Snakewoman of Little Egypt

by Robert Hellenga

  The timpani came with tuning gauges, but Paul insisted that I learn to hear the fundamental pitch of each timpani by tapping the head very lightly with a mallet and adjusting the tension till the drum began to resonate. “You want to draw the sound out of the drum,” he said, “not beat it into it.” He also gave me a short course in cleaning and lubrication. “They’re machines,” he said, “systems of levers and cams and fulcrums that transfer energy from one place to another. Don’t be afraid of them. A few drops of oil into these oil holes and in the pedal assembly, that’s all you need, every six weeks or so, and a little grease on the ends of the tension rods and on the end of the master turning screw. Just don’t get any grease or oil on the surface where the cam and roller interface, or between the pawl and the ratchet.” He pointed out all these components as he went along. The pawl was a little hinged device mounted on the frame beneath the copper drum that fit into the notch of the ratchet to keep it from slipping backward when you increased the tension with the pedal. “Later on,” he said, “we’ll take them apart and I’ll show you how to replace the heads, though you won’t need to do that unless you get a set of your own.”

  I tried to do most of my practicing when Jackson was gone, working on my strokes (legato, staccato, roll), working on getting a consistent sound, controlling the length of the sustain by placing my fingertips on the playing zone of the head, which took more coordination than I could muster at first but which eventually would become (Paul assured me) second nature.

  Jackson and I ate simply, like monks or nuns—lots of soup, lots of eggs, lots of bread and cheese—did the dishes together, fed the wood stove, took a nap after lunch, went for a walk in the late afternoon.

  One afternoon Jackson brought along a small spade because he still couldn’t believe that his mound was nothing but an old woodpile. We took turns digging for half an hour and didn’t find anything except decayed wood. I put my arms around him and held him tight, so we couldn’t look into each other’s eyes. It felt safer that way. “I love you,” I said, and he said he loved me too, and I started to laugh and cry at the same time because I knew that if I went to prison, he would be the one who showed up on visiting days, knew that whatever obstacles lay before us, we would confront them together, head on. I loved Jackson with my whole heart, and I think he loved me too. No more evasions and half-truths. Ever.

  Paul bought a copy of the score for the percussion parts for Carmina Burana for me. Carl Orff had used five timpani. I had only two that I rented and a third one that Jackson chipped in for. And so I made do. Paul worked out a simplified version for me that required only three drums, and every evening just before bed I’d put on a CD of Carmina Burana and crank up the volume and play along and sometimes Jackson would sing the words. I’d start with “In taberna quando sumus,” though the pedaling in the middle of each verse was more than I’d be able to manage without a lot more slow practice. Then I’d move on to track 24, “Blanziflor et Helena,” with its heavy single-note hammer blows, and then swing into the repetition of “O Fortuna,” letting the mallets pull the big bass notes out of the drums, going a little crazy at the last verse, like a big storm breaking, and something would break inside me too, every single night. Luck and virtue are against me. There’s nothing but pain and exhaustion. So pluck the strings; bad luck brings down the strong man. Everyone weep with me. O Fortune, as variable as the moon, always changing, waxing and waning. Hateful life oppresses and then comforts, melting poverty and power like ice.

  22

  The Trial

  Jackson and Claire and I, and Stella and her law clerk, Julie Anderson, stayed at the Arbor Bed and Breakfast, which advertised itself as a finely appointed Arts and Crafts bungalow that revealed some of the traditional values of the Craftsman era, including tongue-and-groove yellow pine and a Mission oak staircase. It was located about a mile from the courthouse, which was on a hill above the town flats. Peter Franklin, who joined us for dinner, explained that the jail and sheriff’s residence used to be located in the uppermost level of the courthouse where the prisoners took their exercise along a narrow, open-air roof walk.

  In theory I was presumed innocent and didn’t have to prove a thing, but that’s not the way it felt—not after the preliminary hearing back in July, not after the pretrial conference in September, not now. If felt as if everything for the trial was already scripted—the cast of characters, the props—as if we were putting on a play. There would be no surprises. Except for the ending. The charge was first-degree murder, meaning that the prosecution was going to argue that I’d brought an illegal weapon with me from Colesville with the intention of shooting Earl. Second-degree murder wasn’t going to be an option—an easy out for the jury. Nor was the felony charge for possessing an illegal weapon. It was going to be all or nothing.

  Jury selection was going to begin on Monday morning. We spent Sunday in the lobby of the Arbor. We ordered takeout from a Thai restaurant and watched TV while we played Scrabble. Stella was an avid player with a huge vocabulary. She bingoed out three or four times a game and she won every game. Later I learned that Stella was a nationally ranked player and that she scheduled her vacation travel around Scrabble tournaments. I couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t make any words out of the tiles on my little tray, couldn’t see beyond cat, hat, bat …

  On Monday morning I ate breakfast in the dining room with Stella, Julie, and Peter. Peter had already filled Stella in about Judge Macklin, but now he reminded her that Judge Macklin didn’t want the attorneys to leave the lectern and approach the jury or wander around the front of the courtroom.

  Stella’s dream jury, she said, would consist of women my age who’d had some experience of being slapped around by men like Earl. Her nightmare jury would consist of men like Earl. After two days of voir dire—which I thought meant “to see to say” in French but actually meant “to tell the truth”—we had a jury of my peers. Not a dream jury, but not a nightmare jury either. Nine women and three men. No snake handlers! At first they looked like such ordinary nice people that I told myself they couldn’t possibly want to send me away for forty-five years. Later on they looked like the most extraordinary people I’d ever seen, and I told myself they couldn’t possibly want to send me away for forty-five years.

  The small courtroom had not been full during voir dire, but on Wednesday morning there were about a hundred people, including a couple of sketch artists intent on my profile—because cameras were not allowed—and a dozen reporters in the first row behind the prosecution, and the court reporter with a funny little one-legged steno machine. Judge Macklin appeared from behind the bench, and the bailiff commanded us to rise, which we did. Department Twelve of the superior court was now in session, the Honorable Elizabeth Macklin presiding. The bailiff told us be seated.

  The judge spent most of the morning laying down the ground rules for the jury: They were not to discuss the case with anyone, not to read about it in the papers, not to watch accounts of it on the evening news. She explained the procedures in broad terms and made it clear that she did not expect any surprises.

  The State’s Attorney or prosecutor didn’t get to make his opening statement until well after lunch. Some of the people in the courtroom may have been a little drowsy, but he had my full attention. He looked like a man trying to present an image of authority and good will, but he also looked nervous. He thanked the jury and expressed his appreciation for the important work they had undertaken. The prosecution, he said, represented the people of the State of Illinois, but the prosecution also represented the victim …

  Stella was on her feet with an objection. “Improper argument.”

  The judge agreed. “Tell us about the evidence you’re going to present.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” The prosecutor then told a simple story about a woman who had shot her husband at close range with a Walther PPK. She’d shot and killed him in his own home. He approached the jury and spoke slowly and clearly, shaking his head as if to wonder how
such a thing could have happened, how someone could commit such a brutal murder. Judge Macklin scolded him back to the lectern.

  “The evidence will show,” he went on, “that she persuaded her lover, a man not her husband, to buy the Walther PPK for her on October fourth, nineteen ninety-nine, at Gun Collectors in Colesville, Illinois. The evidence will show that the defendant could not buy the gun herself because she was a convicted felon and could not obtain a FOID card—that’s a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card. It will show that on June twentieth, two thousand, when she drove from Colesville to Naqada, she carried this illegal firearm concealed in her purse and that she used it to fatally shoot her husband in his own home.”

  The victim, he went on, was a man of faith, a minister, a man well loved in the church, and so on. There was more, but that was the gist of it.

  In her opening statement Stella said that she was sure that the jurors knew that in an ordinary criminal trial the burden of proof was on the prosecution, that the prosecution had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that I had committed the crime of which he or she was accused. But this wasn’t going to be an ordinary criminal trial, and “reasonable doubt” wasn’t the issue. The state wasn’t going to have any trouble proving that I had shot my former husband. The issue was whether or not I was justified in shooting my former husband, and she went on to explain the different justifications for the use of force listed in Article Seven of the Illinois Penal Code, starting with “self-defense,” which she was sure everyone on the jury was familiar with, and ending with section 7-1: “Use of force in defense of a person.”

  “The evidence will show,” she said, “that on the night of June twentieth, Ms. Cochrane—Sunny—was not only defending herself against her former husband, she was defending another person, a person whose life was being willfully endangered by her former husband, Mr. Earl Cochrane.

  “The law makes it perfectly clear that ‘A person is justified in the use of force against another when and to the extent that he reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or another against such other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, he is justified in the use of force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another, or the commission of a forcible felony.’ ”

  The law leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Did I “reasonably believe” that I was defending Jackson against “the imminent use of unlawful force”? How would anybody know what I “reasonably believed”? I wasn’t sure myself. Was Earl engaged in “the imminent use of unlawful force”? Was Jackson’s death “imminent”? Was Earl engaged in committing a “forcible felony” at the time I shot him?

  Stella went on to tell a story about a woman who’d had good reason to fear her husband—her former husband—a snake-handling preacher with a long history of violence, including two felony counts; a woman who had shot this man after he’d forced her at gunpoint to put her arm in a box of rattlesnakes; a woman who had spent her time in prison studying history and biology and mathematics and world literature; a woman who was presently enrolled in a prestigious university; a woman who had been forced to shoot her former husband again when he forcibly prevented her from calling for medical assistance for her fiancé, who’d been bitten by a rattlesnake, and who would have died if she hadn’t intervened.

  When Stella was finished with her opening statement, the prosecutor called the police photographer to verify half a dozen photographs of Earl lying in a pool of blood on the floor of his trailer. Yes, the photographer said, he had been there, he had taken the pictures, this is what it had looked like. Stella objected to what she called a “dog and pony show” and offered to stipulate that the victim was dead. Besides, she’d agreed to three photos at the evidentiary hearing, not six. The judge told the prosecutor to stick to the three photos that had been agreed upon, which were then entered as evidence—People’s Exhibit 1—and passed around to the members of the jury.

  If I’d been looking for signs, which I was determined not to do, this little courtroom battle would have been a small one.

  The prosecutor called a ballistics expert who established beyond all reasonable doubt that the 85 to 100-grain bullet that had killed Earl had been fired from the Walther PPK that had been in police custody since the shooting. The gun, which had a yellow tag on it, was introduced as People’s Exhibit 2. Stella had offered to stipulate that the Walther PPK in police custody was indeed the weapon that had killed Mr. Cochrane, but the prosecutor, she explained, wanted to put on his dog and pony show.

  Stella declined to cross-examine, but she reminded the court that she was presenting an affirmative defense and did not intend to challenge the “facts” laid out by the prosecution.

  The second prosecution witness was the owner of Gun Collectors in Colesville, whose ridiculous mustache looked like a horseshoe had been stitched onto his face. He kept tugging on it as he told the court that he had sold the Walther PPK to Mr. Jackson Jones, but that the defendant had offered to pay Mr. Jones for the pistol right in the shop.

  The prosecutor asked the owner of the gun shop to identify both Jackson and me, which he did.

  Stella declined to cross-examine.

  Don’t ask me how it happened, but by the time the prosecutor finished with the gun-shop owner, it was time to quit for the day.

  During that first day of testimony, there was so much going on in the courtroom, so much to think about, that I remained relatively calm, but that night, eating Thai food again and watching Seinfeld reruns and playing Scrabble in the lobby of the Arbor, I started to panic. It started with Scrabble. I couldn’t come up with a single word. I couldn’t read the tiles on my little Scrabble rack. I turned in all my tiles and took more, but I still couldn’t read them. My thoughts were like brambles tearing at the inside of my head; I started to sweat; my hands started to tremble and I couldn’t hold on to my tiles; I couldn’t catch my breath; I felt like I was choking. I was convinced I was going to die.

  Stella stopped the game. “She’s having a panic attack,” she said. “Jackson, put your arm around her. Don’t grab her, just let her lean on you.”

  Stella turned off the TV and we sat in silence for about half an hour, and then I was okay again, more or less. I watched another Seinfeld rerun, one I’d already seen in prison, while the others finished the game. I went to bed early and Jackson and Claire stayed in my room till I went to sleep. As I was drifting off I thought, I should have brought my timpani. I could have set them up my room. It was big enough. O fortuna, velut luna, statu variabilis.

  The state called DX Wilson in the morning. He was brought in from the witness room by the bailiff. He took the stand and swore to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. He was the closest thing the prosecution had to an eyewitness, and was definitely their most important witness. He’d been out in the hallway when I shot Earl and was the first one to come into the bedroom. And he’d been on the scene when I shot Earl the first time. And he’d known both of us for years. Now that Earl was gone, DX was preaching and trying to hold the church together, but Sally said he was having a hard time and they were thinking of moving over to Middlesboro.

  DX was the first man I’d gone with after I married Earl, and it made me sick to my stomach to see him raise his hand and swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth so help him God.

  It had happened like this. I’d stopped to see my cousin Sally one day, but Sally was gone, and DX and I got to fooling around and couldn’t stop. We fooled around every chance we got after that, and I went kind of crazy. So crazy that one day after church, after we’d been going together for a while, I told DX, “Let’s stop pretending and tell everybody we’re in love,” and DX’s face went as gray as the cement in the cement plant where he worked, and if I were going to thank God for something, it would be that DX was either too smart (unlikely) or to scared to do it, or I might be on
trial for shooting DX. I was seventeen years old at the time.

  As it was, Earl caught us and almost killed DX, broke his jaw so bad it had to be wired shut for two weeks, and beat the tar out of me. And then he forgave me and blamed everything on a sex demon. And I thought maybe he was right. At least I got down on my knees and prayed with him to get right with the Lord. And then I was all right for a while.

  DX got right with the Lord in the hospital and when he got out he went over to Earl’s and the two of them went out behind the trailer by an old stump where Earl used to go when he wanted to settle something with the Lord and started praying, even though DX’s jaw was still wired shut—I watched them from the kitchen window —and pretty soon they were best friends. That was the way Earl did things.

  DX was younger than Earl. Smaller, thinner, softer than Earl. Nicer than Earl. He’d take over the church when Earl backed up on the Lord, but he didn’t have Earl’s fire. He’d just sort of hold things together till Earl got right with God again.

  I stayed with DX and Sally during the first trial, but DX and I never fooled around again. And look at him now. His narrow face looked the way it had back when I wanted to tell everyone we were in love. Like wet cement.

  The point of DX’s testimony—the prosecutor’s point—was that nothing out of the ordinary had happened till I showed up with a pistol. Jackson had come down to the church to have a look-see and maybe poke some fun at everybody, and pretty soon he’d got involved, taking part in church activities—more than he’d let on to me—footwashing, speaking in tongues, playing the mouth harp. No one was ever forced or even encouraged to handle serpents. “He took a liking to my two-headed serpent,” DX said, “Moloch and Belzebub is what I call the two heads, when he and Earl was havin’ a sup with Sally and me.”