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“By preaching the Golden Rule?” said DuBose skeptically.
“By demonstrating that love and tolerance and empathy are far superior to their opposites, for all of us. Empathy brings out the very best in people. It makes them in God’s image, the way he wants us to be. He was a humble servant who never sought material wealth; his fortune was in his faith. And in his love for others. All others.”
“And the lack of empathy?” she said.
“Brings out the very worst in us. It just simply makes us angry, all the time, and looking for other people to hate for no good reason.” He eyed the altar. “I believe you came here to pray. Would you mind if I joined you?”
“Father, you should know that I’m a fallen Catholic.”
“There are no fallen Catholics, Miss DuBose. There are only imperfect human beings who work through the difficult challenges associated with living. Sometimes they fall, but then they rise again. As did the son of God. For our eternal salvation.”
She said slowly, “Meeting you today has given me some hope, Father Kelly. What are the odds? I could have easily driven right past here and this encounter might never have happened.”
“When one has faith, of any kind, the odds of good things happening become short rather than long. And even if we hadn’t met today, I believe we would have achieved the same results elsewhere.”
“Because of God’s will?” she said, again in a skeptical tone.
“Because God endowed us with the best minds on earth. I would imagine he expected us to do something positive with them.” He stood. “Shall we?”
They ventured to the altar together and knelt.
CHAPTER 55
WHEN SHE GOT BACK TO the office DuBose walked Queenie, and endured multiple stares and hushed comments from people, both Black and white. Apparently, her notoriety, or more likely infamy, had made the local rounds.
DuBose then placed a long-distance phone call to Janice Evans in New York. The woman didn’t pick up, but she had an answering service, and DuBose left a detailed message telling her it was critically important that they speak. She was not the least bit confident that the woman would call her back. If she returned to testify, Evans would likely be charged with assisting in an abortion, which in Virginia carried mandatory prison time. But without her testimony, how could they corroborate Pearl’s whereabouts on the day of the murders?
She worked on finalizing the statements for all the witnesses to sign, drafting pretrial motions, going through possible investigatory leads, trial theories, initial outlines of their opening statement, and thinking of possible surprises that she felt sure Edmund Battle would employ. She also wanted to delve more into the search warrant Battle had used to find the money in the lean-to. She knew Jerome hadn’t stolen it, but she would have to put him on the stand to get that into evidence, and there was no way this jury would believe him. And Battle would likely destroy him on cross-examination. It would be like sacrificing your queen to gain a pawn. Jerome could of course plead the Fifth Amendment. And while a jury was not supposed to consider that as an admission of guilt in a criminal case, DuBose had never met a jury that had not done so.
That evening, when a knock came at the door, Queenie let out a low growl.
DuBose pulled the gun from her purse and walked over to the door, but kept to the right of it in case someone was going to try to kill her again by shooting through it.
“Yes?”
“It’s Donny Peppers.”
She exhaled a sigh of relief and opened the door.
Peppers eyed the gun. “Heard about you almost dying.”
“Did you also hear about Lucy?”
He nodded. “Damn scum.” He came in and greeted Queenie with a gentle voice and no sudden movements, and, with DuBose clearly at ease with the man, the dog lay back down.
Peppers looked DuBose up and down. “How you hanging after what happened?”
She laid the gun down on the desk and said, “I won’t lie and say it didn’t scare me. But I’m okay. And I have information to tell you.”
“And I have things to tell you. You got any coffee?”
“Yes. I can make some,” said DuBose.
“Nah, I got it. I know where Jack keeps everything. You want some?”
“Thanks. There’s a chill in the air, although I’m not sure it’s just the weather.”
As Peppers was making the coffee he eyed her. “How are you and Jack doing?”
