* * *
—
When John Wilbanks returned less than an hour later, he and the sheriff argued briefly over where, exactly, the attorney-client conference would take place. There was no designated room for such important meetings. The lawyers usually walked into the cell block and huddled with their clients with a row of bars between them, and with every other prisoner straining to eavesdrop. Occasionally, a lawyer would catch his client outside in the rec yard and give advice through chain link. Most often, though, the lawyers did not bother to visit their clients at the jail. They waited until they were hauled into court and chatted with them there.
But John Wilbanks considered himself to be superior to every other lawyer in Ford County, if not the entire state, and his new criminal client was certainly a cut above the rest of Gridley’s prisoners. Their status warranted a proper place to meet, and the sheriff’s office would work just fine. Gridley finally acquiesced—few people won arguments with John Wilbanks, who, by the way, had always supported the sheriff at election time—and after some mumbling and cussing and a few benign rules left to fetch Pete. He brought him in with no handcuffs and said they could chat for half an hour.
When they were alone, Wilbanks began with “Okay, Pete, let’s talk about the crime. If you did it, tell me you did it. If you didn’t do it, then tell me who did.”
“I have nothing to say,” Pete said and lit a cigarette.
“That’s not good enough.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Interesting. Do you plan to cooperate with your defense lawyer?”
A shrug, a puff, nothing more.
Wilbanks offered a professional smile and said, “Okay, here’s the scenario. In a day or two they’ll take you over to the courtroom for an initial appearance before Judge Oswalt. I assume you’ll plead not guilty, then they’ll bring you back here. In a month or so, the grand jury will meet and indict you for murder, first degree. I would guess that by February or March, Oswalt will be ready for a trial, which I’m ready to handle, if that’s what you want.”
“John, you’ve always been my lawyer.”
“Good. Then you have to cooperate.”
“Cooperate?”
“Yes, Pete, cooperate. On the surface, this appears to be cold-blooded murder. Give me something to work with, Pete. Surely you had a motive.”
“It’s between me and Dexter Bell.”
“No, it’s now between you and the State of Mississippi, which, like all states, takes a dim view of cold-blooded murder.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“That’s not a defense, Pete.”
“Maybe I don’t have a defense, not one that folks would understand.”
“Well, the folks on the jury need to understand something. My first thought, indeed my only one at this moment, is a plea of insanity.”
Pete shook his head and said, “Hell no. I’m as sane as you are.”
“But I’m not facing the electric chair, Pete.”
Pete blew a cloud of smoke and said, “I’m not doing that.”
“Great, then give me a motive, a reason. Give me something, Pete.”
“I have nothing to say.”
* * *
—
Joel Banning was walking down the steps outside Benson Hall when someone called his name. Another student, a freshman he knew of but had not met, handed him an envelope and said, “Dean Mulrooney needs to see you at once, in his office. It’s urgent.”
“Thanks,” Joel said, taking the envelope and watching the freshman walk away. Inside, a handwritten note on official Vanderbilt stationery instructed Joel to please come without delay to the dean’s office in Kirkland Hall, the administration building.
Joel had a literature class in fifteen minutes and the professor frowned on absences. If he sprinted, he could run by the dean’s office, tend to whatever matter was at hand, then arrive late for class and hope the professor was in a good mood. He hustled across the quad to Kirkland Hall and bounded up the stairs to the third floor, where the dean’s secretary explained that he was to wait until precisely 11:00 a.m., when his aunt Florry would call from home. The secretary claimed to know nothing. She had spoken to Florry Banning, who was calling on her rural party line and thus without privacy. Florry planned to drive into Clanton and use the private line at a friend’s home.
As he waited, he assumed someone had died and he could not help but think of those relatives and friends he preferred to lose before the others. The Banning family was small: just his parents, Pete and Liza, his sister, Stella, and his aunt Florry. The grandparents were dead. Florry had no children; thus, he and Stella had no first cousins on the Banning side. His mother’s people were from Memphis but had scattered after the war.
He paced around the office, ignoring the looks from the secretary, and decided it was probably his mother. She had been sent away months earlier and the family was reeling. He and Stella had not seen her and their letters went unanswered. Their father refused to discuss his wife’s treatment, and, well, there were a lot of unknowns. Would her condition improve? Would she come home? Would the family ever be a real family again? Joel and Stella had questions, but their father preferred to talk about other matters when he chose to talk at all. Likewise, Aunt Florry was of little help.
She called at 11:00 a.m. on the dot. The secretary handed Joel the phone and stepped around a corner, though probably within earshot, he figured. Joel said hello, then listened for what seemed an eternity. Florry began by explaining that she was in town at the home of Miss Mildred Highlander, a woman Joel had known his entire life, and she, Florry, was there because the call needed to be private and there was no privacy on their rural party line, as he well knew. And, really, nothing was private in town right now because his father had driven to the Methodist church just hours earlier and shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell, and was now in jail, and, well, as anyone could understand, the entire town was buzzing and everything had come to a complete stop. Don’t ask why and don’t say anything that might get overheard, wherever you are, Joel, but it’s just awful and God help us.
Joel leaned on the secretary’s desk for support as he felt faint. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and listened. Florry said she had just talked to Stella at Hollins and she did not take it well. They had her in the president’s office with a nurse. She explained that Pete had given her specific instructions, in writing no less, that they—Joel and Stella—were to stay at school and away from home and Clanton until further notice. They should make plans to spend Thanksgiving holidays with friends as far away from Ford County as possible. And, if they were contacted by reporters, investigators, police, or anybody else, they were to say absolutely nothing. Not a word to anyone about their father or the family. Not a word, period. She wrapped things up by saying that she loved him dearly, would write a long letter immediately, and that she wished she could be there with him at this horrible moment.