Part 18 (1/2)

”Ah, the Dressing of the Dog!” intoned a portly man standing by the window.

Seiler held up a red jersey and called out, ”Heeeeee-yuuhhhhh!” ”Heeeeee-yuuhhhhh!” Uga came trotting into the room, wriggling and wagging his sixty-five-pound body. Seiler slipped the jersey over his head and fastened a spiked collar around his neck. ”If we have a defeat,” said Swann, ”then we don't ever wear that jersey again. Sometimes, if things aren't going well, we change jerseys in the middle of a game.” Uga came trotting into the room, wriggling and wagging his sixty-five-pound body. Seiler slipped the jersey over his head and fastened a spiked collar around his neck. ”If we have a defeat,” said Swann, ”then we don't ever wear that jersey again. Sometimes, if things aren't going well, we change jerseys in the middle of a game.”

”We've got five or six with us today,” said Sonny. ”We can change if we have to. I hope we don't.”

”Mom used to make them,” said Swann. ”We've got some historical jerseys that Uga wears when we've won bowl games. Uga's got a bigger wardrobe than I do.”

The guests started putting on their coats as Seiler brushed the dog and sprinkled talc.u.m powder on the top of his head to cover a grayish spot. ”That's for the cameras,” he said. ”He's supposed to be a picture-perfect, all-white dog. Well, let's go.” He opened the door, and Uga surged down the hall, straining on his leash and leading the procession to the elevator and out through the lobby.

In the parking lot outside Sanford Stadium, Seiler lifted Uga onto the roof of his red station wagon, the one with the ”UGA IV” license plates. Thus enthroned, Uga accepted the adoration of his fans. Thousands of spectators waved, called his name, patted him on the head, and took snapshots on their way into the stadium. Uga wiggled and panted and licked as many hands as he could reach.

Shortly before kickoff, Seiler took Uga down from his perch and led him around to the open end of the U-shaped stadium. He and Uga paused just outside the end zone in front of three marble tombstones set into a landscaped embankment. This was the Uga memorial plot. Bunches of flowers had been placed at the foot of each tombstone, and each bore an inscription to a late Uga: ”UGA. Undefeated, Untied. Six bowl teams. 'd.a.m.n Good Dog' (1956-1967).”

”UGA II. Five bowl teams. 'Not bad for a dog' (1968-1972).”

”UGA III. Undefeated, Untied, Undisputed, and Undenied. National Champions of College Football 1980. 'How 'bout this dog.'”

The band was a.s.sembling in the end zone. The Georgia cheerleaders came to take Uga from Seiler and put him into his official doghouse, which was shaped like a big red fire hydrant on wheels. It was air-conditioned, the Georgia heat being less than ideal for Uga's breed of English bulldog. The hydrant was wheeled out to midfield for the opening ceremonies. Just before kickoff, Uga jumped out and trotted to the sidelines. A roar went up from the crowd. ”d.a.m.n good dog! d.a.m.n good dog! d.a.m.n good dog! Rooff! Rooff! Rooff! Rooff-rooff-rooff-rooff-rooffrooffrooffrooff!” Rooff! Rooff! Rooff! Rooff-rooff-rooff-rooff-rooffrooffrooffrooff!”

Later that evening, I called Williams to tell him about my conversations with Seiler.

”It sounds as if he's come up with strong new ammunition for you,” I said.

”I would think so,” said Williams, ”considering the rates he charges. What did you think of him?”

”Smart, energetic, committed to your case.”

”Mmmmm,” said Williams, ”and to the money he's making from it.” I could hear the clinking of ice cubes at Williams's end of the line.

”Do you want me to explain what he's got?”

”No, not especially. But tell me-not that I really care about this either-who won the game today?”

”Georgia. Nineteen to eight.”

”Good,” said Williams. ”That means Sonny will be in high spirits. It's all so childish. When Georgia loses, it absolutely destroys him. He goes into shock and can't function for days.”

”In that case, I think you'll get a vigorous defense out of him. It was a solid victory.”

”Not too big a victory, I hope. He might regard my trial as an anticlimax.”

”I don't think the game was that important,” I said. ”It wasn't a Southeastern Conference game.”

”Wonderful,” said Williams. ”I wouldn't want him to be all distracted and daydreaming. I want him to be frisky. Yes. That should work.” Williams paused. The ice cubes clinked. ”Yes, that should work very well.”

Chapter 21.

NOTES ON A RERUN.

This is not a happy jury. Six men, six women-seven black, five white. When Judge Oliver told them to go home and come back in the morning with enough clothes for a two-week stay, four of the women burst into tears. One of the men jumped up and shouted, ”I refuse it! I refuse it! I'll lose work. It will make me hostile to the case!” It will make me hostile to the case!” Another man bolted for the door and had to be restrained by the bailiffs. ”You can take me to jail!” he screamed. ”I'm not serving!” The judge summoned the six recalcitrant jurors to his chambers and listened to their complaints. Then he told them to go home and pack. Another man bolted for the door and had to be restrained by the bailiffs. ”You can take me to jail!” he screamed. ”I'm not serving!” The judge summoned the six recalcitrant jurors to his chambers and listened to their complaints. Then he told them to go home and pack.

Spencer Lawton leads off with the police photographer, Sergeant Donna Stevens, who gives a photographic tour of Mercer House, using huge blowups on an easel. ”This is an outside shot of the house,” she says. ”This is the living room .... This is the hallway, and that's a grandfather clock dumped over .... This is the doorway to the study, showing the victim laying on the floor .... This is a shot of blood on the carpet ....”

When she is finished, Seiler steps up for cross-examination.

”Do you remember photographing a pouch and a chair leg?” he asks.

”Yes,” she says.

”Did you photograph it when you first got there?”

”Yes, sir, I did.”

”And did you photograph it again after the detectives and other people had been stirring around in there?”

”Yes.”

Seiler holds up the two photographs showing the pouch and the chair leg in different positions. ”I'm interested in the traveling pouch,” he says, raising an eyebrow. Sergeant Stevens concedes that the chair has been moved, but she denies that the pouch has been moved. Seiler asks if by looking at the designs on the carpet she can see that indeed the pouch, too, has been moved. No, she does not see any such thing. Seiler keeps at it. ”Well, let's look at the first picture and count the dots in the carpet,” he says. ”One ... two ... three ... four ... five ... six! And in the second picture there are only two two dots, right?” dots, right?”

Sergeant Stevens grudgingly admits that the pouch has also been moved.

The jury is entertained by Seiler's self-a.s.sured courtroom manner. He strides back and forth, impeccably groomed in custom-tailored suits, French cuffs, highly polished shoes. He thunders and growls. His tone s.h.i.+fts from curiosity to sarcasm to outrage to surprise. Lawton is dull by comparison. He stands flat-footed in a rumpled suit. His manner is shy and una.s.suming. He flinches whenever Seiler shouts ”Objection! Mr. Lawton is leading the witness again.” Seiler does this repeatedly to unnerve Lawton and send a message to the jury that the D.A. lacks a grasp of basic courtroom procedure.

At Clary's drugstore, Ruth wonders out loud whether this trial will be as ”juicy” as the first. Luther Driggers says he thinks Williams made a mistake after shooting Hansford. ”He should have taken Danny's body out west, pulled his teeth, dissolved them in nitric acid, peeled off his skin, and fed it to the crabs.”

”Why such a complicated cover-up?” Ruth asks.

Luther shrugs. ”It beats leaving the body on the floor of Mercer House.”

”Well, whatever Jim Williams should have done with the body, he's going about his defense the wrong way,” says Quentin Lovejoy, putting his coffee cup down gently. Mr. Lovejoy is a soft-spoken cla.s.sics scholar in his mid-sixties; he lives with his maiden aunt in a high-Victorian townhouse. ”All this talk about Danny Hansford being a violent, brutal criminal! Jim Williams does himself no credit blaspheming the boy that way.”

”But Quentin,” Ruth protests, ”Danny Hansford beat up his sister! His mother took out a police warrant against him. He'd been arrested umpteen times. He'd been in jail. He was a common criminal!”

”Not at all,” says Mr. Lovejoy in a voice slightly louder than a whisper. ”The only crime that boy ever committed was turnin' twenty.”

Seiler objects to the repeated use of the term ”crime scene” by prosecution witnesses. ”It has not yet been established that any crime has been committed here,” he says.

Judge Oliver apparently does not hear Seiler. In fact, the judge appears to be dozing. His eyes are closed, his chin is resting on his chest. The judge has made it abundantly clear, by heaving deep sighs and becoming increasingly cranky, that he is bored with this retrial. His apparent catnaps are causing comment in the courthouse. At any rate, he does not respond to Seiler's protest. Less than a minute later, a prosecution witness says ”crime scene” again, and Seiler lets it pa.s.s.

In the corridor during a recess, a pair of purple gla.s.ses catches my eye. Minerva is sitting on a bench with a plastic shopping bag on her lap. I sit down next to her, and she tells me she has been asked to appear as a character witness for Williams. The defense hopes she will appeal to the seven blacks on the jury. She will identify herself as a laundress, which is her part-time profession, but from the witness stand she'll be in a position to make direct eye contact with the D.A., the judge, and the members of the jury. This will enable her to put a curse on every one of them.

While she waits, she sits out in the hall, humming and gurgling softly to herself. Occasionally, she cracks open the door and peers into the courtroom.

Danny Hansford's mother, Emily Bannister, also sits in the corridor. Sonny Seiler has listed her as a defense witness, just as Bobby Lee Cook did, in order to keep her out of the courtroom. She is quiet and composed, and it strikes me that Seiler's main concern is not that she will cause a disturbance in front of the jury but that her waiflike appearance will win their hearts. In any case, she still refuses to talk to the press (or to me). As the trial progresses, Mrs. Bannister sits in the corridor just outside the courtroom door reading, writing notes in a journal, and needlepointing.