Hard Twisted (31 page)
Authors: C. Joseph Greaves
In accordance with these guidelines, and except as noted below, all dates and general time frames described in the book are true to the extent that they are known. All persons named in the book are real, with the exception of a few minor characters imagined for the purpose of advancing the plot in areas where the historical record is entirely silent. All of the places traveled by Palmer and Lottie, and the general sequence in which they are portrayed, are accurate, again to the extent known.
Conversely, all of the book's dialogue is fictitious, with the exception of a few phrases gleaned from oral histories or from news accounts of the Palmer trial. So too are any thoughts, motives, or emotions that I attribute to Lottie or to any other character acting within the purview of my limited authorial omniscience. Also, in the service of narrative, I shifted historical time frames in a few instances, but never in a way that might distort or misrepresent the material facts.
Finally, in writing
Hard Twisted
, I was acutely aware that the
historical record leaves open for interpretation the exact nature of the relationship between Lottie Garrett and Clint Palmer, and that any surviving testimony in respect of that relationship must be viewed through the compound lens of circumstance, alibi, and self-interest. That Lottie was Palmer's victimânot to mention a victim of her upbringing, and ultimately of the criminal justice system of her dayâis beyond dispute. Whether her victimhood arose from seduction, coercion, force, or some combination of all of them, or from some misguided or manipulated collaboration, is entirely problematic.
It is in this last respect that
Hard Twisted
is most purely and unequivocally a work of fiction.
Charles Joseph Greaves
Santa Fe, New Mexico
The verdict came on Saturday.
She heard the commotion in the street, and she rose from her bunk to watch as the crowd that had gathered outside the courthouse surged and parted and formed again like quicksilver. Umbrellas tilted and flashbulbs popped and men ran splashing down the sidewalk, and Lottie knew from the shouts and the sirens and from the blaring of car horns that Mr. Pharr had won.
The details she learned at the afternoon mess. How toward the end of Pharr's closing argument, when the judge had warned the lawyer that his time was almost up, Palmer had stood and said, Give him all the time he wants, Judge! My conscience is clear! And how, when the verdict had been read and Hartwell had thanked the jury for its consideration, Palmer had stood again to say, It's all right for you to thank them! You don't have to serve the ninety-nine years! They're sendin an innocent man to prison!
By afternoon, the rain had grown heavy. It darkened the sky, and it darkened the cellblock, and it darkened the hearts of all who dwelt within it.
By evening puddles were in the street, black holes where the storefront neon bled in twisted reds and greens, and where sodden
trash pooled and floated in a rueful denouement to all that had been witnessed. To all that had transpired.
Lottie lay on her cot in the dark with her eyes closed and her fingers laced, listening to the rain. Thinking about Palmer, and about her father, and about her own life to come. Later, after the rain had stopped and all had grown quiet, her thoughts returned yet again to the question of love.
First, she decided, there was familial love, which seemed to her the most fragile of love's embodiments, random in its origins and destined by nature to fade as life in its endless recycling begins anew with aught but memory and heredity tying one generation but loosely to the next.
Then there was spiritual love, the love of God the Creator that transcended generations and dwelt in the hearts of all men.
And lastly, she thought, there was romantic love, or carnal love, which she herself concluded to be the most tangible and enduring love of all, as it was no mere accident of birth or genetic imperative, and was neither predestined nor presumed, but rather was a thing of human choosing. And how each, for having chosen, was thereby and forever altered.
And for having betrayed, condemned.
Lottie wept that night, and all the next day. Whether tears of regret or of relief, none could tell.
And she least of all.
On April 20, 1935, Clint Palmer's motion for a new trial was denied by the Honorable Charles Berry of the Eighth Judicial District of Texas, and his sentenceâimprisonment for a term of not less than two and not more than ninety-nine yearsâwas formally pronounced. His conviction was affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on February 5,
1936. On March 1, 1936, he entered the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, where he died on January 13, 1969.
Lucile Garrett was tried as a juvenile and convicted of associating with a known criminal. She was sentenced by the Honorable S. S. Bullock to serve in the girls' reformatory until her twenty-first birthday. She entered the Texas Girls' Training School in Gainesville on May 23, 1935.
C. Joseph Greaves
is a former L.A. trial lawyer. His 1994 discovery of two human skulls in a remote Utah canyon would lead, eighteen years later, to the completion of
Hard Twisted
, named Best Historical Novel of 2010 in the SouthWest Writers International Writing Contest, in which Greaves was also honored with the grand-prize Storyteller Award. Greaves is also the author of a Los Angelesâbased mystery series; the first installment is
Hush Money
.
Copyright © 2012 by Charles J. Greaves
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR.
First U.S. Edition 2012
This electronic edition published in November 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60819-893-1 (e-book)
