Who Named the Knife

by Linda Spalding

  Futa leapt to her feet. “Objection!”

  The judge sounded alarmed. “I’ll see counsel in chambers,” he announced, banging his gavel. Then he called a recess, telling us to disregard Hioki’s remark. But what did Hioki want us to know about William? That he had nothing to lose, so he would swear to anything? But why not this: that he had nothing to lose, but also nothing to gain?

  Life without parole.

  The point was not to take everything personally, but I got stuck on the thought of my great-grandfather, who ran off to Yuma and tried to start a new life. He’d left his wife and children. Everything. Burned the last bridge. Now I began to think of William as my unfortunate relative. My history.

  I went straight home that night and Michael was there, waiting. We had started our new life together with his five-month teaching visit to Hawaii. That night, and every night, I went home to Michael and Esta and Kristin and whatever had happened in their day. I went home to the dog and cat, to the house, to the garden that needed attention, to a dinner that had to be made. I went home to the newspaper, which was full of holes, since Michael cut out any articles about the trial. I was careful not to listen to the radio or watch the news on TV. But there were voices in my head still talking to me. I’d be standing over Esta, watching her do her homework, and I’d remember some line of questioning: “And after the robbery of Mr. Leach, did she want sex then?”

  I’d be standing in the kitchen, putting the dishes away, and I’d hear William’s answer. “Are you trying to exploit Maryann’s sex life or mine?” which was nothing compared to my confusion about the gun. Who had it? Who hid it? He took a walk first or maybe he didn’t. He made a phone call while he was hiding it. Or he made it later. He was scared. “I didn’t want nothing to do with the bitch.” But he bought two tickets. They left together. They had the .38 called Little John and a knife named Justice and five days later in California, Cesario Arauza was killed. I couldn’t talk about these things that went round and round in my head. I was waiting for Maryann to be called to the stand. But what could she possibly say after everything we had heard?

  12

  March 26

  You are as pale as the moon. Today you will take the stand. You will be a surprise package presented to us by your lawyer. But first we must finish with your husband. “The night you robbed Mr. Leach, did Maryann wear her glasses?” “No. She usually wore contacts then. Oh, Maryann could doll herself up. She didn’t need a disguise. She would just change her looks.”

  Apparently you have only two outfits, the soft muumuu and this white dress with a tight, white jacket. The dress has an odd strap in back, visible through the light material of the jacket. Who chooses your clothes? Who cuts your hair and buys your makeup? The shoes are so high that you tip forward on the platform heels. Each time you come in from recess, you cross the room slowly, as if you are walking through water, focusing on the destination of your chair.

  Kristin was in the courtroom that morning. Among the rows of observers, I could pick out her small, familiar face. At lunchtime, my alternate-friend and her daughter went with us to a restaurant. Kristin said, “Of course, she did it, didn’t she?” and “He’s awful!” meaning Hioki. “Brown jacket! Green pants!”

  That afternoon, Hioki called Maryann to the stand at last. He looked like he wanted to carry her up in his arms, but that wasn’t necessary; she swam through the distance between her table and the judge’s high bench. And then I heard her voice, which was soft and low-pitched.

  “Was the knife in your purse?” Hioki asked.

  “I don’t recall.”

  “What name were you using that night?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  On the stand she seemed not so much frail as non-existent.

  I looked around now, trying to find members of Maryann’s family. If I were on trial, my mother would be here, I thought. She’d bring me things to read in prison. She’d bring me books and soap. And if my father were alive, he’d be here defending me. Although he had told me time and again that if I ever got put in jail he would make no attempt to bail me out.

  “Why was it that you came here?”

  “I wanted to come and I came with him.”

  “Who named the knife Justice? Did you?”

  “No, I did not. Bill did.”

  When Maryann went over the details of the Leach robbery, her voice was a whisper. Her face was bloodless. It was William who stole the gun. It was William who decided to rob Mr. Leach. When they drove to Hanauma, it was William who pointed the way. “And then Bill had him stop and Mr. Leach got out. They walked off the side of the road down the ravine. Then Bill called me and asked me to hold the gun while he tied Mr. Leach up.”

  “Did he instruct you on how to use the gun?”

  “I don’t believe so.” Maryann was not going to help herself.

  Hioki asked her about the Hasker murder. He said, “Where were you, Maryann?”

  “In the car.”

  “Which seat?”

  “The driver’s seat.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then I heard gunshots.”

  “Do you recall how many?”

  “Two.” She said William came back to the car, told her to move over, and then drove off in the wrong direction. When she asked him what had happened he said it was just something he had to do. He stopped at a restaurant. Maryann did not want to eat. He took her home and went off to park the car. When he came back he said he wanted to leave and went down to the laundry room.

  Then the Arauza story. William was in the backseat. He told Arauza to stop the car and get out. They went down a slope. She heard a shot. Again William said it was something he had to do. She made it sound almost boring.

  When Hioki asked her about being Mormon, she said, “I was a Sunday-school teacher.”

  “Did you terminate that work prior to coming to Hawaii?”

  “It was causing a lot of problems between Bill and I. He strongly objected. And because of him there were questions raised in my mind about the validity of my religion.”

  “Now, did you hear Mr. Acker use the word Randanian?”

  “Yes.”

  “To your knowledge, who created this philosophy?”

  “Bill did. He was going by the philosophy of the author Ayn Rand.” Maryann was wearing the white dress and her pale hair fell around her face. Every minute or so, she reached up to adjust her glasses, as if they did not fit her well. “It’s ego-centred. Look out for yourself only. It’s atheist and very self-centred.” There was a darker line where her hair was parted, so the blond wasn’t natural. I wondered how she managed that in prison. She wore only a little blush and pink lipstick. When she spoke, I watched her stillness. The relationship – it was strained. Decisions – he made them all.

  “Now during the time that you were in Hawaii, did you experience any type of fear of bodily harm?” Hioki edged his way toward the witness stand, as if to remind her that the male body can be threatening.

  “Yes, I did.” There had been an argument in the apartment. There were a lot of arguments, but after one of them William pointed the gun at her and the gun went off. “The bullet went right by my face.”

  I was listening for emotion. But there wasn’t any.

  13

  Day six and I was no longer an alternate. Juror number three was ill. For five days I had felt marginal, but this was better. Our vote had to be unanimous, so mine would matter. I would listen harder. We’d had a three-day break and Jan Futa was looking refreshed. She started her cross-examination of Maryann by asking about Yuma, Arizona, where Maryann had finished high school. Then she asked about Phoenix, where Maryann had gone by herself at the age of seventeen. Why had she left home? Was there trouble with her parents? Wasn’t she running with a fast crowd? Wasn’t she frustrated by the smallness of Yuma? Only a few months after leaving home, hadn’t she met William and married him? “Would you really have considered yourself a good Mormon, Ms. Acker, befor
e you met William?” The prosecutor’s questions were nicely connected, like a narrative, as if she had rehearsed them many times.

  “Yes,” said Maryann. Cigarettes, coffee, alcohol. Everything had started with William. I tried to remember if anyone had ever affected me in quite that way. I’ve gone down a few dark paths, but my parents were temperate. I learned to drink and smoke at home. Our Episcopalian household had no room for purity.

  Then Futa asked about the quick departure for Hawaii and the decision to stay. “You cashed in the return tickets that you and Bill had shortly after you got here, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you used that cash to live on?” Futa wanted us to know about Maryann’s finances, to remember that she had charged two roundtrip airline tickets, that she was a girl who made decisions. “And you had your bank card at that time, right? But you didn’t leave Bill?” She wanted us to know that Maryann had whatever it took to escape, that Maryann had used her maiden name to rent the apartment and later she’d used it to pawn stolen things. She’d used her charms to entrap two men. She’d held the gun on Joe Leach and driven Larry Hasker’s car. She was steering us toward what my father would have called a foregone conclusion, that Maryann was a willing participant in the kidnappings, the robberies. That the murder was hers.

  The questions came faster and faster. “Did you hear any talking before you heard the shots?” “How long after you lost sight of them did you hear the shots?” “And how quickly did one shot follow the other?” “Was it like bang bang or was it bang, bang, or how was it?”

  When Futa brandished some papers, Judge Au peered over his glasses. “What does it purport to be? A letter?”

  The prosecutor moved over to the witness stand. She smiled up at the judge and asked Maryann to identify the handwriting on the pages. Then she began to read with the hint of a smirk in her voice: “ ‘Honey, please don’t blame yourself for what happened to us,’ ” she read. There was a long look at Maryann, a raising of eyebrows. “ ‘You tried to keep me from it,’ ” she went on, “ ‘and I was fully aware of what could happen, but I didn’t want to leave.’ ” There was the foregone conclusion again. “Did you write that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you also go on to write, ‘I also realized, though, that this wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t with you. I suppose I should have thought more of that also. I’m sorry sweetheart. I love you. I know that we will once again be together. Honey, this is what I want.’ ”

  The letter had been written while Maryann was in prison in California, waiting for her trial there. It crossed my mind that she might have wanted her husband’s help, might have pretended loyalty out of fear, but Futa spun around to look at us indignantly. “When you were with Mr. Leach, you were frightened, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you think that when you were going through your role of enticing him, so to speak, do you think that he knew you were frightened? And with Mr. Hasker? Would it be fair to say that with both men you played your roles with them very well?”

  Hioki objected that this was argumentative.

  “Do you feel you were doing a good job of leading them on?” Futa continued. And of course by the end of it, when she asked, “Ms. Acker, have you played other roles in your life?” we had heard the point underlined. Maryann could look at us with her blue, blue eyes and say anything and almost be believed.

  14

  Eighteen years later I would find the yellow notebook. Yellow with a red spine, as if designed to be noticed. I would find it under a pile of papers in a cupboard in Toronto, forgotten, like the trial. In the back of the notebook were the clippings that Michael had cut out of the newspapers on the last day.

  “Acker, 22, showed little emotion as the verdicts were announced, but her cheeks appeared flushed and her head dropped slightly when the murder conviction was read.”

  “The circuit court jurors who convicted Maryann Acker of murder yesterday felt that it really didn’t matter if she fired the fatal shot.…”

  “During the seven-day trial here, the prosecution’s key witness was William Acker, who also was charged with the same Hawaii crimes, except for the murder. As part of a plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to robbing Hasker and agreed to testify against his ex-wife. In exchange, the prosecution will dismiss the other counts.”

  There was the headline that read, WANTED SEX AFTER KILLING and this:

  “The jurors had deliberated an hour and 45 minutes.”

  For eighteen years I had tried not to think about my part in Maryann’s life. For ten of those years I had suffered a depression so dark that at times it swallowed me. I’d become fixated on certain things: Death. Murder. My incapacity to befriend. The way I run away from things. I had moved to Canada, trying to leave myself behind. Maybe I had done it: lost myself. Now I turned the pages of the yellow notebook and looked at the dates. What surprised me is that I had kept writing even after the end.

  April 5

  It’s over. Everyone at work knows I was on the jury and, of course, when I saw co-workers during the trial I laughed it off. I didn’t mind describing your features and mannerisms, but I honestly didn’t want to feel influenced. I wanted to decide for myself. I wanted to know I could decide. During voir dire I had said yes when asked whether I was willing to pass judgment on another human being. If I cannot judge her, I’d thought, who can?

  I had imagined myself sitting in the jury room, which would look like the jury room in Twelve Angry Men. Everyone would be voting to convict and I would express my reasonable doubt. William was serving life without parole. His testimony had been elaborate, full of details, like my story of the one-horned goat. Was it believable? William had a past and he had been cocky, pleased with himself. Yet the state had taken him at his word.

  In a murder trial, the vote must be unanimous. As a fully fledged member of the jury now, I had to be sure. I had to weigh Maryann’s innocent face, her soft hair, her voice. I had to weigh her Mormon childhood, her devout parents, the strict upbringing she must have received. I knew about teenage rebellion. I knew about trying to please a man and being afraid.

  Was Maryann Acker a killer?

  It was time to decide.

  It had become our routine, since Michael had come to live with us, to drive together through the long grasses of Kawanui Marsh, out to the highway, and across the astonishing Pali, where King Kamehameha cornered the O’ahu warriors and forced them over the edge. An image of warriors floating downward through the mist haunts everyone who crosses, it is so established in the histories, so sung about, so simultaneously mourned and praised, this final conquest that united all of the Hawaiian Islands. It is Kamehameha’s gold statue that stands in front of the courthouse, covered in leis.

  It was our practice to cross this high place, usually at a bumper-to-bumper crawl, listening to music, talking: the politics of the English department, the trial, and plans for our life together in Canada. But on that last day of the trial, something was wrong with the dog, an unbeautiful cockapoo, black and ungroomed.

  We were a few minutes ahead of schedule. We had time to drop him at the vet’s before we started across the mountains for town. But the dog had no appointment and we were told to take him back home.

  It was here that a five-minute break in my life changed everything in Maryann’s.

  15

  The morning I found the yellow notebook, I called the court records department in Hawaii, forgetting about the time difference. Hours. Years. I couldn’t wait. I had to find Maryann. Judge Au had sentenced her to a minimum of ten years. She would be out. She must be out. She would be forty by now.

  While I did the laundry I kept eyeing the clock. I walked to the store for groceries and took in the summer look of the street. All the small front gardens were blooming. I stopped to look at a neighbour’s roses while I wondered what to say to Maryann. How to tell her that I was the cause of her long life in prison. I could say I broke spee
d limits, shoved the dog through the door, locked it again, ran back to the car. Explain that Michael had planned on coming in to watch the trial – the final proceedings – so we parked the car and then both of us ran up the courthouse steps and into the polished hall. I remember the feel of the courtroom door, its smooth surface, and the eyes in the opening crack. I remember the whispering mouth of the bailiff. “You are excused. You are five minutes late.” Five minutes. My pulse was furious.

  Michael and I sat down with the other spectators. What I felt was rage and shame. Judge Au made his entrance. Then Jan Futa was pulling herself to her feet, looking feverish. Her hair was tied with a white silk scarf as if she might be ready to wave it in surrender, but the gold pen was between her fingers, firmly in place. Robbery One! Burglary in the First Degree! Kidnapping! Here she stopped and stared at the jury. “Let me remind you that it is not necessary that each element be committed by the defendant alone,” she said quietly. “And there is another charge involved,” she said then, turning to point at Maryann. She let the word out slowly, as if we had never heard it before. Murder. Both syllables clear. I reached in my bag and pulled out the yellow notebook with the bright red spine. I could write openly now. But the words on the page were staggering and limp. Futa argued that Maryann had everything to gain by lying. “She had nothing to lose and everything to gain and for that reason I will submit to you that she did lie to you. William didn’t have to say anything about the events in Hawaii. A year after those events, Detective Jimon You had no suspects. There is no reason for William to have fabricated these events.”

  William, she said, was virtually controlled by Maryann. “The testimony of William and Mr. Leach,” Futa said, “is very close. I submit the reason for this is that it is true. Who doesn’t remember what happened? Maryann Acker. Quite conveniently there are many things she doesn’t remember because it’s hard to fabricate things if there is no basis of truth. Mr. Leach testified that William Acker ‘looked as scared as I felt.’ Mr. Acker is high-strung, nervous, not calm and collected like his wife. What was she doing most of the time? Looking straight ahead. Why? Because she did not want Mr. Leach to see her.”