The Secret of Magic (12 page)

“I liked it,” said Regina.

Mary Pickett flashed out what looked like a genuine smile. “It’s Willie Willie’s. I fixed it up for him myself. Not what you were expecting, was it? The
cottage
, that is.”

“I didn’t know what to expect,” said Regina honestly. “I imagine you didn’t, either.”

They looked at each other. They both knew what she meant.

It was clear that Mary Pickett had been plainly amazed by Regina the night before, and she was still astonished. She didn’t try to hide it. Every time she glanced over, her eyebrows canted upward and she automatically started shaking her head. Regina saw this, but she pretended not to. She didn’t want to make things easier for Mary Pickett, or more difficult for Willie Willie or for herself, by starting off on the wrong foot. So she said, “I realize that I’m not the person you were expecting, but as I’m sure you can well understand, Mr. Marshall himself is always quite busy . . .”

Mary Pickett brushed a fly away from a silver bowl of blood-orange marmalade. The dish was polished bright as a mirror, the marmalade so thick it kept a spoon straight up, standing at attention. Mary Pickett let her gaze roam to a row of enormous pink roses. She said not a word. She did not look at Regina, who continued gamely on.

“He chose me as the most qualified to replace him. I have experience with ex-GIs, with their civil rights cases. Surely since you were the one who wrote for our help, it cannot be my race that matters. You seemed to know you were calling on the NAACP.” Regina paused. “Is it my gender?”

“‘Is it my gender?’”
mimicked Miss Mary Pickett. She swirled a small cyclone of sugar into her tea. “I asked specifically for Thurgood Marshall. You do not look like Thurgood Marshall to
me
. Much, much too young, for one thing. The way life is here . . . how could you possibly understand?”

“Understand what?”

But there was no answer to this.

“Believe me, Miss Calhoun,” continued Regina, “Mr. Marshall is extremely sorry that he could not come himself. He understands the gravity of the situation. We all do.”

This caught Mary Pickett’s attention. “Really?” she said. “And what exactly
is
the gravity, as you so neatly phrase it, of this situation?”

“Why, that justice for Joe Howard Wilson has not been served. You want us—me—to find evidence that will persuade a grand jury to reopen the case.”

“Oh,” said Mary Pickett, considering, “is that what you think? Well, you’re wrong. And had you informed me who you were before you got here, you would have saved me a great deal of money and you and your office some time. Soon as we’re finished here, I’ll have somebody haul you back down to the Bonnie Blue depot. The bus will take you far as Birmingham. You can catch a train north from there. I’m sorry, but this is a serious matter. Life and death. I need someone with Thurgood Marshall’s experience. I need
expertise
.”

“That’s not what Mr. Willie Willie told me. It’s not why he said you wanted us here.”

“Really?” Mary Pickett’s eyes were steady over the rim of her cup, but Regina could tell from the flicker in them that she’d made an impression.

“Really,” she echoed. “In fact, he thinks the only reason you sent for us was that you thought we wouldn’t actually come. But we did come. I’m here.”

“Indeed,” said Mary Pickett. “You are.”

She had a beautiful voice, slow, rich, and deep, a voice that thoroughly frosted its phrases and laid them out like so many caramel cakes. A little too sweet for Regina’s taste. It was probably something, she decided, best imbibed by small, sparing dose. Mary Pickett poured more tea for herself then turned the handle so her guest could pour for herself.
God forbid she should serve a Negro!
Regina reached down and started swirling sugar into her own teacup. Which was chipped. Both Regina and Mary Pickett noticed this at the exact same moment. Regina’s lip curved upward in triumph.

I may not be what you expected, but you are exactly what I expected,
her smile said.

“I am sorry,” said Mary Pickett, blushing. “This was not done with intention.”

She looked like she meant it. And much to Regina’s amazement, she snatched up the cup, rushed into the house, and returned with another. Perfect, this time.

But this show of good manners changed nothing else. Settled back into her seat, Mary Pickett appeared, once again, ready for battle. “This is Mississippi, and this is a boy’s—a young man’s—death we’re talking about, and the life of a man who has worked for me for years. There’s nothing someone like you can do for us down here. You’ll only get in the way. You’ll make things difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“As though they’re not already awful enough,” said Mary Pickett. “In a killing way.”

“But Miss Calhoun, Lieutenant Wilson is already dead.”

“It’s not Joe Howard I’m worried about,” said Mary Pickett. “It’s Willie Willie. I’m afraid he’s going to get himself killed. Do you know what I’m saying?”

Lynched.

Regina nodded. She knew what Mary Pickett was saying.

“Because he won’t give up,” continued Mary Pickett. “He says he will, but he won’t. I thought once I wrote up to y’all and he saw—”

“Why?” Bad manners to interrupt, but Regina did it anyway. “I mean, why won’t Mr. Willie Willie give up?”

“Why?” repeated Mary Pickett. “Honey, ‘why’ is the history of this place. It’s the only question we ever ask, and it’s the one never gets answered.”

Soft music played into the silence left by her words. Slow and sad. Negro. Gospel, maybe. Regina thought it must be filtering out from a radio nearby. She couldn’t be certain, couldn’t identify the tune. But Mary Pickett sure knew it, and she was humming along. Suddenly, Regina thought,
Why this is
M. P. Calhoun
sitting across from me at this table. I’m drinking tea with one of my favorite authors. It’s me here!
And she allowed herself to be
thrilled
by this fact—but just for a moment.

Then she said, “You send me away now, Mr. Willie Willie’ll know he was right about you. That you were . . . I don’t know . . . maybe bluffing.” She stopped, searching for the right words. “Though I can’t imagine what he thinks would much matter. He’s just another black man works for you, after all.”

It was a calculated risk. Regina held her breath as Mary Pickett looked over a sea of flowers to the small out-built cottage. When her head swiveled slowly back, the humming stopped. And Regina knew she had Mary Pickett’s full attention.

“Continue.”

“I was thinking,” Regina said after a minute, “that I might pay a call on the district attorney. Nathan Bedford Duval V, at least that’s the name in the clippings you sent. He’s the one asked the judge to call up a grand jury—”

“Why on earth would you do that?” This time it was Mary Pickett who interrupted. “Bed’s already done more than he was called on to do. Worked hard at it, but he never came up with a thing. You ask me, some no-account bad boys got on that bus, took Joe Howard off. They were over there, across the state line in Carroll County when it happened, weren’t they? Everybody knows Alabama’s just full up, one end to the other, with troublesome folks.”

“How’d you hear that?” said Regina. “I mean, how did you hear that those men actually got on the bus in Alabama?”

“Because I just know.” Mary Pickett stopped. She seemed to realize she’d admitted to knowing too much.

Like what was on the secret grand jury docket.
But Regina slid past this, at least for the moment.

“And why?” she prompted.

Mary Pickett looked wary. “Why what?”

“
Why
would the men get on the bus in the first place? Why would they just, out the blue, decide to stop the bus and . . . I don’t know . . . take him off? Aliceville, Alabama, was mentioned in those clippings you sent us. It was his last stop, and something must have happened there. Something that got Joe Howard killed—or was the excuse for him getting killed. There has to be a link, and it seems to me the district attorney would be the most likely place to start in order to find it. He seemed to have been active in putting the case together. The newspapers talked about him, not about the sheriff. Once I have some idea what was presented, I’ll know what we need to find out to get him to reopen proceedings. Unless, of course, you think I should speak directly to the circuit court judge.”

“Judge’s out with his dogs,” Mary Pickett snapped out. “It’s bird season.”

“When will he be back? Tonight?”

Mary Pickett looked at Regina like she was crazy. “I said Judge Timms’s gone
bird
hunting. He takes his dogs out once a year because, in his words, ‘They just love it to death.’ If you’re lucky, he’ll be back here right about Thanksgiving. But I don’t imagine you plan on staying that long?”

“No,” said Regina. “I think we can clear things up before then. Look, maybe the district attorney knows how to get in touch with him. He might get the judge to release the grand jury findings.”

“You won’t find a thing in it.”

“With all due respect, Miss Calhoun, I think I should be the one to make that decision. Isn’t that why you sent for someone from the Fund—so that Mr. Willie Willie would have a responsible lawyer?”

Mary Pickett regarded her. “Maybe.”

She reached for her toast. “That’s a nice skirt you got on.”

Something in her tone sent a warning, but Regina said, “Thank you. My mother made it. She’s a dressmaker.”

Now Mary Pickett was looking right at her. “Ida Jane Robichard. Isn’t that your mother? The anti-lynching crusader? I put the whole thing together myself last night. I recognized the
patronymic
right away when I saw it on the telegram y’all sent down. Robichard’s not that common a name, even down this close to Louisiana. I thought you might be related.”

For a moment the only sounds were those of a bee buzzing, a bird chirping, the tires of one lone vehicle traveling slowly up a nearby road. That’s all, as Regina sat reeling at the idea that this Southern white woman would be talking in her drawled voice of Ida Jane; that Mary Pickett would even know of her at all. A surprise. Almost a violation. Regina hoped to God the shock didn’t show on her face.

“Yes,” she said. “I am related.”

“Your mother, I imagine. You look like her. Pretty.” And then, to Regina’s unasked question, “I’ve seen pictures of her. Willie Willie gets the Negro newspapers, and I read from them. Sometimes. Your mother’s all through them. She’s famous. A firebrand. A martyr.”

“No” said Regina, a little too quickly. “She’s not that.”

“Don’t make a martyr out of yourself.”
How many times had Ida Jane drummed that into her.
“Martyrs are dead folks. And dead folks can’t get the job done.”

“My mother doesn’t think of herself that way. She doesn’t think of herself at all. It’s the injustice that matters.”

“But your father was, wasn’t he? A martyr, I mean. I imagine it’s given you a great deal to live up to.” Mary Pickett sighed. “Well, one way or the other, we’ve all got to live up to something. It’s a shared burden, nothing particularly racial about it.”

Regina sat still as stone, her mouth chiseled into one tight line so thin it hurt her cheeks to draw it in. Who did Mary Pickett think she was, talking so glibly about Ida Jane and Oscar Robichard?
Smug
even that she had known their names. Regina wondered how a woman, so white and so privileged, could possibly think she knew anything at all about what it meant to be them.

Mary Pickett swiveled slowly toward her, and not just with her head this time but with the whole of her body, with her careful sweater, and her lace blouse that hid the wink of good matching pearls. She moved no closer, but Regina caught a brief trace of her perfume, and it was a surprise, more opulent than she would have thought, deeper. Sexier.

And Regina knew it. Shalimar. By Guerlain.

Mary Pickett said, “You are ambitious. A lady lawyer. Determined to get ahead.”

“Determined to help Mr. Willie Willie,” corrected Regina. “As I presume you are yourself.”

“Yes,” said Mary Pickett, as the lines of her face gravitated upward. It was a small smile, but it worked a wonder on her face, lightened it up. “Helping my Willie Willie—that’s what I know to do best.”

“
Your
Willie Willie?”

“Yes, mine.”

Regina opened her mouth, then quickly shut it again. She wanted to ask just what Mary Pickett meant by that word “mine”? Did she think of Willie Willie as a possession, like her big house or her big foreign car that sat beside it? Something that made up what could be considered the gracious Calhoun life? Or was there more to it than that? Regina thought there might be.

A breeze caught at the late roses and fire geraniums, brushed against carefully trimmed hedges and through low-hanging branches along the tree-lined lane that Regina had hurried through that morning on her way to Mary Pickett’s great house. The movement drew Regina’s attention down its short distance, straight to Mr. Willie Willie’s cottage, where she had slept last night.

“He doesn’t trust people,” Mary Pickett was saying. “He might act like he does, but he doesn’t. I’m talking about Willie Willie. I’m talking about white people. That’s the only thing about him that doesn’t have anything to do with Joe Howard. Willie Willie hasn’t trusted white people in years. Doesn’t like us, either. Doesn’t even pretend to anymore. It all started with Daddy.”

Regina turned back from the cottage. “Your father?”

“My daddy was the circuit judge for this county. He was that before I was born and will be that long after I’ve died, even though he’s been dead himself now for many a good year. His picture’s over in the courthouse, and the brass plaque under it still announces that’s what he is. Present tense. No dates. You will find that the past is still very much alive down here.”

You will find . . .
Future tense. This did not have the ring of being sent away in it. She tried not to smile as Mary Pickett continued.

“Daddy’s the one actually taught Joe Howard to read and to write. He did this when Joe Howard was little, a teeny-weensy boy. Daddy’s the first one told Willie Willie that he had himself a special son, that Joe Howard was going to grow up to
be
something. At least once he got out of the South.”