A time to kill

The first name was Acker, Barry Acker. The last name was written in large print across the top of a notecard with a blue Magic Marker. Blue for men, red for women, black for blacks, regardless of gender. Under Acker's name he made notes with a pencil. Age, about forty. Married to his second wife, three children, two daughters. Runs a small unprofitable hardware store on the highway in Clanton. Wife, secretary at a bank. Drives a pickup. Likes to hunt. Wears cowboy boots. Pretty nice guy. Atcavage had gone to the hardware store Thursday to get a look at Barry Acker. Said he looked okay, talked like he had .some education. Jake wrote the number nine by the name Acker.

Jake was impressed with his research. Surely Buckley would not be as thorough.

The next name was Bill Andrews. What a name. There were six of them in the phonebook. Jake knew one, Harry Rex knew another one, and Ozzie knew a black one, but nobody knew which one got the summons. He pvut a question mark by the name.

Gerald Ault. Jake smiled when he wrote the name on the notecard. Ault had passed through his office a few years back when the bank foreclosed on his house in Clanton. His wife was stricken with kidney disease, and the medical bills broke them. He was an intellectual, educated at Princeton,

where he met his wife. She was from Ford County, the only child of a once prominent family of fools who had invested all their money in railroads. He arrived in Ford County just in time for his in-laws to go under, and the easy life he had married dissolved into one of struggle. He taught school for a while, then ran the library, then worked as a clerk in the courthouse. He developed an aversion to hard work. Then his wife got sick, and they lost their modest house. He now worked in a convenience store.

Jake knew something about Gerald Ault that no one else knew. As a child in Pennsylvania, his family lived in a farmhouse near the highway. One night while they slept, the house caught fire. A passing motorist stopped, kicked in the front door and began rescuing the Aults. The fire spread quickly, and when Gerald and his brother awoke they were trapped in their upstairs bedroom. They ran to the window and screamed. Their parents and siblings yelled helplessly from the front lawn. Flames poured from every window in the house except for their bedroom. Suddenly, the rescuer soaked himself with water from the garden hose, dashed into the burning house, fought the flames and smoke as he raced upstairs, then bolted through the bedroom door. He kicked out the window, grabbed Gerald and his brother, and jumped to the ground. Miraculously, they were not hurt. They thanked him, through tears and embraces. They thanked this stranger, whose skin was black. He was the first Negro the children had ever seen.

Gerald Ault was one of the few white people in Ford County who truly loved black people. Jake put a ten by his name.

For six hours he went through the jury list, making note-cards, concentrating on each name, envisioning each juror in the box and in deliberation, talking to each one. He rated them. Every black got an automatic ten; the whites were not so easy. The men rated higher than the women; the young men higher than the old men; the educated slightly higher than the uneducated; the liberals, both of them, received the highest ratings.

He eliminated the twenty Noose planned to exclude. He knew something about one hundred and eleven of the prospective jurors. Surely, Buckley could not know so much.

Ellen was typing on Ethel's machine when Jake returned from Lucien's. She turned it off, closed the law books she was typing from, and watched him.

"Where's dinner?" she asked with a wicked smile.

"We're taking a road trip."

"All right! Where to?"

"Have you ever been to Robinsonville, Mississippi?"

"No, but I'm ready. What's there?"

"Nothing but cotton, soybeans, and a great little restaurant."

"What's the dress code?"

Jake inspected her. She wore the usual-jeans, neatly starched and faded, no socks, a navy button-down that was four sizes too big but tucked in nicely above her slender hips.

"You look fine," he said.

They turned off the copier and the lights and left Clanton in the Saab. Jake stopped at a liquor store in the black section of town and bought a six-pack of Coors and a tall, cold bottle of Chablis.

"You have to bring your own bottle to this place," he explained as they left town. The sun was setting into the highway ahead, and Jake flipped down the sun visors. Ellen played bartender and opened two cans.

"How far is this place?" she asked.

"Hour and a half."

"Hour and a half! I'm starving."

"Then fill up on beer. Believe me it's worth it."

"What's on the menu?"

"Barbecued, sauteed shrimp, frog legs, and charbroiled catfish."

She sipped on the beer. "We'll see."