Away with the Fishes

by Stephanie Siciarz

  Judge Samuels agreed to Glynray’s request that the blood be checked, but was reluctant to postpone the trial in the meantime. That is, until Monday Jones rested his case a short time later. The Prosecution had no witnesses apart from the two policemen, whose testimony was finally finished, and so the judge agreed to a day’s delay while the blood was looked into. He adjourned the court until the next morning, when the Defense would be asked to call its first witness.

  The spectators dispersed, tittering and speculating, Branson and Trevor among them. Branson, noticeably disturbed by the short morning’s events, spotted May on the VIP bench and ran to console her. Her patience where he was concerned, however, was inversely proportional to the strength of the Prosecutor’s case, so she snapped at him and sent him away. Trevor, meanwhile, equally disturbed, rushed to consult with Glynray on the dais, as the police took Madison back to jail. Glynray wasn’t worried about the forensics, he said, but he feared that the jury had been irrevocably swayed by the blood-spattered boat, whose picture spoke a thousand words from its position smack-dab in the middle of Monday’s corkboard.

  “I’ll do my best tomorrow,” he promised Trevor (as he had promised Madison, too, a moment before), “but I’d be a hell of a lot more convincing without a bloody fishing boat hanging over my head!”

  As the organizational head of the Trial, to Raoul fell the handling of the blood that afternoon, and he discovered that Oh simply wasn’t equipped for forensic testing. The blood had to be sent to Killig for analysis there, which posed an additional problem, for it was spattered on a fairly large boat. Raoul couldn’t slip it in a bag marked Exhibit Q and send it out on the earliest flight.

  After conferring with his colleagues in Killig, it was determined that Raoul should collect samples of the blood to be analyzed, and merely send those off (by air or by sea) to the lab. He was instructed to shave off thin slivers of wood from the bloody spots on the boat. Raoul had no idea how to do such a thing, and by the time he learned that this was the most expeditious of options, it was well past sundown. Since the day’s last flight to Killig was long gone, Raoul decided to get the samples—at all costs—on the five a.m. flight the next day. To do so, he enlisted the help of his friend Fred Nettles, a builder well-versed in wood.

  It was nearly nine o’clock when Fred and Raoul arrived at the police repository where oversized evidence was housed. Because in the judicial history of Oh, “oversized evidence” had been encountered less than a dozen times, the repository amounted to a shed behind the police station, where the police band stored its extra marching drums. The shed had no windows and no electric lights. Luckily Raoul, who kept his investigative gadgets near at hand, had in his bag his headlamp and strap, which he fastened onto his head. While he bent and aimed the lamp’s beam at the traces of blood, Fred used a plane to slice them off the boat. As he expertly slivered the wood into curly shavings, Raoul stood at the ready with a plastic bag in which to catch them.

  By nine-fifteen, Fred was headed home and Raoul was on his way to the airport, to wrap up his samples for the morning flight.

  40

  Before the trial started on the Tuesday morning when the Defense was to call its first witness, Raoul went up on the dais to speak with the judge. He told him the state of forensic affairs and informed him it would be at least another twenty-four hours before they had news about the blood from the boat. The judge passed the word on to Monday and to Glynray, who was saddened at the prospect of opening his case in the shadow of such damning evidence. He had intended, lab results in hand, to clear up the fish-blood mix-up first thing, then call a string of character witnesses to attest to Madison’s honesty and to his love for Rena Baker. With the expected day-long delay, Glynray would have to change tack. He would call Madison to the stand and they would face the Prosecution’s accusations straight on.

  “Do you swear to tell the truth, so help you God, Mr. Fuller?” Glynray asked him.

  “I do,” he swore, and the questioning began.

  “Let’s get right to the heart of the matter,” Glynray said. “Were you aware of the blood on your fishing boat?”

  “Of course,” Madison said.

  “How do you explain it?”

  “It’s fish blood. I normally wash the boat off at the end of the day, but I could tell by the sea and the sky we were in for some rain. So I just tied the boat and left it. I figured the rain would wash it off for me.”

  “But it didn’t?”

  “It was so hot, I guess the blood dried pretty good before the storm came. Or maybe the way the rain was angled, it didn’t hit every inch of the boat.”

  “So you didn’t kill your girlfriend Rena Baker, and dirty your boat dumping her body into the sea. Correct?”

  “Absolutely,” Madison confirmed. “I love Rena. She’s all I think about, and I pray every minute that she’ll turn up safe and sound.”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” Monday jumped to his feet. “Let’s not drag the good Lord into this ugly mess.” The more pious of the spectators applauded and hollered “Amen.”

  “Sustained. The jury will disregard the defendant’s last statement,” Judge Samuels ruled, to the hisses and boos of Madison’s friends and acquaintances.

  Having justified the bloody boat to the best of his abilities, Glynray moved on to the rest of the evidence presented the week before. Again he went through the various exhibits and with Madison’s help explained away every last one. It took him almost the whole of that Tuesday, which he hoped to close on a positive note.

  Accordingly, he asked that the judge please read out the charges against his client.

  Before Judge Samuels could reply, Monday Jones volunteered to do the honors. “Mr. Madison Fuller of Port-St. Luke is charged with the vehicular homicide of Rena Baker of Glutton Hill, and with the disposal of the remains of the victim,” Monday read slowly.

  “Thank you, counselor,” Glynray said with a smirk. “Members of the jury, please take note that the primary charge in this case is vehicular homicide, which in legal terms refers to the killing of one person by another person through the use of a vehicle. In laymen’s terms, it means running someone over. I am sure that my esteemed colleague Mr. Jones will agree: a key element to the charge of vehicular homicide is a vehicle.” Glynray paced the stage and looked into the crowd as if to give the impression his well-planned words were dawning on him right then and there.

  “Mr. Fuller, do you own a car or other vehicle?” he turned and asked Madison suddenly.

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you ever owned a car or other vehicle?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Which means that it would be impossible for you to run someone over, not that you would ever be so inclined. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s absolutely correct.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Fuller.” Looking at Monday Jones, Glynray added haughtily, “Your witness,” knowing full well that their time had run out.

  As the outdoor courtroom emptied, Branson elbowed his way through the crowd to get to May. According to his calculations, the testimony had gone well enough that she wouldn’t rebuff him. May allowed him to escort her all the way home, in fact, where she offered him a cup of tea. It struck Branson, as he and May quietly sipped lemongrass on the verandah, that when May wasn’t screaming at him, or accusing him of something, he felt quite like a teenager in her presence. It seemed impossible to him that their young love had ever been interrupted by misguided glances and years abroad, and even more impossible that a newspaper ad and a bizarre hit-and-run had sent their separate paths colliding once more. Branson watched May admiringly and mulled over such impossibilities, never imagining that, an island away, two other paths were about to collide (that of Betty Grewber and her own bit of lemongrass tea), or that the victim of the collision would once again be May’s brother Madison.

  Betty Grewber lived on Killig, where she was a technician in a scientific lab. Having unluckily drawn the night shift that
week, she sat in a hot, dingy staff room having her supper of tuna pie and boiled lemongrass, when her supervisor came rushing in.

  “Betty! Thank heavens you’re here. I have a rush on some blood from Oh.”

  “Oh?” Betty said.

  Her supervisor, who had spoken to Raoul the day before by phone, briefly explained about the Bicycle Trial and the boat with the blood, and told Betty to get right to it. They had already wasted most of the day, because airport officials failed to inform the lab that the blood had landed that morning. Betty’s supervisor set the package on the staff-room table and left.

  “Oh, my,” Betty complained, looking at the sloppy, hastily taped envelope sent from Oh. She ripped it open and inside found Raoul’s official request for the analysis (which was neat and precise) and the bag that held the bloody shavings from Madison’s boat. She examined them through the plastic, trying to decide the most efficient way to test the spatters of blood. From the pocket of her lab coat she pulled a clean pair of rubber gloves and stretched them over her hands. She opened the bag, reached in and grabbed the shavings, then laid them out on the table to get a closer look. When she had made up her mind about how to proceed, she abruptly stood up, toppling her cup of tea and spilling its contents all over the bloody bits of boat laid out before her.

  Betty looked around frantically to see if her supervisor were anywhere near. (She wasn’t.) “Oh, my!” Betty said again, nearly in tears. She surveyed the table helplessly, then with her crumpled paper napkin and the sleeves of her lab coat, Betty wiped up the evidence of what she had done. When she was finished, she rolled up her sticky cuffs, stuffed the shavings from Oh in her pocket, and walked casually into the lab to execute Raoul’s official request.

  Monday Jones had Glynray Justice pegged. If Glynray thought he could end the day on a high note, casting a five o’clock shadow on Monday’s case, he was sorely mistaken. Like a swatted-at wasp, Monday showed up on Wednesday buzzing mad. The various players had barely taken their places on stage when Monday put Madison on the stand for cross-exam.

  “Mr. Fuller, it is your testimony that you do not own a car,” Monday declared.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Allow me to read to you the charges against you one more time: ‘Mr. Madison Fuller of Port-St. Luke is charged with the vehicular homicide of Rena Baker of Glutton Hill, and with the disposal of the remains of the victim.’ Do those charges anywhere specify to which vehicle they refer?”

  “How should I know? They’re your charges.”

  “You’re absolutely right. I’m far better qualified to answer the question, and I can tell you that the charges do not specify to which vehicle they refer. Do you know what that means?”

  “No.”

  “It means that you don’t need your own vehicle to commit vehicular homicide.”

  Madison didn’t know what he was meant to reply to that, and so he said nothing.

  “Do you have a driving license, Mr. Fuller?” Monday asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it true, as your sister told Officers Tullsey and Smart when they first showed up at your home, that you spent an entire day driving around the island looking for Rena?”

  Madison looked at Glynray for help, but Glynray sat stoically, not daring to let his face reveal his feelings.

  “Yes,” Madison said softly.

  “Could you speak up, sir,” Monday insisted.

  “Yes,” Madison said angrily. “My girl was missing and I borrowed a car to go and look for her. Yes.” Glynray sighed, and at the front of the murmuring audience, May hid her face in her handkerchief and cried.

  “In other words, Mr. Fuller, what you are saying is that you do have access to a motor vehicle. Is that an accurate statement?”

  “Yes,” Madison said hopelessly.

  “Good,” Monday said. “We’ve sorted out the matter of your vehicle, now let’s discuss your fishing boat. You have testified that you left your blood-spattered boat on the beach, where you expected the rain would clean it.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do you really expect us to believe that a seasoned fisherman, like you, would leave his boat to the mercy of the pummeling rains? That he wouldn’t wash it himself and then cover it with a protective tarpaulin?”

  “I didn’t have a tarp that day, so I figured I’d let the rain do my washing for me. Since the boat was bound to get wet,” Madison explained.

  “I see. Do you also expect us to believe that an experienced fisherman, like you, would leave a bucket of worms, half-full and wide open, exposed to the elements? If the rain water had filled up your bucket, wouldn’t your boat be swimming in bait?”

  “I guess I just forgot about the worms.”

  “Allow me to suggest a more plausible scenario, if you will, Mr. Fuller. I believe you did wash your boat that day the rains came, as was your habit, and I believe that you put away your worms and that you covered the whole lot of it with a tarpaulin. I also believe that later that day, after you killed Ms. Baker, when darkness had fallen, you uncovered your fishing boat, wrapped her body in the tarpaulin, and rowed out to sea. I believe that you threw her overboard, tarp and all, and that as you did so, your boat got smeared with blood, and your bait bucket, tucked away somewhere, became dislodged and uncovered. You rowed to shore, under cover of night, and tied up your boat again, not realizing that Rena’s blood was all over it and that your worms were unsecured.”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” Glynray shouted. “The Defense is engaging in speculation. Pure, vile speculation!”

  The crowd was in an uproar, half of them cheering on Monday Jones, the other half galled, and complaining on Glynray’s behalf.

  Judge Samuels hammered away with his gavel. “Order! Order!” he cried, but it took Raoul and his megaphone to get the islanders to hush.

  “Members of the jury,” the judge said, “I will allow the remarks of Mr. Jones, but only insofar as they represent his personal theory regarding the night in question and not insofar as they necessarily refer to the events as they actually transpired.”

  The jury members looked at each other perplexed, and Raoul, behind his megaphone, resisted the urge to speak up. He wasn’t satisfied one bit with the way the trial was being handled, and as the officer in charge of the proceedings, he took the mishandling to heart.

  Without giving Madison an opportunity to say another word, Monday called out, “Nothing further,” and Glynray was back at bat.

  Glynray redirected a series of questions at Madison to counter the Prosecutor’s so-called personal theory. He brought to light the fact that two days went by before the boat was ever confiscated, and that a guilty man would have gone back to the beach to make sure nothing was amiss. Madison had not, because he was too busy looking for Rena. Too busy scouring Oh to be bothered scouring his boat. (That Madison had scoured the island in a motor vehicle was an unfortunate coincidence for Glynray’s case.)

  Having drawn from Madison all the useful information he could, Glynray’s defense was reduced to the character witnesses he had lined up. He planned to exhaust the court with dozens of them, before resting his case. That day alone, he managed to get three or four on the stand, among them Randolph Rouge and Branson Bowles. The former had attended secondary school with the accused, and was one of his closest friends; the latter, in his capacity as teacher at the Boys’ School, could attest to the fact that Madison selflessly volunteered his time there every year, for a fishing demonstration on Career Day.

  After Glynray finished with Branson, the judge adjourned the trial for the evening. Stepping down from the dais, Branson found May waiting for him, beaming. Despite the bad turn the trial had taken, in terms of worms and boats and vehicles, it appeared that she was happy with what Branson had said on the witness stand. Soon Randolph, Trevor, and Patience joined them, and together they reassured one another, Randolph and Branson repeatedly complimented for their articulate testimony.

  Taking advantage of May’
s good mood, Branson put his arm around her waist and escorted her away from the court. Trevor shot him an admonitory glance, which Branson pretended not to see. He had May in his arms and that was all that mattered. He would testify for Madison a hundred times if he could.

  As the Rouges left to go back to the bakery, chattering along the way about the day’s ups and downs, Bruce and Raoul bumped into each other in the crowd that still milled about. Although Bruce wasn’t to blame for the failings of the court, Raoul couldn’t help but be upset with him for ever suggesting that a trial would yield the truth—a theory to which Raoul had let himself helplessly cling.

  “It’s not going very well, is it?” Raoul said sharply.

  “It certainly isn’t,” Bruce agreed. He didn’t say it out loud, but he had come to the same conclusions as Raoul: Madison was innocent and the trial was hurting more than it was helping.

  The pair of them stood there silently, each wondering what he might do to change the tide of the trial. They watched the outdoor court empty and enjoyed the evening air. It was a perfect island night, the kind that only Oh could fashion. A not-too-warm breeze carried the scent of frangipani and of oniony swordfish stewing for someone’s supper. Crickets and frogs chirped and whistled in time with a reggae love song that sifted from a distant radio. The island felt contented and still. Soon the stars would come out, if only to marvel at the peace the moon commanded.

  So incongruous was the stillness with the tenor of the day nearing its end, that both Bruce and Raoul were moved, simultaneously, to action. All the trial talk of fishing boats had got Raoul to thinking about Dagmore Bowles again. He harbored little hope that a visit to Mrs. Jaymes would help, but at least it was something to do, something to try. If he hurried, he could chat with her for an hour or two before she went to bed. Bruce, on the other hand, had a more immediate something to try and—smiling his strange bakery smile—bid the already departing Raoul a good night.