Anatomy of a Murder

by Robert Traver

  chapter 22

  Claude Dancer got his cross-examination under way with ominous calm. “You don’t remember much about that night after you left the trailer, do you, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, sir, just as I have already testified,” the Lieutenant parried, and I noted that the People’s psychiatrist had at last come to life and was making some notes.

  “Have you ever had similar lapses?”

  “None other than the ordinary lapses a man might bump into from combat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, quite often after an action had been completed and we got back to talk it over, if there were ten survivors there’d be ten different stories of what happened.”

  “Can you give specific instances rather than generalities?”

  Claude Dancer would surely have objected had I tried to bring out anything like this, and yet here he was, diligently wrapping the flag around our man on his own.

  “Yes, I recall one incident in Korea. One of my half-tracks was supporting the infantry. I had eight men in this action and a Commie mortar round dropped in and wounded all eight. I happened to be far enough away to see what happened without getting wounded. Several more rounds came in. When we’d silenced the mortar fire and the meds could work on our men, all of them told a different story. They reported that from one to a hundred rounds had come in. There were actually four.”

  I glanced at my veteran juror and he was hanging on the Lieutenant’s words, white-faced, evidently gripped by some private battle recollection of his own.

  “How long did you serve in Korea?” the Dancer went on.

  “Nearly sixteen months.”

  Mr. Dancer then obligingly took the Lieutenant through World War II, from Sicily up through France and Germany and wound him up on V.J. Day on an island in the far Pacific. As he pressed on I began to see what he was getting at, although the price he was paying seemed a little high.

  “Now did you see action in all these places?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “Were you in constant combat?”

  “No, sir, no soldier is ever in constant combat. None that survive, anyway. We were under constant to intermittent barrage, constantly in a sweat, you might say.”

  “And you had skirmishes from time to time?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  It came to me that the Dancer was also, and not so subtly, demonstrating his own familiarity with combat conditions. The little man had evidently been everywhere and done everything.

  “Did you participate in these skirmishes?”

  “Yes, sir. As platoon leader I had to.”

  “About how long?”

  “Sometimes a day, three days, even four. Again sometimes it was three or four days in the hole.”

  Claude Dancer paused to hurl another bolt. “And during this time did you experience any unusual mental state of any kind?”

  “No, sir. I once had a concussion from shellfire but I was back in action the next day.”

  “Were you ever treated for mental disease?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Were you ever hospitalized for mental neurosis or psychosis?”

  “No, sir.”

  The Judge was busily engaged making notes, evidently preparing his instructions, and in his zeal Claude Dancer appeared inadvertently to have gotten between the Lieutenant and me. Rather than interrupt I instead got up and moved’ over and stood between Mitch’s table and the jury, near the scribbling knot of reporters, where I could get an unobstructed view.

  “You have testified, Lieutenant,” the Dancer pushed on, “that after you found certain evidence on the person of your wife you immediately slipped your gun in your pocket and left the trailer, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Dancer glanced over his shoulder and noting I had moved, glanced again and once more squarely got between me and the witness and shot his next question. “And were you angry, Lieutenant?” This last blocking maneuver was clearly no longer inadvertent.

  “Some,” the Lieutenant admitted. “I guess any man would be.”

  In the meantime I had moved back to my table, so that I could see my man, and once again the Dancer spotted me and, with elaborate care, again moved squarely between us—whereupon the attorney for the defense blew his stack.

  “Your Honor,” I arose shouting, as the startled Judge looked up. “May the record show that on three occasions within the last minute the prosecutor has deliberately got himself between me and my client so that I cannot observe him.”

  The Dancer fairly leered at me. “Surely that wouldn’t interfere with anything would it?”

  “I further object to the implication that I am signaling or wanted to signal my client. This is the shabbiest courtroom trick I have seen in years.”

  “You haven’t lived,” the Dancer said, turning coolly back to the Lieutenant. “Lieutenant,” he began, “when—”

  “Your Honor,” I interrupted, hotter than ever, “I ask the court’s ruling on my objection.”

  The Judge was mystified, having been busy and not having seen the incident, a situation which the Dancer had evidently cleverly waited for and which only made me the madder. “What is there to rule on?” the Judge said curtly. “Go ahead, Mr. Dancer.”

  “Your Honor,” I persisted, “I cannot let this pass. Please hear me out. I was seated here and Mr. Dancer got between me and my client. I thought it was inadvertent and rather than disturb you, since you were busy, I moved over by the jury. Again counsel got between us, and then I returned to my table. Once more it happened, and then it was clearly not inadvertent, anyone who saw it would know that. I ask that the court instruct this man not to do it again. I am sorry for the explosion but I won’t sit and take that kind of guff from anyone.”

  I had now irked the Judge in the bargain. “You know very well where you should sit, Mr. Biegler,” he said testily. “If counsel is in the way all you have to do is ask me and I’ll move him. I must warn you against any further unseemly explosions. Go ahead.”

  The Dancer cocked his head back at me. “Anything else, Mr. Biegler?” he inquired sweetly.

  “Yes, Dancer,” I shouted, “you do that just once more and you won’t hear the next objection—you’ll feel it! I–I’ll punt you clear into Lake Superior.”

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the Judge shouted, glaring at us and pounding his gavel. “This infernal backbiting has got to stop. The next man who speaks out of turn will have me to deal with. Proceed, Mr. Dancer.”

  After that Mr. Dancer did not get between me and the witness, but he bore in like a bulldog and grabbed the Lieutenant and fairly pelted him with questions. He brought out that the Lieutenant’s military training included the cool appraisal and confirmation of reports; and he repeatedly stressed that the Lieutenant had stayed in the trailer only long enough to confirm this rape report and then had taken his gun and left. He was obviously trying to picture our man as gripped by a cold implacable rage.

  “Was your wife reluctant to tell you about the alleged rape?” he purred on.

  “Not reluctant; she was hysterical; she couldn’t tell anything for a long while.”

  “But you questioned her carefully?”

  “I did.”

  “You wanted to be sure, Lieutenant, that you did not kill the wrong man?”

  “Grab, Mr. Dancer—grab the wrong man.”

  “Now you had a key to the gate, did you not?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lemon gave it to me.”

  “And you knew the gate was locked at ten every night?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lemon told me that.”

  “And your wife knew that, too?”

  “Apparently not. I guess I didn’t tell her. She had no occasion to use it alone and the few times we did together Mr. Lemon thoughtfully left it open.”

  “You knew he was a deputy, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t think I did, but if I had it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  �
�Oh, so you preferred to take the law into your own hands rather than call on Mr. Lemon?”

  The Lieutenant eyed Mr. Dancer coolly. “I’d no more have thought of calling on Mr. Lemon to do this job, sir, than I’d have thought of calling on you.”

  Mr. Dancer had not forgotten how to blush, and he did so now, to the vast amusement of at least two people in the room: the attorney for the defense and an ex-soldier juror. “Look, Manion,” he rushed on hotly, “when you saw this stuff on your wife’s leg you blew your stack and promptly went over to kill Barney Quill and did kill him, didn’t you?”

  Coolly: “I think we’ve been over all that, Mr. Dancer. I went over there to grab him.”

  “And you did so while carrying a concealed weapon?” Mr. Dancer said scornfully.

  “The pistol was out of sight, yes, until I produced it.”

  “Concealed contrary to law?”

  “I didn’t think of that, sir.”

  Parnell and I hoped we had legal medicine for this last charge: medicine which I had not even confided to the Lieutenant, and for a moment I felt almost benevolent toward Mr. Dancer—a benevolence which fled with the next question.

  “Didn’t you tell Detective-Sergeant Durgo that a man who would do that should not live, that you’d first thought it all over from every angle, and that you’d do it again if the occasion arose?”

  “I don’t recall saying any of that. Nor do I deny saying it. I respect Mr. Durgo’s integrity, but I do not recall saying it.”

  “You don’t deny saying it?”

  “No.”

  The Dancer had drawn very near the witness, wagging his finger at him in the best Hollywood tradition. “I ask you now, would you do it again?”

  I arose laconically. “I am sorry to disturb Your Honor, but if counsel gets any closer to my client I’m afraid my man might succumb to an irresistible impulse and grab him. I object to counsel standing so close to the witness.”

  “Stand back, Mr. Dancer,” the Judge ordered, and the Dancer quickly retreated, shooting another question as he did. “I ask you now,” he pressed, “would you do it again?”

  Coolly: “I rather doubt that I would dare, Mr. Dancer—now that I have met you.”

  There was a momentary giggle over this and then a sudden thumping commotion in the back court. I wheeled around and saw a weird scene, as in a surrealist frieze: a young man lurching to his feet, warding off the upstretched restraining hands of seated onlookers, yawing his mouth open, trying desperately to say something. “L—l—let him gug—gug g—go … .” he shouted in a grotesque parody of human speech. “L—let the p-pup—pup—poor-poor-poor …” he gobbled crazily, the rushing words finally spat with dreadful clarity. “For Christ’s sake let the poor bastard go!”

  The Judge’s gavel sounded and a cordon of officers descended on the culprit and half carried and half dragged him outside. Cold with fury, the Judge sent the jury to its room and called the Sheriff and counsel into chambers.

  The Judge glared at all of us. “Does anyone in this room know anything about this?” he demanded sternly, and since the incident was plainly pro-defense, I flushed and hung my head, feeling like a guest suspected of stealing all the mink and jewelry at a weekend house party.

  “Not I, Your Honor, I swear,” I said. “I like to win my cases but I wouldn’t be a party to a thing like that for the world. I never saw the man before.”

  Claude Dancer glared at me as though I was lying by the clock and then the red-faced good old Sheriff came to the rescue. “Judge,” Max said, “if anyone is to blame for this incident it is me. This boy was blasted to hell in World War Two but refused to die and we try to be nice to him around here and take him off his mother’s hands for a few hours. We’d kept him out of the trial until today and only let him in when he promised to behave. I guess we guessed wrong—he unfortunately blew his top. It must have been all the war talk. In fact that is more than I’ve ever heard him speak. I am positive that none of the lawyers of parties had anything to do with it. I’m terribly sorry, sir.”

  Claude Dancer looked over at me and shook his head. “Even the disabled veterans throw you an assist, you lucky bastard,” he murmured.

  “The cause of righteousness shall prevail,” I retorted piously.

  “Let’s take ten minutes,” the Judge said, still frowning ominously. “I guess,” he added slowly, “I guess there isn’t a damned thing we can do. This is just one of the belated casualties of war, one of the lame chickens of our civilization come home to roost.” He shook his head. “The poor, poor bastard,” he murmured. It sounded like a benediction.

  Back again after recess even Claude Dancer seemed somewhat sobered—as indeed all of us were—by the incident of the disabled veteran. He kept badgering and worrying the Lieutenant about what he had told Dectective Sergeant Durgo, and going over and over the story of the actual shooting in an effort to get him to admit remembering some fragment of the events that he had earlier denied remembering, but the Lieutenant, of all the people in the courtroom, seemed heartened now by what had happened, and his answers were if anything more cool and deliberate than they had been before.

  “Is it true that you struck and knocked down a fellow officer who had paid some attention to your wife at a cocktail party?” the Dancer next led off.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was intoxicated and was annoying her.”

  Softly: “Were you jealous, Lieutenant?”

  “I wouldn’t say so. I didn’t like it and I resented his actions.”

  “Were you angry?”

  Frowning: “Well, to some extent I was, yes.”

  “Do you have a quick temper, Lieutenant?” The Dancer paused. “Would you knock me down if I dared kiss your wife’s hand?”

  Lieutenant Manion stared up at the skylight and a half smile flitted over his face as he answered. “No, Mr. Dancer—but I think I might be sore tempted to spank you.”

  The courtroom tittered and Claude Dancer flushed with hot anger and stood biting his lips, fighting for self-control, as though he were counting to ten. He retired to his table and drank a glass of water and returned to the witness.

  “Now, Lieutenant,” he said, after a pause, winding up to pitch a fast inside curve (I was beginning to learn the signs) “take this lüger you used to shoot Barney Quill with.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant replied coolly, and I glanced quickly at Parnell and hoped the Lieutenant would remember the medicine Parnell and I had cooked up for that one.

  Claude Dancer found the fatal weapon in the pile of exhibits and spun it on his finger like Billy the Kid. “This lüger pistol that you kept loaded in your trailer and carried unlawfully concealed on your person that night—it was not regular Army issue, was it?” he purred.

  “No, sir,” the Lieutenant replied, as I held my breath for the next question.

  Still spinning: “You had not reported it to your C.O. and as far as your superiors knew you did not even possess it?”

  “That’s correct, sir,” the Lieutenant answered quietly.

  Pausing triumphantly: “Then please explain to the court and jury how and where you got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant said obediently, and in accordance with my repeated instructions he began abruptly with the patrol skirmish he had told me about weeks before. “We had gone out on night patrol,” the Lieutenant began, and without so much as mentioning the lüger he proceeded to tell the story of how the old gray timber wolf of a German lieutenant had sniped at his men from behind the battered stub of chimney; of how he, Lieutenant Manion, had crawled around behind the hidden German.

  “Lieutenant, I did not ask you for a Cook’s tour of your heroic adventures in World War Two,” Claude Dancer broke in, at last sensing the trap he had fallen in. “I asked you where you got the lüger. Just tell us that.” He dropped the pistol back on the pile of exhibits.

  “I’m telling you, sir,” the Lieutenant said calmly,
and he proceeded on with his story of the death of the battered and wounded German lieutenant, telling it even better, I thought, than he had told me the first time. “And that is how and where I got the lüger pistol, sir,” he concluded, looking coolly at Claude Dancer and respectfully awaiting the next question.

  Claude Dancer shot me a grim nod of congratulation and swiftly changed the subject in an effort to cover up. “Do you and your wife have any children?” he asked abruptly.

  “No, sir.”

  “And is this your first marriage?”

  “No, sir, my second.”

  “And did either you or your wife have children by your respective previous—ah—adventures in matrimony?”

  Scowling: “No, sir.”

  “And both of your parents are dead, I believe?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you have no dependents other than your wife, Lieutenant?”

  “None, sir.”

  Claude Dancer was now cleverly showing the jury that there was no widowed mother or seven starving children standing in the way of the jury throwing the book at the Lieutenant by its verdict.

  “And your wife has earned her living before and she is in good health and could do so again?”

  “Yes, sir, if it came to that I believe she could, sir.”

  “The witness is back to you,” Claude Dancer said, turning to me.

  “No re-direct examination,” I said, tugging at the knot on my tie out of sheer relief to at last have the Lieutenant off the stand and out of the clutches of this diabolical little man.

  “We’ll take five minutes,” the Judge said to the Sheriff, plainly grown parsimonious of time in this case that all of us hoped would be over and done that day.

  During recess Parnell told me that he and Maida had driven to Thunder Bay the night before, following Maida’s inspired brainstorm over the desk clerk, and had dined at the hotel, overlooking the lake. After supper Parnell had had a long and friendly visit with Mary Pilant in her rooms. When the night clerk had come on duty Mary had summoned him upstairs and, so she told Parnell later, for the first time had heard the full and significant details of Barney’s appearance and actions the night of the shooting.