Smugglers Notch

by Joseph Koenig

  “The question,” Whitehead said, “was whether it was your decision to signal—”

  “Yes,” St. Germain said, and sank back in his chair. “It was.”

  “And it was your decision also to run away, and to keep running when you heard shots, to let your partner go up empty-handed and alone against … How many guns and iron bars did you say it was, Lieutenant?”

  “Objection.”

  “Objection sustained.”

  But St. Germain didn’t care anymore. He was staring past Whitehead into the back row of seats, where Lenore Jeffcoat had gathered her things and was leaving the courtroom, delivering the first verdict on his testimony.

  “Is that the standard of excellence demanded of officers in Cabot County?”

  “Objection.”

  Judge Leeds removed his glasses and, holding them several inches from his face, centered the defense attorney in the thick frames. “Mr. Whitehead,” he said, “I would advise you very strongly not to badger the witness. Now, Lieutenant, if you would like to respond to any of this, you may.”

  Even here he needed someone to fight his battles for him. He shook his head.

  Then Leeds turned again to Whitehead. “If you think you can tone it down, I will let you resume your examination. But only if you allow the witness to answer the questions.”

  “I have just one more,” Whitehead said. “Lieutenant St. Germain,” he began calmly, “you’ve admitted to incompetence, to arrogance on top of it, to dereliction of duty, to the most craven behavior—”

  “Objection,” Corcoran bellowed.

  “To deserting your partner, your friend, at a moment of grave danger—”

  “Sustained.”

  “And having readily conceded that …” The calmness was already gone; he pounded his fist against his palm. “I’d like to ask what dismal revelations have yet to be made …”

  “Mr. Whitehead,” Leeds said.

  “Whether it wouldn’t be straining the imagination to suggest that your partner, who was in Malletts Bay for no purpose that has ever been shown, who was killed with your very own gun, was not also—”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Whitehead.”

  “—killed by your own hand.”

  Corcoran rushed toward the stand, a lifeguard to the rescue of a drowning man, but stopped, seeing that he was too late. Jess Whitehead limped back to the defense table as if his knees finally had given out. Leeds ordered a recess and called Whitehead into his chambers where he informed him that he was citing him for contempt and reporting him to the bar association. When they returned, Corcoran announced that he would present no additional witnesses.

  Conklin threw down his pad and leaped out of his seat. “I’ve been brought to the gates of hell,” he shouted. “What about my side?”

  “This is not a trial, Mr. Conklin,” Leeds said as Jess Whitehead pulled the boy down. “You’ll get your chance to testify if the case goes before a jury.” Then he gathered his papers and retired to chambers.

  Half an hour went by before the jurist came back to the bench. Expressionlessly, as if it didn’t matter much, he said, “I find the state has presented sufficient proof so that a reasonable person would conclude that Paul Conklin should be bound over to the grand jury for the murder of Walter Jeffcoat.”

  St. Germain, at the defense table, exhaled deeply, standing suddenly as he looked behind and was unable to find Marlow and Beausoleil.

  “You seem surprised, Lieutenant,” Corcoran said as he collected his own papers.

  “I wanted to speak with the sheriff and with Mr. Beausoleil, but they didn’t stick around for the judge’s decision.”

  “Well, there was hardly enough drama to keep them here, was there? In the fourteen years that I’ve been practicing law in this state I can’t recall any murder case ever being thrown out at a probable cause hearing. I doubt they can either.”

  When St. Germain entered the bullpen the next morning, Vaughn Halvorsen was spit-shining his shoes at a desk from which blond wood gleamed through a scattering of accident reports. “G’morning, Vaughn, I see you’ve nearly cleaned your plate off.”

  The rookie looked up alertly, waiting for the punch line. He seemed disappointed when St. Germain had nothing more to offer. “Sheriff wants to see you.”

  St. Germain heard footsteps on the stairs and caught up with Marlow as he was entering his office.

  “There’s a few things we have to talk about,” Marlow said. “Sit down.”

  St. Germain glanced at the slatted seat as if he had been invited to try out the electric chair. “If it’s all the same, I’ll stand.”

  “Suit yourself.” Marlow went to his desk. “Ray Beausoleil has decided to recommend a plea bargain to Jess Whitehead. Conklin’s going to be allowed to plead guilty to two counts of murder in exchange for concurrent life terms with eligibility for parole after twenty years.”

  St. Germain dropped into the chair, looking as though he could feel the current.

  “He says he has no choice. After the performance you put on yesterday …”

  “You’re not trying to tell me anyone in their right mind believes I could’ve shot Wally?”

  “I’m not a psychiatrist,” Marlow said coldly. “But Ray says if he goes to trial Conklin stands an outside chance of winning in voir dire. Jess’ll hold out for a panel of hilljacks who’d buy anything he tells them about a policeman, so long as it’s bad. Except for the medical stuff, your testimony is about all we have going for us in both cases, and Ray thinks you’re too vulnerable under cross-examination. Jess Whitehead can have you for breakfast any time he wants.”

  “Ray can go jump in the lake. I learned plenty about handling myself on the stand. Next time—”

  “Show some sympathy for the man. This has got to be the toughest thing he’s ever had to do. If Ray Beausoleil is suggesting Conklin should cop to life with parole, you can be sure it’s the best we can get.” He paused to shift the weight of the world to his other shoulder. “It was his daughter, Larry.”

  “And Wally was your deputy.”

  The softness went out of Marlow’s face. He walked to the window, opened it, put his head out and sniffed cold air, but when he came back the lines were still pinched around his mouth.

  St. Germain sat forward, preparing for a second jolt.

  “You look like you’re about to have a cow,” Marlow snapped. “Anything else you want to get off your chest?”

  “Just this.” St. Germain unpinned his badge and tossed it on the desk. Watching it spin, he had to fight the urge to take it back. He forced himself out of the chair and began walking out of the office.

  “Stop right there,” Marlow ordered, and St. Germain took another step and then braced as rigidly as the newest rookie. “Don’t go sanctimonious on me. You weren’t any nicer to Wally than the others, and you don’t resent him any the less for getting killed on your watch. But there’s only one person to blame for what happened that night, and the responsibility is something you’d better start facing up to.”

  “My God, John, do you think I sleep easy anymore, that it isn’t with me every minute?”

  “That’s bullshit. If you were half the man you pretend you are, you wouldn’t be running away.”

  St. Germain’s body sagged under its own weight. “I’m not even ten percent of him,” he said. “Not five percent—if I ever was. Can’t you see, I’m yellow.”

  “Feeling sorry for yourself, too, are you?”

  St. Germain headed for the door again. “I don’t have to take this, I don’t work here anymore.”

  “No, you don’t.” Marlow palmed the badge, dropped it in a pocket. “One more thing.”

  St. Germain stopped again, as if Marlow might be calling him back, begging him. …

  “The .44,” Marlow said. “Hand it in, too. Any of my men catch you with a gun you’re not licensed to carry, they might just want to lock you up.”

  8

  DEAR MEL,

  As I am s
ure I do not have to remind you it is now eight months and two weeks and four days that I have been rotting here and still waiting for your second visit. Southern Vermont Correctional Facility is not my idea of a rest cure and it would help the time to pass quicker if I could see your ugly face more often. (Just kidding, you know me Mel.) Mom has had nothing to do with me since I got in this mess and the time Pa came the screws had to get between us, he was so POed, so you can see I am counting on you brother. It is only my sanity that is at stake.

  This place is a nuthouse, a regular zoo. If they got 50 niggers in the whole state of Vermont then 75 of them are living with me in three tier. They are a real fun bunch, specially around Ramadan, which is one of their holidays (at least for the Muslims) when they do not hardly eat anything during the daytime, which makes them even touchier than usual. As a rule I try and stay out of their way. But there is not a lot of way to be staying out of here.

  I suppose I should not be complaining so much about the niggers. Before there were Muslims I am told they used to serve pork seven days a week till it was coming out your ears. Now the menu is more balanced, specially if you care for meat loaf cooked in ketchup and what I think is salisbury steak and lima beans for babies and like to wash it down with lime Kool-Aid and lime Jell-O for the dessert. Twice a week we get liver, which is a real treat when you are trying to cut it with a spoon, as they do not allow us knives, at least not in the dining hall. Up on the tier everybody has his own shiv and why they do not let us bring the liver to our cells and cut it there I do not know. Other things they do not allow in the dining hall are pepper, which the screws consider a weapon as it may be thrown in their eyes, and enough time to eat.

  Next to the niggers and the food what I like best about this place has got to be the faggots. I can still remember the time we found those sissies under the Route 7 bridge in Winooski and beat the living shit out of them and robbed their pants. Ha-ha. Here they got two different kinds of faggots and neither brand is like the ones under the bridge. The first stands six foot eight and weighs in the neighborhood of 300 pounds and can generally be found power lifting down to the gym. These ones I usually call sir and never turn my back on, specially in the showers. The other ones are maybe 90 pounds soaking wet and think shoe polish is to use for eyeliner and have to be kept in segregation, because if they are not all the other cons will be fighting to see who can get them to be their girlfriend. So as you can see the whole joint is really one goddamn fruit palace, with the single last exception of me.

  Yesterday one of the sissies put his hand near a place of mine where it did not belong and when I began to bang his head on the floor he just laughed and said, “Beat me, kick me, make me want you,” which is a disgusting thing to have to hear from anyone, specially another man. The screws pulled me off him, but did not write me up as they said they would have done the same if they were in my boots. One said I had better beat up any punk that tries that again or else I will have all of Southern Vermont Correctional Facility on my back if I don’t. As if I was here three minutes and did not figure it out on my own.

  Well, I do not want you to think there is only the bad and none of the good too. I have been assigned to the prison farm taking care of the flock of sheep. This is useful interesting work that lets me get plenty of fresh air and sunshine and because it is what they call a C grade job it is high paying as well, which means I make 67.5 cents a day and so will have quite a pile put away soon, won’t I Mel? But what is more important, I am getting valuable training that I can use when I am a free man again in the early part of the Twenty-first century if some fucking collie dog does not beat me out of a job.

  Sundays are my favorites, as they serve ham and eggs for breakfast and sometimes one of my sheep for supper. After breakfast you can generally find me at the Protestant Center, making my peace with Him. They are an okay bunch of guys there, real Christians like me, and I believe our prayers are reaching His ears. Remember what He says in Psalms, chapter 37, verse 4: “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

  Also on Sundays we get to see our prison volunteers who understand how the sorry conditions show what a corrupt society we live in. At least that is what they tell us. These volunteers are girls from Bennington College, which is a college that costs a fortune to go to for each term, and is a handy place for rich folks to park their kids when they can not stand to live with them any more. Many of the girls come to the prison without wearing underwear (no shit Mel, I mean it) and if this is the best they can do to prove they support the cons it is all right by me.

  But I do not want you getting the wrong idea that all they have for sex here is faggots and college girls you can only cop a feel off of and pulling on your own pud. On Sunday afternoons the prisoners who are lucky enough to have relatives who give a shit about them get visitors, and when the weather is good enough, which is to say after mud season is over, they have picnics for maybe 400 cons and their families on the athletic field. You would like these picnics Mel. The cons’ wives know to bring a picnic basket full of home-cooked goodies. And while this is considered a great treat after the crap we are forced to eat, what the men are interested in mostly is having a nice table cloth to feast on. You heard me right, a table cloth. What they do is they put an extra large cloth over a picnic table with enough food on it so it won’t blow away and when the screws are not looking the cons crawl under the table and toss the pork at their wives and this goes on all afternoon. So Mel, when you come visit I would appreciate it if you would try and bring a table cloth and a girl (a blonde one with big jugs, but not too fat if you can help it) and tell the screws she is our sister and then leave us alone under the table cause if there is one thing I miss most of all at Southern Vermont Correctional Facility for sure it is fucking girls.

  On the other hand if you cannot find a girl I would not object to crawling under the table with you so we can switch clothes and then I can walk out with the rest of the visitors, which is something that happens more often than you would believe. I think you might enjoy the change of scenery for a while. There is no shortage of dope here, or bootleg whiskey, although from time to time a batch of it will make you blind. And if you get assigned to a job in the textile shop you will even be able to stay warm in the winter, as it is not unusual for the cons to steal wool (from my sheep) to stuff inside their clothes for an extra lining and make some profit as well. For every three sweaters the cons are supposed to be sewing it is my bet they swipe another to trade among the men. Plus you would learn a valuable trade, such as dressmaking. That’s right Mel, dressmaking!!! The other day one of the cons was caught turning a long sweater into a dress on his sewing machine and when the screws asked what he was doing he said that he was making an evening gown for his girlfriend, who is one of the sissies I was telling you about before. When the screws took away the dress the con was so POed that he smashed the sewing machine and, of course, was put in the segregation building as a result. And so now he is living next door to his girlfriend and I hope the two of them are happy together.

  Also there are plenty of things to do at night such as joining the chapter of the Alcoholics Anonymous. These meetings are very well attended, as the members of this club are always shit-faced and can be counted on to know where you can get a drink and who is making bootleg. Another popular activity is seeing the jailhouse lawyers. These are cons who have been in stir so long they have become regular legal eagles that can tell you how you can beat your case on appeal, though if they are so smart it is a mystery to me what they are still doing here. I talked to one who told me if I never entered a guilty plea I would have a good chance of getting a new trial under what is called the Necessity Defense. This is an old English law, maybe 200 years old, that is from the days when sailors got shipwrecked and would find themselves in a lifeboat with nothing to eat except each other and they would kill a man and polish him off just to stay alive and when they got back to England they would be tried for murder and t
hen let go when they explained they had to kill the one sailor to save all the others. I do not see where this applies to my case exactly but may give it a try if nothing better comes up.

  On the whole though, like the comedian with the big beezer used to say, “I would rather be in Philadelphia.” It is hard as hell trying to get any sleep here as half the men are either trying to saw through the bars or hang themselves from them at any given hour of the night and the lights never go off in three tier. If you can sleep through all the snoring and moaning and 30 toilets flushing at the same time I suppose you can sleep through anything. But the worst of it is that three fourths of the cons are out of their fucking minds and every one of them has got to be a homicidal maniac. The other day two of the men got in a fight over a Hustler centerfold (not the girl Mel, but the lousy picture) and the next thing you know they were duking it out in the yard. One of these characters was a Muslim and the other was a white guy and so you knew there was going to be bad trouble. The warden wanted to head things off so he called them to his office for a peace conference where the Muslim admitted swiping the beaver shot from the white guy and the warden must have figured that was the end of it. But the other Muslims decided their honor had been insulted and they put the word out that they wanted a Jihad, or some shit that sounds like that. Next time the white guy showed up in the yard he had two shivs and was wearing a piece of aluminum from the machine shop under his shirt like a suit of fucking armor. For all the good it did him when three of the Muslims piped him and then cut his throat and held him down till he bled to death like a stuck hog. When the screws arrived they asked did anyone see what happened. Eight hundred cons in the yard and everyone must have been watching an eclipse of the sun or something cause no one had seen a damn thing.