Alex Cross's Trial

drunkenness and urination. I’m going to have to settle a fence-line dispute between a planter and one of his colored sharecroppers. And I’m going to listen to that old German butcher, Henry Kleinhenz, tell me one more time why Sam Sanders should not be allowed to sell chicken parts at the general store.”

    He banged his gavel once.

    “Until tomorrow, nine o’clock. Sharp .”

    Chapter 109

    “ALL RISE! THIS COURT stands adjourned!”

    My father swept out of the room. Everyone in the courtroom started talking at once, the newspaper reporters pushing through the crowd, hastening to beat each other to the telegraph stations at the depot.

    Through the window I saw that the sunny morning was giving way to dark-bottomed clouds. Everyone had been hoping for rain, if only to cool things off for an hour or two before the sun heated it all up again.

    Maxwell Hayes Lewis stepped over to the prosecution table.

    “Mr. Curtis, gentlemen—I just want to say, I am mighty sorry for forgetting to show that search warrant to you fellows before we got started this morning.”

    I looked him right in the eye. “Ah, Mr. Lewis, that is perfectly understandable. I’m sure you were too busy manufacturing that warrant this morning to bother showing it to us.”

    Lewis chuckled. “Ben, I am sorry to see you have become such a cynic.”

    “Let me tell you something, Mr. Lewis.” I straightened all the way up so as to look down on him from the maximum height. “You got Phineas to fake a warrant for you, and you found some justice of the peace who was happy to sign it and postdate it, and you got my father to admit it into evidence with a wink and a nod. But Jonah has a whole bunch of witnesses who saw what your clients did that night. They saw the death and destruction. And they will testify.”

    The affable smile disappeared from Lewis’s face. He was gathering his wits for a comeback when Conrad Cosgrove burst into the near-empty courtroom, shouting.

    “Mr. Stringer! Mr. Corbett! Come on out here, you got to see this!”

    I followed the others down the center aisle to the doorway. Outside, the trees in the square were swaying in the breeze from the oncoming storm. A soft patter of rain had just started to fall.

    Right in front of the door, in the center of the lawn fronting the courthouse, was a sight I had never witnessed before.

    A huge cross was planted there.

    And it was burning.

    Chapter 110

    THAT EVENING A nervous and troubled prosecution team met for supper in the dining room of the Stringer home. Allegra, who usually took her meals with the children, decided to join us.

    “Louie, isn’t it just amazing how our Ella can turn one little handful of crabmeat into a she-crab soup worthy of Galatoire’s in New Orleans?” Allegra said.

    I was thinking, I never knew his name was Louie. Even way back in grammar school, he was always L.J.

    L.J. had no time to answer. At that moment a rock exploded the glass of the window above the dining table and skipped across the room. A second rock smashed through the window beside it, then a third. Glass flew everywhere.

    “The girls!” Allegra screamed and hurried up the stairs.

    I ran after L.J. into the center hall. He opened his gun cabinet and took out three rifles: one for me, one for him, one for Jonah.

    L.J. moved quietly along the walls of the front rooms, reaching up to cut off the gaslights so that we could see out and the people outside couldn’t see in.

    I saw at least fifty men milling about out there. They looked like the mob from the previous night, only larger. And they were chanting:

    Free the Raiders!

    Let ’em go!

    Free the Raiders!

    Let ’em go!

    They carried rifles, pistols, and pitchforks, and torches to light their way. I saw some of them holding big branches they must have pulled down from the trees on their way. One man had a bullwhip he kept cracking with a pop like a pistol shot.

    Free the Raiders!

    Let ’em go!

    L.J. stuck his head around the window frame. “Let the jury decide who goes free,” he shouted.

    A rock came hurtling across the veranda to shatter the porcelain urn on a pedestal behind me. Another rock crashed through a stained-glass panel beside the front door.

    “L.J., get your head in!” Jonah cried. “Don’t be a fool. Or a martyr.”

    L.J. stood in full view of the mob, waving his arms, trying to quiet them down, but soon realized that Jonah was right. He stepped back from the window.

    “You’ve got to get Allegra and the girls out of