Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The story returns to Odom, with another metacommentary on Berendt’s book. Odom speculates that the future movie to be made from Berendt’s future book will now have to incorporate a murder: “My friend, you are getting me and Mandy into one hell of a movie” (180). The story then follows Odom’s own run-in with the law. The workers who built Sweet Georgia Brown’s are suing him for the bad checks he wrote for their work. At his hearing, he immediately greets the workers in his affable, charming way, and they look miserable for having to sue him: “Their embarrassed, 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” (182). When one of the plaintiffs, Mr. Russell, has trouble with his complaint, Odom helps Russell to rewrite his complaint. The judge notes, “I doubt there’s any precedent for a defendant acting as counsel for the plaintiff” (183).

Eventually, the judge agrees to give Odom one month to pay the workers, which he does. He gets the money from a rich couple he has recently charmed. Odom moves out of the home he was illegally squatting in for six months and into yet another home, a mansion owned by a friend. 

The story returns to Williams and the aftermath of Hansford’s murder. Despite Williams’s upcoming trial, Williams still throws his annual Christmas party. There is consternation among some guests as they decide whether it is appropriate for them to attend the party at a house where someone was killed and where the host faces murder charges. While many guests choose to stay away, the party still meets Williams’s goal of 150 acceptances.

At the party, Williams points out and introduces Berendt to many of his guests, such as Vera Strong, a very rich and very loud heiress who loves to hear herself talk; Harry Cram, a wild and charming man living off of his inheritance (his only restriction is that he never returns home); and Lila Mayhew, a member of one of the oldest families in Savannah, who is old and “a little dotty.” Serena Dawes shows up in one of her attention-getting outfits and immediately starts a conversation with a Savannah newcomer, Anna; Colonel Jim Atwood, who is a collector of Nazi memorabilia; and Mrs. Alma Knox Carter, whose husband killed himself. The conversation converges on the topic of guns, and they talk about the different types of guns they each own, which draws the attention of yet another partygoer, Dr Fulton, who proceeds to show everyone his gun, hidden inside of his black leather wallet: “If a mugger holds me up and demands my money, all I have to do is pull out this wallet and […] payday!” (195). Serena talks about her desire to shoot a man, not to kill him, but to give him a reminder of her forever.

The author feels the need for the drink after this conversation but then joins another, in which the guests are discussing Williams’s upcoming trial. One mentions that there was no gunpowder on Hansford’s hand, proving he didn’t shoot first, and that investigators found the gun wiped of fingerprints. The evidence also shows that Hansford had a bullet in the chest, the back, and behind the ear, suggesting that Williams shot him not only in the chest, but in contradiction of his testimony, “twice more as he lay facedown on the floor, in a sort of coup de grace” (197). Despite this damning testimony, the guest figures that Williams will still get off the charges because he has good lawyers.

Berendt then talks with Williams’s mother, Blanche Williams. She tells Berendt about what Williams was like as a boy. She describes his entrepreneurial spirit at age 13, when he began scavenging for antiques to buy, fix up, and then sell: “The ladies from Macon would come to Gordon and get him out of high school! The superintendent was so impressed. They were high-class ladies […] and they’d buy things right out of his bedroom” (199). That was the beginning of Williams’s lifelong career in the antique business. Mrs. Williams worries that her son is too kind, which she thinks is the reason he is in “this awful mess” (199). She thinks people like Hansford took advantage of his kindness, and she thinks maybe if she spoke to her son about this earlier, he wouldn’t be in the trouble he is in now. But she also says that, as a mother, “You don’t want to overstep the line, so I never did talk to him like I wish I had” (201).