Part 44 (1/2)

Nickerson . ..

I asked, ”Did Neil pay off Floyd Nickerson, Connie?” And I added, gently, ”If you know.”

Neil screamed, ”Con! Shut up!”

A broken word rose to her lips, but she was unable to utter it. And it no longer mattered.

Chapter 33.

WE STAYED IN Jacksonville for a week after the hearing. Toba was in a form of shock. The revelations in Judge Fleming's courtroom, which the media took such pleasure in relating for the next several days, were like poison for her to absorb. I realized later that I knew what Bill Clinton felt like in the early part of his candidacy; I decided I'd never run for President.

I wanted to say to Toba, ”Darling, it's been fourteen years. That's a lifetime ago.” But, wisely, I didn't. For one thing, the word darling was definitely out of favor for a while. For another, infidelity of that sort doesn't have a statute of limitations.

Toba forgave me in time, because not to do so would have crippled our lives. She thought things over and decided she loved our marriage as it was: whole. It gave her security and freedom and love, and it had a history; what better combination is there?

She was silent and tearful for that week in Jacksonville and scowled at me for the next month in Sarasota, but then one Sunday I persuaded her to go with me out in the boat. On the bay I said, ”Who's your best friend? Tell the truth.”

”You are.”

”So let's drop anchor and do what friends do.”

She laughed at that, and the worst was over.

For us, but not for me. Day after day, when I was alone, I relived that moment in the courtroom when I had asked Connie the subject of the argument.

You.

That argument had led to Solly's death and the malignancy of Darryl's thirteen years on death row. Each time that realization flashed clear to me, my heart beat violently, my stomach throbbed with pain.

How much blame did I deserve? That evening when Connie had toppled into the pool, I had ended the love affair as cleanly as I knew how. I'd had no ulterior motive in going to the party; Connie had asked me with Toba, and in view of Solly's sudden interest in my career, it seemed fair to go. By recommending me to Royal, Kelly, he had been trying to get rid of me. I saw that clearly now.

I told him I loved you... . I told him all that had happened. I taunted him. I told him about c.u.mberland Island.

How could I have stopped her from doing that?

There's a price to pay for every act. In this case, the wrong man paid.

And now Connie and Neil would pay their small share. They were not arrested right there in court, but once the court reporter had delivered the transcript of the hearing to the state attorney's office, Muriel Suarez filed charges, and the wheels of public justice began to clunk slowly forward.

The charges that could stick were only second-degree murder and perjury. Neil hired lawyers from both Tallaha.s.see and Was.h.i.+ngton, and the feeling around the Duval County Courthouse was that he would eventually cut a deal for fifteen years pen time, of which he'd serve two or three, and Connie would walk out the door with a suspended sentence. After all, Neil contributed heavily to both political parties, he was on the cutting edge of land development (without which Florida couldn't survive these hard times), and he and Connie were white.

Neil's great fear, I heard, was that he might not survive prison. There were men at Raiford who identified easily with someone who had languished on death row for more than a dozen years, and had little to lose by meting out vengeance to a white man who had done that to a brother. So be it.

As for Connie, it was rumored that she would leave Florida, and even the United States, and I believed it instantly. She had earned that ravaged face; her agony and shame weren't feigned, and she couldn't look anyone in the eye who knew what she had done. I imagined her growing old in some Mediterranean hideway, sitting at a table on her terrace with a drink in her hand and a confusion in her eyes as if somehow life, which once had promised so much, had failed her, cheated her. Enough people would be fond of her but she would never be sure what they knew or really thought, and she would die not knowing.

So that left Darryl.

In court that memorable day, I made a motion for his immediate release. But even Horace Fleming, unusual jurist that he was, couldn't comply without flagrantly breaking the law. Leaning down into the clamor, he said, ”Mr. Jaffe, get the transcript of this last bit from my court reporter, and make a formal motion in writing. You look a little on the ragged edge-it shouldn't take you more than all night. The Morgan man's got to sleep somewhere, so let him go back to the jail and bunk down one more time. It won't kill him, and we know some things that would've-ain't that right?”

He turned to Muriel Suarez. ”You want to oppose that motion, State, go right ahead. I can tell you, it'll be a hard crop to grow.”

”The state will not oppose, Your Honor,” Muriel said in a barbed voice.

I sat down with Darryl for a while in the judge's chambers and explained the whole procedure and what his options were. He was still in handcuffs.

”You can probably sue the state and win,” I explained, ”but you'll grow a beard to your knees before it's over. On the other hand, you file suit against Neil Zide and Connie Zide, and my blind old dog, if I had one, could win that case.”

Darryl laughed deep in his belly. ”You a lawyer to the end, ain't you. You gonna do that suit for me?”

”No, my friend, I am not. But Gary Oliver will. He'll make you rich.”

He mulled that over. ”Then I send that boy to school. His sisters too, if they wants to go. If they's enough money.”

I placed my hand on the meat of his shoulder. ”Darryl, if Gary does it right, you can go over to the high school playground in the Blodgett Project, round up every kid in sight, and you can send them all to FSU and Grambling and Tuskegee Inst.i.tute and even Princeton, to keep Tahaun and the girls company.”

The next morning, in Judge Fleming's court, Gary filed the motion for release, and the state attorney's office nolle-prossed it, dropping all prosecution.

At noon, Darryl was formally released from the county jail and the Florida state prison system. Gary, Tahaun, and I were waiting for him outside, in the mercy of the warm winter sunlight. His son approached Darryl with an outstretched hand. After thirteen years in a cage on death row, Darryl could fit his worldly possessions into a battered twelve-by-twelve cardboard carton, which he carried under his arm like a purse. His clothes, his two decks of worn playing cards, and his toothbrush were inside it. He sniffed the air as though it were honey.

My eyes misted, but I said, ”You want to go somewhere for a beer?”

”Hey,” Darryl rumbled at me in The Jury Room, where he slowly sipped a Heineken, ”you remember that day you come see me at Raiford? Day I put these round your neck?” Setting the beer bottle down, he raised those huge hands. ”Remember what I try to do to you?”

”Yes, I remember.”

”Lucky for me you was such a tough little f.u.c.ker.”

That was as close as he ever came to thanking me. And I understood: he knew I had saved his life, but he knew too that it wouldn't have needed saving if the world I lived in hadn't first put him in chains, degraded it and imperiled him.

Toba and I flew home to Sarasota.

A storm howled in from the Gulf that evening. During the night the rain overflowed ditches and gushed down the fairways of Longboat Key. The leaves of banana trees bowed under the lash of water. At dawn the rain stopped; the planet still spun, therefore the sun appeared to rise. I looked out the window where our garden seemed to have soared three inches during the night. A stray cat fell out of a palm tree and cried for food. Birds rushed about the beach, a little crazed. The flying fish in the bay began to surge.

With carnal intent I stroked the back of my slumbering wife. Later I scratched the stubble on my jaw. Should I let my beard grow? It might come out even grayer than my hair, but so what? Yes, I will. I will, therefore I can.

I called Kenny Buckram's office and asked him if he thought the public defender's office in Sarasota would have a place for me, and if so, would he put in a good word?

”Are you serious?”

”Of course.”