Odious Billy Joe

[Peg Herring]

The nice young preacher stepped onto the witness stand. The defense attorney, Merri Pason, approached, dark eyes downcast until the last moment, when they rose to lock on the nervous man's gaze. "You were there? On the bridge that day?"

"I, uh, saw what happened, yes. I was too late to stop him." The witness appealed to the watchful courtroom, the young couple from Tupelo, the listless mother, and the defendant, a young girl who seemed not to care what went on around her. "He jumped before I could stop him. It was awful."

"But he didn't jump, Parson. That's why we're here. An autopsy revealed that Billy was pushed off that bridge. And this young woman is accused of the crime. The prosecution says that she killed him because he would not run away with her."

The witness' chin dropped to his chest. "No. She didn't push him. She couldn't."

"Someone did." The canny attorney waited, letting the silence extend as the man made his decision.

The preacher stared over the heads of those assembled to see the young woman tried for second-degree murder. He seemed to have forgotten their presence, and when he finally spoke, it was not to the court, but to the defendant alone.

"I did." The gasp that circled the room went unnoticed by the two young people. "He was so cruel to you," he spoke to her directly, his face earnest. "I watched him for years, tormenting you with frogs as children and then using you for his pleasure as an adolescent. But you never saw it. You were so in love with him that it didn't matter. Your father tried to tell you, but you didn't listen. Someone had to save you. Someone who...loved you, who would have been good to you the way you deserve." His voice became stronger as he recalled his surroundings. "I never thought they'd think you had anything to do with it." He spoke to the judge. "She was chopping cotton, like she said. She was nowhere near the bridge."

As the courtroom erupted with noise and activity, as the judge ordered the defendant freed and the preacher arrested, the girl sat calmly, unaware of the preacher's appealing expression. He didn't matter. All that mattered, ever, was Billy, and Billy was gone. At least now that she was released from custody she could take more flowers to the bridge.