"You know that I'm poisoning you."
The movers were in the next day and cleared
everything out of his room.
SEAGRAVES
PART
FOUR
ON A MORNING IN AUGUST, two weeks and three days
before the murder case against Paris Trout was scheduled for hearing
in Ether County Circuit Court, Harry Seagraves woke up with the way
to defend him. Seagraves was hung over, but that was when he did some
of his best thinking.
Lucy was lying next to him, her features changed by
the blindfold she wore to bed until she could have been someone else.
They had been to a lawyer's picnic in Macon the day before,
celebrating the state legislature's summer break, and he'd barely
kept the car on the road getting home.
Seagraves sat up slowly, not wanting to wake her, not
wanting to hear her voice until he'd had a chance to examine the idea
that was lying like some perfect blue egg dead in the middle of the
nest that sleep and alcohol had made of his brain.
He had been dreaming of the photographs of Rosie
Sayers's dead body. Earlier that week Ward Townes had invited him to
his office and laid them across the table. There were six altogether,
showing the girl from every angle. His thoughts at the time had
centered on how they would look to a jury. The girl appeared younger
in the pictures than she had in the flesh, and her wounds had been
enlarged by the instruments used to remove the bullets.
Ward Townes was almost apologetic. "I don't have
a choice in this, `Harry," he said.
Seagraves hadn't answered for a long time. Finally he
looked up, away from the girl, and said, "You going to use
these?"
°'What would you do?"
Seagraves put his feet on the floor now and stood up.
He was dizzy a moment, and when it passed he walked to the bathroom
and drank cold water from the spigot. He brushed his teeth, shaved,
and brushed his teeth again. There was a taste in his mouth that
would not wash out.
He stayed in the shower a long time, starting warm
and finishing cool, letting the water run over his head and into his
lips. Then he shut the taps and waited, watching the water drip off
the points of his body, until the idea came back to him, the way to
defend Paris Trout.
When he came out of the bathroom, Lucy was sitting up
in bed. Her face was white and puffed, there were red lines from the
corners of her eyes back into her hair where the elastic that held
the blindfold had cut into her skin. She held her head in her hands
and did not acknowledge Seagraves as he walked back into the room.
"You under the weather?" he said, and sat
down on a corner of the bed to dress.
"
I may die," she said.
She smelled stale to him now that he was clean. He
said, "Get you a cold shower, it'll put the color back in your
cheeks."
"
Harry . . ." `
"
What?"
"
Get me a glass of water, honey."
He stood up in his socks and pulled on a pair of
boxer shorts and his robe, then he went into the kitchen and opened
the icebox. The maid was sitting at the table, drinking Coca-Cola.
"Good morning, Betty," he said.
The maid said good morning.
"
Mrs. Seagraves isn't feeling well," he
said, "so she won't be down for a while."
"
That's fine," the maid said. "Me and
the broom get along just fine all by ourself."
He took the water upstairs. Lucy was settled back
into her pillow. He handed her the glass and returned to his
dressing. "Are you going out?" she said.
"
I've got some work."
"
It's Sunday. You can't do anything for Paris
Trout on a Sunday."
He stood in front of the closet mirror to put a knot
in his tie. He could see her in the corner of the mirror, soft and
white and stale. "How do you know it's Paris Trout?" he
said. Seagraves had the largest law practice in Ether County, there
were hundreds of clients. She covered her eyes and spoke through her
hands. "It's him all right," she said.
He kissed the top of her head before he left, looking
down the fold in her nightgown and noticing the pale blue veins
beneath the skin of her breasts. It was a continuing mystery of his
life that he was always most interested in what was underneath her
nightgown when he had been drunk the night before and the odds were
the steepest against him. Lucy was either hung over too — as she
was this morning — or resentful to have been left behind.
"I won't be long," he said, and allowed his
hand to fall off her shoulder, following the line of her body behind
her arm until he felt the junction where her bottom met the bed. She
moved a few inches, making room for his hand to slide underneath,
until he felt the place things more or less came together.
"
Harry," she
said, "don't." Then, in a different voice, "Get me
some more ice water, honey."
* * *
HE WAS OUT THE door a few minutes later and walking
in the direction of Hanna Trout°s house. He would see Trout himself
later; first he wanted to ask her in a personal way to attend the
trial. The alcohol visited him in waves, and once he stopped to sit
on a brick fence until it passed.
Seagraves did not drink often, but when he did he
made it count. It was Sunday morning, and there were people on the
sidewalks. Some of them he knew by name, some of them only to nod.
The ones he knew by name tended to be Methodists, on the way to
church. He spoke and smiled, and the women, fresh and red-lipped and
perfumed, left him pounding. He thought of them in bathing suits.
And between these thoughts — or beneath them, like
an undertow — he thought of Paris Trout. In the months since the
girl had died, his feelings regarding his client had changed. This
was partly from his closer acquaintance and partly from a growing
premonition that he would lose.
Seagraves had lost before, but never a case as
noticeable as Paris Trout's would be. He had gone into the matter
assuming he would win, gone in with certain advantages, but as the
weeks passed, Seagraves had come to see that those first advantages
were all he had.
He had found some things on the colored family —
Henry Ray, for instance, had driven a truck over a white man the
previous year — but Trout himself belonged in the asylum — "gone
to Cotton Point" was the expression — and could not be trusted
to testify for himself at a trial.
A pistol had been found under a mattress in the house
where the girl was killed. lt was the wrong side of the house, and it
hadn't been fired — or if it had, there was no evidence of it —
but the pistol itself seemed to lend weight to the story Trout and
Buster Devonne had told Chief Norland on the day of the shooting.
And ordinarily, those things would have been enough.
But there was something resilient in the nature of what had happened
— perhaps in the nature of the girl herself — that returned again
and again as Seagraves prepared his case and informed him that
something was headed wrong.
He had found himself avoiding Trout, seeing him once
or twice a week, never for more than an hour. During the last visit
Trout had threatened him. Not just the words — "I paid you to
look after this, and you took the money" — but a feeling. He
was always half a second from turning loose the dogs.
Seagraves had turned over all his other work to his
clerks and partners and spent most of his time studying statements of
the witnesses. The worst of the trouble was in the account of Mary
McNutt, who had been shot four times. A jury would listen to her
because of the bullets still in her body. She had refused to have the
operations to take them out. She was the worst of the trouble, but in
a way she was the answer, too.
Seagraves opened the gate and walked to the house. He
pushed the doorbell and waited, and in a moment the door opened wide,
and Hanna Trout was standing in front of him, dressed for church and
holding her purse.
"
Mrs. Trout."
"
I thought you were my ride," she said.
He noticed both her feet were in shoes. "I see
you've recovered the use of your foot," he said.
She did not answer, she did not invite him in. "That
was some cut," he said. She stood motionless, looking into his
face. He stared for a moment at the line of her leg inside her skirt,
at her hip. He stretched to distract them both from the moment. "I
saw toes caught in a lawn mower weren't as bad .... "
She looked at the watch on her wrist, and then
checked the street behind him. She wore a shiny black belt that
pressed into her waist and a silk blouse that she had buttoned all
the way to her chin.
"
You waiting on a ride to church?"
"
Reverend Clay was supposed to pick me up,"
she said.
"
Pardon?"
"Reverend Matthew Clay," she said.
Seagraves stepped inside the house, uninvited. He
stood close to her and looked into her face. "Of the Bright Hope
Baptist Church?"
She held herself erect and calm. "He may have
been held up," she said. "He teaches Sunday school too ....
" He smelled her soap and her shampoo.
He said, "I came by to ask you personally to
attend your husband's tria1."
"
Mr. Seagraves," she said, "I have
spent the last three months separating myself from what he has done."
Seagraves felt the alcohol wash over him again and
sat down on the steps leading upstairs. "Excuse me," he
said.
She considered him a long moment. "Can I get you
something?"
His face was suddenly wet with perspiration, his
shirt stuck to his sides. He shook his head. "I apologize for
this," he said. "It passes in a moment .... "
"
Do you need a drink?" she said.
He put his arms across his knees and rested his
forehead against them. He considered going to sleep. "If it
wouldn't be a bother," he said.
He did not watch her go into the kitchen, but in a
moment he heard her open the refrigerator and then crack an ice tray.
When he finally lifted his head, she was standing in front of him,
holding what looked like a glass of tomato juice. He accepted it,
thanked her, and felt the ice against his lips. He took a long drink
and did not notice the alcohol until it was swallowed.
"You keep liquor in your home?" he said. He
could not picture her breaking the law, even that one. Immediately he
felt himself improving. He took another drink. The front door was
still open, and she checked the street. "What in the world are
you doing with Reverend Clay?" he said.
"Going to church."
He took another drink, slower this time.
"
I hope you will pardon my manners," he
said. "I do not normally put myself in the middle of a family
matter. But this separation presents legal problems for Paris that I
am sure you do not mean to inflict."
He drank again, finishing what she had brought him.
It left an acid taste in his mouth, and presently he realized he was
half drunk. He looked at Hanna Trout again, staring at her belt. "I'm
afraid I've come here dehydrated," he said.
"
It would appear so," she said.
"
Your husband . . ." Seagraves shook his
head and concentrated, but he could not take his eyes off Mrs.
Trout's belt. It was something about the way it led to her hips. "I
know you don't mean to harm him," he said.
He looked up into her face and saw that she wasn't
following his thought, so he began to explain. "In a situation
like this the appearance of things is often as consequential as the
facts. I'm speaking legally — "
"
Do you need another?" she said.
He looked at the glass, then at Mrs. Trout. "That
might do nicely," he said, and she took it back into the
kitchen. A minute later, when she put it into his hand, he noticed
his fingers were shaking. She invited him into the living room, and
he followed her there, sipping at the drink as he moved to keep it
from spilling. She bent over the davenport, straightening a pillow,
and he was poleaxed at the shape of her bottom. She straightened up,
he found a chair and sat down. He looked around the room and saw that
it had changed. He did not know if she had painted or set the
furniture in new places, but the room was lighter. She sat on the
couch and crossed her legs. Her ankle moved, up and down, and he
followed it until he felt sick again and closed his eyes.
"You were speaking of appearances," she
said.
He rubbed his face and sipped at the drink. "A
marriage is a thing," he said, "that people understand in
the way they're married themselves. In the case of a dissolution they
picture themselves in that too. They assume hurtful things about the
parties, to assure themselves their own marriage is safe."
She sat still, watching him. He thought she might be
fascinated.
"What I am saying is, there is a certain amount
of lying that goes on between people that live with each other.
Polite lying, that makes cohabitation possible. And at the time of a
loss of affection there is a tendency of both parties to unburden
themselves of those lies and tell things that indirectly threaten
those who are still married. That threaten the institution itself —
"