The Sporting House Killing G. Powell (best free novels .TXT) 📖

of hope. Catfish groped for his trial box and the spent minié ball, then made a show of studying his notes for almost a minute. He had to expel Schoolcraft and that other trial from his mind. Henry deserved his full attention.

“Catfish, you done?” the judge finally asked.

“No, Your Honor, I’m not.” He shuffled through his papers. “Cicero, is your family here in court?”

Cicero shot a glance at Harley. “Like I just told you, my mother and father are over there.” He pointed again.

“Right.” Catfish squeezed the bullet tightly. “Got brothers and sisters?”

“Yes, sir. I’m the oldest. I have two brothers and one sister back home.”

“Lived in Washington County all your life?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why’re you in Waco now?”

“I attend Baylor University. I started last fall, and I’m in my second semester now—or I was until this happened.”

Catfish glanced at Dr. Burleson, still on the front row.

“I’ve been in jail since April,” Cicero finished.

“Let’s talk about what led to that.” He stood up and continued the questioning from the corner of the defense table. “Where’d you and Jasper go on the evening of April fifteenth?”

“To a revival at the Tabernacle. Mr. Greer took all us boys to see it.”

“Now, Cicero,” Catfish said in a fatherly tone, “did you go to Miss Jessie’s sporting house after that sermon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was it your idea or Jasper’s idea to go there?”

“It was mine. Jasper just went along because I wanted him to. He didn’t have anything to do with all this, Mr. Calloway. He was just there. I feel bad I got him in trouble.”

Catfish hoped President Burleson was listening.

“You said you don’t remember what happened that night. Is there anything you do remember?”

“I remember the revival, and going back to the dorm, and taking a hack to the Reservation. I remember going in and meeting the madam and the girls.”

“You remember Miss Georgia?”

Cicero nodded. “I danced with her, and then we must have gone upstairs, but I don’t remember anything after that.”

“How many beers you have?”

“I’m not sure, sir. Way more than one.”

“Tell the gentlemen of the jury whether you felt the effects of that beer?”

Cicero smiled. “I sure did. As a matter of fact, I felt it well into the next day. I had a powerful bad headache.”

Catfish paced behind the prosecution table toward the jury box. They were very attentive.

Keep it up, son.

“You remember receiving a blow to your head?”

“I sure don’t. I do remember having a big goose egg on my head the next day, though, and it hurt awful bad.”

“Show the jury where it was.”

Cicero pointed to the right side of his forehead.

“Did you have that knot when you danced with Miss Georgia?”

“No, sir. I don’t know how I got it.”

“What’s the next thing you remember after dancing with the sporting girl?”

“Being in the county jail.”

Catfish blinked approval at Cicero. “Pass the witness.”

As he strode back to his seat, he fought the urge to glance at Schoolcraft, but then looked anyway. The man’s right hand moved deliberately from the head of his cane to his throat. He wrapped his fingers around his neck and tightened them so slightly that probably only Catfish noticed.

He answered with a cold, hard stare. Go to hell.

He slid into his chair, avoiding Harley’s attempts to catch his eye. He was done being second-guessed by his own son. Henry was depending on him. His strategy was working.

Blair swaggered forward. “Mr. Sweet, my name’s Tom Blair, and I’m the county attorney for McLennan County. I have a few questions for you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Blair picked up the derringer from the court reporter’s desk and held it in front of Cicero. He turned it so that the bloody mark was visible to the jury.

“Have you ever seen this gun?”

“Only here in court.”

“You see this dried blood on it?” he asked, turning the bloody mark toward Cicero.

“Yes, sir.”

“And the finger mark in it?”

“I’m not sure what that is, sir.”

“Have you ever held this gun?”

“Never.”

“Did you ever touch it here on this spot where the dried blood is?”

“No, sir.”

“So your sworn testimony is that’s not your finger mark on the bloody derringer?”

“No, sir. It can’t be.”

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Sweet, hold this derringer in your right hand,” he said, handing over the pistol. “Now, extend your right trigger finger for me and hold it so the jury can see. Is that bloody mark right under the tip of your trigger finger?”

Cicero checked. “It looks like it.”

“All right,” Blair said, taking it back and laying it near the court reporter. He returned to his table. “You and your friend Jasper Cantrell went to the Tabernacle earlier that evening, you said?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You heard Reverend Sam Jones deliver a sermon?”

“We sure did.”

“In that sermon he preached on licentiousness and drinking?”

“And all the other sins too.”

“Yes, he did. And condemned them too, didn’t he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me read you what the newspaper said about that sermon and see if you remember it the same way. It says this: ‘If you can block off a place, call it a Reservation, and license licentiousness, why don’t you reserve a few blocks where a man can commit murder and go unpunished?’ Do you recall him saying that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You remember the preacher’s words pretty well, then?”

“I do.”

“Did you consider the Reservation a lawless place where murder might go unpunished, Mr. Sweet?”

“No, sir. I never thought about it, really.”

“Isn’t it true you got the idea of going to the Reservation from listening to that sermon?”

Cicero shifted in his chair. “Probably.”

Blair advanced toward him. “You went there intending to drink beer?”

“We were thirsty. It was a warm evening.”

And closer. “And to lay with a bawdy girl?”

“Yes, sir.”

Closer still. “Before you went upstairs you drank beer?”

“Like I said earlier, yes, sir.”

Now he was face to face with the boy. “You had at least six Busch beers, didn’t you?”

“No, sir. It was Lone Star.”

Catfish tensed. Steady, boy.

Blair fired back: “You remember it was Lone Star?”

“Yes.”

“You remember that well?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You weren’t drunk before you went upstairs?”

“No, sir.”

“You got upstairs without falling?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Took your clothes off?”

“I reckon.”

“Well,