Paris Trout (27 page)

"
Did he sign it?"

"
No sir. As soon as he touched it, the woman
said, 'Don't sign that thing, Tom.' And then she looked at Paris —
Mr. Trout — and cussed him."

"'
What specifically did she say?"

Buster Devonne shrugged. "She said, 'You white
sonofabitch, I will shoot your damn heart out.' You can imagine how I
felt."

Before Seagraves could ask his next question, he
heard Ward Townes behind him.

"
Objection," he said. "No one has more
respect for this court than myself: Your Honor, for what it is and
what it can accomplish, but everything has its reasonable limits, and
asking the court to put itself into Mr. Devonne's mind exceeds them."

There was some laughter again from the back, and
Seagraves smiled with it. Buster Devonne put a look on the
prosecutor. When the noise had passed, the judge sustained the
objection.

"
All right, Mr. Devonne," Seagraves said,
"wou1d you please tell what happened next."

Buster Devonne was still staring at the prosecutor.
"Thomas Boxer got up and grabbed hold of Mr. Trout by the neck,"
he said, "and the girl commenced to tearing at his clothes, to
pull him off-balance. They tussled into the door, and then Mrs.
McNutt come in there and jumped on Paris from the back. The girl had
a pistol."

"What kind of pistol?"

"
A thirty-two automatic," he said, and
looked right into the jury box again.

"
Then what happened?"

"I was tied up by the door. Thomas Boxer gone
disappeared after he grabbed Mr. Trout, and there was supposed to be
another Negro somewhere, who was known to be a big bad one. There was
shooting then, and then the boy come in from behind to pick up the
gun on the floor, and I yelled for Paris to look out, he's coming the
other way. I was still waiting on the other Negro to appear and
expected Paris could handle the women and Thomas until I got a fix on
where he was."

"
Did Mr. Trout have a gun?"

"
Yessir, he did."

'
°Was that unusual?"

"
Not that I know. I believe it was an ordinary
forty-five automatic."

°'Was it unusual for Mr. Trout to carry a gun along
when he went for collections?"

"
In Indian Heights? No sir. Paris Trout keeps a
bank. He does it hisself; loans and collections, keeps it all in his
head. In that business, money and guns go hand in hand."

"Did you also have a gun?"

"
No sir."

"Do you own a gun?"

"
Yessir, but I didn't have it with me."

"
And so if someone comes in here and testifies
they saw a gun in your pocket, they're mistaken."

"
I'll tell you what they might of saw," he
said. "I sometimes put my hand in my coat pocket and stick my
finger out, looks like the same thing." Seagraves suddenly had
the thought that Buster Devonne was about to wink at the jury.

"
So you did not fire any shots that day?"

"
No sir."

"
Did you go into the house?"

"
No sir, I went to the door. That's as far as I
got."

"Did you see the shooting?"

"I heard it, a minute after the woman went
'round to the back. But I couldn't say this shot was Bred first and
then that one."

"How long did the shooting last?"

"
Not long," he said. "It didn't take
long."

"
And what did you do when it had stopped?"

"Paris come out of there, it looked like World
War One. Both of us made to the car as fast as we could get there."

"
Did you drive back to town, or did Mr. Trout?"

"
I did. He was anxious over what had happened.
He said he'd never known a good family to turn on him like that."

"
And you went directly to town?"

"
I took him back to his store. I did that, and
then I called Chief Norland and tol' him what happened?

"
Mr. Trout asked you to do that?"

"
Yessir. He would of done it himself, but he had
pressing business to attend."

"Thank you, Mr.
Devonne." Then, to Ward Townes: "Your witness."

* * *

WARD TOWNES FROWNED AND shook his head. For a long,
dreamlike moment Seagraves thought he did not mean to cross-examine.
Then he stood up, looking at his notes.

"
Mr. Devonne, how much do you weigh?"

"
I ain't put a penny in Mr. Dickey's scale
lately," he said.

"
The last time you did, what did you weigh?"

"Maybe two-fifteen."

"
Have you seen Thomas Boxer and Henry Ray Boxer
in this courtroom? What do you estimate they weigh?"

"
I couldn't," he said. "They got to
weigh themselves."

"
You were a member of the Cotton Point Police
Department?"

"
Eleven years."

"
In all that time you never had occasion to
estimate the height and weight of a suspect?"

"Sometimes."

"
All right, as a policeman, what would you
estimate Henry Ray Boxer weighed?"

"
Hundret and forty."

"
And Thomas Boxer? Would you say he was bigger
or smaller?"

"
About the same."

"
Is that your idea of big Negroes, a hundred and
forty pounds each?"

"
It depends on the Negroes," he said. "Mrs.
McNutt as big as me all by herself?"

There was some laughter in the courtroom again, but
Seagraves noticed there was none in the jury box. Judge Taylor
pounded for quiet. "Sir," he said to Buster Devonne, "I
will not have women embarrassed in my courtroom."

"All right," Townes said, "now you
testified here that Thomas Boxer choked Mr. Trout and then
disappeared when the scuffle started?"

"Yessir."

"
Once again calling on your experience as a
Cotton Point police officer, did you ever see a person disappear? See
it for yourself?"

"I sure as hell looked for a bunch of them that
seemed to," he said, and the judge himself laughed at that.

"
But not in front of your own eyes?"

"
No sir. What happened, I was distracted when he
and the girl grabbed Paris, and next thing I knew he was gone."

"Where did he go?"

"
Don't know."

"Into the other side of the house?"

"
Inside, underneath, I don't know."

Townes stopped for a moment, changing directions.
"How long did you say you were a member of the police force, Mr.
Devonne? Eleven years?"

"
Yessir."

"
Do you recall why you left that job?"

Seagraves objected, and Judge Taylor admonished the
prosecutor.

"
Let me ask something else then," Townes
said. '°When you spoke with Chief Norland after the shooting, did
you indicate then that you had been unarmed?"

"
I don't recall," he said.

"
You didn't tell him you were in the thick of it
out there?"

"
I might of left that impression."

"Why would you want to do that, Mr. Devonne?"

"
We was in it together," he said. "I
didn't want it to look like I was putting the blame on Paris — "

Townes turned his back on
Buster Devonne and returned to his table. He sat down, and then,
almost an afterthought, he said, "I think we've heard all we
need to from Mr. Devonne."

* * *

UNDER THE LEGAL CODE of the state of Georgia, the
defendant in a murder trial was allowed to read a statement without
any accompanying obligation to face cross-examination. This privilege
covered only the statement, and in the event that the defendant also
chose to testify, his previous statement became part of the testimony
and was opened to the prosecutor's questions.

Paris Trout left the defense table straight and
dignified and took the witness stand. "Your Honor,"
Seagraves said, "on my advice, Mr. Trout will exercise his
privilege to read into the record his statement on how this tragedy
occurred. This has been an ordeal, as anyone with an ounce of
compassion can see, and I do not think it would serve his interests
or this court's to have him testify beyond that."

"
Thank you, Mr. Seagraves," the judge said.
Then he turned to Trout and said, "Whenever you're ready, sir."

Trout took a pair of glasses out of his pocket and
fixed them carefully behind his ears. They softened him, Seagraves
thought, and made him older. He took two pieces of paper from another
pocket, unfolded them, and began to read.

" 'Your Honor, I do not honestly know how all
this happened. Mr. Devonne and myself visited the home of Mary McNutt
to settle a financial matter of little importance. When we had come
upon the porch, Miz McNutt cussed us, and her son Thomas slapped his
hands up around my neck, making to choke me.

"
There was a girl there, and she attacked me at
once with the boy. She looked to be about twenty-five years old and
was strong. Stronger than the boy. We struggled for a moment on the
porch. I would of just as soon left right there, but the girl broke
loose and went running into the house. I heard Mrs. McNutt tell her
to shoot my damn heart out. My damn white heart.

" 'I followed into the house after her, trying
to keep her from getting a gun. When I caught up, she'd put her hands
under the pillow where the gun was. I knew that's what was there. I
didn't want to kill her, then or anytime else. I didn't have any
business killing people, and it looked to me if I could knock her
down, it would settle the whole matter.

"I never raised my fist to a woman in my life,
but I did then, to stop her before things got out of hand, and you
know, I didn't hit her hard enough. She staggered and dropped the
pistol on the floor, but she never fell.

" '
And then she took a breath, like it was just
starting, and reached to pick it up. I shot her in the shoulder right
there. It could just as easy been the heart. It could of ended then,
but I did not intend to kill her. I just wanted to get out without
nobody getting hurt.

"
At that moment Mary McNutt come in, slammed
against me with all her weight, and tried to get her hands around my
neck. When I cleared of her, the girl had got to the pistol, and it
was in her hand again.

"
I grabbed the girl's arm, and the same time I
felt Miz McNutt's weight across my back, about pushed me over, and
then she grabbed me around the neck, got both hands on my windpipe,
and I began to shoot. I don't know how many times. Three, four, five
shots, I honestly don't know.

"
And then Miz McNutt said, "I am shot,"
and let loose of my neck. I saw Thomas Boxer next. He came in from
behind and grabbed up the pistol. I squared to shoot him, but the
girl recovered — I'm talking about Rosie Sayers now — and I shot
her again. Then I called out, "Come on, Buster, let's go. There
is apt to be more shooting here." And we goose-stepped it into
the car and left. I asked Buster to report to the police, and that's
all I know, how this came to happen. "

He looked up then, adjusting his glasses, and he
seemed to be shaken by what he had remembered. "Is that your
statement, Mr. Trout?" the judge said.

"
Yessir. I didn't go out there to shoot those
people. I am in the business of helping people. That's what we try to
do, and we expect to get paid for it, get a living out of it. Colored
people aren't the only ones got a right to a living."
 

He folded the papers and put them back into his
pocket. "I didn't want nothing like this," he said. "I
had nothing against that girl or against the woman. The honest truth
is, I don't have nothing against them now. We were all somebody's
baby once, we all come from the same place.

"
I didn't want to get killed either. That is the
reason I shot them, the only reason. In defense of my own life."

He looked at the jury, a long examination. "We
are all somebody's baby," he said again.

And then he folded his glasses and put them back into
his pocket too, stood up, and returned to the table with Seagraves.
Somewhere in the back a woman was crying.

Trout folded his hands and
seemed, for a moment, to be praying.

* * *

JUDGE TAYLOR, NOTING THE courtroom was 104 degrees,
gave each counsel five minutes for closing arguments, keeping the
time on his wristwatch.

"
What we have here," Seagraves said, "is
a death and two stories how it happened. We all regret that someone
was killed, no matter who was at fault. But you are not being asked
to regret the loss of Rosie Sayers's life today, you are being asked
to decide if Paris Trout, an honest and respected citizen of Ether
County, deliberately caused that death, with malice and forethought,
as the prosecution claims.