Sophomores

by Sean Desmond

  “The morning of April twenty-second at the intensive care unit of Presbyterian Hospital.”

  “Walk us through that first encounter with the defendant.”

  “I arrived at the hospital room for Margaret Raleigh at eight a.m. I instructed our DPD photographer to take pictures of her injuries. I introduced myself to Reverend Raleigh and asked if it was all right that we conduct an interview.”

  “Was Reverend Raleigh alone?”

  “No, he was accompanied by Bishop Goodfellow.”

  “That would be Mr. Wesley Goodfellow?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How would you characterize Reverend Raleigh that morning?”

  “He was exhausted.”

  “Was he reluctant to speak with you?”

  “No, he was eager to talk to me.”

  At this point Raleigh’s adrenaline must have worn off, Anne gathered, and he wants to know what they know—or suspect.

  “To talk about what?”

  “To help find the person who attacked his wife. My first question was if he had any idea who could have done this, and at this point Bishop Goodfellow produced a packet of letters.”

  “What was the nature of these letters?”

  “They were a series of death threats against Reverend Raleigh.”

  “And Bishop Goodfellow produced these letters as evidence to you that someone was out to get the reverend.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Did any of the letters specify an attack against the Raleigh family?”

  “They implied that something bad would happen to Raleigh, but there was no specific threat against his wife or children.”

  “Were these letters handwritten or typed?”

  “They were typed.”

  “And were you able to trace where these letters came from?”

  “Yes. They matched a typewriter at First United.”

  Bingo.

  “A typewriter in the offices of Reverend Raleigh’s own church?”

  “Yes.”

  Blackburn wheeled around and faced the jury to let the moment land. There was a slight commotion among the press in the gallery as Blackburn returned to his witness. Judge Sam peered warily, wordlessly warning Blackburn that this was not to become more theatric than needed.

  Anne was unsure what to make of the death threats. If this is premeditation, it’s poorly conceived. Then again, the letters don’t exactly tell us when he decided to do the deed.

  If, if he did, she corrected herself. The letters are cover for something all right, but he may never have thought to go through with it. Something about that night pushed him over.

  “Detective Hume, when you interviewed Reverend Raleigh that morning, did you discuss the reverend’s whereabouts the night prior?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please walk us through that evening of April twenty-first.”

  “Okay, according to what Reverend Raleigh told me in that first interview, he came home that evening at six thirty p.m. He drove his car into the back driveway, where he found Mrs. Raleigh working on the garage door latch with Palmolive.”

  “Why was she doing that?”

  To destroy evidence. Convenient.

  “According to Reverend Raleigh, because the latch had been sticking.”

  “Did the Raleighs have a security system for their home on Credo Drive?”

  “Yes, sir—recently installed as a precaution against the threats Reverend Raleigh was receiving at the church.”

  “And was the garage covered by this alarm system?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay, so how long was Reverend Raleigh at home that evening?”

  “No more than an hour. He told me that he did not eat dinner at the house but talked with his wife and shared a glass of wine with her. He then left for the Bridwell Library at SMU to work on a sermon.”

  “And so it’s now about seven thirty in the evening. Did Reverend Raleigh go to the library?”

  “No, he was in his car.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He made a call from his car phone.”

  “Who did he call?”

  “Lucy Goodfellow.”

  That answer caused more than a commotion. Lucy Goodfellow was the bishop’s daughter. Judge Barefoot Sam slapped his gavel on its pink granite block.

  “Folks in the gallery, we can do this with or without you,” he said.

  Anne looked over at the press, none of whom were paying attention to the judge. They have their scoop now . . . Anne noticed Standing Raleigh glance over his shoulder with a slight frown. This is all too strangely scripted and postured, Anne thought.

  “So from the records of the car phone,” Blackburn said, cantering back and forth in front of the witness stand, “when did the reverend place this call?”

  “Seven thirty-two p.m.”

  “And then where did he go?”

  “To Lucy Goodfellow’s apartment.”

  Several members of the press picked up and started moving toward the exit. Still time to make the evening news.

  “Did Reverend Raleigh tell you this in your interview—the one you conducted at the hospital?”

  “No. He said he was at the SMU library. Then later, after we received the phone records and interviewed Miss Goodfellow, he verified it.”

  “So he lied about it the first time?”

  “Objection,” Whiteside said calmly—he knew this was coming.

  “Sustained.”

  Blackburn rephrased. “In the presence of her father, did the defendant admit to going over to Lucy Goodfellow’s house the night of his wife’s attempted murder?”

  “No. That came later.”

  “After you caught him in a lie.”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained.” The judge grimaced in the middle of a sip of coffee. “Counselor, please move on.”

  The prosecutor is too gung-ho on the mistress, and the defense is almost playing possum, Anne realized. It offers a motive, but Raleigh couldn’t have been stupid enough to think there was a world where he runs off with her.

  “And when you confronted Reverend Raleigh with the evidence that he had called Miss Goodfellow and that in her affidavit she admitted he came over, what did he say happened?”

  “He said he went to her apartment to borrow relaxation tapes.”

  “Relaxation tapes?” A few chortles of laughter followed Blackburn on this. Judge Sam eagle-eyed the gallery, ready to throw out the next person who made a peep.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And how long was he at Miss Goodfellow’s apartment?”

  “Forty minutes.”

  “And just to be clear, how far is Miss Goodfellow’s apartment from SMU and the Raleigh residence?”

  “They’re all within about five miles of each other, less than fifteen minutes driving.”

  “So now it’s past eight p.m. that evening, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then where did he go?”

  “To Bridwell Library.”

  “And how did you verify that?”

  “A librarian there”—Hume checked his notes—“Ms. Janice Singleton, saw Reverend Raleigh sometime after eight p.m. Also a call was placed from a pay phone in the library to the Raleigh residence at eight thirty.”

  “Did Reverend Raleigh confirm he placed that call?”

  “Yes. He said he spoke to his wife and told her to put the children to bed before he got home.”

  Suspicious. He’s setting it up.

  “How long did Reverend Raleigh say he stayed at the library?”

  “For the next three hours, until close to midnight.”

  “Did that prove to be the case as you investigated his whereabouts th
at evening?”

  “No.” Hume rocked back in his chair.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Reverend Raleigh purchased gas with a credit card at a Texaco station on Greenville Avenue at eight fifty-three p.m. that night.”

  “Did he purchase anything else at the gas station?”

  “Yes, a pint bottle of vodka.”

  Anne cringed as she thought about the empties of Smirnoff she had pulled out from under the seat of Pat’s Cougar these past few years.

  “Detective, did you interview a Mr. Javier Esparza?”

  “Yes. He was one of the two paramedics who attended to Mrs. Raleigh.”

  “What did Mr. Esparza tell you about Reverend Raleigh?”

  “That when he arrived at Credo Drive, the reverend was visibly intoxicated and he could smell alcohol on his breath.”

  “Okay, so at eight fifty-three the defendant is at the Texaco. Where does he go after that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Reverend Raleigh claims to have been at the library at SMU the entire night, but I can’t place him there past eight thirty.”

  “So from eight fifty-three p.m. until he places the 911 call, at”—Blackburn checks his notes—“eleven forty-three p.m., you don’t know where he is?”

  “Well, he’s within the vicinity of his vehicle because he made two calls from the car phone.”

  “Who did he call?”

  “He called his house and left messages.”

  “Your Honor, I would like to play for the jury exhibit number twelve, the first message recovered from the Raleigh answering machine.”

  “Proceed.” Judge Sam nodded at his clerk, Mr. Greenfield, who set up the audio player while Ms. Silverstone, Blackburn’s assistant prosecutor, produced a poster. It was a transcript of the message, which played on a speaker.

  “I don’t have my watch on, but it’s about nine thirty or nine forty-five. If you want to, go ahead and lock the garage door, and I’ll park out front.”

  “Detective Hume, what time do the phone records put this call at?”

  “Eleven twenty-four p.m.”

  “So almost two hours later than the defendant states on the message. Is that correct, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “And by the way, looking at the car phone records for the month of April ’87, there are eight instances of Reverend Raleigh calling the number 787-1111. What is that number?”

  “That number gives out the time and temperature.”

  “And why did Reverend Raleigh call that number so much?”

  “Objection.” Whiteside was growing a little testier.

  “Withdrawn. Is it safe to conclude he was calling to find out the time from his car phone?”

  “Or the temperature,” Hume half-joked, “but yes.”

  “In your questioning of Reverend Raleigh, did you ask him if he wore a watch?”

  “We did ask, and he did not wear a watch.”

  “So when he says in the message ‘I don’t have my watch on’—that’s because Reverend Raleigh doesn’t wear one, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And did Standing Raleigh park out front?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He parked in the driveway in the back where the garage is, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The garage door, which Reverend Raleigh claimed Mrs. Raleigh was, earlier that evening, trying to grease with dish soap. Did you examine the lock on the garage door, Detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “And was it broken or stuck?”

  “No, the garage door and the lock were in working order.”

  Anne’s imagination went wild with that key detail. He came into the house first. She left the alarm off for him to come home. He lured her out to the garage . . .

  “And did you swipe the door, its handle, and the garage for fingerprints?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you find any prints other than members of the Raleigh family?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else strange about the garage that you found in your investigation?”

  “Well, there was no lightbulb in the overhead light.”

  He lures her there. Away from the sleeping children. The car still running so it’s noisy enough.

  “No lightbulb? So someone had removed it before the attack?”

  “Objection, speculation.”

  “Withdrawn. So the garage would have been pitch-black the night of the attack because the lightbulb was missing from the socket. Is that true, Detective?”

  “Yes.”

  Anne reversed course with a dozen silent postulations. He didn’t go into the house. He hid. He lay in wait in the garage for her to lock it.

  “Your Honor, I’d like to introduce exhibit number thirteen.”

  The poster board was swapped out, and the second message was played.

  “Hey, you’re probably asleep, but I’m on my way home.”

  “When did Reverend Raleigh leave this message?”

  “Eleven twenty-nine p.m.”

  “So that is left just minutes before he actually came home and called the police.”

  “Yes.”

  Covering his tracks. Poorly.

  “Your Honor, can we play exhibit number twenty-two?”

  Anne glimpsed Raleigh again—stone-faced, holding a pen and legal pad but not writing. They listened to the call he made to the police dispatcher.

  “Uh, I just came into the house, and my wife . . . Somebody has done something to her.”

  Anne tried to detect the tone of Raleigh’s voice through the static of the tape. No panic. Too vague. Too distant. The dispatcher asks:

  “Has she been assaulted?”

  And Raleigh’s reply:

  “I don’t know, she’s foaming at the mouth or something.”

  The call ended, and Blackburn waited a long, silent moment as everyone imagined Peggy Raleigh convulsing in that driveway. Blackburn reviewed his notes to make sure he had walked the detective through everything he needed.

  “So from eight fifty-three p.m. to eleven forty-three p.m., do you know where Reverend Raleigh was?”

  Detective Hume uncrossed his legs. He’s careful. And fairly precise on the timeline. Anne felt he was credible. Rehearsed, but credible.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Thank you. No further questions.”

  * * *

  Anne and the rest of the jurors were led out by the bailiff to the jury room to collect their things and head home for the day. After grabbing her purse and copy of the novel Cal, Anne lingered in the hallway behind the courtroom, waiting for the women’s room to open up.

  A lot of testimony for day one, she thought, and hard not to prejudge any of it. So many sketchy moves. Why leave your family alone all night if you were getting death threats? Why had he pulled into the back when he said he would park in the front? On the message, he sent his wife out of the house to lock the garage. He sent her out there—into the dark—where it wasn’t safe or covered by the security system.

  But Anne understood why he might lie about that. Carrying on with the bishop’s daughter. That would make page one. She had to stay even-keeled. All of this two days after Easter with two children in the house. Christ almighty.

  Anne finally got her turn in the bathroom. The light was cosmetic-counter bright, and she studied herself in the mirror. A fat Roman nose with a dark brown freckle that annoyed her. Straw bleached hair held together in a bun with curls at her cheeks. Her tea-stained teeth. The light, the mirror, they magnified the flaws. She looked closer at her skin. Her pores giant, a stipple of dark pinpoints. She had lousy skin. Always freckling, keratoasting in the Texas sun, and sagging
into a turkey neck. Like her mother. Too fair, too thin. Like her father. Something unfamiliar descended over everything in the bathroom—the light, the mirror, her face.

  Anne came out of the bathroom to an empty hallway. She looked down the corridor in both directions but couldn’t remember which way to turn. Her gut led her left, but she soon realized she was heading the wrong way, back toward the courtroom. Past the door to the judge’s chambers, and then through a service exit, she popped out into the waiting area in front of the court. She spied the main elevator bank, and rather than turn around and walk all the way back, she pushed the button and got on the next car.

  As the doors were about to close, the hand of a bailiff held the door back and onto the elevator came Haynes Whiteside and Standing Raleigh.

  The bailiff spoke into a walkie-talkie: “Coming down, car four.”

  Anne moved to the back of the elevator and tried to disappear behind the shoulder of the bailiff. As the doors closed, everyone stood facing forward, turned away from Anne. Everyone except Reverend Raleigh. In the corner of her eye, Anne sensed he was off to the side, facing her. She glanced over, and their eyes met. In that half second, he just returned the look blankly. Then a moment later, he realized who she was and why he knew her face. And in that recognition he tried to compose himself like he was back in the courtroom—he went stone-faced again. Anne dropped her chin but could still see him. And there were his hands. Fingers folded together at his waist. Waiting, praying, holding each other. Those very hands. She looked back up at Reverend Raleigh, and their eyes met again. He offered a thin smile and the benevolent look of a pastor. Calm, innocent, a disciple.

  Anne’s heart was pounding. She looked away once more but could feel Raleigh staring at her. His hands moved to his sides.

  The doors opened onto the main floor. A bevy of bailiffs had cordoned off the path to the steps of the courthouse. Whiteside whispered, “Okay, do not pass go. Straight ahead to the car.” Reverend Raleigh and his lawyers stepped off the elevator, heading right toward the press gauntlet waiting for them behind the glass double doors.

  Anne watched this spectacle unfold for two seconds before the elevator sealed shut again and she descended another level into the shadows of the parking garage.

  [ NOVEMBER 13 ]