The fifteenth novel in the bestselling Alex Cross series Detective Alex Cross delves deep into the past - to a story passed down through his family, of a courageous fight for freedom...
Alex Cross is one of the nation's foremost detectives. But fighting for justice runs in the family, and it's time for Cross to tell the story that was passed down to him from his grandmother - the story of his great-uncle Abraham.
Ben Corbett is lawyer to the underprivileged and downtrodden in 1900s Washington, DC. Out of the blue, President Theodore Roosevelt invites Ben to the White House, asking him to investigate a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in Ben's own home town.
Ben returns to Mississippi, and there he meets Abraham Cross and his granddaughter, Moody. Abraham and Moody reveal to Ben the hidden side of this sleepy Southern town, where the Black community lives in constant fear.
In a battle against entrenched hatred, what sacrifices will need to be made to break this reign of terror?
'No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades. The Alex Cross series proves it.' LEE CHILD, international bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series
A few months after I hunted a vicious killer named the Tiger halfway around the world, I began to think seriously about a
book I had been wanting to write for years. I even had the title for it: Trial. The previous book I’d written was about the role of forensic psychology in the capture of the serial killer Gary Soneji.
Trial would be very different, and in some ways even more terrifying.
Oral history is very much alive in the Cross family, and this is because of my grandmother, Regina Cross, who is known in
our household and our neighborhood as Nana Mama. Nana’s famous stories cover the five decades when she was a teacher in Washington—the
difficulties she faced during those years of civil rights turmoil, but also countless tales passed on from times before she
was alive.
One of these stories—and it is the one that stayed with me the most—involved an uncle of hers who was born and lived most
of his life in the small town of Eudora, Mississippi. This man, Abraham Cross, was one of the finest baseball players of that
era and once played for the Philadelphia Pythians. Abraham was grandfather to my cousin Moody, who was one of the most unforgettable
and best-loved characters in our family history.
What I now feel compelled to write about took place in Mississippi during the time that Theodore Roosevelt was president,
the early part of the twentieth century. I believe it is a story that helps illuminate why so many black people are angry,
hurt, and lost in this country, even today. I also think it is important to keep this story alive for my family, and hopefully
for yours.
The main character is a man my grandmother knew here in Washington, a smart and courageous lawyer named Ben Corbett. It is
our good fortune that Corbett kept first-person journals of his incredible experiences, including a trial that took place
in Eudora. A few years before he died, Mr. Corbett gave those journals to Moody. Eventually they wound up in my grandmother’s
hands. My suspicion is that what happened in Mississippi was too personal and painful for Corbett to turn into a book. But
I have come to believe that there has never been a better time for this story to be told.
“LET HER HANG until she’s dead!”
“Take her out and hang her now! I’ll do it myself!”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Judge Otis L. Warren wielded his gavel with such fury I thought he might smash a hole in the top of his bench.
“Quiet in the court!” the judge shouted. “Settle down, or by God I will hold every last one of you sons of bitches in contempt.”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
It was no use. Warren’s courtroom was overflowing with disgruntled white citizens who wanted nothing more than to see my client
hang. Two of them on the left side began a chant that was soon taken up by others:
We don’t care where. We don’t care how.
We just wanna hang Gracie Johnson now!
The shouts from some among the white majority sent such a shiver of fear through the colored balcony that one woman fainted
and had to be carried out.
Another bang of the gavel. Judge Warren stood and shouted, “Mr. Loomis, escort all those in the colored section out of my
courtroom and out of the building.”
I couldn’t hold my tongue another second.
“Your Honor, I object! I don’t see any of the colored folks being rowdy or disrespectful. The ones making the fuss are the
white men in front.”
Judge Warren glared over his glasses at me. His expression intimidated the room into silence.
“Mr. Corbett, it is my job to decide how to keep order in my court. It is your job to counsel your client—and let me tell
you, from where I sit, she needs all the help she can get.”
I couldn’t disagree.
What I once thought would be an easy victory in the case of District of Columbia v. Johnson was swiftly turning into a disaster for Gracie and her increasingly helpless attorney, Benjamin E. Corbett: that being myself.
Gracie Johnson was on trial for the murder of Lydia Davenport, a wealthy white woman who was active in Washington society
at a level high enough to cause a nosebleed. Worse, Gracie was a black woman accused of killing her wealthy white employer.
The year was 1906. Before it was all over, I was afraid they were going to hang Gracie.
I had to be careful they didn’t hang me while they were at it.
“I WILL NOT TOLERATE another outburst,” Judge Warren said to the spectators. He turned to look me in the eye. “And I suggest
that you, Mr. Corbett, select your objections with greater care.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” I said, then immediately held my tongue in check with my teeth.
“Mr. Ames, you may resume questioning the defendant.”
Carter Ames, the city attorney, was a little old man about five feet tall. He strode to the witness stand as if he were every
inch of six-two.
“Now, Grace, let’s go back to the afternoon in question, May twenty-third. In your testimony—before the unfortunate disruption
occurred—isn’t it true that you essentially admitted to murdering Mrs. Davenport?”
“Excuse me, sir, I said no such thing,” Gracie shot back.
“The court stenographer will please read the testimony given by Miss Johnson a few moments before the courtroom interruption.”
“Got it right here, Carter,” the stenographer said.
Wonderful. Ames and the court stenographer were on a first-name basis. No telling which parts of Gracie’s testimony had been
left out or “improved.”
The stenographer flipped back the pages in his tablet and began to read in a droning voice.
“Miz Davenport was always a mean old lady. Never had a nice word for anybody. Ask me, she had it coming to her. The day before
she got killed, she told me she was fixing to fire me because I was too stupid to know which side of the plate do the fish
fork go on. She was a mean old witch, she was. I’m telling you, she had it coming.”
I jumped up from my chair.
“Your Honor, obviously my client did not mean—”
“Sit down, Mr. Corbett.”
I had one more thing to say—I just had to get it out.
“Your Honor, the prosecutor is deliberately twisting my client’s words!”
Carter Ames turned to me with a smile. “Why, Mr. Corbett, I’m not twisting a thing. Your client has spoken for herself very
clearly. I have no further questions, Your Honor.”
“In that case, court will adjourn for a two-hour recess, so we can get ourselves a cold glass of tea and some dinner,” the
judge said. “I believe that Mrs. Warren said my personal favorite, chicken pot pie, is on the menu today.”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
THE TWO-HOUR DINNER BREAK before Carter Ames and I gave our closing arguments seemed to last at least twice that long. I never
had much appetite during a case, so I spent the interval pacing the block around the courthouse square, mopping my face and
neck with a handkerchief.
Washington was in the grip of a torturous heat wave, and it was only June. The air was as thick and swampy as any summer afternoon
back home in Mississippi. Carriage horses were collapsing. Society ladies called off their afternoon teas and spent their
leisure time soaking in cool tubs.
Back home in Eudora I rarely had to wear the full lawyer suit with high stiff-starched collar and all the snaps and suspenders.
Down south, folks knew how to survive the heat: move slowly, and wear light clothing.
It must have been ninety-five degrees when we finally returned to the courtroom. The newfangled electric fans barely stirred
a breeze. Gracie’s face streamed with perspiration.
The judge entered. “Are you ready, gentlemen?”
Carter Ames sauntered toward the jury box. He put on a big friendly smile and leaned in close to the jury foreman. Ames was
justly famous for the high drama and fancy oratory of his closing arguments in murder cases.
“Gentlemen, I want you to join me on an important journey,” he said, in his orotund voice. “I’ll let you in on our destination
before we commence—the Kingdom of Truth. Few who set out on the journey toward the Kingdom of Truth ever reach their destination.
But today, gentlemen, I can promise you, that is where we shall arrive.”
The smoke from Judge Warren’s after-dinner cigar wafted blue through the air around the dandyish little city attorney. He
slowly paced the length of the jury box, turned, and paced the other way.
“We are not going to make this journey by ourselves, gentlemen. Our companions on this journey are not of the fancy kind.
They don’t wear fine clothes and they don’t ride first class. Our companions, gentlemen, are the facts of this case.”
As metaphors go, it seemed fairly simpleminded to me, but the jurors were apparently lapping it up. I made a mental note to
lay on an even thicker layer of corn pone than I had originally intended. It was the least I could do for Grace and her chances.
“What do the facts of this murder case tell us?” Ames asked. His voice dropped a few notes on the scale. “The first fact is
this: Grace Johnson has all but confessed to the crime of murder, right here in front of you today. You heard her admit to a most powerful motive, the hateful emotions
and vitriolic resentments she bore toward her employer.”
It was all I could do to keep from jumping up and shouting “Objection!” Judge Warren’s earlier warning served to keep me in
my seat.
“The second fact speaks even more loudly. Grace claims that Lydia Davenport shouted at her. Let me repeat that shocking claim,
gentlemen. Lydia Davenport dared to shout at the woman who was a willing employee in her household. In other words, Mrs. Davenport
deserved to die because she shouted at a maid!”
Ames was not just a skillful actor; when it came to the facts, he was also quite the juggler.
“Now let another fact speak to you, friends. The fact is, the court has appointed one of the capital’s finest young attorneys
to represent Grace Johnson. Now mind you, this is as it should be. Let the least among us have the best defense money can
buy—your tax money, that is. But don’t let the young gentleman fool you. Don’t let his pretty words bamboozle you. Let me tell you what he’s going to try to do.”
He waved his hand indifferently in my direction, as if I were a fly buzzing around his head.
“Mr. Corbett will try to cast doubt upon these obvious facts. He will tell you that the Davenport house was bursting with employees who might have murdered Lydia Davenport.”
Ames spun on his tiny heel and pointed a crooked finger at my client.
“But the fact is this: Only one person in that house admits out loud, in a clear voice, to having a motive for the murder. And that person is seated right there! Grace Johnson!”
He strode to the prosecution table and lifted a worn brown Bible. He opened it to a page he seemed to know by heart and began
to read aloud.
“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
He snapped the Bible closed with a flourish and held it high in the air.
“Gentlemen, we have arrived. Our journey is done. Welcome to the Kingdom of Truth. The only possible verdict is guilty.”
Son of a bitch! Carter Ames had just destroyed my closing argument.
THE DIMINUTIVE PROSECUTOR THREW a thin smile my way as he returned to his chair, his eyes dancing with the light of triumph.
I felt a twinge in my stomach.
But now it was my turn to speak, and hopefully to save a woman’s life.
I began with a simple declaration of the fact that no one had witnessed the murder, and then I discussed the other suspects:
the Irish gardener, Mrs. Davenport’s secretary, and her houseman—all of whom despised their employer and could have easily
committed the murder. Of course, they were all white.
Then, since Carter Ames had stolen my thunder, I decided to finish up in another direction, a bold and risky one that brought
tremors to my hands.
“Now, before you all go off to your jury room, I’m going to do something that’s not often done. Mr. Ames claimed to have taken
you to the Kingdom of Truth, but the fact is, he never even got close to his stated destination. He omitted the most important truth of all. He never mentioned the
real reason Gracie Johnson is facing the possibility of losing her life.
“You know the reason. I don’t even have to say it. But I’m going to say it anyway.
“Gracie Johnson is colored. That’s why she’s here. That’s the only reason she’s here. She was the only colored employee in attendance at the Davenport
house that day.
“So there it is. She’s a Negro. You gentlemen are white. Everyone expects that a white jury will always convict a black defendant.
But I know that not to be true. I think—matter of fact, I truly believe—that you have more honor than that. You have the integrity
to see through what the prosecutor is trying to do here, which is to railroad an innocent woman whose only crime was telling
you honestly that her boss was a mean old woman.
“Do you see what we’ve found? We’ve turned up the most important fact of all. And that fact, the fact that Gracie’s skin is black, should have no influence whatsoever on what you decide.
“That’s what the law says, in every state in this Union. If there is a reasonable doubt in your mind as to whether or not
Gracie Johnson is a murderer, you… must… vote… to… acquit.”
I started to go back to my chair, but then I turned and walked right up to Carter Ames’s table.
“May I, Carter?”
I picked up his Bible, flipping through the pages until I appeared to find the verse I was seeking in the book of Proverbs.
No one needed to know I was quoting from memory:
“When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous.”
I closed the Good Book.
THE CUMBERSOME IRON SHACKLES around Gracie Johnson’s ankles clanked noisily as I helped her to her feet at the defense table.
“Thank you, Mr. Corbett,” she whispered.
Judge Warren gazed down on her as if he were God. “Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict in this case?” he asked.
“Yes, we have, Your Honor.”
Like every lawyer since the Romans invented the Code of Justinian, I had tried to learn something from the jurors’ faces as
they filed into the courtroom—the haberdasher, the retired schoolteacher, the pale young man who was engaged to Congressman
Chapman’s daughter and had cracked a tentative smile during my summation.
Several of them were looking directly at Gracie, which was supposed to be a good sign for a defendant. I decided to take it
that way and said a hopeful little prayer.
The judge intoned, “How find you in the matter of murder against Grace Johnson?”
The foreman rose in a deliberate manner, then in a strong, clear voice he said, “We the jury find the defendant guilty as
charged.”
The courtroom erupted with exclamations, some sobs, even an ugly smattering of applause.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
“I will have order in my court,” said the judge. Damned if I didn’t see a smile flash across Judge Warren’s face before he
managed to swallow it.
I slid my arms around Gracie. One of us was trembling, and I realized it was me. My eyes, not hers, were brimming with hot
tears.
“It be all right, Mr. Corbett,” she said quietly.
“It isn’t all right, Gracie. It’s a disgrace.”
Two D.C. blueboys were heading our way, coming to take her back to jail. I motioned for them to give us a moment.
“Don’t you worry, Mr. Corbett,” Gracie said. “Jesus works in mysterious ways.”
“God bless you, Gracie. We’ll file an appeal.”
“Thank you, Mr. Corbett. But now I got to tell you something.”
“What’s that?”
She leaned close to me, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I done the crime.”
“What?”
“I done the crime.”
“Gracie!”
“I got five chillun, Mr. Corbett. That old lady, she don’t pay me hardly nothing. I needed money. So I meant to take the silver.”
“And… what happened?”
“I was coming through the dining room with the silver chest in my hands. Miz Davenport walk in. She ’posed to be having a
nap. Well, she screamed at me like she the devil. Then she come a-running at me.”
Gracie was composed, very calm, almost in a trance as she spoke to me.
“I had the bone-handle carving knife in my hand. Not for her—I don’t know, just in case of something. When she run at me,
I turned. She run straight up on that knife, sir. I swear I never meant to do it.”
The policemen apparently felt they’d been patient long enough. They came up alongside us and, taking hold of Gracie’s arms,
began to lead her away.
“But I tell you, Mr. Corbett…”
“What, Gracie?”
“I would do it again.”
AS I WALKED all the way home from the courthouse on that hot June day, I still had no idea what life-changing things were
in store for me and my family. Not a hint, not a clue.
Our house was quiet and dark that afternoon when I arrived. I walked through the front parlor. No sign of Meg, Amelia, or
Alice.
In the kitchen a peach pie was cooling on a table. Through the window I saw our cook, Mazie, sitting on the back stoop, shelling
butter beans into a white enamelware pan.
“Has Meg gone out, Mazie?” I called.
“Yes, suh, Mr. Ben. And she took the littl’uns with her. Don’t know where. Miz Corbett, she was in some bad mood when she
went. Her face all red like, you know how she gets.”
How she gets. My Meg, my sweet New England wife. So red in the face. You know how she gets. The gentlest girl at Radcliffe, the prettiest girl ever to come from Warwick, Rhode Island. Burning red in the face.
And she gets that way because of me, I couldn’t help th. . .
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