The effect of disease on her appearance was profound. She had been a beautiful woman—willowy with high cheekbones and black-Irish coloring—and she had remained so until the past few months. Once when Cathy and I were examining a 1920s-era photograph of her in a family album, we agreed Bebe looked very like Audrey Hepburn. When Bebe and I were at the Elite Café in Montgomery once, an old man in a linen suit and white buck shoes had stopped at our table for a reunion with her. As he was leaving, he said to me, “You take good care of this girl, you hear, son? The old boys in Montgomery still say Brigid McCarthy is the rarest beauty of them all.”
I wanted to say something, anything, to reassure her about her decision on Joe Black. “Bebe, I think Mr. Pell is a very colorful character.”
A smile slowly came on her thin, gray face. “‘Colorful’ hardly captures Joe Black’s character. Colorful like Blackbeard the pirate.” She looked away for a moment and then returned my gaze with a twinkle in her dark eyes. “Actually, the more apt analogy would be to Huckleberry Finn.”
They had gone to Catholic school together in Montgomery, Bebe explained, and the young Joe Black was mischievous, funny, but also very smart. He always insisted he wanted to marry Bebe, but his family didn’t have much money and by the time he had worked his way through college and law school and established a law practice, she was already married to Granddaddy. Much later Joe Black married a nice but rather plain Methodist, Bebe told me, but they didn’t have children. Joe Black was active in the “loyalist” wing of the Democratic Party, the group that supported the national Democrats and opposed the more conservative Dixiecrats, a faction in which Granddaddy had been a prime mover. Because Granddaddy didn’t approve of Joe Black, Bebe went years without seeing him, but after Granddaddy died, she asked Joe Black to help with her business.
“I did what my husband wanted for almost fifty years,” she said, “and that strikes me as abundant wifely submission. I thought I needed an adviser who wouldn’t always be telling me what ‘the Judge’ would have wanted.” The confusion must have been apparent on my face, but she didn’t explain further except to say, “Joe Black has been very attentive over the recent months.”
He arrived and we had lunch. Daddy didn’t come back, and his absence shadowed the table. Bebe called for Orene. “Since Buddy’s not here, let’s seat Marvin at that place.” When Marvin appeared and was introduced, Joe Black said, “Chicago! Son, that’s ’bout my favorite city.” Marvin looked curiously at the little, old man and nodded with almost a smile.
When Joe Black took the last bite of his chess pie, he smiled up at Orene. “You outdid yourself, darlin’, with this effort. What’s yo’ secret?”
“Good buttermilk and fresh lard for the crust.” Orene leaned over and kissed the little man’s bald head. “I’m going to put the rest in a box for you to take home.”
“God bless you.”
Bebe asked Joe Black what he knew about the charges against me. The court had set Buford Kyle’s trial for the second week in August, and I would testify then. I felt myself shiver a bit at the very idea of it.
“Brigid,” Joe Black said as he pushed away from the table, “the circuit solicitor told me this morning that he could see Tommy and me this afternoon to talk over the situation. We oughta go on down there and see can we talk some sense into this prosecutor, Cal Taliaferro. By the way, where is Buddy?”
She shrugged and glanced over at me. “I think you must go on without Buddy. You and Marvin can look after Tommy for me.” Joe Black smiled widely at the vote of confidence.
We had just driven out of Eden Rise when Joe Black asked what career interested me. It took a minute to respond because I was distracted by all that he was doing while he steered his Buick down the road. He took a cigar knife out of his pants pocket, carefully sliced the closed end of a large cigar, and then punched the thin rod up its center. He licked the twelve-inch cylinder all the way around twice, took out a box of matches, burned the cigar end for ten seconds, and finally put it in his mouth and puffed three times. While accomplishing these tasks mainly with his right hand, his left had been engaged in navigating past two trucks and a tractor on the narrow road, adjusting his outside mirror, and tapping time on the steering wheel to “King of the Road” playing on the radio. I had never seen such manual dexterity, and it was a good thing or we’d have been dead in the ditch.
I glanced over the seat at Marvin, who was shaking his head in disgust. I guessed that country novelty songs weren’t big in the Chicago ghetto.
“I like that Roger Miller, don’t you, son?” Joe Black said. “I kinda identify with that, drivin’ like I do from one courthouse to the next.” He puffed a couple of times. “I’m sorry, son. I interrupted you telling me about what kinda work you wanna do.”
“Well, Mr. Pell—”
“Son, call me Joe Black. I’ll let you know when I get old enough to have that ‘Mister.’”
“All right. I guess I might be interested in being a lawyer, although I’m not sure.”
“It’s a good profession if you willing to work hard. ’Course I worked hard a long time before I made any real money.” I asked if he defended many people charged with crimes. “I don’t do this kinda work anymore, except in this case as a favor to your grandmother. I mostly sue insurance companies and corporations”—he pronounced it caw-pra-shuns. “Lotta cases don’t go nowhere, but every now and then one pays well. I love being in the courtroom, trying to persuade twelve jurors to see the situation my way. I love getting money outa big companies.”
Cal Taliaferro, the circuit solicitor, was seated at a beat-up desk piled high with files in an office glaring with mid-afternoon sunlight bouncing off brassy honorary plaques when he received us. The solicitor was a stocky, red-faced man with strawberry blond hair glued down with Brylcreem. His voice made me think he’d been on the Camels for a long time, and the blood vessels on his face suggested a similar close relationship with Jack Daniels. He was the kind of man who could put a smile on his face and hold it well past the point at which you understood it represented not friendliness or mirth but only a politician’s habit.
Joe Black slapped Taliaferro on the back and made jokes about prosecutors. He asked Taliaferro if he expected opposition in next year’s elections. “Oh, there’s a little lawyer over in Selma, pretty wet behind the ears, who’s making some noise about going against me.” The smile widened. “Don’t think he’ll be too strong.”
“Now, Cal, you let me know if it gets serious,” Joe Black said. “I been known to put a little money behind good public servants, and I got a good many friends who’ll do the same if I squeeze just a little.”
“Well, I appreciate that, Joe Black, and I’ll sure remember it.” He pointed Joe Black and me to the two chairs across from him. Joe Black settled back into a chair with cracked leather upholstery and motioned me into its twin, which left Marvin standing at the door, unacknowledged by Taliaferro, who looked at me. “Tom, I’m real sorry about what happened down here, and I’m hopin’ we going to be able to get this matter taken care of without too much trouble in your life.”
I thanked him and looked over to Joe Black, who forged ahead. “Now, Cal, are you really going to have to go to trial in this case? Realistically, you ain’t going to get a conviction.”
I was startled to hear my lawyer make the suggestion that the man who killed Jackie should not even be prosecuted. Buford Kyle needed to be in prison for a long time. I knew I had to shut my mouth, but I could feel Taliaferro stiffen, suddenly wary in a whole new way.
“Well, Joe Black, as you know, this Kyle fellow is white trash and should be in the penitentiary for killing the nigger boy, but I agree with you ain’t no jury in Yancey County going to send him there.” Taliaferro shook his