Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(19)
Before he passed out, he saw another image. One that came to him in black and white like an old TV reel. Tommy McMurtrie, sweat pouring off his forehead under his helmet as he took his place on the defensive line. Then Trammell under center, looking at Ray Ray down the line of scrimmage just before the ball was snapped and giving him the slightest of nods. Then the ball . . . in the air, a perfect spiral, hitting Ray Ray right in the hands.
Then he was running, the football tucked tight under his arm.
Then a loud sound, like rushing water in his ears, and a crimson 54 rolling over him.
“Bingo!” came a faraway voice. “That a boy, Lee Roy. That’s a way we do it. Now let’s do it again.”
Then he was on the ground, nose pressed to the grass, blinking, managing to roll over, the wind knocked out of him. Then the voice again, louder and coming from high on the tower. “Hey, Pickalew. Get up. Next play, Joker. Get up.”
Was it the voice of God or the voice of the Man?
In 1960 Ray Ray Pickalew hadn’t been sure if there was a difference. Now, just before he passed out on his pier along the Elk River, he still wasn’t so sure.
11
The Giles County Jail had a “consultation room,” where defense lawyers could meet with their clients. The room was not much bigger than a closet, decorated with the same yellow cinder-block walls as the holding cell.
When they were alone, seated in aluminum chairs and saddled up to a square-shaped folding table, the two men just looked at each other for several seconds. Tom was stunned by his friend’s appearance. Bo wore orange prison clothes, and his eyes burned red from lack of sleep. His shoulders hunched forward as he placed his elbows on the table, and his fatigue was palpable. In addition to shock, Tom felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He had not seen Bo in over a year, not since Bo left Tom’s farm in Hazel Green after dropping off Lee Roy in a small crate the previous June.
Finally, Tom broke the silence. “You look like crap.”
Despite his predicament, Bo chuckled, and the sound warmed Tom’s heart. “Thanks for doing this, Professor. So how did the morning go?”
For the next few minutes Tom took Bo through his conversation with Helen Lewis and his discussion afterward with Rick. The only detail he omitted was his trek to the Elk River to see Ray Ray.
“Sounds like the General,” Bo said, shaking his head. “Our first peek at her case will be at the prelim. She always builds a stone wall around the evidence.”
“Bo, so far you haven’t told me much over the phone. We can’t wait for the prelim to start our investigation. I need some leads.” He paused. “What can you tell me about the night of Andy Walton’s murder?”
Bo sighed and looked down at the table. “I got myself in a real fix.”
“In order to help you, Bo, I have to know the deal. Why are you in here?”
“The deal, Professor . . . is complicated.”
“Tell me.”
Bo kept his eyes fixed on the table and smiled. “You remember what I told you last year in Hazel Green about why I came back to Pulaski to practice?”
“Unfinished business,” Tom said. “Your father was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, and you . . . saw it happen.” Tom paused. “You never told me the whole story.”
“I will now,” Bo said, raising his head and looking at Tom with bloodshot eyes.
“I was only five years old when they hung my daddy. We lived on Walton Farm. My momma worked at the Big House as a housemaid for Ms. Maggie, and my daddy worked the fields. Anyway, on the night of August 18, 1966 there was a big party to celebrate Ms. Maggie’s birthday. Momma was working late at the Big House, and I was home with Daddy. One second I was listening to the radio and throwing a baseball up in the air. Next thing I see these men—I’ve always said there were twenty of them, but it could’ve been ten or twelve. Things look bigger to a five-year-old. Anyway, you get the drift. They had the robes. The hoods. They burned a cross in the front yard and told my daddy to get out there or they would set the house on fire. Before he walked out the door, Daddy told me not to watch, but I didn’t listen. I followed them . . . and I saw it all.
“They drug him about a half mile from the house to this clearing that had a pond that me and some of the other farmhands’ kids would swim in during the summer, encased in a large thicket of trees. They tied my daddy’s hands behind his back and put him on top of a horse and walked the horse over to one of the trees on the edge of the clearing. I swear, Professor, when I saw my daddy tied up, I wanted to run. I wanted to but . . . my feet wouldn’t move. You know that nightmare you have where you can’t move? I lived it. I watched those bastards wrap that rope around a tree branch and tie a noose around my daddy’s neck, and . . . I couldn’t move.
“The leader of the men wore a red hood, and I recognized his voice. I had been around Andy Walton all my life, and I knew that the man under the red hood was Andy. Well, Andy says to my daddy—I’ll never forget it—he says, ‘Roosevelt, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan understand that you have laid your filthy nigger hands on a white woman.’” Bo mimicked the voice. “My daddy then spits in Andy’s face and says, ‘That ain’t what this is about. You and me both know what this is really about,’ but Andy punches him in the nose before he can say anything else. Then Andy whispered something in my daddy’s ear and kicked the horse.