by Sean Desmond
Donna sensed it too and was struggling not to be timid. She was young, no more than thirty, but seemed a bit swollen, moonfaced, as she scratched olive skin at the elbow. She couldn’t bring herself to look up. “What if he wanted to be with that girl and not his wife? What if Mrs. Raleigh threatened to reveal—”
“Well, miss, I tell you what, the road to confusion is lined with what-ifs.” Ferris made a damping-down motion with his hands like he was trying to get a golf shot to lay up. “As Judge Sam told us, we have to deliberate on the evidence, not the morality. Let’s stick to what we know for sure.”
Another man confident and certain—there’s something we all know for sure! Anne glanced at the sweep of the institutional clock. Friday morning, coming up on eleven; I still have time to work on these people. The closing arguments and conflicts on the court calendar had drawn out the last week of the trial. For the defense, Whiteside had stuck to the story of a fallen preacher thrown by temptation into a compromising situation. Blackburn appealed with pictures of Peggy Raleigh lying in Presbyterian. Barely breathing, Anne recalled, fed through a tube, forced to wear a diaper, walled off, muted, the bruises to her neck still visible weeks, months, after her attack.
“So what do we know?” Ferris counseled. “Margaret Raleigh was strangled in her garage.”
“Maybe,” Anne chirped.
“Excuse me?”
Anne scrounged for a Life Saver from her purse. “If we’re sticking to what we know for sure, there’s nothing in the evidence to suggest that he couldn’t have come into the house first, strangled her in the kitchen, and then moved the body to the garage.”
“But there was no evidence that he did that either.” The dentist’s mouth was somewhere between a smile and a snarl.
“You’re absolutely right.” Anne looked down. The next color on the Life Saver roll was green. Bleh. She suddenly felt the urge to smoke. “We don’t know. Except in the 911 call he says he came into the house.”
“Well that’s where the phone is.”
“Right, but he doesn’t locate her body. It’s possible he could have attacked her anywhere and then cleaned up the house and the garage. I guess it doesn’t really matter. If we come to the conclusion that he strangled her, then—”
“I don’t think we know if any of that is true.”
“Right, that’s my point. We don’t know.” Anne settled for the lime candy and lodged it against her gum. I have to start making an actual case here. “So what part of Standing Raleigh’s story is true? The part where he’s lying in messages to his wife? Or the part where he’s creating alibis and getting caught in his lies?”
“Completely agree.” Dr. Ferris feigned like he was listening and not annoyed at Anne’s derailing theories. “But let’s settle what the law requires.”
Anne realized she had to back off or she’d lose the ground she’d gained. Bide your time. Don’t be too pushy. Or too advocating. This isn’t a PTA meeting in the Bronx.
“Okay. So starting that evening. He gets home around six thirty. He sees Peggy.”
“Then he goes and visits her . . .”
Tamara Robbins, number nine. Anne got the distinct impression that Tamara wanted a count for adultery for Standing Raleigh. Anne studied the women at the table—four of whom had wedding rings. The cheating counts for something.
Ferris’s hand and smile went up. Again with the golf etiquette. “Before we get there, he sees his wife and children. And Peggy is trying to loosen the latch on the garage door.”
“Correct.” Mustache and mullet, Jim Keller, number two, nodded. He wanted things to hurry along and Anne figured he had his mind made up already. “Which would explain her coming out later—”
“And why there are no fingerprints,” Anne interrupted. “Remember we only have his testimony claiming she was soaping up the latch.”
“Mrs. Malone, I appreciate—”
“Right, we don’t know,” Pilar Golondrina, number twelve, echoed.
“It’s convenient, that’s all.” Anne cracked down on the Life Saver with her molar. I’m close. If I can get these women to dare with me . . .
Ferris ignored them. “So after an hour he leaves and goes to Miss Goodfellow’s apartment.”
Anne stopped short of rolling her eyes. None of this is in dispute.
“Can I ask the room?” It was Dale Caruthers, number five, a bank manager from the Park Cities wearing a blue Valentino shirt with white cuffs. “Did y’all think she was covering his tracks?”
Anne wanted to blurt out how that didn’t matter, but the question felt like bait. He was trying to agitate the women on the jury.
“This ain’t about Miss Lucy.” Carla Mirlo, number ten. She had the tired, saturnine frown of an older housekeeper. “It’s about him and his lies.”
“I felt like she was protecting him somehow,” Mary Crane, number three—retiree, busybody—warbled.
“Like she was in love with him and she couldn’t let it go?” Caruthers asked, egging her on.
Honestly—Anne threw a hand at her temple—the mistress did it? That’s your theory? It’s a misdirection. Anne had the women on this, so she didn’t say anything. Let Caruthers hang Raleigh on implausible love-triangle theories.
The foreman dentist conceded the point. “I suspect there’s more to that story.”
Anne’s eyes darted around the table. Those two, Ferris and Caruthers, are in cahoots.
“Let’s keep retracing Raleigh’s steps and see if we can all agree—”
But Anne didn’t have the patience. “The important window is eight fifty-three to eleven forty-three.” She pulled out her notebook. She had written out the timeline.
“Well, before we—”
“That’s from the receipt at the Texaco to the 911 call,” Anne interrupted. “So even if you believe the note he left for the librarian at ten thirty—”
“Hang on—”
“Even if that wasn’t planted later as an alibi, Raleigh still has over an hour to commit the crime.”
Caruthers shook his head. “But he was at Lucy’s house.”
“According to him, not her.” They are going out of their way to believe him. Jesus, these men. “There’s no evidence of that. We don’t know where he is for close to three hours.”
“That’s not his obligation to prove.” Ferris was not smiling anymore. “The burden of proof—”
“Think about all that is going on here.” Anne started flipping through her steno pad. “The phony death threats, trouble with his mistress, drinking throughout that night, the phone calls to the house citing the wrong time without a watch, the scrubbed-clean crime scene, his remoteness when the paramedics arrive, the guilt riddling his suicide note, which is practically a confession. And then he broke down on the witness stand because he can’t bear it.”
“That’s all well and good. But circumstantial . . .”
Anne kept driving hard. “What more circumstances do you need before you know?”
“How do you think he did it?” Tamara Robbins asked. She was in Anne’s corner.
“I think he went into the house around eleven p.m. He turns off the alarm. She hears him come in and confronts him about the affair. Maybe threatens to call him out in front of his congregation. He strangles her in the kitchen. Drags her to the garage. Cleans up any signs of their struggle. Stages it so that it looks like he’s just come home, lifts the garage door, wipes his prints from the handle, backs the car down the driveway, and then he realizes something—”
“Listen, Mizz Malone, your theories . . .” Jim Keller leaned back, chuckling. The tone drove Anne batshit. Goddamn good ole boy.
“She’s not dead. Still breathing. And he leaves her there, waiting for her to die.”
“Good Lord . . . ,” Carla Mirlo whispered.
Ferris tried to take back the wheel.
“Mrs. Malone, why don’t we settle down for one minute . . .”
This goddamn eejit dentist is going to split the room. “Fine, but can I ask a question? Since this trial started, how often has Dr. Raleigh gone to visit his wife in the hospital?”
Caruthers shrugged. “I don’t think he testified to it.”
“If you were betting on it, how often? Once a week? Once a month?” Anne knew the answer from reading the papers. Not supposed to bring that in, but who else is going to speak for Peggy Raleigh?
“Maybe they won’t let him see her.”
“Possible.” They give the reverend every benefit of the doubt while his wife has the bruises from his hands on her throat. “But if he didn’t do it, if his conscience is clear, wouldn’t he be taking care of her, praying for her recovery? Even if he cheated on her, wouldn’t he be compelled to be at her side?”
Ferris and Caruthers shared a quick look. Keller stared up at the ceiling tiles.
“We don’t know that, and I can’t believe—”
“I mean, what can you believe? His tears on the witness stand? Who are they for? Peggy? Himself?” Anne flipped her notebook closed. “You know what we do know? That Peggy was strangled so hard it broke her vocal cords. She will never speak to her children again. That I know.”
Helen Klais, number eleven, a hummingbird of a North Dallas housewife, spoke for the first time. “Are we allowed to vote? I think we should see where we are as a group.”
They took a ballot on the first count of attempted manslaughter. Seven guilty, five against conviction. Split, but the women had heard what Anne had to say.
* * *
The old auditorium at Jesuit was a sunken canyon of moldy red seats cascading down to a long gray concrete proscenium. Below the truss of lights and before the immediate tumble into the shadows of the audience, Mr. Oglesby had assembled six tables and chairs in a U.
That Friday afternoon, the sophomores acting as heads of state in the Game sat at their assigned places. Dan Malone was perched on the far side of stage left, catty-corner to the Tribunal of Judges—Mr. Oglesby; Mr. Taliaferro, the Jesuit debate coach; and Father Dallanach, the principal. In the void of red seats behind them sat the Vox Populi, the rest of the honors English class. Their vote counted double, as a check and balance against the tribunal, unless, as Oglesby warned them, they acted like idiots and he had to overrule them.
The Game—and the claim to the all-powerful Blaireric—was down to the two final presentations with no clear favorite. Representing the monarchy, Rick had used his thespian skills shrewdly, pretending to be a bonny prince who promised that House Dowlearn would, by royal decree, offer shares in the Blaireric Trading Company to all in his realm. But when it came to why Prince Richard needed divine right to do this, Camelot didn’t quite carry the day.
Archbishop Rob McGhee, representing the theocratic state of Salem, gave a C. S. Lewis–inspired homily on the intentions of Our Creator, the voice and spark of human conscience, and declared that the moral good required the Blaireric be treated as a blessing. Even Father Dallanach, who may have nipped into the Cutty Sark at lunchtime, looked lost in these spiritual exercises.
Teddy Boudreaux gave an on-the-nose presentation about how the best and brightest in his meritocracy would harness the power and promise of the Blaireric plant but was tripped up by Mr. Taliaferro’s utilitarian criticisms about the useful and the good. Wasn’t it obvious that whoever had the Blaireric would maximize their own power? Which was a criticism that toppled Mark Flanagan as well, who gamely argued that every society’s resting point was the many serving the few, and that oligarchy was really what all the others pretended not to be. The argument scored with the judges but sailed past the Populi, who frankly found it fun to root against Flanagan as he pounded his fist on the table in true strongman fashion.
So the Blaireric was very much up for grabs when Oglesby nodded at Steve O’Donnell to make the case for communism.
“My brothers . . .” Placing a Che beret with a red star glued to it on his head, Sticky arose from his seat. “Don’t be fooled! The Blaireric is not real!”
Oglesby sensed hijinks. “Mr. O’Donnell . . .”
“Judges of the tribunal, my fellow comrades of the tenth grade, don’t listen to our teacher. Mr. Oglesby works for the capitalist pigs who built this school to enslave you with their materialistic notions!”
Mr. Taliaferro broke first and started to laugh. And so did Dan and the rest of the sophomores. Sticky reached under his table and pulled a purple caladium out of a Wolfe Nurseries shopping bag.
“Behold the Blaireric. The story of its power, that it will cure all, is a myth.”
Father Dallanach, not quite getting any of this, gave Mr. Oglesby a puzzled look. Is the boy soft in the head? Of course it isn’t real . . .
“The Blaireric holds no such magic powers. It’s a fantasy used by the ruling class to keep all of us enslaved and shackled to the ship of state. And today, brothers, I will prove it!”
With that, Sticky tore a bright young leaf off the caladium and shoved it in his mouth. As he chewed, he continued his diatribe:
“The Blaireric is a fraud. The Game is rigged. There is no panacea that will make the world better.” Sticky took another caladium leaf and shoved it into his jowl for comic effect. “Could use a little ranch . . .”
Everyone started howling, including an amused-if-drowsy Father Dallanach. Sticky kept chewing.
“But no magic powers, I’m afraid. That’s why the nation of Proleteria should run the world. Because we discovered the truth of the Blaireric and the truth is—” Sticky started to cough. He had taken too much into his mouth. “The truth is unity through strength. Power to the people!”
Sticky pulled his Panasonic boom box out of the Wolfe Nurseries bag—he had the tape queued to the chorus of Billy Bragg’s version of “The Internationale.” He pressed play and raised his fist.
So come, brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on . . .
After a few barking bars, the sophomores stood in solidarity.
“That will be enough, Mr. O’Donnell. Well done.” Mr. Oglesby clapped, and Stick popped the tape while continuing to cough. He then puckered his whole face and emitted a bolus of Blaireric in an exaggerated spit take.
It was a great presentation.
Stick grinned at Dan. Shit. I have to pivot off what this godless socialist has called into question, he realized.
“Good afternoon, I’m President Malone, the leader of Freedonia. And let me begin by complimenting Chairman O’Donnell on exposing some important questions about the Blaireric and the truth about the Game.”
Sticky was still hacking up caladium as Flanagan passed him a Dixie cup of water.
“Gentlemen of the jury, tribunes, I don’t have any proof about the powers of the Blaireric. In fact the Blaireric is not what the Game is about. And in that regard Comrade O’Donnell is correct—the Blaireric is a red herring.”
Dan smiled at Sticky, whose eyes were watering, his face flushed.
“Even if the Blaireric were real, we are still human. Even if everything about the Blaireric made life perfect, we are still imperfect. Like the Blaireric, people have a lot of potential good in them, but even the best, most powerful system can be subject to misuse and human imperfection.”
Dan sort of had their attention. Sticky was still chugging water and now sat back wheezing, which prompted more chuckles from his classmates.
“Let me review briefly what options we have been presented today. King Richard asks you to trust him—with the notion that a king has a right to power because he is born better. Are not all men created equal? Is that fair?
“Bishop McGhee, like the old raven Moses in Animal Farm, promises the Blaireric like it’s Sugarcandy Mountain. Do you believe him?
“Mr. Boudreaux and his merit
ocrats offer no explanation why they have the right to decide your life for you. Are they more equal than us? And how is that any different than Boss Flanagan’s oligarchs?”
As Dan pressed on, Sticky’s face was turning all the colors of the revolution. He pushed back in his chair, trying to catch his breath.
“Now, Chairman O’Donnell, well, he looks like he’s dying, like part of a failed coup. He wants you to throw off the shackles of the other governments—but then what? The chairman would quickly become Napoléon and yoke us to a new regime of socialistic rules and regulations. The point is that with or without the Blaireric, my fellow leaders promise utopia, but like on Animal Farm, they truly offer dystopia. With or without the Blaireric, none of these governments offer individual rights, opportunity, or true freedom.”
Dan tried to look past the stage lights. Was any of this registering with the tribunal? Was Oglesby nodding in assent or dissent? He wasn’t sure. All he could see and hear was Sticky gasping and gulping for air. This annoyed Dan, who thought it was still a put-on by Stick, but he had to keep rolling.
“And that includes democracy. In Freedonia, like all democratic states, there is injustice, there is unfairness, there is inequality. But . . . and it’s a big but . . .”
And as Dan began his peroration, Steve O’Donnell doubled over and puked into his Wolfe Nurseries bag. The sophomores started bawling with laughter. Then Sticky fell out of his chair onto the hard slab of the stage. His face was purple.
“Oh Lord.” Oglesby bolted from his seat.
* * *
By the time the paramedics arrived, it was well confirmed that caladiums were quite toxic. Sticky had broken out in hives, and his mouth and tongue were covered in canker sores. Father Dallanach huddled with Mr. Oglesby, explaining with an eerie calm how the school’s underlying insurance policy did not cover incidents where the assignment from the faculty encouraged the student to poison himself. The tired, impatient Jesuit then sulked out of the auditorium back to his cave of afternoon scotch. The rest of them stood in a stony, disappointed silence until a freshman cub reporter from The Roundup snuck in the back and, sensing a scoop, started whispering questions to the sophomores. Oglesby glared at Dan, who, as editor, sent the freshman to explore the freedom of the press elsewhere. Sticky was stabilized with an epinephrine shot and loaded onto a gurney.