by Gerry Spence
“Very well,” the judge said to Sylvia Huntley. “You may step down, and you are released from your subpoena.”
* * *
The next morning, Huffsmith was at the judge’s cell door. The deputy helped the judge to his feet and led him slowly, carefully to the interrogation room.
Gradually, the judge saw the pain etched all too clearly on Huffsmith’s worn face.
“How’s your son’s leukemia?” the judge asked.
“We don’t know. The doctors don’t know neither.” Huffsmith glanced back at the judge and then as quickly away. “Also, the bank changed the terms on our new mortgage, and we got the foreclosure notice from the bank today.”
“What!” the judge exclaimed. He felt a surge of life. “They can’t get away with that!”
“Maybe, but I can’t take no help from nobody who’s in our jail,” Huffsmith said. “It’s against the rules.”
“I don’t know of any rule against taking a little advice from a jailhouse judge,” the judge said. “Now just where is your house located?”
“You know, it’s that old brown house next to old Abberly’s bank,” Huffsmith said. “My brother Stevie and me got it from our pa when he died. It took me and my wife twenty years to pay off Stevie, but me and Ruthie owned it free and clear until our boy, Ted, got sick.”
The judge nodded and listened.
“Old Abberly’s been trying to buy it for the bank’s parking lot, but we don’t want to sell it. Where would we go? I grew up there, and so did our kids. And that’s the only place that Ted feels safe in, and besides, we don’t want the old house torn down—like tearing down what your pa put up, or something.”
The judge nodded.
“But we needed the money to pay Ted’s bills, and we borrowed from the bank.” Huffsmith caught himself. “I ain’t here to talk about my problems. We all got problems, Judge. Mine ain’t as bad as some. But could you help me a little by not being so stubborn and agree to tell the jury the truth?”
“How much did you borrow?” the judge asked.
“Twenty-five thousand.”
“How much are your monthly payments to the bank?”
“We had to pay two hundred a month. Of course, I only make a little more than that, so we couldn’t make our payments. We paid all we could. Old Abberly said it was okay if we just paid what we could.”
“I see it all now,” the judge said with sudden clarity.
“We was paying a hundred a month. We sold our fishing boat, and we sold our old jeep, which I used to take to the mountains, and we cashed in our pension and all. I ain’t supposed to talk about this, Judge. You know that.”
“So how far behind are you?”
“Six months. And old Abberly says he’s foreclosing, and he is sorry but there ain’t nothing he can do about it—the bank examiners are on his ass, he says. So he put the notice of foreclosure in the paper. He says he already give us six months and that he can’t give us no more time.”
“Sounds like he’s a really caring man,” the judge said.
“If you think nobody cares if you’re missing, well, try missing a couple of house payments to the bank,” Huffsmith said. “They’ll find you every time.”
“So what do the powers that be offer me for my testimony?” the judge asked.
“The powers that be want you to plead guilty to obstructing justice. I mean, it won’t hurt you none, because this here is your first offense, and they’ll recommend probation. That way, the whole deal will be cleaned up and you can go home.”
“You tell the powers that be that I am thinking about their deal—thinking about it real hard. I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 38
HARDY USED HIS one permitted call from the Teton County jail to phone whom he referred to in his most refined litany as “the baddest two-eyed fancy-assed legal gorilla in the whole goddamned world, and I mean bad. Real bad!” He told the jailer, “Put me in a call to that Melvin Belli fella in San Francisco.” Later, the jailer reported that he couldn’t get through to Belli, but the jailer’s attempt to connect with Belli used up Hardy’s one allowed call. Afterward, Hardy did a lot of hollering, threatening, beating at the bars, and other demonstrations with his accompanying colorful language, which was fully predictable to those who knew the first little thing about Hardy Tillman.
The next morning, Deputy Huffsmith once again led the judge down to the interrogation room. “You’re getting me into a lot of trouble, Judge.” Huffsmith held his hat in both hands.
“How’s that?” the judge asked.
“Well, the big boys say I’m being too easy on you. They say that if I can’t get you to plead, they’ll find someone who can. Now, I been here all these years, and I probably can’t get me another job, at least not one with any benefits. And so I was just wondering if I could get you to change your mind and testify?”
“What’s going on with the bank’s foreclosure on your house?”
“Like I told you, I ain’t supposed to talk to you about that.”
“Go get me some blank sheets of paper and a pen,” the judge said.
Huffsmith jumped up and headed out of the interrogation room. “Be back in a minute. Like I told the big boys—if I was patient enough, you’d finally see the light and do the right thing and give me your confession. I told them you was one that always told the truth, and I was right.”
When Huffsmith returned, the judge took the pen and began to write in clear, careful, easily read words:
In the Circuit Court of Teton County, Wyoming,
Tenth Judicial District
Arthur Huffsmith and Ruthie Huffsmith,
Petitioners
vs.
Jackson’s First Bank and Trust Company, and Peter Abberly,
Respondents
Application for Restraining Order
Huffsmith was looking over the judge’s shoulder as he wrote. “What are you writing there, Your Honor? I thought you was going to give me a confession for Sewell and the sheriff.”
“We’ll take care of things as they come up,” the judge said. He continued to write:
The petitioners state that the above bank loaned us money to pay the medical bills incurred on behalf of our boy, Ted, who is suffering from leukemia. The loan was handled for the bank by its president, Peter Abberly.
The note we signed required us to make payments in the amount of two hundred dollars a month. This was in excess of our ability to pay, which we told Mr. Abberly at the time. He said the note was only to satisfy the bank examiners, and he agreed that we could pay what we could afford—a hundred dollars a month, which payments we have timely and faithfully made. After six months the bank began foreclosure on our property.
The bank, through Abberly, has been trying for many years to buy our property for a parking lot. We have steadfastly refused to sell our property. The loan was fraudulently made and empowered the bank to foreclose on our property and obtain our property in the foreclosure, when we had previously refused to sell it.
We ask the court to enter a temporary order restraining the foreclosure, to set a hearing, and thereafter to permanently restrain this foreclosure on our property.
Signed:
Arthur Huffsmith
Ruthie Huffsmith
Petitioners
The judge handed Huffsmith the paper: “Now you make me two copies, and you and Ruthie sign them before a notary, and bring them back in the morning.”
Huffsmith shook his head like an obedient child and plodded out of the room.
* * *
The following morning, the judge was out of his cell the moment the lockdown was lifted.
This time, Huffsmith snapped the handcuffs on the judge and escorted him into the interrogation room.
“So are you going to sign a statement for me or not?” Huffsmith began. He was no longer holding his hat in his hand.
“Give me a piece of your blank paper.”
“Just happen to have some
here, Your Honor.” He reached into the bottom drawer of the desk in the corner of the room and pulled out some paper and a pen.
“Take the cuffs off of me.” Then in longhand the judge began to write his temporary restraining order.
By its terms, the bank and its officers were prohibited from foreclosing the mortgage on the Huffsmith property. A hearing was set for February 27, at nine o’clock in the dayroom of the county jail before Judge Murray, at which time the bank and its president were ordered to show cause why this temporary restraining order ought not be made permanent.
The judge signed the document and looked up at Huffsmith with a small, satisfied smile. “Now I have something here I’ll give you in exchange for the papers you and Ruthie were to sign yesterday. Did you sign them before a notary public?”
“Yes, sir,” Huffsmith said. “I told Ruthie we couldn’t do this, that I’d lose my job for sure, but she said that maybe the Lord was going to look down on us after all, and that we didn’t have no other way to go, so we took them to old Ben Holiday at the real estate office, and we signed them. He’s a notary, you know. I got the papers here.” He reached into his coat’s inner pocket and withdrew the folded documents.
The judge quickly examined them, handed two copies of the papers back to Huffsmith along with his order temporarily restraining the foreclosure. “You go make three copies of these. Then have one of your deputy buddies serve them on the bank president, Sir Abberly. They get one set. You keep one. I keep one. You understand?”
The deputy read the judge’s order. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You going to have the bankers in here?”
“Of course,” the judge said. “I know of nothing in the law that prohibits a duly elected and qualified judge from holding court anywhere he chooses. We held court in the high school gym once on Law Day in front of the whole school.”
“Yes, sir. But what about giving me that statement we’ve been talking about? The big boys…”
“I am still the judge here,” he said. “That I am incarcerated in this ungodly hole does not strip me of my judicial powers.”
“Well, with all due respect, Your Honor, some of the inmates here claim this is the best jail this side of the Mississippi as long as you cooperate with the sheriff an’ are okay to do a little work for the sheriff on the side, if you know what I mean. But the big boys—”
“You tell the big boys that you are making good headway here and that you expect a breakthrough soon.”
Hardy finally got out of jail on a thousand-dollar cash bond.
CHAPTER 39
SHERIFF LOWE WAS taken by surprise when Peter Abberly, president of the local bank, in his banker’s navy blue pinstriped suit and with his coal black hair slicked down, along with the bank’s attorney, Marcus Krause, appeared at the sheriff’s office.
Krause was slender, dressed in a light checked suit, and in his early fifties. A lawyer, he had never tried a major case in his life.
Krause represented the Cheyenne bank, various insurance companies, the Union Pacific Railroad, and a handful of oil companies. His partner, Harry Mayes, however, did most of the work.
Still, Krause possessed enormous prestige. He was the past chairman of the Frontier Days Rodeo in Cheyenne, and every year in the rodeo parade he rode a beautiful palomino gelding with a black silver-trimmed saddle. He rented the animal and saddle from a horse farm in Colorado. He was a generous Republican donor. His wife was the treasurer of the DAR; he was past president of the Cheyenne Rotary Club, and he was the state’s delegate to the American Bar Association.
“Do you have a place in this, ah, establishment known as the dayroom?” Krause asked the sheriff.
“Right. How can I help you gentlemen?”
“We have a hearing scheduled there in ten minutes,” Krause said, looking at his watch. “It’s before Judge John Murray.”
“What are you talking about?” the sheriff asked. “A hearing?”
Krause tried to explain—the foreclosure, the judge’s temporary restraining order, and the bank’s need to complete the foreclosure without delay.
“You’ll have to wait until the judge gets out of jail to hold this hearing,” Sheriff Lowe said.
“Quite the contrary,” Krause insisted. “I’ve searched the books and there’s nothing to prevent a judge from holding court wherever he orders.”
“Excuse me,” Sheriff Lowe said. “You want to have a hearing in our jail’s dayroom?”
“The judge ordered it. Despite his current situation, he’s still a judge.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Follow me, gentlemen.” He escorted them into the elevator.
“What is the ungodly smell here?” Krause asked, his nose puckered like that of a hound dog sniffing a skunk’s den.
“Lysol,” the sheriff said. “We got the cleanest jail this side of the Mississippi. I’ve always said that if your prisoners look clean and smell clean and they’re living in clean quarters, some of that clean might rub off on them.”
The judge, in his blue jail clothes, sat at the steel table in the dayroom. “I see the litigants are before me, as ordered. Would you please have Deputy Huffsmith join us. He’s a party here.”
“Huffsmith’s on duty,” the sheriff said.
“You may relieve him, Sheriff Lowe. Thank you.” The judge offered the banker and his lawyer a seat at the round steel table. When Huffsmith appeared minutes later, the judge tapped the steel table with his fist and declared the Teton County District Court in session.
Marcus Krause stood up from the table. “I wish to file my motion to set aside this rather interesting, if not ill-advised, restraining order.” He handed the judge a thick sheaf of legal-size papers.
The judge turned to the parties before him. “The issue here is whether the note signed by the Huffsmiths to the bank was an instrument of fraud. That will require a full evidentiary hearing. Moreover, because an important public interest is involved, I will order this matter continued until we can hold it in the courthouse, where the public can attend.” The judge smiled at Krause and his lawyer. “A public airing is your client’s absolute right, Mr. Krause. I must overrule your motion.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Krause said.
“The Huffsmiths contend your clients—the bank and Mr. Abberly—slicked them, as it were, into signing a note Abberly knew they couldn’t pay, that Abberly told the Huffsmiths the terms of the note were only to satisfy the examiners, and that the Huffsmiths could pay what they’d always paid on the note, which was half the amount that the note provided.
“Then after some months, the bank began its foreclosure proceedings. If this is true, it appears to be a scheme by the bank to obtain the Huffsmith property. The Huffsmiths’ child is suffering from leukemia. They had no choice but to agree to the bank’s terms. If their allegations are true, Mr. Krause, does that sound like fraud?”
“May I confer with my client?” Krause asked. He led Abberly to the far end of the room. In a few minutes, they returned.
“We would like to settle this matter with the Huffsmiths if possible and save them the expense of a public hearing. We offer the Huffsmiths a cancellation of their indebtedness to the bank to settle this matter, which will free the Huffsmiths of debt but provide us with the property.”
“We don’t want to sell our home,” Deputy Huffsmith said.
“In that event, we’ll have to air this matter in a public hearing,” the judge said.
“I don’t think a public hearing will be necessary,” Abberly said. “Surely we can find some way to satisfy the Huffsmiths. We have nothing but the deepest sympathy for them and the plight of their son. But we’ve already entered into a contract with the Henderson Excavating Company to take down the house and to begin the leveling and paving of the lot.”
“We can still pay a hundred a month, just like Mr. Abberly said we could,” Huffsmith offered.
“Well, if you folks can’t agree,” the judge said, “I have no alternative bu
t to hold a public hearing and resolve the matter myself.”
“In that case, Your Honor,” Krause said, “I must ask you to step down from this case.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Krause, “the judge replied, “but once you’ve filed a substantial motion before the court, and it’s been ruled on, you’ve waived your right to another judge.” The judge held up Krause’s motion to set aside the judge’s restraining order, which the judge had earlier overruled.
Krause and Abberly conferred again at the far end of the dayroom. On their return, Abberly produced the Huffsmiths’ original note from his briefcase. The banker struck out two hundred dollars a month and in its place wrote one hundred dollars and initialed the change on the note.
“That should settle it,” Abberly said.
“Not quite,” the judge said. ‘It appears that there may have been fraud at the inception here. I’m wondering if, before I accept your settlement, it wouldn’t be wise for the bank to show its goodwill toward the Huffsmiths by establishing a charitable fund for their son’s medical care and treatment. I was thinking the bank might wish to seed the fund with about twenty-five thousand dollars and go public with the bank’s generous example, asking the community to respond, as well. Nothing better for good banking business than public esteem and goodwill.”
Again Krause and Abberly adjourned to the far end of the room, from which were heard the sounds of men in pain. Shortly, however, the banker and his lawyer returned.
“Done,” Krause said. “We are only too pleased and honored to originate this public service that so exemplifies the benevolent heart of this bank.” He bowed to the judge. “However, as you must appreciate, things must proceed in an orderly fashion.”
“Yes, of course,” the judge said. “Report to me in thirty days. Thank you, gentlemen,” the judge said. “I congratulate you on your just and wise decision based on the munificent decision of the bank.” He put on his most inscrutable judicial look. “I will enter an order forthwith permanently enjoining this foreclosure. And, of course, you will call off your demolition crew.”
