Hope liked Judge Ginsburg. She liked the way he looked—bearded, sophisticated, intellectual, “like he came from big bucks, and had gone to school back East.” Which came close: Leonard Ginsburg was from San Francisco, a doctor’s son, and had gone to Berkeley. Hope also liked the way he handled the question of Walker’s chains, which had always bothered her. “It hurts me to see Walker chained,” she’d told Tom Breslin, but he’d told her she couldn’t say that in court because it would make her look too sympathetic. Jay Powell asked for a removal, now, of all restraints, pointing out that in Walker’s many, many court appearances since March, the defendant had never attempted to escape. Joe Haley responded by pointing out that maybe the defendant had never attempted to escape because in most of those appearances, he’d been shackled and chained. “And that’s the purpose of the whole thing,” Haley said dryly.
Judge Ginsburg listened, then made up his mind. “I question whether the handcuffs and the chain around his belt are necessary,” he said. “That is the most conspicuous of the restraints, and I think the leg shackles would accomplish the objective and be reasonably inconspicuous.” Although the ankle cuffs were scarcely visible when Walker was sitting or standing, only when he moved around, Judge Ginsburg took pains to explain them to the jury. “This is no evidence whatsoever of anything at all. It has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of the defendant, and is not to be considered by you in any way whatsoever.”
Walker was using the legal materials granted to him earlier very productively. Although bail had been consistently denied him, he now moved again that he be released on bail, based on a recent California ruling, so new it hadn’t been published yet, so new even Ginsburg wasn’t fully informed on it, either. But Walker knew of it—a superior court ruling only ten days old, dated November 9—which made bail accessible to all defendants, no matter what the charge. Judge Ginsburg checked the Los Angeles Daily Journal and agreed that the defendant Walker could be released on bail, which the judge then set at a quarter of a million dollars.
Walker smiled. He looked terrific, in expensive burnished boots, a crisp, new-looking gray suit, pale blue shirt with French cuffs, and a striped tie that looked very familiar to Hope. Walker had had an extensive wardrobe when he was arrested; although those clothes were still in sheriff’s custody, they could not be used as evidence against him because of the suppression ruling. At a pretrial hearing, it had been decided he could wear the clothes to court, choosing his outfit each day from a rack wheeled up to his cell by a deputy; he would return them to the sheriff at the end of each court day. In between times, Jay Powell would take them to the drycleaner’s.
Hope looked good, too, not nearly so frail and gaunt as she’d looked in the spring. She still wasn’t allowed to wear pants, but she’d borrowed two more outfits so that, besides the pink wool dress, she had a plaid coat-dress with brass buttons down the front, and a white wool suit with a white turtleneck sweater and a flowered scarf. She still wore the Mary Jane shoes, with her hair brushed loose and shiny, caught back on top with a barrette. One of the jurors, Ruthe Snelling, thought Walker looked as though he’d stepped from a page in a man’s magazine. She thought Hope looked like Goldilocks.
Jury selection took most of a week. The prosecutor asked eighteen questions of prospective jurors—basic questions involving occupation, spouse’s occupation, any personal or religious convictions that might keep them from voting guilty. Walker’s list ran to one hundred fourteen questions, not nearly so basic. As Walker explained to the panel, some questions were designed “to get down to your inward self.” He discussed “the Perry Mason syndrome,” their feelings about guns and alcoholic beverages, their feelings about sex-related testimony. “Assuming some loved ones of yours were standing trial in place of the defendants, for the same crime,” Walker proposed, “would you feel satisfied with twelve jurors of the same mind as yours to stand in judgment of your loved one?”
Hope would never have picked the jury they ended up with, but she and Tom felt that, under the circumstances, it was only fair to let Walker choose. Walker seemed pleased with the jury, which was two-thirds women, one of them pregnant. When Lois Bollinger, a tall, slender, very attractive blond, asked to be excused because the manager of the music shop where she worked as bookkeeper was sick, the prosecution agreed readily, but Walker said something to Jay Powell, and Mrs. Bollinger was not excused. “She seems to be a fine juror,” Jay told the court, “and we would like to keep her.”
On the afternoon the jury was sworn, Judge Ginsburg announced the visit to the ranch, with the jury traveling by sheriff’s van, Tom Breslin driving Hope over in his car. “I am probably the only one who knows the combination on the outside gate,” Tom said, “so I guess you will have to wait for me.” Walker smiled. Thirty-ought-six; like the rifle.
Hope knew that Walker would want to take the rocker nearest the fireplace, opposite the sofa, where he’d spent most of that Saturday afternoon, so when he started across the living room, she brushed quickly past him and sat down. He grinned, and moved across the room to the chair by the picture window where he sat casually, puffing at his pipe, winking, and occasionally sticking out his tongue at her as Judge Ginsburg led the jurors through the house counterclockwise, starting with the corner bedroom and bath wing, where there was a momentary crush in the doorway, and proceeding back through the living room, through the kitchen, and into the back bedroom where Bill’s body had been found, past a wall plaque with a line from Poor Richard’s Almanac: MUCH VIRTUE IN HERBS, LITTLE IN MEN.
Hope’s annoyance at Walker’s antics overcame her dread of returning to the ranch. It seemed infuriating but perfectly natural, somehow, that Walker should be strolling around the property with an entourage, making notes on his clipboard, smiling. Once that afternoon, however, when she looked across the room to the sofa where Bill had sat, his eyes closed, his drink still in his hand, she suddenly began to tremble. One of the reporters who had toured the house and had returned to the living room, to watch Walker and Hope together, noticed Hope’s shakiness; the woman stepped over to Hope’s side, took her hand, and held it tightly for nearly an hour.
To the world at large, and in the stricter world of the courtroom, it still appeared that Hope Masters was being tried, along with G. Daniel Walker, on a charge of murder. Both stood as the clerk, Ethel Flynn, read the charge:
The said Hope Masters and G. Daniel Walker are accused by the District Attorney of the County of Tulare, state of California, by the information filed this twenty-seventh day of April A.D. 1973, of the crime of felony, to wit: violation of Section 187 of the California Penal Code, murder, committed as follows: The said Hope Masters and G. Daniel Walker, on or about the twenty-fourth day of February A.D. 1973, at the County of Tulare, state of California, and before the filing of this information, did willfully, feloniously, and with malice aforethought kill William Thomas Ashlock, a human being.
The first witness, Deputy Donald Landers, had nothing enormously significant to say, but his mere appearance was, of course, significant to Hope. When he had told, briefly, about getting a phone call at the Porterville substation on the night of February 27, and had stepped down from the stand, Judge Ginsburg, who had been alerted to what was coming, called a recess.
Hope scooted over to Jay Powell and said she had to speak with him. “Is it all right with your attorney?” Jay asked. Tom nodded, and Hope and Jay walked into the hallway outside the courtroom. He didn’t want to talk to Hope Masters, but he thought he should listen, and he wrote notes of their conversation just afterward.
“I am doing this because it’s my only way out, Jay,” Hope told him. “I didn’t know he was the one until later.” Jay wasn’t sure whether she said “know” or “realized,” so he wrote both words down. “I have to testify, but I will try to go easy on him,” she added.
“I’ve already told your attorney that I am going to object to your being dismissed,” Jay said sternly. “And I want you to know that.”
>
“God, I hope you are not successful,” Hope groaned.
“I am sure they will dismiss against you either way,” Jay Powell said.
“Well, they have to,” Hope said. “Haley said they don’t have any evidence against me.”
“I know that,” Jay said. Later he explained he’d said that so Hope would talk to him about it. She told him she was still going to testify, and asked him if he would take some books to the jail. Jay said he would.
“Walker is scowling a lot,” Hope told Jay. “He looks like a murderer. Tell him to smile more, and show his pretty teeth.”
When court was reconvened, Joe Haley asked that he be allowed to make a motion outside the presence of the jury.
“Your Honor, at this time, having made a thorough review of everything before the District Attorney’s office and in the hands of the sheriff’s department, and weighing that evidence basically circumstantial or not basically circumstantial we have concerning Mrs. Masters, and weighing that with the fact that she may—or would—testify for the prosecution, we feel it best in the interest of the People of the state of California, because of the comparison of the evidence, that we make a motion to dismiss against Mrs. Masters at this time. This is done subsequent to the first witness being called, and prior to the other witnesses, because we feel it would only be fair to the defendant Walker not to proceed any further with Mrs. Masters being a defendant, because some evidence may be presented—even though it’s hearsay as to Walker, it may be evidence that is admissible against Mrs. Masters and we don’t wish to—to use an old term—to sandbag Mr. Walker. And so, at this time”—Haley took a long breath—“we make a motion to dismiss this matter as to Mrs. Masters.”
Jay Powell stood up. “We object to the motion to dismiss, Your Honor.”
Ginsburg looked at Tom Breslin.
“Mr. Breslin, you, of course, have no objections at this point?”
“I have no objections,” Tom said.
“All right,” Ginsburg said, and the motion was granted.
When the jury filed back in, Ginsburg spoke to them without saying much. “I want to advise the members of the jury that while you were absent from the courtroom, a motion was made by the district attorney to dismiss all charges now pending against the defendant, Hope Masters. This motion was granted by the court, so Mrs. Masters is no longer a defendant in this case, and the case will proceed solely against the defendant, G. Daniel Walker.”
The jurors stared at Hope. One older woman with a heavy, lined face, no makeup, seemed to be glaring at her with what seemed to Hope real hatred. Hope stared back at her for a moment until the next witness, Detective Jack Flores, was called, and the trial resumed as though nothing unusual had happened. But Walker passed a large brown envelope to Jay Powell, who pushed it along the table to Tom Breslin. Tom opened it, peered inside, then pressed it closed quickly. It lay at his side the rest of the day, until court was adjourned, when he handed it reluctantly to Hope.
“This is yours,” Tom growled. “But for God’s sake, don’t let anybody see it.”
So Hope kept the envelope closed, under her arm, as she walked out of the courthouse into a dazzle of flashbulbs.
“How does it feel? How do you feel now?” reporters were calling to her. She had a typed statement to hand out to the press, and Honey and Van had one of their own, but the reporters seemed more interested in verbal comments. Tom was talking to Bill Bell of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. “This is not immunity,” Tom told Bell, emphatically. “This is a straight, outright acquittal.” Finally Hope gave up trying to pass out her formal statement. “I feel terrific,” she said; her snappy line was quoted in most of the daily papers.
In the privacy of her room at the Lampliter, Hope opened the envelope. Walker had written a note, thanking her for “the kind words of advice” relayed to him by Jay Powell although, he wrote, “It will be hard to smile with you gone from the case.” He had enclosed a newspaper clipping in which District Attorney Robert Bereman confirmed that his office had considered whether the situation ought to have been reversed, with Walker being offered immunity in exchange for his testimony against Hope. Walker pointed out in his note that obviously he hadn’t accepted that deal. “It was generally agreed you should be taken to trial and that I should be granted immunity,” he told her. “However, being a stubborn individual, I refused serious consideration and elected to place my fate in the hands of a jury.”
There was one other enclosure: a fresh, long-stemmed yellow rose. A thought flashed across Hope’s mind, the language of flowers: from somewhere in her Italian past, she remembered that yellow meant betrayal.
Word had gone around that Hope Masters would testify, and the courtroom was jammed. The Visalia courtroom had none of the antique appeal of the justice court; it was modern, fluorescent, with a microphone at the witness stand to underline the impression of being onstage.
Joe Haley’s first questions to his witness were intended to establish a moral mood, to dilute the distaste for a married woman running up to the ranch with her lover, leaving a long-suffering husband behind. He brought out that she and Tom Masters were separated, not living together, and that she had filed for divorce.
“Were you and Bill Ashlock just plain friends, or what?”
“Well, we thought of ourselves as married,” Hope said primly. “We weren’t legally married, but we were going to be legally married as soon as my hearing came up the following week.”
“Were you in love with Mr. Ashlock?”
“Yes,” Hope said.
With the tone set, Haley led the witness back to that Saturday afternoon when she’d first seen Walker, the man she knew then as Taylor Wright, who Bill said was a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, from the bathroom window. “Come on in and have a drink.” They sat around and drank. They walked down to the river, where Walker took pictures. They drove into Springville, where Hope played with the runny-nosed baby. They bought more liquor and, back at the ranch, drank and talked some more. After dinner—filet mignon, wild rice, a salad—Hope got a pillow and lay down on the sofa briefly, then she moved into the corner bedroom.
“Did you go to sleep?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Do you recall waking up?”
“I recall being awakened by someone kind of pawing at me and trying to stick a metallic object into my mouth. I was just almost sure it was some kind of weapon.”
“Could you see this person as far as features are concerned?”
“It was absolutely black as pitch. I couldn’t see anything. I could only feel someone with one hand feeling my body and pushing this thing into my mouth.”
“What did you do?”
“I scooted sideways across the second bed toward the door. I went toward the only light in the house, which was the embers glowing from the fireplace.”
“Do you know where this other party was as you went into the living room?”
“I—I sensed that he was behind me.”
“And did you see Bill?”
“Yes. I saw Bill.”
Hope spoke, in a low voice, of running over to the sofa, where Bill sat with his head resting on the back of the sofa, his feet up on the coffee table. She grabbed him and his head wobbled. She was screaming. “Bill, wake up, wake up! Help me! Bill!” Then she heard a voice.
“I heard him very clearly. He said, ‘Don’t bother with him, he’s dead,’ in a very cold sort of monotone voice.” The person came up behind her, pulled her away from Bill; she heard Bill’s body slip and fall.
“You have been saying, ‘a person.’ Up to this time, did you recognize this person as having seen him before?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
“No, sir.”
She saw her arms, in the light of the orange embers, dripping blood. She began to vomit. She ran into the bathroom, her clothes being torn off as she ran. In the bathroom she knelt by the toilet; when the person pulled off h
er pants, she fell flat. She was pulled, but not dragged, into the bedroom, by this person, and thrown down on the bed. She heard a “thunk” when he laid the gun down.
“What happened after he set the gun down?”
“He raped me and he did a lot of things to me, pawed me and talked dirty.”
“Were you fully clothed or unclothed?”
“I was unclothed by now.”
“Did he restrain you in any way?”
“He put my arms at what would be the top part of my chest, which would be between our two bodies, and then he lay on my arms.”
“Let’s ask you again: up to this time, did you actually recognize this person?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you recall whether he was clothed or not at that particular time?”
“It felt like he had clothing on top, no clothing on the bottom.”
“Were you scared?”
“I was terrified, and out of my mind over Bill.”
“You say he raped you?”
“Yes. He raped me, and he said, ‘Let’s just—’ He poured out a stream of the worst filth I have ever heard.”
A Death in California Page 39
