Henry started to take off his gloves, but thought better of it. He wondered if the courtroom would be adequately heated. Still, with that great crush of humanity packed inside, it might be all too warm for comfort, and heat intensifies odors. He shuddered.
Perhaps his aversion to crowds and noise explained his enchantment with Japan. The small, quiet people there were calm and orderly in public, and scrupulously polite in private—never pushy, never loud. He missed that tranquility sometimes, but he knew that he would never go back. For Henry, the memory of a single day in Tokyo had cancelled out all that had gone before.
So here he was, back from Lilliput, and living again among the yahoos in his native land. Sometimes colleagues who knew about Henry’s aversion to humanity in general would ask him how he could bear to be a journalist, forever forced to interact with uncongenial strangers. He seldom discussed the matter, but he knew the answer. His salvation lay in the fact that the people he met remained strangers. His tangential encounters with his interview subjects were fleeting and perfunctory. To strangers he might seem interested, sympathetic—a kindred spirit, even—but from even the most charming of his contacts, Henry was always glad to get away, and he never cared to look back. He had colleagues at the newspaper, whom he saw from time to time, but he was always out and about in search of more stories, more strangers, so that he never had to endure a day-to-day existence in proximity with his fellow journalists. Henry was always affable and courteous—because strife is a form of intimacy—and if people mistook his cordiality for friendship, he never disillusioned them, but he was always alone.
The first-floor hallway was becoming crowded now as spectators and court personnel arrived for the session. He watched them climbing the iron-railed staircase, chattering easily among themselves. Henry always wondered what people found to talk about with strangers, or, rather, why they would bother if they didn’t have to. He steeled himself to join the throng. He needed to get into the courtroom in time to get a good seat, preferably far away from whatever unwashed farmers and tobacco-chewing townspeople had troubled to attend the proceedings.
Henry picked up his briefcase and trudged up the stairs, taking his mind off the jostling of his fellow man by concentrating on the draft of his trial story, which he had already begun. Trials were so monotonously similar that he could almost craft a fill-in-the-blank, all-purpose narrative. Henry did not believe in identifying with his readers, though. He was not one of the masses, and he never let them forget it. He was the arbiter who would tell them what to think about a given issue, and he never pitched his prose to the level of his audience, because he felt that his writing was something that they should try to live up to. Over the years Henry had developed little quirks in his style, almost a shorthand, to let readers know his feelings on certain matters, both moral and mundane. For instance, there were certain names of which he disapproved. Henry particularly disliked pretentious names when given to people of the lower classes, and whenever he came across such a person in the course of a story, he would always introduce him with a condescending phrase: “The pawnbroker, who rejoiced in the name of Menelaus H. Carson . . .” Thus would his readers be given to understand that he was gently mocking the fellow. Henry liked to think that the more perceptive among them would take this social instruction to heart, and refrain from saddling their children with fanciful appellations. He expected to find a great many unsuitable names cropping up in this case, because it was common knowledge that hillbillies bestowed peculiar names on their children, although in point of fact he had yet to find any examples worth noting. The Christian names in this case were slightly unusual, but not entertainingly so: Harley and Erma Morton, the attorneys were called Kenneth and Frank . . . no joy there. Still, it was early days yet. He might yet discover a Chickamauga Johnson or a Second Thessalonians Brown, and if he did, he would contrive to leave his readers with the impression that such outlandish names were standard among the hill folk.
He had not bothered to ask for directions to the courtroom. One could scarcely avoid arriving at its doorway, pulled along by the undertow of the surging mass of humanity coursing through the marble halls of the Wise Courthouse. Where was Rose? More important, where was Shade, who was needed to take photographs of the principals in the case? He supposed they were somewhere nearby, obscured from view by the crowd. Perhaps he should try to save a seat for Rose.
The thought of her reminded him that sometime when court was not in session, he and Rose needed to go out into the community and interview some of the townspeople about the case. Perhaps they could even pose as a couple, and, if they could get away with it, they wouldn’t volunteer the fact that they were reporters. People always talked more freely when they thought they were having a discussion in private.
Henry didn’t mind whether the locals they interviewed believed in Erma Morton’s innocence or not. Provided he got their names on the record, they could say whatever they liked. But after they had said their piece, Henry Jernigan would write it up in his article, and he could direct how their opinions would be judged by the readers.
If he agreed with the speaker, he would write what they said in standard English, so that the sense of the statement was evident at a glance, but he rendered any dissenting voice with their regional accent indicated by phonetic spelling: “Ah thank that l’il gal kilt her daddy . . . ” Thus he signaled to the court of public opinion that this witness was flawed.
In addition to his phonetic weaponry, Henry stacked the deck by framing his respondent’s remarks in a few lines of carefully nuanced description, a thumbnail sketch to assist the newspaper’s readership in judging the worth of the opinion. An older man who expressed an acceptable view of an issue might be depicted as distinguished, experienced, silver-haired—patrician, even. But with a dissenting opinion, that same man would be dismissed as doddering, senile, curmudgeonly. It didn’t matter what people said, as long as you could control the reader’s impression of them, and Henry’s readers generally believed what he guided them toward believing. Words were Henry’s weapon of choice: concealed weapons, because people seldom realized that they were being manipulated by a master. But he told the truth as he saw it. He considered his little tricks just appliances enabling his readers to more easily discern that truth.
ON THE FIRST-FLOOR landing of the courthouse stairwell, Shade Baker positioned himself so that he would have a clear shot of the people coming up the stairs. He had slung his overcoat over the banister, and now he leaned back against the wall to steady himself and his camera so that—providing no one jostled his arm—the photos would not turn out blurred. From earlier published photos he had seen, Shade knew what Erma Morton looked like, so getting a photo of her should be easy, providing the bailiffs escorting her did not hinder him. If they gave him trouble today, he’d find them later and slip them a dollar or two to cooperate. If they objected to outright bribery—and in his experience, people seldom did—he could always soften them up by photographing their children or their girlfriends. There was always a way.
The other principals in the case—the attorneys and witnesses—presented more of a problem, but Shade’s solution was to photograph everyone who looked either distinguished or upset. Rose could look at the prints, and sort them out later.
There was a sudden hush in the first-floor hallway below, and the crowd suddenly parted to clear the way for two uniformed sheriff’s deputies who were escorting a slight young woman in clunky high heels and a dark print dress. Erma Morton.
The prisoner looked calm, but pale, and she wore little makeup, but her bobbed hair had been freshly curled for her court appearance. The dress, which looked new, hung on her angular body and stopped just short of her calves. He wondered if the outfit had been chosen by her attorney, because her appearance seemed calculated to present her as a modest and respectable young woman.
Shade steadied himself against the wall, tugged at the camera’s flash attachment, and put his eye to the viewfinder. She seemed to be look
ing straight at him with an expressionless stare. She walked slowly between the guards, her head held high, taking no notice of the people lining the hallway, gawking at her. One or two of them—friends, perhaps, but he doubted it—called out her name or waved as she went by, but she did not look around. Shade noticed that the prisoner was not handcuffed, nor did her deputy escorts grip her by the arms. One of the deputies was a tall, solidly built man, and the other was short and swarthy. Little Orphan Annie with the Asp and Punjab, thought Shade.
He waited until she was halfway up the first flight of steps, perhaps ten feet below him, and then he leaned forward and snapped the shutter. The brightness of the popping flashbulb startled her out of her reverie. Her eyes widened and she raised her arm as if to ward off a blow. Then she drew back and turned, as if to run back down the stairs, but the wiry little deputy gripped her arm and leaned over to murmur a few words in her ear. She listened for a moment, and then gave a quick nod, and they continued to mount the steps. When they reached the landing, the heavyset officer took care to place himself between the prisoner and the camera, fixing Shade with a belligerent glare, daring him to try that again. Shade lowered the camera and nodded cordially to the officer. He was used to official wrath, and he was philosophical about it—but not apologetic. They were both just doing their jobs.
He hoped that his initial shot had been a good one. He would take another one as Erma Morton ascended the second flight, but that angle was not as good, and he would have to settle for a shot of her back or a profile shot. As a precaution, he would take that second photo, but he knew it was a waste of time. If the first one wasn’t good, he’d have to try again, perhaps at the end of the day as she was being led back to her cell. But he needed to send something to the newspaper much earlier than that, whether the shot was any good or not. He glanced at his watch. He still had time to get shots of the other principals in the case, if they turned up soon. Then he’d spend an hour in his makeshift lavatory darkroom, developing the roll, and sending it off in a parcel to New York.
Now where were the lawyers? Shade scanned the first-floor hallway, looking for men in suits, and hoping that both the jurors and the ordinary spectators lacked the means and the inclination to dress formally for the occasion. And where was Rose? She was supposed to know what these people looked like, or at any rate she could find out, while he held his position on the staircase landing. Still making herself presentable, he supposed. Well, until she showed up, he’d just take shots at random and hope the people he needed would be there somewhere.
CARL JENNINGS STUMBLED into the courtroom, dodging the blue spots before his eyes. That fool with the camera on the stairwell had nearly blinded him, shooting off the flash when he was right on the top step. He had nearly fallen, but a wiry older man in faded work clothes had grasped his arm and steered him up the second flight of stairs. Carl tried to show his identification to the bailiff at the door of the courtroom, but the man didn’t care who he was or why he was there. “It’s a free show, son,” he said, waving Carl inside with the rest of the jostling spectators.
He should have arrived ahead of the crowd in order to ensure that he got a good seat, but he had spent half an hour putting the finishing touches on yesterday’s dispatch, telling about his meetings with the two principal attorneys, with guarded comments from the Knoxville club women about Erma Morton. Then he’d had to get to the telegraph office to wire the story to his editor, which took more time and money than he had counted on. He didn’t suppose he could rely on ordinary mail, though. A letter mailed from Wise ought to reach Johnson City in a day, but there’d be hell to pay if it didn’t. Finally he had finished his errands, and he’d turned up at the courthouse with fifteen minutes to spare, which turned out to be barely enough time.
It was a big courtroom for a rural mountain county. Carl wasn’t much for noticing furnishings, but he took a moment to look around him and take stock of the room, so that he could toss a few descriptive passages in his next news story. For an ordinary day of court, there would have been plenty of seating—at least a dozen rows of wooden pews facing a raised dais that held the judge’s bench, and above them a balcony for the overflow of spectators. Today the audience was seated elbow to elbow, and he would be lucky to find a place. The ceiling was high, the walls were wood-paneled, and here and there an oil portrait of some sedate former jurist looked down on the proceedings.
The jurors, already seated in their places, looked a little uneasy at being so prominently featured in a public setting, but their attire reflected the seriousness of the occasion. They all wore suits and ties, and one or two had on waistcoats as well. They were all male—Virginia law prohibited women from serving as jurors—and most of them looked comfortably middle-class and middle-aged. They seemed to be the embodiment of the phrase “town fathers,” solid and respectable. They probably represented the community as it saw itself. He wondered if they would compare Erma Morton to their own daughters, and if so would they feel protective of her or disapproving of her independent ways.
Carl looked around to see if there was a place reserved for the reporters to sit. He did spot Henry Jernigan a few rows from the front rail, as regally calm as a patron at the opera. Beside him was an empty seat, but Carl decided to save himself the embarrassment of another encounter with the great man by assuming that the place was being saved for one of the other national reporters. He ducked into the nearest bench farther back, and opened his notebook.
The local man who had helped him up the stairs slid in beside him, and tapped the notebook with a bony forefinger. “Taking notes, huh? You studying to be a lawyer?”
Carl looked into the alert blue eyes in a weatherbeaten face. He hoped he wasn’t going to have to admit that he was a journalist. He said carefully, “It’s not a bad idea, sir. But I don’t think I’d have the patience for it.”
“No, it’s doctors that have patients. I believe it’s clients that lawyers take on.” The fellow said this with a perfectly straight face, but his eyes sparkled, watching for Carl’s reaction.
Carl relaxed. This was mountain humor. Pretend to misunderstand something, and look honestly bewildered, while you wait to see if the stranger you’re talking to falls for the ruse. The trick is to let on that you know the game without acknowledging that it is a jest. Carl nodded solemnly, and studied the man next to him while he was thinking up a suitable reply. The fellow had a chiseled, seamed face, and he was probably in his early forties, although he looked older. Judging from his well-worn work clothes, he was probably a farmer or a coal miner, but, while he might not be able to quote Tennyson, he was certainly clever enough. Carl wondered if, by this fellow’s standards, he would be able to keep pace.
He said, “I don’t believe either one of those professions would suit me, sir. Doctors have to contend with sick people, and lawyers can never leave well enough alone.”
“I’m with you there,” said his seatmate. A look passed between them. Asked and answered. With one deadpan witticism they had acknowledged their kinship as men of the hills, and now that rapport had been established, they could talk without constraint. Although the matter would not be discussed, Carl decided that the fellow had guessed that he was a reporter, but at least they had established that Carl was one of the local variety, and that he might be all right, or at least the lesser of two evils.
Carl pointed at Erma Morton, huddled beside her lawyer at the defense table, staring up at the empty judge’s bench. “Do you know her?”
The wiry little man hesitated. “Just to speak to,” he said at last. It wouldn’t do to brag or exaggerate your own importance. “I worked the mine with her daddy over the mountain. Liked him well enough. They claim he was a mean drunk, but none of us ever saw it. I saw a man who ate a cold potato for lunch because his womenfolk wouldn’t fix him nothing. The man they’re talking about in the newspapers is not the Pollock Morton that I ever knowed.”
Carl reddened, wondering if he was going to be held responsible for t
he sins of his profession. “Well, sir, sometimes it’s hard for outsiders to get at the truth.”
“Hard enough for insiders, too, I reckon.”
“Maybe trials ought to be like weddings,” said Carl. “Ushers could seat you on one side of the aisle or the other, depending on whether you’re a friend of the defendant or the deceased.”
“Wouldn’t help much in this case,” said his seatmate. “Same family. Well, it might help them that worked with Pollock Morton on the one side, and some of the kinfolks on the other. There was the dead man’s family and then there were his in-laws. Might get you a dogfight going there.”
“Which side do you reckon the daughter was on?” As soon as Carl said it, he realized what a foolish question it was. “She was her mama’s daughter, wasn’t she?”
“I’d say so. People said that the mother married beneath her. The daughter goes off to college and tries to better herself.”
“But she finished college,” said Carl, thinking it out as he spoke. “Her father wasn’t standing in her way. Except for making a fuss about when she came home at night. Nobody would kill their father over that.”
The Devil Amongst the Lawyers Page 19
