“They’ll believe her,” Dade says, bitterness creeping into his voice.
“When it comes right down to it, people stick together. I saw how that works today.”
I look out into the street. There isn’t a single car going by. Despite its prosperity, without the students, this place, like all college towns, is dead.
“I’m not so sure she didn’t tell the truth, Dade,” I say, and recount my trip to Heber Springs to talk to Jenny Taylor.
He gets in the car.
“White folks stick together,” he mutters again.
I ‘don’t have the energy to argue with him right now, but I have the feeling that Lauren’s about-face wasn’t re lated to Dade’s skin color.
“I want you to let me ask the prosecutor if you can still take the polygraph.” It is probably too late now.
“Huh,” he says stubbornly, “after what I saw today, I don’t trust anybody.”
Including his lawyer, obviously. I bite my lower lip to keep from blowing up at him. I grab the door handle, and before pushing it shut against him, I tell him I’ll see him and his parents at the Ozark Motel Sunday afternoon. It’s in the Cunninghams’ price range, too.
I watch him drive off and then walk in the cold on Col lege two blocks to the prosecutor’s office, thinking how I’ve been spinning my wheels in this case. I can imagine how a doctor feels treating a patient with a terminal illness. No matter what I do, I can’t escape a sense of doom.
Five minutes later, Binkie follows me into the reception area of the Washington County prosecuting attorney’s office. He motions me to accompany him back to his office, and, after taking off my overcoat, I take a seat across from his desk.
“Want some coffee?” he asks as if we were now old friends instead of combatants. He points at a tray beside him containing a full glass pot, a sugar bowl, and ajar of nondairy creamer.
I nod, eager to take the chill out of my bones.
“I’ll take a little whitener in it,” I say, watching him fuss with the spoons and cups. His hands, I notice for the first time, are arthritic and swollen. He keeps them in his pockets when he is in court.
“Do you know what made Lauren Denney change her mind?” I ask, impatient to get this conversation going. Binkie, however, doesn’t seem the type to rub it in.
Binkie hands me a cup decorated with Razorback insignia The red lettering below a picture of a pig dribbling a basketball reads “National Champions 1993-94.”
“I have no idea,” he say offhandedly.
“But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you. What I’d like is for Dade to plead guilty to a charge of carnal abuse and take a six-year sentence You know under the new sentencing statutes if he kept his nose clean he could conceivably be eligible for parole after only one-sixth of that. He could be home in a year.”
Astounded by his offer, I sip at the coffee. It tastes amazingly good. Given the circumstances, it is an incredibly generous offer.
“Would the Perrys go for that?” I ask, my mind racing. Dade is already on his way back to St. Francis County. I’ll have to call his parents.
Binkie lifts his cup to his mouth and swallows.
“Regardless of what they’ve said, they don’t want a trial even though now I’ll be able to keep out any mention of Robin’s relationship with Dr. Hofstra. I got them to agree before the hearing this morning that I’d make this offer to you regardless of how it turned out.”
I feel an enormous sense of relief. Dade could easily get twenty years or even more. His football career is probably over, but so what?
“I’ll talk to his family as soon as I can. Dade’s already on the road back to Hughes, but I should be able to get back to you late this afternoon or the first thing in the morning.”
For, a response, Binkie writes a number on the back of his card.
“This is my home phone number,” he says, handing it to me.
“You can reach me there or here.”
Why is the guy doing this? As far as I am concerned, he’s in the driver’s seat. Yet, maybe he believes that Dade will be giving up enough. I stand up, eager to get out of here and get on the phone. I offer him my hand.
“The judge won’t have any trouble with six years?”
Binkie stands and despite the condition of his hands crushes my fingers with a grip I couldn’t come close to if I worked out for the next decade.
“I don’t think so. It’s not as if he hurt her, too.”
“I should be able to sell his parents,” I say, reasonably optimistic. Once they hear about this morning’s results, they’ll have to be realistic about the chances of going to trial.
“I hope so,” he says, his face suddenly gloomy.
“May be we ought to be caning criminals like they do in Singa pore. Locking kids up and throwing away the key isn’t the answer. Something the hell’s wrong with this country.
It didn’t use to be like this.”
The least I can do is agree.
“I guess not,” I say.
“We’ve been going downhill for years. When you’re right in the middle of it, you don’t notice it though.”
Binkie shrugs and picks up his cup again. He didn’t ask for my philosophy of life.
“Get him to take this deal,” he says.
“Though I haven’t tried a rape case involving a black before,” he adds, his voice dry, “I doubt if a jury in these parts will be defense oriented in a case like this.”
I doubt it, too.
“How many blacks am I likely to have?”
Binkie reaches into his desk and pulls out some papers.
“This is the jury list. It’ll save you a trip to the Clerk’s office if you haven’t already been,” he says handing me papers with some jury data information on them.
“You might have a couple.”
That’s two more than I thought.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
I leave Binkie’s office, wondering if he is just fundamentally decent or whether, for some reason I don’t know about, he is scared to try this case, too.
17
I reach Roy Cunningham at his grocery from Barton’s office. In a weary voice, Roy explains that he has no help.
Lucy has taken their youngest child, Lashondra, to a doctor in Memphis because of an ear infection. Though I know this is an inappropriate time to talk, I insist on telling him what happened at the hearing this morning.
Already the court’s decision to prevent me from introducing evidence of Robin Perry’s affair with her professor seems far in the past, but it is a necessary part of the story if I am to prepare Roy and Lucy to accept a six-year prison sentence for their son. He listens without comment as if I were explaining a minor technicality instead of what I fear is the turning point in the case.
“But just a few minutes ago,” I say over a customer’s voice in the background, “the prosecutor offered us a deal. He’ll let Dade plead guilty to a charge of carnal abuse and a six-year prison term. On this kind of charge that could mean with maximum credit for good behavior he could be out in just a year. My opinion is that it’s something we need to think about. By the way, Dade’s on the road headed for home. He doesn’t know about the prosecutor’s offer yet.”
“He’s not guilty!” Roy Cunningham yells into the phone. I wish Lucy were there. She is the realist in the family and will understand what we’re up against.
