Part 10 (1/2)
”I don't,” Muriel said. ”That was the scary part. But he did it. That was the true part. That's all I had to know and believe, and I did. Like you knew and believed Morgan did it. Why is not our province.”
”It's brave of you to go down there,” I said.
”I know,” Muriel said.
That evening, on the porch of his house in the black neighborhood where he'd always lived, Beldon Ruth brought out a pitcher of iced tea and settled down in a rocking chair to talk to me.
”I want to tell you a story,” he said. ”When I was younger, I prosecuted a seventeen-year-old black kid. This kid rang a doorbell over on Blodgett, put a gun in some woman's face, and said, 'Gimme your money or I'll blow your head off.' She gave him the housekeeping money-so the kid came back a few weeks later and did it to her again. I was a brand-new a.s.sistant state attorney, and to me this kid was dangerous. Day before sentencing, the public defender in the case-your pal Kenny Buckram, fresh out of law school-gets the woman, the complainant, to sign a statement saying, 'I've just heard about how this boy's father s.e.xually abused him and beat him with a wooden plank, and his mother was a drunk, and they wouldn't let him go to school even though he got good grades. I think what he did to me was terrible, but now I can sort of understand why he did it. And I'd like to see him get another chance.' ”
Beldon poured the tea. Laurette, his wife, was inside the house, preparing dinner.
”Buckram gave this letter to Judge Fleming. You remember him? White-haired, crotchety good ole boy, rolled his own from those little sacks of Country Gentleman? Still around, although he's older'n dirt. And Fleming sat in his chambers from noon to three, we're all waiting, it's hot enough for a hen to lay a hard-boiled egg. Finally Fleming hobbles out and says to Kenny, 'If you're right about this boy and I put him in prison and he gets ruined in there, his blood is on my hands. If you're wrong, I'm gonna bring him back in my court and pound his knuckles to the floor with a sledgehammer, and he's gonna do every G.o.ddam day of the ten years I could have handed him.'
”He gave the kid probation. Some people were shocked, including me. I said, 'Judge, how can you do that? I mean, in conscience?' Fleming sizzles and said, 'Because, son, the people voted me into office, and I got the right to do it. Y'all don't have the right to question me or my conscience.' Stuck his finger right in my face like 'f.u.c.k you, Mr. Ruth.'
”That was twenty years ago. The kid graduated from college. The judge, Kenny, and I got a wedding announcement. Fleming took him off probation after five years. The kid went into computers, moved his family up to Atlanta. If Fleming had sent him to prison he'd be out there now, perpetrating more robberies and doing more time and b.u.t.t-f.u.c.king people. Or he'd be dead. Do you know that twenty-five percent of black men in this country have done time, are doing time now, or are on probation? In the case I'm talking about, the system wouldn't allow for the fact that a potentially good kid had done a violent crime. Fleming grasped it, and he was right.”
Beldon sat back on his porch and sucked iced tea through a child's bent straw.
”You know what the point of that story is, Ted?”
”No, but I know if I sit here long enough on this porch, you're sure as h.e.l.l going to tell me.”
Beldon smiled. ”In twenty-five years, that's the only time I've ever known anyone to be right when they gave someone a second chance. All the rest were disasters. That's a pretty p.i.s.s-poor record, wouldn't you say? And that's why I still believe we're on the side of the angels. And you defense guys, you do your job, but you don't really help people. The PD's office has got the right idea. Churn 'em out, cut a deal. Hired lawyers waste time trying to show clients they're earning their fee.”
”You're a disgusting old cynic.”
”I'm a disgusting old realist.”
”Why did you ever become a lawyer?”
”Fascination of aberrant behavior,” Beldon said, and let that hang in the air while he went inside to refill the pitcher.
When he came back, I said, ”Tell me about Muriel Suarez.”
”Could be a division chief in a year or two, unless she goes for the bucks and becomes a partner in a fancy law firm. Like some others we know.”
I hadn't come back to Jacksonville to be lectured, not even by Beldon. But my compulsion was more than theoretical. A man languished out there on death row-he wasn't an anonymous black thug, he was a human being I had once looked in the eye. In the last ten years I had helped many a businessman and entrepreneur become richer; in the process, I had become part of their club. That was one thing a lawyer did. The other thing he did, and what I had neglected to do for too long a time, was help people survive and live free with pride. A part of me, over the years, had been slowly and painfully eviscerated by my own greed, if I dared call it that. But that part wasn't dead. I could revive it if I wanted to, if I had the courage, and the stubbornness.
In time. I was here because I had new information that I was obliged to turn over to the state attorney, and I had done so. That was the first step.
I said to Beldon, ”What are you going to do about it?”
”Not a G.o.ddam thing,” he replied, ”other than to add it to my long list of incidents that tend to prove that the human race at best is capable of anything under the sun, and at worst is deceitful, hypocritical, opportunistic, and generally no f.u.c.king good.”
It wasn't exactly a complete vision. I ground my teeth, but didn't comment. ”Where's Floyd Nickerson these days?”
”I somehow thought you'd ask that.”
”Does that mean you know?”
”Didn't until yesterday, when you phoned. Then I dug a little. He left JSO nine years ago and went over to Gainesville. Chief of security in a big real estate and country club development. Place called Orange Meadow.”
I wrote that down. ”Must be on Orange Lake. We used to go down from school on weekends to water-ski. What's it all called? Orange Meadow Estates, something like that?”
”I guess so. Don't really remember.”
”Is Nickerson still there?”
”Can't say. He ain't a pen pal.”
”Who's the developer he works for? Do you know that?”
After just the barest hesitation, Beldon said, ”ZiDevco.”
Chapter 11.
I MADE UP my mind in the late afternoon, a couple of hours before I was due to drive to the airport. I called Muriel Suarez at her office in the courthouse.
”You want to see it?” she asked.
”I want to be there. Then I'll decide if I want to actually see it.”
”You a death freak or something?”
But she called the superintendent at Raiford and requested that I be put on the list. Then she rang back.
”Done. They allow twelve witnesses other than the media goons. They've only got seven.”
We arranged to meet at her place on Was.h.i.+ngton Street. I called home, and Alan answered on the first ring. ”Bobby?”
”No, it's me. How're you doing, kid?”
”Fine, Dad.”
”All well on the home front?”
”It's cool. I was just reading by the pool.”
I liked hearing that. There was hope. ”I've been thinking about our talk the other night. If you're ready to leave that drug program now, it's fine with me.”
”I'm really ready to leave it.”
”Then go for it. Where's Mom?”
”Taking a nap upstairs.”