The Reckoning
By John Grisham
A Book Report
by Bobby Everett Smith
Spoiler Alert
February 24, 2019
Setting
Clanton, Mississippi, a fictional city in Ford County. 1946 just after the end of World War II on the 640-acre farm of Pete Banning and his family contiguous with another 640 acre farm owned by Pete’s sister, Florry.
Characters
Pete Banning, affluent farmer in Mississippi. West Point graduate, world war II hero in the Philippines
Florry Banning, Pete’s sister and owner of adjacent 640 farm that had been in the Banning family for over 100 years.
Joel Banning, Pete’s son, attending Vanderbilt and later Ole Miss law school.
Stella Banning, Pete’s daughter, attending Hollins, a private, small girl’s school in Virginia
Nineva, black servant and confidant of Banning family
Reverend Dexter Bell, Minister of the Methodist Church in Clanton, Mississippi
Liza Banning, Pete’s wife and mother of Joel and Stella Banning, mental institute in Whitfield, Mississippi
Hop, custodian at Methodist Church and witness to the shooting of Rev. Bell
Sheriff Nix Gridley, Sheriff of Ford County, Mississippi
Deputy Red Arnett, Deputy Sheriff to Nix Gridley
Deputy Roy Lester, Deputy Sheriff to Nix Gridley
Miles Truitt, Ford County District Attorney
Judge Oswalt, Judge of Superior Court in Ford County presiding over the first-degree murder trial of Pete
Jackie Bell, wife of Dexter Bell
John Wilbanks, attorney for Pete
Russell Wilbanks, attorney and brother to John Wilbanks
Errol McLeish, 39-year-old bachelor from Rome, Georgia, courting Jackie Bell widow of Rev. Dexter Bell
The Story
Part One: The Killing
In early October 1946 Pete Banning woke up on his 640-acre fam in Mississippi. “This is the day,” he thought. Pete was a war hero, a graduate of West Point, and a well-respected farmer in Ford County, Mississippi. “This is the day for the killing; it is inevitable.”
He parked at the Methodist Church in Clanton, walked into Reverend Dexter Bell’s office, pulled out his 45-cal. pistol and put two bullets in his heart and one in his head. The Reverend died instantly.
Pete told Hop, the custodian, to go get the sheriff. Hop walked to the sheriff’s office and announced, “Reverend Bell’s been shot. He’s dead.”
The sheriff and two deputies wheeled into the church parking lot. Getting out of the car, they found the preacher’s body on the floor next to his chair. Hop announced, “Pete Banning shot him; heard him do it; saw the gun.”
The sheriff examined the body. Yep, he was gone. “Call the funeral home,” he said. This was the first murder in Ford County in the last year and no one could even think of one of such a prominent citizen.
It was hard to believe that Pete Banning had shot the preacher. Pete was the leading citizen in the area, a recipient of the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Medal from fighting as a guerilla in the Philippines against the Japanese from 1942 to 1945. He had marched in the Bataan Death March, escaped from the Japanese and joined a guerilla force in the mountains of Luzon, the main island of the Philippines.
The sheriff arrested Pete and took him to the Ford County jail. Pete said, on the way to the jail, “I have nothing to say.” Florry, his sister, visited him the next day at the jail as did his attorney, John Wilbanks. His two college-aged children, Joel and Stella, were away at school and did not visit. His wife, Liza, did not visit either. She was locked away in the state mental institution and had been for the last year or so.
The big question was, “why”.
When Pete met with his attorney, he continued his mantra, “I have nothing to say.”
Wilbanks continued to ask, what are we going to use for our defense strategy?”
“Maybe we can plead insanity.”
“I would not consider pleading insanity, nor do I intend to mortgage my farm to put up bail money. I will stay in jail until the trial and then I will take my punishment.”
“This is a potential death sentence in a first-degree murder trial,” his attorney told him.
“I know that, and I am prepared to take my punishment. I knew what I was doing.”
When Florry and Pete met at the jail a few days later, Florry asked him how he could do that to his family.
“I had no choice,” he said.
“Is Liza involved in this?” Florry continued.
“I have nothing to say,” Pete replied.
“Don’t lecture me; let’s keep things on the light side, my days are numbered. Don’t make them worse.”
The following Friday at 9:00 a.m., Pete was brought before Judge Oswalt who told him that he was charged with first degree murder which potentially carried the death penalty.
Pete acknowledged that he understood, and he pleaded Not Guilty.
Bail was refused and Pete was returned to the Ford County jail.
Pete had written his two children before the murder and instructed them not to come home. Joel decided to come home anyway in disobedience of his father for the first time in his 21 years. Joel liked Pastor Bell well enough and he reminisced on the night that the Pastor came to their house in 1942 and told them that Pete had been declared missing in the Philippines and was presumed dead.
Joel and Florry met. “Why did he do it?” he asked.
“I don’t know, and I do not believe that Pete is going to tell us.”
“He owes us an explanation.” Joel replied.
They talked about Liza locked away in the mental institution. “Pete had her locked up at the State institution in Whitfield, Mississippi. He thought she needed professional help, and Liza did not complain about the commitment.”
The two children were not allowed to visit her, but Pete visited about once a month before the shooting. He had told Florry that she did not seem to be getting any better.
After the first week, Pete convinced Sheriff Nix to appoint him as a Jail Trustee. This gave him free run of the jail if he did not leave the building. Florry started bringing him food and soon she was supplying all the jail food for the deputies and the inmates, 3 white and 6 black.
The Grand Jury Indicted Banning for first degree murder and his trial was set for January 6, 1947.
The Banning farm consisted of 640 acres owned by Pete and an adjacent 640 acres owned by his sister, Florry. The property had been in the family for over 100 years, growing cotton raised by slaves at first and by the same African Americans paid wages after the emancipation proclamation. The farm was managed by Buford, a white man, who lived in a cottage on the property. Black people who worked the farm, lived throughout the property on cottages which they had built for themselves.
Joel was a senior at Vanderbilt and Stella was a junior at Hollins, a small private girl’s school in Virginia with about 375 students. Joel intended to go to Law School and Stella hoped to be a writer like a journalist or some such thing.
Pete refused to mount any kind of defense. Wilbanks wanted to use the insanity plea since he could not find any other reasonable way to save his client’s life. Banning would have no part of it. He refused to plead insanity and there was no logical excuse to explain why he shot the preacher. Wilbanks was totally frustrated with his client’s attitude which seemed to be, “let’s get a guilty verdict and carry out the death penalty.” The fact that Banning was saying nothing to defend himself made it even easier for the jury to convict him and sentence him to death which in Mississippi was not uncommon but less so amongst affluent white citizens that black ones. Even though Pete was a war hero, he did not have the right to kill another human being without a good reason. Whatever conflict there could have been between the two men could have been settled without bloodshed.
Jackie Bell, the dead man’s wife, had three children whom she took with her and moved to Rome, Georgia. She had a lawyer, Error McLeish, from whom she rented a small house in Rome. Jackie and Errol began planning “a wrongful death suit” early after the murder. The possibility existed that Errol and Jackie could get the entire Banning estate although probably not the 640 acres owned by Florry. Even so this was as much as $100,000 in the early years after the end of WWII.
At Christmas, Stella and Joel came to the farm for the holidays. Pete had written to allow them to come home for a few days to celebrate Christmas and to see him briefly. The sheriff allowed Pete to come home for Christmas dinner for a maximum of one hour. He was the only inmate allowed such leniency.
Pete was relaxed during his trip to the farm, but he refused to give the family any reason for his shooting of the preacher. He expected to be convicted and there was a good chance that he would get the electric chair, making this his last Christmas on earth. Pete said he had good reasons for killing the preacher, but they were between him and Dexter Bell, and he would not discuss them.
Jackie Bell took her three children to church. She suspected that her dead husband had finally messed with the wrong man in messing with Pete Banning. She thought that the reason why Pete shot him was that he had been having an affair with Liza Banning. Bell liked women enough and Liza was pretty enough to attract him.
On January 6, 1947 12 white men were selected to be the jury at the Banning trial. It was a relatively short trial, but it was testified that on September 16, the previous year, Pete Banning had issued a Quit Claim Deed for his 640-acre farm and the house on it to his two children, Joel and Zella. This testimony was designed to prove that Pete had been planning this murder for a good while, proof of premeditation.
The Defense presented testimony that Pete, while in the military in World War II, fighting in the Philippines, had been taken captive by the Japanese and presumed dead. (In May 1942, Dexter Bell had gone to the Banning farm to tell Liza and the children about this development.)
The jury delivered their verdict, Unanimous. Guilty and Pete Banning was sentenced to death by the electric chair. The judge assigned a date of 90 days, April 8 for the death of the defendant. A wrongful death lawsuit was also expected.
After appeals, the execution date was moved to July 10, 1947 to be carried out in the same court room as the trial was held, using the transportable electric chair which Mississippi employed.
Banning was electrocuted in a painful death. The governor was there and offered him a stay of execution if he would explain why he killed the preacher. Banning replied, “I have nothing to say.”
The night before the execution, Banning met with his sister, Florry. He told her that he had no choice other than to shoot the minister. “There are some things you should know,” he said.
Peter Banning was buried in the family cemetery on the farm which had been their home for over 100 years, “God’s Faithful Soldier” was inscribed on the tombstone. Many soldiers had come to town to pay their respects to Pete Banning with whom they had served in the war. Some were still in town after the internment was over. Many of them came out to the farm to pay their final respects.
Part Two: The Boneyard
Germany attacked Poland in 1939, began bombing London in 1940, and invaded Russia in 1941. World War II was on, but the United States stayed out of it until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. “A Day that will live in infamy,” spoke President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his speech to Congress requesting the U.S. declaration of War against Japan. A couple of days later the U.S. went to war against Germany and Italy as well.
When Joel was 15 and Stella 13, Pete received orders to return to the U.S. Army, Ft. Riley, Kansas, September 15, 1941, three months before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Pete drove to Memphis with his black chauffer, Jupe, where he caught a train for Ft. Riley. Jupe was 20 and was a grandson of Nineva who had lived on the Banning fam his entire life. Pete told him to take care of the fam and boarded the train where he would travel to his duty station and his new life as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Cavalry, Twenty-Sixth Regiment. On November 10 he was shipped out to the Philippines and passed through the Golden Gate Bridge and Pearl Harbor on his way.
General Douglas MacArthur was placed in command of the Philippines in July 1941 and the Twenty-Six Regiment with 787 enlisted men and 55 American officers reported to him in Manila. Pete was assigned a barracks and given a horse. His Troop was one of the last horse-riding units in the U. S. Army.
In December, the Japanese overwhelmed the Americans on the major island of Luzon. MacArthur was ordered to take his staff and family to Australia and to manage the war in the Pacific from there. He left his main forces at Bataan. General King was left behind with 70,000 soldiers, under fed and without supplies and ammunition. General King soon surrendered, and Pete Banning was included in the group of men whom the Japanese marched in the Bataan death march.
The Japanese were brutal in their treatment of Americans and Filipinos who participated in the Death March, 66 miles in hot sunshine from Corregidor to Camp O’Donnell, a newly renovated Japanese POW camp. The prisoners had little food and water over a six-day march. The guards treated the prisoners terribly in what would become known as one of the worst atrocities in the history of warfare.
Thousands of Americans died on the march, but Pete survived, one of 10,000 Americans who made it to San Fernando. It was estimated that 650 Americans and 11,000 Filipinos died along the 66-mile march.
O’Donnell was built on 650 acres of land with little water and housing. It was reported to the American Commandant at O’Donnell that Pete Banning had died, and he reported that up the chain of command where it was transmitted to Liza and the rest of the family at the Banning farm.
Florry took Joel and Stella to Memphis for a long week-end. While they were away, Dexter Bell came to the Banning farm to meet with Liza and they prayed together every day. Nineva listened to every word.
Pete was still alive, but he had made the decision that he was not going to die of starvation or disease. He met a friend, Clay, and they started making plans to escape. Americans at that time at O’Donnell were dying at the rate of 100 per day. Survivors were forced to dig graves and the cemetery became known as The Boneyard.
Pete and Clay were identified as amongst the healthier of the prisoners and they were selected to be put on a transport ship and sent to Japan to work as slaves in the Japanese coal mines. This was not a good assignment with terrible conditions aboard the ship and even worse conditions in Japan working in the mines.
Pete and Clay were packed into a decrepit transport ship and headed out to sea towards Japan. A U.S. submarine spotted them and delivered three torpedoes into the ship, sinking it quickly. Pete and Clay were lucky to get out and they found a raft which they boarded to save their lives.
A Filipino fishing boat was the second boat to pass by them. The first was a Japanese boat who did not spot them. The fishing boat picked them up and took them to land, about twenty miles away. The fisherman, Amato, was a Filipino who was fishing on contract for the Japanese Army. He was friendly to the Americans and took them to his town where they were fed and hydrated and prepared to meet with guerillas who were continuing to fight the Japanese in the interior of the main island of Luzon.
The Filipinos led them up the mountains towards the center of Luzon. They came across a napping Japanese and killed him, taking his rifle and pistol and six-inch gun. They were now armed for the first time in months and they continued climbing towards their goal, the West Luzon Resistance Force under the command of General Bernard Granger, an Englishman who had lived in the Philippines for the last twenty years.
Pete and Clay were led to General Granger and introduced. He welcomed them into his forces which were well-trained, well-fed, and well-supplied guerilla forces out to kill and disrupt Japanese at every opportunity. Pete was promoted to Major and given his own Squad, G Troop and Clay was assigned to that group.
Major Banning continued to lead raids against the Japanese for the next two years. In January 1945, American forces landed on Luzon. Granger forces were assigned to ambush retreating Japanese forces. Pete took shrapnel in the leg but continued to move. They heard trucks; they were American trucks. A U.S. Colonel came towards Pete who saluted and introduced himself: ”Lieutenant Pete Banning of the Twenty-sixth Cavalry Regiment, U.S. Army, West Point, Class of 1925.”
The Colonel looked him over. The colonel did not salute but he gave Pete a long bear-hug. On examination, Pete had malaria, dysentery, malnutrition, weighing in at 137 pounds. He needed surgery to remove shrapnel from his leg. Surgery went well but the doctors did not have the tools in the field to reset his broken bone on the other leg. Pete said goodbye to Clay and others in his Regiment and boarded a hospital ship which sailed for San Francisco where he landed four weeks later.
Liza and the family were informed that Pete was alive. She went to San Francisco to be with him during several surgeries required to reset his leg. She became the hit of the ward where Pete was being treated at Letterman Hospital at the Presidio. On May 10, Pete returned to Jackson, Mississippi where Liza, Stella, and Florry were waiting. Pete spent the next three months at Foster General Hospital convalescing.
Part Three: The Betrayal
After the execution, John Wilbanks filed for probate of the will of Pete Banning. He had 640 acres of farmland, a nice house worth $30,000, farm equipment, cars, trucks, and other personal property. The real estate went to the children and was worth around $100,000 and to Liza, he left in trust, about $25,000. Wilbanks published, as required, the terms of the will and Errol McLeish, attorney for Jackie Bell, was monitoring the Mississippi papers for disclosure of the estate. He had plans.
On August 7, Joel and Stella drove to Whitfield to the State Mental Institution to see their mother. They asked Dr. Hilsabeck what the progress and the diagnosis of Liza was. He told them she suffered from anxiety, depression, and acute stress. She has mood swings, panic attacks, and trouble breathing. She has not made much progress since she has been at the Institution. She does not hear voices or appear to be schizophrenic or paranoid, but she had trouble managing in social settings.
Dr. Hilsabeck did not know what caused the problems she was having but he thought it was something traumatic, something which he had not been able to identify. Liza is not a good patient—unwilling to talk and she refuses to go into her past. This change is something that has happened since your father returned from the war as she enjoyed his return completely. They met with Liza and enjoyed seeing her and they her.
Errol McLeish hired Bruce Dunlap, a fine attorney, to file a wrongful death lawsuit against Joel and Stella and the trust held by Liza. The goal was to get the entire farm, house, all the personal property and any cash possessions in the estate. Jackie Bell wanted to wipe them out financially.
After four trips to Whitfield, Stella and Joel became convinced that their mother would never leave the institution.
The jury awarded $50,000 in actual damages and $50,000 in punitive damages to Jackie Bell which set the record for damages in the Northern District of Mississippi.
Dr. Hilsabeck and Joel, now his mother’s guardian, chatted at the Institution about the progress and causes of the mental problems Liza was having. Joel asked the doctor if he thought that Dexter Bell was responsible for her problems. Joel and the doctor agreed that he probably was involved, else why would Pete have killed him and been willing to take the death sentence without mounting any kind of defense.
The question was, how did Pete learn that Rev. Bell was involved?
Nineva, the house servant, told Joel that there was a time when Liza and Dexter Bell went to Memphis for a day, all alone. Liza’s mother was sick, they told her. They were gone all day and came back at dark. Liza told Nineva not to tell the kids about the trip as she did not want to worry them. Liza was sick when she returned home. The story did not add up, but Nivea did not tell Joel anything else.
Liza’s mother did not have cancer; she was not sick, so the real question is what did Liza and Dexter do in Memphis that day?
Liza escaped from the Mental Institute and caught a train to Clanton and from there a taxi to the farm. The Sheriff and the Doctor were searching for her, but she got into the house at the farm which at the time was completely empty. Florry found her there shortly after she arrived. She asked Liza to tell her the story that caused her to lose her mind.
Pete had come to see Liza the day before the execution. He said he still loved her but could not forgive her.
Florry got sick with heart trouble and she went to New Orleans to stay with her best friend, Miss Twyla, who told Joel the final story.
Liza had confessed to Pete after he got home that she had an affair with Dexter Bell and got pregnant. She and Dexter went to Memphis alone together and got an abortion. After Pete returned from the war, Liza told him that she had the affair with Bell and that’s the reason that Pete killed him and refused to mount a defense. In those days, the concept of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder did not exist, but the symptoms did and that’s probably what Pete suffered from. Even so, he killed the preacher for shacking up with his wife while he was off at war.
This was not true. Miss Twyla told Joel that the truth was that Liza had started having sex with Jupe, the black grandson of Nineva, after Pete left for the war. That’s where she got pregnant. Dexter Bell took her to Memphis to get the abortion, but he was not having an affair of any kind with her. He was only fulfilling his duties as a Methodist minister helping a member of his congregation.
Liza took an overdose of pills at the tombstone of Pete Banning. She died that night. Jackie Bell and Errol McLeish moved into the Banning farmhouse and Joel married and graduated from law school. Stella graduated from Hollins and Jupe moved to Chicago to avoid Southern law.
Rating
Five out of five stars. John Grisham tells a fantastic story. This is set in the Southern United States just after the end of World War II. Peete Banning, a local war hero spends years fighting for guerilla forces in the Philippines while his wife and two teen-age children try to survive on a 640-acre farm in Mississippi. When Pete returns home with casts and shrapnel, and multiple commemorations, he discovers that his wife has been having an affair with the Methodist minister. He shoots him to death and gets the death penalty. That’s not the end of the story and John Grisham keeps us riveted to the page to the very last word. This is one of those books that you are sorry when it ends. I highly recommend The Reckoning.
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