Ray Bond pounded the table with each of the last three words. “I’ll bet she’d like to bite off her tongue for saying what she said to Deputy O’Hare—but it’s too late! You must find her and her husband guilty.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dennis said, “the defense did not present witnesses. We didn’t have to. Because the prosecution’s case is not merely flawed. It’s not merely incomplete. It is tainted.”
He reminded the jury that Dr. Shepard, the state’s witness, had not been certain that Beatrice Henderson would have been capable of administering the lethal injection. He reminded the jury that the pharmacist Margaret Easter had explained that nitroglycerin pills have a longer intact life at a high, dry, cold altitude than at sea level. “Mrs. Henderson lives above 9,000 feet. Even if those were her pills in the pillbox, logic tells us that they could have been the pills of an old prescription—indeed, could have been the pills that were in the box when she lost it three years ago in Glenwood Springs, as she described to Deputy O’Hare.”
Dennis glanced over toward the prosecutorial table, and then looked back at the jurors with a steady gaze.
“And now we come to that part of Mr. Bond’s case that’s embarrassing. I can’t think of a more polite word than that. On last November thirtieth, in a Jeep driving from Springhill to Aspen, Deputy O’Hare talked to Mrs. Henderson. In English, and in a language we’re told is called Springling and is rumored to be spoken only up there in the boondocks of Gunnison County.” Dennis shrugged. “Never mind that, by her own admission in my presence, Ms. O’Hare is ‘a lousy note-taker’ and that Sheriff Gamble, her boss, has often been displeased with her notes. Put that aside for a moment—if you can.
“Deputy O’Hare typed that statement from her notes. Mr. Bond referred to it as a ‘confession.’ Deputy O’Hare’s copy of it is in evidence—you can have it right in front of you in the jury room, if you wish. You can see the yellow markings on it that she was told to make by Mr. Bond. You can see which parts of it Mr. Bond instructed her to repeat when she was his witness yesterday. But do they include any of the exculpatory parts? No, they don’t. Because the exculpatory parts don’t fit into Mr. Bond’s scheme of things. I wonder, when Deputy O’Hare put that statement into computer memory, if she knew that one day she would be told by Mr. Bond to repeat only certain parts of it under oath before a jury. And I wonder why he did that. Or am I being naive? Is it so simple that we don’t have to wonder?”
Again Dennis turned and looked directly at Ray Bond. And the jurors’ heads turned with him. Bond’s lips were compressed, his face swollen with anger.
Dennis said, “The words ‘the People’ have a proud ring to them. But this case against two innocent, elderly, lifelong residents of the western slope does not. You, who represent the real People, deserve better. There is no evidence the Hendersons committed this crime, let alone that the prosecutor has proved guilt beyond the standard of reasonable doubt. The people of Colorado should not be associated with such a prosecution.”
He sat down.
The judge peered down at Scott Henderson. “Sir, do you have anything to add?”
“Your Honor, I believe Mr. Conway has said it all. Except I should add that I did not confess or ever imply that my dear wife confessed to what she didn’t do. We are not guilty.”
With a pleasant air and in his most polite tone, Dennis said, “Your Honor, I think Mr. Bond may want to rebut. To have the last word.” For a moment the judge looked annoyed at such impertinence masquerading as kindness. But there was nothing he could do without seeming churlish. He said, “Mr. Bond?”
Ray Bond flew to his feet. Like a maddened rhino he charged straight for the jury box, instantly invading that precious territory so that two of the women jurors in the front row leaned back into their chairs as if seeking shelter. Ray Bond saw none of that. He saw only that he had been insulted and demeaned in a courtroom where he had always ruled.
He stopped short, his muscular chest heaving, and he waved a bundle of papers in the air.
“This is a copy of Deputy O’Hare’s statement!” he shouted. “The original is in evidence, and she testified under oath to its truth! I don’t need this statement to win this case, and you don’t need it to see that these people are guilty! I’m sick and tired of having this statement attacked by the defense attorney’s low tactics! I don’t care about her statement! I’ll show you just how much I need it to win this case! …” Ray Bond tore the papers in half—and tore them yet again—and then crumpled the torn pages and flung them to the floor at his feet, and stomped on them with his elephant-hide boots.
The waiting period was always agonizing. Dennis and the Hendersons and their coterie stayed in the courtroom.
“Is a quick verdict usually good?” Bibsy asked nervously.
“Usually,” Dennis said, more to relax her than out of conviction.
But quick it was: in just under two hours the bailiff presented a note to the judge that said the jury was ready to speak. The judge swiftly convened the trial. The jury was guided to their seats.
“Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?”
The courtroom went suddenly silent as the sockless retired dermatologist, the jury foreman, cleared his throat and said, “We have, Your Honor.”
“How do you find defendant Beatrice Henderson?”
“Not guilty.”
A loud murmur of approval rose from the spectators’ benches, and Judge Florian rapped his gavel.
“Defendant Scott Henderson?”
“Not guilty.”
Dennis embraced his mother-in-law, who began to cry, and then Scott. A few of the jurors marched boldly up to the defense table, and the Bible educator from Basalt threw her arms around Bibsy Henderson and told her how terribly sorry they all were that she’d had to go through this ordeal.
Dennis found a few minutes time to pull the dermatologist foreman into a corner of the courtroom.
“I’d like to know what happened in the jury room. It’s perfectly proper for you to tell me, but you don’t have any obligation to do it.”
“I don’t mind telling you at all,” the doctor said. “I’d love to tell you. We took a vote as soon as we went into the jury room—twelve to none in favor of acquittal. That was that. That’s all there was to it. That prosecutor is an idiot! Did he really believe that tearing up that statement was going to make us forgive him for what he did? What an ass! You showed that to us, and I personally want to thank you.”
“Why did you take so long to come out of the jury room?”
“We didn’t want the judge to think we were being frivolous. And we didn’t want to be too insulting to the prosecutor and that poor deputy who admitted taking lousy notes and claimed these people spoke to each other in a local language. You know, I’ve lived in this valley for fifteen years, and I’ve heard that rumor about Springhill and that language, and so had some of the other jurors, but we all realize that’s pure snobbism on the part of so-called privileged people in Pitkin County—it’s like the Serbs and the Bosnians, or those New Guinea tribes who believe the people who live over the next hill speak worship the devil and have tails. Incredible stuff, in this day and age. So we just talked, and chatted, and a couple of us played gin rummy. When a respectable time had passed, we came out.”
Dennis took a deep breath. “Did you have any discussion about the case? What convinced you the Hendersons were innocent?”
“Are you kidding? That was never in doubt. Don’t quote me on this—but some of us felt that even if it was euthanasia, no law passed by some gang of redneck politicians was going to make us convict these two decent people of first-degree murder. No way! We looked at them, at the Hendersons, and we knew they hadn’t done anything illegal or criminal. You can see in their faces exactly who they are. They’re good people. They aren’t murderers. It was just ridiculous.”
“Thank you,” Dennis said. He could remember when he had felt that way too. He shook the doctor’s hand.
/> Scott came up to him. “I’m going to call Sophie to tell her. Do you want to speak to her?”
“Not now,” Dennis said. “Tell her I’ll be home later. In a while.”
He pulled away a little abruptly, noting the puzzled expression on Scott’s face. He hadn’t known he would do that, or say what he’d said; hadn’t known that he would want to be alone.
He walked swiftly across town through the cold evening, taking deep welcome breaths of air, straight to the bar at the Little Nell. He straddled a fabric-covered bar stool and ordered from the barman a Wild Turkey on the rocks. My God, he thought, I haven’t done anything like this in years. Not alone, anyway, and not on a bar stool. To hell with it. He downed the drink quickly and ordered another. The room was crowded and noisy; the apres-ski crowd was there, talking about the day’s runs and what they would do tomorrow and how fine the weather was and how lucky they were to be in Aspen. and at first didn’t see anyone he knew. That made himfeel lucky.
Suddenly he noticed Oliver Cone and Mark Hapgood at the end of the bar, standing to one side, still wearing their jeans and worn parkas, and finishing what appeared to be straight shots of whisky.
They had come here, as Dennis had, straight from the courtroom.
The bourbon had made Dennis reckless. He walked over with slow, deliberate steps, but he was smiling.
“Gentlemen, can I buy you a drink? Shouldn’t we celebrate together? A victory for one citizen of Springhill is a victory for all, right?”
Oliver Cone’s face flushed. “We were just leaving,” he muttered.
“Oh?” Dennis felt that his teeth were slightly numb. “Got to get up there above the road before I do? Got some dynamite handy?”
Cone glared at him. “Not funny, Conway.”
“Let’s go,” Hapgood said quietly to his companion, taking his arm.
Cone shook him off. “You want what we’ve got,” he said to Dennis, “but you’ll never get it. Not if I have any say.”
“I want what you’ve got? And what is that?” Dennis asked.
“Come on, Oliver,” Hapgood said, with greater urgency this time, pulling Cone away.
Dennis did not object or interfere. An entirely new purpose had taken hold of him. He turned his back on Oliver Cone and Mark Hapgood and walked with the same slow, deliberate strides to the bar stool he had previously occupied. “You have a cordless phone?” he asked the barman.
When the instrument had been placed before him, Dennis punched out the number of his home.
“Yes?” Sophie said.
“It’s me. I’m still in Aspen, but I’m coming home. And when I get there, I want you to tell me everything. I think I know part of it now, but I want to know it all.”
“You don’t know,” Sophie said, “but I’ll tell you now, Dennis. I swear to you. I’ll tell you everything.”
Chapter 23
Sophie’s Tale
SOPHIE THREW HER arms around him as she had not done in months. “Thank you,” she said. He felt that all her heart went into those two simple words. But he was a little drunk, unable to stop his tongue from voicing what was on his mind.
“You’re welcome. All in a day’s work. I may have lost a friend or two and I had to pillory a deputy district attorney, but the son of a bitch probably deserved it. Never mind that he was in the right and I was in the wrong. I just keep wondering why I have this sour taste in my mouth. Is it the bourbon? Must be.”
“Don’t act like this, Dennis, please. Whatever you had to do, you did the right thing.”
“Did I?” Dennis said. “Convince me. Tell me all.”
The telephone rang. Sophie answered, and Dennis bounded up the stairs two at a time to hug his children. “Ouch, Daddy,” Lucy said. “Too hard.”
He flung off his suit, shirt, and tie, all his clothes, then plunged into the shower. In the frosted glass stall he shut his eyes and stood under the drumming beat of the hot water for ten minutes, as if soap and steam could wipe off the grime of the trial. When he finally came out to towel down, Sophie was waiting for him.
“That was my father who called. They wanted us to come over for dinner, to celebrate.” It sounded so domestic, as if he had won a promotion or it was someone’s birthday. “But I said no.” Sophie wasn’t smiling; she looked oddly flushed. “I need to talk to you, Dennis. I’m sorry about how you feel but I think after I’ve talked to you, you may feel differently. I want to explain Springhill. It can’t wait. It has to be tonight. I have so much to tell you—all that I couldn’t tell you before.”
He was bewildered by her urgency, but not unhappy at the thought that he wouldn’t have to spend the evening feasting with Scott and Bibsy. He had seen more than enough of them in the last week. He’d done what had to be done, but he wondered if he would ever feel the same warmth toward his in-laws as he had before he came to the conclusion they were guilty as charged. He had defended them with full vigor: that was his obligation as a lawyer, and he had won. It wasn’t his obligation to forgive and forget.
The buzz of the alcohol began to wear off. “I want to spend some time now with the kids,” he said.
“I understand. Do it, of course. I meant after dinner.”
Sophie had barbecued two chickens and baked a peach pie. Later, at the computer, Dennis worked with Brian and Lucy on a new astronomy program. He showed them the planetal orbits. The moon whizzed around the earth; the earth flew around the sun. It was all orderly and yet it made no sense. Just like life, he thought. By the time the children were bored and ready for bed Dennis felt that life was beginning to move back to normalcy. The old fundamental truth struck home: whatever happens, life goes on. The planets move on their tracks and so do we.
Dennis kissed the children good night. Downstairs, Sophie ran toward him. “Oh, God, I’m happy,” she cried. “Come out on the porch with me. Put on a coat.” She couldn’t sit still. She needed space, she said, to tell her tale. He wrapped himself in his ski parka. They stepped outside. “I need to tell you some of the history of this place,” she said.
“History? Now? Sophie, what are you talking about?”
“We’ll get where you want to go. You’ll know what happened at Pearl Pass, and you’ll know why it happened, and you’ll see how good a thing you did.”
That put a new spin on things. Dennis frowned.
A chill wind began to blow. He had to strain to catch her words. It was only because her face gleamed against the black background of the forest that he knew where she was, who she was.
“Will you listen? Will you believe what I tell you? Will you make an effort to understand? Do you promise?”
“Yes, I promise.” A promise as to a child. But he sensed she was not about to speak of childish things.
Sophie said: “The first settlers came here after the Civil War. They were only three families and a few single men. When the people arrived they found abandoned miners’ equipment over by the shores of Indian Lake. They also found a couple of mountain men who claimed they’d been trapping beaver here since 1860. The mountain men didn’t like the settlers moving into what they considered their private territory, even though they’d never bothered to file any claims. I think there was some arguing … a man was killed, so the story goes … but it’s an old story, gotten fuzzy over the years. The point is, the mountain men packed up and left Springhill.
“One of those first families was the Hendersons. Charles Henderson was my great-grandfather, from near Pittsburgh. James Brophy, our friend Edward’s great-grandfather, was a muleskinner from Worcester, Massachusetts. And there was a William Lovell, a miner, and later a Frazee, who was a hunter, and a Cone, another hunter who opened a saloon some years later. Cone was supposed to have been the one who’d shot the trapper—bushwhacked him, they said, from behind a pine tree—and driven the mountain men off. A few Ute Indians lived here too, on the other side of the lake. But they were forced out of western Colorado after the Meeker massacre in 1881.
“Marble was the bigg
est of the settlements up here and later it became a good-sized town. Springhill was never more than a mining camp and no one paid much attention to it. The settlers were looking for gold. They found it in small quantities—small enough, fortunately, not to start a stampede. They also found silver and lead and zinc and copper, but again the holdings were barely worth working at. It wasn’t called Springhill then. Charles Henderson and the first settlers called it Fortune City—you might call that the triumph of hope over reality. Naturally the name didn’t stick, and then people remembered that the Ute name for the place was Wacha-na-hanka, which they’d been told meant ‘the hill where the warm spring is.’ That was a mouthful for white men, so it became Springhill. Prosaic, but appropriate. More than anyone knew.
“People hung on, scratched a living from the mines. Winters were hard but no one froze—there was plenty of wood to burn. No one went hungry—there was plenty of game. No one was ever thirsty— the drinking water was pure and virtually unlimited, depending on the accumulation of snow and the summer runoffs. People either took their water from the nearest stream or from Indian Lake.
“Up near the El Rico mine—a little copper deposit on a north-facing slope—there was a warm spring and a tiny waterfall. You remember the place I took you and the children to that day? Where the water gushes out of the hillside? That was the El Rico claim. They say that in the 1860s the creek ran more forcefully, and the bed was a foot or two wider. William Lovell owned the claim. That was his old mining cabin we went into, where the gravity seemed out of whack and where I told you no birds fly over.
“Bathing was not an everyday event in the nineteenth century, but miners get pretty dirty. William Lovell used to bathe in the warm spring the whole year round, just to get clean after a day’s work. So did a couple of men who worked the mine with him.
Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller Page 22