In last Thursday’s Post, I
wrote about the “found” manuscript
pages some are attributing to Harper Lee and how I believe those pages were
actually written by Tom Radney, the Alabama attorney who enticed Harper Lee to
Alexander City in the 1980s to research a crime novel centered around one of
his clients. According to news
sources, the four pages of manuscript describe the first phone call from
the infamous Reverend Maxwell to the attorney who would keep him him out of
jail despite the suspicious deaths of five of his family members. Today’s post includes an introductory quote
from Radney, followed by an exerpt from my novel, The
Reverend. – Christamar Varicella
“Let me tell you what I think you need for a start as far as my
involvement with Reverend Maxwell. I had never heard of Reverend
Maxwell. I got a call about two in the morning, which is not unusual
in law practice. Somebody’s in trouble, they call
you. And he called me. He said, “Mr. Radney, they’re down
here at my house accusing me of killing my wife. Would you come down
and help me?” … I said, “Reverend, I don’t know you,” and I said, “I have to
have a down payment.” – Tom Radney, former attorney of Reverend Willie
Maxwell, in a 2008 interview.
June 29, 1969
3:43 am
The bleating of a rotary
phone lifted Melvin Little from a deep sleep.
“What?” he
grumbled.
His wife jabbed him in
the ribcage with the receiver. “You have a phone call.”
Blinded by the light of
the bedside lamp, Melvin rolled over and squinted at the clock on his
nightstand. “Good God, is that the time?” he asked, but his wife had
pulled the covers up to her chin. Her breathing settled into a steady
rhythm.
“Hello,” he muttered
into the phone.
“Is this Mr. Little, the
attorney?”
“Yeah,” Melvin
answered. His eyes were closed again. By his half-conscious
reckoning the stranger’s voice belonged to a colored man.
“This is Reverend
Baxter. I’m at my house. The police are saying I killed my
wife.”
Melvin vaguely
remembered the name, but couldn’t picture a face. He sat up and wiped his
eyes, trying to adjust them to the light.
“Why’d you call
me?”
“I need a lawyer, Mr.
Little. They say if you’ve been accused of murder, you’re the man to
call.”
Melvin smiled. “Is
that so?”
“Yes sir, it is.”
“Have you been
charged?” His mind, like his vision, came into focus.
“The police are
searching my home. I think they’re going to arrest me. You have to
help me, Mr. Little. I did not do what they’re saying.”
“I’m sorry to hear about
your loss. Do you have any money?”
“My wife had an
insurance policy. I could pay you with that.”
“How much is it worth?”
“The policy is in my
name. It’s for eighty thousand dollars.”
“I’ll take half.”
There was a pause at the
other end of the line.
“Yes sir. That
will be fine.”
“Where are you?”
He flipped back the covers, swung his legs off the side of the bed. His
feet searched the cold floor for his slippers.
“Do you know where
Highway 11 and 22 cross?”
“Yeah.”
“I live about a mile
east on 22.”
“Don’t say anything
until I get there.”
Melvin dropped the phone
on his sleeping wife. “I have to see about something,” he said.
Doris snored as he made his way to the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, he
located the crime scene. A pair of squad cars from the sheriff’s
department and two belonging to state troopers—all with blue lights
flashing—lined each side of the two lane highway. He parked behind a
trooper and stumped up the driveway. This must be Baxter’s house, he
decided. He slowed his gait as he passed a brick house with newly painted
trim and white shutters in the windows—a house befitting a preacher. The
lights were out, so he continued toward the crossing beams of flashlights
floating in the trees up ahead. When he reached the back of the house, he
glanced over at the purple Lincoln town car parked in the wraparound
driveway. It had a retractable roof and white leather interior —a
flashy car for a man of God.
Melvin stepped into the wooded area behind the house. His
loafers weren’t built for the great outdoors, and his left shoe became
entrenched in the mud. “Goddamnit,” he barked. He wobbled
precariously as he navigated his foot back into the grip of leather. He
cursed again as he examined his clothes in the early morning light. There
was mud all over the cuffs of his favorite slacks. “Somebody should have
told me I’d be wading through this slop.”
He fought his way
through the woods, following a line of yellow police tape that marked the
victim’s final path until he found his way to the clearing. Up ahead he
could see a group of uniformed officers gathered around a pecan tree whose
limbs sagged under the weight of several hanging bundles.
An officer noticed him
stumbling out of the forest and came up to meet him.
“What the hell are you
doing out here, Melvin?”
“I came to make sure you
boys weren’t planting evidence.”
“Aw, Melvin. You
know we wouldn’t do that.”
Sherriff Ford nodded and
gestured toward the pecan tree. “Hell of a thing,” he said. A
toothpick jutted through a gap in his teeth.
Melvin heard a gentle
crackling sound, like raindrops dropping from the leaves after a rain
shower. “What’s that in the trees?” he asked.
“See for yourself.”
Melvin ventured
closer. His mouth dropped open as he came close enough to distinguish the
suspended objects. Half a dozen headless chickens dripped blood into
little pools along the base of the tree.
“Looks like he killed
the nigger woman first,” Sheriff Ford said cheerfully as he walked Melvin
through the crime scene. “Then he started wasting fowl. Chopped
their heads off on that little stump over there then strung up the bodies like
tinsel on a Christmas tree.”
Two deputies, who had
been standing in front of the victim puffing cigarettes and chatting absently,
stood aside so Melvin could view the gruesome spectacle. His gaze shifted
from the dead chickens to the woman below. A black woman, around forty,
with her arms tied down at the waist, sat motionless against the base of the
tree. Her eyes were wide and empty of life. Her body was punctured
with numerous stab wounds.
Melvin curled his nose
at the sight. “What’s her story?” he asked.
The Sheriff flipped open
a small notepad. “Her name is Shirley Baxter. Thirty nine years
old. Unemployed. Married at the time of her death to the good
Reverend William Baxter, currently in custody.”
“That’d be my client,”
Melvin said. He put his hands behind his back, paced a circle around the
tree as he meditated on the circumstances, momentarily forgetting the raining
blood, which now splattered down on his foot. He lifted his foot into the
air and scowled.
The representatives of
law enforcement chuckled merrily. A deputy shook his head. “You
should’ve worn your huntin’ boots.”
“I paid forty dollars
for these loafers.”
“What’s a matter,
Melvin? You act like you’ve never seen a voodoo killin’ before.” Sheriff
Ford said.
“Is that what this is?”
“That’s what the colored
folks are saying.”
“Are they now?”
“They are indeed.
They say our chief suspect is a practitioner of the black arts.”
“This is the first I
heard about voodoo.” It surely would not be the last.
Melvin turned to the
sheriff. “You say you have the reverend in custody?”
The sheriff dropped his
toothpick on the ground and then pulled a cigarette out of his shirt
pocket. He was a big man with a belly like a bass drum. He lit his
cigarette with a Zippo lighter and then blew a stream of smoke into the air
above his head.
“I wouldn’t show him the
respect of calling him reverend, but yeah, he’s in route to the jailhouse as we
speak.”
“What’s your evidence?”
“The rope came from a hook in his shed. There’s another coil
just like it. Found a hunting knife under his bed. Looks like a
match.”
“What about
motive?”
The sheriff waved his
hand dismissively. “Aw Melvin, you know how these folks are with their
women. He was probably running around with another gal, and when she
raised a stink, he put her on the butcher’s block.”
“Along with all them
chickens?”
Sheriff Ford coughed and
spat on the ground. “Who the hell knows? Probably some crazy pagan
nonsense brought over from Africa.”
“How can you be sure
it’s the same knife?”
The sheriff pointed at the corpse. “The blade looks to fit
them holes, but we’ll have an examiner test the body. Also, there’s a GBI man
on the way out here to look over the crime scene. He’ll probably have his
people double check.”
“What’s his name?”
“Detective
Abel. You know him?”
“I see him around from
time to time. He’s testified against a few of my clients.”
Abel was as capable as
his name implied. He’d worked for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for
several years and had earned a solid reputation for detective work.
Melvin hoped the sheriff and his boys would disrupt the crime scene and destroy
any other evidence Abel might find. He turned to go, but the sheriff stopped
him cold with a line intentionally delivered to sound like an afterthought.
“We also have an
eyewitness.”
“The hell you
say.”
“Saw him coming out of
the woods half naked with a shovel in his hand not four hours ago.”
“Where’s the shovel?”
“We’re looking for that.”
“Well, let me know when
you find it,” Melvin said as he wandered toward his car. He looked calm,
but in his head he cursed this horrendous piece of luck. The prosecution
had, in all likelihood, the murder weapon and enough circumstantial evidence to
convict his client. It didn’t help matters that the Reverend was black
and the jury would be chosen from a pool that was majority white. If
Baxter copped a plea, the insurance wouldn’t pay out on the policy.
Melvin berated himself
for taking the case in the first place and vowed never again to agree to
anything before having at least one cup of coffee.
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