June 20

June 20 is the decisive court date around which the novel’s investigation crystallizes into formal judgment. The date converts a scattered chain of suspicion, testimony, and preparation into a trial whose outcome may determine Lee Goodwin’s fate and expose the competing stories surrounding Tommy’s death.

The Date Set for Trial

The trial was scheduled for June 20. A week after his visit to Memphis, Horace Benbow telephoned Miss Reba Rivers, explaining that he wanted to know whether she was still there so that he could reach her if necessary. His call shows the date operating not merely as a calendar entry but as an approaching pressure point: Horace was securing possible access to a witness while the legal confrontation drew near.

From Preparation to Proceedings

When the trial opened, the courtroom presented a stark material summary of the case. On the District Attorney’s table lay the bullet removed from Tommy’s skull and a stoneware jug containing corn whiskey. These objects condensed the physical evidence into a few visible items, linking the death to the firearm evidence and to the illicit liquor associated with the events under examination.

Horace Benbow then called Mrs Goodwin to the stand. He did not look back, although he could feel Lee Goodwin’s eyes on him as he helped her into the chair. The gesture places personal strain inside the public procedure: Horace’s professional duty required him to present testimony that could harm Lee Goodwin, while his refusal to meet Lee’s gaze registers the human cost of doing so.

Testimony and Conflict

Mrs Goodwin repeated the account she had given Horace Benbow the day after the child became ill. Lee Goodwin attempted twice to interrupt her, but the Court silenced him. The trial therefore establishes a conflict between testimony and immediate resistance: her account is given a formal hearing, while Lee’s efforts to challenge it are contained by judicial authority.

The scene also makes testimony inseparable from the witness’s physical circumstances. Mrs Goodwin sat upright in a neat but worn gray dress and hat, its veil darned and a purple ornament fixed to her shoulder. Her child lay across her lap with closed eyes and a drugged immobility. As she finished, her hand hovered around the child’s face, continuing needless maternal gestures almost unconsciously. The courtroom thus exposes not only a verbal narrative but a vulnerable tableau in which illness, motherhood, poverty, and legal evidence occupy the same space.

Narrative Significance

June 20 marks a shift from private efforts to locate and preserve information to the institutional testing of competing accounts. Horace Benbow’s telephone call to Miss Reba Rivers, the sparse exhibits on the District Attorney’s table, Lee Goodwin’s suppressed interruptions, and Mrs Goodwin’s testimony all gather around the date as parts of one movement toward public judgment. The date’s significance lies in this concentration: by June 20, the case is no longer only a matter of rumor, memory, or individual investigation, but a proceeding in which bodies, objects, and testimony are placed before the Court.