“No.”
“Defense rests, Your Honor.”
The jury was taken out again. Once more Reid asked Judge Byrd to dismiss and once more the motion was denied. Then Perry Byrd mechanically ran over the usual points he planned to touch on in his instructions to the jury. “Any requests for further instructions?”
“No, Your Honor,” Tracy said.
“No further requests,” said Reid.
The jury filed back in and seated themselves with a friendly, interested air. This was only Tuesday, the first day they’d actually sat on a case, and they weren’t yet jaded. Reid had a warm avuncular smile on his face as he went over to address them, and several smiled back tentatively.
“Now’s when we bring out our closing arguments,” he said and delivered a short and eloquent speech about the burden of proof being on the state. His argument, of course, was that all the state really had was the defendant’s refusal to take the Breathalyzer and the account of the arresting trooper who’d stopped Gilchrist at 2:30 in the morning, a sick man on his way back to bed after performing a Good Samaritan deed for his sister.
“A dark moonless night, ladies and gentlemen, on a winding stretch of deserted highway. Two cars meeting each other. Trooper Davis says he observed my client weaving back and forth over the center line and he had what? Fifteen seconds? Twenty seconds to observe all this?”
“Don’t forget, ladies and gentlemen, that Trooper Davis is an experienced officer with nearly ten years as a North Carolina highway patrolman,” said Tracy Johnson. I decided those ugly glasses were a smart touch. They neutralized both her prettiness and her inexperience and lent a tone of judicial competency as she ran over the case again and asked for a guilty decision.
In persnickety tones more suited to explaining Parcheesi rules, Judge Byrd instructed along predictable lines: the jury was not to consider what they’d like the law to be, but what it is; yes, there’s a presumption of innocence and the state must prove guilt, but not beyond all doubt, he told them, leaning heavily on the all, merely beyond reasonable doubt. He read them the law on DWI, told them their possible verdicts, then sent them off to deliberate.
It was 12:15.
I’d hoped to slide Luellen’s case in before the lunch recess, but Ambrose Daughtridge had poor-mouthed about his schedule enough that Tracy called his case next, so Reid and I splashed across the street in the freezing rain to Sue’s Soup ’n’ Sandwich Shop for a bowl of her homemade Brunswick stew. The little shop was crowded and steamy and permeated with the wonderful smells of hot coffee, toasted bread, and fragrant meats. We had to wait a few minutes for one of the tiny booths that lines the wall opposite the long Formica lunch counter.
Reid was torn between optimism for his client’s case and disgust that Gilchrist had even been charged. He’d managed to keep on the panel a sharp-eyed middle-aged woman who’d worked as an auto insurance adjuster, and he seemed to think that she was the natural choice for foreperson, someone who’d see this case for what it was and bring in a quick not guilty.
I hate to lick the red off anybody’s candy cane and kept my mouth shut.
“What?” he asked.
“She’s never going to get elected foreperson,” I told him. “James Greene is.”
“What you talking? She’s white, she’s educated, she’s sharp-”
“She’s a woman,” I interrupted. “And a civilian.” Our stew arrived, hot and thick, and I added a heavy sprinkle of black pepper. “James Greene may be a black man, but he’s still a man and an ex-police officer. The other men’ll vote for him to show they’re not bigots and he’ll toss around enough jargon that the women will defer to his expertise.”
“Yeah?” Reid crumbled saltine crackers over his bowl and stirred them in as he considered how Greene’s being foreperson would affect Gilehrist’s chances. “Well, hell, he knows even better than the Webster woman that it’s all a crock of shit. Everybody sitting in that courtroom knows that Davis wouldn’t have pulled Gilchrist that night if he’d been white. Green’s just some extra insurance I slipped past little Tracy.”
“God takes care of fools, drunkards and brand-new ADA ’s.” I reached for the pepper shaker again, but Reid pushed it away.
“You’re gonna wreck your stomach,” he warned. “What’d I forget?”
“There’s talk that James Greene wants the security contract for that new pharmaceutical plant over in Cotton Grove.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that, too. So?”
I swallowed a meltingly tender chunk of beef. “So Owen Barfield’s one of the owners.”
Dismayed enlightenment broke on Reid’s face. “And Owen Barfield is Judge Perry Byrd’s brother-in-law,” he groaned.
“Bingo!” I said. “What better way to get the word to Owen that Greene’s Security Agency is absolutely colorblind when it comes to providing security than for James Greene to be foreman of a jury that convicts a black man when there are good grounds to let him ofi?”
Reid pushed aside his stew. His appetite seemed to have suddenly disappeared. “You’ve got a weird mind, Deborah,” he said, frowning at me. “That’s too goddamned Machiavellian. Greene wouldn’t-”
“How ’bout a nice slice of pie?” asked our waitress as she paused at our booth to top off our cups with more coffee. “We’ve got deep-dish apple or there’s one piece of pecan left.”
Pecan pie’s my absolute favorite and I do indulge in the wintertime-after all, what are bulky sweaters for?-but good as Sue’s is, it doesn’t hold a candle to my Aunt Zell’s, and I don’t squander those five hundred calories on anybody else’s.
“I’ll take the apple if you’ll melt me a little cheddar on the top,” said Reid, who wore a bulky red sweater vest under his gray tweed sportscoat.
I was wearing a cropped green jacket over a soft challis skirt with a wide tight belt that registered every ounce I ate, so I passed.
The rain had slacked off by the time we got back to the courthouse, but it had washed away most of the sand that a janitor had sprinkled earlier and the wide marble steps were glazed in a thin coat of ice. Reid took my arm as we started up. “How you gals walk around on those stilts in good weather beats me, but why you don’t break your neck in winter…”
Since my beautiful black leather boots had sensible one-inch heels, I knew his grousing was just to cover his worry.
“Maybe the jury will come back as soon as court reconvenes,” I comforted, patting his hand. A quick return would mean acquittal.
It was nearly three before the jury brought in their verdict. I’d gotten Luellen another stay of active time, and though Judge Byrd gave her a stiff lecture-“You know what suspended means, Miz Martin? You under some kind of impression you don’t have to go to jail if you don’t keep to the terms of the judgment on you?”-he did allow her one more chance to set up a regular schedule of restitution payments with her parole officer.
Machiavellian or not, James Greene had been chosen foreman and the jury did deliver a guilty verdict. Reid and I-and maybe the wary-eyed Gilchrist-were the only two not surprised. (Later, the bailiff showed Reid the ballots that had been thrown in the trash can. On the first vote, the count had been seven to five for acquittal.)
Perry Byrd tried hard not to beam as he sent for Gilchrist’s driving record. Despite the plumber’s testimony, he wanted to see for himself; and when it was brought to him, Byrd frowned and muttered to himself in those carrying undertones, “I don’t believe this man’s gone twenty-one years with no tickets.”
Even under uniform sentencing, a judge has much leeway. The punishment for a first DWI conviction with no priors could be as light as court costs and a few hours of community service. Gilchrist’s was near the maximum: 120 days suspended for three years upon payment of a $250 fine and court costs, plus forty-eight hours of active jail time.
Reid was appalled, but still game. “Your Honor,” he said, “my client operates a one-man business for his livelihood. We request that he be allowed to wait till the weekend to activate his jail time.”
“Denied!” said Judge Byrd. “Bailiff, take the prisoner in custody.”
Okay, so Gilchrist probably would’ve blown a ten. Big damn deal. It wasn’t his choice to go out that night and it wasn’t like he’d deliberately gone and driven recklessly on a crowded highway or anything. Even Trooper Davis admitted he’d been well below the speed limit.
