The Edgar Pangborn Megapack

by Edgar Pangborn

  In the death house too they would feed her well and treat her very kindly, within the meaning of the statute. Callista examined this, perplexed, trying to recall what form of the auxiliary verb her thought had used. Did the gray cells say WILL or WOULD?

  She journeyed again, to the window that for all its cramped ugliness was a friend, because of its messages of night and day, cloud, sunlight, and the wheeling of doves. And returning, she made a discovery, with the suddenness of sunshine. She could read the red writing up there on the wall, the other name. Amazing that it could have eluded her so long:

  DAVY & ME.

  Bewildering too the quick starting of tears to her eyes. Why, I never cry. Well—once, when Edith helped me talk.

  DAVY & ME.

  “This helps too, dear.” She must have said that aloud, for the cell was alive with the memory of a private sound. They couldn’t take away the Me, could they? Shoplifter, whore, drunk, another murderer maybe? Doesn’t matter. Went out of here to die, get drunk, go back to work in a cathouse or pushing dope—I don’t care. They couldn’t quite do it to you. Down the corridor, keys rattled. They couldn’t take away the Me. Ever.

  CHAPTER 3

  Once a trial judge or jury has determined, on conflicting evidence, a question of fact, that determination is final. It is binding upon the appellate courts. If there has been an error of law the defendant has a remedy by appeal. If there has been an erroneous finding of fact the defendant has no remedy. He is forever bound by the finding of the trial judge or of the jury.

  Now it should be obvious that trial judges and juries aren’t that good.

  ERLE STANLEY GARDNER,

  The Court of Last Resort

  I

  Cecil Warner remembered the night, a corridor of hours, a windy darkness of winter streets, a homecoming to solitude and too much thought and the uncertain consolation of sleep.

  After leaving Edith’s studio a whim had urged him to walk home instead of calling a taxi. By that time the rain had stopped, the winter pavements were damp and harmless. It would have been pleasant to drive alone out of the city on quiet side roads, perhaps winding up in a suburban bar for an hour’s casual amusement. Not so long ago he would have done it, but last year, after a few near-disasters, he had ruled out driving as too great a hazard for aging faculties, and sold his car: from there on the world could wait on him a little, a good enough arrangement so long as you can pay for it.

  Walking was good for you, they said—in moderation, of course. Ten blocks, say half a mile and none of it uphill, from Edith’s studio to the small old house on Midland Avenue that for the last twenty-five years had grown wrinkled and out of date along with him, dignity and seediness of antiquity together; maybe you couldn’t have one without the other. Yes, a nice walk, colored by a grudging admission that there was no great harm in doing what they said was good for you, so long as you did it in moderation. A winter wind has many voices, not all of them edged by grief.

  The best part of that walk was the long block past Trinity Church and its tiny cemetery where time had pushed many headstones aslant and long since worn down all grief to a stillness. No large extent of time really: Trinity was built in 1761, said its cornerstone: a mere two centuries, enough to give the more respectable ghosts the privilege of wearing three-cornered hats. In Trinity churchyard they were bound to be respectable and, through no fault of their own, quaint, like George Washington’s wooden false teeth. Leaving there, crossing Quire Street, you passed too suddenly into a splash of gaudy twentieth-century glare, the uptown movie house. Cecil had gone by it last night when the theater was about to close, a late crowd spilling away presumably cheered by a long gulp of Bardot bosom and eye and flank. Then two decent residential blocks, other detached houses like his own yet virtually unknown to him, keeping their own counsel in the quiet street. And the three front steps that needed paint, the key, the cantankerous welcome from the squeak of the front door which could have been fixed in a minute by the drop of oil it wasn’t going to get.

  There was the not quite musty flavor of the little front hall: Cecil didn’t like it but would have disliked its absence. At every homecoming there was the confidence, as he stumped into the shabby living-room, that Mrs. Wilks would have left everything just so before retiring to her world upstairs, except that of course she’d never learn not to put match-cards in ash trays. Some time the long sorrow that Mrs. Wilks lived with upstairs—a husband paralyzed for twenty years, unable to walk or feed himself, not quite able to die—would arrive at an end. Like all sorrow. Cecil had not gone up last night for his usual visit and chess game with Tom Wilks. Too late; too tired.

  Now in the bleak courtroom remembering the night, relaxing in his chair beside Callista, still feeling thirty cents’ worth of virtue for having resisted the siren voice of mince pie for lunch, Cecil Warner remembered—suddenly, like a reward of effort—one of the answers his mind had given him during the hours before he could sleep. Perhaps it was the only answer worth remembering out of many. There had been many, some no better than mumblings of fatigue. That one had come to him by the mind’s magic when the night beyond his window was in a moment of supreme clarity and peace, and Trinity’s delicate chimes had struck the morning hour of two o’clock, and the wind died: The defense never rests.

  The air was still today, pure and sharp, the sky a clean splendor above the smear of the city. Something of it could be felt through the high eastern window behind them. Callista would have looked upward into that strong blue of infinity through the detention cell bars. She liked the brilliant days. They would enrich her artist’s vision, he supposed, revealing depth and detail that duller eyes saw without seeing. A pleasant day, a good (light) lunch, and T. J. Hunter at the moment engaged in nothing more harmful than getting a police technician’s map of the Shanesville properties admitted in evidence. A fine map, laboriously honest. Nothing required right now except an outward appearance of grumpy indifference suitable to the Old Man.

  His gaze passed over the Twelve, the ordinary, respectable, appalling faces, and turned aside. He studied his blunt, unskillful hands, examining the blur of an old scar. A small racing unthinking motion of Terence Mann’s fingers up yonder reminded him of the last occasion when he had spent an evening at Terence’s apartment. Quite a while ago—July, he thought, anyway some time before Callista’s trouble. A hot evening, Terence reviewing some of his Army habits of speech when the old building’s air-conditioning unit goofed.

  Terence that night had been in a Chopin mood; temporarily fed up with Mozart, he said, the weather too hot for Brahms. In passing Cecil wondered what the little guy would be working on these days. Something certainly; Terence liked to keep two or three compositions currently at concert pitch—no reason, he claimed, except that it satisfied a whim. The reason could lie deeper than that. With only a listener’s knowledge, Cecil felt that music might have lost something important when Terence Mann went into the law. Something held back, possibly some old unhappiness or inhibition, when Terence said his keyboard ability—and he would have to call it that, instead of talent or spark or musicianship!—fell far enough short of the top so that it wasn’t worth exploiting for more than private enjoyment.

  Get with it, Old Man!

  Spotless law and order was taking the oath. Sergeant Shields of the State Police would never allow any dust on the sparkle of his shoes; undoubtedly he could dissect his .32 and reassemble it in the dark. Yet he was also young, and human. A sidelong glance gave Warner Callista’s face, composed, neutral. As usual, too remote. During the police testimony, the jury might not resent that too much, might vaguely understand her need for self-control. Later on he must make another attempt to persuade her that you can’t just brush off the human race—not when it’s after you.

  “Your full name and occupation, please?”

  “Samuel Arthur Shields, Sergeant, New
Essex State Police. I have been stationed at Emmetville Barracks for general duty since January of last year.”

  “How were you employed on Monday morning, August 17th last?”

  The Sergeant’s notebook rested in his hand; Warner guessed he was not likely to need it. “I was operating State Police Car No. 48 on highway patrol between Shanesville and East Walton.”

  “Is Car 48 equipped with two-way radio?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In your own words—I believe you don’t need any coaching in the requirements of legal testimony—in your own words, Sergeant, please state what you did and what you observed, in line of duty, at or about 10:30 and subsequently, that Monday morning, August 17th.”

  “At 10:36 I received a radio call directing me to proceed to the house of Dr. Herbert Chalmers on Walton Road south of the junction with Summer Avenue, in Shanesville township. I was informed that the body of a woman, apparently drowned, had been discovered in a pond near that house. No further particulars were given me by radio. I drove to the site immediately, arriving at the Chalmers house at 10:40. I knocked, received no answer, saw no one until I walked around to the back. There I found Dr. Herbert Chalmers, who is and was then known to me by sight as a member of the Shanesville Presbyterian Church, to which I belong. He was sitting on the top step of the back porch, and appeared to be ill or in shock: white, breathing with difficulty, leaning against the porch rail with his eyes shut. When I spoke to him he roused, recognized me. I learned from him that he had found the body of a woman, whom he named as his neighbor Mrs. James Doherty, in a pond in the woods bordering his land. He pointed out a path into the woods.”

  “Will you indicate it on this map for the jury, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. Here it is.” Warner watched him from under the famous lowered brows. A good boy, decently ambitious, standing by the map’s tall frame, a brisk young schoolteacher interested in facts. He stayed there erect and impressive as he went on talking: “Dr. Chalmers mentioned a heart condition, saying he didn’t feel able to go with me to the pond; afraid of blacking out, or words to that effect. He told me his housekeeper, Miss Maud Welsh, had also seen the body and had gone back to the pond after telephoning my headquarters. I followed the path to this spot here, where you see a short spur path leading to the water. There Miss Welsh saw me, from the pond-side, and called to me. I asked her to stay where she was, since I had noticed footprints and other marks that ought not to be disturbed until examined. These marks were all in this area here, along the spur path; none on the main footpath where the ground was quite hard and dry.” He stepped back to the witness chair. And nothing, Warner thought, would ever influence or shake the boy except more facts, the sharp and tangible truths that you can weigh or photograph or look up in a textbook. And yet the continuing actions of the mind, the swift and dark events gone in a moment, misunderstood or “forgotten” or never glimpsed at all: Those are facts too, Sergeant: did you know?

  “Go on, please.”

  “I went to the pond along the undisturbed ground at the side of the spur path. In the pond, submerged, I saw the body of a woman dressed in a light blue skirt and jacket and white blouse. Later in the day I measured the pond and found the maximum depth to be forty-two inches; a high-water line on the banks indicated that when full the greatest depth would be about five feet. On August 17th, however, the inlet was a mere trickle, the outlet practically dry—there’s probably some underground drainage. Before stepping into the water I saw that the woman’s arms were somewhat extended, and the hands were not clenched as I have seen them in other drowning cases.”

  “You have seen a number of them, Sergeant?”

  “I have, sir. Boating, swimming accidents, a few suicides.”

  “You stepped into the pond?”

  “I did. On lifting the body I found that rigor was complete, and post-mortem lividity noticeable in the face and hands.”

  “Please explain those terms for the jury, will you?”

  “Rigor mortis is the stiffening that takes place, usually from two to six hours after death, and may continue from twelve to forty-eight hours. Post-mortem lividity is a discoloration caused by the settling of the blood to whatever parts of the body are lowest when the heart action ceases.”

  “Did that trickle into the pond create any current?”

  “No, sir, hardly a ripple. Too small.”

  “Later on did you check the temperature of the water?”

  “Yes—evening after dark. The weather that Monday evening was about like the evening before. The pond water at 9 P.M. Monday was at 68 degrees Fahrenheit.”

  “Was the water clear?”

  “Some roiling, before I stepped in. The bottom has a layer of dead leaves and silt. Miss Welsh told me she had gone into the pond—her skirt was wet. I’d also noticed (I forgot to say) that Dr. Chalmers’ slacks were quite wet, consistent with what he told me. The body was that of a woman in the early twenties, of slight build, about five feet two. Since there was no question of life remaining, I let it back into the water, to disturb the situation as little as possible before examination by my superiors. The foam on the lips was noticeable, but less than one expects to see in a drowning.”

  “What is the significance of foam on the lips, in a drowning?”

  “Well, sir, a medical expert—”

  “Just drawing on your own experience and police training.”

  “Well, it means a struggle for air. Air and water mix with the secretions of nose and throat.”

  “So, if a body not breathing enters the water, you won’t see foam?”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “And in this case there was some, but less than normal?”

  “Sir, I don’t think I’m qualified to say what would be normal.”

  “Well, again, Sergeant, I just want to draw on your police experience. You said, I think, ‘less than one expects to see’—correct?”

  “Yes, sir, I can go that far, but it’s only a—a layman’s opinion. I’ve been with the state police only three years altogether. In that time I haven’t seen any large number of drowning cases.”

  Warner suppressed a smile. T.J. should have known better than to push this man. His retreat was quick and graceful. “Quite right, Sergeant, and maybe I was a bit out of line. Would you now please describe the elevations of the ground in that area? I notice our map omits that.”

  The Sergeant looked pleased to be on his feet again; he might have been happier still with a pointer and a blackboard. “Here, where the spur path begins, the main footpath is going over a rise of ground. The spur itself runs level for about half its distance, then there’s a ten-foot slope to the pond, rather steep.” Hunter seemed bothered, perhaps getting more than he wanted. “That slope is the only one in the area you could call steep. Elsewhere the ground slopes toward the pond more gradually.”

  Yes, it was steep. Falling there, in the hazy night, sick with a cruel poison, Ann Doherty could easily have rolled down that short slope into the water. In cross-examination, this level-minded fact-lover would willingly say so. Sick—Warner’s body involuntarily shuddered. He felt suffocated, and as though he too were falling in a darkness, nothing upholding him but a single thread of belief: Callista had no criminal intent. A belief that could never be demonstrated as a truth; never at least by the sort of demonstration that would be rightly, intelligently demanded by such a man as Sergeant Shields. No criminal intent: how do I know? No answer except the legally unacceptable and meaningless answer of trust, friendship, insight, love: I know because I know.

  Sergeant Shields cheerfully continued: “The Chalmers house is on another moderate rise of ground, and going toward Dohertys’ on the main footpath from the beginning of the spur, there’s a gradual slope as far as the place where the pond’s outlet crosses the path—just a little ditch you step
over; then another slight rise to the Doherty house. The outlet runs fairly straight through the grove—just barely enough drop of the ground level to carry it into the culvert near the fork.”

  “Thank you.” Much pleasanter for T.J., Warner guessed, to have the blocky sandy-haired athlete sitting down. “After letting the body back in the water, what did you do next, Sergeant?”

  “I made a superficial examination of the ground. Then with Miss Welsh I went back to the main path, and requested her to stay there in sight of the pond while I went to report. After doing so, I returned to the edge of the woods and remained with Miss Welsh, in sight of the pond, until others arrived: Lieutenant Kovacs, the photographer Sergeant Peterson, Trooper Walter Curtis who brought equipment for making plaster casts, and Trooper Morris. The coroner’s physician Dr. Devens arrived soon, and the undertaker’s vehicle from Shanesville. However, Dr. Devens directed that the body be taken to the Winchester City morgue, where I understand there are better facilities. Trooper Morris and I lifted the body from the water, and Dr. Devens made a brief examination at the scene. We then placed the body in the vehicle, Dr. Devens gave his car keys to Trooper Morris, and went himself in the undertaker’s vehicle. Trooper Morris followed with the doctor’s car.”

  Smart and careful boy. It might still be necessary for T.J. to soothe down little Dr. Devens if he got snippy about testifying to the same technicality. Common sense says: Who’s going to switch bodies on the doctor? The law says: All right, but let’s just make sure nobody does. Not for the first time, Warner thought: Granted, the law is an ass; but better listen when it brays. Sometimes it’s right.