toward the door to the assessor’s private office.
As I reach for the knob, the deputy who escorted Quentin starts to challenge me, but after recognizing me and seeing the look in my eye, he backs off.
“Mrs. Evans,” I say, “we might get loud in there.”
The secretary picks up her purse and comes around the desk. “Of course, Mr. Mayor. I have an errand to run anyway. Please just lock the door when you leave.”
“I will.”
Opening the inner door, I see Quentin seated at the window of the private office, looking out at the Eola Hotel four blocks away.
“I told you it was going to get worse before it gets better,” he says. Then he turns to me, and I see fatigue and pain in his eyes. The shock of white hair looks less theatrical from up close, and more the result of old age.
“Go ahead,” he says with resignation. “Speak your piece.”
Only then do I notice Doris standing in the corner of the office, looking as though she’s been crying.
“I gave you half a day,” I say evenly. “Your time’s up.”
“I haven’t even given my opening statement.”
“You’re not going to give it. You’re done, Quentin. I’m sorry.” I look over at Doris, who appears profoundly shaken. “That man should never have been allowed on the stand.”
“That depends on your point of view,” Quentin says.
“Well, from the point of view of a lawyer, the sum total of Major Powers’s testimony was inadmissible. And you could have stopped it with a single objection.”
“Your father won’t fire me, Penn.”
I move to my right, demanding that he look me in the eye. “I hope I won’t have to ask him to. I’m asking you to step aside, as a point of honor.”
Quentin takes a long breath, sighs heavily. “Tell me something. If you take over Tom’s case, how are you going to begin?”
“By finding out what happened that night, and building a case from there.”
“Tom won’t tell you.”
“After what just happened in court, he might.”
“You’re wrong. A little spit isn’t much to a man who’s faced gunfire.”
“That wasn’t just spit. That was contempt. And contempt can maim a man like Dad worse than bullets can.”
With his trademark click and whir, Quentin backs up and rotates his chair to face me. “I shouldn’t have to tell a big-shot prosecutor this, but juries don’t like being excluded. They don’t like lawyers trying to keep witnesses from saying what they want to say. They don’t like judges and lawyers whispering where they can’t hear, and they hate it when you go back into chambers. As you told me yesterday, we’re dealing with an interracial affair, a mixed-race child, a possible mercy killing, even murder of a patient by a doctor. Those are tantalizing issues. And the jury isn’t going to take kindly to a slick lawyer saying, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t see this bit here, as juicy as it may be. Yes, there’s a tape of the victim’s death, but by exploiting a technicality I’m going to stop you from watching it.’ That’s not the way I’m going to run this case, my brother. And that’s not the way your daddy wants it run.”
“He wants the whole truth out there. That’s the deal?”
“That’s the deal.”