Call the Devil by His Oldest Name (6 page)

Seven

“AREN'T YOU GOING to
call Jasmine? It's almost two-thirty.” Danika whispered as Mary watched the red-suited Virginia Kwan try to rat­tle the computer expert who'd traced a complicated cyber-porn trail back to Dwayne Pugh's personal computer. Judge Cate looked as alert as ever, making notes on the man's testimony, but the jurors were something else. Sleepy from the carbohydrate-laden lunch served up by the jail trustees, and weary after a week's worth of com­plicated testimony, the panel watched Virginia with drooping eyes, numbers six and eleven even jerking themselves awake from time to time.
Don't ever call anybody important on Friday afternoon,
Irene Hannah had once warned her.
Save your fireworks for Monday morning
. Mary had taken that advice like gospel. She hoped she wasn't go­ing to have to change her ways today.

Keeping half an ear on Virginia, she turned and looked at the crowded courtroom. Relatives of the abused project kids took up most of the seats—Jasmine's mother and grandmother, Isaiah Reed's parents, Diamond LaForge's husky father and even huskier uncles hulking in their chairs like the defensive line of the Atlanta Falcons. Their eyes were not glazing over from the highly technical testimony, but rather were pinning a fierce look of righteous expectation on Mary. Their children had been molested. All their hopes of redress rested upon her. So far, she felt no better than okay about this prosecution. She'd had to call a lot of snore-inducing technical experts, and she still feared Virginia Kwan's ability to come up with some totally off-the-wall defense that would sink her case like a paper boat in a rainstorm.

A tiny movement caught her eye. She looked toward the far corner of the courtroom. Hobson Mott sat in the back row looking straight at her, his brows lifted in a silent question.

She turned around, enraged. That sorry son of a bitch had come to check up on her.
Put Jasmine Harris on the stand.
Mott was worried about his reputation among the African-Americans; he needed this. His threat was unspoken but clear:
Get me a conviction, Ms. Crow. Or spend the rest of your career prosecuting B & Es.
She didn't want to put that tormented little girl on the stand, didn't want to go against Irene's adage about Friday afternoons, but her boss was in the courtroom, waiting for her to do it. She took a long breath, trying to quell her fury, to clear her head.
Okay, Hobson
, she promised him silently.
You want Jasmine, then you've got her. But we're doing this my way.

“Ms. Crow?” Judge Cate asked expectantly as Virginia Kwan finished and the computer expert stepped down.

Mary rose from her chair. “I have one more witness, Your Honor.” She looked down at her papers, intentionally stretching the moment to give the jurors a chance to wake up. When everyone was sitting a little straighter in their seats, she spoke in a clear, strong voice. “Your Honor, the State calls Jasmine Harris.”

A low anticipatory murmur rose from the courtroom as the bailiff opened the door to the witness room. Mary glanced over at the defense table. Virginia had begun scribbling notes on a legal pad, but the sallow color already seemed to be draining from Dwayne Pugh's skin.
Good
, Mary smiled to herself as Jasmine came into the courtroom, clutching the caseworker's hand.
I just surprised both of you.

Jasmine had come to court in her Sunday best—gleaming Mary Jane shoes with lacy white anklets, a lavender dress with a frilly white pinafore, crinoline petticoats that rustled with every step. A tiny black patent leather purse had slid to the crook of her elbow as she kept the thumb of her free hand firmly planted in her mouth. When they reached the edge of the jury box, the bailiff scooped the child up and carried her to the witness stand, her petticoats a white froth in his arms. Only Mary noticed that the whole time, the child had kept her eyes on the great seal of the State of Georgia behind Judge Cate, her face turned away from Dwayne Pugh.

The courtroom listened in silence as Judge Cate first complimented Jasmine on her pretty outfit, then asked her if she knew the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie.

Jasmine nodded solemnly. “Jesus don't want you to fib.”

“That's right, Jasmine. So when we ask you some questions, you aren't going to fib, are you?”

“No, ma'am.” Jasmine stuck her thumb back in her mouth.

Judge Cate looked at Mary. “Okay, Ms. Crow. Your witness.”

Mary slipped off the jacket of her black suit, revealing a pink silk blouse. She'd donned the most child-friendly item in her closet this morning, and she walked to the witness stand not in her usual crisp way, but strolled over to one side of it, standing close to Jasmine.

“Hi, Jasmine.” She smiled as she lowered the microphone. “We're going to have to talk into this thing, so everybody can hear us.”

Jasmine looked at her with panicked eyes.
It's okay, honey,
Mary longed to tell her.
If this goes like I've planned, its going to feel like a shot. It'll hurt a little, but not for long.

“Can you tell us your name?”

“Jasmine Harris.”

“Can you tell us how old you are?”

Jasmine held up one hand, fingers outspread.

“Five?”

She nodded.

“Can you tell us where you live, Jasmine?”

“Sixteen twenty-two Loveless Avenue.” Jasmine fidgeted with her purse as she answered the question in a whisper.

“And do you have a lot of friends there?”

“Yes.”

“Do you and your friends play outside?”

“Yes.”

“Last April did an ice-cream truck come to where you and your friends were playing?”

Jasmine ducked her head lower and stared at the little purse in her lap. “Yes.”

“Did a man drive that ice-cream truck?”

A pause. Then: “Yes.”

“Did the man who drove the truck ever give you any Popsicles for free?”

Jasmine sat silent. Then two big tears began to roll down her cheeks as she whispered, “Yes.”

Mary leaned closer. Here it comes. The one question that Jasmine had never been able to an­swer. “Jasmine, I want you to look around this room and tell us if you see the man who gave you those free Popsicles.”

Jasmine did not move. Mary watched as a tear lingered on her chin, then dripped onto her starched white pinafore.

‘'Jasmine?” Mary said softly. “Can you show us the Popsicle Man?”

All at once Jasmine raised her head, pointed one chubby finger directly at Dwayne Pugh at the defense table, and began to scream. Beyond hurt, beyond anger, it was a primeval keening that recalled every horror that had ever been visited upon a child. The jurors went rigid in their seats as Jasmine's grandmother answered with a loud wail of her own, and the entire phalanx of LaForge men leapt up with enraged shouts of “He be the one, Your Honor! Just give him to us!”

Judge Cate rapped her gavel. Mary squeezed Jasmine's shoulder as a foul odor filled her nose. She looked down. Brown shit spotted Jasmine's pretty white petticoats, one soupy turd dripping down the little girl's leg onto her lacy white an­klets.

“Order!” Judge Cate banged her gavel again and glared at the fierce LaForges. “You people sit down, or I'll clear this courtroom!”

She nodded at the bailiff, who started to move toward the LaForges, but the men sat down. Jasmine screamed, her mouth wide open and square, feces now running down both legs. The jurors sat ashen-faced. Dwayne Pugh looked as if he'd just swallowed vomit. Virginia Kwan stared at Jasmine with icy eyes.

“Let the record indicate that the witness identified the defendant,” Judge Cate loudly in­structed the court reporter over Jasmine's piercing screams. She banged her gavel again. “We'll recess for fifteen minutes, to let the witness regain control.”

Mary smiled at the howling little girl.
It's over, Jasmine,
she wanted to say.
I promise you, you'll never have to do this again.
“I have no further questions of this witness, Your Honor.”

Judge Cate glanced at her, surprised, then turned to the defense.

Just as Mary had hoped, Virginia Kwan shot to her feet. Mary knew she wanted this screaming child out of the courtroom, and out of the minds of the jurors who would no doubt relive this moment all weekend. “No questions, Your Honor. Although I reserve the right to recall.”

“Mrs. Williams,” Judge Cate turned to the caseworker, who was sitting opposite the jury box. “Jasmine is free to go.”

Mrs. Williams hurried over to the witness stand. She'd come prepared with a white blanket to wrap around Jasmine's lower half. Just as Mary had instructed, she scooped the weeping child up and exited the courtroom, walking directly in front of the jury box, allowing each juror to see, hear, and smell the effect Dwayne Pugh had on little Jasmine Harris.

After Mrs. Williams and Jasmine left the courtroom, Judge Cate spoke. “This trial stands in recess until nine o'clock, Monday morning. Jurors, please remember not to discuss these proceedings with anyone. Spectators, if you come here Monday, be prepared to show proper respect for this court, whatever may transpire upon the witness stand.”

With that, the judge rose and whisked through the door to her office. The jurors filed out. Two bailiffs escorted Dwayne Pugh back to jail. Everyone else stood up—Virginia Kwan gesturing furiously at her young male assistant, Jasmine Harris's mother and grandmother dabbing at wet eyes with crumpled tissues, the LaForge crew talking low with heads close to­gether, as if plotting some act of sedition. Mary looked at the seat where Hobson Mott sat. It was empty.

“That was some piece of prosecuting, girlfriend.” Danika walked over to tower above her.

Mary glanced at Virginia Kwan, who was now making a call on her cell phone. “It went well. But Virginia'll come up with something by Monday morning. Never rest your case on one good witness, Danika. You've got to play till the end of the game.” Good Lord, she thought with a shudder. She was beginning to sound as silly as Hobson.

“So what should we do?”

“Take tonight off,” replied Mary. “Go out with your boyfriend, have a nice meal. Come over to my house tomorrow about three. We'll make our final preparations for our big slam dunk.''

Danika frowned. “Our slam-dunk?”

“The boss's instructions,” said Mary bitterly, walking over to the prosecutor's table to collect her papers. “A slam-dunk conviction for this trial, Jasmine Harris be damned.”

“Think we'll get it?”

Mary opened her briefcase, disgusted with herself for caving in to Mott. “We're sure going to try.”

Eight

“YOU EVER GET sick
from these roads?” Clarinda tightened her seat belt anxiously as her cousin negotiated another hairpin curve. They were driving along the back roads from Little Jump Off, North Carolina, to Tremont, Tennessee, twisting through confetti-bright au­tumn leaves that swirled down to the highway like rose petals at a wedding.

“When I first came here.” Ruth sniffed, her eyes red from crying over Jonathan. “I guess I've gotten used to them.”

Clarinda clung to the door handle, giving up on the magazine article she was reading about sixty-four romantic ways to turn men to mush. In Oklahoma, you could read or write or even turn a couple of men to mush while you were driving. Here, she couldn't even look at the fashion ads without getting carsick. When Ruth had invited her to come over, she'd pictured these Appalachians like the Rockies—sharp and gleaming, a perfect place to meet rich young skiers or fly fishermen with money to burn. In­stead, she'd found stoop-shouldered mountains thick with ugly trees, inhabited by slow-talking men whose idea of a hot date included fiddles and moonshine. This trip wasn't turning out like she'd hoped at all. She should have known. Hers and Ruth's ideas of fun had differed since the day they were born. She'd always liked music and parties and having fun. Ruth preferred books and political rallies, and now, brewing up medicinal teas that smelled like rotting fungus and tasted even worse.

“I don't know how you stand this place. It gives me the creeps.”

“The creeps?” Ruth steered around another curve. “Why?”

“All these trees. It's like they're closing in on you. Listening to everything you say.”

“You're just accustomed to Oklahoma. North Carolina's beautiful when you're with someone you love.”

Clarinda snorted. “You sure about that?”

“About what? North Carolina?”

“That you're with somebody you love.”

“Why do you say that?” Ruth's voice trembled as if she might start crying again. “Because Jonathan and I had a fight?”

“No. Because you two act just like my mom and dad.” Clarinda looked out the window and thought of her sour parents, locked in a thirty year-long, drunken boil of an argument that ultimately had driven her and both her sisters out of their house before they graduated from high school. She hated her parents. When she was little she used to pray that she would wake up one day and belong to Ruth's folks, who were pleasant and agreeable, and for the most part, sober. Her cousin had all the luck. Always did.

“That's not true, Clarinda,” Ruth cried. “We've just been under a lot of stress lately.”

“Oh, yeah? Jonathan didn't look too stressed this morning when I came out of the bathroom.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. He just gave me that look.”

“What look?”

“You know. That look. One beat on your face, two beats on your boobs, a glance at your crotch, then back to your boobs again.”

“He did that?”

Clarinda shrugged. “Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe it was just a North Carolina mountain howdy.”

“What did he do after that?”

“He went over and got some of those stupid Ding-Dongs. Then Lily woke up.” She fumbled in her purse for her cigarettes, taking a curious pleasure at the way Ruth's chin was wobbling.

“Look, it was nothing. I shouldn't have even mentioned it.”

“No. It doesn't matter,” Ruth said, but Clarinda knew she lied.

They drove west, a dazzling blue sky piercing through the golden lacework of leaves overhead. Crossing into Tennessee, they entered the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with its tidy brown signs pointing out trails and picnic areas and quiet walks along the way. Clarinda had high hopes that Tennessee might prove less oppressive than North Carolina, but the terrain seemed identical—tall mountains covered in trees, the air thick with the smell of cedar and pine. Once again she felt a curious longing for the dusty, dry plains of Oklahoma.

“You ever think about coming home?” she asked, noticing how the ends of Ruth's mouth had begun to pull down in an inverted U.

“You mean move Jonathan and Lily out to Oklahoma?”

Clarinda nodded. “Your mom would think she'd died and gone to heaven.”

“And Jonathan would think he'd died and gone to hell,” Ruth said bitterly. “He'd never move to Oklahoma. These trees, this forest, are too much a part of him.” She sighed. “I'm afraid I'm a North Carolina Cherokee now.”

They drove out of the park. As they ap­proached a small outpost of civilization, Lily began to whimper. Quickly Ruth made a hard right turn into a McDonald's parking lot.

“Feeding time at the zoo,” she explained, parking the camper under a big mottled-bark tree at the far end of the lot. She unbuckled Lily from the car seat, then Clarinda watched as she pulled up her shirt and put the baby to her nipple, smiling as Lily began her earnest sucking.

“What does that feel like?” Clarinda wanted to go out and smoke a cigarette, but the whole breast-feeding process fascinated her. Who'd have thought old bookworm Ruth would ever marry and start whipping out her tits to feed a baby?

“Terrific, when you haven't done it for a while.” Ruth brushed back the damp curls around Lily's forehead. “Your breasts get heavy when they get full.”

“But does it feel like, you know,
good
? Like when a man does it?”

Ruth smiled. “It feels good, but in a different way.”

Clarinda shook her head and went into McDonald's, leaving Ruth to change Lily's diaper. She returned with Big Macs and Cokes for the both of them, and they pulled back on the highway. Though traffic grew a little heavier, it was nowhere near the October gridlock that Jonathan had so direly predicted.
Too bad,
thought Clarinda, her last hopes for a hot weekend fading.
All the cool people must be going somewhere else.

Ruth echoed her thoughts as they sped toward Tremont. “Wonder where all the tourists are?

“On the beach in Florida, if they're smart,” said Clarinda, thinking maybe she would go there too when this was over. Florida. Or maybe New York. Tall buildings instead of all these stu­pid trees.

They twisted along a series of turns, then the road straightened and crossed land that was as flat as any she'd known in Oklahoma. The cars ahead of her slowed to a stop, and she felt better. The sun was brighter here, hotter. She could actually see a horizon in the distance, something beyond just trees. Then she jumped as her cousin yelled.

“Look!” Ruth cried. “There it is!”

“What?”

“The dig. That's where our ancestors are buried, Clarinda.”

Clarinda looked out Ruth's window. Right by the side of the road spread a huge flat field covered in black plastic tarps. Bulldozers from the Summerfield Development Company sat at one end, held at bay by a gridwork of small stakes that divided the whole thing up like a gi­ant checkerboard. Short, Hispanic-looking guys in hard hats waved protest signs at one end of the field, while clusters of sunburned blond girls worked hunched over the sun-heated tarps, dig­ging up, Clarinda supposed, little chips of dead Cherokees. She sat back in her seat and sighed.

Ruth had told her they were going to another Woodstock. This was looking more like a field trip for science club nerds.

They inched onward, passing a sign nailed to a tree that read “SOB One Mile Ahead.”

“What's SOB?” Clarinda laughed. “Son of a bitch?”

“Save Our Bones,” Ruth snapped, as if she were stupid. “That's what you're part of.”

“Speak for yourself,” muttered Clarinda. “I just came to baby-sit.”

The line of traffic crept on, made up mostly of battered campers and vans with out-of-state license plates. She sighed again as she saw dreamcatchers dangling from rearview mirrors, and ragged bumper stickers that wanted Leonard Peltier freed. Same old shit she saw every day in Oklahoma. If she ever got enough money, she was going to Sweden. Not one Indian would be there, and she could meet lots of rich blond guys who might regard a full-blood Cherokee as something exotic.

“Look at all these people!” Ruth exclaimed as they pulled up behind a rusting VW microbus with New Jersey license plates. “This is actually going to happen!”

Clarinda flopped back in the seat and closed her eyes. She couldn't believe she'd ridden a bus all the way from Oklahoma for this. The next time Ruth called her, she was going to be busy doing something else. She smiled at the idea of telling Ruth
Sorry, cuz, but I'm busy. I'm having a root canal.
Then she jumped and opened her eyes as something hit the hood of the truck.

She peered out the windshield. Two barechested guys in hard hats grinned from either side of the truck. On the middle of the hood lay what looked like a steaming pile of cow shit.

“Hey, Pocahontas,” called the one standing on Ruth's side of the truck. His face looked like a boiled shrimp, and the hair on his chest had been bleached white by the sun. “You comin' to dig for bones?”

“Who the hell are they?” Clarinda cried, twisting around in her seat.

“I don't know,” whispered Ruth, putting a protective hand on Lily's car seat.

“I said, are you coming to dig for bones?” the big man repeated. Clarinda saw that the one near Ruth held a shovel; the one moving toward her carried a sledge.
Shit
, she thought. A ripple of fear threaded through her. These Tennessee guys looked nasty.

“Lookee here,” called the one closer to her. “These two ain't half-bad.”

Boiled Shrimp leaned down and peered in Ruth's open window. His eyes were blue and bloodshot, and Clarinda could smell the beer on his breath all the way across the truck. “You two comin' for that protest rally?”

Clarinda's stomach clenched as she stared at the bright green wad of chewing gum that bobbed in one corner of his mouth. What if he hit her with that shovel? What if he hit Ruth? She'd dealt with her own father too many nights not to take angry drunks seriously.

“Yes.” Ruth answered him calmly. “We are.”

“Thought so.” The man slid his gaze over to the manure that graced her truck. “Shit likes shit, sister. Welcome to Nikwase County.”

“We're protesting exploitation,” Ruth ex­plained, as if the two men had just dropped by to say howdy.

“Exploy-what?” jeered the other man.

Clarinda felt his gaze on her chest, eyeing the butterfly tattoo that peeked from the top of her halter.

“Tashun, Smitty,” explained Boiled Shrimp. “These gals are coming to protest ex-ploy-tashun.”

“Shit.” Smitty spat on the ground. “I don't think they're coming to protest nothin'. I think they're coming to get
laid.
” He winked at her. “Look at this, Miss Butterfly Tits. I'll give you something to protest about!”

Clarinda watched in horror as he straightened, stepped to the front of the truck, and grasped the sledge with both hands. Swinging as if he held a baseball bat, he slammed the hammer into the right headlight. The inside of the cab rocked as a shower of glass tinkled on the pavement.

“Hey!” Ruth cried. “Knock it off!”

“Knock it off?” called Smitty, moving over to the other headlight. “Okay, bitch. Whatever you say!”

“Holy shit, Ruth! Do something,” shrilled Clarinda. “They're going to tear your truck apart!”

Ruth was fumbling for the lug wrench Jonathan kept under the driver's seat when Clarinda heard a new voice call from behind the truck.

“Yo! Brother! Hold up!”

Clarinda looked in the side-door mirror. A dark-haired man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt was hurrying toward the two construction workers.

“Who the fuck are you?” Smitty looked up from the headlight, blinking.

“Second-shift framer, brother. The sheriff's about fifty feet behind me, pulling the paddy wagon after him. They're hauling us in on every charge they can think of.”

“Are you kidding?” Boiled Shrimp went pale. “They just put the cuffs on my brother-in-law.”

Smitty peered back down the line of traffic. “I don't see nothin' down there.”

“Couple of deputies are riding horses. Summerfield says he ain't bailing anybody of out jail, and any man of his who gets arrested can just kiss his job goodbye.”

Boiled Shrimp stepped back. “Hold on, Smitty. I can't go to jail. They'll find all them warrants my ex-wife put out on me.”

Smitty lifted the sledge. “Aw, come on. This is
fun
. Your ex-wife served you up in Virginia. This here's Tennessee.”

“It don't matter. I'm outta here. These two ain't worth it.” Boiled Shrimp nodded toward Ruth and Clarinda.

“Don't say I didn't warn you.” The dark-haired man hurried on down the line of traffic. Boiled Shrimp hastily followed. Smitty looked longingly at the other headlight, then he, too, turned away from the truck and ran to catch up with his buddy.

Clarinda sat frozen, her heart beating a thousand miles an hour. Ruth looked down at Lily, who, amazingly, had slept through the whole thing.

“Holy shit,” Clarinda cried. “These people are fucking crazy!”

“I know,” said Ruth, leaving the lug wrench under the seat. “I wish Jonathan had come.”

Just as the words left Ruth's mouth, the dark-haired man in the black T-shirt reappeared, sauntering up from the other side of the truck in front of them.

“Hi, ladies,” he said, grinning. “Sorry you had to meet up with one of Nikwase County's unofficial welcoming committees.”

“You aren't one of them?” Ruth stopped, confused, her window half rolled up.

“No. I'm with the rally. We've gotten so many complaints about people being hassled by the construction guys, we decided to keep an eye on the traffic ourselves. Let me see what I can do about that.” He gestured at the manure steaming on the car hood.