“No. Least I’ve learned that much. Cassie, if they find me, arrest me in Canada, do I have to come back? Is there any way to fight the extradition?”
“Well, we can try to fight it, Moe, but there are international treaties on extradition and if there’s an arrest warrant for you in Canada, Canada is supposed to turn you over.”
Moe shook his head in despair. “Murder. That’s what they charged me with, Cassie. I didn’t murder anybody.”
“Mississippi can charge whatever it wants, Moe! You beat Statler, Leon, and Troy pretty bad and now they’re claiming Troy died because of the injuries you inflicted on him.”
“They had it coming!” Moe’s voice was hard and the look in his eyes harder still.
“I don’t dispute that, but the state of Mississippi will. We could contend that Troy’s death was aggravated assault, a result of the beating, at the worst manslaughter, but not murder, and if you have to go back to Mississippi, that’s what we’ll argue. We all know you can’t get a fair trial in Mississippi.” Lawyer Tate and I had discussed this at some length. There had been a number of cases in which blacks were accused of attacking whites, and in the outcome of each case, the black defendants were convicted and sentenced either to life or death row. In addition, there was the whole matter of Moe not having the opportunity of a trial before a jury of his peers. Any jury selected would be all white. I told Moe this. “We’ll use these facts to fight the extradition and the charges. There are also charges for hitting Statler and Leon with the crowbar. We’ll fight those charges too.”
“I’d have to go back to Mississippi to change the charges?”
I was honest with Moe. “More than likely.”
Moe looked to the peak of the pine. “I can’t go back to jail, Cassie. I was jailed when Stacey and I ran off to work the cane fields. Now, I’m sorry about Troy, I truly am, but I can’t go back.”
“You keep taking risks like coming here, you will.”
Moe kept looking at the tree. “Thing is, I want to go home. I want to see my daddy. He can’t travel, but I still can.”
“Don’t even think about going down there, Moe. The best thing for now is just staying in Canada and not drawing attention to yourself. That means not crossing that border again. Let Mississippi make the next move. If they issue an international extradition request on you and you’re arrested in Canada, we’ll fight the extradition on the grounds that you can’t get a fair trial in Mississippi since you won’t be facing trial before your peers, but in front of a white jury. But like I said, most likely Canada will still turn you over.”
Moe now looked at me. “New year, new decade coming up, Cassie. They say change is coming. Hope it’s good change for me.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
We walked back to the house, and I saw Big Ma standing at the breakfast room window, watching us. As we entered the house she turned and gave Moe a nod, then called to me. Moe smiled at her, crossed the kitchen, and went into the living room. “It’s too late now, Cassie,” Big Ma said when we were alone.
“What do you mean?”
“He taken now. You waited too long.”
“Big Ma, what did I tell you before? I never wanted Moe.”
“Well, you sho ain’t gonna have him now. You know I don’t hold with comin’ ’tween husband and wife.”
“Well, I don’t hold with it either. Moe and I were just talking about the arrest warrant and extradition.”
Big Ma grunted. “Make sho that’s all y’all talkin’ ’bout. That boy, he ain’t over you yet. Maybe never will be.”
“Ah, Big Ma,” I said, taking off my coat. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Gotta worry,” countered Big Ma. “You need to be married again.”
Stacey had called Christopher-John and Man to come over. Their families weren’t with them. All of us sat talking late into the night. It was past midnight when Moe and his wife and Dwayne left. If it hadn’t been for Myrtis and Dwayne being with him, I believe Moe would have stayed the night. He did not want to leave.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
I had waited for Stacey to say something about Guy, but it was Dee who brought up the subject. “Robert told me about that friend of yours in Boston,” she said when we had a few minutes alone in the kitchen. “You serious about him?”
I ignored her question. “What did Stacey tell you?”
“Said that he figured something was going on between you two. Something outside of marriage.”
I became defensive. “Stacey wasn’t there long enough to know anything. He just jumped to conclusions because he saw a white man in my apartment. He just got angry and left.”
“Well, what did you expect? You know how he feels about colored women being with white men. You know how they all feel.”
I took a moment before responding. “He tell Christopher-John and Man?”
Dee shook her head. “No, just me. Told me to talk to you.”
“What? He can’t talk to me himself?”
“Says he’d get too angry.”
“Well, Dee, you can tell him you did talk to me. You can tell him too that I know plenty of white people in Boston. I work with them every day. Sometimes I go to their houses, sometimes they come to my place. We go out together, we enjoy each other. That’s my life in Boston.”
“And the man who was in your apartment, he’s a special part of it?”
“He’s a good friend.”
“Good friend, huh? Don’t hedge with me, Cassie. Give me more credit than that.”
I was silent, then I said, “Dee, did Stacey tell you that man he met wants to marry me?”
Now it was Dee who was silent before she said, “No, Stacey didn’t tell me. But if you don’t want this family torn apart, you better make sure that a friend is all this white man stays.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Stacey didn’t say one word to me about Guy, but he did speak to me about Rie. “She wants to go south to school. She says she wants to go to one of the Negro schools, not one of the schools up here. She talk to you?”
We were seated at the breakfast nook table. I pushed my empty coffee cup back a bit and folded my arms on the table. “She did, some.”
“I don’t understand it,” Stacey admitted. “All I wanted to do was get away from down there, and here she is wanting to go back down there to school.”