Morning Glory

'Why, the Town Square in Whitney. That’s where me and my brother spend most days, on the bench under the magnolia tree.'

'Whittling?'

'Naturally, whittling. Show me an old man with idle hands and I’ll show you the subject of next year’s obituary.'

'And while you whittle, you see a lot of what goes on around the square, is that right?'

Nat scratched his temple. 'Well, I guess you could say we don’t miss much, do we, Norris?' He chuckled, raising a matching sound from those in the room who knew precisely how little the pair missed.

This time Norris smiled and restrained himself from replying.

Collins took out a pocket knife and began cleaning his nails as if the following question were of little consequence. 'Have you ever seen Lula Peak coming and going around the square?'

'Pret’near every day. She was a waitress at Vickery’s, you know, and our bench sets right there where we got a clear shot of it and the library and pretty much everything that moves around that square.'

'So over the years you saw a lot of Lula Peak’s comings and goings?'

'You bet.'

'Did you ever see her coming and going with any men?'

Nat burst out laughing and slapped his knee. 'Hoo! Hoo! That’s a good one, isn’t it, Norris!' The whole courtroom burst into laughter.

The judge interjected, 'Answer the question, Mr. MacReady.'

'She come and go with more men than the Pacific fleet!'

Laughter burst forth and Murdoch had to sound his gavel again.

'Tell us about some you saw her with,' Collins prompted.

'How far back?'

'As far back as you can remember.'

'Well…' Nat scratched his chin, dropped his gaze to the tip of his brown high-top shoe. 'Let’s see now, that goes back quite a ways. She always did like the men. Guess I can’t rightly say which one I saw her with first, but somewhere along when she was just barely old enough to grow body hair there was that dusky-skinned carnie who ran the ferris wheel during Whitney Days. Might’ve been back in ’24-'

'Twenty-five,' Norris interrupted from the floor.

Slocum leaped to his feet-'Objection!' just as the judge rapped his gavel. 'Lula Peak is not on trial here!' put in the Solicitor General. 'William Parker is!'

Collins pointed out calmly, 'Your honor, the reputation of the deceased is of utmost importance here. My intent is to establish that because of her promiscuity, Lula Peak might have gotten pregnant by any one of a dozen men she’s been known to have consorted with.'

'By implying her fetus was sired in 1925?' retorted Slocum irately. 'Your honor, this line of questioning is ludicrous!'

'I’m attempting to show a sexual pattern in the deceased’s life, your honor, if you’ll allow me.'

The objection was overruled, but with a warning to Collins to control his witness’s penchant for speaking to the gallery and soliciting answers from them.

'Did you ever see Lula Peak coming and going with Will Parker?'

'I seen her try. Whoo-ee, that little gal sure did try, starting with the first day he come into town and went in there where she was workin’.'

'In there, meaning in Vickery’s Cafe.'

'Yessir. And every day after that when she saw him come to town and cross the square, she’d make sure she was out front sweeping, and when he didn’t pay her any mind, she’d follow him wherever he went.'

'Such as…' encouraged Collins.

'Well, such as the library when he came in to borrow books or to sell milk and eggs to Miss Beasley. It wouldn’t take Lula two minutes before she took off her apron and hotfooted it after young Parker. I’m an old man, Mr. Collins, but I’m not too old to recognize a woman in heat, nor one that’s been refused by a man-'

'Objection!'

'-and when Lula came spittin’ out of that library-'

'Objection!'

'-she didn’t have no matted fur that I could see-'

'Objection!'

It took a full minute for the din to die down. Though the judge ordered Nat’s opinions stricken from the record, Collins knew they could not be stricken from the minds of the jury. Lula Peak was a slut and before he was done they’d all recognize the fact and indict her instead of Will Parker.

'Mr. MacReady,' Collins explained quietly, 'you understand we have to deal with facts here, only facts, not opinions.'

'Sure-sure enough.'

'Facts, Mr. MacReady. Now, do you know for a fact that Lula Peak had licentious affairs with more than one man around Whitney?'

'Yes, sir. At least if Orlan Nettles can be believed. He told me once he nabbed her underneath the grandstand at the ballpark during the seventh-inning stretch of the game between the Whitney Hornets and the Grove City Tigers.'

'Nabbed her. Could you be more specific?'

'Well, I could except there’s ladies present.'

'Was nabbed the word Orlan himself used?'

'No, sir.'

'What word did he use?'

Nat blushed and turned to the judge. 'Do I have to say it, your honor?'

'You’re under oath, Mr. MacReady.'

'All right, then-screwed, your honor. Orlan said he screwed Lula Peak underneath the grandstand at Skeets Hollow Park during the seventh-inning stretch of a game between the Whitney Hornets and the Grove City Tigers.'

In the rear gallery a gasp was heard from Alma Nettles, Orlan’s wife. Collins noted the eyes of the jurors swerve her way and waited until he’d regained their full attention.

'How long ago did he claim to do this?'

'It was the night the Hornets won seven to six in the top of the ninth when Willie Pounds caught a grounder stretched out on his belly and threw a scorcher into home for the last out. Norris and me never miss a game, and we keep the scorecards, don’t we, Norris?' Norris nodded as Nat handed Collins a scrap of white paper. 'Here it is, last summer, July eleventh, though I don’t know why it was necessary to bring this. Half the men in Whitney know the date ’cause Orlan he told a whole bunch of us about it, didn’t he, Norris?'

'Strike that last question,' Judge Murdoch ordered as the weeping Alma was escorted from the room in the arms of a solicitous matron.

Above the murmurs from the gallery, Collins inquired of Nat, 'Did you ever see Lula Peak with a man, under… shall we say, a compromising position?'

'Yessir, there was an engineer on the L and N Railroad who used to lay over at Miss Bernadette Werm’s boardinghouse. I’m not sure of his name, but he had a bushy red beard and a tattoo of a serpent on his arm-Miss Werm would remember his name. Anyway, I caught ’em one day, in the act you might say, down by Oak Creek where I was fishin’. Naked as jaybirds they were, and when I come upon ’em, Lula she throws back her head and laughs and says to me, 'Don’t look so shocked, Mr. MacReady. Why don’t y’all come and join us?’'

From the gallery came a chorus of shocked female ohhs.

'Just for clarification, Mr. MacReady, when you say they were in the act, you mean in the act of copulation?'

'Yes, sir, I do.'

Collins took an inordinate amount of time extracting a wrinkled handkerchief from his pocket, blowing his nose, letting the last bit of testimony sink into every brain that mattered and many that didn’t. Finally he pocketed his hanky and approached the witness again.