Decision

by Allen Drury

  For a moment he almost uttered an angry retort, then prudence intervened.

  “Sometimes what appear to be good ideas initially can get badly out of hand,” he remarked as they came to the guarded room and the police stepped aside for them to enter. “You should watch yours.”

  “Everybody’s goin’ to be watchin’,” Regard told him happily. “Everybody’s goin’ to be watchin’ because everybody has an interest. Yes, sir,” he added with satisfaction, “everybody’s goin’ to be watchin’ who’s for us. And who’s against us.”

  And composing his face quickly into a suitable mask of sorrow he rapped gently on the door and called softly, “Moss. Y’all in there, Moss? Mr. Justice Barbour’s here.”

  Moss appeared, haggard and exhausted but composed. Tay held out his hand. Moss gripped it hard, their eyes held for a moment. Then Moss stepped aside and gestured him in. Sue-Ann, her fine beauty drawn taut by tiredness, pain and the ravages of recurrent weeping, but also composed, rose from a sofa and kissed him gravely on the cheek.

  He started to turn toward Regard. The attorney general anticipated him.

  “Now if y’all will excuse me,” he said, “I’ve got to be gettin’ back to my office. They’re goin’ wild over there with the response to Justice NOW! It’s comin’ in from all over the country and it seems to be growin’ bigger by the hour. I think we’ve really got somethin’ goin’. Apparently this dreadful crime has suddenly just coalesced everything. Things are goin’ to change in America from now on.” His face turned grim. “I’ve also got a date with that despicable no-good restin’ over there in the county jail.”

  “What evidence have you got?” Moss inquired somberly. “Any?”

  “Mostly circumstantial,” Regard admitted. “But enough to convict the bastard in today’s climate—the climate he’s created for himself. When we get this thing really organized—”

  “You can’t win the case with a circus,” Tay said bluntly. Regard gave him an indignant look.

  “A circus, Mr. Justice!” he exclaimed. “I shouldn’t think you’d be the one to cry ‘circus,’ when your very own little baby is—”

  “That’s enough!” Moss snapped, face white. “You get on back there and tend to this case, Regard. And just remember that if, when and if it comes up to us, public pressure isn’t going to have much effect.”

  “You haven’t seen the kind of public pressure that’s goin’ to build around this one, Moss,” Regard said softly. “You fellows on the Court just don’t have any concept of what’s beginnin’ to build. It’s been a mighty long time—maybe back as far as Dred Scott—since the Court has had to face the public outcry it may have to face on this one. And while I’m sorry I put it on a personal basis, Justice Barbour, sir, and I do apologize for that, still it seems to me there’s a question that ought to be concernin’ you two: just how will you handle it, if it does come up to you? There’s never been a case before where individual Justices have been so directly and personally involved. How will you handle that?”

  There was silence while he and Sue-Ann studied their somber faces. Again their eyes met.

  “We are sworn to uphold the law,” Tay said gravely. “To ‘administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.’ And so I intend to do.”

  Moss gave a heavy sigh and nodded as his eyes sought his wife’s.

  “And I,” he said at last, voice low.

  “I respect your intentions,” Regard said, still softly, “but it may not be so easy when the man who destroyed your daughters comes before you.”

  “Oh!” Sue-Ann cried. Her husband put his arm around her and nodded toward the door with a sad and tortured expression.

  “Get out of here, Regard!” he ordered. “You just get on out! Right now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Regard said calmly. “I will go back and make my case and tend to Justice NOW! You gentlemen be thinking, meanwhile.”

  And he bowed gravely, turned and left, closing the door gently but firmly behind him.

  Sue-Ann returned to the sofa. Moss remained standing in the center of the room. Tay stared out the window.

  “He seems very confident,” he said finally, turning to them. “He must feel he really does have the country behind him.”

  “I suspect he does,” Moss said. “Right now, anyway. Long enough to carry him through the case, maybe… Taylor”—he rubbed his eyes hard, sighed, sat down next to his wife—“what are we going to do?”

  “Not anticipate,” Tay replied, taking a chair opposite. “Perhaps that’s the best thing we can do, at the moment.”

  “How can we not anticipate?” Moss inquired. “He’s right. It’ll come up to us. If there’s a conviction and a death sentence, there’ll be an appeal to stay execution and remand for re-argument. And that will come directly to me as Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. And, Tay”—his face looked tortured again and his voice dropped to a near whisper—“I just don’t know how judicial I can be if I’m confronted with the—the murderer of my daughter.”

  “But you must be,” Tay protested, realizing even as he said it how glib and trite it sounded, yet driven by his own rigid concept of the law. “You must be if you—if you stay on the case. If there is error in the courts below, if reasonable doubt exists—you have to be, Moss. You have no choice.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Sue-Ann observed in a small voice that passed no judgments but chilled him with its remoteness, “when Janie still lives.”

  “Even if—” he began, lowered his head in his hands, took a deep breath, started over. “Even if—and even if I were the Circuit Judge being appealed to, I still would feel that I must be true to my oath and to my concept of the law. I just couldn’t do otherwise.”

  “You don’t think so now,” Sue-Ann said, “and I pray you won’t ever have to find out. But if you did, I think you might feel differently. Even you, Tay, who have always been perfect.”

  “But I’m not perfect!” he protested bitterly, for here was the damnable word again, the damnable misunderstanding of himself. “God knows I am not! I’m just a stumbling, awkward, inept, imperfect servant of the law who is weak like everybody else, not possessed of any special knowledge, not possessed of any exceptional abilities. Just myself. Not perfect, as God is my judge. Not perfect.”

  “But capable of—objectivity,” Sue-Ann said, as though he were a complete stranger she was contemplating for the first time. “That’s where you are different, maybe. I’m not sure Moss can be so—so objective … anymore.”

  “But the law—” he began; and stopped, for suddenly his words seemed enormities to himself as he realized for a second how they must sound to his friends. But the perception was gone in a second. He realized only that further discussion now was fruitless, though he knew with an unhappy certainty that it would come back when they returned to the Court.

  “Moss,” he said earnestly, “this certainly isn’t something you need to decide now. It will be months before the case comes to trial—”

  Moss shook his head.

  “He wants to ram it through just as fast as he can, and I think he’s going to be able to do it. It’ll be three months at the most; much less if the courts here cooperate. And since I am who I am,” he said, quite simply and without egotism, “they’ll do it to oblige me as well as him. Oh, we’ll get it through fast, I think I can predict that. And then we’ll see what happens.”

  “All right,” Tay conceded. “But wait until then. Nothing at our level has to be decided about it right now. You’re not in shape to do it, I’m not in shape to do it. Let’s don’t fight about it, for God’s sake.”

  “I don’t want to,” Moss said. “You’re the one,” he pointed out, but not unkindly, “who’s talking about his duty to the law, at the moment.” A ghost of his old humor came back for a second. “I’m just trying to get through the day. Is there—any change? With Janie?”

  “No,” he said, brought back with a crash
to concerns far more desperate at the moment than the law. “But,” he added firmly, “the doctors are optimistic and I’m optimistic too.”

  “How optimistic are they?” Sue-Ann asked quietly.

  “They say there is some possibility of brain damage,” he admitted, “but—” he hurried on, “it is only a possibility. The chances are equally good that there will be none. That”—his head came up in challenge—“is what I believe. She is a strong and healthy child, as the doctor put it, and the chances are excellent that she will come through entirely unscathed and be herself again.”

  “I pray every minute,” Sue-Ann said gently, with a generosity of spirit and soul so instinctive, kind and complete that his eyes filled with tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, voice unsteady. “Sorry—sorry—sorry—when you two have so much to bear—”

  “That’s all right, buddy,” Moss said, barely steady himself. “That’s what friends are for. Don’t worry about us. We’ve had as much as the Lord can throw. He can’t do any more to us now.”

  “How is Mary?” Sue-Ann inquired, again a kind and genuine concern in her voice.

  “Mary is Mary,” he said. “I can’t begin to tell you again how sorry I am about her behavior when we first arrived. It was inexcusable. Just simply inexcusable.”

  “She was under great strain,” Sue-Ann said. “Don’t you fret yourself. I can understand it.”

  “I can understand it, too,” he said bitterly, “but I can’t forgive it. It was inexcusable.”

  “You must forgive it, Tay,” she said. “It does no good to harbor these things. She’ll be better as the crisis passes.”

  “You don’t know what she’s said since,” he responded, still bitterly.

  “We don’t want to know,” Sue-Ann said, “but I’m sure, again, that it was just because she’s under such a strain.”

  “You’ve known Mary for a long time,” he said. “If it’s strain, then she’s been under it for many years.”

  “Perhaps,” Sue-Ann agreed; but to his sudden sharp glance her voice and expression were noncommittal. “Still, you must be patient. You have too much to face together to let things separate you now.”

  “What would you say—” he began; and then abruptly stopped. These were his oldest and best friends; for just a second he had been on the very verge of blurting out something about Cathy. A last-minute caution, the inward secrecy of Taylor Barbour, “a very private man,” to use one of the media’s pet clichés about him, had intervened. Someday soon, perhaps. But not yet. “Nothing,” he said with a careful smile to their puzzled glances. “Nothing at all… Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  “Thanks, pal,” Moss said, sounding more himself for a moment “Just coming over has been a help. Everything’s pretty much under control, I guess. We’ll have the”—he took a deep breath—“the services tomorrow at the plantation. We want you and Mary to come if you can.”

  He nodded.

  “If we can. I’ll try, at least. A lot depends on how—if Janie is—is making progress.”

  “Of course,” Sue-Ann said. She stood up, held out her arms, gave him a kiss. “Thank you for coming, Tay. We appreciate it…” Her sad eyes filled with tears again. “All this horror, all these people involved, you and us and the girls and all these people down here and the Court up there and Regard Stinnet and his Justice NOW! and people reacting all over the country—and all because of one cruel, sick, twisted being. It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  But they could not know then how far the lack of sense would spread before it was over; or exactly what results would ultimately flow from the devious and deadly mind of the bomber of Pomeroy Station, even now conferring once again with his intense and idealistic counsel as the flood that would presently overtake them and many others rose ever higher in the offices of the attorney general of South Carolina.

  ***

  Chapter 4

  Not, of course, that the knowledge would in any way have intimidated Earle Holgren, who by now was beginning to feel considerably better. He would have enjoyed it, in fact—all except its ironic conclusion, which not even he in his wildest dreams could at this moment have imagined. As it was, he could imagine some of the turmoil going on outside. It pleased him immensely.

  Faithful to Regard Stinnet’s orders, his captors had subjected him to alternate rest and interrogation; but being of a nature that permitted the instant sleep of the just and the righteous whenever he had a moment’s chance, he had not found it too much of an ordeal.

  During his waking periods he had been bland, uninformative and scornfully abusive. “Slob-Face” was the mildest epithet he had addressed to the two deputies assigned to interrogate him, and he had several times come so close to provoking them to strike him that it had been, as he told Debbie delightedly now, “a real turn-on.”

  “I don’t think you’re very funny,” she said coldly. “I also think you are a psychopathic murderer. I think I should drop your case and get as far away from you as I can.”

  “You are absolutely right,” he agreed promptly, shifting position with an exaggerated wince that brought an instant look of concern to her angry face. “You never said a truer word. Tell me why, though. It’s interesting. I want to know how you think.”

  “Why did you kill that woman and child?” she demanded.

  He gave her a look of bland surprise.

  “Oh, did I? I didn’t know there was any proof of that. In fact, that’s your main defense for all of this, isn’t it? No proof of anything. How come you’re accusing me of it?”

  “I thought you were someone with a Cause,” she said bitterly. “I believed in you because I thought we agreed on this whole rotten society and all its works. Now you turn out to be just a cheap murdering psychopath—”

  “Stop calling me that word!” he demanded, with a sudden fierce anger, grabbing her wrist in a grip so tight that she gave a little cry of alarm and tried to rise and yank away. But he was too strong for her and inexorably forced her back down again.

  “Now,” he said, contemptuously throwing her arm back at her, “you sit still and be quiet. And don’t you call me a psychopath again. I know what I’m doing! I’ve always known what I’m doing and I know now. So lay off the smarts and act like a lady. Otherwise,” he said with an abrupt sunny smile, “I really may have to dismiss you as my counsel.”

  “I want to know why,” she persisted, breath coming in little gasps, dark clever face contorted with pain and alarm. “I want to know why, after making a perfectly good statement by bombing that atomic plant, you had to spoil it all by killing that woman and child.”

  “Listen,” he said, shifting again, and again grimacing in the exaggerated way that he calculated would enlist her sympathies in spite of herself, “nobody has any proof that I bombed that plant, let alone that I killed anybody—”

  “You killed Justice Pomeroy’s daughter,” she interrupted, “and nobody’s sure yet just what you did to Justice Barbour’s.”

  “I didn’t do anything to anybody,” he said with a deliberate recurrence of anger, “and don’t you keep talking as though I did! Nobody can prove anything—”

  “They won’t have to prove anything!” she snapped. “Do you have any idea what’s going on outside? Do you have any idea of the pressure that’s beginning to build on this case?”

  “My two big sweet interrogators gave me some gobbledygook about something called Justice NOW!” he said scornfully. “All about that yahoo Regard Stinnet and some sort of vigilante group he’s whipping up out there. Do you think the media is going to stand for that?”

  “Do you think you’re the media’s darling?” she demanded. “What makes you so sure ‘the media’ gives a damn about you?”

  “Because they’ll think I’m being railroaded,” he said triumphantly. “Because I got beaten up and didn’t have my rights protected. Because I’m against atomic energy. Because I’m raising hell with the established order a
nd they love anybody who shits on America. And that,” he predicted, “is why they’ll love me.”

  “The sooner you understand what’s going on, the better for you,” she said, rubbing her wrist to help the circulation. “This Regard Stinnet is no yahoo and Justice NOW! is no minor vigilante group. He’s starting a nationwide law-and-order movement and it’s already catching hold like wildfire. He’s going to try to ram this case through just as fast as he can, and with judges and juries the way they are down here, particularly when you attacked their darling Mr. Pomeroy and killed his daughter—” He started an angry protest but she held up her hand sharply and raised her voice—“You listen to me! Because they think you did, whether you did or not, they’re going to crucify you if they can. He’s demanding the death penalty and he’ll get it. Then maybe you’ll realize what’s going on!”

  “And where will my brilliant legal counsel be, all this time?” he inquired softly. “Won’t she be doing anything? Won’t she be trying to help me? Won’t she be raising all sorts of clever points and thwarting this dastardly plot?” He paused, shook his head. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said elaborately. “I forgot, you’ve dropped the case. You’re not with me anymore. You’re going to run away and let the wolves have me.” He sighed and turned his face to the wall, groaning and flinching as he did so. “Ah, well,” he said, voice muffled over his shoulder. “So be it. If I’m doomed, I’m doomed. But I did expect better than this from a sister who seemed to understand what it is really all about.”

  “I understand what it is really all about,” she said, voice tart but with an undercurrent of uncertainty that amused and did not surprise him, “but I’m damned if I understand what you’re all about. I still don’t know why you killed that woman and child—”

  “Drop that!” he demanded furiously, turning over and half-sitting up, grimacing with a pain genuine this time because of the swiftness of his move. “Just God damned drop it, do you hear me? Nobody can prove I killed anybody, so God damn you, drop it or get OUT! And decide damned fast which it’s going to be!” And he rolled over again to face the wall, back rigid and unyielding.