Leland Hayes stood up and buttoned his jacket. He had short graying hair and a long sunburned nose. When he smiled, crow’s-feet formed at the corners of his slate-colored eyes, which
twinkled in a way that made you think he enjoyed doing what he did.
“Good morning, young lady,” he began. “How are you today?”
“Fine. Thank you.”
“Good. Glad to hear it.” He walked up to the witness box, carrying his legal pad. “I know it’s not easy, coming in here and testifying, and I admire you for doing
it.”
“Thank you,” I said again.
“So you worked for Jerry Maddox here?” Leland Hayes pointed at him.
“Yes, sir.” Dickey Bryson had told me to keep my answers short.
“It was mighty generous of him to give you a job, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose. But we worked for our money. It wasn’t charity.”
“Did anyone else offer you a job?”
“No. But we worked hard.”
“Just answer yes or no. Now, why did you go to work for Mr. Maddox?”
“We needed the money.”
“Why did you girls need money? Didn’t your parents provide for you?”
“Lots of kids work,” I said.
“Answer the question, please. Do your parents provide for you?”
“I only have one. My mom. My dad died.”
“My sympathies. That must be tough, growing up without a dad. How did he die?”
Dickey Bryson stood up. “Objection,” he said. “Irrelevant.”
“Sustained,” the judge said.
I looked over at the jury. Tammy Elbert had a tiny smile. She knew how my dad had been killed. They all did. They also knew he wasn’t married to Mom.
“Now you’re living with your uncle, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why is that? Is it because your momma can’t take care of you?”
“Objection,” Dickey Bryson said again. “Irrelevant.”
“I’ll proffer that it is relevant, Your Honor,” Leland Hayes said. “It goes to the question of motive and character. Which is the heart of our defense.”
“I’ll allow it,” the judge said.
“So why aren’t you living with your momma?”
I looked over at Mom. She was sitting very erect with her lips pressed together. “It’s sort of complicated,” I said.
“You strike me as a very smart young lady. I’m sure you can explain to the jury something that’s sort of complicated.”
“Mom had some stuff she needed to do, so we decided to visit Uncle Tinsley.”
“Stuff? What stuff?”
“Personal stuff.”
“Can you be more specific?”
I glanced at Mom again. She looked like she was about to explode. I turned to the judge. “Do I have to answer that?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so,” the judge said.
“But it’s personal.”
“Personal matters often come out in a court of law.”
“Well”—I took a deep breath—“Mom had sort of a meltdown, and she needed some time to herself to figure things out, so we decided to come visit Uncle
Tinsley.”
“So you two girls came to Virginia on your own. All the way from California. Did your momma even know you were coming?”
“Not exactly.”
“Brave girls. Has your momma ever done that before? Left you on your own?”
“Just for short periods. And she always made sure there were plenty of chicken potpies for us to eat.”
“Well, that was real responsible of her.” Leland Hayes glanced at the jury. Tammy Elbert had swiveled around to look at Mom, whose face was almost as red as her velvet jacket.
“So your mother is a performer?”
“A singer and a songwriter.”
“And performance is a form of make-believe, right?”
“I guess.”
“Does your mother engage in a lot of make-believe?”
“What do you mean?”
“Has she ever, say, made up a boyfriend who didn’t really exist?”
“Objection!” Dickey Bryson shouted. “Irrelevant.”
Mom was looking over at the jury and violently shaking her head.
“I’ll withdraw the question.” Leland Hayes cleared his throat. “When your mother had her meltdown, she left you to survive on your own. That’s tough. It meant you
had to do whatever it took to get by. Even tell lies if you felt you had to.”
“Objection. Argumentative.”
“Sustained.”
“I’ll rephrase. Have you ever needed to lie to get by?”
“Nope,” I said emphatically.
“Did you or did you not lie to your Uncle Tinsley about working for Mr. Maddox?”
“That wasn’t exactly a lie,” I said. “We just decided not to mention it.”
“So you didn’t lie to your uncle, who had let you into his house and was feeding you and taking care of you. You just misled him?”
“I guess.”
“You like your Uncle Tinsley, don’t you?”
“He’s great.”
“He’s looking after you because your mother wasn’t. So you want to make him happy, and you want to try to please him. When you’re not misleading him. Isn’t that
correct?”
“I guess,” I said again. I could see another setup coming, but there was nothing I could do about it.
“Has your uncle ever told you that he dislikes Mr. Maddox?”
“He had a good reason to.”
“Because Mr. Maddox recommended that the owners of Holladay Textiles terminate your uncle’s relationship with the mill?”
“Other things, too. Uncle Tinsley thought he treated the workers bad—”
The judge cut me off. “Just answer yes or no.”
“So would you ever lie about Mr. Maddox if you thought it would make your uncle happy?”
“Objection!” Dickey Bryson shouted.
“Sustained,” the judge said.
Leland Hayes looked at his legal pad again. “Just a couple more things,” he said. “Did you eat food from the Maddoxes’ refrigerator without their permission?”
“If I was making the kids sandwiches, I’d sometimes make myself one, too.”
“So you did eat the Maddoxes’ food without their permission?”
“I didn’t think I needed it.”
“Did you also drink Mr. Maddox’s vodka without his permission, which was one reason he had to fire you?”
“What?”
“Yes or no.”
“No!” I shouted.
“Did you steal money from his dresser drawer, which was the other reason he had to fire you?”
“No!”
“Do you have a vendetta against Mr. Maddox?”
“No.”
“Is Joe Wyatt your cousin?”
“Yes.”
“Did you and Joe Wyatt slash the tires of Mr. Maddox’s car?”
I looked down at my hands. “I didn’t do it,” I said.
“So Joe Wyatt did it?”
I shrugged. “How would I know?”
“Maybe because you were there. Remember, Miss Holladay, that you’re under oath. Did you help Joe Wyatt plan or carry out this crime?”
“It’s because Maddox was trying to kill us!” I shouted. “He was all the time trying to run us over with that Le Mans. We had to protect ourselves. It was
self-defense—”
“I think we get the picture,” Leland Hayes said. “A nasty little feud. No further questions.”
“But I need to explain—”
“I said no further questions.”
“You’re not giving me a chance to explain!”
“Young lady, that will be all,” the judge said.
Once Leland Hayes sat down, Dickey Bryson stood up again. He asked me to tell the jury what I’d meant by saying Maddox tried to run us down, and I told them how, when we were walking to
the bus stop, he’d come barreling down the road in his Le Mans and swerve at us and we had to jump into the ditch to get out of his way.
Then Leland Hayes had another turn. “Did you ever report these alleged incidents to the police?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“So there’s no record of these alleged incidents ever taking place.”
“But they did.”
“The jury can decide that. What you are admitting is that you and Mr. Maddox were feuding?”
“I guess you could call it that. But it all started because he—”
“No further questions.”
The judge told me to step down, but I could hardly move. I had just betrayed Mom. I had ratted out Joe. And I had admitted lying to Uncle Tinsley. How did that happen? I believed I was in the
right. In fact, I knew I was in the right. All I wanted to do was get up and tell the truth about what Maddox did to Liz, and I ended up looking like a lying, stealing, feuding tire-slitter. Part
of me was outraged, but part of me just wanted to slink out of the courtroom and crawl down some deep, dark hole and stay there.
I finally stepped down from the witness stand. Dickey Bryson told me that since I’d finished testifying, I could sit in the gallery. As I walked by Maddox, he shook his head and looked at
the jury as if to say, Now you see the kind of kid I’ve had to deal with.
I took a seat between Mom and Uncle Tinsley. He patted my arm, but Mom just sat there, rigid as stone.
Dickey Bryson asked the bailiff to bring in Wayne Clemmons, who’d been pacing up and down in the hallway, smoking cigarettes. He was wearing a gray windbreaker, and he
hadn’t bothered to shave. After he swore his oath and took a seat, he mumbled his name, keeping his head down like he was studying the laces of his work boots.
Dickey Bryson asked him to describe what he had witnessed on the night in question.
“Nothing much,” Wayne said. “All’s I know is Maddox and the girl was in the back of my car, arguing about money. She wanted money from him. But I didn’t really
witness nothing.”
Dickey Bryson looked up, startled. “Are you certain?”
“I was driving the car. My eyes was on the road.”
The lawyer riffled through his accordion file and held up a piece of paper. “Mr. Clemmons, did you or did you not give a statement to the police saying that you had observed Jerry Maddox
physically and sexually assaulting Liz Holladay in the back of your taxi?”
“I don’t recollect what I told the police,” Wayne said. “I was drinking at the time, and my memory’s been all shot to hell since I came back from ’Nam. I
forget things that did happen and remember things that didn’t happen.”
“Mr. Clemmons, let me remind you that you’re under oath here.”
“Like I said, my eyes was on the road. How was I supposed to know what was going on in the backseat of the car?”
Before I even realized what I was doing, I was on my feet. “That’s a pack of lies!” I shouted.
The judge banged his gavel down hard and said, “I’ll have order in this court.”
“But he can’t sit there and lie—”
The judge banged his gavel again and roared, “Order!”
Then he motioned to the bailiff, whispered in his ear, and the bailiff left through the side door. A few moments later, I felt a hand clutch my shoulder hard. I swiveled around, and there was
the bailiff. He beckoned me with his finger. I stood up and glared at Wayne Clemmons, who was still looking down at his boot laces. The bailiff led me out of the courtroom, and after he closed the
door, he said, “Judge don’t want you back inside for the duration.”
Almost immediately, the door to the courtroom opened, and Wayne walked out.
“Why’d you lie?” I blurted out.
“Enough, young lady,” the bailiff said.
Wayne just shook his head and lit a cigarette as he walked down the hallway and out the revolving door.
“Don’t go back into the witness room,” the bailiff said, “and no talking to the other witnesses.”
I sat down on a bench in the hallway. After a couple of minutes, the bailiff came back out and opened the door to the witness room. “You’re up, miss,” he said. Liz walked out
and followed him into the courtroom, not once looking my way.
It was past one o’clock by the time the doors to the courtroom opened and everyone filed out. Liz came through the doors flanked by Mom and Uncle Tinsley, like they were
guarding her. She had her arms crossed and her head down. Joe and Aunt Al were behind them.
“How did it go?” I asked Liz, but she walked right past me without saying anything.
“Just hunky-dory,” Mom said.
“That attorney was pretty hard on her,” Uncle Tinsley said. “Then Maddox took the stand. He basically said he fired you for stealing, and the two of you made this all up to get
back at him.”
“Dirtbag liar!” I said. “They couldn’t possibly believe that.”
“I think they don’t know what to believe,” Uncle Tinsley said. “But we really shouldn’t be talking about it until the trial’s over.”
We went over to the Bulldog Diner and took a table in the back, under the photographs of Bulldog players, including the one of Dickey “Blitz” Bryson. The lawyers and the judge came
in and took a table in the middle, followed by some of the jurors, who sat at the counter. Just as we were getting our menus, the Maddoxes came in and took a table in the front.
“There’s the dirtbag!” I said.
“Hush,” Uncle Tinsley said. “Don’t talk about the case. You want to cause a mistrial?”
“How can we eat in the same room as him? I’m going to spew this time.”
“Everyone from the courthouse always eats here,” Uncle Tinsley said.
“It’s one of the joys of small-town life,” Mom said.
The waitress came over and asked what we wanted.
“We should all be ordering baloney,” I said loudly.
After lunch, we went back to the courthouse and sat on the uncomfortable benches in the hallway as the jury began deliberating. I figured they’d be there for the long
haul, sorting through the evidence and debating legal issues, but in less than an hour, the bailiff called everyone back into the courtroom. He told me that, since the testimony was over and the
jury had reached a verdict, the judge was allowing me to return to the courtroom.
The jurors filed in. When I looked at Tammy Elbert, she kept her eyes on the judge. The clerk passed the judge a piece of paper. He unfolded it, read it, and refolded it. “The verdict is
not guilty on all charges,” he said.
Aunt Al gasped and Mom shouted, “No!”
The judge banged his gavel. “Court dismissed.”
Maddox slapped Leland Hayes on the back and went over and started shaking the jurors’ hands. Liz and I sat there in silence. I felt completely confused, like the world had turned upside
down, and we were living in a place where the guilty were innocent and the innocent were guilty. I didn’t know what to do. How were you supposed to behave in a world like that?
Dickey Bryson stuffed his papers back into his accordion file and came over to where we were sitting. “These he-said-she-said cases are tough to prove,” he said.