Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction

by Grif Stockley

“No, it’s not too late,” I assure her.

  “What do you have?”

  “Do you recall our conversation the other night when you thought it could be my godfather who shot Art?”

  “Hector Tyndall,” I say finally, my mind fumbling for his name. As soon as I had realized that he had no way of knowing what was going on inside the house the morning of the murder, I had dismissed him as a suspect and not given it another thought.

  “What have you found out?”

  Mary Patricia, sounding slightly impatient, says, “I haven’t found out anything, but I remembered something that might be of help to Leigh.”

  Let her talk, I tell myself and begin to doodle on the pad.

  “What’s that?”

  Mary Patricia pauses as if reconsidering, then says, “Hector’s retired now, but at least until a few years ago, one of the businesses he owned had to do with surveillance equipment. I remember when I was a teenager, he showed me all these listening devices. It always gave me the creeps, but he used to say that if people weren’t doing anything wrong, they didn’t have anything to worry about.”

  I write the words “Hector” and “video” on the pad.

  Mary Patricia must have been in touch with Leigh and gotten the story out of her that she had been dancing naked for Art’s camera the morning he was shot.

  “So you think your godfather could have planted a bug in their bedroom and was listening in that morning?”

  Somewhat breathlessly, Mary Patricia adds, “I bet if you searched his house you might find the video Art made of Leigh.”

  Below Art’s name I write “Shane.” If we are going to speculate, we might as well go all the way.

  “Do you think your father put Hector up to this?”

  There is no pause.

  “He might have,” Mary Patricia says, her voice harsh for the first time.

  “Privacy isn’t Daddy’s strong point.”

  I nod, wondering what my limits are. If I suspected Sarah was on drugs, I realize I wouldn’t hesitate a minute about searching her room. Would I listen in on her conversations? If her life was at stake, I would. To Shane and Hector perhaps Leigh’s life was on the line.

  We talk for a few more minutes but I learn nothing more and, after thanking her, hang up so I can call Dan and run this by him. Even as I dial his number, I begin to admit to myself how thin the possibility is that we will be able to prove any of this.

  Dan, his mouth obviously clogged with food, has to listen but agrees, “Grider won’t stop the trial and let you search Tyndall’s house. He’d laugh this one into the next century.”

  I kid Dan, “You want to volunteer to break in there tonight?” As I listen to him chew (it sounds as if he is trying to gnaw through a plastic freezer bag), I doubt if a tape is lying around, but there should be some surveillance equipment.

  Dan smacks his lips. I hold the phone away from my ear. He says, “I can see the headlines in the National Enquirer: Fattest Thief in Country Nabbed: Claimed He Was Looking for a Home Video. You need to take a couple of sleeping pills and go to bed early.”

  Is there ever a time when he stops eating?

  “You’re a lot of help,” I complain. I smell sausage pizza from the oven. I was hungry until now.

  “I know somebody who’ll do it for me,” I say, thinking of a conversation I’ve had recently on this subject.

  “Jessie St. vrain.”

  “You’re kidding,” Dan growls.

  “I thought you said she’s a flake.”

  I can’t help but smile as I think of Jessie and myself walking back to my hotel after dinner. I was terrified.

  “I’m not contemplating a long-term relationship. She says she can turn off a burglar alarm and crack a safe.”

  Dan doesn’t take much convincing.

  “You really think she’d risk getting caught?”

  From the little I know of her, she’ll think it’s fun.

  “Obviously, she isn’t going to want to testify. Jill would charge her with breaking and entering as soon as she stepped off the witness stand. I gave Sarah a Polaroid for Christmas she could use and then I could confront Hector with the pictures if she finds anything.”

  I hear a swallowing sound as Dan chokes something down.

  “Why not send her over to Wallace’s house and let her look for bugs?”

  I look over at Sarah and realize she has been listening to this conversation. “Too risky,” I say, watching Sarah’s face, which is registering disapproval.

  “Grider would put her under the jail for tampering with the crime scene.”

  Sarah is shaking her head. I tell Dan I’ll call him back and get off the phone.

  Leaning against the stove, Sarah says incredulously, “You’d even involve me?”

  Stalling for time, I take a Coke out of the refrigerator.

  I got so caught up I forgot she was there.

  “We don’t really have a choice,” I say, knowing I sound defensive.

  “This is important.”

  Sarah puts her hands up to her face as if to shield herself.

  “Is there ever a time,” she says in a choked voice, “when the ends don’t justify the means with you?”

  “Let me call Jessie,” I say, looking up the Excelsior’s number, “and I’ll discuss this with you.” I should have stayed at the office. I’m about to get another lecture about how I use people. I can’t make her understand how limited my options are. As I dial the number, it occurs to me to leave Leigh out of this. So much for trusting my client, but I don’t want her to have the opportunity to sabotage me. When Jessie answers the phone, I tell her to make up an excuse and go down to the lobby and call me.

  Sarah takes the pizza from the oven and sets it on the counter.

  “I can borrow a Polaroid from anybody,” I tell her.

  “Then you’ll have to,” my daughter says, her voice constricted with emotion as she takes a knife from the drawer and begins slicing the cheese.

  “Don’t you realize that you’re doing the same thing you’re accusing that man of?”

  I lean back against the wall by the phone. She has no idea what is at stake.

  “The situation is not even remotely comparable,” I say as evenly as possible.

  “Mr.

  Tyndall may have listened in on Leigh and Art Wallace in the privacy of their own bedroom.”

  My daughter won’t even look at me. She takes our ancient spatula from the drawer and scoops out a slice of pizza.

  “The principle is the same.”

  I will myself into silence for once. Sarah is right to be stubborn. If anyone should be an idealist, it should be someone her age. She’ll find it won’t be so easy when she’s older. With everything else that has happened though, I worry what this will do to our relation ship. Rainey has already made it clear how she feels.

  Yet surely I have a duty to Leigh to do everything I can to win this case. So why am I not calling her? If I can’t even trust my own client, this case has more to do with my own ego than the lawyer’s canons of professional responsibility.

  The phone rings. It is Jessie, who says, “Leigh’s in the shower. I’m downstairs.” As I tell her what I want, Sarah, with pizza in hand and Woogie at her heels, walks out of the kitchen.

  “How do I get there?” Jessie asks without a pause.

  I marvel at the excitement in her voice. I wouldn’t go out my front door when Chet was shot until I absolutely had to, and she’s willing to break into a house on the spur of the moment.

  “I’ll park in the garage across from the courthouse and leave my keys and directions for you at the front desk. A camera with film will be in the front seat. Put the pictures in an envelope, and Dan will walk across the street during the trial and pick them up.

  I don’t expect you to testify that you broke into his house.”

  “Thanks,” she says dryly.

  “All of the witnesses are supposed to be in the witness room by eight-thirty. How do
we get him out of his house?”

  I look at the pizza cooling on the stove and begin to get hungry again. I haven’t thought of that.

  “You know how old people are; he’ll probably be thirty minutes early,” I say.

  “He’s got a red Saturn. If it’s not in his driveway, he’s already left. If you can’t find anything in fifteen minutes, forget it and come on down. If you’re only a few minutes late, he’ll never suspect it was you.”

  I describe his house as best I can remember and answer her questions about what to photograph to set up the initial questions and then get off the phone so I can track down a Polaroid.

  I shouldn’t have been worried.

  “I’ll rip off Brenda’s and meet you at seven in the Excelsior parking garage,” Dan says after I call him back.

  Dan’s main worry, like the concern of most of the human race, is with getting caught. As we discuss the case and how I will try to use the photographs, I wonder if he and Brenda have used the Polaroid to photograph each other naked. I can’t imagine it. Yet, who knows, as the song says, what goes on behind closed doors?

  At ten the phone rings again, and I fear it is Jessie backing out. Instead, when I answer. Pearl Norman’s boozy voice says, “Mr. Page, neither my daughter nor my husband killed my son-in-law…. I’d like to talk to you.”

  Where is she calling from? I wonder. Surely Shane wouldn’t be putting her up to this. I hear the sound of water running and realize she could have a portable phone in her bathroom.

  “I can’t talk to you, Mrs. Norman,” I say.

  “As a witness in the case you’ve been instructed not to discuss it with anyone. Don’t you remember the judge telling you that this morning?” I re mind her. Grider will have me disbarred if he thinks I have tried to influence a witness.

  She mutters something incomprehensible and hangs up, and I kick myself for never having tried to follow up with her. Does she have some information, or was this the drunken call of a pathetic alcoholic who is sure to lose something tomorrow? Either her daughter is going to jail or her husband’s reputation will be irrevocably harmed, or’ both. It occurs to me that I never checked out her alibi, but the truth is that I haven’t ever been able to make myself take her seriously. What did Leigh say? She has been out of the loop ever since she was born. Still, tomorrow when she testifies, she may say more than she intends to, and that may be what this phone call was all about.

  Sarah’s light is off when I lock up the house at mid night. I hope she will be there when I get up the next morning. In bed, I have trouble getting to sleep. My daughter is right. I use people. I used Jessie and even Dan tonight. Maybe when this case is over I need to think about the direction my life is taking. Yet, with a little luck, I can win this case tomorrow. I know I can.

  Jill begins her case with the two octogenarians Leigh originally claimed she spoke with at the church between nine and eleven-thirty and follows with Nancy Lyons, who also contradicts the story Leigh gave to the police.

  All we can do right now is pretend we are not being hurt by her lies. During the middle of their testimony I send Dan across the street to the Excelsior with his briefcase to pick up what I hope are some pictures of the inside of Tyndall’s house. Ten minutes later he comes back and nods, and it is all I can do to resist tearing into the envelope he lays beside me on the defense table. For the last hour I have imagined I could hear sirens, but my strange friend Jessie St. Vrain must have carried out her crime undetected. Hurray for the West Coast, I think, as Dan whispers, “She got a few halfway decent shots of some equipment and the interior of his house.”

  Watching the jury as Jill zips through her witnesses, I think about Tyndall’s possible answers. If he doesn’t authenticate the pictures, they will be useless. Leigh, beside me in a beige suit that sets off her magnificent black hair, has a quizzical expression on her face, but I shrug as if Dan merely went out to get some routine documents. Since Chet’s death, I have not been able to read her. If she has been participating in some kind of cover-up involving her father, Chet’s suicide is not a part of it. If anything, she is more perplexed than I am by his decision to end his life. Understandably, she is so nervous today she can’t keep still and stirs impatiently at almost every question.

  “Try to remain motionless,” I remind her.

  “If you move around too much, some of the jurors will take it as a sign of guilt.”

  She nods solemnly and clasps her hands in her lap.

  Her testimony will be the key, but all she can do now is wait.

  Jill puts on the cops who took Leigh’s statement, follows with the pathologist who fixes the time of death at between ten and eleven-thirty, and then calls Mrs. Sims, who found Art’s body. As I listen to this poor old lady babble about the crime scene and how she burst into tears, I find it unlikely that Leigh would have picked a weepy, frail old woman in her seventies to discover Art’s body. Yet, that unlikelihood could have been part of a desperate attempt to cover up his murder. I waive my chance to cross-examine the witness lest I reinforce the impression she is making. Between sobs, she has volunteered that Leigh, like herself, became hysterical.

  Beside me, Leigh tears up, possibly from guilt at what she put the old lady through. I don’t discourage her, and during this emotional moment, I take a peek at the pictures. They could help, but everything depends upon Tyndall’s answers. As I quickly flip through them, I see that Jessie has done about as well with the Polaroid as I could have hoped for. Though the quality isn’t terrific, she has managed to get various pieces of equipment, including a tiny microphone similar to the one she wears, next to a photograph of Tyndall and a young woman, who may well be Mary Patricia.

  Ann and Bobby Wheeler prove to be more nervous witnesses than I would have expected, given their wealth and sophistication. Holding herself stiffly erect in a spruce-green cotton knit dress which is overlaid with expensive jewelry, Ann, so warm and sympathetic before when I interviewed her, answers in a tense, clipped voice. She is more forthcoming than her husband and establishes that there was, indeed, an argument between Leigh and Art the night before he died.

  “Did you check out their alibis?” Dan asks, during Jill’s examination of Bobby.

  “Hell, no,” I mutter. Moments before, Bobby Wheeler barely acknowledged that there had been a little unpleasantness in the neighborhood that day. Still, Dan is right. We should at least have made a phone call or two. Ann, her gold bracelet clanking against the arm of the witness chair, tells Jill she was playing tennis at the “club” all morning. If I had been able to establish that they, too, had actually been at home at the time of Art’s death, Leigh’s odds might have improved. But as fastidious and career-driven as Bobby appears to be, I can’t form a mental picture of him taking off a morning to murder anyone or even to screw his wife. These people are simply embarrassed to be here.

  Hector Tyndall strides briskly to the witness stand as if he is anxious to begin a marathon. Jaunty in gray slacks and a blue blazer complete with red handkerchief, he doesn’t act as if his goddaughter’s sister has been charged with murder. But then, in my presence, he never has. The day I interviewed him, he didn’t volunteer a word about his closeness to Shane and his family.

  Why not? But, if he had murdered Art, wouldn’t he have pretended remorse or at least concern?

  After Jill briskly takes him through his story about seeing Leigh on her way home the morning of her husband’s murder, I begin by asking him why he didn’t tell me the day I interviewed him that he was a godfather to Leigh’s sister.

  “My goodness!” he exclaims, his voice strong and clear of an old man’s foggy rasp.

  “You claimed to be Leigh’s lawyer. I figured you knew that already.”

  Behind the railing that separates the trial participants from the spectators, laughter rolls toward me like a faint peal of thunder. What kind of fool does Leigh have for a lawyer? Yet Tyndall’s attitude doesn’t wash. That day he seemed too removed, too self-centered. Grante
d, it was months after the incident had occurred. But a family friend would have showed more emotion. However, people are weird, especially this guy. He may be no more capable of showing his feelings in front of another person than a robot.

  “Mr. Tyndall, you’re a member of Christian Life?”

  Tyndall smiles benignly.

  “I told you that day that they even let old men go.”

  Behind me I hear more titters. The spectators love the guy. From the grin on his face, Tyndall loves it, too. He is getting to go one on one and winning as usual.

  “In fact, you were a founding father of Christian Life, isn’t that correct?”

  Before Tyndall can answer, Jill pops to her feet and in a bored voice says, “This is irrelevant. Your Honor.”

  I respond, “I should be permitted to get at Mr. Tyndall’s relationship with Christian Life for the purpose of showing bias.”

  Grider’s face takes on an amused, superior expression.

  “Mr. Page, it seems to me as if you are about to convince the triers of fact,” he says, cutting his eyes to the jury, “that Mr. Tyndall was biased in favor of your client, not against her.”

  For an instant I feel as if I am back in trial advocacy in law school, being hung up to dry by one of the trial lawyers who double as adjunct professors. I listen for more titters, but there are none. Perhaps the spectators have become embarrassed for me.

  “I’d like to run that risk. Your Honor,” I say, trying not to sound as if I am pleading.

  Grider shrugs as if it makes no difference to him if I screw up.

  “Go on,” he says, “but I’m not going to let you waste the jury’s time with a lot of this.”

  Quickly, I get Tyndall to confirm that he and Shane have known each other for over thirty-five years and have remained good friends. If Tyndall knows where I am heading, his eyes don’t betray him. Scratching at the padding on the armrest of the witness chair with a thumbnail, he seems like a rooster pleased to take his turn in the chicken yard.

  “You were aware that Pastor Norman wasn’t at all happy with his son-in-law’s efforts to influence Leigh’s participation at Christian Life?”