Gideon - 05 - Blind Judgement Read Online Free PDF Page A

understand that the arrest of a black plant-worker in the rural Delta for the murder of a Chinese businessman would spark no great interest by the media, but Paul’s arrest should be big news. At least it would have been twenty years ago. Maybe he isn’t as rich as I thought.
    I open the door and am greeted by a young black secretary behind a desk and a typewriter.
    “You lookin’ for Sheriff Bonner? He just called and said he’s on the way.”
    She has an old-fashioned bushy ‘fro that I haven’t seen in twenty years. Maybe eighteen at the most, she has an infectious smile that draws a smile from me. The last time I was in this building the only black face was behind a broom.
    “May I have a seat and wait for him?” I ask.
    “You sure can,” she says brightly.
     
    “Would you care for some coffee?”
    I take off my overcoat and sit down across from her. I’ve drunk enough coffee today to float a battleship, but one more cup won’t hurt.
    “With just a little milk or whitener in it,” I say, pleased by the courtesy shown me. Could the sheriff be a black man? I realize I’ve got to find out what the hell has been going on for the last thirty years over here before I go too much further on this case.
    “You must be a lawyer, but not from around here,” my hostess says, pouring my coffee into a mug that has a replica of the design of the Pyramid office building and sports arena in Memphis.
    She’s clad in a modest green jumper with a white blouse underneath, Julia’s outfits, by comparison, look like the getups of a low-rent call girl. I realize how low my expectations are in the Delta. If you believe everything you read, you’d expect to find a girl this age at the welfare office with two children hanging on to her as she signs up for food stamps and AFDC.
    “I’m Gideon Page,” I say, holding out my hand for my coffee. She takes my hand and pumps it as if she were a politician seeking votes.
    “I’m Yolanda Ford, Sheriff Bonner’s secretary,” she replies.
    “It’s nice to meet you.”
    The door opens, and there is no mistaking the sheriff. Bonner is a
    compact black man in his early forties, in an olive and tan uniform. He measures no more than 5‘9”, and that may be stretching it because of the boots he is wearing.
    He sports a firm black mustache, and as he grins at Yolanda, I notice he has the whitest teeth of any black I’ve seen this side of Hollywood.
    The color of dark chocolate, Bonner is undeniably an attractive man. He smiles easily at me, but instead of introducing himself, he turns back to Yolanda and asks, “Who do we have here?”
    By allowing her to make our introduction, I see he is training her, and I watch closely as Yolanda replies, “Sheriff Bonner, this is Mr. Gideon Page. He hasn’t been here long enough to let us know what we can do for him.”
    Revealing his gun at his side as he takes off his leather jacket, Bonner offers his hand.
    “I’m Woodrow Bonner. How’re you, Mr. Page?”
    Such friendliness seems genuine enough, and with his firm handshake I begin to perceive why Bonner is surely the first black sheriff in Bear Creek since Reconstruction. He radiates a politician’s affability. I tell him I am fine and that I am Class Bledsoe’s attorney.
    “Yolanda, hold my calls,” he says without changing his expression and leads me back through a door to his office behind her desk.
    His office, though small, is very much like an up-and-coming
    politician’s—on the walls is a picture of him with Bill Clinton and another with the once Surgeon General of the United States, Joycelyn Elders, who I recall as director of the Arkansas Department of Health helped start a controversial school-based clinic over here which made available birth control information. Directly behind his chair is a picture of him shaking hands with Jesse Jackson and Maynard Jackson, the former black mayor of Atlanta. This area of the state is heavily Democratic, and no serious candidate can