From the Chrysalis: a novel

by Karen E. Black

  “Mr. X,” he said, “you were telling us you witnessed certain events that took place in the dome in the early hours of Sunday, isn’t that right?”

  The witness paused a moment, perhaps trying to figure out what Dace’s defence lawyer meant. “Yes, sir,” he finally said.

  “Now when you were watching these events, you were standing on a tier? A sort of balcony that encircled the whole dome? And this was the second of four tiers?”

  The witness’ brows creased. “Uh, yes,” he replied.

  “And it was between three and four in the morning?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man reported, sounding more confident this time.

  Gold faced the courtroom then spoke over his shoulder at the witness, as if he really didn’t care about the answer. “So it would be dark outside. And there were two or three lights broken in the dome, weren’t there?”

  “Yes, sir, there were,” the witness agreed. “Well, it was never well lit anyway,” he elaborated, ignoring Judge Silverton’s frown.

  “And the army was outside?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the floodlights were on and German Shepherds were patrolling?”

  The witness nodded, smiling. “You got the picture. I mean, yeah. Yes, sir.”

  Gold pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and checked it, as if he had forgotten some vital item necessary to set the scene. “And there was talk about gas?”

  “There was talk about everything,” the witness said with a shrug, appearing perplexed.

  “Were you a bit nervous when you knew the army was outside?”

  For the first time, the witness looked straight at Gold. You got it, his eyes said. “Yes, sir, I was scared,” he admitted. “We were all scared.”

  “So when you were hauled out of bed and told to watch the events in the dome, you disapproved of them?”

  “I guess. I mean yes, sir.” He lowered his eyes until he stared at the floor.

  Gold rubbed his chin and he also looked down. “Yet you heard screams and you saw twelve or thirteen men blindfolded and tied to the radiator in the dome. And you didn’t do anything to stop the beatings,” he observed.

  “No, sir, I …” the witness squirmed in his seat, his eyes appealing to everyone in the courtroom. What could I have done?

  Gold softened a little. “You were afraid of the army coming in and shooting gas?”

  The witness looked relieved. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “And weren’t you also afraid to join those unfortunate men? Afraid you might be put in the circle and tied to the radiator along with them?”

  “Yes, sir.” The witness grew even more confident at this point, sitting bolt upright in his leather chair as he caressed the lapels of his new brown suit.

  There was another longish pause as Gold checked the paper in his hand again. “Did anyone give you orders during the riot?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Who told you to come and watch?” he asked.

  The witness narrowed his eyes. “I don’t remember right offhand.”

  “So how did you know it was time to come out?” Gold asked, sounding pleasant enough.

  “Somebody had a bullhorn,” the witness said sullenly.

  “How long did you watch?”

  The witness shrugged. “Maybe an hour.”

  “So you thought it would be best to keep watching the beatings,” Gold speculated.

  The witness got a little excited. “Yeah, until they started busting heads! And cutting. I could see them smacking somebody around, but not like that. Brutal, they were, brutal. That’s why people got killed.”

  “Objection!” shouted the Crown, as the witness looked meaningfully in the direction of the jury. Several members unintentionally nodded back. We understand.

  “I think you told my learned friend, Mr. X, that you saw one of the beating victims being brought out? One of the child abusers? Let’s call him Mr. Smith?”

  “Okay. I mean, yes, sir.”

  “And you said it was Mr. Devereux, for whom I act, who brought him out?”

  “What …” He frowned. “Mr. Devereux? Do you mean what did Dace do? I don’t understand the question,” the witness stammered.

  “I was asking,” Gold repeated slowly, “if my client, Mr. Dace Devereux, brought one of the beating victims out to the circle.”

  “No, sir. He’s the one who started smashing heads,” the witness replied.

  “But didn’t you say during the Preliminary trial that Dace Devereux was on the fourth range?”

  “He was on the fourth range most of the time, but he came down to the first range to smash some heads,” the witness insisted, his head pushed forward, his eyes searching the jury box.

  “All right. I have a letter addressed to my firm which I would like to present to the court.”

  There was a sudden rustle from the Judge’s chair. “Probably better have the jury step out,” Judge Silverton advised with an audible sigh. Almost before he had finished his sentence, the jury members had left.

  Hubert Gold approached the bench. “Your Worship, when I attempted to see the Crown witnesses in the penitentiary, I was denied the privilege of talking to them for reasons unknown to me. So I wrote everybody, put forth my client’s defence and asked, ‘Do you know anything?’ Mr. Smith himself wrote me back and said, ‘Devereux never harmed me in any way. He was up on the fourth range all the time.’”

  The two Crown attorneys had followed Gold to the bench. “Well, surely my learned colleague is not suggesting this kind of letter is evidence,” the female Crown attorney interjected. “Surely the evidence must come from Mr. Smith himself.”

  “At the time when this witness says Devereux was in the dome beating up Smith, Smith says he wasn’t there at all. The jury is entitled to know the witness is a fraud. By the time Smith testifies, the damage of this witness will be done,” Gold insisted, although from the way Silverton was shaking his head, he could tell the Judge didn’t see it that way.

  “Well, it’s a dilemma,” Judge Silverton said, although from the look on his face the whole matter seemed straightforward to him. “But I don’t think I can allow you to introduce a letter this way.”

  “I have several letters, Your Worship,” Gold said eagerly.

  The Judge closed his eyes. “No doubt you do.”

  “Just wait, Your Worship. I haven’t finished my cross-examination.”

  “No letters,” Judge Silverton repeated. “May I bring the jury back now?” he asked with exaggerated politeness.

  Once the Jury was back in the courtroom, Hugh Gold had evidently decided to try a different tack. “Tell me,” he said. “You say my client, Mr. Devereux, broke Mr. Smith’s head.”

  “Yes. Then he killed the other one.”

  The Judge could have admonished the witness at this moment but he didn’t, so Gold rapped the edge of the witness box. “Just answer the question, please. Mr. Smith himself advises me he did no such thing. He says Mr. Devereux stayed on the fourth range.”

  “I will have to contradict that,” the witness said smugly, perhaps having surmised that at least one person in the courtroom was on his side.

  Gold practically shoved his face into the witness box. “You are contradicting the victim?”

  “Yes, sir,” the witness answered, although he sounded a little less confident this time.

  “All right. Who else did Mr. Devereux strike besides Mr. Smith?” Gold asked, as if he were playing along.

  “Postiuk, Tait and two or three others I didn’t know.”

  Gold shook his head incredulously. “Don’t you know who all the thirteen inmates tied to the radiator were?”

  “No,” the witness admitted, reverting to sullenness.

  Gold tapped his fingers on the witness box for a moment, as if thinking. “How many people were there in the dome doing the attacking?”

  “Maybe twenty-five. They aren’t all on trial.”

  “Hmm,” Gold said, walking away
from him. “Could you identify all the attackers?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You watched for an hour, but you can’t identify everyone?”

  “Well, it’s been a year since the riot.”

  “I suppose it’s plausible that you might forget,” Gold admitted. “But you still remember seeing Mr. Devereux coming down to the dome from the fourth tier.”

  Too late, the witness realized his mistake. “Bellisimo said that. I didn’t,” he amended. “I didn’t see him come down. He was just there all of a sudden. Maybe he had to phone Rick Lowery. There was a phone on each tier and he was keeping touch with Rick cause he was on the Inmate Committee.”

  “Did you hear him say anything?”

  “Yeah. He said let’s break some heads.”

  The Jury was hanging on every word, but Gold looked skeptical. “You were up on the tier and you heard him say that? Wasn’t there a lot of noise? And screaming? Did he have a bullhorn?”

  “No, he didn’t have no bullhorn.”

  “But you could still hear him.”

  “He has a loud voice.” A couple of people in the gallery tittered when he said this, but the Judge rapped his gavel and they stopped.

  “Did he have a weapon in his hand?” Gold continued.

  “I don’t believe he did, sir. But he’s a bodybuilder, see. He didn’t need one. He had his fists.”

  “Well, surely you were taking notes at the time so you could go to the authorities,” Gold suggested.

  “No, sir, not until they started bashing in heads and there was so much blood. I never seen such blood. Then they sliced—”

  In response to the jurors’ horrified expressions, Gold’s face remained impassive. “Please just answer the question,” he said. “That’s when you decided?”

  “Yes, after they started hitting those guys with bars. Poor Mr. Smith couldn’t recognize Devereux because he had a sheet over his head by then.”

  “So now Mr. Devereux had a weapon? And there was a sheet over his head? Are you sure you want to change your evidence at this point? How did you recognize him?” Gold looked like he was about to fire off several more questions, but the witness interrupted.

  “I’m not changing my evidence, you are! Mr. Smith was the one with the sheet over his head.” When several of the jurors laughed, the witness became more confident. He settled back in his chair and glared at his opponent. “You just keep repeating questions, trying to get me mixed up.”

  Gold glared back. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Did you or did you not say to someone in the penitentiary: I know Devereux had nothing to do with the beatings, but he will when I get through with him.”

  “Why would I do that?” the witness asked. His voice sounded innocent enough, but he was clearly trying to suppress a smirk.

  “Because you like to hurt people.”

  Judge Silverton slammed his papers together, almost causing one to fly to the floor. “Ask a proper question!” he roared.

  Not to be deterred, Gold went on. “You were promised an early release, weren’t you?”

  Instantly, the witness’ demeanour changed. He stood up, clearly furious at this commentary on his character. “That’s a goddamn lie!” he swore. “I was innocent, so—”

  More nervous laughter from the jury followed his indignant reply. In vain, Judge Silverton tried to restore order, then one of the thirteen inmates on trial for the penitentiary murders must have decided he’d had enough. It was the boy who never took his eyes off Dace. Several guards tried to push him back into his seat as he shouted at the judge.

  “He’s sick! He’s a bloody liar! He’s lying for his own fucking benefit!”

  Dace tried to pull the boy back down onto his wooden chair, but there were so many people milling about in the courtroom that Liza couldn’t see what else was happening. By the time the crowd cleared, it was too late. They were all gone. She stood motionless for a moment, willing Dace back. Then she left too.

  “I thought this trial would be over by Christmas,” a spectator was saying as she squeezed through the right side of the double doors. “But the jurors will be lucky if they’re home for Easter. Did you know they only get paid ten dollars a day? How are they going to feed their families if they don’t go on Welfare?”

  “Haven’t you been reading the editorials? Everybody, including the judge, thinks the trial is a waste of time. Mark my words, those jurors will be home for Christmas,” her friend assured her.

  Liza pushed past the women with only one thought in mind. Where was the washroom? She spotted it to her left and rushed inside, but the women followed her.

  “I suppose you’re right. I doubt those mucky-muck lawyers are going to want to spend their holidays here in Maitland. I just hope they don’t decide to let those bastards off scot-free,” the second one added just as the cubicle door swung shut behind Liza. She stared at the open toilet and waited for her lunch to spew from her burning throat.

  “Don’t worry. Your hair’s okay,” the first woman said, clearly having gone no farther than the sinks and mirrors.

  “I’d rather use my own toilet at home. Lord knows what kind of germs they have here. Did you see that bag lady—a street person—sitting on a bench pretty as you please?”

  Liza’s stomach waited until the outside door had closed before it exploded for the second time that day. She vomited until she had nothing left to give except possibly the lining in her stomach. Then she flushed the toilet and went out to the sinks. She was still alone.

  The thought of lying down on the filthy tiled floor and dying seemed quite appealing all of a sudden, but she rinsed her acid-coated teeth with cold water instead. A whey-faced girl stared back at her when she looked into the water-spotted mirror and she shook her head with disgust. Much good she was doing Dace, coming to court looking like death warmed over. What the hell must he think? No wonder he scowled and mouthed, Go back to school, whenever he got the chance.

  After washing her face and hands, she still felt so nauseated she could barely stand the smell of the yellow, castile soap. She checked for an empty paper bag in her purse in case she got sick on the bus again then forced herself back out into the hallway. She had to move. She could barely put one foot in front of the other, but her only other option was to crawl back to residence and pray the women were right—about a quick end to the trial, at least.

  Chapter 31

  Limbo

  Maitland University, December 1972:

  Janice came over to the bed and plied her with sweet tea. An illegal electric kettle bubbled under the bookshelves on her desk. Neither one of them was on the residence Meal Plan this year, either.

  “Do you want to go to Student Health Services? You’ve been sick for so long.”

  Realizing she was going to have to try harder to fool her friend, Liza got up and carried the steaming mug over to the window between their desks. It had snowed again, a light dusting on a treacherous underlay.

  “No, I’m okay. Anyway, the only way we could get out of here is in a sleigh.” The sidewalk outside was so icy they would have to take tiny, mincing steps everywhere they went and even then she would probably end up falling flat on her face. Besides, no student doctor could help with what ailed her. Her grandmother Magill’s nurse friend, maybe.

  “I hope it’s not the stomach flu,” Janice fussed, one hand resting on her own flat stomach as she watched her patient sipping the honey-sweetened tea. All weekend Liza had kept to the residence, unable to rest or work. Now that she had an opportunity to wash her hair, she lacked the energy.

  I don’t give a goddamn how I look, she thought every time she threw up. In between visits to a toilet, she rested on her bed and prayed for oblivion. Her nausea, the same kind her mother must have suffered, was so pervasive every cell in her body felt invaded. She counted backwards to her last period in August, although she already knew the answer. Nobody was this sick with the flu for so long. How on earth had she functioned over the past five weeks? By l
iving off hope, she thought. At least Mel was back home visiting his Mom and Dad. The way she looked, even he might have noticed.

  She was almost miserable enough to reveal what she had so far been afraid to believe, but some innate sense of privacy stopped her. That and the fact she didn’t want to overwhelm Janice with too many of her problems, each one inviting censure. So far her roommate had tactfully refrained from mentioning the newspaper accounts of Dace’s most recent court appearance, but she was bound to be influenced by what she read. She was only human after all.

  Even knowing the allegations were false, Liza wondered if she could go back to court after what had happened, knowing she was a highly visible but silent witness to a losing battle. In her present condition, that man with the alias had been the last straw. And Dace, her Dace, well, he didn’t want her there anyway.

  They hadn’t spoken to each other since the first day, and she knew how closely watched they were. Why would a girl like that …? people whispered. Lately everything about the courtroom bothered her: the overheated air, the guard who snored in the corner, and one spectator in particular. She was a regular Madame Defarge, always knitting booties and eating up the drama with hungry eyes. The knitter, and a lot of people she represented, wanted D’Arcy Devereux and his co-accused to be found guilty of murder, torture and worse. Like the “witches” who drowned when they were put to the test, it seemed the fact that the defendants were getting thinner by the day, wasting away before her eyes was evidence enough of their sins.

  It was only two weeks before her last midterm, and Liza was reluctant to face her classmates. Her reaction shamed her though. She knew Dace wasn’t some kind of sick, sadistic monster. No matter what people said. Devereux Smashes Man’s Skull, the Saturday edition of the Spectator had said.

  She had to go back to school and make everybody understand. But would she be able to finish the school year? Even Janice thought she was going to drop out. She could tell by the look of pity on the girl’s face every time they discussed living arrangements for next term.

  Liza picked up a list of assignments from her desk, mentally calculating the number of days left in the term. Counting, that’s all she seemed to do these days. Where was her mind? She had to concentrate. She could do her assignments, all right. Especially—she suddenly panicked—if the trial ended and they kept Dace in jail. She stood up quickly in her agitation and her mug sloshed over, spilling a little tea on the rug. She stared at the spill but felt too sick to bend over. Janice came over and sopped it up with a wad of kleenex.