Paris Trout (24 page)

"Why did you grab Mr. Trout by the neck then?"

"
I never grabbed Mr. Trout. I never raised my
hand."

"Did you try to fight Mr. Trout?"

"
I didn't attempt to fight. If I did, Mr. Buster
was glad to shoot me."

"
That was the reason you didn't fight?"

"
Nobody would fight, somebody got a pistol on
them."

Seagraves held his head as if he were dizzy. "All
right," he said, "you say Rosie ran into the house, then
Mr. Trout, and then your mother."

"Walked," he said. "She just walk in
there calm."

"You saw that? She just walked in nice and
slow?"

"
No sir, she was walking pert. She don't ever
walk slow."

"
Did you see the rest?"

"
I didn't see it all," he said. "I
didn't stayed out there. I saw him when he caught up to Rosie, that
is the only thing."

"Did you see him hit her?"

"
He grabbed her by the head. I don't know what
else. He might of hit her."

"
You are the gentleman who was there, and you
can't say if she was hit or not?"

"
Yessir, he hit her with something. I saw the
place on her head."

Seagraves moved closer to the jury. "All right,"
he said, "and then you ducked in the house. Is that where your
rifle is?"

"
Yessir."

"It's a .22, single-shot rifle?"

"
Yessir."

"
Did you mean to get it out?"

"
Don't I have a right to protect my house?"

"Awhile ago you said you ducked in there because
you were scared. Why did you say that?"

"
I was scared," the boy said. "I'm
naturally scared when somebody is shooting."

Seagraves saw the boy's fingers were shaking. "Which
is it? Were you scared or were you mad?"

"
Yessir," he said.

"You were scared enough to shoot somebody with
your .22 rifle, but you weren't scared enough to shoot them with a
pistol?"

"
I don't know how to shoot no pistol," he
said.

"
Then why was it under your mattress? Why take
it from your stepfather in the first place?"

"
I didn't have no reason, I just liked it,"
he said.

"
Do you know what perjury is?" Seagraves
asked. "Do you know it is a crime in this state to tell a lie
under oath?"

"
I know it."

"
I'll ask again. Why did you want it on your
side of the house then?"

"
I could take what I wanted on my side. Mr. Lyle
don't mind what I take."

Seagraves leaned closer to the boy and spoke to the
jury. "The truth is," he said, "that gun wasn't there,
was it? It was on the other side, and you took it out of there after
the shooting, didn't you?"

  "
No sir, I had it before."

Seagraves shook his head. "All right, you said
Mr. Devonne had a gun too."

"I saw the print of it through his coat."

"Did he say anything while this was going on?"

The boy shrugged. "He didn't say a mumbling word
the whole time."

"
He just walked in, without rhyme or reason, and
began to shoot? Does that make sense to you?"

"
I don't know," the boy said. "I never
seen people act out like that before."

Seagraves walked back to the defense table and saw
that Trout had filled the page. Ducks, mice, guns, pools of steaming
blood. A woodpecker smoking a cigarette. He was beginning to draw
walls and a window, to make the scene indoors.

"
I have no further questions," he said.

Judge Taylor consulted his
watch and broke for lunch. It was ten thirty-five, and Paris Trout
was out the door before any of the spectators.

* * *

TROUT CROSSED TOWN ON foot, using alleys and
backyards, and arrived at the Ether County Retirement Home in ten
minutes.

He walked through the lobby without signing the
visitors' book, without acknowledging the nurse sitting behind the
reception desk. There was a rule that visitors had to sign in and
residents had to sign out, but the nurse looked at Trout and decided
not to make an issue.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked
into room 26 without knocking. His mother was sitting in a wheelchair
near the sink, naked.

A fat Negro woman in a green uniform was kneeling in
front of her, sponging her feet. The woman looked over her shoulder
at the sound of the door, stopping for a moment, and then rinsed the
sponge in a bowl of dirty water and started up the old woman's legs.
She knew Trout from other visits.

Trout sat down on the unmade bed, watching. His
mother's toenails were yellow and thick and had not been cut in a
long time. They had not grown straight but followed along the curve
of her toes, reminding him somehow of talons.

Her legs were thin and bruised, unshaved.

Her lap was hidden by the way she sat in the chair, a
little tuft of gray hair showing at the top. "Miz Trout be
finished here in a few minutes, you want to wait outside," the
woman said.

Trout did not move.

The sponge went over his mother's knees and then
moved to her chest and stomach. He saw little bumps rise on her arms,
chicken skin. The woman stood and pulled her halfway out of her
chair. His mother's chin rested on the woman's shoulder while she
washed her back and bottom.

"There now," the woman said, "we be
done in a jiffy." She dropped the old lady back into the chair
and studied her work. There was a wet shine over her, top to bottom,
and she had begun to shake.

The woman walked into the bathroom and came back with
a towel and bent over the old lady, going back over what she had
done. She was drying the chest when she noticed the old lady's
breathing. "Lord a mercy," she said, "something got
Miz Trout excited today."

He saw the rise and fall of her stomach too, it was
spasmodic, as if she were crying. "I bet she knows you come to
see her," the woman said. "I bet she knows you here."
The woman moved until her face was in front of his mother's. "You
know your sonny boy come to visit, didn't you?"

She opened the closet door and came out with a white
nightgown. She fit it over the old lady's head and then her body,
tugging at the arms to get them into the sleeves.

"People 'round here say Miz Trout don't realize
a day has passed the last five years, but she knows more than they
think."

She took the combs out of the old lady's hair and
then smoothed it as it fell, the ends just touching the floor.

"
You want to comb your momma's hair?" the
woman said. "Sometime peoples like to comb their mothers' hair
.... " She thought for a minute. "But I expect it's ladies
like to do that, ain't it?"

Without a word Trout stood
up and walked out the door.

* * *

THE TRIAL RESUMED AT one o'clock.

Seagraves approached the courthouse by himself, from
the back. He'd eaten lunch at the college cafeteria, wanting time
alone to think. Something was wrong with the case, the same thing was
wrong with him. There was a confusion that defied order, and Paris
Trout was in the middle of it, getting clearer all the time.

Seagraves saw Buster Devonne then, standing on the
sidewalk where he could watch both doors to the building, and as soon
as he spotted Seagraves, he crossed the lawn of newly planted grass
to head him off

"
Mr. Seagraves," he said, smiling, "if
I might have a minute of your time, sir . . ."

Seagraves stood where he was. Buster Devonne stopped
close enough so Seagraves could smell his sweat and lit a cigarette.
He pulled the smoke deep into his body, and it came back out with the
words as he spoke.

"Sir," he said, "there is some feeling
among my friends that I am being used in this trial in a way that is
detrimental to my own case." Seagraves did not answer.

"On account, you know, of the conflict of my
testimony with my original statement."

"
You need to talk to your attorney about that,"
Seagraves said. "I represent Paris Trout's interests."

"
That's what I mean," he said. "You
see, I ain't got no Harry Seagraves to get me off. I got Bear Lewis,
the midget, and he's a worst lawyer than he was a judge."

Seagraves kept still.

"And what I thought," Buster Devonne said,
"was it might be to our mutual benefit if you was to represent
me also."

"No," he said.

Devonne ran the palm of his hand over his head, from
the forehead back to his neck. "I got to protect myself you see.
I can't afford no crackerjack lawyer."

"
Bear Lewis knows the law," Seagraves said.

"No sir, not good enough. I need me a better
lawyer, or I can't go saying nothing at this trial here .... "
He smiled and pulled again on the cigarette.

"
How much do you want?" Seagraves said.

Devonne left the cigarette in his lips and put his
hands in his pockets. He looked at his shoes, caked with fresh dirt.
"A thousand," he said.

"
A thousand, I ought
get me a lawyer of my own .... "

* * *

WHEN SEAGRAVES REENTERED the courtroom, the air was
dead weight. Hot and still and dead. It was an effort to breathe.
Judge Taylor came in a moment later, pulling at his collar. There was
baby powder between his fingers and streaked here and there across
his robe. He sat down and broke an immediate sweat. He instructed the
court officer to clear the spectators out of the windows and then
sent him for a fan. Ward Townes called Mary McNutt. For half an hour
Townes questioned her, uninterrupted by defense objection, leading
her from her first meeting with Rosie Sayers to the moment things
started on the porch.

She said, "I come up on the step, and Mr. Trout
had brass knucks on his left hand. He made a rake to hit her, and she
dodged.

"Rosie tore off into the house, and he tore off
after her, like he was tearing down a panel. I come through the door,
and they was at the foot of the bed. He had hold of her, and she had
hold of him, around his waist. I saw where he hit her with the
knucks. He surely bust the skin. I went in the second room door, and
Mr. Buster Devonne come right on behind me and shot me in the back. I
walk on, and he shot me again, a little before I got to Mr. Trout and
Rosie, right there in my own house."

"
And what did you do?" Townes said.

"
I kept straight by them, I didn't do nothing."

"Were you hurt?"

"
Sir . . . those bullets went inside."

"
Could you feel them?"

"I could feel the shock, oh, yes."

Sitting at the table, Seagraves felt them too.

Townes said, "But you went on walking? Did you
ever get hold of Mr. Trout?"

"
No sir. I went on in there in the kitchen. I
just got to the table to lay down, and then I dropped to my knees and
couldn't stand up. I felt the bullets a different aspect, and I just
wanted to lay down. Then Rosie come in after Mr. Trout had shot her,
sat down on the trunk. He had shot her in the arm and the side."

"
How many times did Mr. Trout shoot her after
she sat down?"

"
I know of twice, maybe more."

"
And you were there when he did the shooting?"

"
I was laying down," she said. "I was
laying down with her to die. She said, 'Lord have mercy, Mary, he has
shot me in my stomach." I raised up, and just as I turned around
Mr. Buster ran in a little piece and shot me again. I said, 'Come on,
Rosie,' and she got up, and me and her went out the back door."

Ward Townes waited a moment, and then, quietly, he
said, "Can you show the jury any of the places the bullets hit
you?"

Seagraves came out of his chair slowly, as if he were
undecided whose side he was on.

"
Objection," he said, sounding tired. "The
witness is not the deceased, the condition of her body, whatever it
may be, is not germane to this case and is not admissible."

Townes said, "It is certainly germane to the
business Paris Trout conducted that day in Indian Heights. It cannot
be separated out because Mrs. McNutt did not succumb to her
injuries."

Judge Taylor dropped his chin into the palm of his
hand and thought. "Well, Mr. Townes," he said, "I
don't think you can make an exhibition of these wounds without
subjecting the witness to a certain embarrassment."

"We won't need to disrobe her," Townes
said. "All she has to do is pull up her dress."

Seagraves spoke again, more deliberately. "I
would further object, for the record, that any such display would be
highly prejudicial and would impugn the dignity of this court."

Judge Taylor would not meet his eye. "I will let
it in," he said, "if counsel can show the wounds without
undue embarrassment."