by Allen Drury
“It most certainly should be by the jury,” Debbie said as Regard ignored his look; and added thoughtfully, “And by any other jurisdiction that may consider the matter.”
“That means us, kid,” Moss whispered wryly, “and don’t you forget it.” “We can’t, Moss,” Tay responded seriously. “We have to take those things into account.” “Maybe,” Moss said grimly. “Maybe.” “You know we do,” Tay replied, “and no ‘maybe’ about it.”
“Why do you think it is,” Debbie inquired in a puzzled tone, “that you got involved in all this, Mr. Holgren? Why would workers at the plant testify that you were around there a lot? Why would Boomer Johnson testify that he saw you in the woods above the plant just prior to the explosion and then just after in the company of a young woman and an infant whose general description tallies with the bodies found in the well? Why would your mother testify that some sort of ‘power group’ was putting pressure on you to hate your parents and your country, and that you responded? Why were you apprehended near the entrance to the old mine shaft? Why would these things happen to an innocent man, Mr. Holgren?”
“Well, you know,” he said, hunching forward confidentially in his chair and looking straight at the jury, not at her, “I have asked myself these questions many times while I have been under false arrest during the past three weeks. I’m glad you’re playing devil’s advocate for me, Miss Donnelson, because I know these are things that are very puzzling to me, as they must be to everybody, and I want to answer them as best I can.” He paused and shook his head, baffled. “I’ve been giving it a great deal of thought and all I can come up with is that there must be some conspiracy, some sinister plot which has selected me for its target in the hope that I can be made a symbol and a rallying point for an organization devoted to the political ambitions of some individual or individuals who feel they can profit from framing me…
“I was up in the woods above the plant”—there was a startled excitement in the audience, sharp looks from the jury; he smiled calmly and waved a monitory hand—“don’t everybody get excited now, this was after the explosion, after the time when our young friend Boomer claims he saw me and some unidentified young woman and child up there—I was there after because I, too, was looking for the individual—or individuals—responsible for the dreadful crimes that occurred there that day. Prior to that time I had been mingling in the outskirts of the crowd—the honorable attorney general can probably find a dozen people who saw me, if he really wants to look—but after the explosion I decided I would do what I could to help, because I did do a lot of jogging around there and I am pretty familiar with the area. So I went on up and started looking. I knew where the old cave was—”
Debbie looked at him through narrowed eyes, face expressionless but mind whirling: was he really so egotistically unbalanced as to push his luck this far? He was. “—because I had stumbled on it one day when I was exploring around just out of idle curiosity, and because I like to know the lay of the land.” He grinned suddenly. “I’m like young Boomer. I too like ‘my own perch’—I too have ‘a independent mind.’” Audience and jury joined him in a small, patronizing chuckle for Boomer’s grammar. Then he resumed his narration seriously again. “So I knew the cave. It occurred to me that if somebody else knew it, namely the guilty party, he might consider it a good place to hide. I had just stepped into it to explore when I realized I didn’t have a flashlight, so I started back out—and just then the good, law-abiding citizens of Pomeroy Station, as he calls them—and I’m not saying they aren’t, your honor, I’m sure they are, they were just kind of excited at the time—jumped me and beat me and took me into custody without so much as a by your leave, or my rights, or anything. I was only trying to help, and look what happened!”
He gave the jury an injured look and shook his head in wonderment.
“As I said,” he concluded solemnly, “I can only figure that somebody must have decided that I was to be made the scapegoat for an organization intended to further somebody’s political ambitions. As to why certain people have testified to certain things, well”—he shrugged—“it’s always possible to suborn witnesses.”
“Your honor,” Regard said with a dangerous glint in his eye, “is this individual charging me with suborning witnesses?”
“Oh, no,” Earle said airily. “I just said it was possible to do that, I didn’t say anybody did it. I just said it was possible.” His tone became suddenly vicious. “Surely the great attorney general isn’t denying that some time, at some place, at some point in history, witnesses have been suborned by somebody, is he? It is a humanly conceivable act, isn’t it? It has been done, right? It could happen again, right? Some place, some time, by somebody?”
“Your honor,” Regard said, breathing a little heavily, “I will not dignify talk like that by replying. Are you through with your client, counsel? Because I’d like to get at him.”
There was a rather nervous laugh in the room, followed by vigorous applause. But the jury was not amused. They all looked grave and concerned. Earle had shaken them and Debbie decided to let it go at that.
“Your honor,” she said, “unless my client wishes to add something of his own—”
“Oh, no,” Earle said complacently, leaning back with his expansive air, “I think that pretty well states the case as I see it.”
“It’s been a long afternoon so far,” Perlie Williams said, “and likely to get longer. The court will stand in recess for twenty minutes, after which we’ll resume. It is my intention to go right on as long as it takes to wind this matter up today.”
“That murderous little bastard is a complete phony,” Moss said glumly as he and Tay headed for the men’s room, “but I’m afraid he’s made some points.” “Which we will have to consider, if and when,” Tay said with equal glumness as they queued up. “He’s one clever, amoral son of a bitch.” “He hasn’t got away with it, yet,” Moss said, not too hopefully. “I don’t know,” Tay said, and sighed. “I just don’t know.”
When court reconvened the attorney general stood for several moments simply looking quietly and intently at the defendant. Presently, though his eyes never left Regard’s and his defiant and sardonic look never changed, this began to get to Earle Holgren. He shifted in his chair, put one arm up on the back of it, thoughtfully felt his beard with his other hand, began to look more and more sullen and angry. Finally he spat out:
“Yes?”
“Are you questioning me?” Regard said softly. “It’s really my job to question you, you know. I thought that was what you wanted—you’ve offered yourself here, when you didn’t have to.”
“Get on with it, then,” Earle said angrily. “Just get on with it.”
“Oh, we’ve got plenty of time,” Regard said lazily; and then, since Judge Williams also appeared to be getting a little restive, he dropped it and became serious.
“Your name is Earle William Holgren, otherwise known as—?”
“A lot of things,” Earle replied with an insolent grin, quite himself again now that battle had been joined. “I think you probably have them all written down there.”
“Oh, I do,” Regard said. “I just wanted to see if you could remember them. As you remember all the back roads and wood paths of South Carolina. You have, in fact, known South Carolina since the age of ten, have you not, since your parents purchased a small estate near Pomeroy Station? You are entirely familiar with the area, aren’t you, Earle?”
“I came here as a boy, yes,” Earle said; and added in a tone that brought an uneasy stirring in the audience, “And if you want to address me, my name is Mr. Holgren.”
And he lolled back, amicably insolent, his younger-Santa Claus resemblance quite pronounced this afternoon. Only the eyes were alert, shrewd, always hooded, always moving, darting here and there to sweep his opponents’ faces from under the bushy salt-and-pepper brows.
“What were you doing with this exhibit,” Regard inquired, pointing to the detonator, “when Mr. Bo
omer Johnson saw you?”
“Mr. Boomer Johnson?” Earle echoed, amused. “That is playing for the down-home vote, isn’t it, Mr. Stinnet?”
“Just answer the question, please,” Regard said patiently.
“I collect them,” Earle said. “I love funny things.”
“Go right ahead and hang yourself, Mr. Holgren,” Regard suggested with an amicability of his own. “I don’t care if you want to give me smart-aleck answers. It only antagonizes the jury more. Please continue.”
“I found it in the woods,” Earle snapped, suddenly scowling.
“You didn’t bring it with you.”
“No, I found it, I said!”
“After you had already put it there on a previous occasion?”
“Your honor—” Debbie began, but her client shot her an impatient look and she subsided.
“I’ve told you I found it,” he said, more quietly. “Did Mr. Boomer Johnson see me put it there on a previous occasion? Did anybody? I don’t recall any testimony.”
“There is none,” Regard agreed calmly. “I just wanted to see what kind of lies”—Debbie moved, Judge Williams frowned—“what kind of testimony you would give about it. We are to take it, then, that you just happened to find it there, and that when Mr. Johnson saw you, you were just fondling it, as it were?”
“And myself, too,” Earle reminded with a cheerful grin. “Don’t forget that part of his testimony. Pretty racy stuff. No, Mr. Attorney General, I wasn’t doing anything with it. I just found it and examined it, that’s all. And then Mr. Johnson took a leak and things began to get lively down by the plant and he left to go down and check on his friends Willie and Tad Simpson, and there the record stops. Right?”
“There the record stops,” Regard agreed again, “until Mr. Johnson saw you return with the murdered woman and the murdered child.”
“They weren’t murdered then!” Earle shot out and there was sudden tension in the audience. Regard nodded.
“But soon to be, Mr. Holgren,” he said calmly, “soon to be. According to Mr. Johnson’s testimony they disappeared in your company; and when they were found a couple of hours later, they were dead.”
“So. Obviously somebody killed them, I’d say.”
Jury and audience tensed suddenly.
“My point exactly,” Regard said.
Earle frowned thoughtfully.
“I wonder who it could have been? Who would do such a dreadful thing?”
“Whoever used the detonator and blew up Pomeroy Station, killed Sarah Pomeroy and destroyed Jane Barbour’s life, I’d say,” Regard replied. “Any guesses, Mr. Holgren?”
“In a court of law?” Earle responded dryly. “Oh, come now, Mr. Stinnet! Incidentally,” he said, smiling at the jury, “before everybody gets all excited thinking I’ve slipped and forgotten something—Mr. Johnson did not see me return with, and I quote Mr. Stinnet, ‘the murdered woman and child,’ because I wasn’t with, quote, ‘the murdered woman and child.’ Mr. Johnson did not, in fact, see me at all because I wasn’t there, as I have already testified. Mr. Johnson tells a mighty good story, I’d say: some kids do have a great imagination. I didn’t see him because I wasn’t there and he didn’t see me because I wasn’t there. I was only there much later when I was trying to find the murderer, or murderers, and got beaten up and had my constitutional rights violated and—”
“All right, Mr. Holgren,” Regard said patiently, his accent becoming broader, drawl accentuated, “I think we’ve all heard that sad tale and we all get the picture. I’m not defendin’ it, we’ll accept it, that’s the way it was. I will say you’re very clever, though, to lead us on about that woman and child. You almost had us believin’ for a minute that you’d slipped up on somethin’ real important. You are clever, you know?” he added admiringly. “Real clever.”
“I try,” Earle said with some complacency.
“And very successfully, too,” Regard said in the same admiring tone. “But you’ve always been a brilliant fellow, haven’t you? Very bright in school. I mean, very quick and perceptive, quite superior to most minds you meet. Isn’t that a fair statement?”
“I’m adequate,” Earle admitted, complacency increased. “That’s about as far as I’d go, Mr. Stinnet.” He chuckled suddenly. “I’m modest.”
“That, too,” Regard agreed. “But seriously, now, isn’t it true that you graduated with highest honors from Phillips Exeter, that you graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard—”
“I knew we’d get to Harvard.”
“Nothin’ wrong with graduating from Harvard,” Regard said. He too chuckled, a cozy, companionable sound. “Though I like to think Duke is better. Anyway, it’s quite somethin’ to graduate magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from wherever it is. Not very many do that. And not very many are as shrewd, as quick and sophisticated about things as you are, or I miss my guess.”
“I manage,” Earle agreed, more complacently still.
“I know you do,” Regard said, his voice becoming still more slow and drawly, seeming almost to reach out physically and pat Earle admiringly on the back. “And I suppose that’s why you decided to waive your Fifth Amendment rights and testify here today, because you figure that you can do a better job, probably, than even that smart young lady you have defendin’ you, there. From what I’ve heard so far, I guess maybe you were right.”
“I think so,” Earle agreed. “Nothing personal, you understand,” he added with a comfortable smile at Debbie, who did not return it. “And after all, Mr. Stinnet,” he went on in a patronizing way, “the Fifth, you know, protects a witness against self-incrimination. And how could I be incriminated? I haven’t done anything to be incriminated for. There’s no proof of anything on the record. You haven’t got a case. Why should I be afraid to testify and tell the truth in my own behalf?”
“Not a reason in the world, Mr. Holgren,” Regard said in the same comfortable, just-pals voice, casually taking from his pocket the crumpled sheet of paper he had been hoarding against this moment. “That appears to be a very smart decision by a very smart man. Why is it, then,” he asked in a casual, almost absentminded way, “that a mind like yours could produce such almighty infantile, stupid, idiotic, mindless, worthless blither as this? What do you call it, a man-i-fes-to, is that it? Shucks! It just ’pears to be a big pile o’ childish drivel to me.”
And he made as if to read it to himself, an amused, contemptuous expression on his face, while on the stand the defendant reacted exactly as he had hoped he would.
His face literally turned white with shock and rage for a moment, his whole body swung into action. His arm came off the back of his chair in a flash, he stopped caressing his beard, he crouched forward tensed like a wound-up spring and actually looked as though he were about to leap from his seat and land bodily on his interrogator. His lips drew back in a feral grin that drew a gasp from the audience, his eyes got a strange fanatic light that really scared the perceptive lady on the jury and quite a few others. He uttered an odd hissing sound of indrawn and explosively expelled breath. He was suddenly, and apparently uncontrollably, a fearsome sight.
“Did a man as smart as you actually write this piece of crap?” Regard shouted, stepping close and waving the paper in his face. “This ridiculous—infantile—stupid—baby-shit piece of crap? This poor—pathetic—”
“God damn you,” Earle yelled, lunging at it and almost toppling from his seat as Regard stepped nimbly back, “give it to me! God damn you, give it to me!”
“No—” Debbie started to shout, then crushed a hand against her mouth to stifle it as somewhere in some distant dream, through the courtroom uproar and the great excited roar outside, she heard Perlie Williams furiously using his gavel.
Too late, she thought. Too late.
“Oh, it is yours, Mr. Holgren!” Regard cried triumphantly. “Then why is it, Mr. Holgren”—and his voice dropped to a low and menacing note, each word coming like a sledgehammer—“why
is it that it was found in the well with that murdered woman and child, Mr. Holgren? You just tell me about that, Mr. Holgren, because we want to know. The whole wide world is listening, Mr. Holgren, so”—his voice abruptly became very soft and very savage—“you just go right ahead and tell us all about it, Mr. Holgren, if you please.”
There ensued an obvious and mighty struggle in the figure on the stand. Willpower triumphed, slowly at first, then more rapidly, as he sat, still crouched, chest heaving, breath coming in agonizing gasps. Presently, probably not more than a minute, though it seemed much longer to them all, he was in control of himself again. From somewhere, amazingly, he managed to extricate an almost normal expression and the beginnings of a contemptuous, sardonic smile.
“I swear,” the jury lady who had thought him cute whispered excitedly to the lady who had thought him ominous, “it’s just like that werewolf movie I seen last month! I swear it is!” The skeptical lady snorted. “Don’t be so melodramatic,” she advised in a satisfied voice. “We’ve just heard him hang himself. That’s good enough for me. Who needs werewolves?”
But the defendant was not prepared to admit this yet.
“Mr. Stinnet,” he said, voice still shaking with emotion but a controlled and coldly angry emotion now, “you just prove that, please. You just prove that piece of crap belongs to me. You just prove—”
“Mr. Holgren,” Regard interrupted softly, “you just told us that.” And started to add, “Have you forgotten?” and caught himself just in time. There would be the only defense that might hold up—temporary insanity. And he had almost given it away free. He shuddered inside … then his eyes met Debbie’s for the briefest of seconds, and although he glanced immediately away, he knew that she had perceived it too. God damn, he told himself. God damn, God damn, God damn.
But his voice was as calm and matter-of-fact as though he were discussing the time of day when he concluded quietly:
