A snarling cross-examination full of inference and nuance if not outright accusation failed to shake any of the witness's evidence, or to produce anything new. The witness left the box with the warm commendations of the judge on her courage and forthright testimony.
Vera and Ethel went for a restorative drink in a pub opposite the court.
"Well,” said Vera, “that was a performance and no mistake. You didn't half give ‘em what for."
Ethel wiped her forehead. “I will not hide from you, Vera,” she said, “that it was a real ordeal."
"Well, you did really well. Do you have to go back again?"
"I don't think so. Don't know as I shall. Makes me go all peculiar, all that. Brings back some awful memories."
However, Ethel did consent to go back, at the invitation of the prosecution three days later to hear the judge's summing up, which was a masterpiece of impartiality.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “this has been a difficult and painful case for you to listen to. You have heard the evidence; it now falls to you to deliberate and pronounce on the guilt or otherwise of the accused man. You will disregard the behaviour of the prisoner, whose violent outpourings early in this hearing did little to advance his cause, indeed served only to reinforce the prosecution's case that here is a violent and calculating individual eminently capable of committing a heinous and calculated crime.
"You may of course choose to believe the accused when he avers that he is the victim of diabolical machinations and that he is entirely innocent. That is entirely a matter for you. But you will, in coming to your decision, recall the facts as presented in the admirably marshalled testimony of Chief Inspector Wickersley. The search of the effects of the deceased man—who was a writer of short fiction, and who was apparently in the throes of what I believe is called ‘writer's block,’ an affliction that I am told is common in the writing fraternity—revealed, in the correspondence on the deceased's desk, a letter from the accused, on his letterhead, couched in threatening and abusive language, and, recklessly, you will think, signed by him. The most telling passage in this vicious missive, you will remember, ran:
"'You think you're a writer, Fincham, but you're nothing but a miserable failed scribbler. You deserve everything that's coming to you. So watch out, because I am going to get you, you long streak of piss.'
"This note led to the police interviewing the accused and conducting a search of his apartment, where they found a pair of shoes bearing traces of soil that matched exactly the soil in the deceased's garden. And which fit exactly the footprints found in the deceased man's garden. You will recall the evidence of the forensic expert to this effect. You will also recall that the police also found in the course of their search an overcoat, which, when subjected to scientific examination, revealed minute spatter traces of the victim's blood. You will remember the expert testimony in this regard as well. You will also, I am sure, have noted the fact that among the effects of the accused, in his wastepaper basket, in point of fact, was found a crumpled letter from the deceased, in his distinctive handwriting, which addressed the accused in uncomplimentary tones. A significant passage reads, you will recall, 'You are a pretentious, untalented, unprincipled little swine.'
"The police also found, and you may have found this significant, a group of statuettes of African origin. And you will remember that Chief Inspector Wickersley explained to you that the deceased was beaten savagely with a statuette of the same material and origin, and which, in his opinion, belonged to that very group. Evidence to support this assertion came from Dr. Eriq Ebouaney, an acknowledged expert on indigenous African art. The statuette, and I am sure the significance of this did not escape you, bore the fingerprints of the accused man.
"We shall never know with any certainty the cause of the ill-feeling between these two men. The deceased cannot tell us, and as for the accused, he amply demonstrated his contempt for this court and these proceedings by retreating, as you have seen, into a mulish and obstinate silence. From this stubborn mutism I fancy you will draw your own conclusions, if conclusions to be drawn there be.
"But perhaps we may imagine that the two men, both being writers and inhabiting the same neighbourhood, may have frequented the same public tavern. And perhaps, having drink taken, which I am told is common among persons of their calling and kidney, a quarrel broke out, founded on some imagined slight. We shall never know. And whatever be the cause, it has no bearing whatsoever on your deliberations. If quarrel there were, it soon mutated, as learned counsel for the prosecution told you not altogether fancifully, into a fully fledged blood feud, conducted at first through the mails, and finally and fatally translating into physical assault.
"You may believe it significant that the accused can give no account of his actions or whereabouts on the fateful morning, can produce no witnesses to support his assertion that he was elsewhere. All he could find to say was that he slept until midday. You may choose to believe him, you may not. You are at liberty to believe his assertion that he had been drugged, although a medical examination, admittedly thirty-six hours after the event, revealed no trace of drugs.
"As for the accused man's railings and phantasmagoric accusations against another person, it is for you to decide whether these are the last desperate stratagems of a guilty man who seeks to direct the blame elsewhere, or the pleas of an innocent man caught in the snares of a devious and Machiavellian master criminal in the person of an honest widow, a hardworking cleaning lady from North London. (laughter in court) That, too, is entirely a matter for you.
"You may choose to accept the view expressed by learned counsel for the defence that all the evidence in this case is circumstantial, and that there is not a shred of witness testimony to prove that the accused committed this dreadful crime, nor that he had indeed ever met the victim, let alone set foot inside the victim's home. You will, I have no doubt, give this all the consideration that it merits, and you will, I am sure, recall the words of Thoreau, who said, ‘Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.’ The circumstantial evidence in this case is indeed strong, but it is for you to decide whether it was Jolyon Carstairs who indeed watered the milk.
"You will now retire to another place to consider your verdict."
There was scattered applause from the jury which was quickly suppressed by ushers.
The jury returned after seven minutes with a verdict of Guilty and a recommendation for No Clemency.
* * * *
Thus Mrs. Ethel McGonagall Hoskins and her cleaning lady Vera Bumstead, in the kitchen of Mrs. Hoskins's house in the Vale of Health close to Hampstead Heath: for Mrs. Hoskins a cup of decaffeinated coffee with just a drop of milk, and for Mrs. Bumstead, a mug of Darjeeling with three sugars.
"Be sure if you would, Vera,” said Ethel McGonagall Hoskins, “to sweep carefully under the furniture in my study. I find I am beginning to have a bit of the old allergicals recently, and it may be due to house dust, my doctors think."
"I will,” said Vera, who was starting to have enough of all this. Doctors yet. It had been very kind of Ethel to think of her old friend and to engage her as cleaning lady following the purchase of her house funded by the publication of Two Write!, her first crime novel (Robert Hale £14.95; Berkley $24.95: “A stunning debut"—Kirkus Reviews; “Packed with comic criminal insights"—PW; “Ms. Hoskins springs fully fledged onto the crime scene with a laugh-a-minute murder mystery that combines, curiously but successfully, a crystalline literary style with some hilariously robust reportage from the lower depths. Her stammering detective is a joy"—Sunday Times), but enough was enough. Ethel had got well above her station.
Vera watched Ethel as she marched out of the gate and off in the direction of the Heath, where it was her habit to take a long walk in the mornings, to get the old creative juices flowing, as she had told Vera. Vera had her own thoughts about this but kept her thoughts to herself. You don't ask questions you don't want to know
the answers to, she had told herself more than once, but there were still things about Ethel that nagged away at her.
All right, admit that she wrote a book. After the trial both of them had been out of a job, naturally, since one of their blokes was in the nick, the other was in the hereafter. Vera had quickly found more work through the Golden Mop, but Ethel had quite simply vanished off the face of the earth for six months and had then resurfaced with a book written, an agent, a publisher, interviews on Woman's Hour and everything.
Nothing against Ethel, of course, more power to her, but where did she get her ideas? She'd always said she wanted to be a writer, but you don't get to be something just by wanting to. What was more, Vera knew she was working on a new book. She'd gone into the study when Ethel was working, and Ethel had, as quick as a flash, shoved away a big blue folder, which stirred some sort of muddy memory for Vera, into the top drawer almost as though she had something to hide.
Ethel normally took two hours to get her juices flowing, so Vera had plenty of time. She went into the study and looked at the desk. Quite handy, really, that one of the things she'd remembered from Two Write! was a minute description of how to pick a lock.
She took two hairpins from her hair and knelt down at the desk, repeating to herself the instructions that Ethel had given in Two Write!
She was taking great care not to scratch the lock so as not to leave traces of her incursion.
"But,” she muttered to herself, manipulating the hair grips, “what's the harm in looking? I mean, even if she does find out, what's she going to do? Kill me?"
She had opened the drawer, pulled out the thick blue folder, and opened it, and was staring open-mouthed at the pages of all-too-familiar handwriting, her mind, if not racing, then at least moving along at a smart clip, when a draught riffled the pages and the shadow fell slowly across her.
Copyright © 2006 Neil Schofield
[Back to Table of Contents]
THE BOOK OF TRUTH by Nancy Pickard
Nancy Pickard brings her series character Marie Lightfoot, a writer of true crime, to EQMM this month. The first of Lightfoot's three book-length cases, The Whole Truth, earned a nomination for the Edgar, and the subsequent novels, Ring of Truth and The Truth Hurts, were published to rave reviews. Ms. Pickard's latest novel, The Virgin of Small Plains (Ballantine), is a non-series book set in her home state of Kansas.
"Is this really Marie Lightfoot?"
"It is.” I smiled down at a copy of my new book that just happened to be in my lap when I picked up the phone. The author's photo on the back sure enough did look like me. “This is Marie."
"You answer your own phone?"
It was a friendly, incredulous, older male voice.
"I do.” I was in a good mood. The book had entered the New York Times bestseller list at number three, up two places from my last one. Even better, I wasn't blocked on my current manuscript. Another couple of uninterrupted months and I might even make the deadline. Teasing my caller, whoever he was, I said, “I also sweep my own floors, eat my own food, and I even write my own books. Who's this?"
"Amazing. I'd have thought—oh, never mind, you don't want to hear all that. Ms. Lightfoot, my name is Luis Cannistre. I am one year away from retiring from the Bismarck, North Dakota, Police Department and there is a case I need to see solved before I leave here."
"All right,” I said, meaning only, okay, I'm listening. Bismarck. That was a new one. For that matter, so was North Dakota. I had written about criminal cases in many different locales, including my own hometown of Bahia Beach, Florida, but I had never pursued a case as far north as he was located. Already slightly intrigued by the setting, if nothing else, I said, “What's the case?"
"Triple murder, although not all at once. Three young women. Abducted and killed over a period of three weeks, twelve years ago."
Once he got over his surprise about me, he was succinct.
"I'm guessing you have a prime suspect?” I said, knowing that most unsolved murders do have favorite suspects, albeit without enough evidence to prosecute them.
"Oh, we've got a suspect, all right,” he said, in a wry tone.
"Where is he now?"
"He's in prison, Ms. Lightfoot. He's serving a life term for killing one of them."
"Then what's the problem? Do you think this guy was wrongly convicted, Mr. Cannistre? Or is it Detective?"
"Detective.” He had given his name the Spanish pronunciation. Loueese Cahneestray, with a trilled r. As a native of south Florida, my tongue wrapped around it easily. Or maybe it was just that I had drunk enough Cuban coffee in my time that I had finally assimilated the language along with the café con leche. “No, we've got the right man,” he said.
"Okay, well, if you've already got him, then what—"
"We've got him. We don't have them."
"Them?"
"The victims.” He cleared his throat and told me more. “There was enough evidence to convict him without the bodies, including blood in his car and ATM and grocery-store video of him with one of the victims after she disappeared. But twelve years later and the son of a bitch—pardon my language—still won't say where he put any of them. The families suffer, Ms. Lightfoot. All these years and all they want to do is bury their loved ones. And I can't stand to retire without knowing they can."
"I take it these were your cases."
"Yes, ma'am, they were. Still are, the way I feel about them."
"And I come into this how, Detective?"
"He's a big fan of yours."
"Who?"
"Darren Betch. The man who killed them. He is pretty much obsessed with any true-crime book, but he is a fanatic for yours."
I wasn't surprised. I'm a big hit in prison libraries. For those guys it's akin to reading trade journals. I'm like Business Week for serial killers. They can read about the masters of their trade. I work very hard, however, at not giving them ideas about how to do it better, and to make the lawmen the heroes.
"If Darren could get you to write his story it would be like getting on the cover of Time magazine to him. He'd think he was ‘da man’ of the year."
"I don't write to glorify these guys,” I said, a shade defensively.
"But it does, in their minds."
I didn't say anything.
"If you saw the fan mail he gets,” Cannistre said, “the proposals of marriage—"
"Yeah, well, some women are nuts."
"Imagine how much more nuts they'll be if he's the hero of one of your books—"
"Not hero,” I said firmly. “Villain. Bad guy. Killer. Not hero."
"Ms. Lightfoot, I'm not trying to offend you. Hell, I love your books, myself. We've got off on the wrong track here and it's my fault. Let me back up and tell you why I'm really calling."
Again, I kept silent. He had dug a hole for himself with me.
While I waited to see if he could recover ground, I picked up half of the lobster-salad sandwich that sat on a plate on my desk, and nibbled at it. He had interrupted my lunch, which suddenly seemed like another strike against him even though I wasn't all that hungry.
"The thing is,” he said, “twelve years have gone by and it's finally sinking in with Darren that he's never going anywhere. He spends most of his time reading true crime. He particularly loves your books, and he's an arrogant SOB who gets off on publicity, and I think if you wrote a book about him he might tell you where the bodies are buried."
I inhaled sharply—nearly choking myself on the bite of sandwich I had been swallowing when he said that. “You're not serious,” I said when I could talk again. “You really think that's possible?"
"I think it's worth a try and I'd try anything to help these families. Wouldn't you?"
"Detective, of course I'd like to help the families, but do you know what you're asking? You're asking me to write a book about this guy. Do you think I just whip those out over a spare weekend? It can take me a couple of years to write one of my books, a year to research
and another year to write and rewrite. Not to mention that I'm already in the middle of one. I'd like to help, I really would, but I don't think you know what you're asking."
"It's a fascinating story. It would make a great book, Ms. Lightfoot."
"Maybe, but it's not my book. I have my own work I'm doing."
"Maybe you wouldn't have to write anything."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, maybe you could just make him think you are going to."
I went silent again. I had no idea if such a thing could work, but the idea made it harder to turn him down completely.
"Like I told you,” he said persuasively, “the families just want to know."
Damn the man. How could I go back to my other book when guilt was now calling my name? Grudgingly, I said, “I guess we could talk about it, at least."
"Great! Any chance you can come here?"
"You don't want much, do you?” I said, and he laughed a little.
I dumped the book off my lap and sighed. “All right, Detective Cannistre. Where? When?"
* * * *
Luis Cannistre picked me up at the Bismarck Airport five days later.
He turned out to be a tall, lanky man in his late forties. He wore a white dress shirt, bolo tie, black suit, and hiking boots. A pungent scent of cigar smoke lingered in his car, but I didn't mind: Being from so close to Miami, I'm nearly as accustomed to cigar smoke as I am to café con leche. He wore his metal-gray hair in a flattop. It had been a long time since I'd seen a grown man in a flattop, but it suited him. Me, I was dressed for business and prison: black slacks, black shirt, short black jacket. No bolo tie. Also no pockets that would need to be emptied, no underwire bra to set off the metal detectors, and no jewelry to take off.
EQMM, Sep-Oct 2006 Page 13