Alex Cross’s Trial

“Now, wait a minute, Corbett,” said Phineas. “The first thing out of your mouth was that you and these Nigras killed some of the men.”

“They attacked us!” I bellowed. “We had to fight back or we’d all be dead! Are you listening?”

“There’s no need to get ugly,” said Phineas. His voice was mild, but his eyes kept flicking outside to the tied-up men, as if he were weighing the risks on all sides.

L.J. pressed the bloody cloth against his cheek. “Phineas, you listen to me, now,” he said quietly. “It’s time, Phineas. It’s time to put an end to it-the violence, all the hatred against coloreds in this town. These Ku Kluxer gangs are tearing Eudora apart, limb from limb. People are living in fear, black and white. You know me, Phineas. I’ve lived here all my life. I was there tonight. I saw what happened. I demand as a citizen of this town that you arrest these men for murder. Right now.”

Eversman pulled his chenille bathrobe snug around his skinny body. He refashioned the knot in the belt, then made his way past us, outside to the wagon.

“Evenin’, Phineas,” said one of the Raiders with a chuckle. “I sure am sorry these bastards decided to wake you up for no good reason.”

Eversman didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. I thought I heard a quiver in his voice, but he spoke loud and clear.

“You men are under arrest for… for trespassing, assault with a deadly weapon, and… and…”

He couldn’t seem to get the words out, so I helped him.

“And first-degree murder.”

Eversman glanced at me. He swallowed hard. “And first-degree murder,” he said.

The men set up a howl. A dour, wiry man yelled, “Because that nigger-lover Corbett says so?”

Eversman’s voice had lost its tremor. “And because his complaint is supported by our most upstanding citizen, Mr. Stringer,” he said.

“Mr. Stringer is indeed upstanding,” I said. “But Chief Eversman will also find that my complaint is fully and completely supported by a person even more esteemed than L. J. Stringer, if you can imagine that.”

The wiry man in the wagon cast an ugly eye on me. “And who the hell that?”

“His name,” I said, “is Theodore Roosevelt.”

Part Five . THE TRIAL AT EUDORA

Chapter 89

JACKSON HENSEN, the harried senior personal assistant to the president, entered the Oval Office with a bloodred leather folder under his arm. He took one look at the president and dropped the folder. The morning’s correspondence scattered all over the carpet-telegrams and official greetings from the king of England, the shah of Persia, and the Japanese ambassador, letters from congressmen, ordinary citizens, and all manner of federal bureaucrats.

“Har-de-har-har!” The president was laughing and singing. Also, he was dancing a jig. He was waving a golden Western Union telegram in the air as he capered in a circle behind his desk.

“Is anything the matter, sir?” Jackson Hensen asked.

“Does it look like there’s anything the matter, Hensen?”

“Well, sir, I’ve never actually seen you dancing, except at state dinners. Never at your desk.”

“This is the first time I’ve ever been happy enough to dance at my desk,” Roosevelt said. “Read this.” He thrust the telegram at Hensen and collapsed onto a sofa, out of breath, but still chuckling and congratulating himself.

Hensen scanned the telegram. It was stamped 11:50 p.m. of the previous night, signed CROSS AND CORBETT, and originated from a telegraph station in McComb, Mississippi. The report described in detail events that had occurred during the previous several days-lynchings, Klan meetings, the attack of the White Raiders, the gun battle, the arrest of three Raiders on charges of first-degree murder.

It was this last piece of information that so delighted the president.

“There it is!” Roosevelt shouted. “White men charged for killing black men, right down there in the heart of Dixie. Now let Du Bois and that Wells-Barnett woman try to tell me I have ignored the Negro problem!”

Hensen’s eyes came up from the telegram. “It is excellent news, sir.”

“Worth dancing about, Hensen?”

“Well, sir… certainly.”

For a moment Jackson Hensen feared that President Roosevelt was going to make him dance.

“Do you know why I am fortunate enough to receive this most excellent news, Mr. Hensen?”

“Why is that, sir?”

Roosevelt peered around the sofa. “Where’d you go, Hensen?”

“I’m here, sir. Picking up the mail.”

“Never mind that, Hensen. Get your pad, will you? I gave Margaret the afternoon off. I want to send my congratulations to Abraham Cross and Ben Corbett. What shall it be, then, a letter or a wire?”

Hensen took a little notebook and pencil from his vest pocket.

“Those men must have thought I’d forgotten all about them.” He laughed, a big booming Roosevelt laugh. “I think I showed great wisdom not to respond to their first report, but to let them draw their own conclusions as to what should be done.”