Cry Me A River (16 page)

She walked toward the truck, zombielike, and slowly ran her hand across the dirty hood, then stared blankly at the windshield. “Use to see ‘im sattin’ behind the wheel, just a looking at me, grinning.” She paused and turned toward the woods. “Could hear ‘im, too,” she said, then slowly tilted her head to the side as if listening to a faraway voice. “Git in, Mama,” she mumbled. “Git in and let me take you somewhere.”

She talking out her head
, he thought. He walked next to her and laid an unsteady hand gently upon her shoulder. He looked tenderly into her moist eyes.

“Baby, you got to help me,” he said. “Time short.”

“After a while, I couldn’t see ‘im no mo’,” she said. “I quit coming ‘cause I couldn’t see ‘im no mo’. Couldn’t see nothing but that ole truck.”

Suddenly, her eyes widened, and Tyrone sensed that
she was drifting farther away. He tightened his grip about her shoulders and shook her gently. He called her name, and she began to cry.

“Papa and ‘em wanting me to turn ‘im over to death,” she said. Her voice cracked, and she paused to compose herself. “They thank he did it.” She paused a second time. Her lips began to quiver. She looked away, and he could tell that her family’s stance had produced in her a hurt much too painful to bear.

“Pauline,” he whispered her name a second time. “You got to help me.”

She turned her head slowly and looked at him as though she was seeing him for the first time. Her eyes were wide, sad.

“If you would have been here, this wouldn’t’ve never happened,” she said.

Her pain became his pain, and his body became tense with regret.

“Pauline, ain’t no time for this,” he said softly. “There just ain’t no time.”

“You his daddy,” she said. “You his daddy, and you supposed to been set a good example for him.” She paused and looked longingly into his eyes. “What kind of example you set? Hunh? What you ever give him but a hard way to go?”

Guilt made him drop his head. His eyes began to water, and his nose began to run. He reached up with his hand and wiped his nose with the back of his wrist.

“Ain’t no time for this,” he repeated. He looked at the truck again, then at the tires. He pulled the door open and looked inside.

“Maybe it’s my fault,” Pauline said. “If I wouldn’t have never sent him to the store, maybe none of this would have happened.”

Tyrone pulled the seat forward and looked. The
truck was empty. Someone had cleaned it out. He let go of the seat, and it snapped back into place. He looked toward Pauline.

“Did Marcus know the girl?” he asked.

Pauline looked at him strangely but did not answer.

“She knew her killer,” Tyrone explained. “The old lady said she got in the truck like she knew her killer.” He shut the door and turned and faced Pauline. “Did they know each other?”

“Don’t think so,” she said.

“You don’t know?” he asked.

“Don’t know for sure,” she said. “But I don’t think so.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but at that moment her knees buckled. He watched her sway, then fall back against the front of the truck. Stunned, he raced to her and slipped his arm about her waist. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he felt the weight of her tired, limp body resting heavily against his own.
She weak from worry and needs to sit down
, he thought. He led her to the stump, and she sat down and leaned sideways against him for support.

“You okay?” he asked.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Be all right in a minute,” she said. “Just one of them ole dizzy spells.”

He placed his arm about her shoulder, and as he did, the tips of his fingers brushed lightly against her naked skin. His downcast eyes glanced lustfully upon her heaving breast. The smooth feel of her skin and the sight of her bulging breast inflamed his senses. He grew light-headed.

“Pauline,” he called her name softly.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He looked at her, then looked away. He paused, trying desperately to still the fierce battle raging between his warring emotions.

“You ever think about us?” he asked.

She closed her eyes again, then gently laid her head against his body. He paused, waiting for an answer, but none came. He looked at her and saw a single tear slowly rolling down her cheek, glistening in the dull light of the setting sun.

“Do you?” he asked softly, attempting to prod her gently. The fact that she hesitated unnerved him.

“Do I what?” she asked.

“Think about us.”

She sighed, and he could see that she was thinking.

“Just all the pain you put me through,” she said.

He looked away, hurt. “That was a long time ago.”

“Not long enough,” she said.

“I still love you,” he said.

“Don’t say that to me.” She rose from the stump and groped forward, her arms extended toward the truck. She reached it and leaned heavily against the hood, her back to him.

“But I do,” he said. “You my wife, and I love you.”

She turned and faced him.

“I regret the day I laid eyes on you,” she said.

“Pauline,” he said, his voice cracking. “Don’t say that.”

“I should have listened to Daddy,” she said. “He tried to tell me you weren’t no good. But I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see you with my eyes, ‘cause I was looking at you with my heart.”

She paused, and he placed his hands on her shoulders. He could feel her trembling.

“I should have walked away from you, Tyrone. I should have walked away from you a long time ago.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“If I had, I wouldn’t be hurting right now,” she said. “I wouldn’t be hurting, and neither would my child.”

“I’m hurting, too, Pauline. I love my family, and I’m hurting, too.”

“You don’t love us.”

“I do,” he said.

“No,” she denied.

“I do, Pauline. With all my heart.”

“If you loved us, you would have stayed in our life instead of in and out the pen,” she said. “You don’t love us. You love them streets.”

“Pauline, I know I screwed up,” he said. “But I’m trying to fix that now.”

“It’s too late,” she said.

“No.” He shook his head and looked at the truck. “This changes everything.”

“This don’t change nothing.”

“He didn’t do it,” he said. His eyes were narrow, and his jaw clenched tight.

“You think you telling me something I don’t know,” she said. “I carried that child inside me for nine months. When something grow inside you that long, you know it. You know what it will and what it won’t do. I know my child. Know him better than I know myself. And I can tell you and anybody else who care to listen. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. But that don’t matter. They gone kill ‘im anyway. They done set they minds to it, and ain’t nothing you or nobody can do ‘bout it.”

“Pauline, you can’t think like that.”

“Daddy right,” she said.

“Naw, he ain’t.”

“I’m too scared to hold on and too scared to turn loose.”

“Just hold on to the truth.”

“The truth.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “The truth.”

“Them people don’t care ‘bout the truth.”

“It’s the only thing that can set him free.”

“They don’t care ‘bout the truth,” she repeated. “I went to them people. And I got down on my knees and begged for my child’s life. I swallowed my pride and begged them white folks like it wasn’t no tomorrow. And they give him death anyway. They don’t want the truth. They want revenge.”

“Well, they won’t get it,” he said. “This truck black. The one picked up that child was blue. He didn’t do it.”

She looked at him with wide, solemn eyes. She wanted to believe, but she was tired, weak, afraid.

“Maybe Papa right,” she said. She turned her back and buried her face in her palms and began to weep violently.

“No,” he said. He eased forward and grabbed her by both shoulders firmly. “I ain’t gone let ‘em kill our child, Pauline.” He turned her and looked deep into her eyes. “I ain’t gone let ‘em kill ‘im, Pauline. I ain’t.”

She stared at him with wet eyes. “I’m scared, Tyrone.”

“It’s gone be all right, Pauline. I swear.”

She buried her head in his chest and sobbed. He eased his arms around her and pulled her tight. Over her shoulder he saw a shadowy figure moving toward them through the woods. It was a man. Tyrone focused his eyes without moving his head. The man paused at the mouth of the woods. Tyrone stared at him, and the man stared back. It was Mr. Titus.

“Pauline!” he called sternly.

Startled, she turned and looked.

“Daddy.” She pulled away from Tyrone and began drying her eyes with trembling hands.

“Be dark soon,” Mr. Titus said. “You best be getting on back to the house.”

“It’s gone be all right, Pauline,” Tyrone said again as she walked away. “I promise you that. It’s gone be all right.”

Mr. Titus looked at him with angry eyes.

“You got want you come here for,” Mr. Titus said. “Now gone.”

H
e lingered behind a few minutes, giving his wife and father-in-law time to clear the pasture. Then, with his dampened spirit buoyed by his recent discoveries, he walked to his truck, got in, and drove back toward town. He figured that by now Janell had told Captain Jack that he had stopped by, and that maybe, through some small miracle, Captain Jack had hung around the office on the slim chance that he might return. And if Captain Jack had hung around, once he got there, he would tell him about the blue truck, and the whitewall tires, and about what the old lady said she had seen that night. And once Captain Jack heard, he would know, beyond a doubt, that Marcus was innocent.

It was after five when Tyrone made it back to town. And for a brief moment, he feared that the office was closed, but when he stopped next to the building, he could see that the lights were still on. From the alley, he recognized the back of Captain Jack’s car jutting just beyond the rear of the building. Relieved, he climbed
from the truck and walked along the sidewalk toward the door, seeing before his eyes the unnerving image of his broken wife, slumped on the stump, brooding the inevitable fate of their condemned son while hoping against hope that the black truck looming nearby would be enough to awaken her from this dream and end the nightmare that had been her life.

At the door, he knocked, then paused. When the door opened, Captain Jack appeared, and for an awkward moment, he seemed stunned to see Tyrone.

“Mr. Stokes,” he said after a brief silence. “Please, come in.”

Tyrone entered the room, and Captain Jack closed the door behind him, then motioned to a chair that had been pulled just before the front desk.

“Have a seat,” he said.

Tyrone obliged, and after he was seated, Captain Jack came forward, then paused.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Coffee? Soda? Water?”

“No, thank you.” Tyrone shook his head. Then he watched Captain Jack make his way behind the desk and lean back uneasily in the chair. Captain Jack opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Tyrone asked a question.

“Captain Jack, you ever wondered why there was no physical evidence connecting my son to this crime?”

Captain Jack paused, then frowned before answering.

“Yes,” he said. “That has always troubled me.”

“I think I know why, sir,” Tyrone said.

“Why?” Captain Jack asked, his tone seeming to indicate polite indulgence rather than genuine interest.

“Because the girl didn’t fight,” Tyrone said. “And she didn’t fight because she knew her killer.”

“There’s no proof of that,” Captain Jack said.

“Yes, sir, there is,” Tyrone said. “Someone saw them.”

“Someone other than the two witnesses of record?”

“Yes, sir,” Tyrone said.

“Who?” Captain Jack asked.

“The maid.”

“What maid?” he asked.

“Miss Mabel’s maid.”

“Miss Mabel,” he repeated, confused.

“Yes, sir,” Tyrone said. “Don’t remember her last name. But she lives next to the store. In that big white house.”

Captain Jack paused, then squinted.

“Mabel Wilkes,” Captain Jack said, unsure of himself.

“Yes, sir,” Tyrone said. “I believe that’s her. She—I mean her maid—was in the window when it happened. She say she saw the girl. She say she saw her get in a blue truck. A blue truck with whitewall tires.”

“She told you that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You spoke to her?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

Captain Jack looked at him contemplatively, but did not speak.

“I saw my boy’s truck a minute ago,” Tyrone said. “It’s black, not blue. Black with solid black tires.”

Captain Jack leaned back in his chair and brought his hands underneath his chin.

“Did she see the driver?”

“No, sir.”

Captain Jack shook his head and sighed softly. “Not enough,” he said.

“But she saw the truck.”

“It’s not enough,” Captain Jack repeated. “Just her word against theirs.”

“But—”

“Mr. Stokes, I’m sorry. But it’s just not enough.”

“It’s a start,” Tyrone said.

“I’m afraid it’s too little, too late.”

Tyrone looked at him, confused.

“I was going to call you in the morning,” Captain Jack said. “I heard from the governor. Our appeal has been denied. The execution will proceed as scheduled.”

Tyrone felt a large lump rise from his stomach and lodge in his throat.

“No,” Tyrone said, slowly shaking his head. “He didn’t do it.”

Captain Jack opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Tyrone interrupted him.

“She said the girl got in the truck like she knew her killer.”

“The witnesses said she struggled.”

“But the maid say she didn’t.”

“Her word against theirs.”

“But she saw them.”

“So did the others.”

“But the street light was on, and she was closer than they were.”

“A jury of twelve believed they were close enough.”

“They’re lying,” Tyrone said.

“If they are, we can’t prove it.”

“He didn’t do it.” Tyrone was adamant.