The Trials of Kate Hope

by Wick Downing

  “Well, yes, that part is true. But don’t be led astray by appearances. There will be a trial?”

  “This coming Thursday,” I told him. “He’s been charged with being a dangerous dog, and the City wants to destroy him.”

  “Great Scott!” Spence declared, apparently incensed by the news. “We cannot allow that!”

  “Can you be at his trial?” I asked. “You could save his life.”

  “Of course, dear child,” he said. “When will it be held?”

  “Thursday at nine, in the municipal court. Judge Steinbrunner.”

  His face donned the expression of a man in total command of the situation. “You may be assured of my presence. And when I tell the judge and the jury the true facts of the case, they will give the big dog a medal.”

  “What did you see?” I asked him. “Why did he have that baby in his jaws?”

  “I cannot begin to describe to you how thrilled I was with his performance,” Spence said, then turned to Miss Willow. “You wouldn’t have a bit of fruit in that basket of yours, would you, old girl?”

  She found an apple and gave it to him.

  “Thank you,” he said politely, leaning back on one hand and taking tiny, delicate bites.

  “You were saying?” I asked, to get him back on the right track.

  “Yes. Of course. I arrived a bit later that day than usual and saw Herman at once. The big, playful hound is impossible to miss. I did not see my dear friend Wilma, yet I was quite confident that she’d return soon—with popcorn, which she enjoys feeding to the ducks. And so I walked over to the animal, to say hello.” He savored a bite of the apple and even swished it around in his mouth, like a judge in a wine-tasting contest. “The dog relishes having his stomach rubbed by someone such as myself with a knack for it . . . but all at once, he sat up and growled.”

  Spence sat up too, and a low, menacing rumble rolled out of his throat. “I followed the direction of his gaze,” he continued, “and observed two young scamps racing along the asphalt path on those small bicycles that boys love to terrorize the citizenry with.”

  “The same two boys who pushed me down?” Miss Willow asked me.

  Spence’s eyes were alive with interest. “They pushed you down?” he demanded, as though he only wished he had been there to protect her from such an outrage. “The scoundrels! Why, my goodness, Wilma—there they are now!” He pointed a long, bony finger at two boys on Sting-Rays, chasing each other on the asphalt path around the duck pond.

  Two-Fingers had said that people tend to repeat their actions from week to week, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Miss Willow, do you recognize them?” I asked.

  Spence lurched to his feet. “I shall thrash them for you, Wilma!” he shouted, running after them. “Stop!” he shouted again. “Stop, young scalawags!”

  The boys did. They stared for a moment at the old scarecrow stumbling toward them, then started to laugh. “It’s Spencer Phipps the Third!” the short one said.

  “How do, Your Majesty!” the tall, skinny one called out. They couldn’t have been more than ten years old. “Where you been hidin’?”

  Then they split up: one riding across the grass on Spence’s left, the other on his right. “Here we come!” the short one said.

  Slowly, in perfect formation, they approached the sorry old man and started circling him. As Spence lunged for one, who easily rode out of his reach, the other rode close to his backside, cuffing him. Then Spence spun around enough to make him dizzy, trying to catch the one who had just hit him. “You boys stop!” I yelled at them.

  “Ya ya ya!”

  I ran after the tall one, really angry at them for tormenting an old man. “Don’t do that!” I almost caught the kid, but he darted to one side and then gunned it.

  “She’s quick, Tomato Face!” he said. “Hey! Look at the old guy!”

  Spence had spun around too much. He wobbled around in a daze. Both boys charged, and Spence threw his hands in the air as though to keep them away, then stumbled back a step . . . and fell, like a long, thin board, on the grass.

  “Uh-oh,” the tall boy said. “Best we go.” They were gone.

  I ran over to Spence, who didn’t move. Had he hit his head? What should I do? “Spence?” I asked, kneeling down and touching him over his heart. At least he was breathing.

  “Oh dear,” Miss Willow said, standing next to me. “If only Herman were here.”

  Why? I wondered. What could Herman do? “Miss Willow, stay with him, okay?” I said, jumping up. “I’ll go get help.”

  But before I could leave, Spence rolled to his hands and knees, and it looked as though his body was trying to turn itself inside out. All that spinning around had made him seasick, and some of the apple he’d eaten came up. With mortification written all over his face, he lurched to his feet and ran for the street.

  I followed along behind him. At the edge of the street he got down on his hands and knees and leaned over the gutter and threw up big-time. Chunks of apple were mixed with peanut butter and jelly. Very gross. The poor thing, I thought, putting my hand on his sweaty back.

  “Leave me alone,” he said. “I do not enjoy having you and Wilma see me in this deplorable condition.” Slowly he stood up, straightened himself, and scowled at the world just as proud as a lion. Wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand, he frowned at me with that strange pride old men are afflicted with, like my grandfather, who’d rather die than let me help him. Then he saw an opening in the traffic on Seventeenth Avenue, trotted across the street, and marched off down St. Paul Street.

  Miss Willow was sitting on her blanket when I got back to her, her hands in her lap. “I shall never understand him,” she said.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, realizing that he was a witness and I’d let him get away. “Do you know where he’s staying?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “He sleeps on sidewalks, I think.”

  I ran for my bike. “Maybe I can catch him,” I said. “Call me tomorrow?” I called back. “Thanks for coming!”

  I rode the streets and alleys looking for him, but he was gone.

  I made it to Mike’s house in fifteen minutes, and found him moping in his living room with the television set on. “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  We rode toward the Pearsans’ home in Cherry Hills, and I told him what had happened at the park. “Spence never did tell me what happened,” I said, “but he told me that Herman was a hero who didn’t attack the baby at all. Two-Fingers was right. Those boys must have done something, and we need to find out what it was.” Ron wouldn’t be there on Sunday, I went on to say in a big rush of words. Not with the whole family at home. Today we should be able to talk to Ursula without all the questions being answered by Ron, but Mike needed to hear her too, because she’d probably try to change her testimony when she took the witness stand. “I’ll ask the questions, okay? When I tell her we have a man who saw the whole thing, I just know she’ll tell us what really happened.”

  Half an hour later I rang the doorbell, keeping Mike behind me. But Ron opened the door, his big muscles stretching his T-shirt like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. “The Kate babe,” he said, which kind of stunned me. Was I supposed to be thrilled at being a babe? “Just the chick I need to talk to. Hey, dude,” he added when he saw Mike. “My little brother told me he flattened your nose.” Ron opened the screen door and came outside.

  I spoke up before Mike could answer, to avoid the trouble I saw brewing between them. “What do you want to talk to me about?” I asked.

  “Ursula and I got subpoenaed. Does that mean we have to testify at that stupid trial?”

  “You were subpoenaed?” I asked. “Not by my side, Ron. It means you’ll be witnesses for the City.”

  “Witnesses?” he asked. “We sit in the witness box and answer questions from lawyers?”

  “Yes. At Herman’s trial.”

  He nodded but no longer smiled. “I want you to do me a fav
or at that trial, okay?” he said to me . . . and with a quick move he grabbed Mike’s wrist, spun him around in a hammerlock, and started choking him! “Go easy on us, okay, Kate? I’d hate to have to break your boyfriend’s arm.”

  “Stop that!” I shouted at him, trying to beat him with my fists. Mike tossed helplessly in his grip, gasping little breaths of pain, his eyes popping out. “We have a witness who saw the whole thing, and you’re a liar!”

  Ron let go of Mike, who sagged to the ground with his arm dangling like a rope. “What do you mean, you have a witness?”

  “I just talked to a man who saw what really happened!” I stormed at him. “Herman was a hero! If it hadn’t been for Herman . . .”—but I couldn’t go on because I didn’t know.

  Ron knew something, though, that he wasn’t telling us. He put the end of his index finger on the tip of my nose in a threatening gesture. “You want Ursula fired over this?”

  I slapped his hand angrily, but it didn’t even move as Mike struggled to get his feet under him. Mike was going to charge him!

  “You want her sent back to Denmark because of a stupid mutt?” Ron continued.

  “Mike, don’t!” I said—too late. He lunged at Ron. But the musclebound football hero stepped out of Mike’s way like it was something he practiced all the time, giving Mike a hard shove and a knee in his back. Mike went down again.

  “Take your choice, Kate.” Ron held Mike down with a foot in his back as he struggled to get up. “That dog, or your boyfriend.”

  He literally walked across Mike as he went inside and shut the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  WHEN MIKE GOT UP and brushed himself off, he wouldn’t let me see his face. I could literally hear him grinding his teeth. He yanked his bike off the Pearsans’ lawn, tossed his leg over it, and took off. “Hey!” I yelled. “Wait up!”

  He jammed on the brakes and I had to swerve to miss him. His chest was heaving with rage, and his face had twisted into a grimace like a crazed gargoyle’s. It was as though he hated himself for getting beaten up by Ron Benson, who’d probably soon be a professional football star. What did he expect? He was only fourteen! “He assaulted you!” I told him. I wanted to call the police.

  But Mike made me promise never to say anything to anyone about it, including his mom, my mom, and the Judge—and then angry tears tried to squeeze out of his eyes as he sped off in another direction. There was no way I could stay with him. “Mike! Wait!”

  “Leave me alone!”

  He sounded just as silly as Spence had sounded at the park. “Go kill yourself then, okay?” I yelled after him, angry because he wouldn’t even talk to me about it. I wanted to tell him how great I thought he was. Instead . . .

  That night I went over to Mike’s house, but Mrs. Doyle said he wouldn’t come out of his room. She wanted to know what had happened. “You’ll have to ask Mike, Mrs. Doyle,” I told her, then left quickly before she could pressure me into breaking my promise.

  Monday morning when I got to the office there were clients all over the place, even standing on the porch. Grandfather was in his element, kidding with them, lofting big uglies at his spittoon without missing, and ordering Mrs. Roulette and me around like servants in his castle. I ran errands, wrote letters for him to sign, and gave legal advice to the clients who didn’t really have legal problems but thought they needed a lawyer.

  I called Mike, too. I felt horrible about my stupid remark, telling him to go kill himself. And there was so much I wanted to tell him about stuff. He was braver than anyone I knew, and had nothing to be ashamed of, and had stood up to Ron Benson, and . . . but he wouldn’t answer. It was hard for me to concentrate on my work. I tried pushing him out of my mind, but he kept surfacing, like a toy boat in the tub that won’t sink. The Alvarez trial would start the next day and the Willow case two days after that. I stayed at the office after everyone else had gone home, working on instructions until it was too dark to ride home without a light.

  I wanted Mike to lead me home again on his bike, but my little plan failed. “He’s in Evergreen,” Mrs. Doyle said when I called again. “With his father.” So I had to call good old generic Mom and ask her to come get me, which I hated. But it was better than the alternative, I concluded, which was having her kill me.

  We stayed up until midnight, talking about this hypothetical boy who I couldn’t identify because of a promise, and how the boy had been beaten up by the town hero. Mom knew who I meant because it was so obvious, but promised she wouldn’t tell anyone, especially Mrs. Doyle, who she was having a serious problem with and never wanted to speak to again. “The male ego bruises very easily,” she told me. “Just be his friend. When he’s ready, he’ll let you help him.”

  Tuesday morning dawned bright and clear. I had butterflies in my stomach, even though Grandfather would be the lawyer defending Mr. Alvarez. The Judge wore a coat with leather patches over the elbows and an old string tie, like a frontier lawyer in a fifties movie, and it was fun for me to guide the courtly old gunfighter to the courthouse. Of course, I had to carry both his briefcase and his cuspidor, neither of which went very well with the stylish new dress Mom had bought for me. “Kate darlin’, I want you to see everything there is when we’re in that courtroom,” he said as we plodded along, “especially what’s beneath the surface and can’t be seen. Do you understand me?”

  “How can I see what can’t be seen?”

  “Most of what happens when you try a case to a jury can’t be seen. You learn to see by feeling it. Watch that jury and the judge, and watch the witnesses like your life depended on it. Then tell me what you think they’re feeling. You won’t be able to read all the faces, but some will give themselves away. Only never let them catch you at it. Some have very thin skins, like teenage boys with acne. If they think you’re watching them for signs, they’ll resent it.”

  The courtroom was filled with people who spoke in whispers. Mr. Alvarez sat in the front row, surrounded by his wife and five children, with his head down, as though he expected someone to chop it off. His tiny wife sat next to him. Her beautiful brown eyes were full of fear, which was highlighted in some way by her brilliant black hair and the baby cradled in her arms. Their two sons sat next to her, dressed in dark slacks, clean shirts, and shiny shoes, and the daughters, wearing fluffy dresses, sat next to their father. They were still as frightened rabbits.

  We stopped in front of them and Grandfather put a hand on Mr. Alvarez’s shoulder. “Now don’t you worry,” he said in a stage whisper, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “The jurors in Denver are good people. You’ll get a fair trial.” Realizing that this was one of the unseen happenings I was supposed to see, I glanced around the room at people’s expressions, trying to guess what they felt. Some watched Grandfather with little smiles on their faces while others stared at Mr. Alvarez.

  I led Grandfather to the pit, which is the space between the bench and where spectators sit. It’s called the pit because it’s where the lawyers slug it out. We sat at our table and the prosecution sat at theirs. “Where’s my spittoon?” Grandfather asked. I put it as far from the jury box as possible so he wouldn’t splatter some poor innocent juror if he missed, and I dinged it with a fingernail so he’d know where it was.

  I whispered to Grandfather what I’d seen so far. Most of the people in the courtroom had smiled at him and the Alvarez family when he did his little act, but not the prosecutor. Mr. Applewhite had this lofty sneer on his face, as though he had just seen a farce performed by clowns. He wore a dark suit, polished black shoes, and a handkerchief in his coat that matched his tie. A police officer in uniform sat next to him.

  The door to the judge’s chambers opened and a woman stuck her head out. “Mr. Hope? Mr. Applewhite? Judge Merrill would like to see you.”

  “What was that, Katie darlin’?” Grandfather asked in his stage-whisper voice. I told him. “Let’s go, then. You’ll have to lead me, blind as I am.” I sort of lifted him out of his chair,
as he suddenly became twice as feeble as he really was.

  A big conference desk filled up most of Judge Merrill’s chambers, barely leaving room for the bookcases on the walls that were loaded with musty-looking old volumes. The judge was a nice-looking man with a tanned face and black hair, about the same age as Mom, so I checked his hand for a wedding ring, saw he had one, and crossed him off my list of prospects for her. A court reporter sat next to him, hunched over a small black box on a pedestal. “The firm of Hope and Hope, I see,” the judge said, standing up and shaking my hand. “Nice to meet you, Kate. I went to law school with your dad, who was a real credit to the legal profession. He’d be proud of you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Hi, Reggie,” he said to Reginald Applewhite, the esteemed prosecutor, who smiled at the judge but seemed to resent the informality. “Sit down, everyone,” the judge continued. We sat in the chairs in front of his desk. “This is People versus Alvarez,” he said to the court reporter. The little box had keys, like a toy piano, and when anyone said anything, the reporter would tap the keys like Schroeder in a Charlie Brown special. “The defense has filed a Motion for an Indefinite Continuance, which I must say is a new one on me. Does either side have anything to say before I rule on it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Applewhite said. “As the Court suggests, there is no such thing as an indefinite continuance. The motion is patently frivolous and I believe Mr. Hope should be held in contempt of court for bringing it.”

  “Mr. Hope, I have to tell you I’m tempted,” the judge said. “What did you expect to accomplish?”

  “Justice, if it please the Court,” Grandfather said firmly. “How in the name of justice can the prosecutor countenance what he’s done in this case? I had an eyewitness—a Mexican without a work permit—who could prove my client was framed. He”—Grandfather pointed in Mr. Applewhite’s direction—“had him deported! I asked for a continuance because someday I might get the witness into court. But I don’t know when that day might be, so I filed that motion.”