Fallen Hearts Page 30

  "Please get to the point, Mr. Lakewood." said the judge

  "Yes, Your Honor. Mr. Meeks, how would you characterize Fanny Casteel in relation to the kind of student you just described?"

  "Oh, typical. A constant discipline problem. Poor grades."

  "You say 'typical,' but were her discipline problems that typical?" Camden asked quickly.

  "Well, actually, no. She was what we call a promiscuous young lady."

  "Go on, please."

  "She was. . . often reprimanded for conduct unbecoming to a young lady, especially one only twelve, thirteen, or fourteen."

  "Mr. Meeks, would you give the court an example of this conduct"

  "Your Honor," Wendell Burton said, rising to his feet. "Ah object to this line of questionin'. What Mrs. Wilcox was like as a young girl should have no bearin' on this hearin" Jist about everyone in this courtroom did some hell-raisin' in one way or t'other when he or she was younger. But we all grow up; we change and mature, and we're here today ta talk about the mature Mrs. Wilcox and the mature Mrs. Stonewall."

  "Mr. Lakewood?"

  "Your Honor, it is our contention that Fanny Wilcox did not grow up, did not mature, as Mr. Burton describes, that in fact she has a continuous history of promiscuity."

  "I will let the witness go on," the judge said, "but I advise you, Mr. Lakewood, I am concerned that we develop a factual history here, not simply innuendo."

  "I understand, Your Honor. Mr. Meeks, an example?"

  "Well . . ." He opened his folder. "On one particular day in March of her second year in junior high school, Fanny Casteel was discovered in the boys' locker room with two young men. She was only half dressed. She was reprimanded and sent home early. On another occasion toward the end of that same month, she was found with an older male student in the crawl space under the stage. The teacher who found them wrote in her report that they were embraced in a licentious manner. Again, she was sent home."

  "How old was she at the time?"

  "Thirteen."

  "I see. Do you have other examples?"

  "At least half a dozen."

  "Your Honor, I don't wish to be redundant and waste the court's time with the recitation of more examples, but I would move for Fanny Casteel's school record to be entered as evidence for you to consider when making your determination."

  "So moved."

  "I have no further questions for Mr. Meeks." "Mr. Burton?" the judge said.

  Wendell Burton smiled He had a syrupy face with large blue eyes and lips that moved like two strips of red licorice. There was a prominent mole just over his right eyebrow. His hair was slicked back, the top flat and parted just two inches off center. He stood about five feet ten and was a little stoop-shouldered. I noticed that he had a habit of rubbing his hands together before he spoke.

  "Mr. Meeks," he said, without leaving his table, "ah assume ya brought Heaven Casteel's records as well today?"

  "No."

  "Oh, and why was that?"

  "I was only asked to bring along Fanny Casteel's records."

  "Ah see. But knowin' what this hearing was all about, ah assume ya took a look at Heaven Casteel's records."

  Mr. Meeks squirmed in his seat, looked my way, and then back at Wendell Burton.

  "I did take a quick look just in case I would be asked any questions pertaining to those records."

  "Oh. Good, good," Burton said, starting toward him. "Now, would ya tell the court what ya

  discovered when ya looked at Heaven Casteel's attendance records."

  "I don't understand," Meeks said, looking toward the judge.

  "Especially durin' her last year at Winnerow. What was her attendance like, for example?"

  "Well?"

  "Was she not in fact absent a great deal?"

  "Absent?"

  "Mr. Meeks," the judge said. "Please answer the question."

  "Yes, I suppose you could say that."

  "Oh, ya could say that?" Wendell smiled widely at the audience and then looked at Mr. Meeks. "Is that the behavior of a good student?"

  "No, but--"

  "Isn't poor attendance a serious discipline problem?"

  "Of course."

  "Despite her immature behavior in school, Fanny Casteel at least attended school more often that year, if we check those records, did she not, Mr. Meeks?"

  "On the surface, I suppose you could say that."

  "Mr. Meeks," Wendell said, suddenly looking sympathetic. "I understand how ya feel. Ta judge whether one adult woman is goin' ta be a better mother than another adult woman on the basis of junior high school is about as valid as lookin' into a fortuneteller's crystal ball, isn't it?"

  "Objection, Your Honor," Camden said. "He's asking the witness to pass judgment on the value of his own testimony:"

  "But Y'Honor, Mr. Lakewood's been askin' the court ta place validity on Mr. Meeks' judgment all along here."

  "I don't see it that way, Mr. Burton," the judge said. "Mr. Lakewood has brought out factual data. Rest assured, I will be the one to pass judgment on the validity of the information. Objection sustained. Do you have any further questions for this witness, Mr. Burton?"

  "None, Your Honor. Oh, yes. one more," he said, turning suddenly. "Mr. Meeks, recently Mrs. Stonewall brought Drake Casteel ta your school ta enter him as a student, did she not?"

  "Yes." Mr. Meeks sat back, pressing his hands together as if in prayer.

  "And ya entered the boy even though he is not quite of age, did ya not?"

  "Yes, but--"

  "In other words, ya made an exception ta please Mr. and Mrs. Stonewall?"

  "No, not just to please them. We can make exceptions when a potential student shows

  exceptional promise."

  "Ah see. Then Mr. and Mrs. Stonewall's position and influence in this community had nothing ta do with yer decision?"

  "Objection, Your Honor!"

  "Or yer testimony here today?" Wendell Burton added quickly.

  "Your Honor?" Camden pursued. I was glad to see he could be just as aggressive as Wendell Burton.

  "Y'Honor, ah'm tryin' ta show that this witness is a prejudiced witness," Burton said.

  "Mr. Burton, I've already told you, I am concerning myself only with the factual data Mr. Meeks has brought to this courtroom, not with his subjective evaluation. Therefore, it is unnecessary to try to prove his prejudice in the matter. Now, do you have any further questions?"

  "No, Y'Honor."

  "I have one more question, Your Honor," Camden said.

  "Proceed."

  "Mr. Meeks, recently Mrs. Stonewall returned to the Winnerow Schools and worked as a teacher there.

  Based upon your objective evaluation as her principal, how did you rate her work?"

  "She did very well. The students took to her, she knew her subject matter, and the staff accepted her." "Then she related well to children?"

  "Oh, yes. They missed her when she left and I was disappointed when she decided not to return," Mr. Meeks said. It brought tears to my eyes to hear him say that, and it reminded me of how sad I had felt when I turned away from teaching to live at Farthy. Logan sensed my feelings and reached under the table to take my hand.

  "Thank you. No further questions, Your Honor." "You may step down, Mr. Meeks."

  "Your Honor," Camden said, "we would like to call the Reverend Wayland Wise to the stand."

  This time there was a soft sound from the audience as if they had all sucked in their breath together. Reverend Wise, who was standing way in the rear of the courtroom, began his slow but deliberate progress toward the witness chair. Never did he look more fierce and distinguished. People in the aisle seats leaned away as though he were parting the air before him as he walked, just like Moses parted the Red Sea. Even the judge looked impressed. The reverend's voice was loud and firm as he was sworn in. He didn't just rest his hand on the Bible. He clutched it. His face was serious, his eyes as intent as they were in church when he seemed to be looking directly into
the face of the Devil and defying him with his biblical words.

  Anticipating his testimony, my heart began to beat madly, but when I gazed over at Fanny's table, she looked relaxed and comfortable. She whispered into her attorney's ear and he smiled and nodded and patted her on the hand. Randall stared ahead, little or no expression on his face until he turned my way. He looked like a man caught in a trap, no longer as sure about what he was doing or even why he was sitting there. He looked as if he wanted to apologize to me. But Fanny nudged him and he turned away quickly.

  "Reverend Wise, would you tell the court under what circumstances you took Fanny Casteel into your home and treated her as you would your own daughter?"

  "The Lord enables us to help one another in many ways if it is in our hearts to do so," Reverend Wise began. "I learned about the poor plight of the Casteel family, children without a mother, and for a good deal of the time, without a father, living in a shack in the Willies, hungry, cold, uncared for. My wife and I discussed the situation and decided we should take at least one of these poor children into our own home and provide for her as the Lord has provided for us," he said. Some of his parishioners nodded and smiled self-righteously.

  "And so you brought Fanny Casteel to your home to be your daughter. You even gave her your name and replaced her Christian name, is that not so?"

  "We did, happily."

  "Please describe what Fanny was like when you first brought her to your home."

  "She was grateful, happy to be there. Naturally, I began to instruct her in the ways of righteousness. I knew the circumstances under which she had lived and how that would affect her moral upbringing."

  "Did you make satisfactory progress with Fanny?" Camden asked. Reverend Wise's beady black eyes fastened on Fanny and then darted across at the audience.

  "She was a difficult child, often promiscuous as described. I felt the Devil had indeed taken hold of her."

  "I see. So the conduct Mr. Meeks described continued even though she was in a warm home, loved and cared for? Is that not correct?"

  "The Devil is indeed a clever foe."

  "Please, Reverend, just answer the question yes or no."

  "Yes."

  "And at this point Fanny was maturing into womanhood," Camden said. He took a dramatic pause. You could hear a pin drop, so eagerly were ears bent to listen to the scandalous truth. For a moment Camden scrutinized his audience, then suddenly reeled around to face the reverend. "Reverend Wise, did Fanny Casteel become pregnant while she was residing at your residence?"

  For a long moment the reverend did not speak. He bent his head as if in silent prayer. Then, very slowly, he raised his eyes, drilling them into Camden Lakewood.

  "She did."

  "And what did you offer to do?"

  "My wife and I, who were childless at the time, decided we would take the baby as we had taken Fanny and raise her as our own. We decided the Lord had given us another opportunity and we have indeed felt blessed because of it." There was some murmuring in the audience, but when the judge slammed down his gavel, it ended abruptly. Nobody wanted to be thrown out and have to miss the drama. "We did pretend the child was my wife's child, but it was a deception of good intentions, designed to make life easier for the innocent baby. We wanted her to be accepted in the community. It was how the Lord intended it."

  "I'm not here to question your motives, Reverend, but did you not offer Fanny Casteel ten thousand dollars if she would sign away all rights to her own child?"

  "I did, but it was not my intention to buy her child. My wife and I felt she needed the money to provide for herself once she left our residence and went out in the world to make her way."

  "But the papers stated that the child, and the sworn secret of the child's parentage, be forever kept silent for the sum of ten thousand dollars, isn't that correct?"

  "Yes."

  "And did Fanny Casteel willingly sell her own child to you?"

  The reverend only nodded.

  "The record will show the witness's answer as affirmative," Camden instructed. "No further questions, Your Honor."

  Camden told me his strategy would be to avoid embarrassing the reverend in hopes that his damaging testimony would imply that Fanny slept around, became pregnant, and sold her child. He hoped Fanny and her lawyer wouldn't want the real circumstances bandied about while her morality was in question. But they were willing to take the risks.

  "Reverend Wise," Wendell Burton began, this time shooting up out of his seat like a cannonball, "was yer only motivation fer givin' Fanny Casteel ten thousand dollars fer her child yer interest in her welfare?"

  "I'm not quite sure, I--"

  "Were ya not and are ya not indeed the father of Fanny Casteel's first child?"

  The stillness in the room felt so complete it was as if all the air had been drawn out to create a vacuum. No one even dared cough.

  "I was and I am," he confessed, his voice not faltering. There was a common gasp from the audience, but this time the judge didn't need to rap his gavel. No one uttered another sound. They all just strained forward to catch every word.

  "Ya impregnated a teenage girl in yer own home, an unsophisticated, trustin' child, who had been given over ta yer for moral safekeepin'?" Burton continued, leaning toward the reverend.

  "Mr. Burton, I never claimed to be anything more than an ordinary man whom the Lord hath chosen to carry His word to other ordinary men. I did my best to reform Fanny Casteel, but it wasn't to be in my providence to do so."

  "So ya seduced a fourteen-year-old girl?" Burton snapped.

  "Believe me, no man would have ever needed to go to the trouble of seducing that promiscuous young girl. That wicked, sinful girl," he said, pointing at Fanny, his arm extended like the arm of a prophet about to pronounce God's very words, "did steal into my bed and with her lewd, naked body pressed against me, did seduce -me, for as I have told you, I am only a man, made of flesh and blood." He lowered his arm and then his head, shaking it slowly. "Pitifully, shamefully human."

  "But the fact remains, ya were the adult and ya did not turn her out?" Burton pursued.

  "No, I did not," the reverend said, looking up sharply again. "But I have never once doubted that the Devil was in her and through her, had found a way to pierce the al mor of my Faith, for my Faith was wounding the Devil fatally in Winnerow, as my people will testify. I was glad to get her out of my house," he said. "And I understand why the Lord instructed me to buy her baby. He did not want this child brought up in the home of such a woman, a woman firmly held in the Devil's grip."

  "So ya tempted a young girl with ten thousand dollars ta sell her child. What could she do anyway? She was only fourteen," Burton said.

  "Objection, Your Honor. Counsel is asking and answering his own question."

  "Objection sustained. Mr. Burton. Are you asking Reverend Wise the question?"

  "No," Burton said quickly. "No further questions."

  "Reverend Wise, let me ask you the question," Camden said before another beat went by. "Did Fanny Casteel have any other choice but to sell her child to you?"

  "Of course. She could have kept it. There's welfare; there's charity." He looked out at the audience. "She could have insisted I support her and the child."

  "The fact is she didn't want her child, is that not so?"

  "No. She only wanted the pleasure, the sinful pleasure, and not the responsibilities."

  "No further questions, Your Honor," Camden said.

  The reverend stepped down. As he moved back up the aisle, he kept his head high, his gaze just as intense as it had been when he approached the witness chair, but I thought I saw relief in his face, the outline of a slight smile. He had done what he must have wanted to do all these years, confessed his sin and confessed it in such a way that his congregation would have no hesitation in forgiving him. I was sure that his next sermon would be built on the statement "I have seen the Devil and I know his evil power, but I have seen the Lord's forgiveness and I know
He is mightier."

  When I turned toward Fanny, I saw that she wasn't smiling the way she had when the reverend first took the stand. Her lawyer was leaning over and whispering in her ear again, but what he was telling her wasn't making her happy. Randall had his head lowered and was doodling with a pencil. Despite myself, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the two of them. Little did they know, but we had only just begun Fanny should have never doubted the power of money and influence, I thought.

  "Your Honor," Camden said, "we would like to now call Mrs. Peggy Sue Martin to the stand."

  Fanny looked up sharply and her lawyer looked confused. I saw the expression on Fanny's face turn to one of deeper worry. Both Randall and Wendell Burton were asking her who Peggy Sue Martin was, just as most people in the audience were asking one another. The judge rapped his gavel and the audience quieted down as Peggy Sue Martin, a woman in her late fifties, early sixties took the stand.

  She wore a cheap, imitation fox wrap and her face was heavily made up, almost as heavily made up as Jillian had been-in her madness . . . rouge patted over her cheeks, her lipstick too thick and wide, her eyelashes almost weighted down with light blue liner. Her hair, dyed a bright yellow, looked as though it had turned to straw. Although she brushed it forward and curled it, you could see where she was losing it. Her thin, lavender dress clung to her heavy hips and the skirt reached just short of midway between her knees and ankles. We had paid her two thousand dollars plus her expenses to bring her here from Nashville.

  She was sworn in quickly and sat back, crossing her legs and smiling at Camden as he approached her.

  "Mrs. Martin," he began, "please tell the court where you live and what you do."

  "I live in Nashville where I own and operate a half dozen houses as a landlord."

  "Mrs. Martin, do you know Fanny Casteel?"

  "Yes, I do Fanny came to one of my houses a few years back. She had come to Nashville to try to be a singer, just like hundreds of other girls." She smiled at the judge, but he remained expressionless.