“Only the canceled checks,” Tibbetts said. “For the first year he was at Berkeley, we continued to send him spending money. Trying to preserve whatever small link that remained. Just small amounts — fifty, a hundred dollars a month — and the bank would of course include them in our statement. But then the envelopes, the envelopes started to come back — ‘Moved. No forwarding address’ — after a while we just, I suppose we just gave up.”
“You didn’t, then,” Gleason said, “you had no contact with him whatsoever between, say, January first of Nineteen-seventy-seven and the Fourth of July of that year?”
“You mean: ‘Last year’?” Tibbetts said.
“Yes,” Gleason said.
“No, none,” Tibbetts said.
“Thank you, Mister Tibbetts,” Gleason said. “I have no further questions.”
19
Each time Ellen Tibbetts answered a question from Morrissey, she glanced defiantly at Gleason. Each time Gleason stood and objected to her answer on the grounds that it was not responsive to the question Morrissey had asked, and moved that it be stricken, she clenched her fists and glared at him. Each time Gleason stood up, Judge Bart upheld the objection and ordered the jury to disregard the preceding statement by the witness, and Ellen Tibbetts glared at the judge.
“Now, Mrs. Tibbetts,” the judge said, “we really do have to move along here. I understand your emotional condition.”
“My emotional condition is perfectly fine,” she said.
“In fact,” the judge said, “all of us, here, understand how difficult this must be for you and your husband to go through.”
“Then why are you putting us through it, then?” she said. “If, if you know how hard this is for someone, why do you make people do it?”
“Mrs. Tibbetts,” the judge said, “you are up there on that witness stand because your son and your husband and your son’s lawyer — and you, evidently — because each of you appears to think that you can contribute something to your son’s defense. Something that will help the jury to decide one of the major issues in this case. Which is whether your son was mentally competent to commit a crime on May fourth, Nineteen-seventy-seven. If you’re uncomfortable, if you think it isn’t fair for your son’s lawyer to ask you questions, and for all of us — including Mister Morrissey — to require you to answer, not with speeches but with responses appropriate to the questions that he’s put, then you shouldn’t’ve gotten up there.”
She picked up her purse and stood up. “Then I’ll get down,” she said.
“Your Honor,” Gleason said.
Judge Bart made a small gesture toward Gleason with his left hand. “I know, Mister Gleason, I know,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.
“Mrs. Tibbetts,” he said, “you can step down if you wish. But if you do, before Mister Gleason has a chance to cross-examine, I’m going to have to instruct this jury to disregard all the statements you’ve already made. All the statements, Mrs. Tibbetts — not just the outbursts that you’ve seen fit to sprinkle in among the few responsive answers you have managed to give.”
She sat down. “This is outrageous,” she said. “There’s no need of any of this. Happening at all. Absolutely no need.”
“Well,” the judge said, “the grand jury disagreed with you there, ma’am. Seven bodies were found in that barroom, as you call it, and the grand jury concluded that your son, among others, was probably responsible for their murders. Now it doesn’t matter what you think of the legitimacy of that view, of the grand jury. What matters is that you’ve chosen to get up there, and be sworn, and answer the questions that the lawyers put to you. And only those questions. Not what you happen to feel like blurting out. Just what the lawyers ask you.”
She pursed her lips. “I think it’s all ridiculous,” she said. “They were, all of them were probably drug sellers and prostitutes. And anyone, anyone who knew Sam before all of this stuff happened, anyone would tell you that something’d happened to him. That he wasn’t right. He was a different person. I think it was the drugs that did it. If he wasn’t hypnotized.”
“ ‘Hypnotized,’ ” the judge said. He sighed. “Jury will disregard that last as pure speculation on the witness’s part. Mister Morrissey, want to try again?”
Morrissey took a deep breath. “Your Honor,” he said. “I note that it’s three-oh-five, and we have been underway for about two hours. May I have a short recess, to talk to my witness?”
Judge Bart stood up. “Certainly,” he said. “Court will be in recess for twenty minutes.”
McNeil came into the small office, giggling. “He’s got her out in the hallway,” she said. “She’s going at him like a she-bear. He’s trying, calm her down, her husband’s trying, calm her down, and all she keeps saying is that she doesn’t care. ‘This is a travesty of justice.’ ”
“You’re gonna have fun with her, Terry,” Richards said grimly.
“ ‘Fun’?” Gleason said. “After the way the old man murdered me, you think I’m gonna touch her with fireplace tongs? The fuck I am. You know what she’s waiting for? She’s waiting for me to ask my first question. Then will come the waterworks. Mary weeping at the tomb of Jesus. Morrissey’ll turn into Joseph of Arimathea — the old goat’s already delivered the centurion’s line: that Sam is the Son of God — and the whole procession’ll bear Sam out of the courtroom on their shoulders, Fentress as Magdalene. We go back in there, Morrissey’s gonna say: ‘Nothing further, your Honor.’ Meaning: ‘I think I’ll just hand Gleason here this fucking live grenade.’ And you know what I’m gonna say? ‘No questions, your Honor.’ No sir — it’s one thing to get spattered with shit while you’re minding your own business and somebody throws it at you. It’s another thing entirely, jump in the toilet bowl.”
“I thought you did pretty well with the father,” Richards said.
“You did,” Gleason said. “You thought I did pretty well with the father? Is the heat too much for you, John? Lemme feel your forehead. You probably think Torrez can pitch, the Red Sox’ll win the pennant, if you think that I did that.”
“He answered your questions,” Richards said.
“Damned right he did,” Gleason said, “and there wasn’t a way in the world I could stop him. He fuckin’ killed me. Or came as close’s he could, ’thout pulling a dagger. That fuckin’ Morrissey — I give the bastard credit. If the witness’s coachable, John’ll make the world forget Vince Lombardi with the Packers, Miller Huggins with the Yankees, and whoever prompts Olivier when he forgets his lines. Only problem he’s got with the dam in this case is: she’s not as tractable’s the sire. She thinks she knows more about the whole thing’n Morrissey does, so she’s acting up. I’m not gonna touch the bitch. I know an ambush when I see one — she’s not going to cry on me.”
At 3:30 P.M. the jury was seated and Mrs. Tibbetts returned to the stand. Her mouth was set and she was scowling. Morrissey said: “I have no further questions of this witness, your Honor.” He sat down.
“Mister Gleason?” the judge said.
“No questions,” Gleason said.
The judge smirked and nodded. “Now there’s a surprise,” he muttered. “You’re excused, Mrs. Tibbetts,” he said. “You may step down now.”
She stared at him angrily. “In fact, Mrs. Tibbetts,” the judge said, “you must step down.”
She clenched her jaw muscles and left the stand.
“Your next witness, Mister Morrissey?” the judge said.
“Your Honor please,” Morrissey said, “and I’m only asking the Court’s pleasure on this, but my next — and last — witness is the defendant, Mister Samuel Tibbetts. I anticipate that his direct examination will require at least an hour. Then of course there is the further possibility that Mister Bigelow, Miss Veale and Mister Klein will wish to cross-examine him, as well as Mister Gleason.”
“Yes,” the judge said. He mused. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “what Mister Morrissey has just said falls into the
category of a friendly warning. And I’ve taken it in that light. He hoped to complete his defense today, but like most other predictions of duration in the courts, that proved to be somewhat more optimistic than subsequent events warranted. Now, all of us are sensible, as I’ve said, of the inconvenience to each of you, and we want to go as fast as we can without short-shrifting anything. I’ve already decided that we’ll all come in tomorrow for a full day’s work — unless any of you are subject to religious sanctions against work on Saturday?” He looked inquiringly at the jurors. There was no response. “Fine,” he said, “so we’ll plan to do that. And I have hopes — hopes which may turn out no better than Mister Morrissey’s have been, but hopes nonetheless — that each of the other defendants will be able to complete their evidence then. Which would mean that unless the Commonwealth feels it necessary to offer rebuttal evidence, counsel will be able to make their final arguments on Monday. I would then charge you, give you my instructions on Tuesday, draw the names of the four alternates, appoint a foreman, and after that the schedule will be entirely in your hands.
“Now,” he said, “the question Mister Morrissey is raising is whether defendant Tibbetts should begin his direct testimony today, since the lateness of the hour indicates he will not complete it before the regular hour for recess. Much less any cross-examination. So what I think we’re going to do, unless there’s some very strong reason offered not to, is suggest that we go as long as it takes today, to complete Mister Tibbetts’s direct examination. And then, at whatever time that is, recess until morning. When we’ll have the cross.” He surveyed the courtroom. “That agreeable?” There was no response. “Fine,” he said. “Mister Morrissey, call your witness.”
“Morrissey did not look happy,” Richards said in Gleason’s office, raising his cup at 6:35. “Confusion to our enemies,” he said, before he drank.
“Morrissey was bullshit,” Gleason said, pouring his drink. He raised the cup. “Up the rebels,” he said. He drank. “I would’ve been bullshit myself,” Gleason said, “Black Bart’d done that to me.”
“What difference does it make?” McNeil said. “He starts today; he starts tomorrow: why does it matter?”
“You sure you don’t want a drink, June?” Richards said. “What’re you doing? Filling in for Fred?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sure. I’ve got a date tonight. Bad enough to get home plowed — shouldn’t start out that way.”
“The Honorable Osgood again?” Richards said slyly.
She blushed. “Yes,” she said. “How you know about that, John?”
“I know everything,” Richards said, grinning. “Don’t get mad. I think it’s nice. Nice for you and nice for Dave. He was really desolate when his wife died, there.” He hesitated. “Guy who told me about it didn’t think it was so nice, though — think he had his eye on you himself. Said he wasn’t sure it was ‘right’ for a lady cop to be dating a DA.”
“Fearless Fred told you?” she said. “Oh, that son of a bitch. I’d go out with Dracula ’fore I’d go out with him. What’d you tell him?”
“Told him to go bag his head, naturally,” Richards said. “Assured him Dave Osgood is chaste and pure in all respects — that the Honorable is honorable, in other words, and he should spare no fretting about your virtue in hazard.”
“Good,” she said.
“Then,” Richards said, “then Fred said it wasn’t your virtue that concerned him. That it was your life.”
“He did not,” she said.
“He did,” Richards said. “He said: ‘And even if it was right, trooper dating a DA, that guy, he killed his wife.’ ”
“I don’t believe this,” McNeil said.
“That Dave did it?” Richards said. “Neither do I. She did it herself. But: that Fred thinks Dave did it? I believe that. ‘A week before she died,’ he says, ‘week before she died, when anybody knew a thing about how she was, knew she wasn’t gonna last three weeks, Osgood goes out and gets thirty Seconals, a hundred milligrams. Now why did he do that?’ And I said: ‘Freddie, Freddie, the woman was in agony. He was just trying, help her with the pain. Doctor prescribed them.’ And Fred says: ‘Bullshit. Wasn’t for the pain. Wasn’t for the pain at all. It was to kill herself. I went down, I went down the drugstore, Dedham Square, and I checked all the records there, and there it was in black and white: a month’s supply of Seconal for a woman that was lucky if she lived for two more weeks. And he hadda know that. Absolutely had to.’ And I said: ‘So what if he did? What difference it make? If she took the stuff herself.’ And Fred says: ‘Suicide’s a felony. Accessory before the fact a felony, charged as principal. That’s the goddamned law. If he didn’t kill her, if what he did wasn’t, didn’t amount to killing her, then helping her to do it amounts to the same thing. Far as I’m concerned, at least.’ ”
“Fred is,” she said, “Fred is really nuts.”
“Yes,” Richards said, “but not completely, and not always wrong. For example: I was certain I was lying when I said your virtue was safe. Least, I hoped I was.”
“Well,” she said, “I don’t know when you said it. But for a while you were right. He held out against my feminine wiles for several dates more’n I had in mind.”
“Atta girl, Junie,” Richards said. “This’s serious, then.”
“No predictions,” she said. “I’ve had too many trophy heads escape. It’s one thing if you decide you want to go through life intact, but it gets really frustrating if you make up your mind to put out, and you still don’t get anywhere.”
“You husband-hunting, June?” Gleason said. “That what it’s about?”
“If it comes to that,” she said, “yeah, I will take a husband. Marriage happens? Fine. But I’ll settle happily for a reliable man. That’s really all I’m after. There’s so many twerps around. Twerps, and gays, and guys cheating on their wives, and … and Freds.” She laughed. “Assholes, in other words. One reason I got out of teaching was it had so many clowns in pants, lusting after sophomores and ignoring grown-up stuff. Very disappointing, if you’re the grown-up stuff.”
“Well, I guess that rules us out, John,” Gleason said. “Both of us’re married men.”
“Well,” she said, gazing at him, “it might not’ve, if the drought’d lasted a few more years.” Gleason blushed. “I’m serious, Terry,” she said. “All you people that just happened to get married, you bastards think everyone’s married. You go home at night and there’s a set of compatible genitals with a person attached, waiting to rub your neck and blow in your ear, and tell you how fine you are. And it isn’t like that, for most of us. It isn’t like that at all.”
“Certainly isn’t for me,” Gleason said. “Time I get home tonight, there’s no way I’m gonna let Barbara near my ears. I’ll come in tomorrow with one bitten off, and a big bandage on the other one.”
“Well,” McNeil said, “I’ve never been married. I’ve never even lived with a guy, for God’s sake. So maybe my hopes’re too high. But my God, there’s got to be something better out there’n cruising the bars, and picking up stiffs, and warding off all of the Freds.”
“Dave’s a nice guy,” Richards said. “Sink the hook deep, play him carefully, lots of line, and then reel him in. He’ll go quietly, and he’s a fine catch. Very decent guy. But tonight either make him spend the night at your place, or get you home real early if you’re going somewhere else. May be Friday, and all, but we’ve got a full day tomorrow.”
Gleason stood up and stretched. “Yeah,” he said, “and I’ve got a full night tonight. First I go home and get chewed out ’cause I’m late as usual. Then I eat cold dinner. Then I get ragged out again because the lady will not like it when I say I’ve got to work.”
“Work on what?” McNeil said.
“On taking advantage of the advantage that Black Bart gave me today,” Gleason said. “Which was why Big Mo was bullshit. I’ve got all night to plan my cross tomorrow. ’Stead of having to get up right after Morrissey g
ot through, and start winging questions at that little bastard, making it up as I go along, I’ve got overnight to do some planning. Think up really nasty things to harpoon the little prick.” He paused. “Not that I’ve got much hope of really shaking the kid. He’s good. He’s very good. He’s smart, and for all I know, he’s telling the truth — maybe he had to be nuts. I’ve got to be really nasty.” He chuckled. “Maybe I should let Barbara plan the cross. She’s really good at that. It’s her specialty.”
SEPTEMBER 16, 1978
20
On Saturday morning the public halls of the courthouse were dim and silent. The jurors and the parties to the trial hushed their voices and behaved like trespassers. Christina Walker and the Tibbetts couple constituted half of the civilian spectators passing through the metal detectors under June McNeil’s bloodshot gaze. Consolo came in behind the three reporters.
“Mister Tibbetts,” Gleason said, “yesterday at the close of your direct examination, Mister Morrissey invited you to agree that you had told ‘a sordid story’ of your life since Nineteen-sixty-eight — do you recall that?”
“Yes sir, I do,” Tibbetts said. He wore a dark grey pinstriped suit, a blue shirt and a dark red tie ornamented by blue whales.
“And you accepted that invitation,” Gleason said. “And you agreed with him.”
“Yes sir, I did,” Tibbetts said. He straightened himself in the chair. “It was.”
“A story,” Gleason said, “of contraband drugs. Of sexual promiscuity. Of sexual perversity. Of habitual law-breaking with respect to dealing in narcotics, harboring fugitives, attempting to subvert the government.”
“Yes sir,” Tibbetts said. “What I can remember, at least. I did all those things.”
“And you admit having done them, now,” Gleason said.
“Yes, I do,” Tibbetts said.
Outlaws (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) Page 17