Anatomy of a Murder (28 page)

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Authors: Robert Traver

BOOK: Anatomy of a Murder
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On Wednesday morning at ten minutes to nine—after a quick round of final handshakes—I left Laura and the Lieutenant at the jail office and hurried in the back door of the courthouse and up the broad marble stairs and threaded my way through the crowded and milling corridors back to the Judge's chambers.
“Good morning … . Good morning … . Good morning … .”
The Judge and Mitch and the Sheriff and court reporter, Grover Gleason, were there, the latter sitting in a corner obliviously working one of his inevitable books of crossword puzzles, which he evidently acquired by the five-foot-shelf. Grover lived in a little secret world of words, a mystic faraway world compounded of extinct birds, louse eggs, whole vats of bitter vetch, three-toed sloths, Egyptian sun goddesses, Arabian gulfs and long narrow inlets … . A fifth man arose and stood quietly waiting to be introduced. Mitch cleared his throat.
“Polly, this is Claude Dancer of the Attorney General's staff in Lansing—Paul Biegler. Claude's going to kind of sit in with me during the trial.”
“How do you do, Biegler,” Claude Dancer said in a deep melodious voice, smiling pleasantly, giving me a quick firm handshake. “The boss sent me up to give Mitch here a hand if he needs it. The boy seems nicely on top of his case and I don't think I'll be much in your hair. It's awfully nice to know you.”
Claude Dancer was a short, quick-moving, wiry man of about forty; short and bald—much balder than I was, I noted with a kind of wry malice—with fugitive tufts of short hair that looked like patches of fur pasted on either side of his head. This, coupled with his pink complexion and alert, eager and somewhat snub-nosed features, gave him a curiously pixy look, something like a preternaturally wise baby got up like a man—or perhaps an even shrewder man got up to look like a baby, I wasn't quite sure … . The big deep voice only compounded my uncertainty. And I would have bet my fly rods against a rusty bait rod that he had taken elocution and declamation and led his debating team in high school.
“Your fame has preceded you, Mr. Dancer,” I said. “Permit me to congratulate you on your brilliant handling of that grand jury investigation of graft in Detroit. You really did the rascals in.”
Claude Dancer smiled modestly. “Thank you,” he said. “I'm sure it will be a pleasure to work with you.”
I glanced out the window at the big lake dancing in the sunshine and thoughtfully blinked my eyes. Mitch had finally come up with his little surprise, all right; this time his sleeve had not been empty. Lieutenant Manion was having thrown at him a real ringer, perhaps one of the ablest and shrewdest criminal trial men on the Attorney General's staff. That the Attorney General happened also to be a member of Mitch's political party and that Mitch and I just happened to be running against each other for Congress had nothing to do of course with the case. Perish the thought—such dark thoughts were too cynical and bleak to entertain.
Judge Weaver spoke. “Mr. Dancer was discussing something informally here just before you arrived. Because it concerns you and your client I asked him to wait till you got here. Proceed, Mr. Dancer.”
Claude Dancer turned his innocent Kewpie-doll face to me. “Well, Biegler, I did have one little suggestion to make to Mitch after we finally reviewed the case last night.”
“What's that?” I said, already quite sure what his suggestion concerned.
Claude Dancer was a fluent and easy talker. He modulated his fine voice like a trained musician, playing on it like a sort of Piati-gorsky of the spoken word. “Well, since you've pleaded insanity and got a psychiatrist and the People have likewise retained one,” he said, “and since under the statute the People plainly have a right to petition for a mental examination”—he paused—“I assume you're familiar with that procedure, Counselor?”
“Moderately,” I said, nodding. “Go on—I'm listening.”
“And since it would only unnecessarily delay things to file a formal petition now, it occurred to me that all of us might stipulate informally to adjourn the trial for a day or two so that our doctor can visit a little with your man.” He held out his hands. “Merely a time-saving suggestion, is all.”
There it was, as simple as rolling off a log; only dullards could fail to grasp the plain wisdom of his course. And so beautifully and plausibly spoken, too. Just a friendly little two- or three-day chat between the People's psychiatrist and Lieutenant Manion. I glanced at the Judge. He sat staring impassively out over the lake, his blue eyes unblinking.
“What you mean, Dancer,” I said, “is that you want
me
to agree to let your psychiatrist paw over my man?”
There was a quick outthrust of the supple hands. “Paw? Well,
yes, paw, if you like. Merely to save time is all. This will save everybody time.”
I turned to Mitch. I wanted to see just how far this suave little man with the big voice was willing to go. “I suppose all your witnesses are subpoenaed and waiting out there, Mitch?” I nodded toward the courtroom. “And the jury panel is all gathered and ready?”
“All set,” Mitch said.
I turned back to Claude Dancer. “My answer to your little time-saving suggestion, Mr. Dancer, is regrettably no.” I felt nettled that he took me for such a groping backwoods bumpkin. “But I have a little suggestion of my own.”
“What's that?” he said, his eager face tilted up at me.
“That we proceed out to the courtroom now so that the People can make on the record their belated motion for leave to file a petition for a mental examination.”
“What do you mean?”
It was my turn to hold out my hands. “Why the answer is easy and simple, Mr. Dancer,” I said. “So that when the Judge turns you down for daring to come in here at such a late hour and without any excuse, the assembled jurors and newspaper reporters and everybody will nevertheless see the crucial importance the People attach to the necessity of its psychiatrist examining my man.” I made an Alphonse-and-Gaston motion with my hand. “Shall we go in now—the court willing?”
Claude Dancer looked at me keenly, like a smart boxer stung in the first round and cagily reappraising the character of his opposition. I glanced at the Judge, who was still preoccupied with the lake, though it did seem there were now little creases and wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes. “There is no need for any such examination,” Claude Dancer announced coldly in that fine deep voice. “Nor do the People concede any such need. It was merely a little time-saving suggestion, was all.”
“And money-saving, too,” I said, smiling, and I could not resist adding: “Think of all the
money
the public would also be saved by sending home thirty-odd witnesses and a whole regiment of jurors, all of whom would nevertheless have to be paid from the public till. Your concern touches me.” Claude Dancer flushed and I saw that I had scored with a sneak right.
“What's a four-letter word describing a woman of ill-repute?” the
reporter Grover Gleason said, emerging absently from his puzzle, thoughtfully fluttering his eyes and pursing his lips.
“H-o-r-e,” I spelled. “Didn't you know? In the Upper Peninsula, Grover, invariably it's hore.”
“Go to hell, Biegler,” Grover said.
“My, my, that's a
lewd
word, Grover,” I said reprovingly, as Grover looked gratefully at me and sank back to his world of hatching louse eggs.
The Judge spoke evenly, looking at Mitch. “I take it, then, Mr. Prosecutor, that the People do not propose to file a formal petition seeking a psychiatric examination of the respondent?”
I held my breath as Mitch glanced questioningly at Claude Dancer, who quickly shook his head no. The assistant Attorney General's and my glances met and we both smiled. We two had swiftly reached a tacit understanding: this was
our
fight, now, and wasn't it a shame, in a way, that there had to be any third man cluttering up the ring … ?
The Judge arose ponderously and shook out his robes, flapping his arms out loosely like a great black bird. “C'mon, gentlemen,” he said crisply. “There's an interesting murder case out there waiting to be tried. We won't get it done sparring around in here.”
All of us fell back respectfully as the Judge preceded us down the short hallway to the courtroom. He had a sort of bouncing gait, at once deliberate in the planting of each large foot, and yet curiously buoyant, as though he were walking on an invisible trampoline. All of us fell in obediently behind him, like lesser participants in some traditional medieval ritual, as, upon reflection, I guessed indeed we were.
The courtroom was crowded, mostly with women, who in turn were mostly the kind usually found sitting in various states of cataleptic trance under hair dryers in beauty parlors hungrily scanning the latest authentic romances. Every available seat in the back court was taken and the overflow was standing raggedly in the side aisles and along the wall in the rear. The Judge, his black robe swishing, mounted the short steps leading to the bench and stood frowning behind his chair until we had taken our places. A flash-bulb exploded. The Judge, frowning still more, turned and nodded at the waiting Sheriff, who gaveled the assembly to its feet.
“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!” Max bawled as though he was out on the open range calling in his lost little dogies. “The Circuit Court for the county of Iron Cliffs is now in session. Please take your seats.”
Judge Weaver sat staring stonily out at the milling and whispering crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began in his big flatly resonant voice, “I come here on assignment from lower Michigan to sit in the stead of your own Judge Maitland, who is presently recovering from illness. Now I have no desire to upset the folkways or traditions of this community during murder trials, whatever they may be, but while I am sitting here this is my court and I warn you I am going to run it.”
The Judge paused and the spectators discreetly coughed and he went on. “One thing I am going to insist upon is that no spectator who cannot comfortably find a seat be allowed to attend any sessions of the trial of this cause. I had not realized that there were so many among you who were such zealous students of homicide.” (I stole a look around for Parnell, but could not find him.) “In any case I must remind you that this is a court of law and not a football game or a prize fight. Our S.R.O. sign is out for repairs. Both the defendant and the People are entitled to a public trial, and they will get one, but I choose to interpret that injunction to mean a
seated
public trial. I am sorry.” He turned to the Sheriff. “Mr. Sheriff, please have your men clear the courtroom of all persons who are not seated.”
“Yes, sir, Your Honor. Right away, sir.” Max bustled forward, shooing out his arms as though he was now herding his little dogies. As the disappointed crowd of standees began slowly to shuffle out of the courtroom, scraping and mumbling, I searched the room for Parnell and found him sitting on the side of the courtroom at my left, in one of the chairs reserved for lawyers, near the tall mahogany
door we had just entered. He was staring mystified at Mitch's table—that would be over Claude Dancer—and when he saw me he shrugged and lifted his eyebrows and grinned. “Pride goeth before a fall,” I remembered he had said. Pratfall, more like, I thought ruefully.
Mitch's table was impressively littered and nearly hidden with law books and brief cases and a mass of charts and papers and files and exhibits, like a sort of expansive legal smorgasbord. Beyond Mitch's table Bob Birkey, a reporter for the
Gazette
, sat scribbling away at a smaller table. I fished in the brief case at my feet and drew out a thin manila folder of notes and a scratch pad and put them on my bare table, along with a wooden pencil. Parnell and I had Crocker-ishly planned it this way: the picture of the overpowering well-heeled State arrayed against a poor lonely soldier … .
Max Battisfore was back at his place. “Your Honor,” he said, “the courtroom is cleared of standees.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sheriff,” the Judge said. “Now there is one more thing I am going to insist upon. That is that there shall be no photographs taken in this courtroom during this trial. I am both morbid and rabid on this subject. Nor will I permit the publication or circulation of the one that was just taken and I demand that the film be delivered to me. Any violation of these orders will be dealt with summarily by contempt.” Smiling faintly he glanced down at the reporter for the
Gazette
. “I have a trained intuition that this word will be conveyed to the offender if he should no longer be present. Mr. Clerk, call the case.”
Clovis Pidgeon arose from his mahogany cubicle in front of the Judge's bench and looked up at the guano-stained skylight. For a moment I thought he was going to break into prayer. “People versus Frederic Manion,” he called out in his high tenor voice. “The charge: murder.”
“Please swear the jurors for examination on the voir dire,” the Judge said.
Clovis solemnly faced all the jurors sitting out in back court and raised his right hand. “Please arise and raise your right hands,” he announced. His thin eager Gallic face was crowned by a glorious floating thatch of prematurely gray hair, which he wore like a kind of silver beret. “You do solemnly swear,” he said, as though intoning a stirring prayer, “that you will true answers make to such questions as may be put to you touching upon your competency to sit as jurors in this cause, so help you God.”
The jurors mumbled their “I do's” and sat down. There was a special quaver, a fervor in his voice, that Clovis reserved strictly for occasions like this. He had long since learned the ritual of his job by heart, which left him free to concentrate solely on his delivery, which was matchlessly superb. (These memorable performances also saved passing out a lot of campaign cards.) In fact during court sessions Clovis was not unlike an accomplished bit player who comes dangerously close to stealing the show.
“Please call a jury of fourteen,” the Judge prompted Clovis.
Clovis sat down and reached for a square wooden box containing the slips bearing the individual names of each member of the large jury panel. He began ostentatiously shaking the box like a competent bartender mixing a drink, and I remembered wistfully that the man was good in both departments. Then he slid open a panel and, with the flourish of a magician about to extract a rabbit, reached in the box and withdrew a small paper slip.
“Oscar Haverdink!” Clovis intoned.
I wrote this name on my pad and turned and watched an oldish man separate himself from the seated panel in back court and limp his way forward to the empty jury box.
“Doris Flanders!” Clovis called out, and Doris, an undulant lissome young creature with long earrings and much make-up, came gliding up to the box, ostentatiously virginal, flushing self-consciously and carrying her girdled and fragile little treasure of femaleness as though she were guarding a sacred flame. I glanced at Clovis and he found time to give me a knowing small smile of triumph. “Mission accomplished,” his glance seemed to say—“see, Polly, we've already drawn our siren for the session.”
“John Traski,” Clovis called out, and this went on until fourteen hushed and embarrassed jurors—nine men and five women—sat looking expectantly up at the Judge.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Judge said pleasantly, addressing the fourteen prospective jurors, “this is a criminal case we are about to try and perhaps I can best acquaint you with its precise nature by reading a pertinent portion of the information that the People have filed in this case.”
The Judge held up the information. “The People charge in their information that the defendant Frederic Manion, on the 16th day of August, last, and I quote, ‘at the Township of Mastodon in the County of Iron Cliffs and State of Michigan, feloniously, wilfully
and of his malice aforethought, did kill and murder one Barney Quill.'”
The Judge let the information drop to his desk like a falling leaf and again faced the jury. “That, ladies and gentlemen, charges the offense of first degree murder. Now before we proceed further I want to examine you briefly regarding your qualifications to sit here as jurors. I will expect each of you to speak up even though I may not always address you individually. Please raise your hand if there is any danger I may have overlooked one of you. And please remember that you are under oath. Do you understand?”
There was a nodded rumble of assent from the jury.
The Judge then explained briefly the doctrine of the presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt, and then asked the jurors if they understood and would apply these doctrines to the defendant during the trial. All understood and assented and he then passed on to the statutory qualifications.
“First of all, are all of you citizens? Raise your hand if you are not.” Again there was the muttered rumble, like the illy timed response of a congregation in church. No hands were raised. The reporter, who was sitting with his back to the jury, glanced questioningly up at the Judge, who in turn nodded his head affirmatively.
The Judge then went on and asked the usual questions: were any of them deaf or in poor health; were any over seventy and thus wanted to be excused, as they were entitled; did all of them speak and understand English; had any prospective juror served on a jury in circuit court within the last twelve months; were any of them governmental or state or municipal employees and wanted to be excused; were there any justices of the peace or law-enforcement officers among them or were any of them related to any such … . All jurors passed with flying colors.
“So much for qualifications,” the Judge said. “I shall now examine for cause. Now the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Lodwick, sits at his right of the counsel table nearer you. Now I suppose that some of you jurors are acquainted with him, are you not?”
About half the jurors timidly raised their hands.
“Do any of you know him intimately?”
None responded.
“Do any of you have any pending business with him?” Again none. “Do any of you know any reason or circumstance in your acquaintance with him that would in any manner embarrass you or
prevent you from deciding this case freely and squarely on the law and evidence presented here?”
Again a stolid silence.
The Judge then inquired regarding Claude Dancer, “the assistant Attorney General from Lansing,” but none knew or had heard of him, they were apparently not up on their grand jury investigations … . He then gave me the same treatment he had given Mitch, with substantially the same results, except that practically all of the jurors allowed that they knew me. “Ah, the price of fame,” I thought. My ten years of public pettifogging had not yet been entirely forgotten.
“Now take the defendant, Frederic Manion, sitting on Mr. Biegler's left.” I could feel the Lieutenant tense and stiffen at my side. “Do any of you know him?”
The jurors sat stolid and unblinking, shaking their heads no and staring curiously at the Lieutenant, who stared straight ahead. So
this
was the soldier who had shot that innkeeper at Thunder Bay?
“Or his wife, Laura Manion? Please rise, Mrs. Manion.” Laura was sitting in one of the lawyers' chairs behind us, and she got up, looking very demure and lashed in, and smiled slightly at the jury and sat down, the jurors again shaking their heads.
“Very well,” the Judge said. “Now in a general way it is the claim of the People that in the early morning hours of Saturday, September sixteenth—around one A.M. I believe—the Defendant entered the hotel bar of one Barney Quill in the village of Thunder Bay in Mastodon Township in this county and shot him to death. Were any of you acquainted with the deceased?”
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.

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