“Mrs. Thomson, did your son always shower and change before dinner?”
“Well, I surely encouraged him to. Any mother would understand that, Miss Brett. I wasn’t always successful, of course, particularly when he was young—”
“When your son returned to your room, what was he wearing, Mrs. Thomson?”
The question seemed to surprise Adele, her hand plucked at the cord of the microphone. “I’m not sure.”
“You don’t remember what he was wearing?”
Adele Thomson’s voice rose. “Are you suggesting I was in no condition to know what he was wearing? That I wasn’t even sure of the time. Is that what you’re getting at?”
“Mrs. Thomson, you testified you had taken no medication that night. I have no reason or intention to question that.”
“My son was wearing—” Adele was frowning. “He was wearing — I remember quite clearly — slacks, gray flannels, and a sports shirt with short sleeves. But he wasn’t wearing his watch, or any jewelry. I do recall the details, you see. He’d taken a shower and hadn’t bothered to put them back on. But there’s no doubt about the time, my clocks are very dependable. You can have them checked if you wish.”
“Mrs. Thomson, did your son tell you Miguel Santos had driven him home that night from Muhlenburg?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you his car had been stolen?”
“Of course he didn’t.”
“Why do you say ‘of course,’ Mrs. Thomson?”
“You wouldn’t understand, and it would probably be a waste of time explaining.” Adele’s voice was strained. “Earl would never worry me about such things.”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Thomson, for laboring the point. When did you learn your son’s car had been stolen?”
“I have no idea.”
“He never mentioned it to you?”
“He’s my son!” Adele’s voice was rising again. “He would never frighten me, or worry me about such things. I’m his mother.”
“Forgive me again, but why would it frighten you to know his car had been stolen?”
“It would destroy a... mood. He would never upset me like that. He loves me, don’t you see? Why are you trying to hurt him?”
Adele closed her eyes, but not before the camera lights caught the glitter of her tears. Davic gripped Earl Thomson’s arm and forced him back into his chair.
Brett said, “Your Honor, I regret any distress I may have caused the witness. I have no further questions.”
As she walked to the plaintiffs table, Brett’s eyes fell on the empty chair in the gallery behind Shana. Harry Selby hadn’t come back to the courtroom since testifying that morning. His absence was a reminder of his presence... of him... to her, she realized, as Judge Flood announced the lunch recess.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She was light-skinned with oddly flecked brown eyes and kinky red hair cut short above a broad face. Her expression was wearily impassive, but it suggested to Selby a childish petulance rather than mature reserve. The roots of Emma Green’s bronze-colored hair were dark when the light touched them. A scar on her upper lip tended to pull her mouth into a grimace. Two of her upper front teeth were missing. She kept a hand close to her face when she talked.
An eight-year-old daughter, Libby, was studying at a table in the kitchen off the living room, but her agile little body was twisted around to watch Selby.
Emma Green wore jeans that were tight across her stomach, and a blue T-shirt with the words “Country Gal” stitched in white on the front. She was thirty-two and didn’t want to talk about Earl Thomson.
“I had my fill of that big honky shit with his uniform and all. He fucked me over good. And no real cause for it, if you’d like to know the truth. But it was a long time back, mister, days long gone.”
A church bell rang somewhere down the block. Emma Green lived in a white frame house on a dirt lot outside of Jefferson, New Jersey.
Rockland Military College — Selby had driven by there earlier — was twenty miles away, sprawled across neatly tended acres, with playing fields marked by white goal posts, tennis courts, an enclosed skating rink and a half-dozen fieldstone buildings standing about a rectangular quad — dormitories, classrooms and administration offices.
The entrance to Rockland was marked by stone columns topped by a rounded arch. On the face of this span, the school’s motto was carved in Roman capitals: THY COUNTRY IS THINE HONOR.
“That Earl boy was such a mean fucker, he got up early and stayed up late just to work at it.”
“Momma, don’t you talk that way,” her daughter called from the kitchen.
“Never you mind, Libby. Just study them books.”
Libby came to the door between the two rooms. She wore a blue blouse and a tartan skirt. Her black hair was pulled into side braids and tied with white ribbons.
“She’s busing now,” Emma Green told Selby, and smiled derisively at her daughter.
Libby was embarrassed. She frowned and put her hands on her hips. “You keep your mouth off me, momma. Miss Keener says that kind of talk is common. She says it’s how drunk women talk.”
“Listen to her, mister. She’s got little white friends and they go to their houses after school and cook things in the kitchen and make candy. They don’t think nothing of the mess, them white mommies.”
“You say his name when you asleep,” Libby said. She looked seriously at Selby. “I’m not lying, mister. She used to say his name out, call out near all of ’em that she had... that’s the truth.”
“You a sweet child, Libby, but it’s days long gone. Miss Keener, she’s your friend. You listen to her. I love you, baby.”
“You want something, you don’t fool me.”
“Just a touch, honey. It’s my day off.” Her voice was easy. “Don’t be mad. I used to be pretty like you.” She smiled at Selby, but hard defensive lines had formed around her mouth.
Libby went into the kitchen and brought back a pint of gin and a glass half-filled with water. “You sweet, you really are,” her mother said, and smoothed the child’s hair.
Emma Green was only an inch or so above five feet with wide hips and large, firmly molded breasts. Her lips were full and handsome, even with the scar that pulled the mouth up into an expression of sly skeptical anger. Her skin was clear and smooth, and Selby could easily imagine how pretty she must have been.
Libby closed the door. Emma Green poured a little gin into the glass and sipped from it. “I do the check-out at Safeway market all week so a little drink on my day off don’t hurt. I surely am sorry for your kid, mister, but I ain’t writin’ nothing down about what they done to me.
“They showed me I was still a nigger wench, that’s what they did. Never mind Martin and JFK and that shit people got so excited about. I believed it, too, I guess.” She covered her mouth and laughed, “ ‘I do believe...’ Thought black was beautiful, the colleges and good jobs and everything gonna bust wide open for us. You honky bastards shouldn’t lie and fool us, ’cause we’re so damned dumb...” She laughed and tapped her forehead. “—solid bone up here, solid ivory from Africa. What’s the fun of it? But I was pretty and had me a nice-sounding laugh, if I say so myself. Low and easy, not like some dumb-ass darky screeching and showin’ off. I could show you pictures of me laughing. You’d see how it was. How people liked to hear me laugh.”
She sipped the gin and water. “I worked at a bar over near the college. The bar was named The Letter Drop. We was off limits, the soldier boys, they’d sneak in at night and go upstairs with the gals.