Grisham,John - The Last Juror

JOHN

GRISHAM

THE

LAST JUROR

DOUBLE DAY

New York London Toronto Sydney Auckland

In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Timed, went bankrupt.

To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a twenty-three-year-old college dropout

named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and

murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details,

and his newspaper began to prosper.

The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial

came to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they

convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

But in Mississippi in 1970, "life" didn't necessarily mean "life," and nine years later Danny Padgitt

managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.

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JOHN

PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY

a division of Random House, Inc.

DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random

House, Inc.

Book design by Maria Carella

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,

organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the

product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales

is entirely coincidental.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

ISBN 0-385-51043-8

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

[March 2004]

First Edition

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13579 10 8642

PART ONE

Chapter 1

After decades of patient mismanagement and loving neglect, The Ford County Times went bankrupt in

1970. The owner and publisher, Miss Emma Caudle, was ninety-three years old and strapped to a bed in

a nursing home in Tupelo. The editor, her son Wilson Caudle, was in his seventies and had a plate in his

head from the First War. A perfect circle of dark grafted skin covered the plate at the top of his long,

sloping forehead, and throughout his adult life he had endured the nickname of Spot. Spot did this. Spot

did that. Here, Spot. There, Spot.

In his younger years, he covered town meetings, football games, elections, trials, church socials, all sorts

of activities in Ford County. He was a good reporter, thorough and intuitive. Evidently, the head wound

did not affect his ability to write. But sometime after the Second War the plate apparently shifted, and

Mr. Caudle stopped writing everything but the obituaries. He loved obituaries. He spent hours on them.

He filled paragraphs of eloquent prose detailing the lives of even the humblest of Ford Countians. And

the death of a wealthy or prominent citizen was front page news, with Mr. Caudle seizing the moment.

He never missed a wake or a funeral, never wrote anything bad about anyone. All received glory in the

end. Ford County was a wonderful place to die. And Spot was a very popular man, even though he was

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crazy.

The only real crisis of his journalistic career happened in 1967, about the time the civil rights movement

finally made it to Ford County. The paper had never shown the slightest hint of racial tolerance. No

black faces appeared in its pages, except those belonging to known or suspected criminals. No black

wedding announcements. No black honor students or baseball teams. But in 1967, Mr. Caudle made a

startling discovery. He awoke one morning to the realization that black people were dying in Ford

County, and their deaths were not being properly reported. There was a whole, new, fertile world of

obituaries waiting out there, and Mr. Caudle set sail in dangerous and uncharted waters. On Wednesday,

March 8, 1967, the Times became the first white-owned weekly in Mississippi to run the obituary of a

Negro. For the most part, it went unnoticed.

The following week, he ran three black obituaries, and people were beginning to talk. By the fourth

week, a regular boycott was under way, with subscriptions being canceled and advertisers holding their

money. Mr. Caudle knew what was happening, but he was too impressed with his new status as an

integrationist to worry about such trivial matters as sales and profits. Six weeks after the historic

obituary, he announced, on the front page and in bold print, his new policy. He explained to the public

that he would publish whatever he damned well pleased, and if the white folks didn't like it, then he

would simply cut back on their obituaries.

Now, dying properly is an important part of living in Mississippi, for whites and blacks, and the thought

of being laid to rest without the benefit of one of Spot's glorious send-offs was more than most whites

could stand. And they knew he was crazy enough to carry out his threat.

The next edition was filled with all sorts of obituaries, blacks and whites, all neatly alphabetized and

desegregated. It sold out, and a brief period of prosperity followed.

The bankruptcy was called involuntary, as if others had eager volunteers. The pack was led by a print

supplier from Memphis that was owed $60,000. Several creditors had not been paid in six months. The

old Security Bank was calling in a loan.

I was new, but I'd heard the rumors. I was sitting on a desk in the front room of the Times's offices

reading a magazine, when a midget in a pair of pointed toes strutted in the front door and asked for

Wilson Caudle.

"He's at the funeral home," I said.

He was a cocky midget. I could see a gun on his hip under a wrinkled navy blazer, a gun worn in such a

manner so that folks would see it. He probably had a permit, but in Ford County one was not really

needed, not in 1970. In fact, permits were frowned upon. "I need to serve these papers on him," he said,

waving an envelope.

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I was not about to be helpful, but it's difficult being rude to a midget. Even one with a gun. "He's at the

funeral home," I repeated.

"Then I'll just leave them with you," he declared.

Although I'd been around for less than two months, and though I'd gone to college up North, I had

learned a few things. I knew that good papers were not served on people. They were mailed or shipped

or hand-delivered, but never served. The papers were trouble, and I wanted no part of them.

"I'm not taking the papers," I said, looking down.

The laws of nature require midgets to be docile, noncombative people, and this little fella was no

exception. The gun was a ruse. He glanced around the front office with a smirk, but he knew the

situation was hopeless. With a flair for the dramatic, he stuffed the envelope back into his pocket and

demanded, "Where's the funeral home?"

I pointed this way and that, and he left. An hour later, Spot stumbled through the door, waving the

papers and bawling hysterically. "It's over! It's over!" he kept wailing as I held the Petition for

Involuntary Bankruptcy. Margaret Wright, the secretary, and Hardy, the pressman, came from the back

and tried to console him. He sat in a chair, face in hands, elbows on knees, sobbing pitifully. I read the

petition aloud for the benefit of the others.

It said Mr. Caudle had to appear in court in a week over in Oxford to meet with the creditors and the

Judge, and that a decision would be made as to whether the paper would continue to operate while a

trustee sorted things out. I could tell Margaret and Hardy were more concerned about their jobs than

about Mr. Caudle and his breakdown, but they gamely stood next to him and patted his shoulders.

When the crying stopped, he suddenly stood, bit his lip, and announced, "I've got to tell Mother."

The three of us looked at each other. Miss Emma Caudle had departed this life years earlier, but her

feeble heart continued to work just barely enough to postpone a funeral. She neither knew nor cared

what color Jell-O they were feeding her, and she certainly cared nothing about Ford County and its

newspaper. She was blind and deaf and weighed less than eighty pounds, and now Spot was about to

discuss involuntary bankruptcy with her. At that point, I realized that he, too, was no longer with us.

He started crying again and left. Six months later I would write his obituary.

Because I had attended college, and because I was holding the papers, Hardy and Margaret looked

hopefully at me for advice. I was a journalist, not a lawyer, but I said that I would take the papers to the

Caudle family lawyer. We would follow his advice. They smiled weakly and returned to work.

At noon, I bought a six-pack at Quincy's One Stop in Lowtown, the black section of Clanton, and went

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for a long drive in my Spitfire. It was late in February, unseasonably warm, so I put the top down and

headed for the lake, wondering, not for the first time, just exactly what I was doing in Ford County,

Mississippi.

----

I grew up in Memphis and studied journalism at Syracuse for five years before my grandmother got tired

of paying for what was becoming an extended education. My grades were unremarkable, and I was a

year away from a degree. Maybe a year and a half. She, BeeBee, had plenty of money, hated to spend it,

and after five years she figured my opportunity had been sufficiently funded. When she cut me off I was

very disappointed, but I did not complain, to her anyway. I was her only grandchild and her estate would

be a delight.

I studied journalism with a hangover. In the early days at Syracuse, I aspired to be an investigative

reporter with the New York Times or the Washington Post. I wanted to save the world by uncovering

corruption and environmental abuse and government waste and the injustice suffered by the weak and

oppressed. Pulitzers were waiting for me. After a year or so of such lofty dreams, I saw a movie about a

foreign correspondent who dashed around the world looking for wars, seducing beautiful women, and

somehow finding the time to write award-winning stories. He spoke eight languages, wore a beard,

combat boots, starched khakis that never wrinkled. So I decided I would become such a journalist. I

grew a beard, bought some boots and khakis, tried to learn German, tried to score with prettier girls.

During my junior year, when my grades began their steady decline to the bottom of the class, I became

captivated by the idea of working for a small-town newspaper. I cannot explain this attraction, except

that it was at about this time that I met and befriended Nick Diener. He was from rural Indiana, and for

decades his family had owned a rather prosperous county newspaper. He drove a fancy little Alfa

Romeo and always had plenty of cash. We became close friends.

Nick was a bright student who could have handled medicine, law, or engineering. His only goal,

however, was to return to Indiana and run the family business. This baffled me until we got drunk one

night and he told me how much his father cleared each year off their small weekly—circulation six

thousand. It was a gold mine, he said. Just local news, wedding announcements, church socials, honor

rolls, sports coverage, pictures of basketball teams, a few recipes, a few obituaries, and pages of

advertising. Maybe a little politics, but stay away from controversy. And count your money. His father

was a millionaire. It was laid-back, low-pressure journalism with money growing on trees, according to

Nick.

This appealed to me. After my fourth year, which should've been my last but wasn't close, I spent the

summer interning at a small weekly in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. The pay was peanuts but

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BeeBee was impressed because I was employed. Each week I mailed her the paper, at least half of which

was written by me. The owner/editor/publisher was a wonderful old gentleman who was delighted to

have a reporter who wanted to write. He was quite wealthy.

After five years at Syracuse my grades were irreparable, and the well ran dry. I returned to Memphis,

visited BeeBee, thanked her for her efforts, and told her I loved her. She told me to find a job.

At the time Wilson Caudle's sister lived in Memphis, and through the course of things this lady met

BeeBee at one of those hot tea drinkers' parties. After a few phone calls back and forth, I was packed

and headed to Clanton, Mississippi, where Spot was eagerly waiting. After an hour of orientation, he

turned me loose on Ford County.

In the next edition he ran a sweet little story with a photo of me announcing my "internship" at the

Times. It made the front page. News was slow in those days.

The announcement contained two horrendous errors that would haunt me for years. The first and less

serious was the fact that Syracuse had now joined the Ivy League, at least according to Spot. He

informed his dwindling readership that I had received my Ivy League education at Syracuse. It was a

month before anyone mentioned this to me. I was beginning to believe that no one read the paper, or,

worse, those who did were complete idiots.

The second misstatement changed my life. I was born Joyner William Traynor. Until I was twelve I

hammered my parents with inquiries about why two supposedly intelligent people would stick Joyner on

a newborn. The story finally leaked that one of my parents, both of whom denied responsibility, had

insisted on Joyner as an olive branch to some feuding relative who allegedly had money. I never met the

man, my namesake. He died broke as far as I was concerned, but I nonetheless had Joyner for a lifetime.

When I enrolled at Syracuse I was J. William, a rather imposing name for an eighteen-year-old. But

Vietnam and the riots and all the rebellion and social upheaval convinced me that J. William sounded

too corporate, too establishment. I became Will.

Spot at various times called me Will, William, Bill, or even Billy, and since I would answer to all of

them I never knew what was next. In the announcement, under my smiling face, was my new name.

Willie Traynor. I was horrified. I had never dreamed of anyone calling me Willie. I went to a prep

school in Memphis and then to college in New York, and I had never met a person named Willie. I

wasn't a good ole boy. I drove a Triumph Spitfire and had long hair.

What would I tell my fraternity brothers at Syracuse? What would I tell BeeBee?

After hiding in my apartment for two days, I mustered the courage to confront Spot and demand he do

something. I wasn't sure what, but he'd made the mistake and he could damned well fix it. I marched into

the Times office and bumped into Davey Bigmouth Bass, the sports editor of the paper. "Hey, cool

name," he said. I followed him into his office, seeking advice.

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"My name's not Willie," I said.

"It is now."

"My name's Will."

"They'll love you around here. A smart-ass from up North with long hair and a little imported sports car.

Hell, folks'll think you're pretty cool with a name like Willie. Think of Joe Willie."

"Who's Joe Willie?"

"Joe Willie Namath."

"Oh him."

"Yeah, he's a Yankee like you, from Pennsylvania or some place, but when he got to Alabama he went

from Joseph William to Joe Willie. The girls chased him all over the place."

I began to feel better. In 1970, Joe Namath was probably the most famous athlete in the country. I went

for a drive and kept repeating "Willie." Within a couple of weeks the name was beginning to stick.

Everybody called me Willie and seemed to feel more comfortable because I had such a down-to-earth

name.

I told BeeBee it was just a temporary pseudonym.

----

The Times was a very thin paper, and I knew immediately that it was in trouble. Heavy on the obits, light

on news and advertising. The employees were disgruntled, but quiet and loyal. Jobs were scarce in Ford

County in 1970. After a week it was obvious even to my novice eyes that the paper was operating at a

loss. Obits are free—ads are not. Spot spent most of his time in his cluttered office, napping periodically

and calling the funeral home. Sometimes they called him. Sometimes the families would stop just hours

after Uncle Wilber's last breath and hand over a long, flowery, handwritten narrative that Spot would

seize and carry delicately to his desk. Behind a locked door, he would write, edit, research, and rewrite

until it was perfect.

He told me the entire county was mine to cover. The paper had one other general reporter, Baggy Suggs,

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a pickled old goat who spent his hours hanging around the courthouse across the street sniffing for

gossip and drinking bourbon with a small club of washed-up lawyers too old and too drunk to practice

anymore. As I would soon learn, Baggy was too lazy to check sources and dig for anything interesting,

and it was not unusual for his front page story to be some dull account of a boundary dispute or a wife

beating.

Margaret, the secretary, was a fine Christian lady who ran the place, though she was smart enough to

allow Spot to think he was the boss. She was in her early fifties and had worked there for twenty years.

She was the rock, the anchor, and everything at the Times revolved around her. Margaret was soft-

spoken, almost shy, and from day one was completely intimidated by me because I was from Memphis

and had gone to school up North for five years. I was careful not to wear my Ivy Leagueness on my

shoulder, but at the same time I wanted these rural Mississippians to know that I had been superbly

educated.

She and I became gossiping pals, and after a week she confirmed what I already suspected—that Mr.

Caudle was indeed crazy, and that the newspaper was indeed in dire financial straits. But, she said, the

Caudles have family money!

It would be years before I understood this mystery.

In Mississippi, family money was not to be confused with wealth. It had nothing to do with cash or other

assets. Family money was a status, obtained by someone who was white, somewhat educated beyond

high school, born in a large home with a front porch—preferably one surrounded by cotton or soybean

fields, although this was not mandatory—and partially reared by a beloved black maid named Bessie or

Pearl, partially reared by doting grandparents who once owned the ancestors of Bessie or Pearl, and

lectured from birth on the stringent social graces of a privileged people. Acreage and trust funds helped

somewhat, but Mississippi was full of insolvent blue bloods who inherited the status of family money. It

could not be earned. It had to be handed down at birth.

When I talked to the Caudle family lawyer, he explained, rather succinctly, the real value of their family

money. "They're as poor as Job's turkey," he said as I sat deep in a worn leather chair and looked up at

him across his wide and ancient mahogany desk. His name was Walter Sullivan, of the prestigious

Sullivan & O'Hara firm. Prestigious for Ford County—seven lawyers. He studied the bankruptcy

petition and rambled on about the Caudles and the money they used to have and how foolish they'd been

in running a once profitable paper into the ground. He'd represented them for thirty years, and back

when Miss Emma ran things the Times had five thousand subscribers and pages filled with

advertisements. She kept a $500,000 certificate of deposit at Security Bank, just for a rainy day.

Then her husband died, and she remarried a local alcoholic twenty years her junior. When sober, he was

semiliterate and fancied himself as a tortured poet and essayist. Miss Emma loved him dearly and

installed him as coeditor, a position he used to write long editorials blasting everything that moved in

Ford County. It was the beginning of the end. Spot hated his new stepfather, the feelings were mutual,

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and their relationship finally climaxed with one of the more colorful fistfights in the history of

downtown Clanton. It took place on the sidewalk in front of the Times office, on the downtown square,

in front of a large and stunned crowd. The locals believed that Spot's brain, already fragile, took

additional damage that day. Shortly thereafter, he began writing nothing but those damned obituaries.

The stepfather ran off with her money, and Miss Emma, heartbroken, become a recluse.

"It was once a fine paper," Mr. Sullivan said. "But look at it now. Less than twelve hundred

subscriptions, heavily in debt. Bankrupt."

"What will the court do?" I asked.

"Try and find a buyer."

"A buyer?"

"Yes, someone will buy. The county has to have a newspaper."

I immediately thought of two people—Nick Diener and BeeBee. Nick's family had become rich off their

county weekly. BeeBee was already loaded and she had only one beloved grandchild. My heart began

pounding as I smelled opportunity.

Mr. Sullivan watched me intently, and it was obvious he knew what I was thinking. "It could be bought

for a song," he said.

"How much?" I asked with all the confidence of a twenty-three-year-old cub reporter whose

grandmother was as stout as lye soap.

"Probably fifty thousand. Twenty-five for the paper, twenty-five to operate. Most of the debts can be

bankrupted, then renegotiated with the creditors you need." He paused and leaned forward, elbows on

his desk, thick grayish eyebrows twitching as if his brain was working overtime. "It could be a real gold

mine, you know."

----

BeeBee had never invested in a gold mine, but after three days of priming the pump I left Memphis with

a check for $50,000. I gave it to Mr. Sullivan, who put it in a trust account and petitioned the court for

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