Decision (28 page)

“Maybe we would,” he said, hoping agreement would stem the flood. Of course it only encouraged it.

“But I guess Mr. Stinnet has the answer all right, don’t you think?” the driver asked, swinging half around to glance over his shoulder.

“Does he? What’s Mr. Stinnet’s answer?”

“You mean you haven’t
heard?”
the driver demanded, disbelieving, turning back just in time to narrowly avoid an oncoming car. “You mean you didn’t hear him and the attorney general of California on television this morning? But no, of course you wouldn’t, you’ve been with your little girl. I’m sorry, Mr. Justice, naturally you wouldn’t.”

“Tell me about it,” he suggested, warning instincts alerted. The driver obliged. Tay offered no comments, though a heavy concern began to grow in his heart.

“I guess that’ll show ’em,” the driver concluded with satisfaction. “News says they’re getting so many phone calls and telegrams for Mr. Stinnet it’s practically shut down the statehouse switchboard. That’ll show ’em! Don’t you agree, Mr. Justice?”

“It certainly indicates there’s a great deal of public interest,” he answered cautiously. The driver snorted.

“It indicates a damned sight more’n that. It indicates that this country is determined to have Justice NOW! And by God we’re goin’ to get it! They’re goin’ to start distributing buttons and bumper stickers at the statehouse this afternoon, and I’ll bet you by today week this whole damned country’ll be plastered with ’em from one end to the other. People are just fed up, Mr. Justice, they’re just God damned
fed up!”

“Maybe so,” he replied and for a second the driver looked blank.

“Aren’t you?” he asked in an odd tone. “God knows if anybody ought to be,
you
ought to be.”

“I am,” he said with a sudden savage emphasis. “You have no idea how
many
things I’m fed up with at this particular moment.”

“Well,” the driver responded uncertainly. “Well, all right. I was just tryin’ to be friendly, Mr. Justice. I didn’t mean to get you riled up. I thought all decent folks would agree with Justice NOW! and what Mr. Stinnet is tryin’ to do. I was
just
tryin’ to be friendly.”

“I know you were,” he said with a sigh, “and I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m just under—a lot of strain, I guess.”

“And naturally enough,” the driver said, mollified. “Naturally enough. Maybe I’d better shut up and concentrate on my drivin’ for a while. We’re almost there, anyway.”

“Thank you,” he said, and repeated: “I’m sorry.”

“Quite all right,” the driver said, recovering. “You give Mr. Stinnet my very best. You tell him I think he’s doin’ a great job and we all think he’s goin’ to be a real national figure in no time, the way he’s goin’.”

“I’ll tell him,” Tay said, “but I’m sure he knows already.”

And indeed there was a certain indefinable glow about the attorney general of South Carolina when the car finally reached the Carolina Inn and his tall, lanky figure hurried forward, hand outstretched. Here, Tay recognized, was A Man With A Purpose. It was quite obvious the purpose was being achieved very rapidly and in all ways pleasing to its proprietor.

“Mr. Justice!” Regard said with a suitable mixture of cordiality and respect for tragedy. “Mr. Justice, I can’t say it’s nice to have you here for the reason for which you
are
here, but in any event I hope you feel that you’re among true and sympathetic friends who want to help you in every way we can.”

“I do feel that, Mr. Stinnet,” he said, shaking hands gravely, taking the occasion to give his host a quick but encompassing glance. A smooth talker and a gentleman in one aspect, he thought, a demagogue and fanatic in the other. Shrewd, quick, adaptive, ambitious, determined and not to be deflected: a formidable character, seized now of a formidable crusade to which even Supreme Court Justices, he thought wryly, might find it hard not to bow.

But not yet awhile, he promised himself. If ever.

“Mr. Stinnet,” he said, “how are Moss and Sue-Ann, and can I see them?”

“Of course you can, Mr. Justice,” Regard said, hurrying him past the reporters and photographers who had gathered from around the lobby. “They’re bearin’ up. Pomeroys and Laceys are good blood, Mr. Justice, good blood. It’s a terrible shock and tragedy for them, but they’re takin’ it like a true son and daughter of the Old South. Like South Carolina would want them to; like South Carolina
expects
them to. And they
are.
Quite remarkable, Mr. Justice. Yes, sir. Quite remarkable. Not that y’all aren’t, too,” he added hastily. “I must say from what I hear, and what I can see right now, both of you are takin’ this tragedy with the greatest possible courage and fortitude. Especially when things are so—so uncertain, you might say.”

“Uncertain, yes,” he agreed grimly, “but I am convinced my daughter will recover completely from this senseless and wanton act.”

“So am I!” Regard assured him as the police pushed back the media and they began to ascend. “So are we all! There’s no doubt of it! And you surely are right, Mr. Justice, to describe this as a senseless and wanton act. Isn’t that what most of them are, these days? And isn’t this exactly an example of why all decent, law-abiding Americans must unite in a great crusade against the tide of lawlessness that is sweeping the land? Doesn’t it prove we need an organization such as I’ve just founded to coordinate and direct the campaign?”

“Yes, I’ve heard about your organization. How is it going?”

“Wildfire,” Regard said with satisfaction. “Plain wildfire. I’m glad you approve of it, Mr. Justice. It’s good to have your endorsement.”

“I haven’t endorsed it,” he said sharply, “and you know very well that in my position I neither can nor will. So be very careful how you quote me to the media, Mr. Attorney General. Bear in mind that you may ultimately come before me on the Court, and don’t antagonize me with unfounded reports.”

“No, sir,” Regard Stinnet said, looking crestfallen for a moment. “That’s the last thing I would wish to do, believe me. All I want to do is convict this worthless piece of human excrement and at the same time encourage and unite all decent law-abiding Americans who want to see their country restored to safety and security for themselves and their children.”

“You’re taking quite a responsibility on yourself,” he observed as the elevator stopped and the door opened upon another small group of police standing guard at a room halfway down the hall.

“Somebody has to,” Regard responded smoothly, “particularly if the sworn custodians of the law shirk their trust.”

For a moment he almost uttered an angry retort, then prudence intervened.

“Sometimes what appear to be good ideas initially can get badly out of hand,” he remarked as they came to the guarded room and the police stepped aside for them to enter. “You should watch yours.”

“Everybody’s goin’ to be watchin’,” Regard told him happily. “Everybody’s goin’ to be watchin’ because
everybody
has an interest. Yes, sir,” he added with satisfaction, “everybody’s goin’ to be watchin’ who’s for us.
And
who’s against us.”

And composing his face quickly into a suitable mask of sorrow he rapped gently on the door and called softly, “Moss. Y’all in there, Moss? Mr. Justice Barbour’s here.”

Moss appeared, haggard and exhausted but composed. Tay held out his hand. Moss gripped it hard, their eyes held for a moment. Then Moss stepped aside and gestured him in. Sue-Ann, her fine beauty drawn taut by tiredness, pain and the ravages of recurrent weeping, but also composed, rose from a sofa and kissed him gravely on the cheek.

He started to turn toward Regard. The attorney general anticipated him.

“Now if y’all will excuse me,” he said, “I’ve got to be gettin’ back to my office. They’re goin’ wild over there with the response to Justice NOW! It’s comin’ in from all over the country and it seems to be growin’ bigger by the hour. I think we’ve really got somethin’ goin’. Apparently this dreadful crime has suddenly just coalesced everything. Things are goin’ to change in America from now on.” His face turned grim. “I’ve also got a date with that despicable no-good restin’ over there in the county jail.”

“What evidence have you got?” Moss inquired somberly. “Any?”

“Mostly circumstantial,” Regard admitted. “But enough to convict the bastard in today’s climate—the climate he’s created for himself. When we get this thing really organized—”

“You can’t win the case with a circus,” Tay said bluntly. Regard gave him an indignant look.

“A circus, Mr. Justice!” he exclaimed. “I shouldn’t think you’d be the one to cry ‘circus,’ when your very own little baby is—”

“That’s enough!” Moss snapped, face white. “You get on back there and tend to this case, Regard. And just remember that if, when and if it comes up to us, public pressure isn’t going to have much effect.”

“You haven’t seen the kind of public pressure that’s goin’ to build around this one, Moss,” Regard said softly. “You fellows on the Court just don’t have any concept of what’s beginnin’ to build. It’s been a mighty long time—maybe back as far as Dred Scott—since the Court has had to face the public outcry it may have to face on this one. And while I’m sorry I put it on a personal basis, Justice Barbour, sir, and I do apologize for that, still it seems to me there’s a question that ought to be concernin’ you two: just how
will
you handle it, if it does come up to you? There’s never been a case before where individual Justices have been so directly and
personally
involved. How will you handle that?”

There was silence while he and Sue-Ann studied their somber faces. Again their eyes met.

“We are sworn to uphold the law,” Tay said gravely. “To ‘administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.’ And so I intend to do.”

Moss gave a heavy sigh and nodded as his eyes sought his wife’s.

“And I,” he said at last, voice low.

“I respect your intentions,” Regard said, still softly, “but it may not be so easy when the man who destroyed your daughters comes before you.”

“Oh!” Sue-Ann cried. Her husband put his arm around her and nodded toward the door with a sad and tortured expression.

“Get out of here, Regard!” he ordered. “You just get on out! Right now.”

“Yes, sir,” Regard said calmly. “I will go back and make my case and tend to Justice NOW! You gentlemen be thinking, meanwhile.”

And he bowed gravely, turned and left, closing the door gently but firmly behind him.

Sue-Ann returned to the sofa. Moss remained standing in the center of the room. Tay stared out the window.

“He seems very confident,” he said finally, turning to them. “He must feel he really does have the country behind him.”

“I suspect he does,” Moss said. “Right now, anyway. Long enough to carry him through the case, maybe… Taylor”—he rubbed his eyes hard, sighed, sat down next to his wife—“what
are
we going to do?”

“Not anticipate,” Tay replied, taking a chair opposite. “Perhaps that’s the best thing we can do, at the moment.”

“How can we not anticipate?” Moss inquired. “He’s right. It’ll come up to us. If there’s a conviction and a death sentence, there’ll be an appeal to stay execution and remand for re-argument. And that will come directly to me as Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. And, Tay”—his face looked tortured again and his voice dropped to a near whisper—“I just don’t know how judicial I can be if I’m confronted with the—the murderer of my daughter.”

“But you must be,” Tay protested, realizing even as he said it how glib and trite it sounded, yet driven by his own rigid concept of the law. “You must be if you—if you stay on the case. If there is error in the courts below, if reasonable doubt exists—you have to be, Moss. You have no choice.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sue-Ann observed in a small voice that passed no judgments but chilled him with its remoteness, “when Janie still lives.”

“Even if—” he began, lowered his head in his hands, took a deep breath, started over. “Even
if—and
even if
I
were the Circuit Judge being appealed to, I still would feel that I must be true to my oath and to my concept of the law. I just couldn’t do otherwise.”

“You don’t think so now,” Sue-Ann said, “and I pray you won’t ever have to find out. But if you did, I think you might feel differently. Even you, Tay, who have always been perfect.”

“But I’m
not
perfect!” he protested bitterly, for here was the damnable word again, the damnable misunderstanding of himself. “God knows I am not! I’m just a stumbling, awkward, inept, imperfect servant of the law who is weak like everybody else,
not
possessed of any special knowledge,
not
possessed of any exceptional abilities. Just
myself.
Not perfect, as God is my judge.
Not perfect.”

“But capable of—objectivity,” Sue-Ann said, as though he were a complete stranger she was contemplating for the first time. “That’s where you are different, maybe. I’m not sure Moss can be so—so objective …
anymore.”

“But the law—” he began; and stopped, for suddenly his words seemed enormities to himself as he realized for a second how they must sound to his friends. But the perception was gone in a second. He realized only that further discussion now was fruitless, though he knew with an unhappy certainty that it would come back when they returned to the Court.

“Moss,” he said earnestly, “this certainly isn’t something you need to decide now. It will be months before the case comes to trial—”

Moss shook his head.

“He wants to ram it through just as fast as he can, and I think he’s going to be able to do it. It’ll be three months at the most; much less if the courts here cooperate. And since I am who I am,” he said, quite simply and without egotism, “they’ll do it to oblige me as well as him. Oh, we’ll get it through fast, I think I can predict that. And
then
we’ll see what happens.”

“All right,” Tay conceded. “But wait until then. Nothing at our level has to be decided about it right now. You’re not in shape to do it, I’m not in shape to do it. Let’s don’t fight about it, for God’s sake.”