But most of all I sought to calm and reassure the Manions; the important thing right now was to keep them from flying off into space; most of our real work together had been done. In a tantalizing sense the trial itself was like a well-rehearsed play, a play that was to be played but one night and then carted off forever to storage. But then again, in another and more disturbing sense, it wasn’t like a well-rehearsed play at all: inevitably some character would forget his lines or, worse yet, someone might sneak in some surprise new dialogue that might change the whole course of the drama. I was too old and battered an attendant at courtroom “first nights” not to be aware of that ever-gnawing probability. Something would surely happen; like poor old Smoky Madigan and his expectant June bride, it was not a question of whetherbut when … .
“I don’t like that Claude Dancer,” Laura said, crushing out her cigarette. “He’s—he’s so cocky and self-assured. And he acts like he hates us.”
“Confidentially, Laura,” I said, “I’m learning not to love him myself.” For one thing, I thought but did not say, he was far too smart and dangerous; moreover he possessed the buzzing persistence of a gnat.
The Lieutenant, sitting on a cold radiator over by the window reading about his then approaching trial in an old Mining Gazette, looked up and spoke. “When the Judge overruled Dancer, when you were questioning the doctor, one of the jurors grinned and almost laughed out loud.”
“Was it that husky young blond fellow sitting in the first row, on the extreme left end?” I asked.
“That’s the one. He seems to be a fan of yours. He watches you like a cat.”
I thoughtfully lit a cigar and stared out at the lake. Maybe, I thought, maybe I had better pretty well try my case for this intelligent young juror. (Any fan of Biegler’s, of course, was by hypothesis nudging the very portals of genius.) I remembered that when I was D.A. I had almost unconsciously selected and played to a lone juror during my longer trials. Some small sign usually came along, some tiny tacit recognition that you and the juror were talking the same language. And that way one seemed to gain—or at least I seemed to gain—a greater sense of immediacy and impact during one’s efforts; that way there seemed to be a tangible goal upon which to concentrate, a discernible target at which to aim whatever arts of conviction and persuasion one possessed. “Hm … .” I said absently, holding out my lighter for Laura.
“Thanks, Paul,” she said, removing her glasses. “I can’t see across the room with these darn things. Can’t you also manage to have me knitting bootees?”
I grinned evilly. “Scarcely, my dear,” I said. “Scarcely.”
Yes, my work was pretty well done with the Manions. If they hadn’t learned their roles, if they didn’t know their parts, it was far too late to do anything about it now. I remembered the time when, years before, I had taken my bar exams in Lansing, and had gone there several days early, perhaps hoping to soak up some wisdom and a measure of belated inspiration by sheer propinquity alone. Owlish and fear-haunted, I had crept nervously up to the supreme court and called on the clerk, amiable little Jay Metzner, who then also acted as clerk for the bar examiners. He had stopped me at the door.
“Halt!” he commanded. “Not another step, young man! From your ghastly and ravaged appearance I can see you are here bent on taking the bar exams. So you’ve called on little ol’ Jay and you want me to give you an open sesame.” He had come over and put both hands on my shoulders. “Well, here’s your open sesame, son. Go out and have yourself a few drinks, not too many of course. Then pick yourself up a willing girl if you can. The campus of this old capitol building is. fairly heaving with them. Then go out and forget all about your goddam bar examinations.” He shook his head. “If after three years of monastic study you don’t know your stuff, by God, son, you never will, you never will.” And little Jay had been right, bless his soul.
Max Battisfore popped his head in the door. “Five more minutes, Polly,” he said. “The Judge wants to see you.”
“Thanks. Right away, Max,” I said. “I’m getting my grease paint back on. The show must go on.”
The Judge and Mitch and Claude Dancer sat chatting in chambers along with the pardoned young photographer from the Gazette.
“This young man says his Public, meaning his boss, wants him to take our pictures—out of the courtroom, that is,” the Judge smilingly told me. “I thought defense counsel might like to join us.”
“Thank you, Judge,” I said. “That was thoughtful of you.” I had known this subject would come up, sooner or later, and I was ready for it. “But I’m sorry,” I lied softly. “Right now I’m up to my ears with my clients. Perhaps later on.”
“Very well,” the Judge quickly said. “By all means get back to your people.”
As I turned away I thought I detected an appreciative gleam in the Judge’s eyes. Was he aware of my strategy to build up the all-powerful, much-publicized State against the lone, unsung—and unphotographed—defense? “Over here away from the windows, gentlemen,” I heard the photographer saying. I hurried back and told the Manions that under no circumstances should they permit their pictures to be taken. There would be time enough for all that later on, if things went right. I did not even try to explain; just now they had quite enough on their minds.
“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye … .”
The rest of the afternoon session lurched by with a dreary sort of speed. Trials are never fast, except on TV, where drab reality must ever yield to the more pressing reality of peddling the sponsor’s nostrums. By stipulation the charts were introduced in evidence and set up before the jury. The next prosecution witness was Coroner Lei-part, a rather shy-appearing little man who led a double life—as coroner and undertaker.
Under Mitch’s questioning—Claude Dancer seemed to have slipped his mask back on—he told of finding Barney Quill’s riddled body lying face down behind the bar. “Lying in a pool of blood.” It lay on its right side near the middle of the bar and, yes, the man was quite dead. The bartender had let them in when he had arrived with the state police around 2:00 A.M. What had he done then? Well, after the measurements and “pics” had been taken he’d put the body in the basket and fetched it in to Iron Bay and held it in cold storage until the autopsy on Sunday, which he had attended. Then he had fetched the body back to his place and embalmed it and shipped it off to Wisconsin. As the coroner gave his testimony the thought occurred to me that he might have been talking about the misadventures of a roll of linoleum.
“Your witness,” Mitch said.
On cross-examination I brought out that the bartender was alone when he had admitted the coroner and the state police; that this was over an hour from the reported time of the killing; that he, the coroner, had turned the clothing of the deceased over to the state police, who had presumably shipped it to East Lansing to be tested in the crime laboratory … .
“For what purpose?” I asked.
“For evidence of sperm or seminal stain,” the coroner answered.
I half looked around, waiting for the Lansing “organ” to thunder, but all was pastoral silence. “Do you know the results of those clothing tests, if any?”
“I do not. The state police should.”
“Were you present during the autopsy when the officers asked Dr. Raschid to determine the spermatic capacities of the deceased?”
“I was there at all times.”
“And?”
“Yes, I was there then.”
“And was that done for the purpose of refuting any possible later claim that the deceased might not have possessed those capacities?”
“That was my understanding, yes.”
“Was there any discussion among the officers about asking the doctor to determine whether the deceased had recently ejaculated?” I asked. (I wondered how the comely juror, the heavily virginal Doris Flanders, was weathering all this. I sneaked a small look and found that she was bearing up remarkably well, leaning forward on the edge of her seat, in fact.)
“There was some discussion, yes,” the coroner said.
“In the presence of the doctor?”
“No.”
“And no such examination was made.”
“I’m not sure that there could have been.”
“Oh? Were you here when Dr. Raschid testified earlier?”
“No, I just got here. I got two cases waiting for me now.”
I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. “Two more murdered people? My, my—I hadn’t heard. Seems it never rains but it pours … .”
“No, two bodies.”
“In your role as coroner or embalmer?”
“Waiting to be embalmed.”
“My heartfelt congratulations, Mr. Coroner, but will you please answer my previous question?”
“What question?”
“I asked you whether in fact Dr. Raschid made any examination to find out whether the deceased had”—idiom tugged mightily, but idiom regretfully lost—“had recently reached a sexual climax.”
“He did not.”
“Or any test for the alcoholic content of the blood?”
“He did not.”
“Was that discussed by the officers?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s all, Mr. Coroner. I think you can get back to your waiting customers now.”
Smiling: “They’re in no hurry, Mr. Biegler. They rarely complain.”
Mitch had no re-direct and he next called a commercial photographer who quickly identified a flock of 6 x 10 glossy photographs he had taken for the prosecution, all of which were by stipulation admitted swiftly in evidence. Barney would have loved them, I thought, because they were all of him: various views of the great Barney lying inert and crumpled behind the bar; Barney lying exposed on the slab, full face, left and right profile, Barney on his back, the ventilation marks showing up splendidly. And showing, too, that beautifully superb and willful body which had been stilled forever all because of one dark and tangled impulse … .
“To the defense,” Mitch said.
I was about ready to waive cross-examination when Laura Manion leaned over and whispered to me excitedly. “That man! He took some pictures of me that night. I—I just remembered … .”
“Good girl,” I whispered, and I slowly arose and left my table and walked thoughtfully up toward the witness. Well, here was the first switch in the expected dialogue, I thought; with luck this time perhaps fortunately for our side. But there would be other times, times that would hurt, there always were.
“Mr. Burke,” I said pleasantly, indicating the latest exhibits, “were these all the pictures you took for this case?”
He shot a look at Mitch’s table. “No, there were some others.”
“Perhaps they didn’t turn out?” I said.
“No, they all turned out.” A note ot professional pride crept into his voice. “Most of my pictures turn out.”
“Of course, Mr. Burke,” I said. “And these you have produced here are splendid examples of your craftmanship.” I paused. “Perhaps you forgot to bring the others?” There was no answer and I did not press. “Perhaps the others were needless duplicates?”
“No. They weren’t any duplicates of poses.”
“Oh,” I said surprised. I glanced at the jury and saw that there was growing contagion in my surprise. “Perhaps the other pictures had nothing to do with the case at all?—perhaps they were merely some interesting little side shots? Made to gratify an artistic whim? A gnarled stump you couldn’t resist? Perhaps a tree? Or a rummaging bear at the Thunder Bay dump?” I paused. “Perchance even a woman?”
The witness was not happy. “They were photographs of Lieutenant Manion’s wife.”
I paused and looked around at the clock. The heads of Mitch and his assistant were nodded close in a huddle. I glanced at the jurors who were in turn glancing quickly at each other. My young Finnish juror was looking straight at me and—was it possible?—seemed almost to nod. I turned back to the witness.
“And these pictures of Mrs. Laura Manion—they turned out well?”
“Excellent.”
“When did you take them?”
“That very night.”
“Then they would show just how Mrs. Manion looked right after the shooting?”
Grimly: “They certainly would.”
“How many did you take?”
“Three.”
Again I heard the short restless padding footsteps behind me; Mr. Dancer was again stalking my rear.
“Would you mind showing them to me?”
“I don’t have them—they’re back at my studio.”
“What a pity … . And I believe you didn’t answer me when I asked if you forgot them. How come you didn’t bring them along?”
“I was requested not to.”
“Hm … . Certainly not by anyone connected with this case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come, Mr. Burke, tell us by whom?”
“Objection!” thundered in my ears.
“Overruled,” said the Judge, as I ostentatiously ducked and drilled my ear with my little finger—the ear on the jury side. “The witness may answer.”
“Mr. Burke,” I said softly, “could you have been told not to bring them by anybody presently standing, say, within three city blocks of me?”
“He’s standing right behind you. It was Mr. Dunstan there. He merely said it would not be necessary to bring the pictures of Mrs. Manion to court.”
“Dancer!” Claude Dancer’s voice grated in my ear. “The name is Mr. Dancer, not Dunstan.”
“See, the man’s name is Mister Dancer,” I reproved the witness. “And the Dunstans might not like any confusion either, you know—they might possibly know Mr. Dancer.” (I had to take my fun where I found it; Dancer’s turn would inevitably come.)
“I’m sorry,” the witness said. “Mr. Dancer told me not to.”
“Well, if you don’t have the pictures you can’t very well show them,” I said. “But perhaps you can describe for us the picture you saw of Mrs. Manion that night with your own eyes? That might even be better.”
“Objection,” Mr. Dancer said, less thunderously this time. “Clearly irrelevant and matter of defense, if admissible then, which I doubt.”
“I withdraw the question,” I said quickly, before the Judge could make his ruling. If little Mr. Dancer thought he was helping his case by keeping this testimony from the jury, which I guessed must be fairly consumed with curiosity about now, he could block away. Most of the disappointment and frustration would be laid at his door. “The witness is back to you,” I said, bowing and returning to my table.
“No further questions,” Mr. Dancer said, glaring stonily at me. My time will come, I thought. Courage, Camille … .
I looked around for Parnell, to bask in his approval, but I could not locate him. “Hell,” I thought, “just when I have a fairly good round the old boy would be out puttering around in the locker room.” Anyway I hoped he wasn’t out there swigging the rubbing alcohol.
chapter 8
“I was having a quiet beer up at the bar,” Carl Yates, the game warden, was testifying, the first of a long procession of eyewitnesses. “I had been out earlier patrolling for headlighters. I suspected some of those young soldiers stationed near Thunder Bay were roaring around at night shining deer with their jeeps. In fact I’d already caught several … . Well, I’m standing there having my beer, like I said, and suddenly I hear a series of shots, and I turn toward the sound—and there’s a man standing up on the rail, leaning far over the bar, clicking an empty gun at something down there below on the other side.”
“What did you do?” Mitch asked.
“I got to hell-” the witness glanced quickly up at Judge Weaver. “I’m sorry—I got out of there fast. No place for a game warden.”
“Did you know the man who was doing the shooting?”
“Not by name—but I would recognize him.”
“Do you see him in the c
ourtroom now?” Mitch asked, and I quickly prodded the Lieutenant to his feet.
“Yes, he’s sitting—no, standing—next to Lawyer Biegler there at that other long table—the man with the lieutenant’s uniform, with the mustache.”
“You are referring and pointing to the defendant in this case, Frederic Manion?”
“I am.”
“Your witness,” Mitch said.
In my cross-examination I made no attempt to inquire into what movements, if any, Barney may or may not have made just prior to the shooting. I felt that the chances were good to excellent that most of the eyewitnesses, including this one, had not seen any movements simply because just previous to the shooting they were not paying attention, there was no reason to, and that for me to have each witness deny seeing any movements from Barney would be to gratuitously build up the jury’s belief that none had occurred. I likewise made no attempt to cast any doubt on the fact that the Lieutenant had fired the fatal shots, in fact my questions assumed quite the contrary. Only Parnell’s favorite lawyer, old Amos Crocker, the one and only Willie the Weeper, possessed the bland hardihood to stand before a jury and deny a shooting in one breath and in the next insist that his client was crazy when he did it.
“Mr. Yates,” I said, conjuring up a pretty picture, “when Lieutenant Manion shot Barney Quill and the latter slumped and fell and the Lieutenant then stood up on the bar rail and leaned down over the bar and emptied his gun into the fallen man”—I paused—“did the Lieutenant say”Take that, you s.o.b.’ or words to that effect?”
“Not that I heard. My recollection is that at no time did the Lieutenant utter a sound. He came in like a mailman delivering the mail; he delivered his mail and turned around and calmly walked out.”
Anatomy of a Murder Page 29