“That’s correct.”
“Does this strike you as unusual?”
“It’s no secret, sir, that my mother is having some problems. I prefer not to go into this.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
As the hours passed, Dunlap slowly proved his point. Pete’s deed was suspicious on many levels. Joel, Stella, Florry, and even John Wilbanks admitted privately that Pete signed the deed to protect his land as he planned to kill Dexter Bell, and this became evident.
By noon, there were no more witnesses. The lawyers made some brief remarks, and Rumbold said he would issue a ruling “in the future.”
“When can we expect a ruling, Your Honor?” Dunlap asked.
“I don’t have deadlines, Mr. Dunlap,” Rumbold snapped, irritated. “I’ll review the documents and my notes and I’ll issue a ruling in due course.”
Dunlap, with an audience, drew a line in the dirt. “Well, certainly, Your Honor, it shouldn’t take long. The trial lasted less than four hours. The facts and issues are clear. Why should there be a delay?”
Rumbold’s cheeks flushed red and he pointed a crooked finger at Dunlap. “I’m in charge around here, Mr. Dunlap, and I don’t need any advice on how to run things. You’ve said enough.”
Dunlap knew what was common knowledge among local lawyers. Rumbold could sit on a case forever. The rules provided no time frame for chancellors to decide their cases, and the state supreme court, which always comprised several ex-chancellors, had never been willing to implement deadlines.
“Adjourned,” Rumbold said, still glaring at Dunlap, and slammed down his gavel.
Jackie Bell and Errol McLeish left the courtroom without a word to anyone and went straight to the car. They drove to a home a few miles from town and lunched with her closest friend from the Clanton days. Myra was her source of gossip and information about who was saying what in church and in the town, and she didn’t like the new preacher, Dexter’s replacement. Few in the church liked him and she had a list of grievances. The truth was that everyone missed Dexter, even now, almost two years after his death.
Nor did Myra like Errol McLeish either. He had shifty eyes and a soft handshake, and he had a quiet way of manipulating Jackie. Even though he was a lawyer who owned properties and put on airs about money, Myra suspected that his real objective was Jackie and whatever she might get out of the Bannings.
He had far too much influence over Jackie, who, in Myra’s opinion, was still fragile from her tragedy. Myra had voiced this concern, confidentially of course, to other ladies in the church. There were already rumors that Jackie had designs on the Banning land and fine home, and that McLeish would be calling the shots.
A source at the Bedford Hotel leaked the gossip that they signed into one room as Mr. and Mrs. Errol McLeish, though Jackie had assured Myra she had no plans to get married.
Two unmarried adults in the same hotel room in downtown Clanton. And one was the preacher’s widow.
Chapter 42
The train ride from Memphis to Kansas City took seven and a half hours, with more stops than they could keep up with. But they didn’t care. It was summertime. They were out of school, away from the farm, riding in first class, where the porters served chilled wine when beckoned. Stella read the collected short stories of Eudora Welty while Joel struggled through Absalom, Absalom! He had seen Mr. Faulkner twice around Oxford, where his presence was hardly noticed. It was no secret that he liked to have supper late at night at a restaurant called the Mansion, just off the square, and Joel had sat close to him once as he ate alone. Before Joel finished law school, he was determined to muster the courage to introduce himself. He dreamed of having a bourbon on the great man’s porch and telling the tragic story of his father. Perhaps Mr. Faulkner had heard the story. Perhaps he would use it in a novel.
From the station in Kansas City, they took a cab to a modest home in the center of town. Papa and Gran Sweeney moved there from Memphis after the war, and neither Joel nor Stella had ever visited. The truth was they had spent little time with Liza’s parents because, as they realized as they grew older, Pete didn’t care for the Sweeneys and the feelings were mutual.
The Sweeneys had no money but had always tried to rub elbows with the upper classes. That was one reason Liza spent so much time at the Peabody when in high school. Her parents pressured her to. However, instead of snagging a rich Memphis boy for a husband, she’d gotten herself pregnant by a farmer from Mississippi, of all places.
As with most Memphis people, the Sweeneys looked far down their noses at anyone from Mississippi. They had been polite to Pete when Liza first brought him home, secretly hoping he was not the one, regardless of his good looks and West Point credentials. And before they could seriously object, he swept her away in a marriage that left them traumatized. They weren’t certain that she was pregnant when she eloped, but little Joel arrived quite soon thereafter. For years they had been forced to assure their friends that he was born a full nine months after the “wedding.”
When Pete was presumed dead, the Sweeneys provided little comfort to Liza, at least in her opinion. They seldom visited the farm, and when they did venture into the boondocks they were always eager to leave as soon as they arrived. Privately, they were embarrassed that their daughter had chosen to live in such a backward place. As ignorant city people, they had no appreciation of the land, the cotton, or livestock or fresh eggs and vegetables. They were appalled that the Bannings used “coloreds” to work in the house and toil in the fields. When Pete returned from the dead, they showed little interest and did not see him for months after he came home.
When the war ended, Mr. Sweeney was transferred to Kansas City, a move that was described as a major promotion, but was in reality a desperate effort to save a job. Their new home was even smaller than the one in Memphis, but both girls were gone and they didn’t need a lot of space. Then Liza had her breakdown and was sent to Whitfield. The Sweeneys told no one that their younger daughter had been banished to an insane asylum deeper down into Mississippi. They visited her once and were horrified at her condition and her surroundings.
Then Pete was arrested, tried, and executed, and the Sweeneys were grateful they had moved even farther away from Clanton.
Their only contact had been the occasional letters from Joel and Stella, who were growing up as the years flew by, and perhaps it was time to reach out and have a visit. They welcomed them into their home and seemed genuinely thrilled that they had traveled all the way to Kansas City. Over a long dinner, of impossibly bland food because Gran had never liked to cook, they talked of college and law school and plans for the future. They talked about Liza. Stella and Joel had just spent two days with her and claimed to have noticed improvement. Her doctors were optimistic that some new medications were working. She had gained a few pounds. The Sweeneys wanted to travel south to see her but Papa’s work schedule was downright brutal.
There was no mention of the mountain of legal troubles facing the Bannings, not that Papa and Gran would care much anyway. They preferred to talk about themselves and all the wonderful and wealthy friends they had made in Kansas City. It was a vast improvement over Memphis. Surely the kids were not thinking of settling in Mississippi.
Stella slept in the spare bedroom while Joel took the sofa. After a rough night, he awoke to sounds in the kitchen and the smell of coffee. Papa was at the table, eating toast and flipping hurriedly through the morning paper, while Gran mixed pancake batter. After a few minutes of chatting, Papa grabbed his briefcase and hustled away, eager to get to the office to save an important deal.