The Judge glanced at me keenly and smiled. “I have a confession to make, young man,” he said, his pipe finally lit. “I am a rabid fan of murder trials, a fan just as hopeless in my way as those hordes of panting and painted harpies out there who are jamming our sessions. I am endlessly fascinated by the raw drama of a murder trial, of the defendant fighting so inarticulately for his freedom—his is the drama of understatement—, of the opposing counsel—those masters of overstatement, flamboyantly fighting for victory, for reputation, for more clients, for political advancement, for God knows what—, of the weathervane jury swaying this way and that, of the judge himself trying his damnedest to guess right and at the same time preserve a measure of decorum.” He paused. “Yes, a murder trial is a fascinating pageant.”
“Yes, Judge,” I agreed soberly. “No play in the world is quite like it. In this kind of drama the show may not only close abruptly but the main actors lose all if they fail.”
“It is interesting you should have said that.” The Judge reached for a law book. “Listen to this. I found it the other day in Callaghan’s work on Michigan procedure and practice—at Section 38.48. The editor who wrote it must be a frustrated philosopher or novelist.” He expertly flipped the pages and stopped, murmuring “dum-dum-dum-dum” till he found the place. “Here it is. He is talking about jury trials.” The Judge paused and cleared his throat and began reading.
“‘In the course of any jury trial there are likely to be many incidents which will later be raised, by disappointed and astute counsel, as ground for overturning the result,’” the Judge read. “‘This is particularly true in criminal trials, wherein every possible method of influencing the jury one way or the other is customarily resorted to and every conceivable error, in case of appeal, is presented to the reviewing court.’”
The Judge paused and looked up. “Here’s the part. Now listen to this. ‘The field is a most interesting one. It so far supersedes and renders inconsequential both stage and screen productions, and the best products of the novelists, by sheer force of accumulated actual experience, as to make outpourings of the imagination pale and wilt by factual contrast … . Whenever there is a jury trial there is neighborhood interest, reputations at stake, serious liability, and often even future life involved.’”
“Amen,” I said. “That man certainly said a mouthful.”
The Judge closed his book and slowly shoved it away. “I’ve presided at murder trials all over the state,” he went on. “I actually look for the assignments. Most judges duck ‘em and say they can’t abide all the ranting and emotional corn. Downstate all the other judges near my bailiwick shake their heads and call me ‘First Degree’ Weaver.” The Judge paused and smiled. “My passion for murder is almost illicit. And for all my concern and reverence for the law I sometimes ruefully suspect that the average murder jury really decides its cases regardless of the law.” He shrugged and smiled. “That’s quite a somber admission from a dedicated old bookworm like me. But I can’t help but suspect that you’re a student of the same theory yourself—and also of the psychology of the jury.”
“Pretty much, Judge,” I said. “I’ve never stopped to figure it out, I guess. But I also guess that men will never devise a better system of determining their clashes with each other and society. At least our jury system, for all its absurdities and imperfections, achieves a sort of rough democracy in action—at least the result is not preordained as it is in some places.”
“Ah, yes,” the Judge said, looking out over the lake. “Yet we cannot help but dream and grope for perfection … .”
“Like a dog baying at the moon,” I said.
The Judge nodded his head and lowered his voice. “Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps,” he said, “for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.”
“That’s a powerful observation, Judge,” I said. “And spoken beautifully.”
The Judge laughed and knocked out his pipe. “I may have said it beautifully, young man, but a fellow called Hazlitt happens to have written it. You better read that man some time if you haven’t; he was afflicted terribly with character and brains—two commodities for the possession of which I’ve observed the ordinary run of men are not excessively notable.”
There was a clatter at the outside mahogany door, which opened to introduce a mop handle and a large steaming pail of water and, finally, Smoky Madigan.
“Sorry, gen’emen,” Smoky apologized, bowing contritely and noisily backing out. “I figgered the coast was clear.” The heavy door clicked closed.
I arose and crushed out my cigar. “Judge,” I said slowly, “I like your man Hazlitt’s sentiments.” I paused and nodded at the closed door. “He encourages me to be bold, in fact … .” I again paused, wondering if I dared speak my mind. “If—if I were still prosecutor of this county I’d have dismissed that felony breaking and entering case against that poor bastard and instead charged him with simple larceny and recommended a short rest cure with the Sheriff across the alley, a place where he’d be happy and do some good, not festering down at the branch prison among a lot of hopeless pros. If that man is a criminal then my name is William Hazlitt.”
The Judge smiled. “The court is always sensitive to the views of counsel, who are after all officers of the court. We will see, Mr. Biegler, we will see.”
“Thank you, Judge, and good night. It was pleasant to chat with you. And happy law-looking.”
The Judge looked up from his book to which he had already returned, smiling absently. “Most pleasant, Mr. Biegler, most pleasant. Good day, sir.”
I hurried away to tell Parnell the compliment the Judge had paid our instructions and supporting brief. As I clattered down the acres of soiled marble stairs I felt very expansive and virtuous, like a boy scout who had just thrown a rope to a drowning Smoky Madigan. Or had the rope instead been flung from the distant grave of a thoughtful Englishman who had once written “Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps …”?
Parnell was not in the car or anywhere around. I peered in the car to see if he had left his brief case. There was no brief case but I found a hurriedly scribbled note on the seat. “Dear Polly,” it read, “The old rabbit hound is off on a fresh scent. I can’t wait any longer. Don’t worry. I’ll see you sometime late tomorrow if I’m lucky. And how do I get around? Young man, I’ve paroled myself and got me a new driver’s license and rented a car. You’re doing beautifully as I knew you would. Watch out for little Dancer. Now don’t worry. Parn.”
“Oh, Lord,” I said, and I dashed into the jail and brushed past Sulo into the empty sheriff’s office and phoned Maida at her apartment.
“Maida,” I said, “where in hell is Parnell? What is he up to?” I read her the cryptic note and explained his disappearance during the day and again now. Maida had not the foggiest notion where he was, honest cross her heart she hadn’t.
“Listen, young lady,” I said. “You’re lying by your grammar school clock. I can always tell when you’re lying-after all, I taught you. What’re you two up to? What’s this sly mysterious work he’s been giving you? Come on—talk, damn it.”
Instead of talking Maida got her “dandruff” up, as Sulo Kangas might put it. “I won’t tell you,” she snapped. “I promised not to. Parnell doesn’t want you to know or to worry. So don’t keep asking me—damn it.”
“But I am worried,” I wailed. “He’s a sick overworked old man who hasn’t driven a car in over ten years. And that was a hundred-year-old Maxwell that he shifted by prayer and clanking a series of chains. Are you still on the line? Talk, damn it, or—or I’ll fire you.”
“Fire me?” Maida cooed. “First, Buster, you’ll have to pay me what you owe me or I’ll have the law on your neck. Mitch would be delighted.”
That did it. I swore and then Maida swore—backed by her rich heritage from Mickey—and then someone hung up.
“You O.K., Polly?” Sulo inquired anxious
ly as I emerged from Max’s office. “You look little worried.”
“I’m dandy, thanks, Sulo,” I said, smiling wanly. “I’m just perfectly dandy. Thanks for using the phone.”
So I did the only sensible thing a worried man could do—I stopped off at the Halfway House for one tall drink, just one. By midnight, having bought my way into the jazz combo, that old hepcat Polly Biegler and his borrowed fly-swatters was making crazy with the drums. “Lissen to dat ma-a-n … .”
chapter 10
When court convened the next morning, Thursday, and my glazed eyes were finally able to focus, I observed that something had been added to Mitch’s table—a tall, dark, rather stooped spare man, with a drooping oily-looking old-fashioned black mustache and lean dagger-like face, who made me think of a romantic-looking concert pianist that had visited our town when I was a child. My mother Belle had thought he was handsome beyond words. All of Belle’s “handsome” men had a tendency to look all profile, however viewed, like the tall, willowy, and genteelly fatigued characters drawn by Charles Dana Gibson … . When the jury had been brought in and that pregnant pre-session hush had fallen upon the courtroom—the time when the Judge would nod to Mitch to reopen hostilities—I arose, my head thumping, and addressed the court.
“Your Honor,” I said, “the defense observes that a third person has been added to the prosecution table, and we wonder if the court shares with us our curiosity over his identity and function.”
The fourteen pairs of eyes of the equally curious jury bored into the new arrival, who returned their stare with the languid, faintly disdainful nostrilly look of a T. S. Eliot. The Judge nodded at Mitch’s table.
“Your Honor,” Claude Dancer said, rising, “the gentleman at our table is Dr. W. Harcourt Gregory, the People’s psychiatrist in this case. We were about to identify him and ask the court’s permission that he sit at the prosecution table as an observer when defense counsel, with characteristic bravado and corn, felt obliged to jump the gun and attempt to make a grandstand play out of it. We now respectfully make the identification and request.”
“Mr. Biegler?” the Judge said, rolling his eyes and heaving a sort of heavy here-we-go-again sigh.
I grinned across the room at Claude Dancer, my temples pounding. If this little man felt any irresistible yearning to tilt personalities, I thought, he’d clearly picked himself the wrong day. “The defense regrets boundlessly its bad taste and peasant curiosity in wondering who the strange gentleman might be,” I said with suave cantankerousness, “but nevertheless inquires what it is the People want him to observe—perhaps the view from Pompey’s Head?”
The Judge frowned and bit his lip to banish his smile. “Mr. Dancer?”
“To observe the defendant, of course,” Claude Dancer snapped, “as indefatigably grand-standing counsel very well knows.”
Patiently: “Mr. Biegler, the ball is back to you—or should I say stiletto?”
“In that event, Your Honor, the defense has no objection. Not for the world would we impede the course of pure science. In fact I shall move my chair back so that the doctor can get a good look. We express our relief, however, that the new recruit is not, as we fearfully speculated, additional legal reinforcements rushed here from Lansing on behalf of the People.”
Dr. Gregory whinnied appreciatively and quickly covered his mouth with his hand. Claude Dancer glared across at me and if, as the saying goes, looks could have killed I was a dead pigeon.
“The People’s request is granted,” the Judge said drily. He gazed out over the heads of the hushed crowd at the far courtroom clock. “Now that you gentlemen have had your morning setting-up exercises and sufficiently stirred up your bile and vented your spleen, may we dare get on with this trial? Or perhaps you would prefer that the court pause and administer a brisk verbal rubdown?”
Mitch and I popped to our feet. “The People are ready,” Mitch said.
“The defense is ready,” I croaked, and another day of combat was under way.
Mitch called Ditlef Pedersen’s wife and then her pretty blonde sister. Their testimony was substantially the same as that of Ditlef Pedersen. When I had done cross-examining them Mitch got up and spoke to the court.
“Your Honor, there are seven other eyewitnesses to the shooting endorsed on the information, subpoenas for whom have been issued and placed in the hands of the Sheriff for service. The Sheriff has informed me that he is unable to obtain service on any of them for the reason that the witnesses are beyond the confines of the state. For defense counsel’s information I may add that three of them were soldiers temporarily stationed near Thunder Bay and now stationed in Georgia, and the other four were tourists who reside out of the state.” Mitch then called out the names of the seven missing witnesses.
“Mr. Biegler,” the Judge said, “what do you say?”
“The defense inquires of the People whether these witnesses were interviewed before they left and, if so, whether their testimony would be cumulative of testimony which has been or will be offered in the case?” I said.
“All seven witnesses were interviewed and we represent on the record that their testimony would largely be cumulative,” Mitch said.
In that event I knew that the court could and doubtless would excuse the People from the necessity of producing these absent witnesses, and that in any case all that the prosecution ever had to do was to make an honest effort to obtain service on the out-state witnesses once the trial date was known, which they had apparently done. A little graciousness now appeared to be in order. “In that case, Your Honor,” I said, “the defense waives the production of these seven witnesses and further waives any cross-examination of them. We do this because it must long have been evident to all concerned here that there is not now nor has there ever been any dispute over the fact that the defendant, Frederic Manion, did indeed cause the death of Barney Quill by shooting him. We dispute only that it was murder.”
Claude Dancer was on his feet. “There is no need for counsel to make a speech. Either he waives or he doesn’t waive—”
“Very well, gentlemen,” the Judge broke in. “One good speech doesn’t deserve another. Call your next witness, Mr. Prosecutor.”
“The People will call Alphonse Paquette,” Mitch said, and Clovis Pidgeon arose and dramatically administered his ritual oath and Barney’s little bartender, all sleek in a sports outfit and immaculate hair that I suspected had been plastered with goose grease, said “I do” and got up on the witness stand.
“You may sit down,” the Judge said.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” the witness said.
“State your name, please,” Mitch said.
“Alphonse Paquette.”
“Where do you live?”
“Thunder Bay, Mich.”
“Where do you work?”
“At the Thunder Bay Inn.”
“In what capacity?”
“Bartender in the new Lake Superior cocktail lounge and bar.” A little tasteful free plug for the home industry was always good, even in court, I thought.
“Were you on duty the night of Friday, August fifteenth, and during the early hours of Saturday, August sixteenth, this year?” Mitch continued.
“I was.”
“Did you know the deceased Barney Quill during his lifetime?”
“I did.”
“How long?”
“About a year and a half—he was my boss, I worked for him that long.”
“Did you know the defendant Frederic Manion prior to that night?”
“I did.”
“How long?”
“Approximately three weeks; he was an occasional patron at our bar.”
“Can you identify in this courtroom the man you know as Lieutenant Manion?” (I again prodded the Lieutenant, who shot up straight as a ramrod.)
“I can.”
“Will you do so?”
“That gentleman in the Army uniform standing next to his lawyer, Mr. Biegler.”
&
nbsp; “Were you in the bar when the shooting occurred?”
“I was.”
“Where were you?”
“I was standing near the table of the Pedersens who last testified here.”
“Did you see the actual shooting?”
“No.” (“The lying bastard,” I thought.)
“Did you hear it?”
“Yes, sir—I heard six shots fired. After about the second shot I looked over and saw a man in an Army fatigue jacket bending down over the bar.”
“Then what?”
“Well, then this man raised up and turned and walked out the door near where I stood.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“I wasn’t sure,” the witness answered. (This was, I felt, arrant hogwash; a dozen casual patrons had recognized the Lieutenant at a glance but the hour-long “lookout” hadn’t, the cool lying bastard.)
“What did you do then?” Mitch asked. (Ah, here come the “Do you want some, too, Buster?” part, I thought.)
“I rushed out the door after him.”
“Were you able to identify him outside?”
“I was. He turned and faced me and I recognized him.”
“Who was the man that faced you?”
“Lieutenant Manion.”
Mitch turned casually around and glanced at Claude Dancer and again I saw the little telltale nod. “Your witness, Mr. Biegler,” Mitch said.
For a moment I sat there stunned. Here was one of the few People’s witnesses who possessed vital prosecution information—“Do you want some, too, Buster?”—to help batter down our insanity defense. They had led this witness up to the portal of that damaging information and then quit cold and turned him over to me. What in hell was cooking?
“Reviewing my notes,” I lied gently to the Judge, who nodded that I could have more time. I stared sightlessly at the blank pad before me.
If Mitch had been trying the case alone I would not have smelled so strong a rat, but with the little nodding Dancer in there … . But what was the rat? Wait! Ah, the strategy was coming to me … Mr. Dancer was by now panting to catch me with my pants down, of course. If they let me blunder ahead with this witness then I, the defense lawyer, would doubtless myself bring out the damaging words. That way I would not only mightily please the Dancer by looking like a blundering fool, but, more important, I would at the same time invest the bartender’s testimony with greater impact and weight. This is not a witness, the jury could say, who was ready and anxious to spill anything he knew that might hurt the Lieutenant; see, the defense itself had to drag it out of him. It simply must be true … . And then if I still escaped the clever trap and failed to ask the magic question, the People could still bring it out on redirect. It was a fine Dancerian spider web. Probably the reason I recognized it was because in the past I had used the same strategy so many times myself.
Anatomy of a Murder Page 31
