NOW TO PICK A JURY.
That summer had been one of the hottest on record. It seemed to me that God had saved up all the excess heat and humidity in the world and brought it down upon Eudora today. It was already so hot in the courtroom that the hand fans were flapping like a flock of restless birds.
Judge Corbett had evidently taken measures to spruce up the courtroom for the national press, who were allowed inside between sessions to gather scraps of news. He had ordered all the spectator benches and tables and chairs sanded and revarnished, and indeed they all gleamed as if brand-new. But the new varnish turned soft and sticky in the heat and gave off fumes that set heads spinning. I breathed the sweetish, medicinal smell; the seat of my trousers stuck to my chair.
This was going to be a very long day.
I saw at once that Judge Corbett still ran an efficient courtroom. It took only ten minutes for the first three candidates to be interviewed, approved, and seated in the jury box: three middle-aged white men.
Jonah made little fuss over any of them. I assumed he was saving his objections for an occasion when they might prove persuasive.
It didn’t take long.
The clerk read a name from the list: “Patton William Taylor.”