had been nothing but a smokescreen. He had no intention of moving the case from Ford County.
C HAPTER 6
W hen I bought the
Times,
its prehistoric building came with the deal. It had very little value. It was on the south side of the Clanton square, one of four decaying structures built wall to wall by someone in a hurry; long and narrow, three levels, with a basement that all employees feared and shied away from. There were several offices in the front, all with stained and threadbare carpet, peeling walls, the smell of last century’s pipe smoke forever fused to the ceilings.
In the rear, as far away as possible, was the printing press. Every Tuesday night, Hardy, our pressman, somehow coaxed the old letterpress to life and managed to produce yet another edition of our paper. His space was rank with the sharp odor of printer’s ink.
The room on the first floor was lined with bookshelves sagging under the weight of dusty tomes that had not been opened in decades; collections of historyand Shakespeare and Irish poetry and rows of badly outdated British encyclopedias. Spot thought such books would impress anyone who ventured in.
Standing in the front window, and looking through dingy panes of glass, across which someone had long ago painted the word “TIMES,” one could see the Ford County Courthouse and the bronze Confederate sentry guarding it. A plaque below his feet listed the names of the sixty-one county boys who died in the Great War, most at Shiloh.
The sentry could also be seen from my office, which was on the second floor. It, too, was lined with bookshelves holding Spot’s personal library, an eclectic collection that appeared to have been as neglected as the one downstairs. It would be years before I moved any of his books.
The office was spacious, cluttered, filled with useless artifacts and worthless files and adorned with fake portraits of Confederate generals. I loved the place. When Spot left he took nothing, and after a few months no one seemed to want any of his junk. So it remained where it was, neglected as always, virtually untouched by me, and slowly becoming my property. I boxed up his personal things—letters, bank statements, notes, postcards—and stored them in one of the many unused rooms down the hall where they continued to gather dust and slowly rot.
My office had two sets of French doors that opened to a small porch with a wrought-iron railing, and there was enough room out there for four people to sit inwicker chairs and watch the square. Not that there was much to see, but it was a pleasant way to pass the time, especially with a drink.
Baggy was always ready for a drink. He brought a bottle of bourbon after dinner, and we assumed our positions in the rockers. The town was still buzzing over the bail hearing. It had been widely assumed that Danny Padgitt would be sprung as soon as Lucien Wilbanks and Mackey Don Coley could get matters arranged. Promises would be made, money would change hands, Sheriff Coley would somehow personally guarantee the boy’s appearance at trial. But Judge Loopus had other plans.
Baggy’s wife was a nurse. She worked the night shift in the emergency room at the hospital. He worked days, if his rather languid observations of the town could be considered labor. They rarely saw each other, which was evidently a good thing because they fought constantly. Their adult children had fled, leaving the two of them to wage their own little war. After a couple of drinks, Baggy always began the cutting remarks about his wife. He was fifty-two, looked at least seventy, and I suspected that the booze was the principal reason he was aging badly and fighting at home.
“We kicked their butts,” he said proudly. “Never before has a newspaper story been so clearly exonerated. Right there in open court.”
“What’s a gag order?” I asked. I was an ill-informed rookie, and everybody knew it. No sense in pretending I knew something when I didn’t.
“I’ve
C HAPTER 6
W hen I bought the
Times,
its prehistoric building came with the deal. It had very little value. It was on the south side of the Clanton square, one of four decaying structures built wall to wall by someone in a hurry; long and narrow, three levels, with a basement that all employees feared and shied away from. There were several offices in the front, all with stained and threadbare carpet, peeling walls, the smell of last century’s pipe smoke forever fused to the ceilings.
In the rear, as far away as possible, was the printing press. Every Tuesday night, Hardy, our pressman, somehow coaxed the old letterpress to life and managed to produce yet another edition of our paper. His space was rank with the sharp odor of printer’s ink.
The room on the first floor was lined with bookshelves sagging under the weight of dusty tomes that had not been opened in decades; collections of historyand Shakespeare and Irish poetry and rows of badly outdated British encyclopedias. Spot thought such books would impress anyone who ventured in.
Standing in the front window, and looking through dingy panes of glass, across which someone had long ago painted the word “TIMES,” one could see the Ford County Courthouse and the bronze Confederate sentry guarding it. A plaque below his feet listed the names of the sixty-one county boys who died in the Great War, most at Shiloh.
The sentry could also be seen from my office, which was on the second floor. It, too, was lined with bookshelves holding Spot’s personal library, an eclectic collection that appeared to have been as neglected as the one downstairs. It would be years before I moved any of his books.
The office was spacious, cluttered, filled with useless artifacts and worthless files and adorned with fake portraits of Confederate generals. I loved the place. When Spot left he took nothing, and after a few months no one seemed to want any of his junk. So it remained where it was, neglected as always, virtually untouched by me, and slowly becoming my property. I boxed up his personal things—letters, bank statements, notes, postcards—and stored them in one of the many unused rooms down the hall where they continued to gather dust and slowly rot.
My office had two sets of French doors that opened to a small porch with a wrought-iron railing, and there was enough room out there for four people to sit inwicker chairs and watch the square. Not that there was much to see, but it was a pleasant way to pass the time, especially with a drink.
Baggy was always ready for a drink. He brought a bottle of bourbon after dinner, and we assumed our positions in the rockers. The town was still buzzing over the bail hearing. It had been widely assumed that Danny Padgitt would be sprung as soon as Lucien Wilbanks and Mackey Don Coley could get matters arranged. Promises would be made, money would change hands, Sheriff Coley would somehow personally guarantee the boy’s appearance at trial. But Judge Loopus had other plans.
Baggy’s wife was a nurse. She worked the night shift in the emergency room at the hospital. He worked days, if his rather languid observations of the town could be considered labor. They rarely saw each other, which was evidently a good thing because they fought constantly. Their adult children had fled, leaving the two of them to wage their own little war. After a couple of drinks, Baggy always began the cutting remarks about his wife. He was fifty-two, looked at least seventy, and I suspected that the booze was the principal reason he was aging badly and fighting at home.
“We kicked their butts,” he said proudly. “Never before has a newspaper story been so clearly exonerated. Right there in open court.”
“What’s a gag order?” I asked. I was an ill-informed rookie, and everybody knew it. No sense in pretending I knew something when I didn’t.
“I’ve
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