“That’s about how long it took,” Crandall said, an acid trace in his tone, looking from one juror to the next. “The boy will tell you that. It took a little time between shots to jack a new shell in the breech and fire again and . . .”
Crandall broke off and looked around with an exasperated air, clicking his tongue off the roof of his mouth as though even the right words left a bad taste there.
“And there were some elements of decency had to be overcome,” he said.
He pressed his lips and lowered his eyes.
“Takes time.”
The only sound in the courtroom was pen scratching among the clans. One or two jurors were so desperate to make eye contact with Crandall they ducked their heads to look up under his brows, but he continued to stare at some point in front of his shoes.
“The shells,” Crandall continued in his soft, distracted tone, “they came from a hardware store in another town. The boy bought them.”
Crandall shrugged.
“He says so, the store owner says so. The guns, they came from a burglary a month or so before the murders. The boy says so. He also says they threw them in a river afterwards. We found one of them where he said.”
Crandall acted like he didn’t want to go on to the next part. If he hadn’t already caught every juror’s attention before, his apparent reluctance to talk about the rest of the story at the very least set the last hook. He finally lifted his sad gaze to the jury. One juror sat back in her chair, relieved.
“They picked up their shells,” Crandall said. “They cut the power and the telephone. They emptied their guns at least twice and they left, and behind them on the floor were three dead children.”
“Three dead children,” Crandall repeated, “and one old woman.”
He scanned each juror in turn.
“She survived.”
No further introduction was needed. One of the men on the jury nodded slightly, as though checking off a mental list of the people he wanted to hear from.
“Lottie Nusbaumer’ll come talk to you about some things that occurred that night,” Crandall said. “She’s going to tell you about the children and what she knew about them and what good people they were and were likely to be. She’s going to talk to you about the terror she felt, not only as they put her and the children on the floor, but afterwards, when the man and the boy argued about whether they needed to shoot all of them yet again.
“Because by then, you see, she was playing possum. They shot her. Twice even. But she had the presence of mind and the will to lie still, to hold her breath.”
As he talked, Crandall had walked toward the jury box. He was now close enough to touch it. He spoke softly.
“Lottie’s going to tell you some things. She’s going to tell you what it sounds like to listen to children die on the floor next to you.”
Ruth Russell gasped and stifled a sob. Crandall and the jury turned to look at her together, then he nodded at the jurors to affirm her reaction and underscore his point before walking back toward the center of the room.
“Lottie Nusbaumer’s going to describe the man and boy who entered her home that night.”
Crandall stood in front of the defense table, directly in front of the Defendant. Legs had been taking notes on a legal pad furiously since Crandall started. Reardon had turned his chair toward the jury. He now sat slouched, a nonchalant expression on his face. He knew what was coming next.
“She’s going to tell you who was in her house that night,” Crandall said. “And the man she will describe has all of the characteristics of this man.”
Crandall raised his right arm, his forefinger extended to the Defendant.
“This man,” he hissed.
When Crandall turned his head to look at him, he found the Defendant smiling back pleasantly. For a moment, their gazes locked then Crandall let his eyes roam. When Crandall’s eyes fell to the cross on the Defendant’s chest, he blinked, but he caught himself and looked back to the jury.
“You’re asking why,” he said, grabbing back the jury’s alliance. “Why did this man and that boy shoot Lottie and Timothy and Emily and Kyle? There’s no evidence the man or the boy knew Lottie or the children, let alone bore them a grudge or ill will.”
He walked toward the box.
“Only thing taken from Lottie’s was a jar full of change. Twenty-three dollars. That’s all it had in it. They didn’t take anything else. Not the television, not Lottie’s purse or her credit cards. Just $23.00. Hardly reason enough to shoot four people.”
“Here’s what the boy says. They shot Lottie and Timothy and Emily and Kyle for the hell of it. For the hell of it. It was an experiment.”
Crandall’s use of the word gave me a thrill. I looked at the Defendant, but he appeared to be oblivious to my stare or those of everyone else in the courtroom.
“The boy,” Crandall said, “the boy is going to tell you that the Defendant took him under his wing, became like a father to him. Except, of course, this father figure fed the boy some drugs, the kind that make you prone to violence, and then he insisted they go out on the night before Halloween and see what it felt like to kill someone.
“That’s why,” Crandall said, the contempt welling in his tone. “That’s why they shot Lottie and Timothy and Emily and Kyle. To see what it felt like.”
In his preliminary instructions, Secrist had told the jury not to take anything the lawyers said as evidence or base their decision on it, but the lips on at least a couple of the jurors curled.
Crandall stood at the end of the jury box, where he had started. He leaned into the box.
“Oh, and by the way, the boy, the one who admits he entered Lottie’s home and shot Lottie and Timothy and Emily and Kyle, he’s going to tell you that the man who took him under his wing and then insisted on killing people? The man who pulled the trigger with him that night? The man who thought this whole thing up and carried it out? That boy’s going to tell you—it was that guy.”
Still leaning into the box, Crandall raised his left arm and pointed at the Defendant.
“That guy.”
For the second time that afternoon, as Crandall intended, twenty-eight eyes followed his finger to the Defendant.
Crandall dawdled getting back to his chair and sitting down, letting his words sink in. It was nearly four o’clock. Secrist snuck a peak at his watch, and Crandall saw it, as Secrist may have intended. Before Reardon could stand to deliver his opening, Crandall drawled: “Your honor, it’s been a long day. Perhaps a recess would be helpful, or better yet, pick up again tomorrow?”
Reardon was on his feet. “I won’t be long, Judge.” He did not want Crandall’s growl rattling around the jurors’ heads until morning.
“The Court has other matters to attend to today, and we have a long way to go,” Secrist said. “Let’s pace ourselves. I’ll see everybody back at 8:30 tomorrow.”
Secrist read the preliminary instructions about keeping counsel to the jury again, as he would whenever the Court recessed, and excused them.
When they were gone, he said to the lawyers: “I ‘spect our friends in the media back there, particularly those who publish or broadcast before we pick up again tomorrow, will want to know what you’re going to have to say, Mr. Reardon. Let me remind you that jurors do not always pay attention when I tell them not to read or listen to news about a case and this jury is a long way from sequestered. Anything more I need to say?”
Reardon stood and smiled wryly.
“I’m clear, Judge.”
“Same goes for you, Mr. Crandall,” Secrist said, but obviously only so he could not be accused of being unfair.
Crandall had his own wry smile.
“Can’t think of much reason to talk to them anytime.”
Nonplussed might best describe Secrist’s reaction to the bluntness of Crandall�
�s response. He pursed his lips, then rose and walked out.
As soon as he was through the door, the clans rushed the rail, shouting to Reardon and Crandall to come over and talk. They looked at each other, met in the center of the room, talked for a minute, then went back to their tables. Legs was whispering furiously into the Defendant’s ear as Wood pulled him to his feet to cuff him.
“Hey, Reardon,” I shouted over the crowd, “Can I talk to your client?”
I was not even close to serious. It was to hold the attorneys in the room so that we could talk about what had happened that day and what would happen the next as much as anything else.
The room went still to hear what Reardon would say. It even caught the Defendant’s attention. He pulled Wood up short as they were going out the back door and looked at me with curiosity. Turning his attention to Reardon, Crandall’s expression was similar.
Reardon was stuffing folders in his briefcase.
“Are you nuts?” he said and shook his head.
The tumult at the rail resumed until Reardon and Crandall approached.
Crandall said, “I don’t have much to say, so I’ll go first. I have nothing to say about today other than what I’ve said already in this courtroom. I intend to call as witnesses tomorrow the following persons.”
He pulled a piece of paper out of his inside jacket pocket, adjusted his glasses, and read the formal names of Moze and Bunny.
“If you’ve followed the case, you know who they are and what they are likely to testify to, so I do not intend to explain. Whether we get through both of them tomorrow depends on how long opposing counsel cross-examines them. Thank you for your support.”
“Where’re you staying while the trial’s going on?”
This from Carter, the top twink. I knew where because Wood had told me. He and the rest of the prosecution team had rooms at a motel in the next county. Crandall wanted someplace private where they could work each night. They had even rented a spare room to serve as a war room. I don’t know whether Crandall knew I knew, but I didn’t feel obliged to tell him or anyone else.
“Obviously, that’s none of your damned business,” Crandall said.
“Well, how can we get ahold of you if we need to check something?”
A wire service guy asked that question. Wire guys cover everything everywhere; they rarely have time to do the spadework.
I had the telephone number of the motel, although I had to be careful about wearing out my welcome using it. I also had Crandall’s unlisted home number and the number of the private line in his office. I had picked them up off a directory of county employees I wasn’t supposed to have.
A week or so before the trial, I had tried Crandall’s home number from a pay phone to prevent him from tracing it to me. It rang a long time before I got fumbling and a bark at the other end that sounded like Crandall. I hung up without speaking. I decided that whatever that number was it could only be used as a last resort.
Crandall shrugged at the wire guy.
“I’ll be in this courtroom every day during regular business hours for about the next two weeks.”
He stepped away from the rail to continue packing his banker’s box. Reardon stepped up and put on his smile.
“Obviously, I’m running just one step ahead of a gag order by talking to you, so I will say only that if you listened closely to what Mr. Crandall had to say there were a couple of significant gaps, let’s call them, in his evidence. I’ll bring those gaps to the jury’s attention tomorrow and tell them, as I have already told you and the rest of the people of this state, that my client was not in and could not have been in that trailer on the night those people were killed.”
“Running ahead of a gag order. What do you mean?”
A twink from one of the capitol stations delivered the question in an accusatory tone, as though Reardon had just admitted to fleeing a crime.
Without batting an eye at either the question’s ignorance or its snotty tone, Reardon patiently explained that it was his perception from the judge’s comment that since the jury was not sequestered—that is, he said, kept separate from their families and friends during the course of the trial—the judge wanted the attorneys to be careful about what they said outside the courtroom so the jury’s decision would not be tainted or influenced by statements made anywhere but in the courtroom. Reardon said it sounded to him like the judge would take some serious measures—a gag order which would prevent the attorneys and parties from speaking about the case during the trial or maybe some sanctions, which are like fines—if he found out the jury was influenced in such a way.
The twink looked puzzled.
“Could we go outside so you can repeat that for my camera?”
Reardon looked back at Crandall, who returned his gaze.
“No,” Reardon said. “I think it would be best if any press conferences were held in here in the presence of each other and away from any cameras that might capture film that the jury might see.”
“Is that the deal you cut with Crandall just a minute ago—stay away from cameras and he won’t seek a gag order?” I asked.
“Yes,” Crandall said, without looking back at us.
He snapped his briefcase shut and nodded to a trooper, who had appeared. The trooper stacked the two banker’s boxes and hoisted them waist high as though they were empty.
“Marcus,” Crandall said to Reardon. “I got stuff to do. You?”
“Thanks,” Reardon said, smiling, waving, walking back to the table.
I would’ve said score another round for Crandall, but I knew Reardon would work the telephones tonight, well before his favorites’ deadlines, and spin the day’s events. There might not be any film, but someone was going to get massaged. Who knew when one of us might report something that would give him grounds to ask for a mistrial?
I must’ve missed Reardon’s call, since I didn’t hear from him. Then again, I was pretty busy myself.
That night, I was developing the routine I would follow through much of the trial. I went back to the musty, concrete block cell I had rented and wrote the main piece. I led with Crandall revealing finally a motive for the killings. I emphasized his theory that the Defendant had seduced Jake into being his accomplice, but I resisted all temptation to call him in print a “Pied Piper.” I could not say what Marley would do with it.
The rest was straight, inverted-pyramid stuff: Reardon would get his turn the next day, he intended to point out “gaps,” Moze and Bunny were likely to testify, a summary of the other points Crandall made, a recap of the jury’s makeup.
I made some notes for an analytical sidebar: the initial skirmish between Crandall and Reardon, the subtle way Crandall introduced the jury to the victims’ families by gesture and reaction rather than directly by pointing them out, probably to avoid another round of objections on issues of relevancy, and the way Crandall got to point to the Defendant twice by the way he organized his statement. Then I made some calls to see if I could get anybody to talk about those points or any others.
Crandall apparently was registered in some name other than his own, because the motel Wood told me about had nobody under that name. Reardon would not take calls, only messages. Wood told me to call him again later; he was not in a position he could talk.
I left a message on the Russells’ home machine. They were, I was sure, on the road. They were driving back and forth, deciding whether to attend on a day-by-day basis depending on whether they thought they could take each day’s testimony, or so I had heard. I doubted they would call me back.
Naomi had plenty to say, of course, but nothing insightful and I was pretty sure readers were not going to like reading that she didn’t appreciate Mr. Crandall’s attitude toward her.
I wound up talking to a couple of local lawyers I had seen stick their heads in for a few minutes. They were more than happy to kibi
tz, although how much they really knew about homicide prosecutions from work in the Bluff was debatable.
“I get paid for talking to you? Like as a consultant?” one of them asked as we wound the conversation up.
“Not by me,” I said and wished him a good night. I have no idea if he was kidding.
I wrote the second piece, then called Marley and dictated the stories to him over the phone. We had agreed that I would call each night at 7:00 and again the next morning at the first break to top off stories if there were new developments or I needed to answer questions he might have about the previous night’s work. Already, it was a pain. I should’ve been able to transmit the stories directly.
“Your life’d be way simpler if you’d gotten me a laptop,” I said.
“No shit.”
But he said it dismissively. It was water over the bridge, and probably he liked doing this the old-fashioned way.
“You’re rewriting me even as I speak, aren’t you? You’re getting off on this.”
“I’m editing you, yes. It’s efficient. I’m not only capable of doing it while you talk, I’m good at it. And I get off on it regardless of when and how I do it.”
“You’re very articulate for an editor, but your sex life is twisted and sad.”
“Better twisted and sad than none at all.”
“I’m hurt. I must eat.”
“Go to a Meeting.”
Like many of our conversations, that one ended without goodbyes.
It was nearing eight, the time of the last Meeting in town. The diner would close by nine, and I was reasonably sure I would not feel like a burger at the Dog ‘n Suds, the only place open until ten or eleven. Thus, the decision was easy. It was early in the trial, I did not yet feel like hitting anyone or pitching glass, and I had banked a couple of extra Meetings before I left town.
Janelle sat in a corner booth in the nearly empty diner. She saw me but did not wave me over.
I went anyway. Arrayed on the table in front of her, left to right, were a mobile phone the size of a small brick, a romance novel opened to about the middle, a pen, and a notepad opened to a clean page. A plate containing the remnants of something that had been kissed by brown gravy was pushed to one side.
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