The Ballad of Frankie Silver - By Sharyn McCrumb Page 0,5
Sunday suit with a new haircut, and they just have a hard time believing that this soft-spoken lad would have put a knife to the throat of a twenty-one-year-old boy and severed the windpipe and jugular while the victim’s girlfriend watched, tied to a tree, crying, screaming for him to stop, and knowing she was next. It just doesn’t seem possible.”
“I’ve felt that way myself.”
“Give yourself a few years as a peace officer, then. You’re young yet. The time will come when you’ll count your fingers after shaking hands with the preacher. You’ll lose your faith in humanity if you stay in police work long enough. But juries never get seasoned to evil. Every case is tried before a new bunch of innocents, and you have to bury them in evidence to get it through their heads that clean-cut young men can be guilty of the terrible crimes we’ve charged them with.”
“So you think they’ll take a long time to deliberate?”
“Did you look at those jurors? Some of them were taking notes like there’d be an exam to follow. They won’t want to let that effort go to waste. They’re probably retrying the case right now, just to prove to one another that they were paying attention. And reasonable doubt! Reasonabledoubt, mind you. Some juries would make a cat laugh. Why, they’re probably in there looking for loopholes as if this was Perry Masonon TV. What if this fellow had a twin nobody knew about who just happened to own a gun exactly like his—all that hogwash not fit for a fairy tale, much less a court of law. Makes them feel important. This is a big event for Wake County, you know. We go years without having anybody tried for murder.”
“I could have done without this time,” said Spencer.
“It’s finished. Your part is, anyhow. You said your piece in court, and the lawyers said theirs, and now the matter rests in the hands of twelve other people. And I know for a fact that the judge has dinner plans. It’s over for the night. So go home.”
Spencer shook his head. “I wouldn’t be able to get my mind off it. Might as well be here.”
The old sheriff sighed. “You sure do beat all, boy. Now, if it was me having to testify against that little piece of bull turd, I’d leave that courtroom with a spring in my step and never give him another second’s thought. That boy is trash and trouble, like all his kinfolk up there in the holler, and if he didn’t do this crime, he did a lot more we never caught him at, and he deserves what he gets.”
“What do you mean if he didn’t do this crime?” said Spencer.
“Oh, nothing. It’s not our job to decide guilt anyhow. That’s for judges, lawyers, juries. We just catch the suspects and round up such evidence as we can find. After that, it’s their call.”
“I know that, but what do you mean if he didn’t do this crime? Don’t you think he’s guilty?”
“Well, personally, I don’t care,” said Nelse Miller. “You could have looked into Fate Harkryder’s cradle and told that he was going to end up in prison. If it wasn’t one thing, it’d be another. I’ve known his kin for more than fifty years, and there’s not a solid citizen in the bunch. You’d stand a better chance of getting a thoroughbred out of a swaybacked donkey than you would of getting a good man out of the Harkryder bloodline.”
Spencer just looked at him, waiting.
Finally Nelse Miller let out a sigh, and looked away. “Oh, hell. I just got a feeling, that’s all.”
“But the case is ironclad. Blood type. Forensic evidence. The victims’ possessions found on him. We have him dead to rights. Everything but a confession.”
The sheriff shrugged. “It’s not up to me. Or you. We gather the evidence. Theydecide.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about this feeling of yours before now?”
“Because feelings aren’t evidence. They’d have laughed me out of the courtroom. Maybe Elissa Rountree would believe me. Sensible woman. She’s the only juror that would have! But nobody cares what your opinionis in a murder case. Facts. Evidence. Fingerprints. Then they make up their own minds. We’re well out of it.”
Spencer nodded. “I think he’s guilty,” he said. “I was there that night. I’m the one who arrested him. I wouldn’t have testified for the prosecution if I thought he wasn’t guilty.”
“Oh, you’d have testified. You were the law that night, and