to work hard. ’Course I worked hard a long time before I made any real money.” I asked if he defended many people charged with crimes. “I don’t do this kinda work anymore, except in this case as a favor to your grandmother. I mostly sue insurance companies and corporations”—he pronounced it caw-pra-shuns. “Lotta cases don’t go nowhere, but every now and then one pays well. I love being in the courtroom, trying to persuade twelve jurors to see the situation my way. I love getting money outa big companies.”
Cal Taliaferro, the circuit solicitor, was seated at a beat-up desk piled high with files in an office glaring with mid-afternoon sunlight bouncing off brassy honorary plaques when he received us. The solicitor was a stocky, red-faced man with strawberry blond hair glued down with Brylcreem. His voice made me think he’d been on the Camels for a long time, and the blood vessels on his face suggested a similar close relationship with Jack Daniels. He was the kind of man who could put a smile on his face and hold it well past the point at which you understood it represented not friendliness or mirth but only a politician’s habit.
Joe Black slapped Taliaferro on the back and made jokes about prosecutors. He asked Taliaferro if he expected opposition in next year’s elections. “Oh, there’s a little lawyer over in Selma, pretty wet behind the ears, who’s making some noise about going against me.” The smile widened. “Don’t think he’ll be too strong.”
“Now, Cal, you let me know if it gets serious,” Joe Black said. “I been known to put a little money behind good public servants, and I got a good many friends who’ll do the same if I squeeze just a little.”
“Well, I appreciate that, Joe Black, and I’ll sure remember it.” He pointed Joe Black and me to the two chairs across from him. Joe Black settled back into a chair with cracked leather upholstery and motioned me into its twin, which left Marvin standing at the door, unacknowledged by Taliaferro, who looked at me. “Tom, I’m real sorry about what happened down here, and I’m hopin’ we going to be able to get this matter taken care of without too much trouble in your life.”
I thanked him and looked over to Joe Black, who forged ahead. “Now, Cal, are you really going to have to go to trial in this case? Realistically, you ain’t going to get a conviction.”
I was startled to hear my lawyer make the suggestion that the man who killed Jackie should not even be prosecuted. Buford Kyle needed to be in prison for a long time. I knew I had to shut my mouth, but I could feel Taliaferro stiffen, suddenly wary in a whole new way.
“Well, Joe Black, as you know, this Kyle fellow is white trash and should be in the penitentiary for killing the nigger boy, but I agree with you ain’t no jury in Yancey County going to send him there.” Taliaferro shook his head perfunctorily. “But I’ve already heard from the Attorney General that I gotta prosecute Kyle.”
Joe Black nodded. “All right, I understand that situation, but assuming a Yancey County jury acquits Kyle, this whole business oughta be over. No point in prosecuting this boy here for defending himself once the man who killed an innocent colored boy has been let go.”
Taliaferro’s smile twitched. “Well, we going to have to see. Folks here don’t think the Herndon boy was innocent—he was an agitator and Kyle was defending himself.”
This was too wrong to ignore. “But Mr. Taliaferro, I was defending myself. He was trying to kill us all.” Taliaferro started in surprise, and Joe Black shot me a warning look, then moved in. “Cal, just because they some hotheads around who mad at Tommy here, that doesn’t mean you gotta go along with ’em. You bigger than that.”
There was no smile now, not the least remnant of one. Taliaferro gazed at Joe Black but wouldn’t look my way. “We just going to have to see about that.” He busied himself with a bunch of scribbled notes. “Now, Mr. McKee, if we could go over some of the questions I’ll be asking you on the witness stand—what happened at the store, why you were going through Yancey County that day.”
Joe Black raised his hand. “I’ll get the boy ready, Cal. Don’t you worry.”
Taliaferro shrugged and we left. I felt the eyes of the solicitor’s office workers boring into my back as we left and went out into the hall.
Joe Black was uncharacteristically silent on the drive back to Eden Rise. At one point I looked over the back seat at Marvin, who shrugged at me as if to say, “What shut him up?”
“Taliaferro’s going to try to get me,” I said.
Joe Black’s voice lacked all its normal geniality. “Taliaferro best be sure he’s on solid ground, because by God he’ll have some nasty enemies if he keeps after you.”
“Well, it sounded like you promised to help him get re-elected.”
“Shit, boy”—he spat the words at me—“I was just telling him I’m going to be paying attention to his political future. He don’t do right by you, that boy from Selma going to have the best-funded damn circuit solicitor campaign we ever saw in Alabama, and I don’t even know his damn name yet. I raise $25,000 for Mr. X ’fore Cal Taliaferro gets his ass wiped from tomorrow morning’s crap. You understan’?” His face was hard and still but for the flexing jaw muscle as he chewed the stub of a cigar.
His courtly way returned when he reported the unhappy outcome of our meeting to Bebe. Was there any possibility, she asked, that the Alabama attorney general might overrule Taliaferro?
“I don’t think so, darlin’. Richmond Flowers says the dove-shoot of nigras in Alabama is over. We going to stop people from killing ’em just ’cause they feel like it. Richmond said it was ‘morally and politically impossible’ when I made the suggestion they drop it.” He shrugged. “Wouldn’t even listen to some incentives I was about to propose to him.”
Bebe looked a little startled. “Joe Black, do you mean a bribe?”
“Certainly not. I mean a five-figure donation, in cash, to his campaign for governor next year, and much more from other friends of mine. But like I say, he wasn’t listening.”
“Joe, why does Taliaferro want to keep after Tommy?”
“Pressure from the segregationists. They trying to jerk a young nigger lover in line. Taliaferro’s being real political. Because the AG’s office is pressuring him to go after Kyle, he’s trying to cover hisself with the local folks by equating Tommy shooting Kyle with the death of Jackie Herndon. I explained how they weren’t equivalent, but he couldn’t be told.”
She flinched. I couldn’t tell if it was physical pain or a response to what Joe Black had just said. “If Tommy’s tried, a white jury might convict him.”
“It’s quite possible.”
They discussed my fate with such matter-of-factness that my gut twisted in fear and I wanted to run out of the room—run out of Eden Rise forever. But I tried to keep my voice as steady as theirs. “What exactly will happen if I’m convicted?”
“We get you bonded out while I negotiate a reasonable penalty.”
“What you mean, ‘reasonable penalty?’ The law says up to 10 years.” Now my voice was quavering.
“A little incarceration, or better, no jail and some probation.”
“Incarceration” sounded like the second-worst word in the world. “What do you guess about jail time?”
“You’re
