Sycamore Row - John Grisham

47
The jurors filed silently out of their room and followed the bailiff down a back stairway
to a side door of the courthouse, the same route they had taken every day since Tuesday.
Once outside they scattered without a word. Nevin Dark decided to drive home for
lunch. He did not want to be around his colleagues at that moment. He needed time to
digest the story he had just heard. He wanted to breathe, to think, to remember. Alone
in his truck with the windows down, he almost felt dirty; maybe a shower would help.
Mista Burt. Mista Burt. Somewhere on the shadier side of his wife’s family tree, there
had been a great-uncle or a distant cousin named Burt. Many years ago he lived near
Palmyra, and there had always been whispers about Burt’s involvement with the Klan.
It couldn’t be the same man.
In his fifty-three years in Ford County, Nevin had heard of only one other lynching,
but he had almost forgotten the story. It supposedly happened around the turn of the
century. All witnesses were dead, and the details had been forgotten. Nevin had never
heard a description of such a killing by a real witness. Poor Ancil. He looked so pitiful
with his little round head and oversized suit, and wiping tears with a sleeve.
Disoriented by Demerol or not, there was no doubt Seth knew what he was doing.
Michele Still and Barb Gaston had no plans for lunch, and they were too emotional to
think clearly. They jumped into Michele’s car and fled Clanton, taking the first road out
with no destination in mind. The distance helped, and after five miles on an empty
county road they were able to relax. They stopped at a country store and bought soft
drinks and crackers, then sat in the shade with the windows down and listened to a soul
station out of Memphis.
“We got nine votes?” Michele asked.
“Girl, we may have twelve.”
“Naw, we’ll never get Doley.”
“One day, I’m gonna slap his ass. Might be today, might be next year, but I’ll do it.”
Michele managed to laugh and their moods were lifted considerably.
Jim Whitehurst also drove home for lunch. His wife was waiting with a stew and they
ate on the patio. He had told her everything else about the trial, but he did not want to
replay what he had just heard. But she insisted, and they hardly touched their lunch.
Tracy McMillen and Fay Pollan drove together to a strip mall east of town where a
new sub shop was doing a booming business. Their “Juror” buttons got a few looks but
no inquiries. They got a booth so they could talk and within minutes were in complete
agreement. Seth Hubbard might have been fading in his final days, but there was no