Lost in Clover (8 page)

Lawrence finished his expert testimonials with psychoanalysts and doctors, all of whom testified that Eddie Cooper had suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder from an abusive father and ridicule of his family by the students and citizens of Clover. Most of the accused citizens, whether sitting on the wooden benches of the courthouse, relaxing in the comfort of their sofas, or watching from molded plastic classroom chairs, kept their eyes down, focused on the floor. Jeremy could tell that Lawrence’s guilt trip on Clover was having an effect. It seemed that people believed they may have had something to do with the creation of the monster they named Crazy Eddie. Lawrence had momentum, and the slam-dunk murder charge seemed to have slipped away from Carson. Then Thursday night happened.

Ladies had been swooning over the handsome and sophisticated Lawrence Eliot since he had arrived in Clover. He had taken up weekday residence in a Holiday Inn in Emporia instead of commuting daily from Lawrence. His equally polished law school friends often drove down to Clover to visit and watch the trial. In the evenings, Lawrence and his entourage hung out at Chuck’s Bar and Grill on the Shelby-Clover border, drink a few pints of beer before dinner and then downing stronger stuff afterwards. Ladies of all ages and marital statuses had ventured up to the group and sometimes Lawrence or his crew would buy them a shot or two. More than one man had threatened to kick Lawrence’s ass because a girlfriend had swooned or shared a drink with him. Even though Lawrence flirted with women at the bar, the biggest rumor wasn’t about them. It was about those who couldn’t get in the bar.

Jeremy heard Lawrence’s name paired with a few high school girls. All of them had reputations of easy virtue and had most likely been with men over eighteen long before Lawrence came to Clover. But when a state trooper pulled a BMW over for erratic driving at two in the morning, what he found, according to local buzz, was Mr. Lawrence Eliot with his pants unzipped, an open bottle of scotch, and fifteen-year-old Katie Brannegan.

20. LAWRENCE

The trial was delayed that Friday morning until the following Monday, based on “outside developments.” Gossip hit the fan and splattered far and wide. Phone calls, emails, texts, and social networking pages buzzed with stories of horn dog Lawrence and how he had swept the virtuous Katie Brannegan, granddaughter of a Baptist minister, no less, off her feet with his wily lawyerly ways. 

The charges against him included driving under the influence, reckless driving, endangerment of a minor, lewd exposure to a minor, statutory rape, and sodomy. Lawrence made bail early Friday morning, avoiding most of the reporters by ducking his head under his jacket, and jumping into a drinking buddy’s Land Rover. Reporters and hecklers followed the SUV to his hotel in Emporia. Lawrence sprinted inside and returned with bags in hand a minute later to the waiting Rover. Fewer followed him back to Lawrence, where he finally escaped them via underground parking in an exclusive townhome. Within hours a video of Lawrence running back and forth with the press following him was sped up and cut to Benny Hill music. Jeremy laughed longer and harder than he ever remembered in his life. 

*

Lawrence surprised everybody in Clover when he attended services on Sunday at the Prairie View Methodist church. He arrived sullen. His shoulders were sagging and his face held a world of sadness. But his public display of contrition seemed to backfire. Jeremy sensed the congregation’s discomfort. Lawrence sat on a pew with space on both sides of him, like he had a contagious disease. Few people shook his hands afterwards, though several children gawked, and many parents physically pushed their young daughters away from him.

*

On Monday, the crowd that surrounded the courthouse was even bigger than when the trial began, or for even Randy’s testimony. People from the neighboring towns came over, including that annoying roving Westboro Baptist church notorious for protesting soldiers’ funerals. They could have made a case about God hating pedophiles, but kept with their anti-homosexual message instead.

Katie’s parents and immediate relatives locked the doors to their houses and refused to talk to anybody. They had circled the wagons around Katie. 

Jeremy watched Lawrence on TV when he arrived at the courthouse all smiles with an extra helping of smarmy charm, but Jeremy saw fear in his eyes. The courtroom sounded like a football stadium with nonstop chattering voices. Even when the judge strode out, the audience did not quiet down. Judge Rhinehart banged his gavel so hard it looked like the handle cracked. 

“I’ll throw every one of you out if I hear another peep. This is a courtroom, my courtroom!” He was red faced, and the veins in his temples pulsed rapidly. “You all are guests here and nothing more.”

The judge looked at Lawrence wearily for a moment. The camera switched to Crazy Eddie, who flexed his tattooed fingers back and forth, giving the judge a contemptuous stare. The camera returned to Judge Rhinehart as he turned to the jury. “I don’t know what the hell you’ve heard, but it doesn’t matter at all. This case is solely about Mr. Eddie Cooper and nobody else.”

He turned back to Lawrence.

“Now, Mr. Elliot, would you like to continue from where you left off on Thursday?”

“Thank you, Your Honor. I would.”

The camera took a shot of Crazy Eddie staring straight ahead and not even acknowledging Lawrence. It seemed like his chances for manslaughter were as thin as the day he was arrested.

21. WYNONA

On Monday afternoon Lawrence brought out his final witness: Eddie’s sister, Wynona. Maybe he was banking on her testimony to sow doubt in the jurors’ minds. But when she sauntered up to the stand in a short black skirt and ill-fitting high heels, Jeremy could tell even through the television that Lawrence lost hope. During the swearing in, she chewed gum while her polished neon-pink nails touched the bible. After the judge had her spit out the gum, she described the fear she felt on that night.

“When those boys showed up, drunk and all, shouting and cursing at Eddie, I was scared. We all were.” 

“How did your brother take all of the threats shouted at him?”

“Poor Eddie didn’t know what to do. He was trying to defend the family property. And they were standing right there in the middle of it.”

“Some have been saying that it was too much, what Eddie did. Do you believe it was too much?”

“You have seven or eight twenty-year-olds showing up in trucks in the middle of the night, shouting and making noise. Who isn’t going to overreact, you know? I mean, they were the ones who attacked us first. They were the ones who trespassed.”

Carson was gentle with Wynona, though he managed to paint her as a conspirator in the massacre after she admitted to previously “being with” a couple of the boys. 

“I definitely didn’t like them, not the way they treated me after…”

“After what, Miss Cooper?”

“After I gave them something better than they’d ever had before.”

Laughter erupted from the audience and in the classroom. Crazy Eddie stood and glared at the audience. 

“Ya’ll better shut up. You hear?” he said in a deep voice.

Lawrence put his hand on Crazy Eddie’s shoulder.

“Now just sit and—”

Crazy Eddie shoved Lawrence to the floor. He glared, standing over his lawyer.

The audience gasped. Everybody in Jeremy’s classroom stood to watch closer. Two sheriff deputies grabbed Crazy Eddie and tried to set him back into his chair. Even though he had on cuffs, he pushed and kicked them away. Lawrence got up and tried to help hold Crazy Eddie down as he struggled, swearing and bucking. Lawrence caught an elbow in the mouth and fell to the floor a second time. The audience was in an uproar, standing on their feet and blocking the television cameras.

*

“Sit down!” students in Jeremy’s class yelled at the TV.

Although nobody could see her, Wynona was yelling, “Eddie, Eddie!”

The judge banged the gavel. “Order, order!” The handle broke off of the gavel.

The deputies tased Crazy Eddie three times before he went down. 

“I want him out of here, now!”

The deputies dragged Crazy Eddie out the back door. People in the audience were on their feet, some taking pictures with their cell phones. Lawrence, pale and shaking, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed blood from his lip.

“Sit! Everybody!” the judge yelled, slamming the broken gavel down. Reluctantly the audience sat down. Reinhardt surveyed the room. “Mr. Elliot, are you okay? Can you continue or do you need another delay?”

Lawrence seemed to be considering several things, but said “I’m fine, Your Honor.”

“Mr. McKinney, you may proceed so we can get this…” The judge stopped for a moment as if holding back a profanity. “This case over with.”

Carson stood. “Absolutely, Your Honor.” His chin was up and shoulders drawn back as if he had some rooster in him.

“Excuse me,” Wynona said, talking into the microphone. A black mass of tear-streaked mascara surrounded her eyes. “I just want to make it clear that I didn’t want those boys to be killed or nothing, okay? I just didn’t like a couple of ’em. That’s all.”

The judge looked as if he wanted to strangle the witness.

“I have nothing more, Your Honor,” Carson said quickly.

“Recross, Mr. Elliot?” the judge asked.

Lawrence stood, and smoothed rumpled his suit. He looked exhausted. “No, Your Honor, the defense rests.”

The judge turned to Wynona. “Please leave the booth immediately and don’t say another word.”

She gave him a severe look and strutted out of the courtroom with a defiant sway in her hips. Judge Rhinehart reddened with anger.

22. ALL THE DIFFERENCE

Tuesday brought closing arguments, with Carson talking in the morning and pushing for a guilty verdict on the capital murder charge. Crazy Eddie sat with his hands and feet in shackles. Again, he gave almost no expression except for the same glare maintained throughout the trial.

Carson reminded the jury of all the forensic evidence he had presented earlier, as well as the unknown potential of the dead young men whose lives were “violently snatched away from us.” Then he painstakingly recounted all of the major statements his witnesses had made. It almost put Jeremy to sleep.

“These murders became premeditated once Mr. Cooper reloaded his automatic weapon on those unarmed boys, and by definition of Kansas state law…” Carson said, holding up a piece of paper dramatically. “I quote, by the
killing of more than one person as part of the same act
, Mr. Eddie Cooper has fit the circumstances required for capital murder.

“Remember, seven young souls perished in Clover that night, not because of property rights or any second amendment argument. We all know if he had shot his gun in the air those boys would have been running home. This was cold-blooded murder. He shot those defenseless boys while they lay wounded on the ground. This man deserves nothing less than death, ladies and gentlemen. He is a cold-blooded murderer.”

After lunch, Lawrence, looking fresher and more energized than the previous day, reminded the jury that not only was Eddie sixteen, “but he was sleeping in his house on private property when a caravan of drunken men showed up with the idea of giving him a beating. Did he overreact? Most certainly. But did he start this? Absolutely not. It would have been considered self-defense a century ago, and there is no reason it shouldn’t be today. He stepped forward to defend his family, and any red-blooded American with an ounce of spine in his backbone would have done the same. Eddie Cooper did not knock on their doors and shoot them. Not at all. Those eight men trespassed on a man’s private property, looking to cause at minimum mischief, and most likely bodily harm, and that, ladies and gentlemen, makes all the difference.”

23. VERDICT

The jury deliberated for almost two weeks. It seemed that all of Clover was on pins and needles, waiting for the verdict. Rumors abounded that the jury was deadlocked because Jessup Cotton wanted a capital murder charge and nothing less, or that Janelle Hughes demanded that Crazy Eddie be freed, but the most popular one was that Thomas Ginty was delaying as long as possible so that he wouldn’t have to go back to repairing the roads.

Lawrence was living in Lawrence again, an hour and a half away from Clover. He was on call if the jury was ready to announce their verdict. The only other reason for him to come back to Clover was for his post-indictment arraignment a month later when he would enter a plea.

Jeremy was restlessly ambivalent. Crazy Eddie shouldn’t have been harassed by those boys on his lawn, but he shouldn’t have shot them all to hell either. He was glad it would be over soon, regardless of the outcome, and maybe could he get back to being who he once was.

Jeremy was in fifth hour biology, drifting in lazy daydreams of sleep—what it would be like to have solid dreamless sleep—when cell phones that were supposed to be off started vibrating. The jury announced they had reached a verdict. Mr. Howard turned on the radio in time to hear Judge Rhinehart delay the reading of the verdict until the morning, “considering all the travel of key people involved in this case, including the defendant Mr. Cooper from the Emporia detention facility.”

Minutes later, Principal Morgan spoke over the intercom cancelling the next day’s classes. “It’ll probably be a zoo tomorrow in Clover, so I recommend all students stay at home, if possible.”

He wasn’t wrong. The streets by the courthouse were full of local gawkers, those from Shelby and Emporia and even a few from Missouri and Oklahoma. All of the Kansas City and Wichita news stations arrived to cover the story. Jeremy stood in the crowd with Carrie and most of their classmates. When Lawrence drove up in his black BMW, silence trickled through the crowd. It was not the respectful kind of silence though—more like a mass revulsion after seeing a notorious war criminal.

“That’s the bad one isn’t it, Mommy?” a little girl said a little too loudly, creating a domino effect of chuckles.