"Your Honor, I object to this witness testifying to anything the victim said. It's clearly heresay."
"Your motion is on file, Mr. Wilbanks. We've had our debate in chambers, and it is on the record. You may answer the question, Mr. Deece."
Mr. Deece swallowed hard, inhaled and exhaled, and looked at the jurors. "Two or three times, she said, 'It was Danny Padgitt. It was Danny Padgitt.' "
For dramatic effect, Ernie let those bullets crack through the air, then ricochet around the courtroom while he pretended to look at some notes. "You ever met Danny Padgitt, Mr. Deece?"
"No sir."
"Had you ever heard his name before that night?"
"No sir."
"Did she say anything else?"
"The last thing she said was, 'Take care of my babies.' "
Ginger was touching her eyes with a tissue. Miss Callie was praying. Several of the jurors were looking at their feet.
He finished his story - he called the Sheriff's department; his wife had the children in a bedroom behind a locked door; he took a shower because he was covered with blood; the deputies showed up, did their investigating; the ambulance came and took away the body; he and his wife stayed with the children until around two in the morning, then rode with them to the hospital in Clanton. They stayed with them there until a relative arrived from Missouri.
There was nothing in his testimony that could be challenged or impeached, so Lucien Wilbanks declined a cross-examination. The State rested, and we broke for lunch. I drove Ginger to Karaway, to the only Mexican place I knew, and we ate enchiladas under an oak tree and talked about everything but the trial. She was subdued and wanted to leave Ford County forever.
I really wanted her to stay.
* * *
Lucien Wilbanks began his defense with a little pep talk about what a nice young man Danny Padgitt really was. He had finished high school with good grades, he worked long hours in the family's timber business, he dreamed of one day running his own company. He had no police record whatsoever. His only brush with the law had been one, just one, speeding ticket when he was sixteen years old.
Lucien's persuasive skills were reasonably well honed, but he was collapsing under the weight of the effort. It was impossible to make a Padgitt appear warm and cuddly. There was quite a bit of squirming in the courtroom, some smirks here and there. But we weren't the ones deciding the case. Lucien was talking to the jurors, looking them in the eyes, and no one knew if he and his client had already locked up a vote or two.
However, Danny was not a saint. Like most handsome young men he had discovered he enjoyed the company of ladies. He had met the wrong one, though, a woman who happened to be married to someone else. Danny was with her the night Rhoda Kassellaw was murdered.
"Listen to me!" he bellowed at the jurors. "My client did not kill Miss Kassellaw! At the time of this horrible murder, he was with another woman, in her home not far from the Kassellaw place. He has an airtight alibi."
This announcement sucked the air out of the courtroom, and for a long minute we waited for the next surprise. Lucien played the drama perfectly. "This woman, his lover, will be our first witness," he said.
They brought her in moments after Lucien finished his opening remarks. Her name was Lydia Vince. I whispered to Baggy and he said he'd never heard of her; didn't know any Vinces from out in Beech Hill. There were a lot of whispers in the courtroom as folks tried to place her, and gauging from the frowns and puzzled looks and head shakes it appeared as though the woman was a complete unknown. Lucien's preliminary questions revealed that she was living in a rented house on Hurt Road back in March but was now living in Tupelo, that she and her husband were going through a divorce, that she had one child, that she grew up in Tyler County, and that she was currently unemployed. She was about thirty years old, somewhat attractive in a cheap way - short skirt, tight blouse over a big chest, bottle-blond hair - and she was utterly terrified of the proceedings.
She and Danny had been having an adulterous affair for about a year. I glanced at Miss Callie and was not surprised to see this was not sitting well.
On the night Rhoda was murdered, Danny was at her house. Malcolm Vince, her husband, was supposedly in Memphis, doing something with the boys, she really didn't know what. He was gone a lot in those days. She and Danny had sex twice and sometime around midnight he was preparing to leave when her husband's truck turned into the driveway. Danny sneaked out the rear door and disappeared.
The shock of a married woman admitting in open court that she had committed adultery was designed to convince the jury that she had to be telling the truth. No one, respectable or otherwise, would admit this. It would damage her reputation, if she cared about such things. It would certainly impact her divorce, perhaps jeopardize custody of her child. It might even allow her husband to sue Danny Padgitt for alienation of affection, though it was doubtful the jurors were thinking that far ahead.
Her answers to Lucien's questions were brief and very well rehearsed. She refused to look at the jurors or at her alleged former lover. Instead, she kept her eyes down and appeared to be looking at Lucien's shoes. Both the lawyer and the witness were careful not to venture outside the script. "She's lyin'," Baggy whispered loudly, and I agreed.
When the direct examination was over, Ernie Gaddis stood and walked deliberately to the podium, staring with great suspicion at this self-confessed adulteress. He kept his reading glasses on the tip of his nose, and looked above them with wrinkled brow and narrow eyes. Very much the professor who'd just caught a bad student cheating.
"Miss Vince, this house on Hurt Road. Who owned it?"
"Jack Hagel."
"How long did you live there?"
"About a year."
"Did you sign a lease?"
She hesitated for a split second too long, then said, "Maybe my husband did. I really don't remember."
"How much was the rent each month?"
"Three hundred dollars."
Ernie wrote down each answer with great effort, as though each detail was about to be diligently investigated and lies would be revealed.
"When did you leave this house?"
"I don't know, about two months ago."
"So how long did you live in Ford County?"
"I don't know, a couple of years."
"Did you ever register to vote in Ford County?"
"No."
"Did your husband?"
"No."
"What's his name again?"
"Malcolm Vince."
"Where does he live now?"
"I'm not sure. He moves around a lot. Last I heard he was somewhere around Tupelo."
"And y'all are getting a divorce now, right?"
"Yes."
"When did you file for divorce?"
Her eyes lifted quickly and she glanced at Lucien, who was listening hard but refusing to watch her. "We haven't actually filed papers yet," she said.
"I'm sorry, I thought you said you were going through a divorce."
"We've split, and we've both hired lawyers."
"And who is your attorney?"
"Mr. Wilbanks."
Lucien flinched, as if this was news to him. Ernie let it settle in, then continued, "Who is your husband's lawyer?"
"I can't remember his name."
"Is he suing you for divorce, or is it the other way around?"
"It's a mutual thing."
"How many other men were you sleeping with?"