Lost in Clover by Travis Richardson Read Free Book Online

be fun.”

14. OPENING DAY
    A little before eight, courthouse officials arrived, shaking their heads in disbelief. The line stretched for two blocks down Main Street. 
    “You know we can’t fit all of you in,” a security guard told the crowd with a chuckle.
    “Never seen anything like this in my life, never,” an older clerk said loudly to a younger colleague as they walked by Carrie and Jeremy.
    “Never been anything like this, you old coot,” Carrie muttered to Jeremy.
    Two sheriff deputies had been circling the area all night in their patrol cars and a new pair replaced them in the morning. A hush flowed through the crowd when the county correctional van passed by and parked in back of the courthouse. The sheriff’s cruiser followed close behind. 
    “Did you see him?” several people asked out loud.
    “I hope he makes a run for it and Sheriff Hensley shoots him dead,” somebody said to the chuckles of others.
    A handful of junior high kids ran to the back of the courthouse and then came back minutes later to spread the news. They had seen Crazy Eddie. And he was bigger and meaner than ever before, according to Timmy Lynch.
    “He was wa…wea…wearing orange and had a bunch of tattoos.”
    “He’s got a shaved head too,” Gregg Anders added.
    Jeremy and Carrie saw Crazy Eddie an hour later. They were in the first group of sixty to be seated. When Crazy Eddie was brought out, it seemed like his already enormous physical body had grown even more since his arrest. His bulging muscles seemed to have doubled in size. As reported, he had tattoos running all over his arms and it looked like the bottom of a swastika peeked under a sleeve of his orange jumpsuit. He kept his shaved head down, but carried a savage scowl. “No remorse,” Jeremy heard whispered behind him.
    More people were let into the courtroom until it was standing room only. There had been rumors about who was on the jury. Everybody knew somebody, but some of the talk was obviously wrong since many of the names bandied around were sitting in the audience. When the door opened for the jury box, it seemed there was just as much excitement to see who they were as there had been to see Crazy Eddie. Walking in first was Thomas Ginty. A staunch outspoken conservative with bumper sticker slogans on his truck to prove it. He walked to the jury box, trying to stare down Crazy Eddie.
    “Since Mr. Ginty is on the jury, Crazy Eddie will hang for sure,” somebody said.
    But when librarian Edna White, physics teacher Ralph Newton, and Presbyterian minister Ronald Edwards entered, the tone in the room changed.
    “Edwards, he’s a liberal minister,” the first voice said.
    “All three of them are,” another person said.
    “They’re not all ministers,” Carrie said, causing a slight chuckle around her.
    The rest of jury included Jessup Cotton, a retired farmer; Anne Fischer, a sewing shop owner; Hailey Granger, a tax accountant; homemaker Cynthia Garrison; and Janelle Hughes, a single mother who worked part-time at the IGA grocery store.
    The bailiff told everybody to stand, and Judge Roy Rhinehart entered. He was a short, round man, and known to be jovial when not wearing the robe, but in the courtroom he wore a stern frown.
    “Be seated,” he said as he eased into his chair. He looked around and exhaled. “This is the most people we’ve ever had in this courtroom in the history of Clover. I’m only going to say this once: any outburst and I will throw all of you out here. I might even throw in a contempt of court charge to the loudmouth. This is serious business here, and we have several weeks up ahead, so sit tight and be quiet.”
    He then turned his attention to the lawyers and talked in legal jargon that Jeremy knew only bits and pieces of from TV. The prosecution was led by Carson McKinney, a balding man in his late forties who had made an unsuccessful run in the Republican primaries for state Attorney General. Everybody knew him from the