Anatomy of a Murder

by Robert Traver

  A lone juror raised his hand. I consulted my notes; it was Oscar Haverdink, the elderly first juror who had been called. Parnell and I knew he was a retired log scaler in Thunder Bay and that he would be a good juror. We further knew that we could not hope to keep him—that he had hated Barney’s guts and didn’t care who knew it.

  “Mr. Haverdink,” the Judge said, “how long had you known the deceased?”

  “About nine years, sir—ever since he first came to our town.”

  “How well did you know him?”

  The juror pondered. “Well,” he said, “Thunder Bay’s a small place. I guess everybody knew of this Barney—Mr. Quill, I mean.”

  “Have you discussed the case or talked with anyone purporting to know the facts?”

  The juror smiled. “I guess that’s about all we folks have talked about lately. We don’t get much excitement like that up our way. The last killin’ was—let’s see now—it was near the end of that dry summer—”

  “We needn’t go into that, Mr. Haverdink,” the Judge said kindly. “This case will occupy us nicely. Now don’t state it if you have one, but I now ask you if you have formed any impression or opinion on the merits of the case or of the guilt or innocence of the accused?”

  The juror looked down at his feet and then at the juror next to him and then back at the Judge. He spoke in a low troubled voice. “You see, Judge, I—I don’t like to talk about the dead—”

  “Hold on!” the Judge broke in rapidly, holding up his hand. “That will be enough.” The juror looked around, puzzled, as though he had inadvertently used a dirty word. The Judge motioned counsel up to the bench with his cupped hand and Mitch and I and Claude Dancer, quickly gathered around him like huddled conspirators. “Well, gentlemen,” the Judge whispered grimly, leaning forward, “it looks like we struck oil in our first hole.”

  “Defense oil,” Claude Dancer whispered, glaring at me.

  “Better ease him off painlessly, Judge,” I whispered. “If you don’t the People surely will later, anyway, and that’ll only delay our case.” I smiled at Claude Dancer. “I’ll send the banished juror his knighthood later.” Mitch whispered briefly with Claude Dancer and then nodded at the Judge, who nodded at us, and we quickly resumed our places at our tables.

  “Mr. Haverdink,” the Judge went on, “since you live in the same community as the deceased, might you feel better—perhaps less embarrassed—if you were excused from sitting on this case?”

  The juror nodded his head eagerly. “Oh, yes, Your Honor, much better. You see, I—”

  “That’s all. The court will excuse you. You may stand aside now. Any objections from counsel?”

  “None, Your Honor,” Mitch and I popped up and dutifully replied. I wanted to steal a look at Parnell but didn’t dare.

  “Mr. Clerk,” the Judge said.

  The clerk ostentatiously shook up his box and found another name.

  “Alexander James Petrie,” he announced, and I was positive that never had Mr. Petrie heard his name pronounced with such declamatory fervor and loving care. In fact Clovis’ ardor seemed rather excessive, even for him, until I realized that the fall festival of elections was almost upon us, that he was softly heralding the approach of the great biennial Season of Love.

  The Lieutenant leaned over and whispered to me. “I don’t think that last old fellow cared very much for this Barney person. Too bad we couldn’t keep him.”

  “Not a chance,” I whispered. “Anyway, he’s already earned his keep. In a sense he was really our first witness, and perhaps one of the best.”

  The new juror was in his seat. “I must ask all of the jurors to disregard any remarks they may hear from other jurors during this examination,” the Judge said. “Nor should any of you draw any inferences from anything you have heard or may hear from each other during this examination. Do you understand that?” The jurors solemnly nodded and I again longed to look at Parnell. The excused juror had driven a first spike for the defense, and the Judge in performing his plain duty had been obliged to hammer it home. Things like this were one of the wry imponderables of jury trials.

  The Judge was speaking to the new juror. Had he heard the questions that had been asked the others? Did he … had he … was he … ? No, he didn’t know any of us lawyers or the Lieutenant or the dead man. When it was all done the new juror had miraculously survived.

  “Now I ask all the jurors if any of you have talked or read about this case?”

  All of the jurors raised their hands; any who hadn’t would by their failure have virtually convicted themselves of perjury, dumbness, or failing to pay their newspaper delivery boys.

  “Have any of you formed any impression or opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused? Answer simply yes or no or raise your hands.”

  They had all learned their lessons now; no hands were raised; and fourteen heads shook negatively amidst the mumbled chorus of noes.

  “Now I ask if any of you know of any reason whatsoever why you could not enter upon the trial of this case, if you are chosen, with an open mind, bearing in mind that under the law the respondent is presumed to be innocent until his guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt?”

  None did.

  “And can each of you render a fair and impartial verdict based solely upon the law and evidence given you here in open court?”

  All thought they could. The Judge looked at Mitch. “For cause, gentlemen,” he said. “Yours first, Mr. Prosecutor?”

  Mitch nodded at the Judge and continued an earnest whispered conversation he was having with Claude Dancer. The Judge opened a law book and began to read to himself. I whispered to my client. “How do they look to you, Lieutenant?” He shrugged. “Your choice, Counselor,” he whispered back.

  The People had fifteen peremptory challenges and the defense twenty—that is, we could excuse that number of jurors without assigning any cause. A mere airy wave of the hand was enough. “Scat, you divil …” as Parnell might say. In addition, we could challenge “for cause” any jurors that our questioning might show to be unqualified or prejudiced or otherwise incompetent. That question would shortly be in my lap.

  “The People pass,” Mitch finally said. “No questions for cause.”

  “Up to you, Mr. Biegler,” the Judge said.

  I swallowed and quickly arose. “The defense passes,” I said.

  “Peremptory challenges,” the Judge said. “Back to you, Mr. Prosecutor.”

  “Excuse me, Your Honor,” Mitch said, and he and Claude Dancer again fell into a whispered huddle and consulted their notes while I drew what I hoped was a leaping trout on my scratch pad. A psychologist would probably have told me I was obsessed with plump mermaids … .

  “The People will excuse Michael Powers,” Mitch finally said.

  Juror Powers sat looking as though he had been hit in the face with a wet mop. What had he done? He looked aggrievedly up at the Judge. I was not too displeased at this turn of events: Michael Powers happened also to be one of the jurors on Parnell’s and my doubtful list.

  “Very well, Mr. Powers, you may stand aside,” the Judge said. “You are excused from further service on this case. Thank you. All right, Mr. Clerk.”

  “Kenneth Medley,” Clovis called out lovingly as the late Mr. Powers stalked out of the jury box and into the back court, glaring at Mitch. “One vote for Biegler for Congress,” I thought. “The people’s pal.”

  Once again the Judge waded manfully through the whole rigmarole with the new juror; once again the juror somehow made the right answers; once again both sides passed for cause—and at last the big decision was coming up to me … . Did I want to boot any of these jurors off on peremptory. “All yours, Mr. Biegler,” the Judge said.

  “A little time, please, Your Honor,” I said, and he nodded and quietly resumed reading his law book. The courtroom grew hushed; this was it. There were still two jurors in the box who were on our doubtful list. The doubts were big and yet not big: Withi
n the year I had defeated the brother of one juror in a rather bitter will contest and once, while prosecutor, I had convicted the husband of a woman juror of drunk driving. Yet smaller things could sway jurors … . But, Lord, could a juror be small enough to convict a man of murder because … ? Tweedledee, tweedledum … .

  On the other hand there were several jurors on the panel in back court that I hoped might get to sit. There were also a couple among the fourteen now in the box that I wanted to keep. They weren’t ringers or anything like that, but I believed that they would be fair and unbiased jurors with minds of their own. One was an intelligent-looking young Finnish veteran of World War II, an iron miner who lived in one of the farming townships. The other juror I had seen and met casually some years before at a political rally and had been favorably impressed with him. But mightn’t a veteran, particularly an intelligent one, be just dying to pay off the Army brass? And mightn’t the other one be voting straight Whig by now? And if not, so what? All these and more thoughts came to me. Perhaps it was better to let well enough alone. Perhaps I’d start a spree of challenges if I excused even one. Maybe if I passed on peremptory Mitch might miraculously lay off. After all, there were equally doubtful ones and worse that might still be called.

  “What do you think, Lieutenant?” I whispered. I knew what he’d think but I was bound to ask him; one always had to ask them in case anything went wrong … . The Lieutenant gave me his expected shrug and I was sobered by his total dependence on me and my judgment. I glanced beyond him at Parnell. He too shrugged almost imperceptibly and I was back with myself. The decision was solely mine, as it had to be. I took a quick breath and arose to my feet.

  “Your Honor,” I said, “the defense is satisfied with the jury.”

  “Back to you, Mr. Prosecutor,” the Judge said.

  Mitch and Claude Dancer fell into a long whispered huddle while I got back to my art and attached a fisherman to the trout I had drawn—a nice balding long-nosed fisherman. In the meantime the jurors, realizing now that they could be banished out of hand, even though they had passed all previous tests, sat trying to look unconcerned, like nervously waiting candidates for membership in a fraternal lodge uneasily wondering whether they would be blackballed.

  “Your Honor,” Mitch was on his feet, “the People are satisfied.”

  The miracle had happened; we had selected a jury in a murder case in less than half a day. I had prosecuted criminal cases where the jury selection alone had taken two days, and in one nearly three. And neither side had so much as mentioned insanity or rape, as though both of us were afraid to get into those tangled and controversial subjects before we had to. Lieutenant Manion was a party to another record, too, though he didn’t quite know it: this was the first murder case I had ever seen or heard of where the defense had not made a single peremptory challenge. “Jury chosen swiftly in Manion murder case,” the Gazette would probably say. “Courtroom observers cannot remember greater speed.”

  “Swear the jury,” the Judge quietly said, looking down over his glasses at Clovis.

  Clovis popped to his feet and adminstered the final oath to the standing jurors.

  “You do solemnly swear,” he intoned, “that you shall well and truly try, and true deliverance make, between the People of this state and the prisoner at the bar, whom you shall have in charge, according to the evidence and the laws of this state; so help you God.”

  This was by all odds Clovis’ finest hour; it was a pity, I thought, that he had not done the swearing at the last coronation. No monarch could ever have been more tightly glued to the throne.

  The Judge addressed the rest of the waiting petty jurors sitting out in the body of the courtroom. “All other jurors will be excused until next Monday at nine,” he said. “If there are any further delays you will be duly notified.” He looked at the courtroom clock. “In view of the lateness of the hour I believe we will suspend for the morning.” He turned to the Manion jury. “You will be excused until one-thirty. In the meantime please do not talk about the case among yourselves. Or with others, of course. If any persons attempt to discuss the case with you report it to me at once. All right, Mr. Sheriff.”

  “Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye,” Max sang out with deep feeling, seeming inspired by the stellar performance of Clovis. “This honorable court is adjourned until one-thirty.”

  The Sheriff came up and stood close by at the side of the Lieutenant. After all, here was a man being tried for murder; an alert sheriff certainly wouldn’t take any chances … . The Lieutenant and I could sit out in my car alone for weeks, of course, but then there was no courtroom full of voters parading by my car. “Nice goin’, Sheriff,” I murmured. I saw that Mitch and Claude Dancer were engaged in a deep huddle over at their table. “See you,” I said to my client and grabbed up my brief case and caught up with and followed the Judge into chambers.

  A roll of camera film stood neatly in the middle of the Judge’s desk. “When the cat’s away the mice do play,” the Judge said dropping the film in his desk drawer. “Yes, Mr. Biegler?”

  I hefted the burden I was carrying. “Here’s about seven pounds of requests for instructions and also a trial brief, Your Honor,” I said, laying a thick manila folder on his desk.

  “Oh, fine thank you. I appreciate getting them and will look forward to reading them.” Just then the Judge’s phone rang and he clamped one big hand over the cradle and grinned sheepishly up at me, blushing like a boy. “Excuse me, Mr. Biegler,” he said. “Today’s our wedding anniversary—and I think that’s Edith now returning my call.”

  “Congratulations,” I murmured, softly closing the big door behind me, wondering that if it was true that every Jack must have his Jill—where and when would I ever find mine?

  chapter 6

  Parnell and I drove down along the lake shore to an outlying drive-in so that we could eat and talk undisturbed. Most of the tourists had already flown the U.P., winging southward like migratory birds, and I parked so that we could watch the cold glittering lake. We had left Maida home to mind the office and to type up some work or other Parnell had given her—and, I hoped, perhaps take in some money.

  “I’m slowly falling in love with that judge,” Parnell said. “He seems more and more like our old Judge Maitland—he runs his court like a courtroom, not a popcorn-strewn double feature. And I loved that jab he took at the morbid onlookers.” Parnell chuckled. “‘Zealous students of homicide’ indeed. Best of all, I think he’s all lawyer; I’m sure he’ll at least understand if not follow our requested instructions.”

  I nodded and puffed meditatively on my cheroot.

  “You’re sure you gave him all the instructions,” Parnell went on, “including our newest ones on private arrest and irresistible impulse?”

  Parnell had worked up these latest instructions all by himself; they were his pets, his special pride. They were also model statements of terse, understandable and accurate law. “I dumped the whole works on his lap, Parn,” I said. “He’ll now at least know what we’re driving at.”

  “How do you like Mr. Claude Dancer?” Parnell said archly, looking at me sideways out of the corners of his glasses.

  I grunted. “He’s going to make us a lot more work,” I said. Parnell broke into a smile. “Say, you old goat,” I accused him, “I actually believe you’re glad Mitch got him in the case.”

  Parnell’s grin broadened. “Well, I like a good fight, boy, and I’ve got me a fine ringside seat.” He continued more soberly. “As a matter of fact, Polly, I’d been a little worried over you and this Mitch.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, this young Mitch fellow is a good boy and will doubtless make a good prosecutor some day if he sticks at it. But as of now you two are so clearly mismatched that I was afraid you’d either not come awake or, if you did, that there might be built up in the jury a sort of unconscious under-dog reaction in favor of Mitch. There’s no danger of that now.”

  “No, Parn,” 1 said, �
��there’s no danger of that now. And I won’t likely fall asleep. In fact I’ve got a hunch—a trained intuition, as the Judge said—that we’re in for a real slugging match.”

  Far out on the gently heaving lake I watched an ore boat slowly hove over the horizon trailing its long tail of smoke like a great floating marine bird, a bird smoking a big cigar. Pretty soon all the boats would be diesels, I thought, and then they would all look like barges on a grimy canal. They’d already doomed the old haunting steam whistle, whoever a sinister “they” might be. Wasn’t science wonderful? Pretty soon we’d doubtless have mechanical trout … .

  “Mitch didn’t even make a try for a psychiatric examination,” I said, almost ruefully. “And here we’ve wasted all that lovely law we looked up on our constitutional question. But I don’t like the sly way he smuggled this guy Dancer into the case. He could at least have let me know sooner.”

  Parnell grinned even more. “I like your keen sense of partisanship, Polly, but don’t let it carry you away.” I looked at him sharply. “At least you now know Claude Dancer’s in the case—but neither of them know that I am. Doesn’t old Parnell offset Mr. Dancer just a little?” He touched me on the arm. “A little sense of proportion, Polly, and all will be well.”

  I coudn’t help smiling. “You’ll do for twelve Claude Dancer Parn,” I said, yawning. “I guess what I need is a decent night’s sleep.”

  “You’ll get it,” Parnell said, “but not until this case is over.” He tugged out his big silver watch. “C’mon, boy, it’s time for court. The bell is about ready to ring for round one of the main bout.”

  The trial began quietly enough. When the crowded court convened I asked the Judge if Laura Manion might sit at our counsel table and he granted my request and Laura joined us. Then the Judge nodded at Mitch’s table and Mitch got up and quietly walked up before the jury—“May it please the court and ladies and gentlemen of the jury”–and proceeded to give the People’s opening statement. At last we were away … . First he introduced Claude Dancer to the jury—“the assistant Attorney General who, at my request, will be associated with me during the trial”—and Claude Dancer got up and made a nice brief friendly bow to the jury and modestly sat down.