Authors: Patricia Hagan
Luke interrupted, "One of you do me a favor and call Sara. Tell her I'd like to see her. Don't say anything to Alma. You both know how she feels about her."
Matt said, "Yeah, sure." He motioned to Kirby. "We'd better get going. Remember they said we couldn't stay long. Tires him out."
Being in bed so long had left Luke weak. He could neither stand nor walk by himself. A physical therapist was due to start working with him soon, but the doctors had said he'd be in the hospital for several weeks yet. But he could stand all that, could stand anything, if only he could get a message to Emma Jean and tell her to hang in there, that he loved her more than anything in the world, and as soon as he was able they were taking off. And Sara would do it for him. He had no doubt about that.
"Don't forget to call Sara," he reminded as Matt and Kirby walked out.
Alma was waiting outside and heard. "Don't you dare call that little bitch," she whispered viciously once the door closed after them. "I mean it. I don't want her anywhere around him."
Matt had never cared for Alma, but she was, after all, Luke's wife. "Don't worry. We agree he doesn't need to know what's going on. He's not well yet by any means."
"That's right. Next time you visit just tell him you couldn't reach her."
"We probably won't be back any time soon," Matt said. "We were only able to come today because Judge Barrett gave everybody a day off because the court reporter is sick. She'll be back tomorrow, and we're hoping they'll finish jury selection. It's keeping us real busy."
Kirby looked worried. "Yeah, Rudy Veazey's kin have filled the courtroom every day, and those that couldn't get in made so much noise in the hall we had to run 'em off. It'll turn into a circus if we aren't careful."
Alma sniffed and said, "Well, I don't see why there even has to be a trial. I mean, after all, Burch says she's pleading guilty. Why not be done with it?"
"Oh, it won't take long," Matt assured. "Once the guilty plea is entered, all that's left is for the jury to deliberate and decide the sentence."
Alma brightened. "Well, I hope she gets the electric chair."
Kirby shook his head. "Don't count on it. She'll probably get life instead, and that's when we expect the Veazey clan to go nuts."
"Can't say as I blame them. What she did was unforgivable." Alma wanted her to be executed so Luke would eventually forget her, which wouldn't happen as long as she was sitting in the women's prison down in Montgomery. She told Matt and Kirby good-bye and went back into Luke's room.
He was awake, and when she opened the door he saw the "No Visitors" sign for the first time. "How come nobody can see me?" he asked, annoyed.
"You need your rest," she said sweetly. "But don't worry. In a few days, you can have all the company you want."
Because, she smiled to think, in a few days, it wasn't going to matter.
* * *
"Don't you feel a little bit guilty about not calling Sara for Luke?" Kirby asked as Matt eased the patrol car into a parking slot behind the courthouse. "I mean, they've always been close, and I think Alma is off-base thinking there's more to it than friendship."
Matt switched off the motor and leaned back to give Kirby a look that plainly told him he thought he was off his rocker. "I can't believe I have to spell it out for you. Alma doesn't want anybody visiting Luke that might tell him about Emma Jean going on trial. She was there when I found Emma Jean holding a knife and covered in blood. Alma was there because she thought Luke was there. Somehow she found out about him and Emma Jean.
"So," he continued, "she wants Emma Jean to go to prison to get her out of Luke's life. She's also afraid that if he hears, he might try to do something to stop it, like get up and testify how he thinks Emma Jean did it in self-defense. He knows how Rudy used to beat her."
"Hell, you could testify to that."
"I'm not getting involved, and if you're smart, you won't, either. Listen, Luke's my friend, but he got himself in this mess with Emma Jean. I can't see risking my reputation in this town by stepping into a hornet's nest, which is what I'd be doing if I got up and said she had a right to kill her old man 'cause he slapped her around a time or two."
"I don't know," Kirby said doubtfully. "It just don't seem right."
"Since when is minding your own business not the right thing to do? We've got families, you know? And they've got to live in this town just like we do. I say we stay out if it."
Kirby thought a minute, then nodded in concession. "I guess you're right. And if Luke raises hell with us about it when he finds out, well, we'll just say we were doing what his wife asked us to."
"Exactly." Matt started to open the door, then turned as someone called his name.
Buddy Hampton was crossing the street from the cafe. "How's the sheriff?" he asked with what he hoped was an expression of genuine concern. "I hear he's awake."
Kirby headed on toward the courthouse while Matt explained Luke's condition for the moment, how he was on the mend but terribly weak and could not have visitors.
"Such a shame, such a shame," Buddy clucked mechanically, all the while thinking about his waning hopes that Luke would die and his troubles would be over. "Has he told you who shot him?"
"No. I wish he would, but he says he's going to take care of it himself."
Buddy murmured, "Yes, he has a way of taking matters into his own hands, doesn't he? Well, keep me informed." With a tip of his hat, he went to his car and got in.
As each day passed and Luke had not awakened, Buddy had dared to hope Luke would die. But now, hearing that wasn't going to happen, he would have to follow orders and slowly put Luke's plan into motion. When he could put it off no longer, he would make the announcement that a young negro named Archie Swain was being appointed to the newly created position of Senior Vice-President for Labor and Race Relations. That would, of course, follow explanation of the mill's new policies, not only in regards to racial issues but also in support of voting in the union as well. It made him gag to think about it.
And, once again, he cursed the shooter for missing his mark.
* * *
Even though it was the second day of December, the weather was warm and humid. Betsy had dragged her table out of the fish cleaning shack because there weren't any windows, and the supermarket folks were too damn cheap to buy a fan. She was covered in scales from head to toe, and as she reached to push her hair back from her face, a piece of fish gut smeared across her cheek to leave a bloody streak.
She was wearing baggy overalls and no shirt beneath. No underwear, either, if the truth be known. She was standing barefoot in a puddle of melting ice from the fish boxes, as well as blood and entrails... and more scales.
Glancing up at the sound of a car in the alley, she saw it was Sara Speight. Betsy knew everybody in town. She went to a lot of funerals and church picnics, anywhere there was free food. She fished in the pocket of her overalls for the good-sized cigarette butt she had found in the alley that morning. It still had a few puffs left, and she had a box of penny matches, too. Lighting up, she took a deep draw and said, as Sara drew closer, "You can't buy no fish back here. You gotta go in the store. But they ain't got no fresh in there yet and won't have till I clean 'em. Gonna be good, too. Got a bunch of catfish."
Sara tried not to wrinkle her nose at the revolting scene, as well as the smell. If she had been in a buying notion, her mind would have changed real quick. "I came to talk to you, Betsy."
"What for? I ain't done nothing." Betsy eyed her warily. She could not think of any business Sara Speight might have with her. Sometimes she picked through the trash in her neighborhood, but she never stole anything that wasn't already thrown away. Sara had good scraps, too. Once she had found three nice pieces of fried chicken.
Sara tried to put her at ease. "I didn't say you had. I just want to ask you a few questions."
Betsy frowned. "What kind of questions?"
"You sleep in roost houses sometimes, don't you?"
Betsy shrugged. "So what if I do? You ain't got one, so what's it to you?"
"Emma Jean Veazey saw you coming out of hers one morning."
Betsy took one last drag on the cigarette. She tossed it into the puddle at her feet. "How does she know? She's in jail." Slicing open the fish's belly, she ran her fingers inside and drew out the contents.
Sara winced, glancing away as she said, "It was a long time ago."
"Yeah. I been there. She's got some nice hens. Real friendly. I like her rooster, too. And the perch is good. More comfortable to sit on than most others because the poles are wider." She tossed the fish entrails to the cats hovering about. "What's this all about? I don't bother nobody."
"I know you don't," Sara assured, then, with a breath as deep as the one Betsy had taken to suck in the last of the cigarette, she got to the point. "But I was wondering if you ever heard Rudy Veazey beating Emma Jean."
Betsy's expression changed, ever so slightly, but it was enough that Sara saw it and drew closer, despite the muck and blood.
"Did you?" she pressed. "Did you hear him hitting her, Betsy?"
Betsy tossed the fish into the box that would eventually be taken inside the supermarket for packaging and sale. Picking up another, she attacked it with a vengeance. "I don't repeat nothin' I hear. If I did, folks wouldn't let me sleep in their roost house. I go and come and don't make trouble, and they let me, and that's the way I want it. So if I had heard anything goin' on out there, I wouldn't tell you."
"Not even if it could save her life?"
"I don't know what you're gettin' at. Me sleepin' in her roost house ain't gonna change the fact she killed her old man. Hacked him with a knife, too." Betsy looked up at her and grinned almost maniacally as she brought her knife down on the fish's head, severing it with a sickening crunch.
Sara grimaced but managed to continue. "If you were there the night she killed him and heard him beating her and would testify that you did, the jury would see it was self-defense and set her free."
"And what makes you think I care what happens to her?"
"Because of Sheriff Ballard. He would want you to help her."
Betsy hooted. "I don't know what the shit for. She tried to kill him, too. And that's a shame. Sheriff's a good man. Helped me lots of times, he did. Chased off them assholes that scared me to death on Halloween with their blasted sheet, makin' me think it was a ghost. That was the same night he was shot, but I hear he's gonna be all right, praise the Lord."
"That's true. And it's also true Emma Jean didn't shoot him. She couldn't have, because she loves him, and he loves her. But I've got an idea you know all that because you probably saw him sneak into her house late at night sometimes, and..."
Betsy angrily cut her off. "And I told you I don't repeat nothin' I hear or see."
Sara pleaded, "I'm not asking you to say you saw Luke at her house. I'm asking you to say that you heard Rudy beat her on the night she killed him and all the other nights as well. Please, Betsy. You've got to help her. And if Luke were standing here, he'd be begging right along with me."
Betsy stared at her long and hard before saying, "Well, I won't there that night. Like I done said, I was at my own roost house on Halloween. I still keep some hens there, even though I live with my pa. So I won't at Emma Jean's. Not that night."
"But did you ever hear him beat her the nights you were?"
Betsy decided there was no harm in admitting she had heard the beatings since Sara seemed to know, anyway. "Yeah, I guess I did. Lots of times. Once she tried to get away from him and ran out the back door. The porch light was on, and I could see through the slats in the roost house when he caught her and dragged her back inside by the hair of her head. I heard him hit her that night, too, 'cause they was in the kitchen. He was smackin' her real good. Beat the shit out of her, he did."
She had finished cleaning another fish and tossed it into the box. "So he probably deserved to die 'cause he was one mean son of a bitch. I can't tell you he was beatin' her when she killed him 'cause, like I said, I won't there that night."
"But would you be willing to testify to what you saw and heard the nights when you were there?"
"Are you crazy?" Betsy lopped off another fish head so viciously Sara jumped. "Me get up in that courtroom in front of all them people? No thank you, ma'am. Not me." She shook the bloody knife at Sara. "I done told you I wasn't there when she killed him, so what difference does it make if I saw him beat her before? She didn't kill him those times."
"No, she didn't, but your testimony would make the jury see that in all probability he was beating her
that
night, and she just couldn't take it any more. Maybe she even killed him to keep
him
from killing her. Self-defense, Betsy. That's what we're talking about."
"What we're talkin' about is how you're gettin' on my nerves." She shook the knife again. "And I'm startin' to get pissed off. Now you get on out of here, and if you want some fish, you go inside. I ain't sellin' you none."
Sara saw a funny look come into Betsy's eyes. She had heard it said she sometimes drifted away into a world of her own without warning.