Ben made his way slowly toward the cell McCorkindale had indicated. A murmur rose slowly among the prisoners as he passed them, and, as if in response to some silent cue, some of them began to sing and clap their hands. On either side, the individual cells were packed tightly. Young black men sat Indian-style on the bare springs of the metal bunks or stood, shoulder to shoulder, on the cramped cement floor. The cool which had swept over the city with the rain had not penetrated to the cellblock, and the suffocating smell of hundreds of sweaty crowded bodies thickened the air.
‘You a lawyer?’ someone called desperately as Ben continued toward the rear of the cellblock. ‘You gone git me out of here?’
In response, a chorus of boos and low moans swept the cellblock.
‘You staying like the rest of us, chickenshit,’ someone cried, and a series of cheers and catcalls broke from the stifling cells.
At the last cell, Ben stopped and looked in. Scores of young men and teenage boys milled about, and near the center of the cell one of them was urinating into the single toilet.
‘Looking for somebody, Preacherman?’ someone asked suddenly.
Ben glanced to the right and stared into a face that poked toward him from behind the bars.
‘Leroy Coggins,’ Ben said.
The man studied him a moment, then called toward the back of the cell. ‘Hey, Leroy. Preacherman’s here to see you.’
The crowd shifted about and a space opened up, as it seemed, between two dark furrows. At the end of it, Ben could see Coggins standing idly, his back to the rear wall.
‘What do you want?’ Coggins asked.
‘To talk to you.’
‘About what?’
‘That girl.’
‘Ooo wee,’ someone cried in a high, mocking voice. ‘Leroy, you got a girl?’
Coggins smiled. ‘Not one that would have anything to do with you,’ he said.
The crowd laughed.
‘That dead girl,’ Ben said.
‘She’d sure have to be dead to have anything to do with Leroy,’ the same voice shouted, and once again the crowd laughed.
Ben smiled, his eyes fixed on Coggins. ‘How about it, Mr Coggins?’ he said.
Coggins hesitated a moment, then pried himself from the wall and ambled leisurely to the front of the cell.
‘I’ve already told you everything I know,’ he said.
‘I know,’ Ben told him. He glanced down the hallway. ‘Sammy,’ he called, ‘come here a minute.’
McCorkindale lumbered down to them. ‘What can I do for you, Ben?’
‘Open up,’ Ben told him. ‘I want to take Mr Coggins out for a minute.’
McCorkindale opened the cell immediately, but Coggins did not step out of it.
‘What’s the matter?’ McCorkindale said tauntingly. ‘Scaredy-cat?’
Coggins straightened himself quickly and strode boldly out of the cell. ‘Not of anything you crackers can dish out,’ he snapped at McCorkindale.
McCorkindale’s face reddened instantly. ‘You better watch yourself, boy,’ he blurted.
Ben stepped between them and took Coggins lightly by the arm.
‘This way,’ he said as he tugged him forward quickly and led him up the stairs. He did not speak to him again until they were back in the detective bullpen.
‘You got to want to die to talk to people like you do,’ Ben said, almost lightly, as he sat down behind his desk.
Coggins remained standing, his face grim. ‘Maybe a part of me wants to do just that,’ he said.
Ben looked at him seriously. ‘Well, let the other part take over for a while,’ he said, ‘because we both know you’ve got work to do.’
Coggins face softened suddenly, but he did not move.
Ben nodded toward the empty chair which rested beside his desk. ‘I’d be much obliged if you’d take a seat.’
Coggins studied Ben’s face a moment longer, then he slowly sat down.
Ben took the purple ring from his jacket pocket and handed it to Coggins. ‘The fellow that killed that little girl – this might be his ring.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know that for sure, but right now it’s all I’ve got to go on.’
Coggins looked at the ring. ‘Well, you don’t have much, do you?’
‘No.’
Coggins laid the ring on the top of the desk. ‘I’ve never seen it. Where would I have seen it?’
‘I’m not expecting you to recognize it,’ Ben said.
Coggins leaned forward slightly. ‘Well, what exactly are you expecting, then?’
‘That ring had chalk dust all over it,’ Ben told him. ‘The kind you use on a pool cue.’
‘So?’
‘It’s the kind of ring you see down in some of those shops on Fourth Avenue.’
‘Maybe,’ Coggins said. ‘Up until recently I hadn’t spent much time down there. I’m from Ensley, remember?’
‘I was thinking it might belong to a Negro.’
‘Well, you certainly wouldn’t want it to belong to a white man.’
Ben let it pass. ‘And that this Negro just might hang around some of the poolhalls down on Fourth Avenue.’
Coggins smiled. ‘You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes,’ he said.
Ben let that pass too. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘the people who hang out on Fourth Avenue aren’t in much of a mood to talk to someone from the Police Department.’
‘Well, maybe if you had some Negro policemen in Birmingham, you wouldn’t have that problem,’ Coggins said.