“What was it?” Anne asked.
I got down on my knee and pretended to pull a quarter from her ear.
“I haven’t fallen for that one for five years, Dad.”
I shrugged, hearing the sounds of sirens in the distance.
Two men approached from the lakeshore and walked toward us. One was Jack Black, the big soldier who reminded me of a professional wrestler.
Joyce handed me some ice wrapped in a towel and I placed it over my knuckles.
“I could’ve sworn I saw you watching up on the hill, Major Black.”
Black crossed his arms over his massive chest and smiled: “You must be mistaken. We’re just here to restore order.”
“What do you call that?” I said. “Pretty stupid, huh?”
“I’d call it a hell of a start, chief.”
ARCH LIT HIS NINETEENTH CIGARETTE OF THE NIGHT, BORROWING a second pack from one of Bernard Sykes’s young prosecutors, who hovered in the room like it was a stag party, and sank back into the uncomfortable chair, answering more questions. A negro man in whites brought another pot of coffee up to the suite of the Ralston Hotel, and Arch drank another cup and answered the questions with a firm yes or no, trying not to elaborate any more than was necessary. Sykes paced the room. They’d been there all day and night, and Arch had lost track of the time hours and hours ago, and the little man at the desk would peck away on his little machine, taking down every word they said.
“Can I please go? This doesn’t have a thing to do with that grand jury mess.”
“As I’ve said to you, Mr. Ferrell, you will be taken to Birmingham in the morning to answer to your charges of vote fraud. But I’m afraid this is all the same mess.”
“That’s a lie and could be considered slander.”
“How’s your headache?”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you need more coffee?”
“No, I don’t need any more goddamn coffee. And my drinking is my own goddamn business. There was no call to have those boys come in and bust in on me like I was a common criminal.”
“Would you please continue about the morning of June eighteenth?”
Arch’s head fell into his hand and he squeezed his temples with his fingers. “Like I’ve said, I got up and took my daughter’s puppy out. Do you want to know how many times it shit?”
“If you think it would help,” Sykes said.
“Twice. I’ll collect the evidence for you.”
“Then what?”
“I ate breakfast. Bacon and eggs. Grits, too. Then I walked my property. I thought about maybe doing some yard work. My garden needed to be cultivated and weeded.”
“Don’t you work on Fridays?”
“No, I had the day off. I hadn’t had much sleep. Maybe three hours all week.”
“Why didn’t you sleep?”
“You wouldn’t sleep either if you had crusading idiots out there calling you the brains behind the Phenix City Machine.”
“Are you?”
“As I told the press, I think that’s giving my brains too much credit.”
“Did you work in your garden?”
“No, I wasn’t feeling well. This man came over who wanted to buy some timber. His name’s Perdue. Don’t ask me his first name ’cause I don’t recall. He owns a sawmill somewhere around here, and I put my boots on and walked my land showing him what could be thinned.”
“What about the rest of the day?”
“I returned home and, I don’t know, just read the paper. I fell asleep in my chair.”
“Why did you go back to the courthouse, sir?”
“I went back because I had a mess of paperwork. I needed a day off. But, hell, when you’re the solicitor you work all the goddamn time. Can I please get some more cigarettes in here?”
Sykes nodded to another attorney and the attorney set a pack of Camels before Arch. Arch looked up at the boy, who smiled, and Arch gave him an eat-shit grin, popping the cigarette into his mouth. After a few moments of Arch sitting there looking at Sykes, Sykes leaned in with a Zippo and lit the cigarette.
“Hell, I got it,” Arch said, and Sykes pulled the hard flame away with half the cigarette gone.
“What time did you arrive at your office?”
“About eight. Maybe a little after. I can only guess. Jesus Christ, I never figured on this.”
“What work did you do?”
“First, I went to the post office across the street to get my mail, and then I unlocked the courthouse. I walked upstairs and bought a Coke. I read through my mail and drank the Coke. I tried to call your fucking boss, Si Garrett.”
“I’ve heard you state that you spoke to Mr. Garrett. Is that not true?”
“Would you please shut the hell up and let me finish my goddamn story?”
Sykes breathed in deep and looked up to a couple other prosecutors. He took another breath. “Please continue.”
“His wife said he was in Birmingham. So I called the operator and told her to check around for the attorney general at the better hotels in town. She finally called back around nine and connected me to the Redmont.”
“How long did you talk to Mr. Garrett?”
“Twenty minutes or so.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I don’t believe that information is pertinent to this investigation.”
“Did anyone see you come and go from the courthouse?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you leave the courthouse?”
“Shortly after hanging up the phone. All telephone tolls will verify the call. And then I collected paperwork and drove home.”
“Is this when you learned of Mr. Patterson’s death?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Mr. Patterson on June the eighteenth at any time?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me how you learned of his death?”
“I stopped off right by my house for a beer at Huckaby’s grocery. I was so tired from the week and the lies in the newspaper that I asked for a second, and I had just punched the top on the can when this boy from down the road ran in the store yelling that Mr. Patterson had been shot. Then Mr. Huckaby’s wife ran in the store and said she’d seen it on the television.”
Sykes watched Arch’s face, but Arch didn’t flinch as he reached for another cigarette from the pack. Sykes leaned in with the lighter, faster this time, and caught the cigarette.
“I drove on home, told my wife, and tried to reach Sheriff Matthews and Governor Persons. But all lines were busy. Then Mr. Garrett called and wanted to know what was going on in Phenix City, and, I had to be honest, I wasn’t quite sure.”
Sykes didn’t say a word.
“And that’s when I returned to the courthouse and saw the whole scene down by the Elite, and I walked down there and saw the blood and learned the horrible news.” Arch leaned back and watched the smoke coming from his mouth and through his fingers and up toward the ceiling, scattering in a ceiling fan. He looked toward Sykes, but his eyes were on the suite’s window, watching nothing. “The whole thing was just awful. Mr. Patterson’s blood on the sidewalk where children could see it, and the first thing I thought about was his family. How do you tell a good family that their husband and daddy is dead?”
