“Yes sir.”
Alexandra served Atticus bacon and eggs and toast. His attention upon his breakfast, Jean Louise thought it would be safe to have a look at him.
He had not changed. His face was the same as always. I don’t know why I expected him to be looking like Dorian Gray or somebody.
She jumped when the telephone rang.
Jean Louise was unable to readjust herself to calls at six in the morning, Mary Webster’s Hour. Alexandra answered it and returned to the kitchen.
“It’s for you, Atticus. It’s the sheriff.”
“Ask him what he wants, please, Zandra.”
Alexandra reappeared saying, “Something about somebody asked him to call you—”
“Tell him to call Hank, Zandra. He can tell Hank whatever he wants to tell me.” He turned to Jean Louise. “I’m glad I have a junior partner as well as a sister. What one misses the other doesn’t. Wonder what the sheriff wants at this hour?”
“So do I,” she said flatly.
“Sweet, I think you ought to let Allen have a look at you today. You’re offish.”
“Yes sir.”
Secretly, she watched her father eat his breakfast. He managed the cumbersome tableware as if it were its normal size and shape. She stole a glance at his face and saw it covered with white stubble. If he had a beard it would be white, but his hair’s just turning and his eyebrows are still jet. Uncle Jack’s already white to his forehead, and Aunty’s gray all over. When I begin to go, where will I start? Why am I thinking these things?
She said, “Excuse me,” and took her coffee to the livingroom. She put her cup on a lamp table and was opening the blinds when she saw Henry’s car turn into the driveway. He found her standing by the window.
“Good morning. You look like pale blue sin,” he said.
“Thank you. Atticus is in the kitchen.”
Henry looked the same as ever. After a night’s sleep, his scar was less vivid. “You in a snit about something?” he said. “I waved at you in the balcony yesterday but you didn’t see me.”
“You saw me?”
“Yeah. I was hoping you’d be waiting outside for us, but you weren’t. Feeling better today?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t bite my head off.”
She drank her coffee, told herself she wanted another cup, and followed Henry into the kitchen. He leaned against the sink, twirling his car keys on his forefinger. He is nearly as tall as the cabinets, she thought. I shall never be able to speak one lucid sentence to him again.“—happened all right,” Henry was saying. “It was bound to sooner or later.”
“Was he drinking?” asked Atticus.
“Not drinking, drunk. He was coming in from an all-night boozing down at that jook they have.”
“What’s the matter?” said Jean Louise.
“Zeebo’s boy,” said Henry. “Sheriff said he has him in jail—he’d asked him to call Mr. Finch to come get him out—huh.”
“Why?”
“Honey, Zeebo’s boy was coming out of the Quarters at daybreak this morning splittin’ the wind, and he ran over old Mr. Healy crossing the road and killed him dead.”
“Oh no—”
“Whose car was it?” asked Atticus.
“Zeebo’s, I reckon.”
“What’d you tell the sheriff?” asked Atticus.
“Told him to tell Zeebo’s boy you wouldn’t touch the case.”
Atticus leaned his elbows against the table and pushed himself back.
“You shouldn’t’ve done that, Hank,” he said mildly. “Of course we’ll take it.”
Thank you, God. Jean Louise sighed softly and rubbed her eyes. Zeebo’s boy was Calpurnia’s grandson. Atticus may forget a lot of things, but he would never forget them. Yesterday was fast dissolving into a bad night. Poor Mr. Healy, he was probably so loaded he never knew what hit him.
“But Mr. Finch,” Henry said. “I thought none of the—”
Atticus eased his arm on the corner of the chair. When concentrating it was his practice to finger his watch-chain and rummage abstractedly in his watchpocket. Today his hands were still.
“Hank, I suspect when we know all the facts in the case the best that can be done for the boy is for him to plead guilty. Now, isn’t it better for us to stand up with him in court than to have him fall into the wrong hands?”
A smile spread slowly across Henry’s face. “I see what you mean, Mr. Finch.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Jean Louise. “What wrong hands?”
Atticus turned to her. “Scout, you probably don’t know it, but the NAACP-paid lawyers are standing around like buzzards down here waiting for things like this to happen—”
“You mean colored lawyers?”
Atticus nodded. “Yep. We’ve got three or four in the state now. They’re mostly in Birmingham and places like that, but circuit by circuit they watch and wait, just for some felony committed by a Negro against a white person—you’d be surprised how quick they find out—in they come and … well, in terms you can understand, they demand Negroes on the juries in such cases. They subpoena the jury commissioners, they ask the judge to step down, they raise every legal trick in their books—and they have ’em aplenty—they try to force the judge into error. Above all else, they try to get the case into a Federal court where they know the cards are stacked in their favor. It’s already happened in our next-door-neighbor circuit, and there’s nothing in the books that says it won’t happen here.”