Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 09

by Damned in Paradise (v5. 0)

  “It’s getting late in the day, Your Honor,” Darrow said sorrowfully. “Might I request an adjournment until tomorrow?”

  The judge accepted Darrow’s suggestion with no objection from Kelley. Mrs. Fortescue bolted from the defense table to guide her son-in-law off the stand. With her arm around the child-man’s shoulder, the tall woman walked up the aisle of a courtroom filled with teary-eyed haole women as Chang Apana led Tommie and Mrs. Fortescue and the two gobs to their Shore Patrol escorts.

  At the next session, as Tommie again took the stand, Darrow faced the judge and dropped a bombshell that blew Kelley immediately to his feet.

  “Your Honor,” Darrow said, a thumb in one of his suspenders, “there seems to be a little misunderstanding between the prosecutor and myself and I’d like to set it right. We are willing to state that Lt. Massie held the gun that fired the fatal shot.”

  A tidal wave of reaction rolled over the gallery and the judge gaveled the courtroom to silence.

  Darrow continued, as if he hadn’t noticed the stir he’d caused: “Now, Lieutenant, if we can get back to these rumors that had been plaguing you and your wife…”

  Kelley said in a machine-gun burst of words: “Even with this admission, Your Honor, this line of questioning involving the Ala Moana case is admissible only under a plea of insanity, and even so, any information supplied to Lt. Massie by his wife and others in reference to that case is hearsay and should be stricken from the record.”

  “Your Honor,” Darrow said patiently, “we expect the evidence to show that this defendant was insane. I did not say that he would testify that he killed the deceased. We will show that the gun was in his hand when the shot was fired…but whether Lt. Massie knew what he was doing at the time is another question.”

  Judge Davis thought about that, then said, “Mr. Kelley, it appears that the defense is relying on the defense of insanity and that the witness now on the stand fired the fatal shot. This opens the door for testimony bearing on the defendant’s state of mind.”

  “My objection has been met, Your Honor,” Kelley said. “However, we feel we’re entitled at this time to know the type of insanity Lt. Massie is alleged to have been laboring under when he fired the shot.”

  Darrow said, “Come now, Mr. Kelley, surely you’re aware that even leading experts use different terminology for identical psychological disorders. Your Honor, may I resume my examination of the witness?”

  “You may,” the judge said.

  Kelley, seeming for the first time flustered, returned to his seat.

  Darrow patiently took Tommie through the formation of the abduction plot, from discussions with his mother-in-law to his first meetings with Jones and Lord.

  “Was the purpose of your plan to kill the deceased?”

  “Certainly not!”

  Finally Darrow had reached the point in Tommie’s story where, back on the Alton in that first interview, C.D. had refused to let his client continue.

  Now, here in court, I would finally hear the “true” story.

  “I drove to Mrs. Fortescue’s house, up into the garage,” Tommie said. “When I got inside, in the kitchen, I took Jones’s gun from the counter.”

  “That was a .32?”

  Tommie was almost motionless, and machine precise as he testified. “A .32, yes sir. And I called out and said, ‘All right, come in—Major Ross is in here.’ Kahahawai still believed he was on his way to see the major. I took off my dark glasses and gloves—the chauffeur apparel—and then we were all in the livin’ room, Kahahawai sittin’ down in a chair. Mrs. Fortescue and Lord came in. Stood nearby as I went over and confronted Kahahawai. I had the gun in my hand.”

  “And where was Jones?”

  “Mrs. Fortescue told him to wait outside and see that we weren’t disturbed. I pulled back the slide of the gun and let it click in place—I wanted to scare him. I said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ He said, ‘I think so.’ I said, ‘You did your lyin’ in the courtroom but you’re going to tell the whole truth now.’ He looked nervous, tremblin’. He said, ‘I don’t know nothin’.’ I asked him where he was on the night of September twelfth and he said the Waikiki dance. I asked him when he left the dance and he said he didn’t know, he was drunk. I said, ‘Where did you pick up the woman?’ He said, ‘We didn’t have no woman.’ I told him he’d better tell the truth. Who kicked her? ‘Nobody kicked her.’ I said, ‘Tell me how you drove home,’ and he rattled off a bunch of streets and I don’t know their names but I let him go on awhile, then I said, ‘You were a prizefighter once, weren’t you?’ And he nodded, and I said, ‘Well that explains how you knew where to hit a woman one blow and break her jaw.’ He looked really nervous now, he wet his lips, he was squirmin’ and I said, ‘All right, if you’re not goin’ to talk, we’ll make you talk. You know what happened to Ida out at Pali?’ He didn’t say, but he was nervous, tremblin’. I said, ‘Well, what he got was nothin’ to what you’re going to get if you don’t tell the whole story, right now.’ And he said, ‘I don’t know nothin’,’ and I said, ‘Okay, Lord, go out and get the boys. After we work him over, he’ll talk all right.’ Kahahawai started to rise up and I pushed him back down and said, ‘Ida talked and told plenty on you. Those men out there, they’re comin’ in and beat you to ribbons.’”

  Tommie’s voice began to quaver.

  “Kahahawai was tremblin’ in his chair,” Tommie said, “and I said, ‘Last chance to talk—you know your gang was there!’ And he must’ve been more afraid of a beatin’ than the gun I was holdin’ on him, ‘cause he blurted it out: ‘Yeah, we done it!’”

  Darrow paused to let the courtroom savor the moment. Finally he asked: “And then?”

  “That’s the last I remember. Oh, I remember the picture that came into my mind, of my wife’s crushed face after he assaulted her and she prayed for mercy and he answered her with a blow that broke her jaw.”

  “You had the gun in your hand as you were talking to him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you remember what you did?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know what became of the gun?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know what became of you?”

  “N…no, sir.”

  Tommie swallowed hard; he seemed to be holding back tears.

  Darrow stood before the jury box, arms folded, shoulders hunched. He gave his client a few moments to compose himself, then said, “Do you remember anything of the flight to the mountains?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What’s the first thing you recall?”

  “Sittin’ in a car on a country road. A bunch of people were comin’ up to us, sayin’ something about a body.”

  “Do you remember being taken to the police station?”

  “Not clearly.”

  Darrow sighed, nodded. He went over and patted Tommie on the arm, then ambled toward the defense table, saying, “Take the witness, sir.”

  Kelley rose and said, “Are you proud of your Southern heritage, Lt. Massie?”

  Darrow almost jumped to his feet. “Objection! Immaterial, and intended to imply racial bias.”

  “Your Honor,” Kelley said, “if the defense can explore the defendant’s state of mind, surely the prosecution has the same privilege.”

  “You may do so,” the judge said, “but not with that question—it is misleading as it presupposes all Southerners are bigots.”

  Kelley moved in close to Tommie. “Do you remember Mrs. Fortescue telling a reporter that you and she ‘bungled the job’?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Did Joseph Kahahawai seem frightened?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he plead for mercy?”

  “No.”

  “Did he put up a fight?”

  “No.”

  Kelley began to pace slowly up and down in front of the jury box. “Later, did Mrs. Fortescue or Jones or Lord, did any of them tell you how you behaved, or what you did,
after the shot was fired?”

  “Mrs. Fortescue said I just stood there and wouldn’t talk. She took me into the kitchen and tried to get me to take a drink, but I wouldn’t.”

  “What did Jones say about what you’d done?”

  “He wasn’t very complimentary.”

  “Really?” Kelley’s tone was boldly arch. “Why? Because you only shot Kahahawai once?”

  “No. He said I acted like a damn fool.”

  Kelley feigned shock. “An enlisted man spoke to you in such a fashion?”

  “Yes—and I resented it.”

  Kelley sighed. Paced. Then he turned back to Tommie and said, “Did any of your fellow conspirators tell you why they took you along on the ride to Koko Head?”

  “Yes…Mrs. Fortescue said she wanted me to get some fresh air.”

  Kelley rolled his eyes and waved dismissively at Tommie. “This witness is excused.”

  Tommie stepped off the stand and walked with head high over to the defense table, where Darrow smiled at him and nodded as if he’d done a wonderful job. Some of it had been pretty good, but the little-boy business about resenting his enlisted-man accomplice’s remark, and the lame notion that he’d been along on the corpse-disposal run to get some “fresh air,” were not shining moments.

  In fact, Darrow would need to follow up with something remarkable to make the jury forget those lapses.

  “The defense calls Thalia Massie,” Darrow said.

  16

  When the courtroom doors opened, Thalia Massie stood framed there as flashbulbs popped in the corridor, the packed gallery turning its collective head toward the surprisingly tall, astonishingly young-looking woman in the black crepe suit. Judge Davis didn’t bother banging his gavel to silence the stirring, the whispering; he allowed it to run its course as Thalia moved down the aisle in an awkward slouch, her slightly pudgy, pale, pretty face framed by fawn-colored hair, her protuberant blue-gray eyes cast downward, advancing in the uncertain manner that witnesses had reported of her as she walked along John Ena Road one night last September.

  Her husband met her as she moved between the defense and prosecution tables; she paused as Tommie took and squeezed her hand. A murmur of approval rose from the mostly female, predominantly white spectators; I caught Admiral Stirling (seated with a woman I assumed to be his wife) casting his approving gaze on the noble couple as they exchanged brief, brave smiles.

  But even smiling, Thalia had an oddly glazed, expressionless look, the vaguely wistful cast of someone mildly drugged.

  She approached the stand stoopingly and was fumbling toward the chair when the judge reminded her there was an oath to take. She straightened momentarily, raising her hand, swearing to tell the truth, then settled down into the seat, knees together, hands in her lap, shoulders slouched, a posture at once prim and reminiscent of a naughty little girl sent to sit in the corner.

  Darrow, his demeanor at its most grandfatherly, approached the witness stand and leaned against one arm. He pleasantly, calmly elicited from her the mandatory points of identification: her name, Thalia Fortescue Massie; her age, 21; age at the time of her marriage, 16, to Lt. Massie on Thanksgiving Day, 1927; they had no children; she would say they were happy, yes.

  Thalia’s voice was a low, drawling near-monotone, nearly as expressionless as her face; but she was not emotionless: she twisted a handkerchief nervously in her hands as she answered.

  “Do you remember going with your husband to the Ala Wai Inn on a certain night last September?”

  “Yes. We went to a dance.”

  “Did you have anything to drink?”

  “Half of a highball. I don’t much care for liquor.”

  “When did you leave the dance?”

  “About eleven-thirty-five at night.”

  “And where were you going?”

  “I planned to walk around the corner and back.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I was tired and bored.”

  “Where was Tommie?”

  “When I saw him last he was dancing.”

  “And where did you go?”

  “I started walking toward Waikiki Beach.”

  “I see. And tell me, where were you when something…unusual happened?”

  Kelley was on his feet. “Once again, Your Honor, we are not here to retry the Ala Moana case. I must object to this line of questioning.”

  Darrow’s smile was a mixture of benevolence and condescension. “Your Honor, all of this has bearing on Lt. Massie’s state of mind.”

  Kelley was shaking his head, no. “What happened to this witness has no direct bearing on the sanity issue—the only pertinent question, Your Honor, is what she told her husband.”

  A hissing arose from the gallery. The judge slammed his gavel twice, and frightened the snake into silence.

  “Mr. Darrow,” Judge Davis said, “you will confine your questions to what Mrs. Massie told her husband, and what he told her.”

  “Very well, Your Honor. Mrs. Massie, when did you next see Tommie? After you left the Inn?”

  “About one o’clock in the morning. I’d finally reached my own home, and Lt. Massie telephoned me and I said, ‘Please come home right away, because something awful…’”

  But that’s as far as she got. She buried her face in her hands, and her sobs echoed in the chamber. There was nothing Little Theater about it: this was real agony, and sent the ladies of the gallery dipping for their hankies in their purses.

  Darrow’s expression was cheerless, but I knew within that sunken old breast, he was jumping for joy. Thalia’s cold-fish demeanor had transformed into the open sorrow of a wronged young woman.

  Down from me at the table, Mrs. Fortescue, who’d been watching her daughter, eyes bright, chin up, reached for the sweating pitcher of ice water on the defense table and poured a glass. She pushed it down to Leisure, who nodded and rose, taking the glass up to Thalia. Leisure stayed up there, with Darrow, waiting for their witness to compose herself; it took a couple minutes.

  Then Leisure took his seat, and Darrow resumed his questioning.

  “What did you tell Tommie when he came home?”

  “He asked me what happened. I…I didn’t want to tell him because it was so terrible….”

  But she had told him, and now she told the jury, in all its awful detail, how she’d been beaten and raped, how Kahahawai had broken her jaw, how she’d not been allowed to pray, how one after another, they had assaulted her.

  “I said, ‘You will knock my teeth out!’ He said, ‘What do I care, shut up, you…’ He called me something filthy. And the others stood around and laughed—”

  “Your Honor,” Kelley said, sighing, not rising, “I don’t want to be interjecting constant objections, but she’s only allowed to say what she told her husband. That was your ruling.”

  Darrow turned toward Kelley with startling swiftness for such an old man, and his tone was hard and low. “This is hardly the time to be making objections.”

  Kelley’s voice had equal edge: “I haven’t been making enough of them!”

  “Mr. Darrow,” the judge began, “confine yourself to…”

  But Thalia took that cue to break down again. Judge Davis and everyone else waited for her sobs to subside, and then Darrow patiently led her through a recital of how she’d identified her attackers at the hospital, and how “wonderful” and “attentive” Tommie had been to her during her recovery.

  “He took such good care of me,” she said, lips quivering. “He never complained about how often I woke him at night.”

  “Did you notice any change in your husband’s behavior?”

  “Oh yes. He never wanted to go out—the rumors bothered him so—and he didn’t sleep, he’d pace up and down the living room smoking cigarettes. He barely ate. He got so thin.”

  “Did you know what he and your mother and the two sailors were planning?”

  “No. Absolutely not. Once or twice Tommie said it would be wonderful to
get a confession. I mean, it was always worrying him. I wanted him to forget about it, but he couldn’t.”

  “On the day Joseph Kahahawai died, how did you learn what had happened?”

  “Seaman Jones came to my door around ten o’clock.”

  “Before or after the killing?”

  “After! He came in and said all excitedly, ‘Here, take this,’ and gave me a gun, ‘Kahahawai has been killed!’ I asked him where Tommie was and he said he’d sent Tommie off with Mother in the car.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “He asked me for a drink. I fixed him a highball. He drank it and said, ‘That’s not enough,’ so I filled his glass again. He was as pale as a ghost.”

  So was she.

  The tears of the witness and those of the gallery had ebbed; the emotional tenor had finally evened out. It was a good stopping place, and Darrow dismissed the witness.

  “Your Honor,” Darrow said, “may I suggest we recess for the day, and not subject this witness to cross-examination at this time?”

  Kelley was already approaching the witness stand. “Your Honor, I just have a few questions.”

  “We’ll proceed,” the judge said.

  Thalia shifted in her seat as Kelley moved in; her body seemed to stiffen, and her face took on a defiant cast, her mouth taking on a faint, defensive smirk. Darrow, taking his seat at the defense table, smiled at her, nodding his support, but I knew the old boy was worried: I could see the tightness around his eyes.

  “Mrs. Massie, do you remember Captain Mclntosh and some other police coming to your house?”

  “Yes.” Her tone was snippy.

  “Did a telephone call come in that was answered by Jones?”

  “No.” The smirk turned into a sneer.

  Before our very eyes, the noble wronged wife was transmuting herself into an angry, bitchy child.

  “Are you quite sure, Mrs. Massie?” Kelley stayed coldly polite.

  She shifted stiffly in the chair. “Yes.”

  “Well, perhaps you answered it and Jones asked who was calling.”

  “No.”

  “Who is Leo Pace?”

  “Lt. Pace is commander of the S-34.”