Little Black Girl Lost 3

“New Orleans!” the bus driver called out. “Last stop!” Lucas’ eyes jerked themselves open when he heard the bus driver’s bellowing voice. He had been reliving the nightmare of killing Marla in his dreams. Her pleading eyes looked into his and begged him not to kill her. A vacant look in her eyes followed the sudden snap of her neck. He sighed deeply, wishing he could go back in time and undo what could not be undone. He looked out the window while stretching his long arms toward the bus’ roof. After picking up his bag, he walked down the narrow aisle, got off the bus, and made his way over to the courthouse, which was only two blocks away. The street was lined corner to corner with cars.

Are all these people at the trial?

Lucas didn’t know it, but when the story of a young Negro female being tried for the murder of a beautiful white woman hit the wire services, reporters from New York, Boston, Washington, DC, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Texas, and even California boarded planes, and swarmed into New Orleans like starved locusts to be witnesses of what was being billed as the biggest trial with a Negro defendant since the Scottsboro Boys case nearly twenty years earlier. Due to the sudden influx of people, businesses boomed. Every hotel was booked, every restaurant was filled. The French Quarter taverns poured as much whiskey as they poured during Mardi Gras, which was rapidly approaching, and why the normal judicial bureaucracy was nonexistent. After all, this was an open and shut case.

The nigger did it.

Lucas climbed the stairs of the courthouse and entered the building. A police officer was sitting in a chair, reading a copy of the Sentinel. “Excuse me, sir. Which room is Johnnie Wise in?”

He tilted his head to the left. “This one right here. You’re late, boy. I don’t think there are any seats left.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lucas said and attempted to go in.

“Where you from, boy? Niggers can’t sit on the first floor with Whites. Read the sign. Ya can read, can’t ya?”

“Yes, sir,” Lucas said, looking at a sign that read: COLOREDS SIT IN THE BALCONY. There was an arrow pointing the way.

“Y’all oughta know that by now. Go on upstairs and sit in the balcony if you can find a seat.”

Lucas hid his desire to beat the police officer over the head with his own nightstick. He turned around and made his way down the long hallway. He had never been in the courthouse before, and marveled at all the ivory marble. He reached out and touched it, letting his hands glide along the smooth walls and up the stairs, where the rest of the Negroes were supposed to sit. The balcony was full of people and only offered standing room. From what he could tell, it was the same way downstairs, only it was full of Whites.

As his eyes took in the courtroom and its officers, he was amazed by it all. The judge was a gray-haired white man, dressed in a full-length black robe, sitting high up like he was a king on a throne. There was a table on the right and another on the left, where his beautiful Johnnie sat. She was wearing a lavender and black skirt suit. Johnnie’s hair was shining black, and draped her shoulders. A man and two women, one of them Colored, sat with her.

“Mr. Madigan,” the judge began, “your opening statement.”

Madigan stood up. “The prosecution waives opening, Your Honor.”

The judge frowned. “That’s highly irregular, counselor. Are you certain you have no opening statement for the jury?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Very well. Mr. Goldstein, do you have an opening statement, or should we dispense with the trial altogether and move right into the sentencing phase?”

Mock laughter filled the courtroom.

Goldstein stood up. “Yes, Your Honor. I do have an opening statement.” He walked over the jury and said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, are you stunned?” He paused for about ten seconds to allow the question to penetrate. He knew most of the jurors had already made up their minds; Johnnie Wise was guilty, and the trial was just a formality. Even the judge jokingly mentioned sentencing before a single witness had been called.

“I’ve been trying cases for more than twenty years, and never has a prosecutor waived his opening statement in a murder trial. Why now? I’ll tell you why, ladies and gentlemen of the jury . . . because the prosecution doesn’t have a case against my client. He has no evidence whatsoever. He doesn’t have the weapon. He doesn’t have plane tickets, bus tickets, or even train tickets to prove my client went to Fort Lauderdale.

“If she didn’t fly there, if she didn’t take the train there, if she didn’t take a bus there, did she drive Fort Lauderdale? Let’s assume she did. Now, Fort Lauderdale is 840 miles from New Orleans. That’s about a twelve-hour drive. Twenty-four hours round trip. Ask yourselves this, ladies and gentlemen of the jury; have you ever driven for twenty-four hours nonstop without falling asleep at the wheel? That’s what my client would have had to do, because she was in Bayou Cane, Louisiana the night Sharon Trudeau was murdered. My client will tell you this under oath, and so will two other witnesses.

“Did she get a hotel then? If she did, why hasn’t the prosecution said so? I’ll tell you why he hasn’t. Mr. Madigan hasn’t offered you this possibility because he’d then have to produce hotel receipts, or at least my client’s name on a hotel registry. Perhaps Mr. Madigan didn’t consider this possibility and didn’t bother checking.” Goldstein put a blown-up map of the United States on an easel. “Assuming my client did drive to Fort Lauderdale, it makes sense that she would have taken the shortest route, which would have taken her through Gulf Port, Biloxi, Pensacola, Panama City, Gainesville, Orlando, West Palm Beach, and finally Fort Lauderdale. We investigated, and not one hotel has my client’s name on the registry. So what did she do? Sleep on the side of the road? Maybe. But don’t forget, ladies and gentlemen of the jury that we have not one, but two witnesses who will swear that Johnnie Wise was in Bayou Cane, Louisiana the night of the murder.

“I’m also stunned that this trial is even being tried in New Orleans when the murder took place in Florida. It’s not taking place down there because the district attorney’s office knew they had no case against my client. Yet here in Louisiana, a few states away from Florida, 840 miles away, we’re trying a seventeen-year-old girl for a murder she didn’t commit. Does it make sense to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to pursue a case that the DA in the city where the murder took place refuses to even indict my client? No, it doesn’t. Why, then, are we pursuing it? Could it have something to do with the article in the Sentinel?

“I think something far more scandalous is going on, ladies and gentlemen. I expect to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Johnnie Wise is not only innocent of the charges levied against her, but that she has an ironclad alibi. For the third time, I’ve got witnesses who will tell you where she was on the night in question. Not only that, ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you that the real murderers are in this room right now. Who they are, I won’t say at this time, but they are here. I say ‘murderers’ because other people have been killed; people other than Sharon Trudeau and the bellhop who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“As a matter of fact, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I can say for certain that Miss Trudeau and the bellhop were killed by professionals. My client is seventeen years old. She didn’t even know where Fort Lauderdale was until I showed her on a map. Ladies and gentlemen, the prosecution is asking you to believe that a seventeen-year-old Negro girl . . . a mere child . . . somehow knew how to do what other investors didn’t. The prosecution is asking you to believe that a child could do what the police couldn’t. The prosecution is asking you to believe that a child could not only track down a woman smart enough to dupe and elude the police, but upon finding Miss Trudeau, she was capable of killing her.

“Let’s not forget why my client would have tracked her down in the first place. If my client tracked Sharon Trudeau down and killed her, where’s the money?” He paused for a few moments and let the jury consider the question. “Again, where is the money? The cops didn’t find it at her house, in her car, or in her bank account. So where’s the money she allegedly killed for? If it was about money, why did she have to kill Miss Trudeau? Why couldn’t she have just taken what belonged to her? Furthermore, if Sharon Trudeau’s murder was about stolen money, why not take all the money? Why only take a portion of it? Could it be that someone was trying to frame my client?” He paused and watched them think about what he was saying. “Somebody else wanted Sharon Trudeau dead for other reasons, and that somebody is in this room right now.”

And with that, Goldstein returned to his seat.