Court of Lies

by Gerry Spence

“What are you talking about?” Coker asked in surprise.

  “Mr. Sewell come to me about a week after the killing, and before he charged Mrs. Adams, and asked me for the journal.”

  “And you gave it to him?”

  “Yes. He signed a receipt for it.” Huffsmith reached into his folder and extracted a paper. “Here it is,” he said, holding up the paper.

  “Have you seen the journal since?”

  “No. I asked him for it before I come to court today.”

  “What did he say?”

  Sewell objected. “This is irrelevant and hearsay.”

  Judge Little: “Overruled.”

  “I must object, Your Honor,” Sewell continued. He was rushing to the bench. “This is totally irrelevant and is taking us astray.”

  “You may answer the question, Deputy Huffsmith,” the judge ruled. “What did Mr. Sewell say when you asked him for the journal?”

  “He said he was in charge of the evidence now and to mind my own goddamned business. Them was his exact words.” Huffsmith looked sheepishly at Sewell, as if he’d betrayed a family secret.

  Sewell moved silently back to his table and sat down.

  “Mr. Sewell,” the judge said in a low, nearly inaudible voice, “during the noon recess, will you kindly produce the journal so that we may dispose of this matter?”

  “Yes, of course,” Sewell said, as if he were speaking to no one.

  “I call your attention to Defense Exhibits B and C. What are these, Deputy Huffsmith?” Coker asked.

  “These here are photographs I took at the den, where I found the body.”

  “Can you see the floor in these photographs?”

  “Yes.”

  “I call your attention to State’s Exhibit nine. You see that State’s Exhibit nine is a photograph of the same area as is shown in your photos, Defense Exhibits B and C. Do you discern a difference in what is shown here?”

  “The photographs speak for themselves,” Sewell objected.

  “You may continue,” the judge ruled.

  “Yes. There are bloody-looking drag marks in State’s Exhibit nine. There isn’t any blood on the floor in the pictures I took, and I was the first there.”

  “Where was the body of Horace Adams the Third when you took these photographs of the floor?”

  “He was at the desk, where I found him. He hadn’t been moved yet.”

  “I see.” Coker offered Exhibits B and C into evidence and, with the court’s permission, showed them, along with State’s Exhibit 9, to the jury.

  “So do you have any idea how these bloody drag marks got on the floor?”

  “Yes, sir. I helped remove the body. We couldn’t get the gurney behind the desk, so Sheriff Lowe and I dragged him up to the gurney.”

  “Was Mr. Sewell present when the body was removed?”

  “Yes, he was. He seen it all.” Huffsmith looked at Sewell out of the corner of his eye.

  “So where did this so-called suicide note come from?”

  “You’ll have to ask Mr. Sewell,” Deputy Huffsmith said. “I wouldn’t have no idea.”

  CHAPTER 46

  AFTER THE NOON recess, Haskins Sewell approached Judge Little’s chambers with quick, menacing steps. He handed Horace’s journal over to the judge.

  The judge thumbed through the pages, pausing to read here and there. Finally, he handed the journal to Coker. Coker remained intent on the pages for more than half an hour. Sewell made three trips to the men’s room and twice attempted to engage Judge Little in conversation, although unsuccessfully. At last, Coker looked up with a vague smile on his face. “I think there can be little doubt that this journal is relevant.”

  “I agree,” Judge Little said. “I’m going to admit it into evidence.”

  Turning around, Sewell stamped out of the judge’s chambers.

  When the trial resumed, Coker handed the journal to Deputy Huffsmith. “Deputy Huffsmith, is Defense Exhibit D, this journal, the one shown in your photographs?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Coker turned to the jury and began to read aloud to the jurors from the journal:

  December 25

  I am losing my mind. I couldn’t remember what we were doing. I asked Lillian and she said, It’s Christmas, Horace. We are opening our packages.

  January 1

  We had a party here. I couldn’t remember the people. I asked Lillian who they were and she told me their names. I have already forgotten. I am losing my mind, like my father did. Damn his genes. I am too young for this.

  January 13

  I have periods when I can remember, and at times I can’t remember at all. I cried with Lillian. She told me how much she loved me. I told her all I wanted was her love. I made her promise that she would never tell anyone how I was losing my mind. She promised, and she is one to keep promises.

  January 25

  I am told I may have little clearheaded time remaining. I am like my father was. I have clear days, when I understand all that is happening. By my will I have left fifty million dollars to my darling, Lillian.

  I do not want her to return to work after my death. We have agreed to organize and operate a charity—the Fate Fighters for homeless women. I want her to manage it. We have already hired an executive director, but she will need the creative skill and passion of Lillian to make it successful.

  I have provided that the balance of my estate will go to our Fate Fighters charity. I do not want to die without having done something worthy with my life and my assets. And it all began with my darling, Lillian. It was her idea.

  January 27

  My periods of clearness are growing farther apart. Tina does not understand what is happening to me. She thinks I am dangerous. I have tried to be kind to her, but she is repelled by me. I will never be the burden to Lillian that my father was to me. I will never do that to my darling.

  Coker turned back to the witness, Huffsmith. “Five days after the last entry I just read to the jurors, you found him dead in his den?”

  “Yes,” Huffsmith said.

  “I have no further questions,” Coker said, and returned to his table.

  “Well, I have some questions,” Sewell said, hurrying to the podium. “Deputy, you claim you never saw the suicide note before you took the stand today?”

  “That there is correct, sir.”

  “That’s a lie, isn’t it? Or did you just forget that you gave me that suicide note along with his journal?”

  “No. I never seen no note.”

  “And you had me sign a receipt for the journal, but apparently you overlooked including the note in the receipt you had me sign, isn’t that true?”

  “No, sir. There was never no note.” Huffsmith’s voice was on the rise.

  “Hamilton Widdoss, a renowned handwriting expert, says that the note is a forgery and that it was written by Mrs. Adams. Did you know that?”

  “That’s a misstatement of the evidence,” Coker objected. “The jury heard it as well as I. He said his opinion was that it was probably written by Mrs. Adams.”

  “The jury will remember,” the judge said.

  “So how do you explain that?” Sewell demanded.

  “Well, I know one thing. That guy was right. It was a forgery, because there never was no note, and I was the first there. Who forged it, I don’t know.”

  “And about the smears of blood on the floor that you say weren’t there when you arrived? Well, Deputy, I hear you’re a photo buff.”

  “I like to take pictures.”

  “You know that photos can be altered by even a novice.”

  “Yes, but I never done nothing to them photographs.”

  “Of course not,” Sewell said with sweet sarcasm. “I have no further questions.”

  Huffsmith stepped down and started out of the courtroom, when Sewell turned to him and said, “I’m sorry, Deputy, but I do have a couple more questions.” Huffsmith, surprised, stood motionless for a moment. Then he turned back to the witness stand
.

  “Deputy, your home was mortgaged to the bank?”

  “Objection. Relevance,” Coker said.

  “I’ll tie it in,” Sewell said.

  “Proceed, counsel,” the judge ruled.

  “The bank was foreclosing on your property during this trial, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that foreclosure was somehow mysteriously stopped during this trial.”

  “Wasn’t mysterious. Judge Murray stopped it. Had a hearing and the bank fixed it so’s I could pay.”

  “I see,” Sewell said. “I see. Well now, where was that hearing held?”

  “In the jail.”

  “You mean the bank officials came into the jail, and the judge held a hearing in the jail, where the judge was incarcerated as a material witness in this case?”

  “That’s what he done.”

  “You didn’t find that unusual?”

  “Well, I never seen nothing like that before.”

  “And somehow the foreclosure was stopped?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you pay the bank any money to stop it?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “No. Nobody did.”

  “So you have a hearing in the jail, and the bank stops the foreclosure and no one pays anyone anything?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you come into this courtroom and tell this jury that you never saw the suicide note when you were at the scene, and that you didn’t take that note into your possession, and that you didn’t deliver it to me, and that you didn’t include the note in the receipt I signed for you—all of that is your testimony, Deputy?”

  “That there is true. I never seen no note. It wasn’t there.”

  “And then after your foreclosure is mysteriously halted without the payment of money, you produce for the first time these photographs that are supposed to show there were no bloody drag marks across the floor?”

  “Them photographs is accurate.”

  “Now, did you talk to Lillian Adams during this trial?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I will refresh your recollection, Deputy Huffsmith. The jail records here”—he picked up a sheaf of papers—“show that she went to the jail last week and that you let her into the jail.”

  “She come to see the judge.”

  “Aha. She came to see the judge—you mean Judge Murray?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, when she came to see the judge, you, Deputy Huffsmith, had a conversation with her?”

  “Not much. Just let her in. But the judge said he shouldn’t be talking to her, so he never come to the visitors’ room.”

  “Didn’t you talk with Mrs. Adams about your photos at the death scene, and about your foreclosure, and about the suicide note?”

  “No.”

  “You are quite certain of that?”

  “Yes. We never talked about nothing like that.”

  “As a matter of fact, didn’t she mention to you that she might be able to stop the bank from foreclosing on your property?”

  Coker rose. “That’s another of his poisoned questions. I want to know the basis for such a question.”

  “Answer the question, Deputy,” the judge ruled.

  “No. We never talked about that.”

  “You are under oath, Deputy Huffsmith,” Judge Little reminded him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you want to change your testimony in that regard?” Sewell asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Sewell gave Huffsmith a menacing look. “Your choice, Deputy.” He turned to the judge. “I have no further questions of this witness.”

  Coker slowly stood up. He turned to Huffsmith. “Deputy Huffsmith, do you know why the bank stopped its foreclosure?”

  “Yes, sir. Because my boy is sick and the judge made ’em stop.”

  “You mean Judge Murray?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did this have anything to do with Mrs. Adams?”

  “No.”

  “Did she pay you anything or pay anything for you?”

  “No. The bank just changed the note.”

  “Do you know why the bank agreed to change the note?”

  “I figured they—”

  Sewell objected. “This witness is not entitled to speculate on the bank’s reasons.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Little ruled.

  Coker walked back to his table and sat down. Huffsmith stood down from the witness stand and walked out of the courtroom with his head up and his chin out.

  When the door closed behind Huffsmith, Timothy Coker asked for a recess, which Judge Little granted. During the recess, Coker sought Lillian’s release from her jail cell, on Coker’s assurance that she would comport herself properly. Judge Little agreed and authorized her release.

  “How was your night?” Coker asked Lillian. They were sitting at the counsel table in the courtroom. Lillian had tried to “freshen up,” as she put it. She looked worn. Her hair was uncombed and her dress was wrinkled.

  “I couldn’t sleep. All the noise all the time.”

  “Well, that’s over,” Coker said. Suddenly, his eyes grew soft. “Sewell has just about done us in. He’s connecting up a bunch of false dots. And I haven’t the slightest idea what Judge Murray did while he was in jail to get the bank’s foreclosure stopped. Sewell makes it look like you paid off the bank, and Huffsmith suddenly claims there never was a suicide note and comes up with his secret photos that show no blood on the floor. My good Christ!”

  Lillian bit at her upper lip.

  “Even though we’ve prepared for it, I’ve never really planned for you to take the stand, Lillian,” Coker said. “But Sewell is forcing me to put you on. How else can we hope to show the jury that his new conspiracy theory—the bank, Huffsmith, and you—isn’t just more of Sewell’s concocted crap? But when you testify, if the jury gets the idea you’re lying, even a little, you’ll be convicted.”

  Lillian refused to look at Coker.

  “What are you going to say about what happened the night you found your husband dead at his desk?” Coker asked.

  “Timothy, I can only stand to talk about it once. And you want me to tell the truth?”

  “Of course.”

  “You won’t want to hear what I have to say.”

  “In the end, you take charge of everything, don’t you, Lillian? That just may be what does you in.” He got up and left her sitting alone at the counsel table.

  CHAPTER 47

  JUDGE LITTLE INSPECTED the overflowing courtroom crowd and adjusted his bow tie. He turned to Timothy Coker, cleared his throat, and in a crackly, dismissive voice said, “You may call your next witness, counsel.”

  “The defense calls Lillian Adams.”

  In an unsteady stride, Lillian Adams walked toward the witness stand. Her face tendered no expression. When she raised her hand to take the oath, it shook like the hand of an old woman. With both hands, she pulled herself into the witness stand and carefully sat down. She was focused on the folded hands on her lap.

  Coker watched her from behind his thick glasses. The courtroom waited. Finally, Coker presented his first question: “Mrs. Adams, why are you up here? You know you don’t have to testify, and, under the law, if you don’t testify, the jurors will be told by His Honor that they cannot make anything of your silence one way or another.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Do you understand, Mrs. Adams, that you are not required to testify?”

  “I know,” she finally said.

  “There is only one question here, Mrs. Adams. Just one. That question is, Did you kill your husband?”

  “How could I kill him?” she asked in a fading voice. “I loved him. He was kind to me. I felt protected by him and loved by him.”

  Coker waited.

  Then she turned to Sewell. “I am sorry for that man,” she said. “He knows I am innocent.”

  Sewell
was rapidly scribbling notes without removing his eyes from her.

  “You heard me read from your husband’s journal—that he was painfully, fearfully aware of his deteriorating state of mind?” Coker asked.

  “Yes. Horace was so ashamed and terrorized that he was failing like that.”

  “You’ll have to speak up,” Judge Little said. “Some of the jurors can’t hear you.”

  “He cursed his genes,” she said. The jurors leaned forward to hear her. “Early senility ran in his family. He’d watched its horrid onset with his father. He couldn’t bear to witness his own degeneration.”

  “Take your time,” Coker said. “We have all day.”

  After a discomfiting pause, she finally said, “I saw Horace deteriorating. The doctors said he was in the early throes of an advancing and incurable senility.”

  “Objected to as hearsay,” Sewell said without rising from his chair.

  “Overruled,” Judge Little replied.

  “But there were times when suddenly Horace would come alive, as if he’d been off in another world, and he was like his old self again.”

  “I see,” Coker said.

  “He told me he wanted to end it, that he didn’t want me to suffer what he had suffered with his father. I told him that if he loved me, he’d stay with me and let me join with him in fighting it to the end—that it was my right.” She looked down at her hands again.

  “How did his death affect you?”

  She didn’t answer, her eyes still on her hands. “Can you tell us?” Coker urged.

  She finally said, “I saw him there, and the blood…” Her lips began to move in a silent mumble. She started again. “His face was laying…”

  Coker rescued her with another question: “Calling your attention to the night of his death. Do you have a clear recollection of that night?”

  After a long silence, she answered Coker. “Yes. I remember that night. Sylvia Huntley and I went to the drugstore, where we often met. I broke my promise to Horace to keep his deterioration a secret. I had to talk to someone. I swore Sylvia to secrecy and told her about his worsening mental condition. I needed advice.”

  “How did you describe your problem to her?”

  “I told her I wasn’t going to accept what the experts claimed was inevitable—that an early senility like his usually gets worse. I’d heard of a medical center in Salt Lake City that claimed some successes. I made arrangements for him to receive treatment there. I wasn’t willing to give up. We were to leave the next day.”