Trial by Fury

by Craig Rice

  Jerry Luckstone stared at him, wild-eyed. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” He gasped. “What did you have against Senator Peveley?”

  “I never saw Senator Peveley before in my life,” Jake said indignantly. “We just happened to be in this damned courthouse getting a fishing license when somebody bumped off your Senator, and that’s all I know about it.”

  “But nobody here could have murdered him,” the young district attorney said. He looked around at the circle of faces, his eyes startled. “Why, we all know each other.”

  Jake saw Helene opening her mouth to speak, and tightened his hand on her arm. That was exactly what he’d been thinking. These people all knew each other. They, he and Helene, were the strangers, the outlanders. He knew that everyone in the corridor was staring at them, with cold, unfriendly eyes, that the two of them had been set apart from the others, standing alone and regarded with suspicion. Even Buttonholes was looking at them dubiously.

  “Look here,” Jake began firmly. “We were coming down those stairs over there, with this man here, when we heard—” He realized that nobody was listening. “Damn it,” he said, “doesn’t anybody here know what to do when a murder’s been committed?”

  Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. No one did know. Jackson County hadn’t had a murder for thirty-two years.

  Helene’s fìngers dug into his arm. “The more I see of this place,” she whispered to him, “the better I like any other place we could be.” There were tiny beads of perspiration on her upper lip.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered back, reassuringly. “It’ll be all right, soon as they get the idea we’re just innocent spectators.”

  “Just so they get the idea. It may take the best years of our life,” she murmured.

  A sudden roar of thunder shook the old building to its foundations. Jake could see the lightning flashes through the window in the Highway Department office. Inside the courthouse there was a curious, murky light.

  There was something fantastic and incredible about the scene. The circle of motionless people, the white-faced young district attorney, and the late Senator Peveley on the floor, exactly as he had fallen, face down, limp arms and legs sprawled flatly on the floor, a red stain spreading on his white linen coat. It seemed to Jake that he had been standing there for hours, Helene’s fìngers cold on his arm, until he glanced up at the big hall clock and realized that it had only been three minutes.

  “We ought to call up somebody,” a man in the group said.

  Jake said, “Now you’re getting the idea. Who do you know?”

  “We’ve got to let the newspapers know,” another man said.

  “Somebody has to tell his daughter,” Ed Skindingsrude said, with a sidelong glance at the young district attorney.

  The handsome, gray-haired Miss McGowan cleared her throat. “Jerry, call the sheriff.”

  Everyone relaxed. The district attorney blushed faintly, muttered something that sounded like “Of course,” and hurried into one of the offices. The group began breaking up into subgroups, two people here, three people there. A subdued murmur of voices began.

  “We mustn’t move the body until the sheriff gets here,” a girl said.

  It occurred to Jake that was the first time anyone had mentioned touching the body.

  Suddenly everyone in the corridor was staring at Helene. Jake felt the fingers on his arm first become steel pincers, then a deadly weight, then slip away entirely. In the next instant, before he had time to make a move, she was a little crumpled heap on the floor.

  It was as though a bell had been rung. Every person sprang into action at the same time. A murdered man on the courthouse floor was something nobody knew how to cope with, a fainting woman was something else again. There were a dozen voices at once, saying “water,” “amonia,” “the couch in the clerk of the court’s office,” “a doctor.”

  Someone said something about first aid and having been a Boy Scout counselor.

  Another person informed them of an Aunt Helen who used to faint at funerals.

  People crowded between Jake and Helene. Before he could do anything, a stocky, gray-haired man had picked her up and carried her into the office of the clerk of the court. Jake, and most of the spectators in the corridor, were two steps behind.

  On the worn leather couch, she looked very small and very pale, one strand of her silvery hair fallen across her colorless cheek. A sudden pang of terror seized Jake. He had never seen Helene faint before. He flung himself down beside the couch and took her cold hand in his.

  “It must have been the heat,” the man who’d been a Boy Scout counselor said.

  “She looks puny,” the chairman of the county board commented.

  Jake felt the ice-cold fìngers tighten on his hand. He looked at her closely. Her white face was motionless, her eyelids closed. Again the fìngers tightened, ever so quickly. He gave a faint pressure in return and rose to his feet.

  “She’ll be all right,” Jake said firmly. “Just a touch of the sun.” He took out an already damp handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Just let her rest here a minute, and she’ll be all right. She has these spells now and then.”

  To his great relief, the spectators retreated into the hall, leaving him alone with Helene. He dropped into a chair beside her.

  “What the hell’s the idea?” he whispered fiercely.

  “Jake, I had to get out of that crowd,” she whispered back, without opening her eyes. “I had to talk to you.”

  “Well, go ahead. We are, to coin a phrase, alone at last.”

  She opened her eyes wide and stared at him. “A man’s been murdered, and everybody just stands around and looks silly.”

  “They’re just shocked, so they act natural.”

  “Jake, let’s get out of here. Let’s get out quick and get in the car and be halfway to the next town before anyone can say ‘Boo.’ ”

  “And have every police car in Jackson County looking for us because we beat it? Besides, we never could get out through that corridor without being stopped. A couple of these boys look as if they could say ‘Boo’ fast.”

  “I don’t like it here,” she said stubbornly.

  “Your point is well taken. However, in a little while they’ll remember that Ex-Senator Peveley was nothing to us. We just happened to be in the building when somebody bumped him off. As soon as that sheriff gets here, we can tell him what we saw, and then go.” It was a magnificent performance of whistling in the dark.

  She sighed and was silent.

  Jake rose, walked to the window, and looked out. There was a broad expanse of bright-green lawn and, beyond it, what he guessed to be the jail. It was an ugly angular building of yellow brick, with barred and recessed windows. Near by a small Civil War cannon stood in front of an indignant and unpleasant-looking cast-iron soldier. Jake wondered if it had been put there to scare people away from the jail.

  “it’s raining pitchforks and hammer handles,” he commented. Just as he spoke, a great branch broke away from one of the immense old elm trees and blew past the window.

  “I hope that was only the wind,” Helene said faintly.

  Across the lawn Jake saw the door to the jail building open, and a stocky, red-faced man come out. He stood there for a moment, looking at the rain, then began running the length of the path that led to the courthouse. Halfway there his hat blew off, he stopped briefly to retrieve it, and went on running.

  “Here Comes the sheriff,” Jake said. “Pretend you’re well enough to go back out there.” He added, “Thank God somebody’s here now who knows what to do—I hope!”

  He put an arm around Helene as though supporting her, and led her back into the corridor. The body of ex-Senator Peveley still lay where it had fallen. The spectators were standing around, whispering, in awed little groups. Everyone turned to look curiously at Helene.

  Just as Jake and Helene reached the hall, the great door at its east end opened suddenly, letting
in a gust of wind and rain and the stocky, red-faced man. The little janitor, Buttonholes, rushed forward to help close the door and looked regretfully at the pool of muddy water on the tile floor.

  A new wave of tense expectancy greeted the sheriff’s arrival. They watched him with the respect due authority in the situation.

  The sheriff walked the length of the corridor on tiptoe, his hat in his hand. No one spoke to him. He bent down for a moment next to the body, looking at the stain on the white linen coat. When he straightened up again, the color was draining from his face.

  “He’s been murdered!” the sheriff said in a startled voice. He was silent for a moment. “That’s right, he’s been murdered. We’ve gotta call the police!”

  Chapter Three

  “It’s none of my business,” Jake said, lighting a cigarette, “and I don’t know that I care very much, but who might have wanted to murder your ex-Senator?”

  Buttonholes scowled at the railing he was dusting. “Senator Peveley wasn’t exactly what you’d call a popular man.”

  “He must have been popular with some people,” Helene declared. “He couldn’t have bought all those votes.”

  “Personally popular is what I mean to say,” Buttonholes told her.

  The three were waiting in the county clerk’s office. Sheriff Marvin Kling and the young district attorney were holding a lengthy debate just outside the door. Others in the group of spectators had scattered to various offices in the building. Ex-Senator Peveley still lay on the corridor floor, exactly as he had fallen.

  Later, Helene commented that she wouldn’t have believed any of it possible, if she hadn’t been there. Sheriff Kling’s first act, after his belated realization that he was in charge of the situation, was to order both doors to the courthouse locked. The county clerk had objected to this, on the reasonable grounds that people were coming in all the time for fishing licenses. The sheriff had finally compromised by placing a deputy at each of the great double doors, with strict orders to let people in, but not to let anyone out.

  “That way,” he said grimly, “We’ll have the murderer right here in the courthouse, and we won’t have to chase him halfway to Illinois, the way we did with those two guys who stole the slot machine from Marty Gill’s road-house.”

  “And nobody,” he declared, “is allowed to touch the body until the coroner gets here.” That was the one thing he was positive about.

  “Well, he’s sure of something,” Helene commented. “I wonder if he knows why.”

  “I doubt it,” Jake said. “He’s been reading detective stories and that’s the only thing that stuck in his mind.”

  Unfortunately, Charlie Hausen, Jackson County’s coroner, and undertaker by profession, was conducting a funeral in Waterville, nine miles away. He’d drive down to Jackson the minute it was over.

  “That’s all right,” Sheriff Kling announced. “Nobody here is in any hurry.”

  Someone had suggested placing a sheet over the body, but there appeared to be some doubt as to the legality of the procedure. Besides, there was nothing in the Jackson County Courthouse to serve as a sheet, and Sheriff Kling refused to allow anyone to leave the building to get one. He appointed an uncomfortable, white-faced deputy to stand guard over the remains, and let it go at that, declaring that now there was nothing anybody could do until Coroner Hausen finished with his funeral and arrived.

  In the meantime, no one could leave the courthouse.

  On the whole, no one seemed to object. Phil Smithy did remark, mildly, that no one in the building had been out to lunch. The sheriff pointed out in return that Kline’s Grill would send in sandwiches. Miss McGowan glanced at her watch, frowned, and telephoned the Library Guild to apologize for not being present at the afternoon’s meeting. The white-faced young district attorney shut himself in his office.

  No one in the building made any pretense of continuing work. A group of men gathered in the highway office, around Sheriff Kling. The office girls were a subdued, but still chattering group at the farthest end of the corridor. The deputy sheriffs refused to let anyone up to the second floor.

  The thunder had slackened a little, but outside the rain was still falling. Helene glanced longingly toward the door.

  “I could kick up a row about being kept here,” Jake said. “But somehow I’ve an idea it wouldn’t be tactful. I don’t think we move these bodies, either, until the coroner arrives.”

  “Oh well,” Helene said. “Maybe in time we’ll get to like it here.” She paused in the act of lighting a cigarette. “There’s a chance we’ll be able to leave after the coroner arrives, isn’t there?”

  “Don’t worry,” Jake told her firmly. “If you think I’m going to let any small-town sheriff—”

  She interrupted him with a sigh. “That’s what you said the time I was arrested for speeding in Evanston. You said no Evanston cop was going to put me in jail—”

  “That was different,” Jake said virtuously. “That was breaking an Evanston speed law. This is only murder.” He took her arm and steered her into the county clerk’s office, where Buttonholes was staring long ingly at his mop and pail, and at the corridor floor where the body lay. Otherwise, the office was deserted.

  “You’ll have plenty of time to clean up later,” Jake told him consolingly.

  Buttonholes sighed, shook his head, and put away the mop.

  “Too bad it didn’t occur to any of us to make book on your premonition,” Helene said.

  Buttonholes brightened. “That’s right. I’d forgotten. Funny, ain’t it. I remember my grandmother, old Mrs. Button—” He paused, scowled, and finally said, “I guess I told you about that.”

  “How are you fixed for premonitions now?” she wanted to know.

  The janitor thought for a minute before he answered. “It isn’t exactly a premonition. I just feel like the worst was yet to come.”

  “If you’re right,” Jake said, “and I have a nasty suspicion you are, by the time it does come, we’ll be halfway into the next state.” He had a premonition of his own about that, but he was keeping it to himself.

  “What was the corpse like?” Helene asked. “I mean, before he was a corpse?”

  “He was a very famous man,” Buttonholes said solemnly. “He was a Senator for two terms, and he ran for governor once but he didn’t get elected. I guess he was about the most famous person Jackson ever had.”

  “At least,” Helene murmured, “the most famous in the last thirty-two years.”

  “Outside of being a Senator,” the janitor went on, “he owned half the shoe factory here, and he was president of the bank. I guess he owned a lot of real estate and mortgages, too. Ex-Senator Peveley must’ve been a rich man.”

  “And who’ll get all that now?” Jake asked casually.

  “His daughter, I suppose. She’s all he had. Her name’s Florence. She’s engaged to marry Jerry Luckstone. Maybe she won’t inherit everything, I don’t think she and the old man”—Buttonholes cleared his throat apologetically—“got along any too well. A lot of people didn’t get along with him.”

  “With all that money?” Helene said.

  Buttonholes blinked. “He was kind of quick-tempered, and he always had to have his own way. There was plenty of people didn’t like him, but that don’t mean murder. Folks up here don’t go around murdering.”

  “Somebody up here does,” Jake said. “Probably never heard about the rules.”

  Before Buttonholes could answer, a brown-haired, pretty girl slipped into the office, glanced silently at the trio, went over to the telephone, and called a number.

  “I want to speak to Mr. Burrows.” Her voice was so low Jake and Helene could barely make out the words. It was even lower when she spoke again.

  “This is Arlene, Tom. Yes, I know I wasn’t going to call you up again. But I knew you’d want to know. Senator Peveley has been killed. Murdered.” There was a longish pause, then, “I don’t know. Somebody shot him, and he’s dead.” Another pause.
“On the floor of the corridor. Tom—”

  Evidently Tom had hung up. The brown-haired girl jiggled the phone hook once or twice, said, “Oh dear!” and unexpectedly burst into tears. Buttonholes made an impulsive move in her direction, but she ran into a little coat closet and shut the door.

  Helene looked after her, shaking her head. “Never a dull moment in Jackson, Wisconsin,” she commented.

  Buttonholes frowned. “If her father finds out—”

  He was interrupted by the arrival of Phil Smith, the county clerk. The handsome, white-haired man smiled politely at Jake and Helene.

  “Sorry you’ve had this interruption of your fishing trip,” he said smoothly. “Still, you’re better off here in the courthouse than you would have been out in this rain.”

  “We’re not wet,” Helene said, “if that’s what you mean.”

  Jake sighed. “Does anyone have any idea who killed him?”

  Phil Smith shook his head. “Not an idea in the World. I don’t see how it could have happened, myself.” He scowled. “Why, we were all right there in the courtroom when we heard the shot, and he fell.”

  “Someone who was up there must have shot him,” Jake said.

  The county clerk shook his head. “Impossible. One of those people? Absurd.” He looked indignantly at Jake, who shrugged his shoulders and looked away.

  “You’ll have to admit that somebody shot him,” Helene said.

  Phil Smith looked at her indulgently. “My dear young lady—”

  There was a little commotion in the hall as one of the big doors banged.

  “Charlie Hausen’s here,” Buttonholes announced, with a sigh of relief.

  Helene started to follow them into the corridor, but Jake caught her arm.

  “Take it easy,” he advised. “We’ll just sit tight till the coroner gets through.”

  “And then what, or are you going to make it up as you go along?”

  “Then,” Jake said fìrmly, “it’ll be time to tell the sheriff he can’t keep us here any longer.”