Sophomores

by Sean Desmond

  “And, Mrs. Malone, did you know about this case before your jury summons?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did you know about it?”

  “From TV and the papers.”

  “And did you read or see anything that you feel would prohibit you from judging the evidence of this case in a fair manner and at the instructions of the court?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  Anne looked up at Blackburn. Dark, dissecting eyes, pomaded gray hair, and Churchill scowl and jowls. Trying to figure it out, huh? Culturally Catholic, but probably politically liberal like most teachers. He seemed to glower at her, and suddenly the matter at hand being life-or-death registered with Anne.

  “I can be impartial.”

  Mr. Blackburn stepped back and asked everyone.

  “Everyone on the same page as Mrs. Malone’s answer? Mr. . . . Caruthers, can you be impartial?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ms. Mirlo, do you know what Mr. Raleigh does for a living?”

  “He’s a minister.”

  “That’s correct. He’s a man of the cloth. Does anyone in this jury box have a problem sitting in judgment of an ordained minister?”

  Three people raised their hands. Anne did not. Why do I feel like we’re the ones on trial right now? Blackburn looked down at the grid and then over at Miss Silverstone to make sure she noted it.

  “Thank you for your honesty. Mr. Raleigh is a representative of his church. A man of God. A Christian. Right? We can say that even though this is a government courthouse. Right, Your Honor?”

  “He is a Christian, Mr. Blackburn.” The judge didn’t even look up from some paperwork in front of him.

  “And so Mr. Raleigh has spent a lifetime preaching Christian values. Now, some of us, most of us, I would take it, believe those values too. Values like ‘judge not, lest ye be judged.’ Or ‘he without sin, cast the first stone.’ Or ‘to forgive is divine.’”

  Judge Samuels looked up. “Would you like to submit the New Testament as part of the record, Mr. Blackburn? Find your point.”

  He’s a good judge. Doesn’t allow the dramatic, and in control without having to constantly prove it.

  “Yes, Your Honor, my point is that we are asking all of you whether you can believe that a man like Standing Raleigh, who professes the Christian faith, whether he can be guilty of a vicious crime and you can sit in judgment of him based on the evidence and judicial process put forth by the state of Texas as well as by Miss Silverstone and myself. Mrs. Malone, are you one hundred percent okay with that burden the law is placing on you?”

  “Yes. I’m okay.” Doesn’t matter what I say. I’ve proven that I’m not easily led. I bet he strikes me.

  “If Standing Raleigh were a Roman Catholic priest, would you be able to say the same?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t like Blackburn’s papist undertones. That’s Dallas for you. She recalled driving past Dealey Plaza that morning. They killed the first Irish, first Catholic, president. No sign. No memorial. Like they had gotten away with it.

  “No problem with judging a man separate from his vocation to God? That a man who took holy vows could commit such a horrible sin? That a man everyone thinks is a good, honorable person could possibly transform into a very bad person?”

  Anne Malone leaned forward on her seat. If it were only as simple as wearing a white hat or a Roman collar. She wasn’t sure what to make of the pastor, who now bowed his head in penitential pose. She gripped her purse and sniffed, considering the questions put forth. I suppose I know as much about a lapse from Christianity as anyone in this courtroom.

  “We are all capable of change.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Malone.” And with that answer Anne had found her way onto the jury for Standing Raleigh.

  * * *

  Blackburn knocked out the three jurors who had raised their hands and gave the grid back to Whiteside. They took turns huddling and whispering before and after every question, and this took time. Anne figured out that Mr. Graybill was a jury consultant who was speed-reading the questionnaires and feeding suggestions to Whiteside. When the defense took away two more black women from the jury, Blackburn made a reverse Batson challenge, which seemed to give Judge Samuels indigestion. A long sidebar ensued with all four lawyers involved and Greenfield holding the jury grid like a cue card for them all to read from.

  Anne mulled her answers to the voir dire. Judge not. The truth was she knew more about Standing Raleigh than had been revealed by Blackburn’s interrogation. Matthew 7, but then the Lord also warns of false prophets as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Anne had heard stories about the hotshot young minister. He was a bit of a local celebrity—a somewhat more liberal alternative to the dour, dispensational W. A. Criswell, who had shepherded First Baptist since the Normandy landings. First United was a mother church for Dallas and Methodism. Its pulpit was a feeder for bishops and a training spot for the best and brightest out of SMU’s Perkins School of Theology.

  But there was a lot of pressure that came with Raleigh’s prestige. And his “controversial” support of equal rights for women and minorities, his opposition to capital punishment, his general yuppie tolerance, did not go over well with everyone in his congregation. This past Lent, he had received death threats. “CHRIST WILL RISE BUT YOU’RE GOING DOWN.” For Easter, Raleigh wore a bulletproof jacket under his vestments.

  In the congregation on that Sunday of Sundays, seated next to her own bodyguard, was Peggy Raleigh. In many of the usual ways she was the smile-plastered pastor’s wife who raised their children, five-year-old Preston and two-year-old Claire. Peggy taught music part-time at Ursuline, even though working at a Catholic girls’ school didn’t score her any points with the congregants at First United, many of whom already found her a bit meek and withdrawn. While the outgoing Reverend Raleigh was always up to ten things at once for his flock, Peggy was quiet, remote, a gracious wallflower.

  Also at Easter services was Lucy Goodfellow, the daughter of Bishop Wesley Goodfellow, whom Raleigh had replaced as pastor of First United. A woman with a lot of mascara and frosted hair, and a lot of rumors.

  Raleigh’s sermon that day was debunking The Passover Plot—a book and later a movie that claimed that Jesus, with the help of His disciples, had staged the passion and crucifixion and faked His death to become a false messiah.

  Two days after Easter, Peggy Raleigh would be found strangled in the driveway of her home.

  * * *

  By early afternoon, both sides had agreed on a jury of twelve with three alternates. Judge Sam seemed satisfied and stood. The attorneys rose with him.

  “All right, this is our group then. Thank you all for being forthcoming during the voir dire. I was very impressed, and so were the attorneys in this courtroom. Let me remind you of two things. One, shake off any jitters you have about serving on a criminal trial. All I ask is that you listen to the facts presented. This will be a difficult case at times, with lots of information, but I’m here to make it easier for you to understand.”

  The judge pulled at something under his robe, and the darkness around him shifted.

  “Second, this case is going to get attention. TV reporters, newspaper people. They will be lurking around the courtroom, and they know better than to approach you all directly, but do not discuss the proceedings in any way, shape, or fashion until instructed to deliberate. Don’t tell your boss the details of the case. Don’t talk to the press. Don’t tell your wife or husband what you think about this witness or that one. Just to be safe, don’t whisper anything to your dog while he’s doing his business.”

  A break of much-needed laughter. Pat will be a bear about all of this. Anne noticed Raleigh sat there sullen, lost in a stare.

  Judge Sam looked over at his clerk’s calendar. “We will begin this case two weeks fro
m Monday, November second. Please report to the jury room at eight thirty a.m. sharp. Officer Redman will now explain where to go and how to access the building. The great state of Texas thanks you for your service.”

  The gavel dropped, and Anne was ushered through the back of the courtroom, was shown where to report, was given her pass for the Crowley building, and had her parking validated. Down and out of the courthouse, then up again, past the charcoal concrete pillars and ramps of the parking lot. She found her way to the dull silver Zephyr as the bright afternoon sun peered and poked into the umbral garage.

  Anne had trouble admitting it to herself, but she was perversely thrilled by her jury selection. The morbid Reverend Raleigh fascinated her. Those hands on his lap, hands that probably strangled his wife. Anne tried to imagine it—The look in his eyes when he does this. Is this the last thing Peggy sees? And what if she wakes up? What if they find him guilty, but she says he didn’t do it? What good is our judgment then?

  She turned the radio back on, and the stringer in Midland was reporting about the parallel drilling operation and the dangers of a cave-in. Rescuers had dropped a microphone down the well and had heard the baby cry, but now there was less noise and the baby was sleeping, or at least they thought they heard breathing. No one was sure. There was too much acoustic interference from the drilling.

  Anne let out a wounded breath. Three days of this. The poor mother, like Mary when she left Him in the Temple. He was missing three days. Anne now rethought what she took as gospel. How do you lose Him of all people? It was a sorrow of Mary, but it sounded suspiciously like neglect. Nonetheless Anne susurrated a quick Our Father and seven Hail Marys for baby Jessica. As she neared the house, Anne paused her prayers on a strange thought of faith and doubt. What do we really believe when we suffer? The child was hope both lost and found, and three days was a long time to be both alive and dead.

  * * *

  That afternoon, Dan came through the door, wordless and reeking of cigarettes, and tramped down the hallway to his room, slamming the door. A few minutes later, Bob Dylan came jangling through the stereo. That boy, always shutting me out. Anne blinked and sighed and then crushed the head of iceberg lettuce against the cutting board, loosening its heart, which she extracted like a Mohawk. She then gutted a tomato—Dan didn’t like the goo and its seeds—and pared it over the lettuce. She unsealed the box of Pepperidge Farm seasoned croutons and out tumbled the perfect white cubes of mummified bread. She shook the sediment of salad dressing into tornadic suspension and anointed the greens.

  She turned on the five-o’clock local news. Clarice Tinsley was narrating hour fifty-five of the rescue operation. The parallel hole had been drilled, and now they had to dig a two-foot tunnel between the well and the hole. Carefully. The baby was quiet, but they were pumping oxygen down the well. The baby was singing to herself. Anne whispered another Hail Mary as she salted butterball potatoes in a Corning casserole. Those went in over the glowing Nichrome coils of the electric oven, and the pork chops came out of the Deepfreeze and into the microwave to slowly turn and thaw. Applesauce, farting out of the jar. And a bag of Birds Eye mixed vegetables brought to a boil.

  Smacking her hip with a wooden spoon, Anne stood in front of the thirteen-inch Trinitron as the broadcast cut to Dan Rather. The drilling couldn’t break into the well right on top of the baby. They had to go deeper and come up to her. I should call Dan out to watch this, Anne thought. He has no idea what’s going on out there. The man in the hole was lying on his stomach, trying to poke through with a jackhammer. With all the noise, the baby was crying again. Faintly. They were getting close, and now the news hour ended but the coverage kept going. The sun had set in Dallas, and in Midland it was growing dark.

  Wordless, reeking of booze, Pat Malone came through the door at six thirty and offered a tired smile before heading to the bedroom to change. He was limping badly. Anne made him a vodka and Seven, and herself one too. She placed them on coasters in the den in the hopes they could talk before the pork chops went into the pan.

  She popped the foil seal from a can of Planters and poured two fingers’ worth of peanuts into a small snack bowl that had been pilfered from an American Airlines first-class cabin.

  Pat came out in blue sweatpants and the same work shirt. He was holding his glasses to read the paper but watched the small TV in the kitchen for a moment as the local news reporters carried on about the rescue. He muttered something about digging a hole to China and staggered into the den. The Irish trifecta, Anne dismayed, drinking too much, miserable at work, and sick to top it off.

  “Do you want me to put that on in here?” He meant the bigger TV in the den.

  “What?”

  “The news. The baby rescue.”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  Pat perched at the edge of the burnt-orange chair in the den and picked up his drink, the coaster at first stuck to the sweat on the glass, then falling off with a rattle onto the end table. A shower sprayed the backyard as the clouds rolled up like cotton bales in the western sky.

  Anne swooped into the den and sat across from him. “Jack Hurley is coming to town on Monday.”

  Anne’s brother-in-law was an FBI agent. “Welcome, Eliot Ness,” Pat mumbled, took a long sip, and scooped peanuts. “Is he coming to the house?”

  “For dinner and to see us. Yes.”

  “Wonderful. Where’s Dan?”

  “Barricaded in his room.”

  Pat ruminated on a handful of peanuts and took another swig. “How much did you put in this?”

  Trying to wean him, she lied. “It’s strong.” It was half soda. “So I had jury duty today.”

  “Oh. How are the criminals and the clients they represent?” Pat chuckled to himself.

  “I got picked.”

  “Christ. I told you to say you were religious. Picked for what?”

  “The Standing Raleigh case.”

  “The minister who choked his wife?”

  “Allegedly.”

  “That’s going to trial? I thought he confessed or something.”

  “He was there in the courtroom.”

  “Good Lord.” Pat finished his drink in a gulp and hobbled to the kitchen to make another. “How long is this circus going to be?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “How did you let yourself get picked?”

  “I didn’t volunteer. They called my name.”

  “Everything I’ve read makes him out to be guilty as sin.”

  “I’m not supposed to discuss it with anyone.”

  “Jesus. This could take weeks. Were there reporters there?”

  Just give me one ounce of support, Anne prayed, please. “They let us out the back way. But yes. The TV trucks were parked out front.”

  “Crazy. Do you even have time for this? They have alternates, you know. Who’s gonna pick Dan up from school?”

  Pat poured Smirnoff over ice. He opened the fridge, pretending to get the 7-Up, then lurched back into the den. “What kind of questions did they ask?”

  “There was a questionnaire and a basic voir dire. They asked me if people can change.”

  Annoyed, Pat stared out at the rainwater ponding on the back patio. He took a drink. “They most certainly cannot.”

  * * *

  Dinner was plated and the TV was supposed to go off, but Dan Rather was still on the air and the screen was split between him and a live feed of the well in Midland. A bunch of rig jockeys in gimme caps had sent a basket down the well to the operator in the tunnel.

  “Looks like they’re getting closer,” Pat mumbled through a crunch of croutons. Anne dusted her salad in pepper. Lost in tired thoughts, Dan chewed and breathed through his nose. It was just after seven thirty now. Anne looked down at the salad, the pork chop, the potatoes and vegetables. It was all cooked right, but she was completely miserable about it and
her worries laid siege. This baby, lost in darkness. She struggled to take a bite.

  “Your mother is going to be on a jury. Did she tell you that?”

  “No.” Dan made the briefest of eye contact with Anne.

  “It’s a murder trial for that Methodist minister in the Park Cities. Don’t tell anyone though—we should keep it quiet.”

  Dan shrugged. “How will you know if he’s guilty?”

  “It looks like he’s pretty guilty. I just can’t believe you got picked.”

  “Pat . . .”

  “Sorry.”

  Anne watched Dan wolf down his food. “They present evidence, and then the jury decides. I’m part of the decision.”

  “This is CBS News live coverage of the scene in Midland, Texas. Dan Rather with Bruce Hall. We eagerly and anxiously await the next development.”

  “Oh.” Dan scrutinized the tomatoes in his salad.

  “It’s a big responsibility.”

  “His lawyer is going to make him out like he’s running for Jesus. Or that he has . . .” Pat circled his ear with a fork. “Problems. Watch.”

  “We shouldn’t discuss it.” Alive or dead. Guilty or innocent. Settle down.

  “I’m not trying to argue. I’m just saying that if not him, who—”

  “Stop . . .”

  “Did he do it, Mom? Do you think he did it?”

  “I don’t know yet, Dan.”

  “Yes, Bruce?”

  “Dan, it looks like they are getting ready to bring something up the hole. I can’t tell. They are tightening the slack on the cable.”

  “Why doesn’t the judge decide?”

  Pat stabbed at his pork and ran it through applesauce. “Who is the judge?”

  “This is still a very dangerous procedure as you bring up this child . . . This has been an exhausting fifty-eight hours.”