by John Bloom
On Friday, July 18, Judge Ryan’s court was again convened to hear motions, and this time Don Crowder was sitting at the defense table. He had stayed out of the forefront of the case until then, because he had clashed with Ryan before and didn’t want to hurt Candy’s case with his presence. But now he felt he had to be there, if only to come to Rob’s defense if needed.
When Candy was brought into the courtroom, Don was standing off to one side, talking to Jack Pepper.
“You know, Jack,” he was saying, “you guys ought to feel pretty good. Here you got this big case and all you have to go up against is a guy who’s never tried a criminal case and a young kid.”
“Yeah,” said Pepper, “that’s what everyone we’ve talked to keeps telling us.”
He didn’t smile when he said it.
Because of the formal execution of the gag order that morning, many people were in the courtroom, including Allan Gore, Barbara Green, Dr. Stone, Don McElroy, Chief Abbott, and the usual flock of reporters. So when Rob began his case, arguing for the release of Candy, he was performing for a sizable audience.
Since one of the matters was a motion to reduce Candy’s bond, Pat Montgomery took the stand first to testify about the family’s income and financial plight. It was grim: he was down to his last $3,000. As soon as Pat had finished, Ryan snapped at Rob over a minor procedural point, and Don couldn’t refrain from getting involved. Since Ryan was refusing to ask Rob’s question on the grounds that to do so would constitute an “ex parte” procedure, Don accused the judge of having a double standard.
“Evidently, you conducted an ex parte hearing … [last week] after the gag rule matter had been settled and decided by you, then in that event you said, ‘We have one other matter that needs to be taken up at this point.’ Then the sheriff, without notice, without any proper presentation or without due process or without any ability to represent our client and any meaningful hearing whatsoever, you took the testimony from the sheriff and made your decision at that time that this woman should go back to jail after you had accepted the bond.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ryan, “we have a record on that.”
“Well, there’ll be another one made, too, Your Honor. But the whole point is, there was no proper notice at that time, no preparation. Evidently, you obviously had talked to the sheriff and the District Attorney’s office …”
“Now, sir,” Ryan interrupted, “don’t anticipate things for the benefit of the news media in this courtroom.”
“Your Honor, I’m not anticipating anything for the benefit of the news.”
“You will testify and argue as to what you know has occurred.”
“Well, let me ask you this,” said Don, getting angrier. “How could you know that another matter had to be taken up with the sheriff?”
“This Court is not on trial, sir. If that’s all you have to say, then sit down.”
“You asked me to explain why I believed ex parte conversations, Your Honor—”
“I told you to sit down, didn’t I, sir?”
Don sat down. Shortly thereafter, Rob called Sheriff Burton to the stand. The sheriff went over the county bonding procedures, repeated his testimony of the prior week, and said the bondsman, Hendricks, wasn’t worth enough to cover Candy’s bond. Yet Rob quickly established that the sheriff had arrived at his estimates by examining the tax rolls, which always resulted in a lower valuation than an appraiser would.
“What made you use as a basis the tax rolls, rather than fair market value?” asked Rob.
“If Mr. Hendricks would have been willing to have an appraiser give me a correct appraisal on it,” said Burton, “I’d have been glad to take it. That was not afforded to me. The tax rolls was the only means I had.”
“Did you ask Mr. Hendricks for that?”
“I don’t know whether I did or not. I didn’t, no.”
“Well, who did?”
“I don’t know that it was done.”
“Well, it wasn’t done, was it?”
“I don’t care whether—”
“It wasn’t done, was it?”
“I don’t know.”
Ryan interrupted. “Let’s not argue with the witness.”
“But the truth of the matter is,” continued the sheriff, “I don’t care whether Mr. Hendricks writes bonds or not.”
The remark made Don furious, and he jumped in impetuously.
“The truth of the matter is,” he said, rising to his feet, “you simply don’t want Candace Montgomery out on bond. That’s the truth of the matter, isn’t it?”
“That’s not the truth of the matter, no, sir.”
Don had literally wrenched the cross-examination out of Rob’s hands, and he didn’t stop. With short, angry questions, he got Burton to admit that the previous Friday marked the first time one of Hendricks’ bonds had not been accepted by the county, and that Burton did have a sworn affidavit stating the fair market value of Hendricks’ property.
“How long have you been determining sufficiency of property values according to the county records?” Don asked.
“I don’t understand.”
“Since last week?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“How long have you used the practice of using to value the property, the county tax rolls? Just this past week?”
“On this case here?” asked Burton.
“No, on all cases.”
“Last week,” admitted Burton.
“That’s all we have, Your Honor.”
On re-direct examination, Don continued the barrage, zeroing in on the fact that it had been Ryan, and not the DA’s office, that had requested the examination of Hendricks’ affidavit in the first place.
“How many times in the past since you’ve been sheriff has any judge in this county ever requested that before?”
“Requested a security?”
“Requested the same procedures that went on in this instance?”
Burton hesitated before answering.
“It’s never happened,” said Don.
“It’s not at all uncommon,” said the sheriff, “for the courts to call my office and ask me to come over, for whatever reason.”
“How many times, Sheriff, in the past, since you’ve been sheriff, has any judge in this county ever requested such information? The answer is none, isn’t it?”
“Well, if you know the answer, why do you ask the question?”
“Because I can’t get it out of you, sir. Is the answer none?”
“The answer is none.”
“We have nothing else.”
The lawyers wrangled among themselves for the better part of three hours, with Don and the judge doing most of the talking. At the end of that time Ryan reviewed the affidavit submitted by Hendricks, asked him a few questions about his property, and then, much to everyone’s surprise, declared his net value sufficient.
After exactly a week in jail, Candy was free.
“And y’all better listen to me,” said Ryan before leaving the bench. “I don’t want to hear or see or read anything in the media that has Don Crowder’s name to it, Udashen’s name to it, Tom O’Connell’s, Jack Pepper, anyone involved in the prosecution of this case, and if I read it one more time, I’m going to put you in jail and then you’re going to try your lawsuit from the jail. I’ll bring you over here in the morning and take you back for lunch. The show’s over, gentlemen, and if you want to test me, I invite it.”
Don hadn’t realized until that moment just how much he disliked Ryan.
“Candy,” he said to her as soon as it was over, “I made a decision today. I’m gonna be your lawyer.”
“Good,” she said. She had been as impressed as anyone else by the way he chewed up the sheriff.
“I’ve never tried a criminal case in my life, but I believe in this one too much not to win it.”
“That’s the way I wanted it anyway, Don. I’d feel like a real criminal if we had to go hire Racehorse Hay
nes or Percy Foreman to pull strings for me.”
On the way home Don stopped off to pick up some bean sprouts, berries, and fruits, the kind of food he intended to eat between then and the actual trial. He changed into his running clothes and ran four miles along the farm-to-market road. He felt better than ever. He was in training again.
Allan Gore had watched Candy’s imprisonment from afar—he even thought of talking to her at one point, but didn’t know how to do it—and followed events through third parties. Allan felt more isolated than ever in the first few weeks after Betty’s death. It seemed that everyone he talked to had some official business: they were policemen or attorneys or reporters or Methodist pastors on missions of mercy. That’s why Allan was so relieved when he picked up the phone one evening and heard the voice of someone who had no duties to perform.
“Allan—Elaine Williams.”
Elaine hadn’t been the Lucas church organist for over two years, but Allan continued to see Elaine and her husband, David, from time to time. She and David had been at the house the Sunday after Betty was killed.
“Allan, I know you have a lot on your mind, but I’ve been thinking about you and I’d like to talk.”
“Sure. What’s on your mind?”
“I’m going out of my mind with loneliness. David has moved out again, and this time I think it’s for good. We’ll be getting another divorce this summer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I don’t have many people to talk to about something like this.”
“You can always talk to me,” said Allan.
They chatted several times over the next week, and then, both feeling the need for a little escapism, they managed some tickets for A Chorus Line at the Dallas Summer Musicals. Allan found himself feeling better when he was with Elaine. He could relax; he could even talk about Betty.
A week after that, Elaine called Allan again. She was home alone, because David was keeping their two sons, and she was starting to go crazy.
“Why don’t you come over here?” said Allan. “Alisa and Bethany are both back home.”
So she drove over and helped Allan fix dinner. Afterwards, they put the kids to bed and then worked on Alisa’s wardrobe for the coming school year. That night Elaine didn’t leave until almost midnight.
The neighbors noticed.
22 Warming Up
The Texas summer of 1980 was the hottest in modern history, three months of unremitting white heat that pressed down on Collin County like a huge woolen blanket. Crops rotted in the field, the earth hardened and cracked, and birds fell out of the trees, dead before they hit the ground. When air conditioning units broke down from overexertion, corporations were forced to send all their employees home, lest they suffocate inside the glass-walled office buildings of Dallas. The Salvation Army started drives to collect window coolers and fans, to be distributed to the poor and the elderly. Still, before the season was out more than a hundred people would die from heat stroke. Parkland Hospital kept two bathtubs loaded with ice at all times, so that emergency patients would have a fighting chance. In mid-June the temperature passed 100 degrees for the first time, and for the next two rainless months it was at least that hot each day, going at one point as high as 117.
There was no escaping the drought, especially for people like Don Crowder who were forced to drive fifty miles a day to or from work. Not willing to risk overheating his El Dorado, Don would remove his suit coat, roll down his windows, and still arrive in Dallas with two damp half moons under his arms. At lunchtime, he would go into the coffee room, strip down to a pair of gym shorts, lace up his sneakers, and start his daily workout. It included fifty quick sit-ups and, if he could stand the midday heat, a mile run through the neighborhood. On the worst days, he would run at dawn, or after the sun had set, but he preferred to do the roadwork at high noon. He wanted to have a beautiful bronze tan by the time of Candy’s trial.
After getting Candy out of jail, Don turned all his attention to what he considered a much more important objective—getting Candy out of Judge Tom Ryan’s court. Don and Rob prepared motions for a change of venue, hoping that with all the pretrial publicity, Ryan would agree that it was impossible to find an impartial jury in Collin County.
“We need to get this changed to somewhere like Galveston or Port Arthur,” Don told Rob. “Some port city where they have killings all the time, and where people understand death. Let’s try to get Galveston, because I wouldn’t mind spending a few weeks there.”
The more important reason for seeking a change of venue, though, was so that Don wouldn’t have to face Ryan again. There was little love lost between the two men, perhaps because they were equally pugnacious and strong-willed. Ryan had the irascible manner common to successful men of advanced years—he was sixty-eight—and he apparently regarded Don as a young hothead with less than total respect for courtroom decorum. Yet Ryan was not always known to stand on ceremony himself. His friends called him iron-fisted. His enemies called him arbitrary and vindictive. Because of the civil cases he had tried in Ryan’s courtroom, Don considered himself one of the enemies. He also knew that Ryan had a long memory.
Judge Ryan was a conservative Democrat, a member of the same North Texas political organization that had sent Sam Rayburn of nearby Bonham to Congress in 1912, kept him there until his death in 1961, backed Lyndon Johnson through his Senate and presidential years, and consistently elected every judge, state legislator, and district attorney that it chose to put on the general election ballot. Like many other members of the county Democratic organization, Ryan was preeminently a self-made man. Born in Ohio, he had come to Texas with the Army and never left. His first career had been as a bus driver. For twenty-eight years he drove for Greyhound and Continental Trailways. Then, around the age of forty, he enrolled at North Texas State University in Denton and, while he was still driving his bus routes, started studying for his undergraduate degree. In 1958 he completed it, and in 1961, on the day of his forty-eighth birthday, he received his North Texas law degree. He set up shop as a criminal defense attorney in Dallas, handling mostly court-appointed rape and murder cases, then joined the Collin County district attorney’s office, where he established a solid record of convictions. He moved to Plano for five years and hung out his shingle again, but then in 1969 he was elected Collin County district attorney. He moved up in 1971, becoming a state judge when a new district was created, and turned over the DA’s office to his erstwhile assistant, Tom O’Connell.
Now, after almost twenty years as a lawyer, Ryan neared retirement; as if someone were orchestrating the proceedings from offstage, it appeared that the biggest trial in his entire career would also be his last. Ryan had intended to retire from the bench at the age of sixty-five, but that plan was spoiled when William Clements won the Texas governorship in 1978, becoming the first Republican to win the state’s highest office since Reconstruction. Ryan knew that if he stepped down, Clements would appoint a Republican to succeed him, so he decided to stick it out a while longer. The attorneys practicing in Ryan’s court weren’t pleased by the reversal of his plans, since it meant he was not only his usual testy self, but angry about having to remain in the courtroom instead of going fishing.
Ryan himself was not blind to the criticism. “I could care less,” he told reporters when they asked. “I don’t care whether attorneys like me. I’m not running a beauty pageant. I’m not running for God. I’m Tom Ryan.”
The secret truth was that Don Crowder was not entirely lacking in admiration for Ryan, though he would never admit it publicly. Ryan had an imposing presence, a barrel-chested physique that could have belonged to a very young man, and a bluff manner not unlike Don’s own. He was the only judge working who could consistently get Don’s goat.
Shortly after Candy’s release from jail, the Montgomerys left for a vacation with Candy’s parents in Georgia. Don agreed it was a good idea, especially since the lawyers would be arguing over change-of-venue motions in t
he meantime and there was nothing for Candy to do until that question was settled. Pat was determined to act like nothing was changed. The family was together again, the kids would be happy in Georgia, and perhaps they could escape the stifling heat for a while.
They loaded up the Rabbit and drove all the way to Vicksburg, Mississippi, the first day. The kids had insisted on bringing along Sayde, their dog, and now they insisted on a motel with a swimming pool. Pat managed to find one with both a pool and a lenient policy regarding pets, and they had time to go swimming before dinner. Candy sat in a poolside chair and watched while Pat taught Ian how to dog-paddle. She seemed withdrawn.
That night she lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, and Pat wondered how he could penetrate her gloom. He hadn’t intended to tell her his secret until the right moment, but now he felt he had to.
“Candy,” he said softly, “Don told me everything.”
“What?” She started to cry.
“Last night he told me everything. We were just talking and he said I had a right to know.”
Pat reached over and tried to touch her, but she quickly drew away from him.
“Don’t look at me,” she said, her face screwed up in anguish.
“It’s okay,” said Pat. “It made sense when Don said it. I sure like that alternative a lot more than the other one. You’re still alive.”
“I’m so ashamed, Pat. I can’t talk now.”
She turned her back to him and pulled the covers over her head.
As soon as they reached her parents’ home in Augusta, Candy headed for a phone and called Don’s office in Dallas. Rob came on the line.
“He’s not here, Candy. What’s up?”
“I’m angry, that’s what. Don’s told Pat everything, and now I’ve got to explain it to him. He had no right to do that.”