Of course there would be a long dinner at the town house on Chartres Street where Miss Twyla would be waiting. She was a dear old friend from Florry’s Memphis years. She was also a poet who wrote a lot and published little, like Florry. Twyla, though, had the benefit of marrying well. When her husband died young she became a rich widow, one who preferred the company of women over men. She left Memphis about the same time Florry built the pink cottage and went home.
For dinner, they were seated at a choice table in the elegant dining room and surrounded by a well-dressed crowd in the holiday spirit. Waiters in white jackets brought platters of raw oysters and poured ice-cold Sancerre. As the wine relaxed them, they poked fun at the other diners and laughed a lot. Florry informed them she had extended their reservations for an entire week. If they were up to it, they could ring in the New Year at a rowdy dance in the hotel’s grand ballroom.
Ford County was far away.
Chapter 13
At 5:00 a.m. on Monday, January 6, 1947, Ernie Dowdle left his shotgun house in Lowtown and began walking toward the railroad tracks owned by Illinois Central. The temperature was around thirty degrees, seasonal according to the almanac Ernie kept in his kitchen. The weather, especially in the dead of winter, was an important part of his job.
The wind picked up from the northwest, and by the time he arrived at the courthouse twenty minutes later his fingers and feet were cold. As he often did, he stopped and admired the old, stately building, the largest structure in the county, and allowed himself a bit of pride. It was his job to make it warm, something he’d been doing for the past fifteen years, and he, Ernie Dowdle, was very good at it.
This would be no ordinary day. The biggest trial he could remember was about to begin, and that courtroom up there on the second floor would soon be filled. He unlocked the service door on the north side of the building, closed and locked it behind him, turned on a light, and took the stairs to the basement. In the boiler room he went through his wintertime ritual of checking the four burners, only one of which he’d left on through the weekend. It kept the temperature throughout the building at roughly forty degrees, enough to protect the pipes. Next, he checked the dials on the two four-hundred-gallon tanks of heating oil. He had topped them off the previous Friday in anticipation of the trial. He removed a plate and looked inside the exhaust flue. When he was satisfied that the system was in order, he turned on the other three burners and waited for the temperature to rise in the steam boiler situated above them.
As he waited he assembled a table from three soft-drink cases and took a seat with an eye on the dials and gauges and began to eat a cold biscuit his wife had baked the night before. His table was often used for breakfast and lunch, and when things were slow he and Penrod, the janitor, would pull out a checkerboard and play a game or two. He poured black coffee from an old thermos, and as he sipped it he thought about Mr. Pete Banning. He had never met the man, but a cousin lived on the Banning farm and worked the fields. In years past, decades even, Ernie’s people had been farmworkers and most were buried out near the Banning land. Ernie considered himself lucky to have escaped the life of a field hand. He’d made it all the way to town, and to a much better job that had nothing to do with picking cotton.
Ernie, like most black folks in Ford County, was fascinated by the murder of Dexter Bell. After it happened, it had been widely believed that a man as prominent as Pete Banning would never be put on trial. If he’d shot a black man, for any reason whatsoever, he probably would not have been arrested. If a black man murdered another black man, justice would be arbitrarily sought, and by white men only. Issues such as motive, standing, drunkenness, and criminal past were important, but the overriding factor was usually whom the defendant worked for. The right boss could get you a few months in the county jail. No boss could get you strapped to the electric chair.
Now that it was apparent that Mr. Banning would indeed face a jury of his peers, no one, at least in Lowtown, believed he would be convicted and punished. He had money and money could buy slick lawyers. Money could bribe the jurors. Money could influence the judge. White people knew how to use money to get whatever they wanted.
What made the case so compelling to Ernie was the fact that no colored folks were involved. No blame could be placed on any of them. There were no black scapegoats. A serious crime with a white victim always led to the roundup of the usual black suspects, but not in this case. It was just a good old-fashioned brawl among the white folks, and Ernie planned to watch as much of the trial as possible. Like everyone else he wanted to know why Banning did it. He was certain it involved a woman.
He finished his biscuit and studied the gauges. The steam was boiling now and ready to go. When the temperature rose to 175 degrees, he slowly pulled levers and released the steam. It ran through a maze of pipes that led to radiators in every room of the courthouse. He adjusted settings on the burners while keeping an eye on the dials. Satisfied, he climbed the service stairs to the second floor and stepped through the door beside the jury box. The courtroom was dark and cold. He turned on one light—the rest would wait until exactly 7:00 a.m. He walked through the bar and along the benches and to a wall where a black cast-iron radiator was rattling and coming to life. The steam from below was pumping through it and emanating the first wave of warm air that broke the chill. Ernie smiled, quietly proud that the system he maintained so well was working.
It was 6:30 now, and given the size of the courtroom, with its thirty-foot ceilings and balcony, and old leaky windows that were still frosty, Ernie figured it would take over an hour for his six radiators to raise the temperature to around seventy degrees. The front doors of the courthouse opened at 8:00, but Ernie suspected the regulars, the clerks and employees and probably even some of the lawyers, would begin drifting in through the side doors before then, all eager to watch the opening of the trial.
* * *
—
Judge Rafe Oswalt arrived at a quarter to eight and found Penrod sweeping the floor of his chambers behind the courtroom. They exchanged pleasantries, but Penrod knew the judge was in no mood for small talk. A moment later, Ernie Dowdle stopped by to say hello and ask His Honor about the temperature. It was perfect, as always.
John Wilbanks and his brother Russell arrived for the defense. They claimed their table, the one away from the jury box, and began covering it with thick law books and files and other lawyerly effects. They wore fine dark suits and silk ties and looked the part of wealthy, successful lawyers, which was the look everyone in town expected of them. Miles Truitt arrived for the State, along with his assistant district attorney, Maylon Post, a rookie fresh from Ole Miss law school. Truitt and John Wilbanks shook hands and began a friendly chat as they watched the crowd file in.
Nix Gridley arrived with his two men, Roy Lester and Red Arnett, all three in clean, pressed, and matching uniforms, and with a thick layer of shiny black polish on their boots. For the occasion, Nix had deputized two volunteers and given them guns and uniforms and strict instructions to keep order in the courtroom. Nix moved around the courtroom chatting with the clerks, laughing with the lawyers, and nodding at those he recognized in the jury pool.