swatter, it’ll insult their intelligence, and they might take it out on you.” I can’t tell him I promised not to make this argument.
“What’re you gonna do, then?” he asks, a plaintive tone in his voice.
“Just say it was the Mexican?”
I watch as the deputies open the doors to allow spectators into the courtroom.
“I’ll do more than that,” I whisper.
“But that’ll be part of it.”
“He couldn’t speak hardly a word of English,” Class says, shaking his head.
“He didn’t seem like the type who could have done it.”
“He could have known a lot more English than he let on,” I explain.
“All we need is to get them thinking he might have done it. We don’t have to prove he did.”
Class sees Latrice and gives her a little wave.
She has convinced him to trust me. The corners of his mouth turn up in a brief smile, and for an instant I am permitted to see what his face must have been like before he was charged. If I don’t get him off, I hope he doesn’t hate her. I know he will hate me.
Woodrow Bonner climbs back into the witness chair and smiles at me. I waste no time in asking him about Jorge Arrazola, not caring how much he repeats himself from yesterday. By the end of this trial I want the jury to have the name burned into their brains. Bonner has no choice but to admit that he has continued to look for him right up until the trial.
“I would have liked to talk to him,” Bonner says, in response to one of my questions, “just as a matter of routine investigative work, but I don’t consider him a suspect.”
I come around to the side of the podium and bellow, “You’re telling this jury that this man is not a suspect because he was in this country illegally and might have been afraid he’d be found out?”
Bonner is sitting ramrod straight and his metal badge positively gleams.
“My guess is that he was afraid and that’s why he took off,” he says casually, “but that’s not why I don’t consider him a suspect.”
“Well, tell the jury why not,” I say sarcastically, not remembering anything in his notes or files that would make me afraid to ask this question.
“Well, you see, Mr. Page, Jorge Arrazola was left-handed,” Bonner says, “and you heard what Dr. Miller testified about the knife wound.”
What in the hell have I been doing the last three months? I’ve been so busy trying to get Paul I’ve gone brain-dead.
“You’re saying it’s not possible he used his right hand?” I bluster, trying to pretend I’ve known this fact all along.
“That’s a question,” his voice dry, “you might want to ask Dr. Miller.”
I could move to strike his answer as being unresponsive, but I don’t want to hear his new one, nor do I want to recall Dr. Miller. I can feel my cheeks burning.
“Your conclusion,” I ask hurriedly, “that there were no other suspects depends, in part, on the truthfulness or correctness of answers given to you by individuals who claim to vouch for the whereabouts of the other plant workers, isn’t that so?”
Bonner has to answer that it does, and hopefully it appears that I am preparing the jury for some gigantic revelation down the line, but, in fact, I have nothing to present later but a few minor and irrelevant inconsistencies, if I choose.
I get Bonner to admit that he cannot offer any direct evidence of a cash payment or a promise of any kind from Paul Taylor to Class. Given the other evidence in the case, this hardly seems to matter, but it is all I have. Butterfield will argue that Class could have been hired by Paul or someone else.
Before I sit down, I decide to test the waters, and ask about Mrs. Ting.
“Though Doris Ting discovered her husband’s body,” I say, “you quickly eliminated her as a suspect, didn’t you?”
Bonner says that for a number of reasons he doesn’t consider the victim’s wife a possibility and tells the jury that her frail condition, her reaction (she was in shock and had to be sedated), and the lack of any physical evidence tying her to the murder ruled her out.
In a few minutes I sit down by Class and watch Dick get to his feet and walk to the podium. I hope Class doesn’t lean over and ask me if I am getting paid by Butterfield to help him. This is one of the most humiliating moments of my career as a lawyer. Any more of this, and I’ll need to go back to social work.
Dick goes after Bonner hard and gets him to admit how little evidence other than the tape the prosecution has against Paul. Bonner is so candid that I begin to suspect he wants the jury to understand that had he been the prosecutor, he wouldn’t have charged Paul unless he had gotten Class to make a deal first. Doubtless, like anyone else, Bonner resents being hung out to dry, and I wish I had been a fly on the wall in his office once it became apparent to him Class wasn’t going to implicate Paul. I watch Paul’s face as Dick cross-examines Bonner, and wonder again if, despite everything, he is responsible for this murder.
Angela’s comment that first day I stopped by her house that Paul could be “ruthless” has stayed with me. In spite of the fact that he isn’t as bad as I wanted to make him out to be, I don’t trust him and never will.
Though there is no need to put Doris Ting on the stand, Butterfield does it anyway. She looks older than the last time I saw her as she hobbles into the witness chair, and I wonder if Connie even bothered to ask her to try to remember something that would help us. She begins to sob as soon as Butterfield asks her to identify herself for the record, and the
loss that she has suffered, if it hasn’t before, comes home to the jury. Pausing repeatedly during her testimony to wipe her face with a fistful of tissue, she describes how unusual it was for her husband not to call her or not to answer the phone on Darla’s afternoon to volunteer at the school. I look back at Tommy and Connie at the back of the courtroom. Connie has hidden her face in her hands as her mother testifies.
For the first time since I’ve been involved in this case, it seems to be about a man’s death, and not my own ego. I look over my shoulder again and see Tommy put his arm around his sister.
Mercifully, Butterfield lets Mrs. Ting off the stand as soon as he establishes the time when she went into the plant and found her husband’s body.
Both Dick and I decline to cross-examine her, an action I assure Class would hurt more than help.
Butterfield moves through his case smoothly, and by the afternoon he puts on his last witness, Darla Tate, who, in contrast to Class, has beefed up in the last three months. Already a big woman, Darla now looks like she could start as defensive tackle for her sons’ high school team; yet there is still something touching about the way she has tried to get herself dolled up for her testimony. In fact, from the shoulders up, she looks like she has made up for one of those sexy glamour shots that try to make ordinary women into, if not movie stars, at least queens for an afternoon. As my secretary Julia says, Darla has her hair “bouffed up” and is wearing enough makeup to get stuck in if it rains. Gold ball earrings the size of plums hang from her ears, her dress is the color of faded summer grass. Never has a woman tried to look more feminine, I
suppose, and failed. Despite the testimony that Butterfield will elicit from her, she can help Class even as she hurts him, and I hope the women on the jury listen to her even as they mentally pick her apart.
As expected, she talks about the operation of the plant. Had I been Butterfield, I would have called her as one of my first witnesses, but perhaps it makes sense to call her last since she can provide a motive for Class even if the jury chooses to believe that Paul had nothing to do with Willie’s death. She begins to recite her story that she overheard Class talking about “having gotten the money” while she was in the bathroom but readily admits she doesn’t have any idea to whom he was speaking. Butterfield asks if she is sure it was Bledsoe’s voice, and she says emphatically that she is “absolutely certain.”
In the moment that I see her biceps tense, it occurs to me
that Darla has spent a considerable amount of energy pointing me in the wrong direction in this case. First Harrison, the meat inspector, then Jorge Arrazola, and finally Muddy Jessup. Yet she told me right off that she didn’t think Class was capable of murdering Willie. Were these supposed to be wild-goose chases? I had rejected the idea of Darla’s being a suspect because she had an alibi and, besides, I couldn’t imagine a woman taking a knife and slitting her employer’s throat. But as I look at her right arm, and see that it may well be as strong as my own, or at least strong enough to slice the carotid artery of an old, unsuspecting man, I have to wonder—why not Darla? She says she was at her sons’ private school between two and four, and I know she signed in at the principal’s office before two and signed out at 4:30, but what was she actually doing all that time? My mind races to remember.
Something about helping to do paperwork in the office. Her story checked
out.
About a month ago I talked to the office secretary who said that Darla was there the entire time that afternoon. I remember her because she was a thin, intense, almost hyper woman who insisted that I go outside with her while she smoked.
Darla, she said, answered the phone and did paperwork. Bonner has also talked to her, according to the file, and everything he has done has checked out, including this conversation. And what would have been her motive? She practically claimed to be in love with Willie. But maybe she wasn’t. All I can do now is fish and hope I don’t make her too suspicious. Class nudges me, and I look up at the judge.
“Mr. Page?” Johnson asks, for the second time.
“Do you wish to examine this witness?”
“Yes, your honor.” As I get to my feet, Darla gives me a shy smile as if we are old friends, and I start off by asking her if she remembers telling me that she didn’t think Class was the type to have murdered Willie.
“Class was a good employee,” she volunteers.
“I didn’t think he would do such a thing. Willie liked him because he was a real hard worker. And Class had said to me that Willie was a good boss.
That’s why I was surprised.” “In fact, I believe you said Mr. Ting
always treated you very well as an employee.”
If Darla is becoming wary, I can’t tell it.
Immediately, she responds, “I think I told you I was sick almost all one winter, but he told me not to worry about it.”
“And right up to his death,” I say, casually, “you enjoyed a good working relationship with him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did,” Darla says.
“If he thought you worked hard, he’d help out if you needed it. And I appreciated that.”
“In fact, Mrs. Tate,” I say, in as low-key a manner as possible, “over the last couple of months you’ve suggested that I investigate two or three other individuals for the murder of Willie Ting, including an individual whom you were pretty sure was stealing money from the plant.” “He was,” Darla says, firmly.
“I showed you.”
“Yes, you did,” I say and smile. I pause and pretend I’m looking through my notes.
“Now, let’s go back to the day of the murder,” I murmur.
“If the person who murdered Mr. Ting was a worker in the plant, he or she would have known that Tuesday was your day to volunteer in the
schools?”
“It wasn’t a secret,” Darla acknowledges.
“I had been doing it for six months. Willie didn’t even dock my salary.”
“And once you left in the afternoon,” I say, “you were gone for the day, isn’t that correct?”
“I stay until Mr. Edwards the principal leaves,” Darla says, “and that’s never before four.”
If I am onto something, it is probably much too late to prove it.
“And, of course, the day of the murder you followed your normal routine and were at the school the entire time, and whoever murdered Mr. Ting, assuming they were aware you volunteered at the school, could have counted on that, isn’t that so?”
“I think so,” Darla says. “like I say, I didn’t hide it.”
I ask if some of the workers’ voices at the plant sound alike.
“Class and I started the same day five years ago,” she says, “and I’ve talked to him at least once a week. So I’m positive it was him.”
I sit down, saying that I would like to recall Darla so she won’t be released as a witness. While Dick cross-examines Darla, I turn my head and try to get a glimpse of Connie and Tommy to see if either of them heard anything Darla said they didn’t like. Though it is difficult to
see her, for an instant I catch sight of Connie, and think I see a puzzled look on her face.
Now that the prosecution’s case is at an end, the court recesses, and we go back into Johnson’s chambers to go through the routine of asking that the charges against our clients be dismissed.
I make my motion for the record, knowing there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting this case dismissed. Then I listen to Dick eloquently argue that Butterfield has put on no evidence against Paul.
Oddly enough, this is only the second time I have been back in the judge’s chambers, which are mostly bare, since his main office is in Helena. Johnson is quieter and much more passive than I thought he would be, which is the kind of judge lawyers like since he lets you try your case and doesn’t take over the questioning.
No Judge Ito, he has been so unobtrusive that at times I have hardly noticed him.
While Butterfield makes his response to our motions for dismissal, I muse about Darla Tate.
I’d at least like to talk with Connie and Tommy to see what they think of her.
When Butterfield is finished, Johnson leans back in his chair and looks straight at him.
“I’m very tempted to grant Mr. Dickerson’s motion for a directed verdict
and dismiss the charges against his client,” he says in a witheringly cold voice.
“I find barely sufficient evidence that would allow a jury in good faith to find he had anything to do with the murder of Willieting. All the prosecutor has really shown in this case is that the defendant had an ambiguous conversation with the victim in which he mentioned the fact that he would die someday.”
Melvin Butterfield looks as if he has been slapped in the face. I was certain that Johnson was in Butterfield’s hip pocket. As usual, my assumptions about Bear Creek have been totally false.
We go back out into the courtroom, and Johnson, glancing at the clock on the wall, announces that since it’s nearly five o’clock, the court will be in recess for the rest of the day. As soon as his gavel comes down, he leaves the bench and the courtroom quickly empties. I tell Class that I will be out later to go over his testimony. His only hope now is his credibility. For all I have accomplished, he should have defended himself and saved seven thousand dollars. As the deputy leads Class away, he hangs his head. I haven’t given him any reason to do much else.
From my room at the Bear Creek Inn, I call the Ting residence, and as I hoped, I get Connie and ask, “What has your mother ever said about Darla Tate? Could she have been stealing from the plant?”
Without any hesitation, Connie says, “Mother’s said that from time to time workers stole meat. She’s never never said anything about Darla, but I’ll ask her again.”
I tell Connie that I am guessing Darla knew that sooner or later Eddie was going to uncover some major shortages and Darla was trying to blame everything on Muddy Jessup, who, as it turned out, was running too small a scam to account for the losses.
“I know this is a long shot,” I plead, “but would you ask Eddie to go back to the plant tonight and check the books to see if he can tell whether Darla was cooking the books before your father died? If she was, I think there is a good chance she killed him because he was about to find out she was stealing from him.
My guess is that the plant was making so much money he didn’t know how much he was losing.”
There is
a long pause, and I rack my brain trying to think of something to say that will make her help me. It is obvious that I am grasping at straws, but I have been so blinded in this case by my own prejudices that I have begun to use my head only in the last twenty-four hours.
Before I can say more, she replies, “Can’t she prove she was at the school all that time?”
I think of Mary Kiley, the wiry, nervous woman I talked with outside the school door. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had stuck two cigarettes in her mouth at once.
“Maybe, but if it’s like any office I’ve been around, by the middle of the afternoon people get up and do a lot of visiting. Maybe her alibi wasn’t there with her the whole time.”
“I know what you’re going to do, Gideon,” Connie says, her voice cold.
“You want to get just enough evidence to have the jury doubt your client is guilty. He’ll go free and nobody will be charged.”
I stare at the ugly green wall across from me.
For once, I don’t lie.
“That’s possible,” I admit, “but at least you won’t have convicted an innocent man.”
For a moment Connie does not say anything.
Then she says harshly into my ear, “Have you got any other theories?”
One. My assumptions have been wrong so far but I better ask it.
“Is there a possibility Darla was in love with your father and got rejected by him?”
Connie laughs sarcastically.
“I’ll ask my mother that, too.”
I hang up and retrieve the now dog-eared file Butterfield gave me and thumb through the statements taken by Bonner until I find the name of Mary Kiley. I read it twice and then decide to go out to her house instead of calling her. In five minutes I pull up at a small frame house on Casey Street only two blocks from the housing project where my
distant black relative Mayola Washington presumably still lives. I wonder why I haven’t gone by to see her. However, all we have in common is guilt, and I have enough of that.
Gideon - 05 - Blind Judgement Page 29
