Mr. Pate inhaled deeply. “It’s a request from a TV crew from Memphis to film the hearing.”
“What!” Bullard’s face turned red and he rocked furiously in the swivel chair. “Cameras,” he yelled. “In my courtroom!” He ripped the note and threw the pieces in the direction of the trash can. “Where are they?”
“In the rotunda.”
“Order them out of the courthouse.”
Mr. Pate left quickly.
Carl Lee Hailey sat on the row next to the back.
Dozens of relatives and friends surrounded him in the rows of padded benches on the right side of the courtroom. The benches on the left side were empty. Deputies milled about, armed, apprehensive, keeping a nervous watch on the group of blacks, and especially on Carl Lee, who sat bent over, elbows on knees, staring blankly at the floor.
Jake looked out his window across the square to the rear of the courthouse, which faced south. It was 1:00 P.M. He had skipped lunch, as usual, and had no business across the street, but he did need some fresh air. He hadn’t left the building all day, and although he had no desire to hear the details of the rape, he hated to miss the hearing. There had to be a crowd in the courtroom because there were no empty parking spaces around the square. A handful of reporters and photographers waited anxiously near the rear of the courthouse by the wooden doors where Cobb and Willard would enter.
The jail was two blocks off the square on the south side, down the highway. Ozzie drove the car with Cobb and Willard in the back seat. With a squad car in front and one behind, the procession turned off Washington Street into the short driveway leading under the veranda of the courthouse. Six deputies escorted the defendants past the reporters, through the doors, and up the back stairs to the small room just outside the courtroom.
Jake grabbed his coat, ignored Ethel, and raced across the street. He ran up the back stairs, through a small hall outside the jury room, and entered the courtroom from a side door just as Mr. Pate led His Honor to the bench.
“All rise for the court,” Mr. Pate shouted. Everyone stood. Bullard stepped to the bench and sat down.
“Be seated,” he yelled. “Where are the defendants? Where? Bring them in then.”
Cobb and Willard were led, handcuffed, into the courtroom from the small holding room. They were unshaven, wrinkled, dirty, and looked confused. Willard stared at the large group of blacks while Cobb turned his back. Looney removed the handcuffs and seated them next to Drew Jack Tyndale, the public defender, at the long table where the defense sat. Next to it was a long table where the county prosecutor, Rocky Childers, sat taking notes and looking important.
Willard glanced over his shoulder and again checked on the blacks. On the front row just behind him sat his mother and Cobb’s mother, each with a deputy for protection. Willard felt safe with all the deputies. Cobb refused to turn around.
From the back row, eighty feet away, Carl Lee raised his head and looked at the backs of the two men who raped his daughter. They were mangy, bearded, dirty-looking strangers. He covered his face and bent over. The deputies stood behind him, backs against the wall, watching every move.
“Now listen,” Bullard began loudly. “This is just a preliminary hearing, not a trial. The purpose of a preliminary hearing is to determine if there is enough evidence that a crime has been committed to bind these defendants over to the grand jury. The defendants can even waive this hearing if they want to.”
Tyndale stood. “No sir, Your Honor, we wish to proceed with the hearing.”
“Very well. I have copies of affidavits sworn to by Sheriff Walls charging both defendants with rape of a female under the age of twelve, kidnapping, and aggravated assault. Mr. Childers, you may call your first witness.”
“Your Honor, the State calls Sheriff Ozzie Walls.”
Jake sat in the jury box, along with several other attorneys, all of whom pretended to be busy reading important materials. Ozzie was sworn and sat in the witness chair to the left of Bullard, a few feet from the jury box.
“Would you state your name?”
“Sheriff Ozzie Walls.”
“You’re the sheriff of Ford County?”
“Yes.”
“I know who he is,” Bullard mumbled as he flipped through the file.
“Sheriff, yesterday afternoon, did your office receive a call about a missing child?”
“Yes, around four-thirty.”
“What did your office do?”
“Deputy Willie Hastings was dispatched to the residence of Gwen and Carl Lee Hailey, the parents of the girl.”
“Where was that?”
“Down on Craft Road, back behind Bates Grocery.”
“What did he find?”
“He found the girl’s mother, who made the call. Then drove around searchin’ for the girl.”
“Did he find her?”
“No. When he returned to the house, the girl was there. She’d been found by some folks fishin’, and they took her home.”
“What shape was the girl in?”
“She’d been raped and beaten.”
“Was she conscious?”
“Yeah. She could talk, or mumble, a little.”
“What did she say?”
Tyndale jumped to his feet. “Your Honor, please, I know hearsay is admissible in a hearing like this, but this is triple hearsay.”
“Overruled. Shut up. Sit down. Continue, Mr. Childers.”
“What did she say?”
“Told her momma it was two white men in a yellow pickup truck with a rebel flag in the window. That’s about all. She couldn’t say much. Had both jaws broken and her face kicked in.”
“What happened then?”
“The deputy called an ambulance and she was taken to the hospital.”
“How is she?”
“They say she’s critical.”
“What happened then?”
“Based on what I knew at the time I had a suspect in mind.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I located an informant, a reliable informant, and placed him in a beer joint down by the lake.”
Childers was not one to dwell on details, especially in front of Bullard. Jake knew it, as did Tyndale. Bullard sent every case to the grand jury, so every preliminary was a formality. Regardless of the case, the facts, the proof, regardless of anything, Bullard would bind the defendant over to the grand jury. If there was insufficient proof, let the grand jury turn them loose, not Bullard. He had to be reelected, the grand jury did not. Voters got upset when criminals were cut loose. Most defense lawyers in the county waived the preliminary hearings before Bullard. Not Jake. He viewed such hearings as the best and quickest way to look at the prosecution’s case. Tyndale seldom waived a preliminary hearing.
“Which beer joint?”
“Huey’s.”
“What’d he find out?”
“Said he heard Cobb and Willard, the two defendants over there, braggin’ ’bout rapin’ a little black girl.”
Cobb and Willard exchanged stares. Who was the informant? They remembered little from Huey’s.
“What’d you find at Huey’s?”
“We arrested Cobb and Willard, then we searched a pickup titled in the name of Billy Ray Cobb.”