“You first, Counselor, you first,” the Lieutenant replied gravely.
“Ah, thank you, Lieutenant.”
I had done it again to Sulo, and we left him strangling and wounded in his chair under the wanted felon. “He, he, he …” I was touched. Good old Sulo; lumbago and all, he still appreciated his old D.A.
“Lieutenant Manion,” I said, facing him, “I’ve decided to take your case.”
“Good, good. How much is your fee?”
“Three grand. Is that fair enough?”
“Fair enough. I rather thought it might be more.”
“Maybe I’d better raise it, then. I always want my clients to feel satisfied.”
“I’m real satisfied—three thousand is most fair and reasonable.”
“Good. When can you pay it?”
“It’ll have to be later. Right now I’m broke.”
“What!”
“I’m broke. At this moment I couldn’t pay you three dollars.”
“Can you raise it?”
“No.”
“How about your trailer?”
“Both it and my car are mortgaged to the hilt.”
“How about your relatives? Everybody has a rich uncle.”
“I don’t have any uncles, rich or poor. Both my parents are dead. My only close relative is a married sister in Dubuque. She and her husband owe me money. They have four kids and a mortgage.”
“You seem to spring from well-mortgaged stock,” I said. “Look, Manion, why did you call me down here if you knew you couldn’t pay me? Did you think perhaps I ran a veterans’ legal aid bureau?”
“I needed a lawyer and I wanted the best.”
“You mean the second best, don’t you? Or have you forgotten about that eminent authority on unwritten law, old Crocker?”
The Lieutenant shrugged and regarded me steadily. “Well,” he said slowly, “if you won’t represent me I suppose I’ll have to try someone else.”
I stared at him. Was it possible that this man sensed that by now I would almost have paid him to stay in the case? “You let me waste a whole goddam day on this case when you knew all along you couldn’t pay me,” I said, trying hard to work up a pout.
“You didn’t ask me,” he said.
The man had me there. He couldn’t be expected to know that any half-decent attorney could scarcely discuss his fee before he knew whether he wanted to enter a case. At the same time, though, I could well have probed him a little about his general financial condition when I first met him the morning before. And probably should have. Why didn’t I face it? Wasn’t it the solemn truth that I had suspected all along he didn’t have any money, as Maida had warned me, and had deliberately put off asking him until it was too late, until I was hopelessly enmeshed? As for Maida, how would I ever square all this with her and our depleted check book? The thought made me smile.
“Look, Manion,” I said. “How much can you pay me and when?”
“I can pay you a hundred and fifty dollars on account next week. It’s pay day then.”
“You realize, of course, that if I accept that I—that I’ve enlisted for the duration?”
Coolly: “Yes. That’s why I’m offering it.”
There was a kind of engaging frankness about this cool pirate. “When could you pay me the balance?”
“I don’t know. If I’m acquitted I’ll give you a promissory note and I can pay you so much a month.”
“Famous last words,” I said. “And suppose you’re convicted?”
“Then I guess both of us lose. But isn’t that just another of those calculated risks—like pleading insanity?”
The needling bastard … . I had to put in one more try, for Maida’s sake. “Supposing I said I won’t take your case till you pay me half my fee?”
Shrugging: “I’d just have to regretfully get someone else, I’m afraid.”
“You’d risk that?” I said. “You’d actually risk it?”
Smiling slightly: “I’ve got my legal defense now, haven’t I? I was insane, wasn’t I? How can I possibly lose?”
I was now getting the Lecture in reverse. I stared admiringly at the man, at this shrewd, gambling, dead-beat son-of-a-bitch. He had me helplessly coming his way and I was, morally certain that he now knew I just had to take on this case. The moment of decision was at hand; I would either go fishing or else go to work. I took a deep breath and held it, pain and all.
“Lieutenant Manion,” I said, extending my hand, “you’ve got yourself a lawyer. And I seem to have a client. Now let’s get down to work. We’ve plenty of it.”
He took my hand. “It’s a pleasure, Counselor. Where do we start? You’ll have to tell me, you know. Remember, I’ve been ill and I’m just recovering my wits.”
“Your wits will do nicely. First let’s go out and see Sulo. I want to discuss with him the possibility of our doing our talking outside in my car. The stink of this place is getting me down. Even for three grand on the line I don’t think I can stand it much longer.” I held the door open for my client. We found Sulo nodding in his chair and I stood debating whether to awaken him.
chapter 8
The outer jail door opened and in stalked a character straight out or High Noon. His big mail-order felt hat was pushed back on his perspiring forehead; his exquisitely tailored and stitched gabardine shirt, with its cascades of pearl buttons at the shaped pockets and cuffs, was negligently open at the tanned throat, from which depended two cords held by a dollar-sized round silver clasp engraved not with Justice, not with Liberty, but with a bucking bronco. The richly tailored trousers were tucked carelessly into the tops of dusty hand-stitched laceless boots and all he lacked, I saw, was a Bull Durham tag dangling over his heart.
“Fourscore and seven years ago,” I found myself perversely thinking, “there came forth upon this continent an ancient dust storm; whereupon an entire province of old Texas was picked up and hurled aloft and held magically suspended all these years. Lo! today, may God help us, it has been dumped upon the far shores of Lake Superior. Yippee yi yi!”
It was a solemn moment and I restrained an impulse to kneel. Sheriff Max Battisfore was back at last from highway patrol. His keen gray eyes restlessly searched the room. They found mine and lit with gladness; you could see the very glow of gladness in them.
“Well, hello, Paul,” the Sheriff said. He grasped my hand in both of his and looked me straight in the eye. “If it isn’t my favorite ex-D. A. In person not a movie. How’s the old boy? Long time no see. Is old Sulo there treating you and the Lieutenant O.K.?” He slapped my shoulder and kept pumping my hand. The Sheriff had come a long way, I saw; he had developed a boisterous and irresistible gift for camaraderie; he made one feel—I groped for words—so terribly wanted. We might belong to opposite political parties, his attitude seemed to say, but real friendship was something bigger, finer, than mere party. “How are you, anyway, you old buckaroo?” he ran on, playfully digging me in the ribs.
“I’m fine, thanks, Max,” I said, smiling and retreating out of range. “Just fine. How are you?”
“Oh, fine, fine. Any phone calls, Sulo? Oh, on my pad … . Yes, Polly, I feel just like a horse’s father. If I felt any better Sulo there’d have to lock me up in one of my own cells.” He paused as Sulo obediently snorted. Musty cheese, musty jokes … . “Tell me, man, how the hell are you, anyway?”
“I’m fine, Max,” I repeated soberly, and, since Max’s concern over my health had been doubly relieved and certified, I added: “If you’ve got a minute I’d like to have a chat with you?”
“Sure, sure, Polly. Right this way.” He led the way into his office and bent over a memorandum pad on his desk. He called out to Sulo. “Phone the Missus, Sulo, and tell her I got that Community Chest kickoff dinner tonight, after that the Amvets, then bowling … . Shut the door, Polly, and sit down. Make yourself at home. Long, time no see. Tell me, how the hell—ah—won’t you have a cigarette?”
I gestured with the stub of
a cigar. “No thanks, Max, I’m still faithfully on these Italian reefers, still smoking the poor man’s marijuana.”
The Sheriff wagged his head. “Still the same old joker, too, Polly. Lord, it’s good to see you, man. How do you feel, I mean, how are you really feeling?”
“Look, Max,” I said, taking the plunge, “what were the results of Laura Manion’s lie-detector test?” I held my lighter poised at my cold cigar. The flame burnt my finger.
“Oh, that,” the Sheriff replied, without a pause. “As a foxy old D.A. like you well knows—remember those good old days, Polly?—the state police made that test. They made the test, they’ve got the results.” He fleetingly laid a confiding hand on my knee. “You remember how jealous they always were of their prerogatives.” He nodded sagely. “Well, Polly, they still are. Jealous as all hell. So wouldn’t it be better all around for you to go ask them?” He again looked at his desk pad. “Call operator Eleven, Detroit,” he murmured absently. He looked up. “Boy, Polly, it’s been good to see you. Tell me, man, how the hell are you?”
“I guess maybe you’re right, Max,” I grudgingly admitted, standing up. “It’s their baby, I’d better go ask them.” I paused, pondering the problem aloud. “But what’s the use of asking them? They probably wouldn’t tell me—and anyway the results wouldn’t be admissible in court.” I too could confide. “I think maybe I’ll skip it,” I said resolutely. “Yes, I think I may just skip the whole thing. Only complicate matters. To hell with the lie-detector test.” I I pumped the Sheriff’s free hand. He had grabbed up the phone with the other. “Thanks, Max,” I said. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
“Any time at all, Polly. Long time no see. Boy, it’s been good to see you, you old buckaroo … . Hello, Operator, this is Sheriff Battisfore. Give me operator Eleven at Detroit. That’s right, honey, just about an hour ago … . Yes, dearie, for you I’ll hold on forever … .”
Max stood silhouetted against his wall of framed photographs. For the first time it occurred to me that there were no pictures showing him out pursuing felons or making an arrest, in fact none showing the man in the simple act of being sheriff … . I nevertheless found it an impressive scene, as though one had long read about and seen some fabulous personage in the newsreels and on TV and then suddenly been privileged to confront him, relaxed and friendly, in the intimate glow of his own home. One had never realized what a remarkable personality he was.
“There’s just one more thing, Max,” I said. “I was just going to ask Sulo about it, but perhaps I’d better ask the head man himself. I’m in Manion’s case now and he and I are going to have a lot to talk about.” I paused diffidently. “There’ll be lots to do, too, and the trial’s just three weeks away,” I explained.
“Naturally,” the Sheriff said. “And he’s retained one of the best lawyers in the business, Polly. The very best, for my money.”
“Thanks, Max,” I said. I was finding trouble coming to the point. “Well, the county still won’t furnish you a jail conference room and I hate for us to be cluttering up your office and being underfoot all the time. I realize you have your work to do.”
“Yes?” the Sheriff said helpfully.
“Well, I was wondering how about the Lieutenant and me occasionally sitting outside in my car, when your office is in use, I mean? That way we could talk without interruption and in private and at the same time not be in your hair.” That way, too, I thought wistfully, we could occasionally breathe without pain.
“He … .” the Sheriff said. He pursed his lips and closed his eyes and nodded his head. “Hm … .” He stole a look at me. “There’s always his cell, Polly,” he said thoughtfully. I remained resolutely silent. “Hm,” the Sheriff repeated, squinting again, and it was fun trying to follow his shrewd weighing of the angles, assaying of the factors, yes, counting of the very votes. What was he thinking? Might it not be something like this?—-Murder was a nonbailable offense, wasn’t it, and Manion certainly had no goddam business outside except in custody, had he? There could be criticism, bad criticism, too, and if the damned fool skipped, made a break, it might be political suicide. But Biegler there was, an old hand, an old fox wasn’t he?—and, hm, a fairly big wheel in his party, too—and he’d certainly warn his Lieutenant his goose would be cooked but good if he tried any funny stuff and took a powder … . And Polly wouldn’t forget this favor, would he? And the Lieutenant was a combat veteran of two wars, wasn’t he, and poor old Barney Quill wasn’t, and of course all that had nothing to do with the case, but … .
“Hm,” the Sheriff mused, nodding his head.
“Maybe I’d better skip it, Max,” I said. “Maybe people’d say that because you’re such an active veteran yourself you were playing favorites with war veterans. Maybe even the veterans would get down on you for taking a chance on a fellow veteran, a man who’d dare lay a finger on a man that had maybe raped and beat up his wife.” I had delivered what I hoped was my clincher; I paused and awaited the jury’s verdict.
“It’s O.K., Polly,” the Sheriff said quietly, almost casually. “Take him outside any time you want. He’ll be in your custody.”
“No cuffs or leg irons?” I said.
“No cuffs or leg irons,” the Sheriff replied. “He won’t run—and anyway you won’t let him—neither of you can afford to.”
It was a shrewd analysis. “Thanks, Max,” I said. There was something big about the man; the job of being—and remaining—sheriff hadn’t quite stamped that out. And I felt elated, elated not only to occasionally escape the jail, delightful a prospect as that was, and further elated because the Sheriff’s action tacitly confirmed the results of the lie-detector test, but most of all elated because this most representative citizen, this shrewd walking (or rather patrolling) litmus of community sentiment had virtually told me that to his mind at least the prevailing feeling was running toward my man. I was even surer of it now than if Elmo Roper had conducted a county-wide poll. And after all the jury was nothing more than a group of representative citizens, wasn’t it? If Max himself felt this way about my man then why shouldn’t they? Yes, this was the second big break in the case. Stocks were picking up. “I won’t forget this, Max,” I said, opening the door.
“It’s nothing at all, Polly,” the Sheriff said. He craned his neck. “Hey, there—come on in, Sulo,” he shouted out beyond me. “Yes sir, Polly. Any time at all. Lord, it’s good to see you looking so fit. You’re as tanned as a—as a hound’s tooth.”
“Fishing pallor,” I said.
“You’ve lost some weight, too, haven’t you, Polly? You’re as lean as a—as a—”
“Cigar-store Indian,” I said. “Any weight I’ve shed, Max,” I continued, ruefully exploring the receding area over my temples, “is solely from losing hair. Time, like crime, marches on.”
“You kill me, Polly,” the Sheriff said, chuckling, shifting the receiver to his other ear and clicking the phone.
chapter 9
It was pleasant sitting out in the warm sun, smelling the rank August smell of Mrs. Battisfore’s flower garden, listening to the distant bumblebee hum of traffic and the drone and clatter of the trusty prisoners (the Sheriff’s regular clients, the county’s convalescing drunk-and-disorderly set) mowing the big sloping courthouse lawn—idly watching the sea gulls dipping and wheeling and soaring so far out over the glittering big lake. We smoked and watched silently and I reflected with lazy unoriginality that the main trouble with the world was the people in it. Someone had said it more floridly if not better: “Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.”
“We’ll need a psychiatrist,” I said.
“Why?”
“To prove your insanity. Insanity, Lieutenant, is a medical question and for us, the defense, to create a legal issue on that score we must present expert testimony that you were insane. Once that is done, however, the issue is created and then the burden of disproving your insanity falls squarely on the People. That is our biggest and most pressing probl
em.”
“I see,” my man said. “Then I guess we get a psychiatrist. But if it’s a medical question wouldn’t a local doctor do equally as well?”
“No, my friend, a local doctor wouldn’t do at all. Those boys already have their hands full delivering the population and trying to keep up with the latest miracle drugs without moving into the tangled realm of the mind. What’s more, most of them don’t know any more about it than you or I.”
“You’re too modest, Counselor. Have you forgotten it was you who injected insanity into this case?”
“No,” I answered carefully. “I merely told you what the possible legal defenses were—it was you who told me facts from which one might conclude you may have been insane.” I saw I’d have to chink that crack in my lecture and keep it chinked. “In any case, even if we were able to find any doctor hereabouts foolhardy enough to testify to your insanity, all the People would have to do to blast it would be to throw a real psychiatrist at him and cut him—along with your insanity defense—to ribbons. You see, psychiatrists are simply a different breed of cats. For example, when plain doctors and lawyers and soldiers and similar riffraff go to a burlesque show they go to watch the girls’ legs and titties. But not a psychiatrist. When one of those birds stoops to attend a burlesque he goes to watch the audience. Hell, man, you can’t pit a mere doctor against a monster like that.”
“But how would the People get to know?”
“How would they know what?”
“How would they know whether we were going to call a doctor or a psychiatrist—or even that we are going to claim insanity at all? So how could they possibly be prepared to refute it?”
This client of mine was no dummy and I was glad he wasn’t lobbing shells at me. “Because the law says that we must serve notice on the prosecution in advance of the trial of our intention to plead insanity, and at the same time give the names of our witnesses, expert or otherwise. We can’t keep it a secret. Surprise pleas of insanity are ‘no fair,’ the law sensibly says. We’ve got to tip our hand in advance.”
Anatomy of a Murder Page 8
