Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil Part 11

GUNPLAY.

Under the banner headline WILLIAMS CHARGED IN SLAYING WILLIAMS CHARGED IN SLAYING, the story was very brief. It said that at 3:00 A.M. A.M., police had been summoned to Mercer House, where they found Danny Hansford, twenty-one, lying dead on the floor in the study, his blood pouring out onto an oriental carpet. He had been shot in the head and chest. There were two pistols at the scene. Several objects in the house had been broken. Williams had been taken into custody, charged with murder, and held on $25,000 bond. Fifteen minutes later, a friend of Williams had arrived at police headquarters with a paper bag containing 250 one-hundred-dollar bills, and Williams was released. That was all the newspaper said about the shooting. Williams was identified as an antiques dealer, a restorer of historic houses, and a giver of elegant parties at his "showplace" home, which Jacqueline Ona.s.sis had visited and offered to buy for $2 million. About Danny Hansford, the paper gave no information other than his age.

The next day's newspaper carried a more detailed account of the shooting. According to Williams, he had shot Danny Hansford in self-defense. He and Danny had attended a drive-in movie, he said, and returned to Mercer House after midnight. Back at the house, Hansford suddenly went wild, just as Williams said he had done a month earlier. He stomped a video game, broke a chair, smashed an eighteenth-century English grandfather clock. Then-just as he had done before-he grabbed one of Williams's German Lugers. But this time he did not fire it into the floor or out into Monterey Square. This time he aimed it directly at Williams, who was sitting behind his desk. He fired three shots. All three missed. When he pulled the trigger to fire again, the gun jammed. That was when Williams reached into his desk drawer and took out another Luger. Danny was struggling to unjam his gun when Williams shot him.

Later in the week, Williams elaborated further in an interview in the weekly newspaper the Georgia Gazette. Georgia Gazette. His tone was confident, even a little defiant. "If I had not shot Danny," he said, "it would have been my obituary that was published." Williams said the movie at the drive-in had been a violent horror film. "Lots of throats being slashed and that sort of thing. I told Danny we should leave and go play backgammon or chess or something, and we did." His tone was confident, even a little defiant. "If I had not shot Danny," he said, "it would have been my obituary that was published." Williams said the movie at the drive-in had been a violent horror film. "Lots of throats being slashed and that sort of thing. I told Danny we should leave and go play backgammon or chess or something, and we did."

By the time Williams and Hansford arrived back at Mercer House, Danny had smoked nine joints and consumed a half-pint of whiskey. They played a video game for a while and then a board game. At that point, Hansford launched into an irrational tirade against his mother, his girlfriend Bonnie, and his buddy George Hill. Suddenly, in a flash of anger, he stomped the video control panel. "Games!" he screamed. "It's all games. That's what it's all about!" Williams stood up to leave the room. Hansford grabbed him by the throat and threw him up against a doorjamb. "You've been sick," he screamed. "Why don't you just go off someplace and die?" Williams wrenched himself out of Hansford's grip and went into his study, where he sat down at his desk. He heard loud crashing noises-the grandfather clock falling to the floor, gla.s.s breaking, and other sounds of destruction. Danny came into the room carrying a German Luger. "I'm leaving tomorrow," he said, "but you're leaving tonight!" With that, he took aim at Williams and fired. Williams said he felt a breeze as one of the bullets pa.s.sed his left arm. Then Danny's gun jammed. Williams grabbed his own gun and fired.

After Danny fell, Williams put his gun down on the desk, walked around the desk, saw that Danny was dead, then went back behind the desk and called a former employee, Joe Goodman. Williams told Goodman he had just shot Hansford and to come to Mercer House right away. After that, Williams called his lawyer. Then he called the police.

Williams's lawyer, the police, Joe Goodman, and Joe Goodman's girlfriend all arrived at Mercer House at the same time. Williams was standing at the open door. "I just shot him," he said. "He's in the other room."

The first policeman to arrive on the scene, Corporal Michael Anderson, recognized Danny immediately. Corporal Anderson was the same policeman who had come to Mercer House a month earlier to take Danny into custody after his previous rampage. On that occasion, he had found Danny upstairs stretched across the bed, fully clothed. This time he found him lying on a Persian carpet in Williams's study with his face in a pool of blood. His right arm was outstretched above his head, his hand cupped lightly over a gun.

Toward 7:00 A.M. A.M., the police escorted Williams to headquarters. They fingerprinted him, booked him for murder, and set bond at $25,000. Williams went to a telephone and called Joe Goodman, who was still waiting back at Mercer House. "Joe, now listen carefully," he said. "Go upstairs to the tall cabinet outside the organ room. Stand on the chair next to it, reach up, and take down a paper sack that's sitting on top." Fifteen minutes later, Goodman arrived at police headquarters with a brown paper bag containing 250 one-hundred-dollar bills, and Williams went home.

A few days later, the police announced that certain lab tests would show whether or not Danny Hansford had actually fired a pistol as Williams claimed. A crucial test would be the presence, or absence, of gunshot powder on Hansford's hands. If gunshot residue could be detected, it would mean Hansford had fired his gun before Williams killed him; the absence of residue would mean he had not fired. Police said the results would be ready in a week or so and could make or break the case against Williams.

Despite the heavy charges hanging over him, Williams went calmly about his affairs. On Wednesday, four days after he shot Hansford, he asked the court for permission to fly to Europe on an antiques-buying trip. The judge raised his bond to $100,000 and let him go. In London, Williams stayed in his favorite suite at the Ritz and played roulette at Crockford's Club. Then he flew on to Geneva to attend a sale of Faberge. He returned to Savannah a week later.

Soon afterward, the police announced that the lab tests would be delayed because of a backlog of work at the Georgia Crime Lab in Atlanta. A month later, the police were still awaiting results.

In the meantime, people in Savannah were coming to conclusions on their own without benefit of lab results. Facts about Danny Hansford were beginning to circulate, and they lent credence to Williams's claim of self-defense. Hansford had been in and out of juvenile homes and mental hospitals. He had dropped out of school in the eighth grade and had a history of violence and getting into trouble with the police. Williams himself had bailed him out of jail nine times in the past ten months. Skipper Dunn, a horticulturist, who had once lived in the same rooming house as Hansford, described him as a dangerous psychotic. "He was a berserker," Dunn said. "I saw him run amok twice, breaking things, reaching for knives. It took two people to pin him down. You could look into his eyes and see there was no person left, only rage and violence. It was easy to see that he might try to kill someone some day." Hansford had once torn a door off its hinges in an effort to get at his sister and beat her up. His own mother had sworn out a police warrant against him, declaring that she was afraid he would do bodily harm to her and her family.

In his interview with the Georgia Gazette Georgia Gazette, Williams described Hansford as severely disturbed. He said Hansford had once told him, "I'm alone in this world. No one cares about me. I don't have anything to live for." With a strange sort of detachment, Williams saw himself as Danny Hansford's savior rather than his nemesis, much less his murderer: "I was determined to save him from himself," he said. "He had given up on being alive." Though Williams's view was unabashedly self-serving, it was compelling in its detail. Hansford had developed a fascination with death, he said. He would frequently go to Bonaventure Cemetery with friends and point to the grave markers and say that the small ones were for poor people, and the big ones were for rich people, and that if he died in Mercer House he would get a big one. Hansford had twice tried to commit suicide at Mercer House by taking drug overdoses. The second time, he had written a note: "If this stuff does the job, at least I'll get a decent tombstone." Williams had rushed him to the hospital both times. All of that was a matter of record.

Beyond saying Danny Hansford was an employee, Williams never fully explained their relationship. But it soon became known that Hansford had been a part-time male hustler who loitered in the squares along Bull Street. Most people did not need to have the rest of the story spelled out for them. A few of Williams's friends, however-society ladies for the most part-discovered they had been completely in the dark. Millicent Mooreland, an Ardsley Park hostess and a blue blood, had known Williams for thirty years. Yet when a friend called her to say, "Jim Williams has just shot and killed his lover," she was dumbstruck for two reasons, not just one. "That statement left me absolutely gasping," Mrs. Mooreland said. "My friendship with Jim had been based on antiques and parties and social things. I simply wasn't aware of his other interests in life."

Most of the social set were more worldly than Mrs. Mooreland. "Oh, we knew," said John Myers. "Of course we knew. We weren't aware of the details, naturally, because Jim exercised discretion, which was the right thing to do. But all along we'd congratulated ourselves about Jim's social success because of what it seemed to say about us. We thought it proved Savannah was cosmopolitan, that we were sophisticated enough to accept a gay man socially."

Mrs. Mooreland remained loyal to Williams, but there were certain things that did trouble her, apart from the shooting itself. She was perplexed by a seemingly small detail in the rush of events that happened that night. "Joe Goodman," she said. "Who is he? I don't know him. I've never seen him in Jim's house, and yet he was the first person Jim called."

Mrs. Mooreland's consternation about Joe Goodman arose from the fact that she had lived her entire life within the rea.s.suring confines of what was known as Old Savannah. Old Savannah was a sharply circ.u.mscribed, self-contained world. The supporting roles for all of its dramas had been cast long ago. In times of crisis, one turned to the relevant figures in the community-the legal authority, the moral pillar, the social arbiter, the financial t.i.tan, the elder statesman. Old Savannah was well structured for dealing with crises. Having spent a lifetime in this comforting environment, Mrs. Mooreland was surprised that in his moment of need Jim Williams had reached out to someone completely unknown-rather than to Walter Hartridge, for instance, or to d.i.c.k Richardson. It was a signal to her that something was terribly off kilter.

With so much talk centering on Jim Williams-his origins, his career, his exploits, his everything-the incident of the n.a.z.i flag came in for a good bit of rehashing. And now a shooting with a German Luger, no less.

Some people, even a few Jews like Bob Minis, dismissed the n.a.z.i flag episode as insignificant-"It was stupid," said Minis. "Jim acted quickly, without thinking." But others were not inclined to let Williams off so easily. "I'm sure he doesn't actually think of himself as a n.a.z.i," said Joseph Killorin, an English professor at Armstrong State College. "But come on, n.a.z.i symbols are not totally bereft of meaning. They still carry a very clear message, even if they're displayed under the guise of 'historic relics.' The message is superiority superiority, and don't think for a minute Jim Williams isn't aware of it. He's too smart not to be. In the South, among extreme chauvinists, you sometimes find a strange affinity for n.a.z.i regalia. It has to do with a sense of once having been treated for what one was worth and now being treated merely as an equal. There is a terribly social gentleman here in Savannah who sometimes wears n.a.z.i uniforms to costume parties-anyone can tell you who I'm talking about; he's known for it-and he says he does it for shock value, but the deeper meaning is still there. In Jim's case, it may not be anything more than apolitical arrogance. If a man lives in the grandest house in town and gives the most extravagant parties, he could easily come to believe he was superior. He might also think the rules for ordinary people no longer applied to him. Displaying a n.a.z.i flag would be one way of demonstrating that."

All in all, if a straw poll had been taken in Savannah in the first few weeks after the shooting, it would most likely have shown that the public expected the case to be dropped. By all appearances, the shooting had been self-defense or, at worst, a spur-of-the-moment crime of pa.s.sion. Matters like these were traditionally settled quietly, especially when the accused was a highly respected, affluent individual with no criminal record. Sa-vannahians were well aware of past killings in which well-connected suspects were never charged, no matter how obvious their guilt. One of the more colorful stories involved a society spinster who claimed that her gentleman lover had shot himself with a rifle while sitting in a wing chair in her living room. The woman "found" her lover's body, cleaned the rifle, put it back in the rifle case, and then had the body embalmed. Only after having done all that did she call the police.

"Oh, Jim Williams will probably get off," said Prentiss Crowe, a Savannah aristocrat, "but he'll still face a few problems. There is bound to be a certain resentment resentment about his having killed that boy-that boy in particular, I mean. Danny Hansford was a very accomplished hustler, from all accounts, very good at his trade, and very much appreciated by both men and women. The trouble is he hadn't quite finished making the rounds. A fair number of men and women were looking forward to having their turn with him. Of course, now that Jim's shot him they never will. Naturally, they'll hold this against Jim, and that's what I mean when I say 'resentment.' Danny Hansford was known to be a good time ... but a good time not yet had by all." about his having killed that boy-that boy in particular, I mean. Danny Hansford was a very accomplished hustler, from all accounts, very good at his trade, and very much appreciated by both men and women. The trouble is he hadn't quite finished making the rounds. A fair number of men and women were looking forward to having their turn with him. Of course, now that Jim's shot him they never will. Naturally, they'll hold this against Jim, and that's what I mean when I say 'resentment.' Danny Hansford was known to be a good time ... but a good time not yet had by all."

At the bar in the Oglethorpe Club, Sonny Clarke put it more bluntly: "You know what they're saying about Jim Williams, don't you? They're saying he shot the best piece of a.s.s in Savannah!"

The entire city was captivated by the sensational shooting, and for weeks afterward curious Savannahians drove their cars into Monterey Square and circled around and around. Dog-eared copies of the September/October 1976 issue of Architectural Digest Architectural Digest, the one with the feature on Mercer House, were pa.s.sed from hand to hand. People who had never been inside the house came to know it as if they lived there. They could tell you that Danny Hansford had died midway between an oil painting attributed to the nephew of Thomas Gainsborough and a gold-encrusted desk that had been owned by Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. They could recite, with malicious glee, the now-ironic concluding sentence of the article: "The charm of the city and its way of life have found expression in [Williams's] careful and loving restoration of Mercer House-a house once ravaged by war and neglect but now a center of harmony and quiet living."

There was one major imponderable in the case against Jim Williams: Spencer Lawton, the new district attorney. Lawton was too new at the job to be predictable. Also, he owed a debt of grat.i.tude to Lee Adler, whose support and beneficence had helped put him in office-and whose long-running feud with Jim Williams was well known. Lee Adler was uniquely positioned to influence the course of events, if he chose to do so. He could, in private conversation, encourage Lawton to prosecute Williams. Or, as seemed less likely, he could urge lenience. To people who were bold enough to ask if he was pressuring Lawton in any way, Adler stoutly replied, "Spencer Lawton is his own man."

For more than a month after the shooting, Lawton kept a remarkably low profile. His name was never mentioned in press coverage of the case. All public statements from his office were made by his chief a.s.sistant. A preliminary hearing was set for June 17, at which time Lawton would decide whether or not to seek an indictment.

Five days before the hearing was to take place, Lawton went before the Chatham County grand jury and presented his evidence in secret session. The grand jury acted quickly. It indicted Williams for first-degree murder-premeditated and with malice aforethought. The severity of the charge raised a few eyebrows. If there was to be an indictment at all, involuntary manslaughter had seemed a more likely charge than murder, given what was known of the case. Lawton would not discuss the evidence publicly except to say that the lab tests had been only partially completed. Jim Williams would have to stand trial.

A few days after the indictment, Danny Hansford's mother sued Williams for $10,003,500. She charged that he had killed Danny in an "execution style" shooting. The $3,500 was for funeral expenses.

Even now, Williams maintained an air of unruffled calm. His trial was not scheduled to begin until January, more than six months away. He asked the court for permission to go back to Europe on another buying trip, and permission was granted. When he returned, he kept to his old routines. He had his hair cut by Jimmy Taglioli on Abercorn Street, he shopped at Smith's market, he ate dinner at Elizabeth on 37th. He was not even slightly remorseful. He had no reason to be, he thought. As he had told the Gazette Gazette, "I haven't done anything wrong."

Chapter 13.

CHECKS AND BALANCES.

"Sometimes I think you Yankees only come down here to stir up trouble," said Joe Odom. "I mean, look at Jim Williams. A model citizen. Minds his own business. One success after another. Then you come along, and the next thing we know he's killed somebody. I mean, really!"

It was three in the morning. Joe was moving out of the house on Liberty Street exactly six months after having moved in. The unsuspecting real estate agent, Simon Stokes, was due back from England the next day, and Joe intended to restore the house to the condition in which Mr. Stokes had left it: locked and empty. Joe had found another house to move into on Lafayette Square. And now, in the dead of night, he dumped a last armload of clothes into the van parked out front.

"All right," he said. "So now we have a murder in a big mansion. G.o.dd.a.m.n! Well, let's see where that puts us. We've got a weirdo bug specialist slinking around town with a bottle of deadly poison. We've got a n.i.g.g.e.r drag queen, an old man who walks an imaginary dog, and now a f.a.ggot murder case. My friend, you are getting me and Mandy into one h.e.l.l of a movie."

Joe went back inside to search for telltale signs that he had been living there for six months. In the past half year, the supposedly unoccupied house had played host to a maelstrom of humanity. Over a thousand tourists had traipsed through, peering into every nook and cranny and pausing to have a buffet lunch before leaving. At the same time, the never-ending parade of Joe's friends flowed in and out, with Jerry the hairdresser operating an all-but-full-time beauty salon in the kitchen. These diverse activities merged and mingled, sometimes with comical results. More than a few elderly ladies who came to the house for lunch got back on the tour bus with their hair completely restyled, and nearly everyone emerged clutching handbills advertising Sweet Georgia Brown's.

As always, new faces joined the cast of characters in Joe's entourage. Some hung on for a week or a month, others longer. As adroit as he was at gathering a crowd around him, Joe was utterly unable to cast anyone out. That task fell to an inner circle of friends who took it upon themselves to weed out unsavory hangers-on, with or without Joe's knowledge. In recent months, the primary target of this group had been a well-dressed man who had arrived in Savannah purporting to be a Palm Beach millionaire. In actual fact, he was a small-time entrepreneur who had opened a wh.o.r.ehouse on the road to Tybee. Before anyone knew it, he was quietly soliciting business from the men in the tour groups at Joe's. The inner circle called on a retired policeman, Sarge Bolton, to get rid of him. One glimpse of the revolver in Sarge's shoulder holster, and the man was gone.

Joe's friends had nothing against wh.o.r.ehouses, but they were worried that this one might complicate matters for Joe, who was just now coming under the scrutiny of the authorities because of the bad checks he had written before the opening of Sweet Georgia Brown's. The checks had begun to arrive at the prosecutor's office on the average of one a week: the carpenter's check, the electrician's check, the plumber's check, the check for the antique merry-go-round horse on top of the bar. When the total reached $18,000, two sheriff's deputies came to Sweet Georgia Brown's and served Joe with a summons. He was directed to appear for a hearing in court. Depending on the outcome of the hearing, he might or might not be indicted for writing worthless checks-a felony punishable by one to five years in prison.

On the day of the hearing, Joe strolled calmly into the courtroom twenty minutes late. Before taking his seat, he ambled over to the bench where the plaintiffs were sitting and greeted each of them.

"Howdy, George," he said to the carpenter.

The carpenter managed a wan smile. "Hey, Joe," he said.

Joe moved on to the electrician, the plumber, the general contractor, the man from the linen supply, and on down the line. "Howdy ... Afternoon ... h.e.l.lo ..." He spoke without a hint of sarcasm or irony. His voice was cheerful. His eyes were bright, his smile broad and easy. It was almost as if he were greeting patrons at Sweet Georgia Brown's. Joe's affability contrasted with the discomfiture of the men on the bench. Their embarra.s.sed, almost sheepish expressions made them seem more like the accused than the aggrieved-as if by being there they had been caught in an act of disloyalty against their genial friend. They smiled meekly and mumbled h.e.l.los. At the end of the row, Joe came to a tiny, sparrowlike man with silver hair and bushy black eyebrows. It was an antiques dealer from Charleston who had sold him the merry-go-round horse and other pieces of furniture. Joe brightened.

"Why, Mr. Russell!" he said. "What a surprise! I didn't know you were coming."

Mr. Russell shifted nervously in his seat. "Believe me, Joe, I would rather not have come. I really hate this, but you know. I ... uh ..."

"Oh, that's all right," said Joe. "I can't say I blame you. It's just that if I'd known you were coming I'd have asked you to bring that pair of sconces I liked so much."

"Oh, did you?" the man said. "I mean, did I ... I mean, did we ... uh." Mr. Russell blinked, as if trying to clear his head. "Oh, now I remember," he said. "We did talk about those sconces, didn't we. You're right. I'd forgotten all about that. Well ... uh. Now that you mention it, Joe, I guess I could have brought them with me-"

"Well, don't worry about it," said Joe. "We can discuss it later." He walked over and took his seat alone at the defense table.

The hearing judge gaveled the room to order.

"Mr. Odom, are you being represented by counsel?"

"Your Honor," said Joe, "as a member in good standing of the state bar of Georgia, I'll be representing myself."

The judge nodded. "Well then, let's proceed."

An a.s.sistant prosecutor read off the list of Joe's bad checks. Then one by one the plaintiffs took the stand and described the work they had done or the goods they had supplied and how, no matter how often they tried to cash Joe's checks, they always bounced. When Mr. Russell took the stand, the prosecutor and the judge conferred at the bench for several minutes, riffling through papers. The judge then rapped his gavel and informed Mr. Russell that in filing his complaint he had not followed the proper procedure; therefore his claim would be disallowed, at least for the time being. This would reduce the bad-check charges against Joe by the sum of $4,200. A red-faced Mr. Russell came down from the stand and took his seat.

"Your Honor," said Joe, "with your permission, I'd like to have a word with Mr. Russell."

"No objection," the judge replied.

Joe motioned for the antiques dealer to come over and sit next to him. He took the man's file and spread the papers on the table. Then, while the courtroom looked on, Joe read through the papers, speaking to Mr. Russell in a quiet, confidential tone. After a few minutes, he looked up at the judge.

"Your Honor," he said, "if you will allow me, I think we can remedy this situation in twenty minutes or so, and once we've done that you can reinstate Mr. Russell's claim against me."

The judge looked warily at Joe, uncertain whether he was merely having a laugh at the court's expense, or whether he might actually be slipping a fast one by him.

"The court appreciates your offer," the judge said, "but I doubt there's any precedent for a defendant acting as counsel for the plaintiff. One could worry that counsel might place his own best interests ahead of those of his client, if you see my point."

"I do, Your Honor," said Joe, "but in this case it's really just a matter of filling out forms. This gentleman has come all the way from Charleston to claim money that's rightfully his, and it doesn't seem fair to turn him away just because he messed up on some minor clerical procedure."

"True," said the judge. "Well, all right. Go ahead."

"One more thing, Your Honor," said Joe. "I would like to add for the record that I am doing this on a pro bono pro bono basis ..." basis ..."

"Good of you," said the judge.

"... forgoing my normal legal fee of forty-two hundred dollars." In the laughter that followed, Joe turned toward Mandy and me and winked.

The hearing went into recess while Joe rewrote Mr. Russell's claim against him. When he was finished, Mr. Russell's $4,200 was added back onto the total, and Joe took the stand. He told the court that he had written the checks in the expectation that the developers of City Market, where Sweet Georgia Brown's was located, would come through with several thousand dollars they owed him, but they had not. Therefore the checks were unintentional overdrafts. The judge and the prosecutor appeared to doubt Joe's explanation, but they agreed to drop the charges if he made good on the entire $18,000 in one month's time. Failing that, he would almost certainly be indicted. The judge, the prosecutor, and the plaintiffs all expressed the hope that Joe would settle the matter before it came to that.

And he did. But it was not through the cash flow of Sweet Georgia Brown's. Joe was saved this time by a loan of $18,000 from a rich young couple, who had recently moved to Savannah and had fallen under the spell of Joe Odom and Sweet Georgia Brown's.

Joe's good luck extended to the matter of finding new quarters to live in before Simon Stokes returned. At the last moment, he had arranged to occupy the s.p.a.cious and elegant parlor floor of the Hamilton-Turner House a few blocks away on Lafayette Square. The landlord was an old friend who lived in Natchez and knew all about Joe's bus tours and the tourist lunches and Joe's entourage and Jerry the hairdresser. All of that was fine with him.

Joe finished his sweep of the Liberty Street house, removing the last traces of his occupancy. Then he came back outside to sit on the front steps and have a cigarette. He had to admit things were not so bad after all. His bad checks had been made good. He was about to move into a beautiful old mansion. The prosecutor was off his back, and there was nothing for him to do now but smoke his cigarette and wait for Mandy to do one final load of laundry. When she was finished, he would disconnect the electricity and the telephone, turn off the water, lock the front door, and move on.

It was daybreak when Joe went to bed in his new house. He slept until early evening. Then he rose and went to Sweet Georgia Brown's, where the first person through the door was Mr. Russell, the antiques dealer from Charleston. He was carrying the sconces-ornate bra.s.s fixtures with tall hurricane lamps. Joe put them up on either side of the big mirror over the bar and lit the candles. The light danced and flickered.

"Will you take a check for them?" he asked.

"Why certainly," said Mr. Russell.

"I'd be much obliged," said Joe, "if you'd ... uh ... hold on to it until the first of the month."

"I'd be happy to," Mr. Russell said.

Joe turned to go back to the piano and found himself looking into the grinning face of the real estate agent, Simon Stokes.

"I'm back!" Mr. Stokes proclaimed. "If you still want that house on Liberty Street, you can have it. I saved it for you the whole time I was gone."

"I know you did," said Joe, "and I appreciate it more than I can say."

Chapter 14.

THE PARTY OF THE YEAR.

Engraved invitations to Jim Williams's black-tie Christmas party began arriving in the mailboxes of Savannah's better homes the first week in December. They were received with surprise and consternation, for it had been a.s.sumed that under the circ.u.mstances Williams would not be giving any party at all this year. Faced with the invitations, Savannah's social set grappled with the realization that the crowning social event of the winter season was going to take place at the scene of a notorious shooting and that barely a month later the host would go on trial for murder. What to do? Savannah was a place of manners and decorum, first and foremost. It had been the birthplace, after all, of Ward McAllister, that self-appointed social arbiter of late-nineteenth-century America. It was Ward McAllister who had compiled the list of New York's elite "Four Hundred" in 1892. This son of Savannah had codified the rules of conduct for ladies and gentlemen. The lively debate already raging over Williams's guilt or innocence shifted focus, moving to the question of whether it was proper for him to give his Christmas party and whether (since he was indeed going to give it) it was proper to attend. This year, instead of asking, "Have you been invited?" people wanted to know "Are you going to accept?"

Millicent Mooreland had counseled Williams not to give his party. "It wouldn't be the thing to do, Jim," she told him, and she thought she had talked him out of it until her invitation arrived. For Mrs. Mooreland, the party posed an agonizing dilemma. After many sleepless nights, she decided not to go.

Williams refused to acknowledge that his party might be a manifestation of poor taste. He and his lawyers, he said, had decided that not to have the party would be an admission of guilt. Therefore, he was going to have it. He would, however, skip the all-male party the night after. "The only person who's really going to miss that one," Williams said, "will be Leopold Adler. He won't be able to get out his binoculars and spy on it."

Williams was convinced that Lee Adler had prodded the district attorney into charging him with murder instead of a lesser crime, while outwardly pretending to be concerned for him. Two days after the shooting, Emma Adler had written Williams a note expressing her sorrow and offering to help in any way possible. She had signed the note "Fondly, Emma."

"The use of the word 'fondly,'" said Williams, "proves the letter was an exercise in insincerity. Emma Adler is no more fond of me than I am of her, and we both know it." Williams did not invite the Adlers to this year's party.

As in years past, Williams set about making elaborate preparations well in advance. His a.s.sistants went out and gathered three truckloads of fresh palmetto fronds, cedar boughs, and magnolia leaves, and spent a full week decorating the seven fireplaces and six chandeliers in Mercer House. On the day of the party, Lucille Wright arrived with roasts of ham, turkey, and beef; gallons of shrimp and oysters; tureens of dips and sauces; and quant.i.ties of cakes, brownies, and pies. She arranged the bountiful repast on silver platters and placed them around a mound of pink and white camellias in the center of the dining-room table. A sixty-foot garland of flame-throated orchids hung in swags along the spiral stairway. The scent of cedar and pine accented the air.

At seven o'clock sharp, Williams opened the front door of Mercer House and stood with his mother and his sister, Dorothy Kingery, to receive his guests. The two women wore evening gowns. Williams had on black tie and dinner jacket with Russian imperial Faberge cuff links gleaming in the cuffs of his dress shirt. He took a deep breath. "Now I'll find out who my real friends are." He did not have long to wait. The first arrivals were already coming up the walk.

And they kept coming. Dozens, scores, over a hundred. Each greeted Williams with warm expressions of support and then left their coats with an attendant in the study. If the mood was subdued at first, it picked up quickly as more and more guests arrived. White-jacketed butlers circulated with trays of drinks and hors d'oeuvres ("Pour with a heavy hand," Williams had told the bartender). Soon, the laughter and hilarity rose to such a pitch it drowned out the c.o.c.ktail pianist at the grand piano. Williams had invited 200 people and set a goal for himself of 150 acceptances. It was clear that he had made his goal. In his own mind at least, he had won a plebiscite of the social set. After an hour, he left his post in the receiving line and mingled with his guests.

"What sort of people have come?" I asked him. "And what sort have stayed away?"

"The holier-than-thou set has stayed home," he said, "the ones who have always been jealous of my success in Savannah and who want to let me know they disapprove. In addition to them, some of the people who honestly wish me well but are afraid to admit it publicly have also stayed home. The people you see here tonight are the ones who are secure enough to ignore anyone who might question their decision to come. Like that lady over there, Alice Dowling; her late husband was the U.S. amba.s.sador to Germany and Korea. She's talking with Malcolm Maclean, the former mayor of Savannah and head of one of Savannah's leading law firms. The little old lady immediately to Maclean's right is one of the seven women who founded the Historic Savannah Foundation: Jane Wright. She's descended from the third royal governor of Georgia. Now, to her right, you see a distinguished-looking man with a white mustache. He's Bob Minis, one of the most brilliant and influential financiers in Savannah. His great-great-grandfather was the first white man born in the state. He's Jewish-a blue-blood Georgia Jew, the only Jew in the Oglethorpe Club. To his right, the two men talking in the doorway are George Patterson, the retired president of the Liberty National Bank, and Alexander Yearley, the former chairman of Robinson-Humphrey, the big Atlanta investment bankers." Williams had the look of a poker player holding four aces.

"Now, over there by the piano," he went on, "the lady in the bright red dress and the contralto voice. She's Vera Dutton Strong, talking nonstop as usual. She's the heiress to the Dutton pulpwood fortune, and she lives in a giant palace in Ardsley Park. It's fit for an emba.s.sy. Vera raises champion poodles. She's got about a dozen, and at least seven of them sleep right in the bedroom with her and her husband, Cahill. Vera's audience at the moment happens to be the director of the Telfair museum, Alexander Gaudieri, which is a blessing because she won't give him a chance to get a word in, and n.o.body wants to hear what he he has to say anyway." has to say anyway."