Then Leland Hayes had another turn. “Did you ever report these alleged incidents to the police?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“So there’s no record of these alleged incidents ever taking place.”
“But they did.”
“The jury can decide that. What you are admitting is that you and Mr. Maddox were feuding?”
“I guess you could call it that. But it all started because he—”
“No further questions.”
The judge told me to step down, but I could hardly move. I had just betrayed Mom. I had ratted out Joe. And I had admitted lying to Uncle Tinsley. How did that happen? I believed I was in the right. In fact, I knew I was in the right. All I wanted to do was get up and tell the truth about what Maddox did to Liz, and I ended up looking like a lying, stealing, feuding tire-slitter. Part of me was outraged, but part of me just wanted to slink out of the courtroom and crawl down some deep, dark hole and stay there.
I finally stepped down from the witness stand. Dickey Bryson told me that since I’d finished testifying, I could sit in the gallery. As I walked by Maddox, he shook his head and looked at the jury as if to say, Now you see the kind of kid I’ve had to deal with.
I took a seat between Mom and Uncle Tinsley. He patted my arm, but Mom just sat there, rigid as stone.
Dickey Bryson asked the bailiff to bring in Wayne Clemmons, who’d been pacing up and down in the hallway, smoking cigarettes. He was wearing a gray windbreaker, and he hadn’t bothered to shave. After he swore his oath and took a seat, he mumbled his name, keeping his head down like he was studying the laces of his work boots.
Dickey Bryson asked him to describe what he had witnessed on the night in question.
“Nothing much,” Wayne said. “All’s I know is Maddox and the girl was in the back of my car, arguing about money. She wanted money from him. But I didn’t really witness nothing.”
Dickey Bryson looked up, startled. “Are you certain?”
“I was driving the car. My eyes was on the road.”
The lawyer riffled through his accordion file and held up a piece of paper. “Mr. Clemmons, did you or did you not give a statement to the police saying that you had observed Jerry Maddox physically and sexually assaulting Liz Holladay in the back of your taxi?”
“I don’t recollect what I told the police,” Wayne said. “I was drinking at the time, and my memory’s been all shot to hell since I came back from ’Nam. I forget things that did happen and remember things that didn’t happen.”
“Mr. Clemmons, let me remind you that you’re under oath here.”
“Like I said, my eyes was on the road. How was I supposed to know what was going on in the backseat of the car?”
Before I even realized what I was doing, I was on my feet. “That’s a pack of lies!” I shouted.
The judge banged his gavel down hard and said, “I’ll have order in this court.”
“But he can’t sit there and lie—”
The judge banged his gavel again and roared, “Order!”
Then he motioned to the bailiff, whispered in his ear, and the bailiff left through the side door. A few moments later, I felt a hand clutch my shoulder hard. I swiveled around, and there was the bailiff. He beckoned me with his finger. I stood up and glared at Wayne Clemmons, who was still looking down at his boot laces. The bailiff led me out of the courtroom, and after he closed the door, he said, “Judge don’t want you back inside for the duration.”
Almost immediately, the door to the courtroom opened, and Wayne walked out.
“Why’d you lie?” I blurted out.
“Enough, young lady,” the bailiff said.
Wayne just shook his head and lit a cigarette as he walked down the hallway and out the revolving door.
“Don’t go back into the witness room,” the bailiff said, “and no talking to the other witnesses.”
I sat down on a bench in the hallway. After a couple of minutes, the bailiff came back out and opened the door to the witness room. “You’re up, miss,” he said. Liz walked out and followed him into the courtroom, not once looking my way.
It was past one o’clock by the time the doors to the courtroom opened and everyone filed out. Liz came through the doors flanked by Mom and Uncle Tinsley, like they were guarding her. She had her arms crossed and her head down. Joe and Aunt Al were behind them.
“How did it go?” I asked Liz, but she walked right past me without saying anything.
“Just hunky-dory,” Mom said.
“That attorney was pretty hard on her,” Uncle Tinsley said. “Then Maddox took the stand. He basically said he fired you for stealing, and the two of you made this all up to get back at him.”