“Just what I need—platitudes from the pep squad,” Liz said. “You’re all so excruciating.”
That ended the bucking up. We rode along in silence for a couple of minutes, then Liz said, “I’m sorry. I know you’re all trying to help. I just want this to be over.”
The courthouse, on Holladay Avenue, was a big stone building with turrets and tall windows and a statue of a Confederate soldier in front. We pushed through the revolving brass door and found just about everyone involved in the whole mess milling about in the lobby. Maddox was there, wearing a shiny dark blue suit, and so were Doris and the Maddox kids. Doris was carrying the new baby, with Jerry Jr. hanging on her skirt. Cindy held Randy, who by then was two. When Maddox saw us, he glared. I glared right back. If it was a staring contest he wanted, I’d give him one.
Dickey Bryson was talking to another man in a suit and said something that made the other man laugh. The man turned around and started talking to Maddox while Dickey Bryson came over to us carrying an accordion file under one arm. He told us that the man talking to Maddox was his attorney, Leland Hayes. He’d be cross-examining us.
“Are you supposed to be joking around with Maddox’s lawyer like that?” I asked.
“Byler’s a small place,” he said. “It pays to be friendly to everyone.”
Just before nine o’clock, Joe and Aunt Al pushed through the revolving glass doors, followed by Wayne Clemmons, who took a final drag from a cigarette and stubbed it out in the lobby ashtray. Before I could catch his eye, the bailiff opened the doors to the courtroom and ushered us in.
The courtroom had a high ceiling with a row of heavy brass chandeliers, and the tall windows let in the pale March light. It all had a solemn feel, and the benches and wooden jury chairs looked hard, as if they were designed to make sure no one got too comfortable.
“All rise,” the bailiff called, and the noise we made standing in unison reminded me of church. The judge came in, an unsmiling man whose black reading glasses, perched on the end of his nose, matched his black robe. He took a seat at his big elevated desk and looked through the papers on it without once glancing up at all the people in the courtroom.
“Judge Bradley,” Uncle Tinsley whispered. “He was at Washington and Lee when I was there.”
So far, so good, I thought. The whole trial—with the uniformed deputies, the judge in his robe, the stenographer seated at her strange little typewriter—seemed like it was going to be a very serious and official proceeding, and I took that as a positive sign.
“Mr. Maddox,” the judge said, “stand and be arraigned.”
Maddox stood up and straightened his shoulders. A woman at a small desk in front of the judge also stood and read the charges against him: attempted rape, aggravated sexual assault, and assault and battery.
“What is your plea, guilty or not guilty?” the judge asked after each charge.
“Not guilty!” Maddox said each time, his loud voice echoing off the high ceiling.
“You may be seated.”
Maddox sat back down. He and his lawyer were at a table on the far side of the gallery railing. At the table next to them, Dickey Bryson was busily scribbling on a yellow legal pad. I hoped Maddox could feel my eyes boring into the back of his head. I hadn’t given up on the staring contest.
A uniformed deputy ushered in a group of men and women who sat down on one side of the courtroom. “Jury pool,” Uncle Tinsley whispered. I’d seen a number of them around town, on the hill, at the football games, or in the grocery store. One of them was Tammy Elbert, the woman who’d driven us to Mayfield when we first arrived in Byler, the one who said she’d have given anything in high school to be Charlotte Holladay. That seemed like another good sign.
The judge talked for a few minutes about the beauty of our legal system and the duties of jurors and the responsibilities of citizens. Then he asked the witnesses to come up to the front. After we came forward, he asked the people in the jury pool if any of them knew any of us or any of the attorneys.
One man in a plaid jacket stood up. “I know just about everybody here,” he said. “Reckon we all do.”
“I reckon you do,” the judge said. “Would that prevent any of you from delivering an impartial verdict?”
They looked at one another and shook their heads.
“No one, then? Is there any other reason any of you cannot be impartial or should not serve?”
They shook their heads again.
“Let the record show that no juror believes he cannot be impartial.”
The two lawyers stood up and started reading off names from their legal pads. The people who were called climbed into the jury box. Tammy Elbert was one of them. Within about ten minutes, the jury box was filled, and the rest of the pool left the courtroom. At that point, the judge asked the witnesses to step outside, so we all followed the deputy through the doors, leaving Mom sitting on the bench in her red velvet jacket next to Joe and Aunt Al.