I expected his face to tighten with anger, as it always did when Vernon heard something he didn't like. But he surprised me. He closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers hard in the middle of his brow.
'I screwed up again, didn't I? I should have listened to you and left things alone. I just ain't good at hearing what people tell me sometime,' he said.
'You were doing what you thought was right. It's not your fault, Vernon.'
He looked back at me uncertainly, as though I had spoken to him in a foreign tongue.
Upstairs, I stood at the window and looked at the courthouse square, the dust on the trees and the heat waves bouncing off the sidewalks. Lucas was eating at the side of my desk in his shirtsleeves, his cuffs rolled back over his forearms.
'Ms Hazlitt's testimony presents a little problem for us,' I said to him.
'You mean when she said Roseanne thought it was me made her pregnant?'
'Yeah, that's part of it.'
'But the autopsy showed she wasn't pregnant,' he said.
'The jury just heard a story about a homicide victim who was sexually involved with only one individual—you. Five members of that jury are over sixty years old. Older people tend to listen to other older people. Are you with me?'
He set down the taco he was eating. The glare through the slats in the blinds made his eyes water. 'I ain't sure. I mean, if she wasn't pregnant—'
'It is also easier for the jury to identify with the victim when they believe the victim to be an innocent person, totally undeserving of such a brutal end,' I said. 'Then the jury gets mad and wants to bash the betrayer, the sexual exploiter, the predator in our midst. Marvin Pomroy is going to talk about Roseanne's innocence and your guilt, her vulnerability… her trusting attitude… and your depravity.'
Lucas nodded his head as though he understood. But his eyes were as clear as glass, and he had no comprehension of what a good prosecutor like Marvin Pomroy could do to him.
'We need to show the jury the videotape of Roseanne smoking a joint and taking off her clothes. They'll also see the kind of kids she hung around with,' I said.
He pushed his plate away with the heel of his hand, his eyes blinking.
'The tape simply shows the world she lived in, Lucas,' Temple said. 'Dope and booze and getting it on with lots of guys. We're not knocking her. That's just the way it was.'
'She might have done all them things you say, but that don't mean she wasn't a good girl,' he said.
'That's true. But somebody else killed her, Lucas. Maybe his face is on that tape,' I said.
His right hand was clenched on the back of his left wrist. His throat was splotched with color.
'I ain't going along with this,' he said.
'Excuse me?' I said.
'I was sleeping with Roseanne and told you I didn't hardly know her. That makes me a liar and a coward. I ain't gonna get myself off by seeing her tore down in front of all them people.'
'You really want to go to prison? Is that what y
ou're telling me?' I said.
'Maybe I deserve to be there.'
'What?' I said.
'You say Darl doped me. Maybe I was just drunk. I'll never know the truth about what I done that night.'
He was bent over in the chair, his head hung forward. The glare through the blinds made strips of light on his back.
'Lucas, we need to clear something up here. There's only one person in this room running your defense,' Temple said.
But I motioned at her with two fingers. She looked at me with a puzzled expression, then chewed on the corner of her lip and stared silently out the window.