by James Yaffe
“If you ask me, Mom, you’re being influenced by all this religious rhetoric. You just can’t take it at face value. People like Chuck Candy aren’t fanatics. They’re businessmen. They don’t believe their own line for a minute. They’ve got more than their share of those human motives you’re talking about.”
“Sure, sure, I understand this. Even so, somewhere this fanatic is hiding. Curled up in a dark corner somewhere, like an animal that’s waiting to jump out.”
She broke off, and I suddenly didn’t feel like having any more strawberry shortcake.
Friday, December 23
Our local rag, The Mesa Grande Republican-American, devoted most of its front page Friday morning to the murder. The President had just delivered a blast at the Congress, and terrorists had bombed a restaurant in Paris, but these events were relegated to the bottom of the page, under small headlines. They were stale stuff, after all; they happened all the time. How often did an upstanding, God-fearing representative of the Christian community get himself shot to death by a Jewish youth from New York City?
Not that the Republican-American put it in just those words. All it did was make a lot of references to the Christmas decoration fracas, refer to Roger at every opportunity as “accused assaulter Meyer,” and never mention his parents without adding that they were “former residents of New York City.”
On one of the inside pages was an editorial, boxed by thick black lines and signed, like the one the day before, by Arthur T. Hatfield. In it he deplored the infiltration into our city of “elements who have no understanding of, and often are viciously hostile to, the deepest and most hallowed traditions of our Christian community.” He alluded to the fact that “the fugitive has, of course, not yet been proven guilty in court,” then he went on to declare, “If and when that verdict is delivered, this newspaper hopes he will receive the full penalty the law allows. The regrettable tendency, in recent years, of certain local public officials, mostly judges and so-called public defenders, to be soft on crime, to let their hearts bleed for the lawbreaker at the expense of his victims, must not be permitted to enter into this case.”
Right next to this editorial was an ad for the upcoming local production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet, to be performed on Christmas afternoon. The ad urged us to “bring the kids for an entertainment full of the joy and beauty and warmheartedness of the holiday season.”
I gulped down my coffee and drove downtown. A few blocks from the courthouse I was delayed by a small traffic jam, because a banner was being put up, stretching from the top floor of the Mesa Grande United Bank building on one side of Kit Carson Avenue to the top floor of the Southwestern Savings and Loan at the other side. The banner announced, in blazing red-and-green letters, that the annual Municipal Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony would take place in this very block at seven o’clock on Christmas Eve.
This local custom had been going on for a long time before I arrived at Mesa Grande. A giant tree would be put in place in the middle of the block, its branches loaded with colored lights, and the mayor himself would turn on the switch, after saying a few appropriate words about the spirit of the season. This giant tree would remain in the same spot, an inspiration to all our citizens and a cause of endless traffic jams, until it was taken down on New Year’s Day.
Twenty minutes later I slid into the cubbyhole I jokingly refer to as my office. The first thing I did was to put in a call to Candy’s house. A female voice told me that Mrs. Candy was at home for condolence calls. I asked if her son, the Reverend Gabriel Candy, was there too, and the voice told me he was at the church, taking care of all the problems that had come up as a result of the tragedy.
That decided me. I’d better get to Candy’s house right away. Who could tell when I’d get another crack at the widow out of her son’s hearing?
But I had to postpone the visit, because Ann buzzed me at that moment.
“Can you come in here right away, Dave?” she asked. “A couple of people just rang up to make an appointment with me. I think you better sit in.”
* * *
The people Ann was expecting got to her office two minutes after I did.
One of them was Francesca Fleming, wearing something that looked like a cross between a Japanese kimono and an Apache squaw’s housekeeping dress. Her red hair blazed out, as usual, like a fire that was out of control. She acknowledged my presence with a laugh and a handshake, but even so, she seemed to be holding herself in, almost trying for a serious expression on her face.
Maybe it was the restraining influence of the second visitor. This was the Reverend Eugene Grant Morgan, the minister of Mesa Grande’s Unitarian Church and president of the local chapter of the ACLU. He was taller than anybody else in the room. Through the years this had caused him to walk with a pronounced stoop which, along with his thick black-rimmed glasses, his deep earnest voice, his thinning hair, and his slightly horse-like face, tended to make him look a lot older than his forty years.
I knew people who found Gene Morgan an unbearable bore. Awfully noble and idealistic, there certainly ought to be more like him, but it was pure punishment to be forced to spend an evening with him, while he droned on about human rights and race prejudice and his other favorite topics of light social chitchat. But the fact is, I kind of liked the guy. He occasionally said things I was glad to hear, and as for the vast stretches in between—a long time ago I learned the fine art of shutting off my ears when I don’t want to listen. Without this talent police investigators, like psychiatrists, couldn’t possibly get their work done.
The visitors sat down, and no time was wasted on small talk. “We’re here with a proposition, Ann,” Francesca started in. “Frankly I don’t think you can turn it down.”
“Now I don’t think I’d call it a proposition,” Morgan said. “More like a gesture, in the common cause of seeing justice done, fighting together for—”
“We’ve got business to do in this office, Gene,” Ann cut in. “Christmas is a busy season for the criminal classes. Even if it’s the slack season for you church people.”
Francesca gave a sharp laugh and a wink in my direction.
“Very well then.” Morgan cleared his throat. “It’s this case you’re involved in now, the boy who’s accused of killing the minister—the ACLU is offering to take it off your hands. We want to hire our own lawyer to defend the boy at the pre-trial hearing next week. And for any court proceedings that might follow. And entirely, of course, at our expense.”
He paused. Maybe he was waiting for Ann to jump up and shout “Hallelujah!” and throw her arms around him. She just sat there, with no expression on her face at all, and finally said, “Why is the ACLU making this generous offer?”
“Because whether or not the boy is guilty, he’s entitled to a fair trial, all the protections of the law. And we’re afraid he isn’t going to get them.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Religious bigotry has raised its ugly head in this case. For a long time we’ve been concerned about the increasing militancy with which certain groups in town are trying to impose their religious beliefs on others—”
“Did you see our local yellow sheet this morning?” Francesca said. “Did you read that poison on the editorial page? Damn near made me throw up my soft-boiled egg!”
“What particularly disturbs us at the ACLU,” Morgan said, “is the distinct possibility that this case may become a rallying point for forces of reaction in this city. It’s happened before. In the thirties, Mesa Grande had a larger Ku Klux Klan membership than any other city outside of the South.”
“I warned you the other night, Dave,” said Francesca. “Arthur T. Hatfield signed his own name to that garbage this morning. That means he’s taking a personal interest in your client. Every few years he likes to pick out somebody, preferably somebody from some minority group, and railroad him into the pokey. In this case maybe even the gas chamber.”
Morgan leaned forward, with even more
urgency on his face than before. “You’re a good lawyer, Ann—nobody says you aren’t—and you’ve got a fine investigative staff.” Brief complimentary nodding in my direction. “But everybody knows how understaffed you are. You don’t have the time, the personnel, the resources in terms of money and manpower that this boy needs for the best possible defense. I can understand you might feel a certain resentment for my saying this, but let’s face it, what are your feelings or my feelings compared to the Meyer boy’s life and freedom?”
“Dave,” Ann turned to me so quietly and smoothly that I knew she was mad as hell, “how’s the investigation going so far? You feel you’re letting Roger’s interests down, on account of not having enough money or manpower?”
“The investigation’s moving along just fine,” I said. “Actually I’ve got all the manpower I need.”
I didn’t mention that the manpower I referred to was actually womanpower—a seventy-five year old lady who at that moment was probably beating a rug to death in her backyard.
“So there you are,” Ann turned back to Morgan. “We’ll put your offer up to the client, of course—”
Francesca interrupted, shoving her chin forward, “Have you talked to him? Do you know where he is?”
“—but I’m bound to tell you,” Ann sailed on, smiling softly, “our professional advice to him will be that he should turn it down.”
“He can’t afford to turn it down!” Francesca’s chin started stabbing the air. “Goddamn it, Ann, you don’t realize what we can do for him! We’re on the verge, practically a hundred percent certain, of getting Victor Kincaid to handle this case!”
The name brought us to a sharp silence for a moment. Victor Kincaid might not have been as much of a household word—or curse, depending on your household—as he had been back in the late sixties and the early seventies. Back then he had defended every radical and war protester and activist in sight. But even a decade or so later plenty of people remembered him, and if he mixed himself up in the Meyer case Mesa Grande could count on being mentioned in Time and Newsweek.
“You know Kincaid?” I said to Francesca.
“He’s an old buddy of mine. From when we were both on the barricades in the anti-Vietnam movement—more years ago than I care to remember. He’s in town this week, representing some Eastern firm that’s looking for investments out here. Didn’t you see his picture in the paper yesterday morning?”
I had to admit it wasn’t my habit to pore through The Republican-American with a fine-tooth comb.
“Mr. Kincaid is staying at the Richelieu,” Morgan said. “Francesca’s already sounded him out, and he’s definitely interested.”
“I’ll be lunching with him tomorrow, at my restaurant. I’ll be softening him up with a good wine, and I expect him to tell me he’ll handle the case.”
“I must confess, I’m puzzled,” Ann said. “Since when does Victor Kincaid take piddling little cases that get themselves dismissed for lack of evidence before they can turn into national news?”
Francesca swung on Ann. “This isn’t some piddling little case! That’s just the attitude that’s going to sink your client!”
“Maybe the case isn’t piddling, but it is going to be dismissed for lack of evidence.”
“You’re bluffing,” Francesca said. “There isn’t a chance in a million the charges will be dismissed. The kid’s fingerprints are on the murder weapon, his bloody shoeprints are all over the house, there’s a witness who puts him on the spot at the right time, he took a shot at the victim once before—”
“You’re doing a good job of making the DA’s case,” Ann said. “I don’t know what Victor Kincaid might have in mind, but I’m going to make our case when we get into court.”
“Bullshit!” Francesca’s favorite word exploded out of her, then her mouth opened and shut a few times. I had seen her mad before; she was a woman who prided herself on the care, discipline, and effectiveness with which she lost control of her emotions. The tactic worked very well in bulldozing committee members who disagreed with her.
But then she surprised me. Suddenly she stopped opening and shutting her mouth, and she laughed. A loud amused-sarcastic laugh, just like her usual self. “Well, you can’t shoot us for trying, can you? And I don’t blame you for a minute, believe me. I mean, whether this Meyer kid gets off or not, there’s going to be a lot of good publicity for whoever defends him. So why shouldn’t the public defender get it instead of the ACLU?”
She started laughing again, but there was no sign of mirth on the face of the Reverend Eugene Grant Morgan. “You’re speaking for yourself, Francesca, not for the organization. The ACLU is never activated by self-serving motives. Justice and individual rights are our only priorities. Let me assure you, Ann, the whole chapter met on this last night, and we came to the unanimous decision—”
“That’s right,” said Francesca, “all five of us.” She got to her feet, easily, almost lazily. Not for the first time I found I had no trouble believing the stories that circulated about her sexual conquests. “I’ve got to be off, it isn’t good for the help if I’m out of the restaurant too long. You know what happens when the cat’s away.” She tossed a smile at Ann and one of her winks at me, and then she was out of the room.
“Reconsider our offer, won’t you, Ann,” said Morgan, rising slowly to his full height. A pretty impressive sight, like some sort of large snake unwinding itself and rearing up from the ground. “Please—for that poor boy’s sake.”
“We’re grateful for the moral support,” Ann said, standing up too. “It’s the legal support we don’t need. But thanks anyway, Gene, I know you mean it for the best.”
As soon as Morgan was gone, Ann sighed and said, “Have you ever noticed how the people on your side so often make you want to change sides?”
* * *
But I had no time to consider that profound bit of wisdom. I had to get to the late Chuck Candy’s house and pay my condolence call on his widow.
As I got into my car, I noticed for the first time that the sky was looking sinister. A black-and-blue smudge, like a bad bruise, was rising up from behind the mountains. Could it be, I wondered, that we were going to have a white Christmas after all? But I wouldn’t take bets on it. In Mesa Grande the weather always looks as if it’s going to do something and then does just the opposite. Like a lot of people I know.
Fifteen minutes later I drove past the Meyer house—it looked shut up, no cars were parked in front—and pulled up at the Candy house. There were still a dozen or so rubbernecks staring from across the street.
I rang the doorbell, and a dried-up little woman in black opened the door for me. She ushered me into the living room. In it were a lot of other people dressed in black, male and female, middle-aged to elderly. The fact that a murder had happened in this room yesterday wasn’t discouraging any of them from sipping coffee and munching cookies.
In the midst of them was Mrs. Candy. She was in a long black dress, with a high black collar, and her face, sticking up from all this blackness, looked as white as death. This effect was enhanced by the redness of her eyes and the dark smudges underneath them.
Though she’d been introduced to me yesterday, I don’t think she had any idea who I was. I told her, and apologized for intruding on her in her grief but it was necessary for my official investigation.
The other callers gave me dirty looks and muttered darkly among themselves, and I was sure Mrs. Candy would order me out of the house. I wouldn’t really have blamed her. In all my years as a cop, I’ve never quite got used to the part of it where you stick your nose into people’s lives and pry at them and badger them just at the moment when they’re suffering the most. Still, I go on doing it; suffering people are more likely to come out with things than people who are thinking clearly.
But Mrs. Candy stood up and said, “There’s a room we can talk in, across the hall.” Ignoring the mutters around her, she led me across the hall to a small room with a desk, a sofa, and a
few chairs in it. She told me to sit down on the sofa, a faded old-fashioned piece that looked as if it had been through the wars. So did the gray upholstered chair she took for herself, and so did the rest of the furniture in the room.
Mrs. Candy offered to get me a cup of coffee. I said no thank you. “I hate to bother you,” I said, telling the lie I always tell on such occasions. “I have to ask you some questions, and they may be questions you’ve answered already for the district attorney. But it’s my job to carry on my own investigation. I’ll try and be as quick as possible.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at me out of those red eyes.
“First, could you please go over it one more time, what you did yesterday—how you found—”
Very clearly, even methodically, she said, “I went out right after breakfast. There were things I had to do over at the church, and then around twelve o’clock or so I went to do my Christmas shopping. For my grandchildren mostly.”
As I listened to her talk, I grew more and more puzzled. She sounded, unmistakably, like an educated woman. Her vocabulary, her way of pronouncing words, even her grammar couldn’t have been more different from the down-home, folksy aggressive ignorance of her husband.
“What things did you have to do at the church?” I asked.
“I was bringing over the New Year’s Day poster. Where it says the time of the service and the title of the sermon, and a special message of Happy New Year from Chuck. He wrote down what he wanted it to say, and I copied it off on the poster board, the way I always do—”
“New Year’s Day is a week from Sunday. I thought he never wrote his sermons till the Thursday before services?”
“Oh, he never writes his sermon till then. But he usually has the title a lot sooner. He thinks up a catchy title that’ll bring people in for the service, and later on he writes down a sermon to fit it.”
