The Pecan Man(42)

I couldn't answer. I turned to go back into the house and, as I lifted my head to look where I was going, I thought I saw a flash of white going from the back porch into the kitchen. I left Eddie sitting in the back yard and went to my room, and I didn't come out until time for supper.

The next day, I called Jeffery Thatcher and asked him to meet with Eddie at my house. We settled on a time that afternoon and I concentrated on getting the house ready to receive a guest. Eddie put on a nice suit from Walter's closet. It hung a little loose and the shoes were a size too large, but Eddie shined them up with the little shoeshine kit from Walter's room. He looked downright handsome, if a little stiff, sitting on the edge of my couch.

Mr. Thatcher arrived on time and I left them alone to work out whatever deal they could. I knew, sure as I was living and breathing, that I would say something to mess things up or give my secret away.

I took a walk to calm my nerves. I passed J.C. Penney's and Ezell's Department store. I stopped at the window of Geiger's Dress Shop and watched Gladys Humphrey pick out a new dress for her daughter's upcoming wedding. I poked my head in at Dick Thomas's jewelry store and said hello to Dick and Ellie and their sales clerk, Patty. I went into the Woolworth store and ordered a cherry coke to go. When I finally made it home, Jeffrey's car was gone and Eddie and Blanche were sitting on the front porch, bundled against the chilly winter air.

“Well?" I asked.

“He says he go’n talk to the prosecutor and let me know tomorrow. I reckon he’s worried about the Kornegay family puttin' up a fuss."

I nodded once and went inside. I'd sworn off my meddling that very morning and here it was, not even dinnertime, and I was picking up the phone again. I called Ralph Kornegay and arranged to meet him in the church parking lot the next day.





Twenty-three





Eddie's arraignment was scheduled for January 26th, 1977. That left him a little less than two weeks of freedom and I was bound and determined to make that time nice for him. Chip borrowed his father's pickup truck and went back to Eddie's camp in the woods to pick up his old chair. It was a beautiful thing, despite having been in the open for God knows how long. Eddie came outside to help decide where the chair would go and we chose a cozy spot where the yard made a little alcove beside the garage. He wanted to fix it up though, so we put it in the garage first, right in the empty spot where Walter's car once sat.

“Where in the world did you find this chair, Eddie?"

He chuckled when I asked him that.

“You ain't go'n believe this, Miz Ora, but I only paid ten dollars for that ol' thing."

“You're kidding."

It was hard to believe. The chair must have once sat in a fairly nice barber shop, judging by the ornate scrollwork in the metal base.

“Nope," he laughed “Ten dollars I paid and had it delivered to boot."

“Delivered?"

“Yes'm, out to the woods."

“Good Lord," I said, “How in the world did you manage that?"

“Used to hop me a freight train every now and again, jus' to get away for awhile. Sometimes I'd go all the way to Alabama to see Tressa. Most times I'd just go down the tracks and back. Used to see this here chair, jus' sittin' in the back yard of this man's house. Wasn't all that far from here, just out by the Minute Maid plant."

Not far from Blanche's house, I thought to myself.

“Then one day, when I got my check cashed and had some money to spend, I hopped off the freight car - they always switchin' cars out there, so it goes real slow - and I asked that ol' man 'bout this chair."

Eddie went on to tell how the man said for five dollars he could take it right then. Eddie couldn't figure out how to get it back to the woods, so he offered the man ten dollars if he would get his nephew to deliver it. They made the deal right then and Eddie paid him when they got to the woods with the chair.

Eddie spent the next week fixing the chair up with tools he found in the garage. I found some old red vinyl in my fabric stash, left over from recovering some dinette chairs we had in the fifties, and we recovered the seat and back of the barber's chair with it. That's when we discovered the seat had been stuffed with horse hair, which I knew indicated quality in the manufacturing.

When it was done, Eddie decided he rather liked the chair in the garage and, since there wasn't likely to be another car in that spot anytime soon, I agreed to leave it where it was. Eddie spent as much time as possible out there before his court date. If he drank at all, I didn't see or smell the alcohol.

Eddie was clean and sober the day of his arraignment and he went to court in the same suit he wore to talk to his lawyer the weeks before.

The Kornegay family was not in the courtroom. I'm not sure what Ralph said to the rest of his family to keep them away, but he managed it well. There were only a few local reporters and a handful of townsfolk there to witness Eldred Mims plead guilty to the charge of Second Degree Murder. In a deal with the county prosecutor and the Honorable Judge Harley T. Odell, Eddie was sentenced immediately to twenty-five years to life, whichever came first.

Blanche and I sat in the second row, directly behind Eddie. I sat with a straight back, one gloved hand clutching Blanche's bare one. She held a handkerchief in her other hand and dabbed at her eyes throughout the proceeding, but didn't make a sound until they placed the cuffs on his wrists and led him away.