Natchez Burning (50 page)

Shad’s request stuns me speechless. Granted, the charge is murder, but he could easily have covered his ass with his primary constituency by asking for a one- or two-million-dollar bond.

Judge Noyes’s gaze hardens into a basilisk stare. “Mr. District Attorney, are you suggesting that Dr. Cage be held in the county jail for up to nine months while he awaits trial in the Circuit Court?”

Under Mississippi’s laughable “speedy trial” rule, the state is allowed to wait 270 days before a defendant must be given his day in court. This long delay pleases most defendants, who are in no hurry to accelerate the wheels of justice. But this case is different.

“The charge is first-degree murder, Judge,” Shad says with quiet insistence.

“It is, indeed,” says Noyes. “And here’s my thinking on that. Tom Cage has been practicing medicine in this town for … how long?”

“Forty-two years,” my mother says softly.

“Forty-two years!” the judge exclaims. “Forty-two years taking care of the people of this county. And so far as I know, Dr. Cage has never even spit on the sidewalk, much less broken a law. Now, Mr. District Attorney, you surely know that this town has a serious shortage of primary-care physicians. And I see no reason why a doctor of Tom Cage’s exemplary reputation should languish in jail when he could be providing desperately needed health care to the citizens of Adams County.”

In an almost apologetic tone, Shad says, “Judge, if I may? I understand your logic. But if—and I say if—this defendant were to flee this jurisdiction prior to his trial, we would all find ourselves with a great deal of egg on our faces.”

Judge Noyes nods slowly. “Of course, of course. The political argument. Let’s all be sure to cover our behinds. Mr. District Attorney, I seem to recall you once telling me how you and a friend spent the year between high school and college traveling around Europe on a Eurailpass. Do you recall that?”

Shads blinks in confusion. “Yes, but—”

“When Tom Cage got out of high school, he didn’t take a year off to go gallivanting around Europe. He spent a year fighting Chinese communists in North Korea, repelling human-wave attacks in weather that would freeze the hooves off a bighorn sheep. Machine-gun barrels melted from firing for hours without a break. Can you wrap your steel-trap mind around that, Counselor?”

Shad is still blinking like a man who finds himself unexpectedly staring into a blazing spotlight.

“Dr. Cage was taken prisoner in that war, Mr. Johnson, and only by exceptional personal fortitude did he escape with his life.”

This statement leaves me flabbergasted. Never in my life have I heard that my father was a POW. But one glance at his solemn profile tells me it’s true. When I look back at my mother, she nods once.

“So—here’s my thinking on the matter of bond,” Judge Noyes concludes. “If Tom Cage didn’t run
then,
he won’t run
now
. Do you have any further argument, sir?”

Shad controls his notorious temper with difficulty. I can only imagine what kind of restraint it must take for a black graduate of the Harvard Law School to stand silent while a white man who never attended any law school lectures him from the bench.

“Your Honor, the defendant’s military record has no bearing on—”

“
Hush,
” says Judge Noyes, using what could only loosely be described as local courtroom argot.

Shad is quite right in his argument, but as every attorney knows, it’s the judge’s courtroom, whether that judge ever passed a bar exam or not.

“Your Honor,” Shad says in a rigidly controlled voice, “I ask that bond be set at an amount commensurate with the seriousness of the crime, and one sufficient to assuage the community’s choler.”

Confusion distorts the judge’s smooth face. “
Color?
Just what color community are you talking about assuaging here?”

“
Cho
-ler,” Shad says, trying to clarify his intent. “Displeasure.”

Judge Noyes looks like he’d like to throw his gavel at the district attorney. “What amount would you recommend, Mr. Johnson?”

“Two million dollars.”

The judge grimaces like a constipated bulldog. At length he gives a sigh of resignation and says, “All right.”

A deputy against the wall, probably the one who cuffed Dad at the house, nods with satisfaction.

Two hundred grand in cash,
I note silently.

“Bond is set at fifty thousand dollars,” says Judge Noyes.

A choked sob of relief breaks from my mother’s throat. Shad stands openmouthed in a theatrical display of shock. Judge Noyes has sent a very loud message with this ruling. He clearly believes something is amiss in this case, and he’s willing to take political heat for his faith in my father.

Before Shad can protest, a new voice comes from the back of the room, taking us all by surprise: “
All right. All right, I see how it is
.”

The voice is soft but resonant—far deeper than any other man’s in the room—and my chest tightens at the familiar sound. Turning in my chair, I see Lincoln Turner standing at the back of the small room. His suit hangs loosely on his large frame, as though he’s recently lost weight. My first wild thought is that the Justice Court door has no metal detector. Men whose mothers have been murdered have been known to execute the alleged killer in the presence of a dozen deputies. A millisecond after this thought rises in my mind, I stand and interpose myself between Lincoln and my father.

“Who is that man?” Judge Noyes asks irritably.

“Your Honor,” Shad says, obviously discomfited by Lincoln’s appearance, “this is Mr. Lincoln Turner, the victim’s son.”

Noyes’s eyes narrow. “I see.” He directs his next comments to the back of the room, which is less than twenty feet from his desk. “Sir, you have my deepest sympathy, but I must ask you to refrain from interrupting this proceeding.”

“This is a public hearing,” Lincoln growls. “And I ain’t what you’re used to up in here. I ain’t some field nigger, Judge, or the son of one. I’m a lawyer.”

“Public it may be,” Noyes says, squinting. “But as a lawyer, you surely understand contempt of court.”

Despite his warning tone, Noyes is clearly uncertain about how to handle this unexpected confrontation.

Shad moves toward Lincoln, motioning for him to calm down, but Turner raises a big hand to stop him. “Get out of my face, Johnson! I’ve come to say one thing, and then I’ll go. If the sheriff hauled
me
up in here on a murder charge, I’d be lucky to get a million-dollar bail. But I guess white doctors get a free pass. Man, you people don’t even try to
hide
this shit. It’s right out here for everybody to see. Ain’t nothing changed down here in a hundred years!”

Judge Noyes bangs his gavel. “That’s it. Mr. Turner, you are now in contempt of—”

“I hold
you
in contempt!” Turner shouts, but by then the DA has gotten to him and started pushing the larger man toward the door.

“I’ll take care of this, Judge!” Shad calls, making a pleading motion with his right hand.

“You’d better!” Noyes shouts back. “Or he’s going straight to jail!”

When the door closes, all of us stand like stunned witnesses to a bar fight. My father and mother look shell-shocked, but Noyes and his staff are scarcely less rattled. “Wilbur,” Noyes says to his deputy, “are you tits on a boar hog or what?”

The deputy reddens and looks at the carpet.

“I’ll be damned if that’s ever happened in here,” Noyes mutters. “I think I’d better put that fellow in jail for one night, just on principle. Hell, as a matter of public safety.”

I step toward the bench and speak quietly. “Judge, with respect, this might be one of those times where the less that’s done to exacerbate matters, the sooner grief can run its course.”

Noyes clearly thinks my suggestion presumptuous, but after he glances at my father, who also nods, the air seems to go out of him.

“Where’s the district attorney?” he asks, glaring at the deputy.

As Wilbur moves toward the door, Shad reenters the courtroom, smoothing his lapels. “Judge, I apologize for that outburst. I advised Mr. Turner not to come to court, and he chose to ignore my counsel. The man is distraught over his mother’s death, and as you know, in murder cases emotions can run very high.”

“That’s no excuse, Counselor.”

“No, Your Honor. Now, as to the matter of bond—”

Judge Noyes holds up his right hand. “Before you start gabbling about special treatment, I’m going to set stringent conditions on this bond. Dr. Cage is not to leave the state. He’s to continue practicing medicine, unless prevented by illness. He’s not to contact any member of the victim’s family. He may not consume alcohol or drugs, other than prescription drugs, and he cannot handle firearms.” Noyes looks from Shad to my father. “Is that clear, Dr. Cage?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“All right, then. I hope the powers that be get this mess straightened out before it goes any further.” Noyes looks at me. “Are you prepared to post bond?”

My mother’s voice comes from behind me, quavering with emotion. “We’re prepared to write a check immediately, Judge.”

“Good.” He looks at the deputy. “Dr. Cage is not to be handcuffed again. And make sure that fellow outside doesn’t bother him on his way to his car. You hear me, Wilbur? If that man assaults anybody, use your weapon.”

Wilbur’s face goes pale. “Yessir.”

“Next case.”

Shad says, “But Judge, the state—”

“Next case, goddamn it!”

OUT ON THE SIDEWALK,
the sun has banished the cold morning wind and is now heating the concrete to a temperature more suited to spring than December. Thankfully, I’ve seen no sign of Lincoln Turner or his white pickup. Mom, Dad, and I stand before the Justice Court building with tangible awkwardness. Though we are linked by blood and by a palpable sense of relief, the reason for our being here has not been discussed by more than two of us at a time.

“Thank you, Penn,” Mom says softly.

“I didn’t do anything. Judge Noyes is obviously a fan of Dad’s.”

“But it was important for you to be here. Families have to stick together in times like this. Everyone needs to see that.”

I’m anxious to discuss the logistics of getting Dad to a clinic to be swabbed for a DNA paternity test, but my mother has not left his side. Asking her to give us some time alone would not be taken well just now.

“I never knew you were taken prisoner in Korea,” I say to Dad.

He shrugs as though this is nothing of consequence, his eyes seeming to contemplate something far away. “It was Walt and me. We escaped after a few days. We were lucky. Few did. I don’t know how Charlie Noyes knows about it. Another vet must have told him. The upside is, I doubt the Adams County jail could be worse than North Korea in late November.”

“Did Caitlin send that photographer?” Mom asks.

“What photographer?” I ask.

“The one at the back. He slipped in while Shad was talking to the judge. He took some notes, and then he shot pictures during that man’s outburst.”

I try to conceal my alarm. “I didn’t see any flash.”

“He wasn’t using one.”

A pro.
I can see the headline now:
DID WHITE DOCTOR MURDER BLACK NURSE IN MISSISSIPPI?
That kind of story sells a lot of newspapers, even in the twenty-first century. “Shad must have invited a reporter down from Jackson.”

“It’s freezing out here,” Mom says. “Let’s get home, Tom. I have your medicine in my purse.”

“I need to get to the office,” he protests. “You heard the judge. I have to keep working.”

“You can mind the judge later. Right now you’re minding me. We just endured enough excitement for the next ten years. And I want the neighbors to see you coming right back home where you belong.”

“All right,” Dad says, a note of surrender in his voice. “Jack Kilgard sure stood up for me, didn’t he?”

“What’s he talking about?” I ask.

A warm smile lights my mother’s face. “When the deputy handcuffed your father and started walking out to the car, Jack blocked Sheriff Byrd’s way and gave him a piece of his mind.”

A transplanted Yankee, Jack Kilgard is a retired naval engineer who worked for fifteen years at the Triton Battery plant. He probably knew all the Double Eagles personally.

“All six foot five of him,” Dad says. “Jack cussed up a blue streak, and I don’t think I’ve heard him cuss in the forty years I’ve known him.”

Mom shakes her head. “He told Billy Byrd he’d be out of office as soon as the next election came around.”

Dad laughs. “He kept calling the jail the ‘pokey.’ I honestly think he scared Billy.”

“Come on, Tom,” Mom says, knowing that all this bravado counts for nothing in the sausage grinder of the legal system. “We won a battle, not the war. Let’s get home.”

As they walk away, Dad glances back at me, and I signal that he should call me as soon as he gets a chance.

He nods and continues on.

As I watch my mother’s Camry pull away, one thing comes clear. By asking that my father be held without bail, Shad Johnson has obliterated any residual illusion that he means to cut me a break in this case. He is, as Caitlin predicted, going after my father with everything in his arsenal. What I don’t understand is
why,
when he knows I can end his legal career by e-mailing one photograph to the bar association.

“Penn?” says a voice from behind me.

I turn and find Shad looking up at me, a faint cloud of condensation coming from his mouth with each breath.

“I guess my bond request took you by surprise in there.”

“You could say that.”

He turns up his palms like a man dealing with events beyond his control. “I had to do it. This is the most racially charged case I’ve handled since taking office.”

“That’s why you want my father to sit in a cell for nine months? What the hell, Shad? You know there’s zero risk of him trying to flee.”

“I
don’t
know that. But I did know Judge Noyes would deny my request. That’s why I made it. I didn’t think he would burn my ass like that while doing it, but that’s not your problem. Penn … there are angles to this case you don’t know about yet. Once you do, I think you’ll understand why I have to pursue this without concern for my own career.”