It occurred to Hop that someone else might have heard the gunshots. What if Mrs. Bell came running and saw her husband bloodied and dead at his desk? Hop waited and waited and tried to compose himself. He knew he didn’t have the courage to go find her and break the news. Let the white folks do that. There was no one else in the church, and as the minutes passed he began to realize that the situation was in his hands. But not for long. If someone saw him running from the church he would undoubtedly become the first suspect. So he left the annex as calmly as possible and hurried down the same street Mr. Banning had taken. He picked up his pace, bypassed the square, and before long saw the jail.
Deputy Roy Lester was getting out of a patrol car. “Mornin’, Hop,” he said, then noticed his red eyes and the tears on his cheeks.
“Preacher Bell’s been shot,” Hop blurted. “He’s dead.”
* * *
—
With Hop in the front seat and still wiping tears, Lester sped through the quiet streets of Clanton and minutes later slid to a dusty stop in the gravel parking lot outside the annex. In front of them the door flew open and Jackie Bell ran through it, screaming. Her hands were red with blood, her cotton dress was stained as well, and she had touched and streaked her face. She was howling, screaming, saying nothing they could understand, just shrieking in horror, her face contorted in shock. Lester grabbed her, tried to restrain her, but she tore away and yelled, “He’s dead! He’s dead! Somebody killed my husband.” Lester grabbed her again, tried to console her and keep her from returning to the study. Hop watched and had no idea what to do. He was still worried that he might get blamed and wanted to limit his involvement.
Mrs. Vanlandingham from across the street heard the commotion and came running, still holding a dish towel. She arrived just as the sheriff, Nix Gridley, wheeled into the parking lot and slid in the gravel. Nix scrambled out of his car, and when Jackie saw him she screamed, “He’s dead, Nix! Dexter’s dead! Somebody shot him! Oh my God! Help me!”
Nix, Lester, and Mrs. Vanlandingham walked her across the street and onto the porch, where she fell into a wicker rocker. Mrs. Vanlandingham tried to wipe her face and hands but Jackie shoved her away. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing painfully while groaning, almost retching.
Nix said to Lester, “Stay with her.” He crossed the street where Deputy Red Arnett was waiting. They entered the annex and slowly crept into the study, where they found Preacher Bell’s body on the floor beside his chair. Nix carefully touched his right wrist and after a few seconds said, “There’s no pulse.”
“No surprise there,” Arnett said. “Don’t reckon we need an ambulance.”
“I’d say no. Call the funeral home.”
Hop stepped into the study and said, “Mista Pete Banning shot him. Heard him do it. Saw the gun.”
Nix stood, frowned at Hop, and said, “Pete Banning?”
“Yes, suh. I was out there in the hall. He pointed the gun at me, then told me to go find you.”
“What else did he say?”
“Said I was a good man. That’s all. Then he left.”
Nix folded his arms across his chest and looked at Red, who shook his head in disbelief and mumbled, “Pete Banning?”
Both looked at Hop as if they didn’t believe him. Hop said, “That’s right. Seen him myself, with a long-barreled revolver. Aimed it right here,” he said, pointing to a spot in the center of his forehead. “Thought I was dead too.”
Nix pushed his hat back and rubbed his cheeks. He looked at the floor and noticed the pool of blood spreading and moving silently away from the body. He looked at Dexter’s closed eyes and asked himself for the first time, and the first of many, what could have possibly provoked this?
Red said, “Well, I guess this crime is solved.”
“I suppose it is,” Nix said. “But let’s take some pictures and look for slugs.”
“What about the family?” Red asked.
“Same thought here. Let’s get Mrs. Bell back in the parsonage and get some ladies to sit with her. I’ll go to the school and talk to the principal. They have three kids, right?”
“I think so.”
“That’s right,” Hop said. “Two girls and a boy.”
Nix looked at Hop and said, “Not a word out of you, Hop, okay? I mean it, not a word. Don’t tell a soul what happened here. If you talk, I swear I’ll throw you in jail.”
“No, suh, Mista Sheriff, I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”
They left the study, closed the door, and walked outside. Across the street more neighbors were gathering around the Vanlandingham porch. Most were housewives standing on the lawn, wide-eyed with their hands over their mouths in disbelief.
* * *
—
Ford County had not seen a white murder in over ten years. In 1936, a couple of sharecroppers went to war over a strip of worthless farmland. The one with the better aim prevailed, claimed self-defense at trial, and walked home. Two years later, a black boy was lynched near the settlement of Box Hill, where he allegedly said something fresh to a white woman. In 1938, though, lynching was not considered murder or a crime of any sort anywhere in the South, especially Mississippi. However, a wrong word to a white woman could be punishable by death.
At that moment, neither Nix Gridley nor Red Arnett nor Roy Lester nor anyone else under the age of seventy in Clanton could remember the murder of such a prominent citizen. And, the fact that the prime suspect was even more prominent stopped the entire town cold in its tracks. In the courthouse, the clerks and lawyers and judges forgot their business, repeated what they had just heard, and shook their heads. In the shops and offices around the square the secretaries and owners and customers passed along the stunning news and looked at each other in shock. In the schools, the teachers quit teaching, left their students, and huddled in the hallways. On the shaded streets around the square, neighbors stood near mailboxes and worked hard to think of different ways to say, “This can’t be true.”
But it was. A crowd gathered in the Vanlandingham yard and gazed desperately across the street at the gravel lot, where three patrol cars—the county’s entire fleet—along with the hearse from Magargel’s Funeral Home were parked. Jackie Bell had been escorted back to the parsonage, where she was sitting with a doctor friend and some ladies from the church. Soon the streets were crowded with cars and trucks driven by the curious. Some inched along, their drivers gawking. Others parked haphazardly as close to the church as possible.
The presence of the hearse was a magnet, and the people moved onto the parking lot, where Roy Lester told them to stand back. The rear door of the hearse was partially open, which meant, of course, that a body would soon be brought to it and loaded for the short drive to the funeral home. As with any tragedy—crime or accident—what the curious really wanted was to see a body. Stunned and shocked as they were, they inched forward in muted silence and realized they were the lucky ones. They were witnesses to a dramatic piece of an unimaginable story, and for the rest of their lives they could talk of being there when Preacher Bell was taken away in a hearse.