“I know.”
Though it is none of my business, I blurt, “Do you have a rich uncle or what?” Though I have no proof, I have the overwhelming suspicion that Olivia is bankrolling his defense and, if this is true, it could mean all kinds of trouble.
Andy stiffens, his back arching slightly.
“You could say that.”
Once I start, I have a hard time stopping.
“Olivia?”
His eyes flash angrily.
“No.”
I believe his body language over his words. I think he is lying, but I do not say so. The blacks I know don’t have the kind of money it takes to defend this case.
“If that were so,” I warn him, “it could hurt you if it came out.”
Without a doubt I have touched a sore spot. His voice is ugly and guttural.
“Do you ask your white clients where they get their money?”
I feel my own anger rising. I don’t like being taken for a fool.
“I didn’t have to at the Public Defender’s Office,” I say, conveniently ignoring the fact that I have been gone quite a while.
“I didn’t think I had hired a racist to defend me,” Andy says, shoving his chair back and scraping the concrete floor with a sound that sets my teeth on edge.
I nearly swallow my tongue to keep from telling him that I was married to a woman more nearly his color than mine, but after so many years I would sound like those racists who assure everyone that some of their best friends are black. I ‘m not the man I was when Rosa was alive, and for some reason I can’t pinpoint, I’d rather choke on my own spit than try to reassure him how wonderful I am. Maybe I am racist, but I suspect there is racism in everybody if you scratch hard enough. I do know that I don’t want to risk losing him as a client.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “but it’s my job to know as much about your case as possible. What would be wrong if she did loan you some money? I think it would be the least she could do,” I add disingenuously.
Andy shakes his head as if I still don’t get it and lectures, “You make the assumption that all blacks, including me, come from poverty. That’s racist.”
Big deal, I think, and lean back in my chair, relaxed by his tone which now has more of a scolding quality than the scorching anger of a moment ago. “If that’s my worst sin,” I defend myself, “I’m way ahead of most people.”
Andy gives me a wry smile, breaking the tension. “I doubt if that’s your worst sin.”
I laugh, glad this is behind us and suddenly think I under stand. Andy doesn’t consider himself particularly black. He probably thinks he is superior not only to blacks but whites as well.
“You’re right,” I acknowledge.
“It was racist. I’m sorry.”
My apology seems to mollify him, and we spend some time talking about the people the state will call who didn’t testify at the probable cause hearing. Andy seems convinced that neither David Spam, the administrator of the Blackwell County Human Development Center, nor Yettie Lindsey, the social worker who was to chart the number of shocks administered to Pam, will be of much help to us. I leave Andy’s office to talk to both persons, hoping that just possibly Spath may have known what Andy was going to try. Granted, as Andy points out, Spath is a state bureaucrat, not a psychologist, but his testimony that Andy wasn’t too far out of line could mean the difference between a manslaughter conviction and a Class A misdemeanor charge of negligent homicide, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail.
Andy’s dismissal of Yettie Lindsey seems more reasonable:
according to her statement to the prosecutor, as a witness to the accident, she has nothing to add to what is already known.
Yet surely, if she is willing, she, now that Olivia has apparently begun to backtrack, could testify how desperate the situation was and how shock, even with a cattle prod, was the only alternative.
I walk downstairs to the first floor to be told that David Spath is not in and won’t be back the rest of the day. But Yettie Lindsey is in, and I walk two doors past Spath’s office to find a young, pretty black woman sitting in her office behind her desk with the door open. Yettie (her real name?
Whites are too afraid of ridicule to be so creative with names), I would guess is in her middle twenties and is short and busty with bangs and a kind of pony tail. She is wearing a maize turtleneck cotton dress that accentuates her figure. Her nose is characteristically wide; she has a lovely mouth and enormous eyes that are more green and yellow than brown. Her skin has a copper tone, and the old phrase embedded in my eastern Arkansas upbringing, “a nigger in the woodpile,” pops into my head. Although she is too dark to be what was called a “high yellow,” somewhere along the line, as with most African-Americans, she must have had a white ancestor or two. I tell her who I am and more or less invite myself in to visit. After preliminaries about my role, I say, “I thought that perhaps you might be able to help Andy show a jury there is another side to all of this that, at least, his heart was in the right place when nobody else wanted to get involved
Her elbows on the desk in front of her, Yettie Linsey leans forward and cups her chin in her hands as if she is considering her response. Thus far, her comments have been, if not unfriendly, monosyllabic. Finally, she says, her diction more elegant and refined than I expected, “I really don’t think you want me to testify for you.”
Surprised, I ask more sharply than I intend, “Why not?”
“In the first place, I don’t agree with what Andy did. Pam was a human being whose life wasn’t as horrible to her as it was to her mother and Andy. Being in arm restraints all the time isn’t particularly fun, but there’re lots of people who can’t use their bodies the rest of their life, and nobody says they’re better off dead, which is what I’ve heard Olivia say on more than one occasion.”
I am drawn to Yettie’s left hand as she tugs down at her skirt. It seems as small and delicate as a butter knife. No ring. What is her motive in spilling out this warning to me?
Am I to be some kind of messenger to my client? If she gets on the witness stand with any of this, an Arkansas jury will listen as carefully to her as they would to a scientist predicting the next earthquake. Her voice has an earnest quality that is compelling, and if the men on the jury get tired of that, they can stare at her face and her chest. “Isn’t that a fairly typical comment from a parent who’s frustrated by the system inability to help her child?”
Yettie’s face now has a smug expression, as if finally she is about to bring me up to speed.
“Olivia works the system pretty good. She’s got Andy wrapped around her little finger so tight he has trouble taking a deep breath.”
As if she is prompting me, I reply, “So you think they’re having an affair, huh?”
She raises her eyebrows as if there is no other conclusion that could possibly be drawn.
“You know where he lives?”
Before I can even nod, she says, “You think they’re any black women there?”
I resist the urge to doodle for fear she will think I am taking notes and force myself to hold my hands in my lap, as if we were discussing what the residents are having for lunch.
Knowing the area, I say, “I’d be surprised if they even have a black janitor.”
It is her turn to nod.
“You don’t have to be a genius to figure out your client has a thing for white women.”
Her face is angry now, and I can see rejection written all over it. A lot of things make me nervous about this case, but until now black racism wasn’t one of them.
“That’s not a crime anymore,” I add, feeling I had better get what I can out of her before she clams up.
“Do you have any hard evidence Andy’s involvement with Pam’s mother was more than just professional?”
A fake smile plays on Yettie’s lips, perhaps at my poor choice of an adjective.
“All you have to do is watch them,” she says contemptuously.
Since the same thought had crossed my mind, it is difficult for me to protest her vagueness. I risk asking, “Would it be fair to say that at one point you might have appreciated it if Andy had shown a little interest in you?”