On the night Rhoda was murdered, Danny was at her house. Malcolm Vince, her husband, was supposedly in Memphis, doing something with the boys, she really didn’t know what. He was gone a lot in those days. She and Danny had sex twice and sometime around midnight he was preparing to leave when her husband’s truck turned into the driveway. Danny sneaked out the rear door and disappeared.
The shock of a married woman admitting in open court that she had committed adultery was designed to convince the jury that she had to be telling the truth. No one, respectable or otherwise, would admit this. It would damage her reputation, if she cared about such things. It would certainly impact her divorce, perhaps jeopardize custody of her child. It might even allow her husband to sue Danny Padgitt for alienation of affection, though it was doubtful the jurors were thinking that far ahead.
Her answers to Lucien’s questions were brief and very well rehearsed. She refused to look at the jurors or at her alleged former lover. Instead, she kept her eyes down and appeared to be looking at Lucien’s shoes. Both the lawyer and the witness were careful not to venture outside the script. “She’s lyin’,” Baggy whispered loudly, and I agreed.
When the direct examination was over, Ernie Gaddis stood and walked deliberately to the podium, staring with great suspicion at this self-confessed adulteress. He kept his reading glasses on the tip of his nose, and looked above them with wrinkled brow and narrow eyes. Very much the professor who’d just caught a bad student cheating.
“Miss Vince, this house on Hurt Road. Who owned it?”
“Jack Hagel.”
“How long did you live there?”
“About a year.”
“Did you sign a lease?”
She hesitated for a split second too long, then said, “Maybe my husband did. I really don’t remember.”
“How much was the rent each month?”
“Three hundred dollars.”
Ernie wrote down each answer with great effort, as though each detail was about to be diligently investigated and lies would be revealed.
“When did you leave this house?”
“I don’t know, about two months ago.”
“So how long did you live in Ford County?”
“I don’t know, a couple of years.”
“Did you ever register to vote in Ford County?”
“No.”
“Did your husband?”
“No.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Malcolm Vince.”
“Where does he live now?”
“I’m not sure. He moves around a lot. Last I heard he was somewhere around Tupelo.”
“And y’all are getting a divorce now, right?”
“Yes.”
“When did you file for divorce?”
Her eyes lifted quickly and she glanced at Lucien, who was listening hard but refusing to watch her. “We haven’t actually filed papers yet,” she said.
“I’m sorry, I thought you said you were going through a divorce.”
“We’ve split, and we’ve both hired lawyers.”
“And who is your attorney?”
“Mr. Wilbanks.”
Lucien flinched, as if this was news to him. Ernie let it settle in, then continued, “Who is your husband’s lawyer?”
“I can’t remember his name.”
“Is he suing you for divorce, or is it the other way around?”
“It’s a mutual thing.”
“How many other men were you sleeping with?”
“Just Danny.”
“I see. And you live in Tupelo, right?”
“Right.”
“You say you’re unemployed, right?”
“For now.”
“And you’ve separated from your husband?”
“I just said we’ve split.”
“Where do you live over in Tupelo?”
“An apartment.”
“How much is the rent?”
“Two hundred a month.”
“And you live there with your child?”
“Yes.”
“Does the child work?”
“The child is five years old.”
“So how do you pay the rent and utilities?”
“I get by.” No one could have possibly believed her answer.
“What kind of car do you drive?”
She hesitated again. It was the kind of question that required an answer that could be verified with a few phone calls. “A ’68 Mustang.”
“That’s a nice car. When did you get it?”
Again, there was a paper trail here, and even Lydia, who wasn’t bright, could see the trap. “Coupla months ago,” she said, defiantly.
“Is the car titled in your name?”
“It is.”
“Is the apartment lease in your name?”
“It is.”
Paperwork, paperwork. She couldn’t lie about it, and she certainly couldn’t afford it. Ernie took some notes from Hank Hooten and studied them suspiciously.
“How long did you sleep with Danny Padgitt?”
“Fifteen minutes, usually.”
In a tense courtroom, the answer provided scattered laughter. Ernie removed his glasses, rubbed them with the end of his tie, gave her a nasty grin, and rephrased the question. “Your affair with Danny Padgitt, how long did it last?”
“Almost a year.”
“Where did you first meet him?”
“At the clubs, up at the state line.”
“Did someone introduce the two of you?”
“I really don’t remember. He was there, I was there, we had a dance. One thing led to another.”
There was no doubt that Lydia Vince had spent many nights in many honky-tonks, and she’d never run from a new dance partner. Ernie needed just a few more lies that he could nail down.
He asked a series of questions about her background and her husband’s — birth, education, marriage, employment, family. Names and dates and events that could be verified as true or false. She was for sale. The Padgitts had found a witness they could buy.
As we left the courtroom late that afternoon, I was confused and uneasy. I had been convinced for many months that Danny Padgitt killed Rhoda Kassellaw, and I still had no doubts. But the jury suddenly had something to hang itself with. A sworn witness had committed a dreadful act of perjury, but it was possible that a juror could have a reasonable doubt.
Ginger was more depressed than me, so we decided to get drunk. We bought burgers and fries and a case of beer and went to her small motel room where we ate and then drowned our fears and hatred of a corrupt judicial system. She said more than once that her family, fractured as it was, could not hold up if Danny Padgitt were let go. Her mother was not stable anyway, and a not-guilty verdict would push her over the cliff. What would they tell Rhoda’s children one day?
We tried watching television, but nothing held our interest. We grew weary of worrying about the trial. As I was about to fall asleep, Ginger walked out of the bathroom naked, and the night took a turn for the better. We made love off and on until the alcohol prevailed and we fell asleep.
Chapter 17
Unknown to me — and there was no reason it should have been known to me because I was such a newcomer to the community and certainly not involved in judicial affairs, and besides I literally had my hands full of Ginger and for a few wonderful hours we lost interest in the trial — a secret meeting took place shortly after adjournment on Wednesday. Ernie Gaddis went to Harry Rex’s office for a post-trial drink and both admitted they were sick over Lydia’s testimony. They began making phone calls, and within an hour they had rounded up a group of lawyers they could trust, and a couple of politicians as well.
The opinion was unanimous that the Padgitts were in the process of wiggling out of what appeared to be a solid case against them. They had managed to find a witness they could bribe. Lydia had obviously been paid to concoct her story, and she was either too broke or too stupid to understand the risks of perjury. Regardless, she had given the jury a reason, albeit a weak one, to second-guess the prosecution.