Raising Cain

by Gallatin Warfield

When Brownie saw Paul, he grabbed Gardner by the arm. “What is this?”

  “My witness,” Gardner said.

  “Like hell!”

  “Gentlemen!” Judge Ransome interrupted. “Are we proceeding or not?”

  “A moment please, Your Honor.”

  “Hurry it up!”

  “Yes, sir.” Gardner put his hand over Brownie’s. “Let me do this!”

  Brownie’s eyes turned ice-cold. “No!”

  “What’s happening?” King whispered to Lin Song.

  “I don’t know,” she answered.

  “Whenever you’re ready…” Ransome prompted.

  Suddenly Brownie stood and addressed the court. “I want to dismiss my attorney, Your Honor.”

  “Stop it!” Gardner pulled on his sleeve.

  “Time out!” Ransome banged his gavel. “Approach the bench!”

  The parties rushed forward. “What the hell is going on?” the judge demanded.

  “He—” Brownie began.

  Ransome stopped him. “Do you wish to address the court?”

  “I can handle this,” Gardner broke in.

  “Your Honor—” Brownie was livid.

  “Stop it now!” The judge pointed his finger at Gardner. “You, be quiet and let him speak.”

  “But—” Gardner protested.

  “Quiet!”

  “I want to fire my attorney,” Brownie said. “I want to represent myself.”

  “Judge—”

  “One more word, Mr. Lawson, and I’ll have you in contempt,” Ransome warned. He turned to Brownie. “Now, why do you want to release your attorney?”

  “We don’t agree on the defense. I’m the client. I have the right to say how I want to defend my case.”

  The judge turned to Gardner. “You may speak now.”

  “I propose to call a witness who I proffer will exculpate my client and offer relevant testimony on the death of Thomas Ruth.”

  “But I don’t want the witness,” Brownie interjected.

  “Who’s the witness?”

  “Paul Brown,” Gardner said, “brother of the defendant.”

  “Is that him?” Ransome pointed.

  “Yes. I served a summons on him last night.”

  “Without my permission!” Brownie whispered.

  Ransome composed his thoughts. “You”—he pointed at Gardner—“want to call the witness, and you”—he pointed at Brownie—“do not. Is that correct?”

  Both men nodded.

  “And you want to fire your lawyer if the witness is called, and you insist that the witness has information crucial to the defense.”

  Again, both men nodded.

  “So we have an impasse here.…” He leaned back in his chair and cogitated, then lurched forward. “To resolve this, I’ll call him. In the interest of justice, I’ll designate him a court’s witness. That way, there is no conflict between lawyer and counsel.”

  Gardner smiled. That was a brilliant solution, one he wouldn’t have thought Rollie capable of. Brownie could not interfere with the calling of a court’s witness.

  “Judge—” Brownie blustered angrily.

  “Sorry, Sergeant Brown. I’m in charge here. And I want to hear what the man has to say. Step down, please, Dr. Sand—”

  “Not so fast!” King interjected. “Don’t I get a turn?”

  Ransome faced the prosecutor. “Why? This is between the defendant, his counsel, and me. You have no standing to object.”

  “Yes, I do!” King snapped. “The witness you’re calling is the defendant’s brother, arriving at the eleventh hour to bail him out.”

  “So?”

  “So the whole thing is suspect! He’s going to… incriminate someone else so his brother can get off a murder rap. It’s a setup for perjury.”

  Ransome glared at King. “I don’t see it that way. I’d say the reliability is enhanced by the fact that the defendant doesn’t want the testimony.”

  “Get real!” King scoffed. “It’s an act. He’s pretending he doesn’t want it for that very reason! They’re setting you up,” he told Ransome.

  “I don’t agree. I’m calling the witness, and that’s that. Return to your seats. Paul Brown, please step forward!”

  Paulie walked down the aisle, and the hushed crowd watched him approach the witness stand.

  “Are you Paul Brown?” Ransome asked.

  Paulie nodded.

  “Step up, please, and be sworn in.”

  * * *

  King was quaking with anger. In his wildest fantasies, he’d never envisioned this, not even after Jennifer’s visit the other night. He’d thought he’d covered everything, blocked every countermove that Lawson could make. But from the looks of it, the defense had pulled a rabbit out of the hat. “Got to do something,” he whispered to Lin Song.

  “He has to be given his rights before he says anything,” Lin Song suggested.

  King leaped to his feet. “Wait a minute, Judge!”

  Paulie had already taken the oath and sat down.

  “What is it now, Mr. King?”

  “He may incriminate himself in the course of his testimony.”

  “So what?”

  King put his hands on his hips. “So that’s tantamount to a judicial confession. He needs to be aware of the consequences before he testifies.”

  “You want me to read him his rights?”

  “That’s correct.” Maybe Paul would get frightened off when he realized that he could end up on the hook for the crime if he said the wrong thing. He could take the Fifth Amendment and decline to testify. And if he did, the case against Brownie would still be intact.

  The judge turned to the witness. “Do you understand you have a right to remain silent if anything you say may incriminate you? If you do say something incriminating, you could be prosecuted for the crime. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, knowing that, you’re still willing to go forward, to testify in this matter?”

  Paulie looked down at Brownie. “Yes.”

  “Very well,” Ransome declared. “He knows the consequences, Mr. King. I’d say we’re ready to move on.”

  So much for discouraging the witness, thought King. “Objection to anything this witness has to say.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Bias, prejudice, manufactured testimony, whatever you want to call it. It’s obvious what’s happening here.”

  “Overruled. You can explore those issues on cross-examination if you like. But the witness will have his say.”

  “Shit!” King whispered to Lin Song.

  “You’ll bury him on cross,” Lin encouraged.

  King snapped a pencil between his fingers. “I’ll have to!”

  Judge Ransome looked at the witness. “I understand you know something about the death of Thomas Ruth. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What can you tell us about it?”

  Brownie suddenly jumped to his feet. “Don’t do it!”

  “Sergeant Brown!” Judge Ransome cautioned. “Please sit down and be quiet.”

  “He doesn’t know anything!” Brownie insisted.

  The judge squinted his eyes. “Don’t make me bind and gag you, sir. Be quiet and let the man talk.”

  Brownie dropped into the chair and clasped his hands in front of him, his body trembling with pent-up anger.

  “That’s better,” Ransome said. Then he turned to the witness. “Sorry about the interruption. Now, what do you know about the demise of Mr. Ruth?”

  Paulie cleared his throat and faced the judge. “As you heard, I’m that man’s brother.” He pointed to Brownie. “I grew up out here in the county and later moved to D.C. It was no secret that me and my brother didn’t get along. He… became a policeman, and… I had other ideas.” He looked at Brownie. “About a lot of things.”

  King stood up. “This is a nice history lesson, Judge, but I don’t hear anything substantive.”

  “S
it down, Mr. King,” Ransome answered. “I’m sure he’ll get to the point sooner or later. Proceed, sir.”

  Paulie nodded. “Just wanted to give you some background.”

  “No problem. Please go on.”

  “Anyhow,” Paulie continued, “my mother and father lived out in Blocktown. They were pretty normal folks, reasonably happy and all that.”

  King rolled his eyes with disgust, but the judge ignored it.

  “Then, in the fall, my daddy died suddenly. Had a heart attack, they said. I came back for the funeral. We buried him at All Saints Cemetery.…

  “Then I heard rumors. People were talking about Ruth and his church at the quarry, and then an article came out in a magazine, and…” Paulie kept his head down as he spoke. “I heard that he mighta done something to Daddy on the night he died, tortured him, caused the heart attack.

  “So I decided to check the man out. I shadowed him when he left the quarry, and I worked up a plan.

  “I convinced myself that Ruth killed my daddy, after the article, and the rumors, and the talk in the community. I got more and more angry. Nobody was doing anything about it. Not the family, not the police. Seemed like nobody really cared, like this crazy white preacher was running loose, and they were gonna let him.… So I decided to do something about it myself.”

  Ransome turned to the witness. “You do understand that if you tell us you committed a crime, you could go to prison?”

  Paulie didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

  “And you’re still willing to go on?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Continue.”

  “I decided that the man had to be taken out—”

  “Taken out?” Ransome interrupted. “You mean killed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  King shook his head.

  “He’s been warned, Mr. King,” the judge said. “Go on, Mr. Brown.”

  “So there was a meeting one night at the Blocktown community center, and everyone went up there. Everyone but me.”

  Gardner glanced at Brownie again. Tears brimmed in his eyes. He put his hand on Brownie’s arm, but Brownie shook it off.

  “I was on the trail of Thomas Ruth, the cracker who killed my father. I stalked him, and followed him up to the state park. He was acting strange, talking nonsense, singing to himself. And he had a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, but that didn’t seem to slow him up a bit. He just kept movin’ on through the woods, singing and chanting. And all the time I was getting ready to do the job.

  “So it was getting dark, and it was just me and him up in the park, and he was stumbling on through the woods like he knew what he was doing, or where he was going, and I was following behind, waiting for my chance.” Paulie stopped talking.

  He sat there for a minute, catching his breath.

  “Want some water?” Judge Ransome asked.

  “No, sir. I’m okay.… Anyway, we were in the woods, alone, and it was getting darker and darker, and he was going deeper and deeper on the trail. And then…” His voice changed octaves. “I saw it. This weird outline in the dusk.”

  “Power station,” King whispered.

  “And then I knew. What was going to happen.… There were signs all over it about danger and high voltage, and a fence, and a gate that was open, and he was next to it and…”

  Gardner gripped Brownie’s arm, and this time Brownie let him. The jurors and spectators held their breaths, and King closed his eyes.”

  And then…”

  Ransome looked down expectantly.

  “And then the dude walked through the gate, kicked off his shoes, and threw himself on the grid!”

  twenty-eight

  “Objection!” King yelled. The courtroom was in turmoil. Spectators, jurors, and lawyers all buzzed with confusion while Gardner and Brownie stared at each other, speechless.

  “Order!” Judge Ransome hollered. “Please come to order!”

  King was beside himself. He’d been set up by Gardner, set up by the oldest trick there was, the deus ex machina, the lying witness. “Move to strike this ridiculous testimony,” he argued.

  Ransome finally restored a semblance of order. “On what grounds, Mr. King?”

  “Falsified testimony.”

  King pointed at Paulie. “This is a joke! The defendant’s brother comes in at the last minute with a fabricated story that just happens to support the defense theory! Come on! It’s obvious what’s happening here!”

  “I told you before that you can bring out those points on cross-examination. The witness is duly qualified, and I will not strike his testimony.”

  “He’s lying!”

  “I’m not,” Paulie responded. “I can prove it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “The man left a note.”

  “Let me see that.” Ransome reached out his hand.

  “Objection!” King roared. “There’s no authentication! They wrote it!”

  “Approach the bench.”

  The prosecution and defense came forward. “I’m gonna look at this, Mr. King, whether you like it or not,” Ransome said. Gardner and Brownie pressed close, trying to get a look.

  ” ‘A time to live and a time to die.… Can’t endure the pain… my torment… my sins.… Praise God.’ “ Ransome read from the paper.

  “For chrissakes!” King exclaimed. “There’s been no fingerprinting, no analysis, it’s been in their possession all this time. It was not turned over to the authorities as evidence. They withheld it. No way it’s authentic!”

  The judge was still scrutinizing the note, and Gardner was looking at it from the other side. “The evidence,” Gardner suddenly exclaimed, turning to King. “Do you have the rest of the evidence you collected in the investigation? The exhibits you didn’t offer at trial?”

  King looked at Lin Song, and she nodded.

  “Bring them out,” Gardner demanded.

  Rollie glanced up from the note. “What’s going on?”

  “I need something from King’s evidence box.”

  King crossed his arms. “Get it yourself.”

  “What’s it for?” Ransome asked. “Why do you want the evidence?”

  Gardner looked at the judge. “Authentication.”

  “Get it for him,” the judge told King.

  Grudgingly, King sent out for the exhibits. Soon a large box was brought forward and laid by the bench.

  Gardner rummaged through the contents and lifted out a plastic bag. Inside were items he’d viewed several weeks before, miscellaneous bits of proof. Gardner removed the notepad holder from Ruth’s car and put it on the bench. “May I have the note, Your Honor?”

  “This is bull,” King protested.

  Ransome handed Gardner the note, and he placed it above the pad.

  “Look,” Gardner instructed.

  All eyes focused on the jagged edges of the paper as they were compared with the edges of the last note to be ripped from Thomas Ruth’s pad.

  “It fits,” Gardner said. “Exactly.”

  And sure enough, when the jagged edges joined, the paper again was one.

  “Return to your tables,” Judge Ransome ordered. “In light of this revelation, I have a few more questions to ask the witness.”

  Ransome turned to Paulie, who was waiting patiently on the stand. “Mind if I ask you something?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’ve known about this all along?”

  “Yes, sir. Since it happened.”

  The judge raised his eyebrows. “Why didn’t you come forward before? Why allow your brother to go through a trial?”

  Paulie looked at the judge, then lowered his eyes. “When it first happened, I had no idea that my brother would get in trouble. I went there to kill the man. I went there for revenge, but I got cheated. The man killed my daddy…. I wanted folks to think that he was murdered. I wanted the CAIN church and everyone else to take warning: This is what happens if you mess with our people! We’re not gonna be tortured and enslaved
anymore! We’re gonna protect ourselves. We’re gonna fight back! That’s what I was thinking at the time.”

  “But then your brother got charged,” Ransome said. “You could have done something then.”

  “Yeah,” Paulie replied. “I thought about it, thought about it a lot.”

  He looked at Brownie apologetically. “But as I said, we didn’t get along. For a long time, most of my life, I felt like he was an Uncle Tom. It was something between us, Judge, the way we were brought up, the way we lived, the way we believed.… I thought he went against our race, his own kind. I hated him for it. But when I thought about telling the truth, I agonized. Should I come forward? Should I tell what happened? I even asked advice, told someone about the situation. And I was told to keep my mouth shut. If I said anything, the cops would hang me. My brother could take care of himself.” He looked at Brownie again.

  “You were actually advised to keep silent?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “By whom?”

  Paulie lowered his eyes. “I’d rather not say, sir.”

  “Why did you come forward?”

  Paulie looked at Gardner. “I was probably gonna do it anyway, but…”

  Gardner stared back.

  “Someone suggested that what I was doin’…” He straightened his shoulders. “Maybe I wasn’t bein’ a man about things. You see, Judge, down where I live I try to teach the kids to take care of themselves, to work, to study, to stay off drugs, to have pride in their heritage… to be responsible….” He looked at Gardner again. “Maybe it was time for me to be responsible myself.”

  Judge Ransome nodded.

  “What about the shoes?” King had finally found his voice. “How did they end up in the possession of the defendant?”

  “I hid them,” Paulie explained. “In a hole off the trail. After I realized what Ruth had done, I figured people would know he’d killed himself if they saw the note and the shoes. Like I said, I was real upset at the time. I wanted folks to think he was executed for his crime. So I put the note in my pocket and stuck the shoes in a hole so no one would find them. They were too big to lug around. I hid them good. Never thought they’d be found. I also threw away his car keys and a pill bottle.”

  “My client did recover the shoes when he went to the crime scene to investigate,” Gardner added. “The keys and pills are probably still out there. What kind of pills were they? Do you remember?”