Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 01 - Blood on White Wicker (25 page)

It was so nice to have Julia there with us. Mimi said she was glad to have our porch again. We spent many hours on the porch, and I believe it was as therapeutic for both of us as group therapy.

With all the holiday festivities, we almost forgot that we were going to meet with Mackey. A few days after we got back, Tracy called and asked if the next day would be good for us.

The plan was to pick us up at seven a.m. and take us to Raiford Prison which was in a town called Stark about an hour’s drive from Jacksonville. This was the prison where Ted Bundy was electrocuted at the age of 42.

I was glad that Julia and Tracy were with me as we headed there the next day. We drove by what seemed like miles of fenced-in area before we got to any buildings and Tracy explained that the prison grounds covered over 50 acres.

She showed her badge to a guard at the gate. He went into a guardhouse and pulled a switch and the gate opened. I noticed that we still weren’t inside. We had to go through the same procedure at another gate and then at the door to the main building.

In the main building, we were told to put our purses in a tray that was pulled through a window. We then went through a series of locked doors. Each time, we had to wait for the door we had just exited to lock before the one in front of us was opened.

We were at last led to an interview room with a table and chairs. Windows were all the way around. After a short wait we heard the door being unlocked and a man in an orange jump suit came in surrounded by four guards.

He was shackled just like I had seen in movies After he sat down at the table across from us they cuffed his hands to a metal ring on the table and his feet to another ring coming out of the cement floor. The guards stayed in the room.

Mackey was about six feet tall and had a shaved head. He had one of those long thin faces and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. I could hardly meet his eyes.

He appeared to be amused to see us.

“What fine pieces of tail you girls turned out to be,” he said, grinning.

Tracy jumped up threw her chair against the wall. Both Julia and I jumped.

“Look, we’re wasting our time here,” she said. “Come on girls, let’s go. I guess this piece of garbage decided he would rather get the death penalty.”

He looked panicky, “Hold on. I thought the deal was life.”

“The deal was, you apologize and they get to ask questions and you answer them. That didn’t sound like an apology to me. Did it to you girls?” We shook our heads no.

Tracy let out one long sigh as she sat back down.

“Okay, let’s start over,” she said. “Just so you know, I’m not wasting my time with you. We’ve already talked about this and you’re not stupid. So stick with the agreement.”

No one said anything for so long that I began to get jittery, which was probably another way for him to intimidate us. I glanced over at Tracy and she sat staring at him like she hated his guts. He finally cleared his throat and said, “I’m…I’m sorry.”

Tracy snorted and shook her head. “Judith, ask your questions so we can get the hell away from this piece of shit.”

“I need you to fill in the missing years for me. Where was I taken after you took me from the Reynolds house?” I asked.

“I took you to my sister, Trisha’s, house. You were her birthday present. She always wanted a kid and never got to have any. Or I should say, she thought she wanted a kid. She didn’t realize how much trouble you would be. All you did was cry and whine.”

“Of course I cried. I was only three years old and you took me from my home. What did you think, that I was going to be happy?”

My outburst seemed to give him great pleasure, like he took pleasure in other people’s pain. I decide I wouldn’t give him the pleasure. Instead I would have Tracy’s attitude.

I gave him a long hard stare and said, “Then what happened?”

“After about three days of your squalling, she called me and told me to come get you. It was cold and you didn’t have many clothes, so I wrapped you up in a blanket and dropped you off on the side of the road the way you would any stray.”

It took everything in my power not to burst into tears and he would have loved that so, to cover, I jumped up and slung my chair against the wall. It pleased me to see him actually jump.

 
“I’m done,” I said, “There’s nothing else I want from this scum.”

Tracy asked Julia if she had any questions and Julia asked, “How does it feel to be such a dirt bag?”

“Ask your daddy. He should know. I know what I am. At least, I don’t fuck little girls.”

Julia’s head snapped back like he had slapped her and I was glad she had completed the therapy she had done. But he wasn’t finished.

“Yeah, I know all about the whole club with the judges involved both in St. Augustine and in New Orleans. I know about the judges who give young girls to the dirty old men for a price, runaway girls that is.”

He looked at Tracy, “You want to earn some brownie points with your boss? Make me a better deal than this and I’ll give you some stuff to make your career.”

He turned to the guards, “I’m ready to go back to my cell now.”

As we were driving away, I said, “I need a shower.” Julia nodded, “Me too.”

We were silent for most of the trip back. Each of us was thinking her own thoughts. I kept thinking about judges giving runaway girls to dirty old men and wondered if I had been part of that ring he was talking about.

I always wondered why no one came after me when I ran away from the Lessiter house. Was it because the judge was afraid of what I would say or was Mr. Lessiter afraid to report it?

We had one big hurdle out of the way and now we had the trial to look forward to. Tracy said she was hoping that Mr. Reynolds would be offered a plea so we wouldn’t have to go through a trail. But Julia said she still wanted to confront him even if there wasn’t a trial.

We decided to spend New Year’s Eve and New Years day quietly. Julia said we had to eat black eyed peas for New Years, for luck, and collard greens, for money. We ate this disgusting meal in the cafeteria and I was surprised that a place that served such good food ordinarily would serve this. I really didn’t think it was necessary, since I didn’t see how much luckier I could possibly get.

Dr. Anna and Tracy joined us and I noticed that although most of us picked at our food, Julia and Tracy ate like they were starved to death. We all laughed at them.

CHAPTER 25, 1984

The trial was set for January sixteenth, which was on a Monday. Tracy said it wasn’t necessary for us to be there on the first day, and maybe the second day, because it would only be jury selection, but all three of us wanted to be there from start to finish. Tracy came over the night before and gave us directions to the Duval County Courthouse.

We all wore business suits and laughed when we saw many people in the courtroom, in jeans. I had seen many courtroom dramas on TV and this looked just like that. We had seats directly in back of the prosecuting attorney and as I sat down, I wondered if Julia’s heart was pounding like mine, probably more.

We had been waiting for what seemed like an eternity when they finally brought in Mr. Reynolds. I expected to see him shackled and in an orange jumpsuit, but he was wearing an expensive looking gray suit with a white shirt and royal blue tie. He wasn’t shackled.

That really pissed me off. I wanted so badly for him to be humiliated. I glanced over at Julia and saw that she had her hands balled into tight fists. Her face was bright red. I put my arm around her and she seemed to relax a little.

My hair had grown out and Mimi had insisted that I have the natural color put back in the week before. Julia and I had decided to wear our hair in ponytails and we looked just alike. Even Mimi had a hard time telling us apart. When Mr. Reynolds looked our way, he did a double-take.

I didn’t understand a lot of what happened in court that day. Before jury selection, the defense attorney stood up and made a bunch of motions. The first was a motion to dismiss. I thought only an idiot would make such a motion with all the evidence stacked against the defendant, but apparently this is what they always try to do, according to what Tracy told us later during lunch.

The defense attorney had stacks of these things and they all seemed to have something to do with what evidence was going to be allowed to be presented. It seemed like this part went on for hours.

Finally, they called the first group of potential jurors. They were questioned by both attorneys and some were accepted by both sides and some were rejected. It all seemed random to me.

Some of the people who I thought would be good to have for our side were rejected by the prosecutor and some of the ones who seemed like they would be good for the defense, their attorney rejected. Then the ones that they kept didn’t seem to make any sense to me either, but the whole process was interesting.

I was both surprised and pleased that the whole process was over by lunch. The judge who was a short round man, named Truman, believe it or not, looked at his watch and said we would take a recess until 2:00 p.m.

The four of us walked around the corner from the courthouse to an old fashioned looking diner. During lunch, Tracy explained to us that one of the things the defense attorney wanted to have thrown out was the tape recording of the death bed confession of Mrs. Reynolds. He claimed it was hearsay, but since it was a deathbed confession the judge would allow it to be admitted into evidence.

The defense had planned on this being thrown out, and without it, they would have the word of a convicted criminal, Mackey, and the memory of Julia who they were going to try to say that Mimi and I had convinced to lie. It would be her word against his and he was so sure of his reputation that he knew no one would believe Julia.

When we got back in court that afternoon, the defense attorney had another stack of motions before the jury could come in. The defense attorney’s name was Jeff Crocker. He had a high whiney voice and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to use him. I didn’t think he would make a good impression on the jury.

The prosecuting attorney was Carl Graham. He was writing the whole time that Crocker was going on and on about the unfairness of allowing Mrs. Reynolds’s taped testimony.

Finally the judge said, “Mr. Crocker, I’ve ruled on this. Let’s move on. Bailiff, call in the jury.”

The jury filed in and I notice one of the jurors, a tiny gray haired grandmother type, had brought her knitting and started knitting as soon as she sat down. I thought the judge would make her put it away but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Mr. Graham, would you call your first witness please?” the judge said.

 
“I call Tracy Carr to the stand.”

Tracy was wearing a dark green silk pants suit with a lacy camisole underneath and black high heeled pumps. She had her hair pulled back into a chignon and wore light makeup. I thought she looked beautiful. She was cool and collected as she was being sworn in, and I decided then and there that I wanted to be like her when I finished growing up.

“Ms. Carr, you’re an FBI agent, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Is it true that from February of 1983 through October of 1983, you were assigned undercover in the home of the defendant, his wife, and adopted daughter, Julia?”

“Yes.”

“Would you describe for the court why you were assigned there?”

“We had suspected for some time that Mr. Reynolds was somehow involved in the kidnapping case that had been unsolved for 13 years.”

“And what led you to suspect that?”

“We were approached first by Julia’s uncle, Mark Rogers, in January, when he came across a letter from the defendant addressed to his mother. In it he was telling her that he wasn’t going to give her any more money.