The day after the preliminary hearing Lucien comes to Jake's office. His secretary also receives threatening calls.

The next morning he receives his first threatening call and that isn't the last one. Jake is interviewed and now known by everybody. The press is also on top of it and Clanton, once so calm and quiet, is flooded with journalists. So this murder case becomes a racial case as well. Black people also think Carl Lee wouldn't be convicted if he was a white man who killed two black men. A couple of hours later, the sheriff, Ozzie Walls, comes there to pick him up and take him to the police station.įrom that moment on the city is divided between people who think Carl Lee shouldn't be convicted for this act, because the rapists deserved it, and people who think that murder is murder and Carl Lee should be sent to the gas chamber.

When he's absolutely sure Cobb and Willard are dead, he drops the gun and goes home. He accidentally shoots a deputy in the leg, but the rapists scream when they are hit and fall down the stairs, while Carl Lee continues shooting. He's hiding in a closet in the hall and when Cobb and Willard come out the courtroom, Carl Lee jumps forward and starts shooting. The next Monday, 20 May, Carl Lee isn't in the courtroom during the hearing about the bail of Cobb and Willard. They fought together in Vietnam and Carl Lee saved his life. The next day, Saturday, around noon he goes to the lounge with his brother, owned by an old friend of him, Cat Bruster. He studies the building and when he's done he leaves through a window into the darkness. When the Ford County Courthouse is closed on Friday Carl Lee is hiding in a restroom when they lock the courthouse. From that moment on Carl Lee's mind is made up. He asks Jake what he would do if his little girl was raped and Jake tells him he would kill the rapists. After the hearing he goes to see Jake Brigance, a local lawyer who helped his brother, Lester Hailey, before. Carl Lee is in the audience and decides to take revenge on the two bastards who hurt his daughter so much. During the preliminary hearing there is determined that there is enough evidence to bind the defendants over to the grand jury. Meanwhile the two boys, Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard are caught, and they have confessed. Tonya is transported to the hospital and her condition is critical. Tonya told her mother what happened and when Carl Lee hears it he is shocked and determined to take revenge. She calls her husband at work and when he comes home he finds his little girl on the couch in the living room with a crowd of relatives huddled around her. When she isn't home two hours later her mother gets worried. On her way to the grocery store, the little, 10-year old, black Tonya is abducted by two white boys who rape her. When a black father kills the two white boys who raped his daughter, the whole town is divided, whether he should be punished for that, or not.

A time to kill book