Similar questions dogged him during his first days in office. Reporters hung around Rudy & Pettigrew and were repeatedly asked to leave. A steady flow of friends and well-wishers stopped by for a somber word or two and Keith quickly grew tired of their presence. The front door was eventually locked. Gage and Gene worked in the downstairs conference room and kept an eye on the foot traffic. The phone rang nonstop and was routinely ignored. Clients were asked to be patient.
With most of the DA’s records destroyed, one of Keith’s first challenges was to reconstruct the files and determine who had been indicted and what was the status of each defendant. Without exception, the local bar rallied behind him and provided copies of all records. Judge Oliphant ran interference and gave no ground to the defense attorneys. Rex Dubisson spent hours with Keith and walked him through the ins and outs of the job. Pat Graebel, next door in the Nineteenth District, did the same and made his staff available.
Keith began each day by taking Agnes to morning Mass at St. Michael’s.
* * *
Two days after Keith became the DA, Hugh made another journey north into no-man’s-land to visit his father. The cotton was in full bloom and the flatlands were as white as snow on both sides of the highway. It was somewhat interesting to watch the Delta change colors with the season as the crops got ready for the harvest, but he still found it depressing. He perked up at the sight of his first cotton picker, a bright green John Deere mechanized creation that resembled a giant insect creeping through the snow. Then he saw another and soon they were everywhere. He passed a trailer headed for the gin, loose bolls flying into the air and landing like litter on the sides of the highway.
Five miles south of the prison, he saw a sight so startling that he slowed and almost stopped on the shoulder of the road. A prison guard with a shotgun and a cowboy hat sat in the saddle of a quarter horse and watched a gang of about a dozen black inmates pluck bolls of cotton from stalks that were almost chest-high. They stuffed the cotton into thick burlap sacks they dragged behind them.
It was September of 1976, more than a hundred years after emancipation.
Parchman covered 18,000 acres of rich soil. With its endless supply of free labor it had been, historically at least, a cash cow for the state. Back in its glory days, long before the intervention of federal litigation and notions of prisoners’ rights, the working conditions had been brutal, especially for black inmates.
Hugh shook his head and moved on, stunned again by the backwardness of Mississippi, and happy to be from the Coast. A different world.
Lance had so far avoided picking cotton, a loathsome job now reserved as punishment. He lived in Unit 26, one of many separate “camps” scattered throughout the sprawling farm. Though the federal courts had repeatedly told the state to desegregate Parchman, there were still a few places where inmates with a little cash could survive without the fear of violence. Unit 26 was the preferred address, though the cells lacked air-conditioning and ventilation.
Hugh cleared the front gate and followed well-marked roads into the depths of the farm. He parked in the small lot of Unit 26, cleared another security post, and entered a red-brick administration building. He got frisked again, then led to the visitation room. Lance appeared on the other side of a mesh screen and they said hello. Though the visits were supposed to be confidential, Lance trusted no one at the prison and cautioned Hugh about saying too much.
Other than a few more gray hairs and wrinkles around his eyes, Lance had changed little in sixteen months. The cardiac problems that had practically killed him the year before had mysteriously vanished. He claimed to be in good health and surviving the ordeals of prison. He worked in the library, took walks around the camp several times each day, and wrote letters to friends, though all mail was screened. In cautious terms, they talked about the family businesses and Hugh assured him all was well. Fats sent his regards, as did Nevin and the other guys. Carmen was doing much better now that Lance was away, though Hugh downplayed his mother’s happiness. Lance feigned concern for her well-being.
They talked about everything but the obvious. Jesse Rudy’s death was never mentioned. Lance had not been involved in it, and he was worried sick that his unpredictable son had done something stupid.