Paris Trout (23 page)

Seagraves noticed that Ward Townes's voice was
lacking capacity too. It was Townes's courtroom manner to take a jury
out of the reference of a courtroom, to make them comfortable, let
them know was all right to smile like ordinary people. This morning,
though, there was none of that, and the thought came to Seagraves
that Ward Townes didn't want to be here any more than he did.

Townes asked Henry Ray Boxer where he lived, who all
lived with him. Henry Ray used his fmgers, giving each one a name of
a brother or sister. He didn't know ages.

Townes asked when he had bought the car, how much he
paid.

Henry Ray went over the arrangement, mentioning the
$227 for insurance. He told about the accident at the gas station and
bringing the car back to Paris Trout after it happened.

His testimony went on for most of an hour, with
Seagraves objecting only once, at the end, when Henry Ray called the
truck driver who had run into him a "damn nigger."

"
Your Honor," Seagraves said, standing up,
"we are as understanding as anyone of the great divergence of
people this matter has brought together, but out of respect for the
ladies I would ask the court to instruct the witness to refrain from
gratuitous profanity."

"
Mr. Boxer," the judge said, "do you
understand the meaning of the word 'profanity'?"

"Yessir."

"Then I instruct you not to use it."

"
I didn't said it, he did."

"
Not the word itself," the judge said, "but
the examples thereof."

And Henry Ray Boxer sat still, looking at the judge
as if he'd just said there was a twenty-dollar fee to be a witness.

"Thank you," Seagraves said, and sat down.

Townes smiled, the first time that morning. "That's
all I have for now," he said, and turned the witness over for
cross-examination.

Harry Seagraves walked toward Henry Ray Boxer slowly,
scratching his head. He felt the jury watching him. He would have
made them wait — he liked to build a feeling — but then he
noticed Trout was staring at the witness in a way he did not want the
jury to see, as if the boy had just walked in and told him all over
again that he wasn't going to pay.

"
Henry Ray Boxer," he said. The boy did not
reply. "That is your name?"

"
Yessir."

"
Henry Ray, where was the last car you bought
before the one from Mr. Trout?"

"Didn't have none before this."

"
Didn't you buy a car from Mr. William Sutter in
Eatonton?"

He shook his head. "I haven't bought no car from
Mr. Sutter."

"Weren't you driving Mr. Sutter's car the time
you ran into Mr. Louie Veal?"

"No sir."

"
That was a different car?"

Henry Ray moved in his chair. "No sir, that was
a truck."

"You weren't driving the car in question .... "

"What question is that?"

There was some laughter in back, Seagraves smiled and
shook his head. "The car you agreed to purchase from Mr. Trout."

"
No sir, a lumber truck hit that."

Ward Townes stood up then, looking tired, and
objected to everything about Mr. Louie Veal, saying it was included
only to prejudice the jury. Judge Taylor sustained.

Seagraves walked back to his table and picked up his
notes. "Now, how much did you tell Mr. Townes there that you
paid?"

"Eight hundred."

"
Could it have been more?"

"
Could have, I don't know."

 
"Don't you know what you paid for it?"

"
I didn't pay for it," he said. "I was
gone pay on it."

"
But it was eighty-five dollars, even money,
every month?"

"I don't know even money or not."

Seagraves tossed the papers back across his desk. "It
looks to me, if you wanted to tell the truth about this thing, that
you could tell us. You ought to remember how much you paid."

"
Eight hundred," the boy said. "Assurance
ran it up to thousand twenty-seven."

Seagraves sighed and then looked at the jury. Half of
them came from Homewood and worked at the asylum. They had sewage and
city drinking water because of him. "You bought the car from Mr.
Trout," he said, without looking at the witness, "tore it
up, and then refused to pay on it because Mr. Trout wouldn't fix it?"

"
Yessir."

"Was it running when you brought it back?"

"
Yessir, it was running, but it was tore up so."

"And you won't drive a car like that — "

"
No sir, I don't drive no ragged car."

He turned away and asked the next question. "Have
you got a license, Henry Ray?"

"Yessir."

"
Is that the same license Chief Norland looked
at the day when he arrested you for running over Mr. Veal?"

"
That is the same one."

Townes stood up, making the same objection. Judge
Taylor sustained.

Seagraves put his hands deep in his pants pockets and
bent as if he were looking for something on the floor. "Had you
done business with Mr. Trout before you bought this car?"

Henry Ray nodded.

Seagraves looked directly into the jury again. "These
folks can't hear you unless you talk, Henry Ray. They come here to
try and find out what really happened out to your house, and they
need to hear all your answers, not just the ones you feel like
giving."

Judge Taylor said, "The witness will answer the
question."

"What question was it?" Henry Ray said.

Seagraves turned back slowly. "The question was,
had you ever done business with Mr. Trout before you bought this
car?"

"I borrowed money away from him."

"
Good. Now can you tell us how much you owed?"

The boy shrugged. "'Bout twenty-five, I expect."

"
Are you sure it wasn't a hundred?"

"
No, sir, it wasn't no hundred dollars."

"
But you owed him something."

"
Yessir, I paid him along on that too."

Seagraves went back to the table and consulted his
notes again.

"
Now, that pistol your brother Tommy has out
there, whose pistol is it?"

"
Mr. Lyle's."

"Your stepfather?"

"
Yessir."

"
So in other words, on the day of the shooting
Tommy had Lyle McNutt°s pistol out there?"

"
I don't know, sir. I wasn't home."

"
Did Tommy have your pistol out there that day
too?"

"
No sir, I don't have one."

Seagraves froze, as if something had reached out and
touched him in the night. Then, moving only his head, he looked up at
the witness.

"
What did you do with it?"

"
I never had it to do nothing with it."

"
Am I mistaken," he said, "or weren't
you convicted for carrying a pistol in 1954, right in this
courthouse?"

"
That was Mr. Lyle's pistol, I was bringing it
from Eatonton."

"But you were convicted here."

"
Yessir."

"
You were found guilty."

"I don't know, sir, if I was found or not."

"
Didn't they give you two months' sentence?"

"
No sir, not that they said."

"
Didn't they fine you twenty-five dollars? You
remember that, don't you?"

Ward Townes finally stood up again, Seagraves was
surprised he'd allowed it to go as far as he had. "Your Honor,"
he said, "the attorney for Mr. Trout has exceeded the limits of
fairness. This line of questioning has been employed only for
prejudice, and you and I and everyone in this courtroom knows there
is enough of that here already."

"
Overruled," the Judge said.

But as Townes spoke, Seagraves watched the jury.
There were three of them he could read clearly, a couple of others
that he was beginning to. He did not like what he saw.

"
I'm through with
this witness," he said.

* * *

TOWNES CALLED THOMAS BOXER. He was smaller than his
brother, and more delicate-looking. In some ways, Seagraves thought,
he resembled the pictures of Rosie Sayers. He settled into the
witness chair after he was sworn and then jumped at the sound of his
name.

"
Thomas," Townes said, "you were at
the house the day Mr. Trout and Mr. Devonne came to see your
brother?"

Thomas Boxer told the story, what he had seen and
heard. It took him a long time, but it came out true. Trout and
Devonne on the porch with their guns, the things that were said and
done. Trout following Rosie into the house, Mary McNutt following
him, and then Buster Devonne coming in behind. Thomas Boxer looked at
his hands when he said he had run into the other side of the house.

"Why did you go in there, Thomas?" Townes
asked.

"Went in there to get out the way."

"
Do you know what else happened?"

"
Shooting," he said. "Shooting started
before I got to the door."

"
How many shots?"

He shook his head. "You couldn't say. Seem like
firecrackers. They was almost all together, all of it didn't take but
four or five seconds."

"What happened after the shooting stopped?"

"
After the shooting I went out to the back,
there was Momma and Rosie both coming out the house. Momma holding
herself here on her breast, Rosie holding her 'tomach."

"Did you see Mr. Trout or Mr. Buster back
there?"

"
No sir, they gone by then."

'
°Was there a pistol in the house at the time all
this happened?"

"Yessir, on my side. Right under my mattress."

"
Did you ever get that pistol?"

"
No sir, I never bothered it till the next
morning when they come out after it. I give it to a police."

"Did you fight Mr. Trout any? Did you put your
hand on him?"

"
No sir."

"Did he put his hand on you?"

"
Yessir, but he didn't have his hand on me but a
little while. He didn't touch nothing long, but when he left his
hands off us, we was changed for good."

Townes stood quietly a
moment, giving that time to sink in. Then he looked at Trout and
said, "Your witness."

* * *

SEAGRAVES STOOD UP, undecided as to how that last
remark had affected the jury. He looked at them again, trying to
remember which ones were indebted to him for their city water, but in
some way that would not quite come clear, they were not as familiar
as they had been an hour before. He smiled, glancing down at the pad
in front of Trout. j He was drawing cartoons — ducks shooting guns
at each other.

"He didn't touch us long, but when he left his
hands off us, we was changed for good." Seagraves repeated the
boy's words in a monotone as if he were reading them.

"Yessir."

"
Could you tell us how things were before Mr.
Trout changed them?"

"I don't know that I exactly could," the
boy said.

"Well, let's see. When you needed money, where
did you go to borrow?"

The boy did not answer.

"Did Mr. Trout come to you, or did you go to
him?"

"
He come out that day."

"
I'm not talking about the day of the shooting
right now," Seagraves said. "We'll talk about that later.
Right now I want to know about this beatific life you-all had that
Mr. Trout changed."

The boy moved in his seat. "I didn't say it was
that," he said.

Seagraves closed his eyes. "What I am getting at
here is that Paris Trout was part of the reason you had the good life
you did. That he had been a friend to your family, loaned you money
when you needed it, and would still be a friend if you hadn't tried
to cheat him on this car."

The boy did not answer.

"
Am I going too fast?"

"No sir."

"
Then answer the question."

"
I didn't hear none."

"
The question I asked you was to describe the
life that you say Mr. Trout changed."

The boy paused. "Rosie's life," he said.

Seagraves felt it getting away from him now. He
looked again at the jury and saw the size of his mistake. "Now
sir," he said, "when Mr. Trout came up on the porch, did he
do anything to threaten you?"

"He put his hand back of my collar, you know
naturally that would threaten anybody."

"Were you scared?"

"No sir, I recognize they wasn't coming up there
for me. I had one payment before that was overdue, and I just paid
them on up."