Trial reconvened at nine on Monday morning. I had faced the full gamut of emotions since the day I saw the FBI documents at the Steak House. On this last day of the trial, I felt only sadness and fatigue. No matter what happened, my sister was lying in a hospital bed fighting to keep her baby, my husband was living with another woman, my mother had lost all faith in me, and I could not fathom why my father wouldn’t tell his story. Was anything worth the price we were all paying?
Judge McNabb entered the courtroom and took his seat. I turned my attention to the man who held my father’s fate in his hands.
“Good morning. Our plans have changed for today, ladies and gentlemen. Last night Mr. Fuller, on behalf of the State, paid me a visit. He has moved to dismiss the charges that were brought in the case,” the judge said.
The courtroom erupted. From across the aisle came shouts of anger. One black man stood up and screamed, “White mother fucker, you’ll die!” He was wrestled to the floor and out of the room by two deputies. Some members of the boys’ families cried. Behind me, a few people clapped, others embraced. Several reporters ran out of the room. The rest were writing furiously. My father looked at Chip. Chip looked at my father. Clearly they, like the rest of us, had no idea what was going on.
The gavel came down several times until peace was restored. Judge McNabb continued, “I heard the reasons behind the State’s motion and decided to withhold my decision on the motion until you, the public and the press, and I had a chance to hear live the testimony I heard in a summary fashion last night. I think it’s only fair to everyone that the record fully reflect all the facts relating to this sad episode in our State’s history. This conclusion has been a long time coming, but I believe we will finally be able to close the book on the murders of Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson. Mr. Fuller, you may bring in your witness.”
Junior met my eyes as he walked past me out of the courtroom. Seconds later he opened the door to come back in. All eyes were on him as he held the door for someone. In came a woman, a breathtakingly beautiful, self-assured woman in her mid-thirties. She was tall, at least five eleven, with dark brown hair, light makeup, and a glowing tan. Everything about her hair, makeup, silk dress, even her shoes and purse made of exotic leather-subtly announced style, fashion, and money. No one like her lived anywhere within one hundred miles of Tallagumsa.
“What’s the meaning of this?” my father shouted. He jumped up. “I will not have this.”
“Mayor Hagerdom, please sit down,” Judge McNabb said.
Ben caught my eye. “Who is that?” he mouthed.
I shrugged. I had no idea, although she did look somewhat familiar. I racked my brain, searching for where I’d seen her before.
When the woman approached my father he grabbed her arm. “You don’t have to do this.”
She stood for a minute in front of his table. The way they looked at each other took my breath away. There was something deep-seated and strong between them. “Yes, I do,” she said firmly. “This has gone on too long. Don’t try to stop me, Newell.”
She turned and walked to the witness stand. I heard Chip ask my father, “What the fuck is going on?”
“You’ll see,” my father said, shaking his head in dismay.
“State your name,” the bailiff said to the woman.
“Elizabeth Ross Kenney,” she said.
She was sworn in and then she sat down.
Junior stood to question her. “What is your address?” he asked.
“434 Lakeview Drive, Chicago, Illinois.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Miss Kenney,” Junior asked, “were you once married?”
“Yes, I was.”
“What was your married name?”
“Reese. Everybody back then knew me as Liz Reese.”
“Your husband was Dean Reese?”
“Yes.”
“How long were you married?”
“Two years.”
“Until he died?”
“That’s right.”
“What is your occupation?”
“I am president and CEO of Miss Reese’s Pies. My company bakes pies, cakes, and cookies and sells them internationally.”
“Do you know the defendant?” Junior asked.
“Yes.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Since January of 1963.” With the exception of occasional glances at Junior or the judge by Liz Reese (I couldn’t think of her as Miss Kenney), she and my father stared at each other as she answered Junior’s questions.
“Please describe your relationship.”
She took a deep breath and smiled slightly. “We were lovers. I was very young and we were in love. You know how it is when you’re young? You think no one ever felt the way you feel, that you’ll die without each other. Well, that’s how we were.”
Like Eddie and I used to be, I thought. “How old were you at the time?”
“I was twenty-two.”
“Do you have any children?”
“One, Camille.”
“How old is Camille now?”
“Sixteen.”
“Was your marriage to Dean Reese a happy one?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My husband was a drunk, a hateful, mean man. He was violent. I despised him.”
“And yet you married him?”
“He hadn’t seemed what he turned out to be when we first met. After the first few months of marriage, though, I wanted out.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“I got pregnant and I didn’t know what else to do or where to go.” She shrugged. “My parents were dead, and my brother lived in Alaska. When Dean moved from Mississippi to Tallagumsa, the baby and I came along.”
“Did he ever hit you?”
“Many times.”
“When did that begin?”
“A few months after we married. He’d drink, accuse me of things I hadn’t done, and hit me.”
“Where were you on the evening of August 27, 1963?”
“At the house we rented in Tallagumsa, 209 Third Avenue.”
“Was Dean Reese with you?”
“Yes, but he left about seven. He told me he’d be off working all night. I didn’t even know where he said he was going. He had a lot of odd jobs, and by then I didn’t listen to him anymore. When he left I called Newell, and Newell came over.”
“Do you know what car Mayor Hagerdorn drove to your house?”
“His sheriff’s car. He always drove it everywhere.”
“What happened after he got there?”
“We checked on Camille. She was asleep, then we went into the bedroom, and I was closing the curtains when I heard a loud noise outside. I looked out. Dean had just closed the hood of Newell’s car. He drove the squad car away. There wasn’t anything we could do. We watched and waited and eventually Dean came driving up with the car, parked it right back where it had been, and got in his own car and drove away. He had something in his hands, but I couldn’t tell what.”
“Why didn’t you report the car stolen?”
“It was a rather awkward situation. We thought we should wait and see what happened. The car came back in one piece, so we figured no harm was done. He was just harassing me and Newell a little.”
“When did you learn that Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson had been murdered?”
“Later that night. Newell called me and told me about the boys’ murders. Then the next day I heard Dean talking on the phone to someone about it.”
“Describe that conversation, please.”
“He told someone over the phone that he knew who’d killed Turnbow and Johnson, that he’d been there when it happened, and he wanted to meet with whoever it was on the phone. He left the house, and I called Newell and told him that Dean was up to something. He said I should keep an eye on him. Dean came back that afternoon, drunk, and finally passed out. I went to his car and looked all over to see if I could find what he’d put in it. There was a shotgun in the trunk that wasn’t his. He had plenty of guns, but none of them were as nice as the one in the trunk. The next chance I got I called Newell and told him about it. He told me to try to get the gun from Dean’s car, that it was his, but the next time I looked the gun was gone. So we waited for whatever happened next.”
“What did happen?” Junior asked.
“First, Bev Carter told Newell that the FBI agents had the gun and wouldn’t give it back. Then the FBI agents went to Newell’s house, I guess it was a week later, and basically accused him of murder. That’s when we figured out what Dean was up to. It was the most ridiculous thing. We both laughed at first because Dean was so pathetic, and we couldn’t imagine that anyone, especially the FBI, would actually believe a word he said. The idea was absurd. Then we realized that if the gun had been used that night, as one of the agents told Newell, it meant Dean had killed the boys and it wasn’t funny at all. It was terrible. He’d been a mean man and a drunk, but I didn’t think he was capable of cold-blooded murder.” Liz Reese shook her head sadly. “I was so ashamed to even know him.”
“Did you talk to your husband about your fears?”
“Yes. Newell didn’t want me to say anything to Dean, but I couldn’t stand it. I confronted him. First, though, I took Camille to our neighbors so Dean couldn’t hurt her. He never had, but I was worried now that I suspected him of murder. I told him I knew what he was doing, trying to blame Newell for a crime he’d committed, and he wouldn’t get away with it. I told him I hated him more than ever.”
“What did Dean Reese do?”
“He accused me of being in love with a murderer, and asked what I would do when my boyfriend went to jail. Who would take care of me and the baby? Dean told me he worked for the FBI and had for a year, and they respected him. He kept saying that I was in love with a murderer and soon everyone would know my lover was a murderer.”
For the first time in the course of her testimony she began to grow agitated. Her words came faster, and the sure look I’d been so impressed with when she came into the courtroom was replaced by one of fear. She pressed herself toward the back of the stand, as if backing off from something. My father closed his eyes as Liz Reese continued to talk.
“Then Dean punched me in the face. I didn’t even care what he did anymore. When I told him he couldn’t hurt me, he knocked me across the room into the dining-room wall, I guess to prove me wrong. The wall was a horrible green. I remember it so well because I hated the color from the day we moved in. And there I was, thrown up against that disgusting wall. I sort of slid down it, and he kicked me. When I see that color today you know, some government offices use it, it must be very cheap-I get sick to my stomach.” She forced a smile.
“Were you hurt?” Junior asked.
“My eye swelled shut and was black, my nose was bleeding terribly. The next day I had bruises everywhere.”
“Did you try to leave the house?”
“First I ran into the bedroom and got my suitcase from the closet. I don’t know why I didn’t just leave. I think I must have wanted him to understand that it was over, that I really was leaving him at last. He got madder and madder, but I couldn’t stand it anymore. I didn’t care if he killed me. I really didn’t care. Dean screamed and yelled and told me he and I would die together before I’d be with Newell. I told Dean that I knew he had killed those poor boys, that I saw him with Newell’s car and his gun, and I wouldn’t let him do that to Newell. It was too late, Dean claimed that he’d already told the FBI the whole story and it was on tape. He said they believed him.” She frowned. “I couldn’t imagine anyone would believe anything he said, but here we are after all these years for that very reason.”
“What happened next?” Junior asked.
“Then he threw me down on the bed and tried to kiss me. I kneed him hard and ran into the kitchen, where I got a butcher knife.” She spoke so quickly that the words began to run together. “I told him-”
“Could you please talk a bit slower, Miss Kenney?” Judge McNabb asked.
“Sorry,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I told him that if he tried to touch me again, ever, I’d kill him, that he disgusted me, that I hated him, and that I would make sure no one believed anything he said. I told him he wouldn’t see me or Camille ever again.”
“What did he do?”
“What he always did after he hit me. He started crying and apologizing about how he didn’t mean to hurt me, how he loved me and would do anything for me. But I told him that I was getting a divorce, and I left. I ran over to Norma’s, my friend down the street who had Camille.”
“Did you see Dean Reese again?”
“No. When I came back the next day he was dead. Newell came over and we talked about what to do. Finally we decided not to talk about the murders at all, ever, not to tell anyone about what we knew, that the truth wouldn’t help anyone. Justice had been done. Besides, we didn’t really trust the FBI. After all, they’d paid a crazy person all that time and they’d believed him too. Without the FBI behind him, he wouldn’t have had the nerve to murder those boys.”
“How long did you stay in Tallagumsa?”
“I left town the next week. It was hard to leave Newell, but I couldn’t stay. He couldn’t leave. We’ve kept in touch over the years, but never so much as mentioned the murders. I thought I’d heard the last of it until Newell called a few months ago and told me some reporter was digging into it. We discussed what we should do and concluded it made sense to do the same thing we’d done before--that is, say and do nothing.”
“Why?”Junior asked.
“We worried about the consequences to my daughter. She never knew anything about her father. I didn’t want her to get to know him this way. Over the years I had painted a very flattering picture of the father she never knew, and I thought she would be devastated if she learned the truth. Imagine growing up in a happy, basically average household and finding out at age sixteen that your father was a monster. Sixteen is a very sensitive age, especially for a girl. And Newell felt very strongly that our past relationship was nobody’s business. I agreed. We assumed the reporter would give up.”
“When did you change your plans?” Junior asked.
“When Newell was indicted I offered to help, to risk exposure, because it was obvious that the whole thing wasn’t going away. But he said no, that the government couldn’t prove anything, not to worry. He dug in his heels, positive he’d never be convicted on my husband’s word.”
“Is that why you denied knowledge of any of these events when I first contacted you in August?” Junior asked.
“Yes.”
“Why have you come forward now?”
“Saturday you called me and told me that you had talked with someone who planned to go to the press with the basics of the story I just told you if I didn’t testify. So here I am. My agreeing to come gave me time to talk to Camille and try to explain the circumstances to her. I didn’t want her reading about her father in the paper or hearing some distorted version of our past, though I doubt that would have been much worse for her than my telling her was. Still, she was better off hearing the truth out of my mouth first and under my terms, if you know what I mean. And after reading the news accounts of the first two days of the trial, I wasn’t so sure that the State wasn’t successfully proving the wrong person had committed the crime. I was upset about what was going to happen to Newell.”
I cried softly during Liz Reese’s testimony. My first emotion was one of relief-immense relief that the trial was over and that my father was innocent. I never believed he had killed Turnbow and Johnson, but until I heard Liz Reese’s testimony there was always that unspeakable possibility, which I couldn’t acknowledge until it was no longer a possibility, that he had done it. On the heels of relief came a strong sense of outrage. Not at Ben, not at Junior, but at my father. How dare he do this to our family? And for what? To protect someone else’s family while his own self-destructed. To keep his sordid, pathetic little affair a secret.
Judge McNabb asked Liz Reese a few questions, but I couldn’t concentrate. I began to shake all over. All I could think about was how many times over the last months I’d begged my father to tell me the truth. How many times he’d smugly refused. The horrible things I’d said to my sister and mother. The brush-off I’d given Eddie whenever he tried to talk to me.
What a thoughtless bastard my father really was. All he had to do was tell me the truth that day I called him and told him that Ben had the FBI documents. All he had to do was tell the simple truth. Surely at that time the matter could have been settled discreetly. And even if Ben had insisted on going public with the whole story, at least our family would have been spared the worst of living through this torturous nightmare my father had so selfishly created. I hated him.
When Judge McNabb finished questioning Liz Reese, she glided off the witness stand. She stopped at my father’s table, leaned over and whispered something to him, lightly touched his hand, then smiled and walked away.
Judge McNabb asked everyone to quiet down for one more minute, dismissed the case, and thanked everyone for being so patient. He was obviously relieved to have the case end without having to make the hard decision himself
I stood up and walked to the front of the courtroom, pushed open the swinging gate, and went past the bar. My father grinned, showing about as much remorse as a little boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
I couldn’t stop myself I slapped him across his cheek as hard as I could.
The packed courtroom fell silent. Everyone stared at me as I strode out of the courtroom.