“His entire statement?” I press.
“Let’s see where it leads. I may stop him.”
Livy starts to argue, then thinks better of it. She returns to her table as I approach Stone.
“Please continue, Mr. Stone.”
He lifts his cane from the rail and leans heavily upon it. “Ike Ransom was a mess. Suicidal probably. He was living in squalor that would be difficult to believe by today’s standards. There was drug paraphernalia in plain view. What we called ‘heroin works’ back then. He was literally dying to tell someone his story.”
“What was his story?”
“He had recently separated from the army after a tour in Vietnam. He’d served as a military policemen there, as I recall. He’d tried to find work with the local police department but was turned down. Desperate for money, he’d turned to drug dealing.”
“He admitted this to you?”
“Yes. Two weeks before Del Payton was murdered, Ransom was stopped on a rural road by Patrolman Ray Presley. Presley discovered a large quantity of heroin in Ransom’s trunk. He offered to overlook this if Ransom agreed to kill a man for him.”
“Objection!” Blake Sims cries.
“On what grounds?” asks Judge Franklin.
But Livy has taken hold of Sims’s jacket and pulled him back down to his seat.
“There’s no objection,” she says.
Franklin gives them an admonitory look. “Continue, Mr. Stone.”
“Patrolman Presley also promised Ransom that if he carried out this murder, Presley would ensure that he was eventually hired by the police department. Presley had told the truth about Ike Ransom asking him to get the C-4. Ransom was afraid of dynamite, but he’d had experience with C-4 in Vietnam.”
“Did you report Ransom’s confession to Director Hoover?”
“I did.”
“What was his reaction?”
“I would describe it as glee.”
“Glee. Could you elaborate on that?”
“Mr. Hoover was being forced to aggressively pursue a civil rights agenda. This did not reconcile with his personal feelings. He particularly hated Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. My revelation that the murder of Del Payton-a crime which Robert Kennedy considered a civil rights murder-had in fact been carried out by a black man gave the director obvious enjoyment. He remarked that he would dearly enjoy telling Bobby Kennedy that Payton’s death had been nothing but another ‘shine killing.’ Those were his words.”
“Did Hoover in fact report this to Bobby Kennedy?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“What did he do?”
“He authorized me to wiretap the home of Ray Presley, and also the pay phones within a two-mile radius of his home.”
“Did you learn anything from those wiretaps?”
“A few days later Presley called Leo Marston, the local district attorney, and asked for a private meeting.”
“Objection!” cries Sims, to Livy’s obvious displeasure.
It looks to me like Sims may be objecting on the order of his client. Leo’s face has grown steadily redder during Stone’s testimony.
“Grounds?” asks Judge Franklin.
When Sims hesitates, Franklin says, “I want no more frivolous interruptions of this testimony. You can object from now till doomsday, but Mr. Stone is going to tell his story. Is that clear?”
Sims sighs and takes his chair, while Leo sets his jaw and glares at Franklin.
Stone relates the story of wiretapping Tuscany, and of Hoover taking personal control of the investigation because of its political sensitivity. “The meeting between Presley and Marston took place in the gazebo outside the Marston mansion. It became clear in the first ten minutes of that conversation that Ray Presley had arranged the death of Delano Payton at the specific request of the district attorney, Leo Marston.”
Judge Franklin is so engrossed by Stone’s testimony that it takes her several seconds to realize that the spectators are out of order. She furiously bangs her gavel.
“I’ll clear this court!” she vows, pointing her gavel at the balcony for emphasis.
I would have expected Livy to leap to her feet at Stone’s last statement, but she seems as engrossed in the story as Judge Franklin.
“How did that become clear, Mr. Stone?” I ask.
“Marston knew every detail of the murder, right down to Ike Ransom’s request for the C-4.”
“Did their conversation shed any light on the possible motive for this crime?”
“Yes.” Stone lucidly lays out the pending land deal between Marston and Zebulon Hickson, the carpet magnate from Georgia. He explains Leo’s secret ownership of the land, Hickson’s concern with black labor problems, and his insistence that an “example” be made of a black union worker before committing to purchase Marston’s property.
“Yes. Mr. Stone, I’m sure everyone in this courtroom is wondering why, since you solved the murder, no one was arrested for it. Can you explain that?”
“After Director Hoover had all the evidence and reports in his possession-including the audiotapes-he set up a meeting with Leo Marston at the Jackson field office of the FBI. After this meeting took place, I was instructed to stand down my Natchez detail and report to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for other duties. I was told that no arrest would be made because that was in the best interests of the Bureau and the country.”
“What did you make of that?”
Stone shakes his head. “I’d seen it before. Hoover liked having leverage over people. Particularly people in government. Leo Marston came from a powerful political family. His father had tremendous influence in both Mississippi and Washington. Over the next year, I learned that Hoover used the leverage of the Payton murder to force Leo’s father to influence the 1968 presidential election by trying to swing Mississippi’s electoral votes away from George Wallace to Richard Nixon, who was a protege of Hoover’s. It was also clear in 1968 that Leo himself was destined for higher office. Director Hoover and Leo Marston developed a mutually beneficial relationship that flourished from Payton’s death in 1968 until Hoover’s death in 1972.”
Judge Franklin is shaking her head in amazement.
I can’t believe that Livy or Sims did not object to Stone’s last statements, but they probably assumed-rightly, I suspect-that Judge Franklin meant to hear him out no matter what.
“So,” I summarize, trying to bring it all into perspective for the jury, “J. Edgar Hoover was willing to bury conclusive evidence of a civil rights murder in order to strengthen his own political influence. How did you react to this?”
“Not well.”
“Please be specific.”
“I began drinking. It affected my work. I cheated on my wife. She divorced me, took my daughter from me. I was eventually dismissed from the Bureau.”
A fragment of Ike’s confession in the pecan-shelling plant comes to me from the ether. “Did you ever make any attempt to right what you considered the terrible wrong that had been done in the Payton case?”
Surprise flashes in Stone’s eyes. “Yes.”
“How?”
“I had retained a copy of the incriminating tape. About a year after the murder, when I knew no official action would ever be taken against the killers, I called Ike Ransom. He’d been hired as a police officer by then, just as Presley had promised.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I played him my copy of the tape. Then I hung up.”
“What did you think Ransom would do after hearing that tape?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I hoped that he might take direct action.”
