There is no answer when he calls Nell back, and he sets the phone down uneasily. Montgomery’s visit has made him more unsettled than he already was; he feels jittery as he locks his office for the night. His footsteps echo in the dark hallway as he walks to the back door, and the air seems to hold the memory of the barrel-chested man; his beery, foul scent lingers.
Outside, Polly pauses at the top of the stoop and gazes across the parking lot toward the tree line, where he can see the spire of St. Peter’s dark against the orange sky. He imagines the courthouse nearby, where Willie Jones is in his narrow cell. Last time he saw Willie was when the sentence was read. The boy didn’t flinch; he simply listened to the jury’s verdict with the same bemused expression he’d maintained throughout the trial, as if he couldn’t quite believe any of it. Then he’d looked at Polly and nodded, as if conceding his defeat, while in the third row his mother began to weep.
Next time he sees Willie Jones, the boy’ll be strapped in the chair.
Polly rubs his eyes, and he’s just started down the stairs when he hears a rustle in the bushes along the building to his left. He wheels around, expecting Montgomery again, or Stout Biggs or Leroy or Pope, but it’s Gabe he sees rising from the shrubbery. At the sight of his son, he feels a wave of primal anger start to gather itself deep within him. “I swear to God, if that man …” he begins.
“I’m OK,” Gabe says. “I was waiting for you.”
“Then Montgomery …”
“He didn’t see me.”
“He didn’t bring you here.”
“No, I told you. I was just waiting for you.”
Polly runs a hand through his hair. Used to be, when he was first DA, that Gabe would wait for him all the time; only now does Polly realize it’s been months since they’ve walked home together. He wonders if it’s because Gabe is frightened by what happened with Montgomery or if it’s because he himself has been so preoccupied with other things, with Willie Jones. “Come on out of the bushes, son,” he says.
They walk home quietly through the heat, kicking an acorn back and forth, taking turns. Polly asks Gabe about his day, about his math test, about his baseball game, but tonight the boy doesn’t seem much for talking, and Polly doesn’t push him. He watches their shadows, which grow as they pass through the glow of different streetlights from dark pools beneath their feet to long, thin strips across the pavement, then disappear altogether in the darkness between pockets of light. One tall, one half-size, any father and son.
“Dad,” Gabe says finally, in the quiet. He kicks the acorn, which skitters several yards down the street; it has traveled with them all this way, from the squares of downtown New Iberia to the tree-lined streets of the neighborhood where they live.
“Yes, Gabe.”
“You sure Willie Jones is guilty?”
They have come to the acorn; Polly kicks it before answering, and glances at his son; this is the line of questioning he’d been waiting for. “What makes you ask, son?”
“Caliber said some folks in St. Martinville say it wasn’t rape at all.”
“That so.”
“Yessir.”
“What do they say it was?”
Gabe shrugs, kicks the acorn.
“Well,” Polly says, “folks will say what they will. But I do believe that Willie Jones is guilty.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have persecuted him?”
“Prosecuted. That’s right. Otherwise I wouldn’t have taken the case.”
The acorn has come to rest at the edge of the sidewalk; Polly steps toward it, kicks it back to center. “What else did Caliber say?” he asks, warily.
“That the chair’s name is Gruesome Gertie.”
Polly does not reply.
Gabe kicks the acorn. “Does it hurt?”
“Does what hurt?” He knows what Gabe is asking about, and he knows the answer; he’s seen it once before, as an official witness to the last execution in the parish some eleven years ago. He remembers vividly the jolt of the body, the quivering limbs, the spread of goose pimples across smooth flesh. The image has haunted him since, and he dreads tonight, having to see it again, this time with the knowledge that he is responsible.
“The chair.”
Polly kicks the acorn. “It’s quick. Too quick to hurt.”
“Buddy Cunningham’s father is taking him to see it.”
“Is that so.”
“That’s what Buddy said.”
“Well, the Cunninghams will do as the Cunninghams do. And they may well be disappointed because there won’t be much to see.”
Gabe seems to hesitate, and then: “Can I go with you?”
Polly glances quickly at his son. “Certainly not. I have no choice but to go. Believe me, I wouldn’t otherwise.” He looks at his son again, and frowns. “Why would you want to go?”
Gabe shrugs. “When you were twelve your father took you to see the black folks strung up in the tree,” he reasons. “You showed me the picture.”
“Yes,” Polly concedes. “He did. And I hated it.” He pauses, ruminating. “But you know,” he says, “I think it’s partly the reason I chose to become a lawyer.”
Gabe looks at him, confused. “Why?”
“Well, legal justice is important. Lawyers, trials, juries, all that. Think about what happens otherwise, when folks take matters into their own hands. Those men in the picture ended up in the tree. And think of last year. Moses Beauparlant ended up in the kilns and Frix Mobley in the salt mines. What kind of justice is that?”
Gabe pauses in front of the acorn, seems to consider it as he considers Polly’s words. Then he looks up. “But Willie’s case …” he begins. “That was legal justice. And I don’t really see why the chair is any better.”