Caleb was punctual as usual. He pulled into the parking lot of the Acock precisely at 2:00 p.m. and spotted Moon Dog's car immediately. He was steering into the adjacent parking space when he noticed Moon Dog waving him toward a space at the opposite end of the lot. He was rolling to a stop when Moon Dog reached the side of his car and opened the driver's side door.
"Hold on Moon Dog," Caleb yelped as the car rolled forward with his door open. He stomped the brake, and the tires screeched slightly on the slick asphalt as the car lurched to a halt.
"Come on, Judge, we've got to leave, NOW. We'd be gone already if we weren't waiting for you and had no way to contact you." Moon Dog's voice was edgy, and his face was grim.
"What's the matter, man? What the hell's happened?" Caleb sputtered as he leapt out of the car.
"Somebody was killed last night, Judge," Moon Dog responded gruffly with his customary directness.
"Wha? Who?" He gasped in alarm. "Not the girl was it, Dog?"
"No, the girl's alright; she's just upset and scared out of her wits. It was the janitor over at Hardwick School."
"What's the connection, Dog? I don't get it.
"Walk with me, Judge, her room's over there in the middle, Number Six; I'll brief you on the way."
Moon Dog recounted the events of the previous night in a crisp, clipped voice, conforming to the ingrained, business-like manner of a military scout giving a report of the night patrol, and, by the time the two men had crossed the parking lot, he had furnished Caleb with all of the essential particulars.
"So," Moon Dog concluded, pausing a couple of doors down the walk from Number Six, "I was a little concerned and called the school this morning, first thing, intending to ask to speak to Jackson, just to make sure Caruthers hadn't gotten to him. The school secretary answered, and she was crying and sobbing to the point she could barely talk, and, when I asked to speak to Jackson, she broke down completely and said `accident, accident, there's been a terrible accident.' Finally, a teacher came on the line and told me that the janitor had been found floating face down in the pool early this morning. They think he slipped on the wet floor and fell into the pool. He apparently hit his head on the way down, because he had a nasty gash and there was a good bit of blood on the floor beside the pool."
"You've told her, then?"
"Yeah, Judge, I didn't think it was my place to keep something like that from her."
"No, I guess not."
"She's taking it pretty hard, I'm afraid," Moon Dog volunteered.
"How come, Dog; I mean, I don't get the connection?" He was a little confused and tried searching his recollection of Moon Dog's report for a mention of the janitor.
"She and Jackson were pretty close. He realized that she was alone, lonely and vulnerable, and he sort of took her under his wing. He and Mrs. Jackson didn't have any children, so they sort of adopted her, believe it or not; unofficially, of course. She goes, or went, to their house for dinner after church most Sundays."
"Church?" Caleb croaked skeptically. "I didn't get the impression from your report that she was the church going sort."
"Don't worry, Judge, not her," Moon Dog answered with a knowing smile. Not much missed his notice, and he was quick to pick up on Caleb's misgivings. "The Jackson's went to church; your girl came for dinner after. I don't think your 'honey in the hotel' over there," he said, nodding toward Number Six, "was doing a lot of praying when she got down on her knees, unless, that is, you think, ah, er… Well, you know what I mean."
It was Caleb's turn to grin; Moon Dog's face was turning red with the effort of backing out of the corner he had painted himself into, and it occurred to him that Kenneth Starr must have reacted similarly when he handed his lurid report on the Lewinsky affair over to the House impeachment panel. Public recitation of sordid, sexual details was as out of character for Moon Dog's matter of fact military bearing as it had been for the straight backed, rock-ribbed religiosity of the Special Counsel, and the thought occurred to him that perhaps both Starr and Dog had poured on those very details in the hope they would serve to alienate their readers from the subjects of their respective reports. Could it be, he wondered briefly, that Dog had tried to turn him off to the girl by revealing all her secrets? If so, he laughed to himself, the effect was the opposite of what was intended, because the more he read, the more intrigued he had become.
"Sunday dinner, huh?" Caleb continued noncommittally, and Moon Dog breathed an audible sigh of relief at having been let off the hook so easily. He had watched Caleb as a young lawyer and knew he could be relentless in cross-examination, when he sensed discomfort in a witness.
"Yeah, Judge; Mrs. Jackson would sit on a stool and fry chicken in a big black, iron skillet, while Anne and Mr. Jackson, peeled potatoes or snapped beans from the garden, and, when the chicken was ready, Mr. Jackson would carry the Mrs. to the table and they would eat."
"Carry her?"
"Right. She couldn't walk; paralyzed from the waist down; hit and run driver crippled her about four or five years ago."
"Good grief, that's tough, man. Did they ever catch the driver?"
"Nope. I doubt they looked very hard, either; there's not a lot of concern around here for old black ladies, who take up too much space walking down the highway in the evenings. I believe the thinking goes something like 'they ain't got no business bein' out there in the dark in the first place, so what ever happens to `em is their own fault.'"
"I know all about that thinking; things aren't a lot better back home, either, but we're working on it.
"You know what your girl did, Judge?"
