Away with the Fishes (30 page)

“No one but Rena is missing, so she must be the one who’s gone. Who’s dead, I mean,” Arnold added for clarity.

“How do you know that no one else is missing?”

“We canvassed all the surrounding areas, and everyone is accounted for. No other missing persons have been reported anywhere on the island.”

“Okay. Assuming you are correct, and Rena was the biker on that fateful night, where did she get the bike?”

“We don’t know.”

“And why would an inexperienced cyclist choose the wettest night of the year so far, and the roughest road she could find, to go cycling?”

“We don’t know that either.”

“The truth is, Officer, that you don’t know for a fact that Rena
did
do any of those things, do you? No proof she got a bike. No proof she rode it on the Thyme shortcut. No proof she got knocked off her bike and killed,” Glynray said, counting off the proofs (or lack thereof) on his fingers as he spoke.

“No, sir.”

Glynray went on to lure similar admissions from Arnold and Joshua regarding the rest of the evidence. If Madison truly wished to hide Rena’s basket, would he not have found a better means than a beach towel tossed on top of it? (He would, they said.) Weren’t the Officers’ shoes muddy, too, on that day of the hit-and-run, when they jumped off Jarvis Coutrelle’s bus and landed him in a ditch? (They were.) Didn’t Joshua himself own a yellow shirt that he liked to wear when he went dancing? (Yes, sir.) Wasn’t it possible the dishwashing gloves retrieved from Madison’s kitchen were for washing dishes and not for keeping fingerprints off corpses that didn’t exist? (It was.)

The Defense position appeared to grow stronger as the week went on. Late in the afternoon on Friday, shortly before court was
to recess for the weekend, Glynray neared the end of his cross-examination. Because the Prosecution had insisted the lids with Rena’s R’s on them were especially incriminating, Glynray chose to end with those, hoping to send the crowd home for the two-day hiatus on a pro-Defense note.

Officer Joshua Smart was on the witness stand, when Glynray brought up Rena’s basket and its contents.

“Can you remind the court of the items found in the picnic basket, hidden under the beach towel, in the kitchen of my client?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, there was a plate with a faded design, a knife, a fork, a spoon, and three plastic bowls. There were three lids for the bowls, too.”

“Are these the lids?” Glynray held up the bag with Exhibit I, three plastic lids, each marked with a big black “R”.

“Yes.”

“Prosecutor Jones was disturbed by the fact that these lids were marked with Rena’s initial. Would you say that’s accurate?”

Joshua said it was, adding, “It proved they belonged to the victim.”

“We have already established that the confiscated picnic basket belonged to Rena, have we not? That it was the basket in which Rena took lunch to her beloved Madison every day?” Glynray went on.

“That’s right.”

“If the basket belonged to Rena, then why does the Island find it damaging that Madison should store lids clearly belonging to Rena inside it?”

Joshua hesitated. “I couldn’t exactly say.”

“Are you personally acquainted with the Defendant, Officer Smart?”

“Not really.”

“Then you don’t know firsthand what an honest, loyal man he is. And he
is
an honest man, and a loyal one, which is why he would never dream of storing any other woman’s lids in the basket belonging to his girl. Would you agree, Officer Smart, that only a dishonest man would dream of such a thing?”

“I guess so.”

“Which makes my client an honest man?”

“I guess.”

“Thank you, Officer, for that character assessment,” Glynray said smugly. “May I remind the court that my client, an ‘honest man’ according to the testimony of the Prosecution’s own witness here today, has maintained his innocence since this alleged crime and these heinous charges first came to light. No further questions, Your Honor.”

The court was recessed.

39

A
s Bruce had predicted, the spectators lingered long after the Bicycle Trial broke for the weekend. They made of the open-air court a real Friday-night party-ground, eating, drinking, and dancing well into the wee hours. In a solitary corner at the outskirts of the merriment, May sat in contemplation, encouraged by the trial so far, but not daring to take her brother’s freedom for granted. Branson, who hadn’t kept his eyes off her the whole week, saw her sitting alone and decided to approach her.

“May? You good? Would you like a drink or something?”

May looked at him, still upset at his silence about the ad and yet not entirely displeased to see him there. “I’m fine,” she said, too tired to argue or plead with him.

“Looks like Justice is doing a good job, eh?”

“For now,” she said, her thoughts not fully there with Branson on the edge of the court-cum-carnival. In an act of unusual daring, Branson sat down beside her and took her hand in his.

“Don’t worry too much. Trevor says Madison’s lawyer has a trick or two up his sleeve. He’s sure holding his own for now against that fancy Monday Jones.”

“What I don’t understand is what happened to Rena,” May confided desperately to Branson. “Where in the world could she be?”

Branson didn’t know what to say.

“That fool brother of mine,” May went on, gradually feeling more like herself with Branson at her side, “isn’t even concerned about the predicament he’s in. All he can think about is that crazy girl, rest her soul.”

“You think she’s dead?” Branson asked.

“I wish to heaven I knew,” May replied.

Neither of them said another word after that. Branson simply held May’s hand for as long as she would let him.

Back at Raoul’s cottage, where to his dismay not a single message had turned up since the trial began, Raoul was outside staring at the silent walls. Because of his recent busy schedule, he had all but abandoned Dagmore, and apart from arranging the trial, he hadn’t accomplished a thing in the way of finding Rena (his sources in Killig had so far proved unhelpful); and yet, the ghostly messenger failed to insist about the one or the other. Confused as he was feeling, Raoul had rather hoped a new word would appear, to guide him, but the weekend came and went without so much as a letter.

A new week began, as it always does, dragging into court another lucky Monday. Amidst an ominous flurry of whispers and conferrals on the dais (during which Judge Samuels wrapped his pudgy fist around the mic to silence it), the Prosecution called Officer Tullsey back to the stand, having requested a redirect. The
crowd sensed something sinister was coming, and Glynray Justice braced himself for bad news, though what it might be, he couldn’t imagine.

“Members of the jury, Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen, good morning,” Monday Jones began with characteristic gravitas. “I have a confession to make.” He turned to the audience, that they might fully absorb what he had said, and for a minute they half expected him to admit to the murder himself. When they were suitably on the edge of their seats, Monday continued. “It has come to my attention that in examining my first witness, I failed to address a very crucial piece of evidence, and for this I beg your forgiveness.” The crowd was simultaneously disappointed and intrigued, the Madison Fuller camp rather terrified.

“I submit to you, members of the jury, Exhibit Q.” He held up for them another large, glossy photo, this one of a boat. “Exhibit Q is nothing less than the fishing boat belonging to the very fisherman responsible for the newspaper ad and for Rena Baker’s murder, Madison Fuller.” With that, Monday pointed dramatically across the dais, fully extending his arm and his index finger in Madison’s direction.

The spectators sat quiet and perplexed, failing to see the significance of the boat of a known fisherman.

“Officer Tullsey,” Monday said, “do you confirm for the court that this is a picture of the boat belonging to Mr. Fuller, and that it is currently in the custody of the Island Police?”

“I do,” Arnold said.

“Can you tell us what was found in the boat when you confiscated it?”

“Yes, sir. We found a bucket of worms and a lantern, some towels, and, I believe, an empty thermos.”

“Is that all you found? Are you sure?” Monday insisted. Smiling he added, “Take all the time you need to respond.”

Arnold looked at him, puzzled, then testified, “Oh, right! We found blood! There was blood on Mr. Fuller’s boat.”

At the word “blood,” Madison’s ears perked up and the crowd commented noisily.

“Order in the court!” the judge cried, smacking his gavel repeatedly.

“Objection, Your Honor!” Glynray yelled out. “The Defense was not informed of this piece of evidence.”

Before the judge could sustain the objection, or overrule it, Monday was back at the microphone, reiterating again his apologies for overlooking Exhibit Q and theatrically begging the forgiveness of the Defense.

“I’ll allow it,” Judge Samuels said. “An honest mistake is an honest mistake. Defense can cross-examine again when Mr. Jones is finished.”

At that, Mr. Jones jumped right back into his questioning.

“Officer Tullsey, please tell us how much blood you found on the boat. A few droplets? Smears from one end to the other? How would you describe it?”

“Hard to say, sir. More than droplets, but less than smears,” he answered.

“I see. How long have you been a police officer, if I may ask?”

“Close to fifteen years.”

“My compliments on a fine career,” Monday said. “Is it your professional opinion, based on fifteen years of police work, that the blood evidence found on Mr. Fuller’s boat is not inconsistent with the blood you would expect to find if one, say, dumped a dead body into the sea?”

“You could say that,” Arnold said, feeling especially important.

“Thank you, Officer. The Defense may question the witness.”

Glynray got up, agitated, with only one question in mind.

“Officer Tullsey,” he sharply said, “are you completely sure that the blood on Mr. Fuller’s boat belongs to Rena Baker and not to a fish?”

Arnold reflected a minute. “Not completely sure, no.”

“Your Honor,” Glynray said firmly, turning to the judge, “I request that the court have the blood evidence analyzed before this case goes any further.”

Judge Samuels agreed to Glynray’s request that the blood be checked, but was reluctant to postpone the trial in the meantime. That is, until Monday Jones rested his case a short time later. The Prosecution had no witnesses apart from the two policemen, whose testimony was finally finished, and so the judge agreed to a day’s delay while the blood was looked into. He adjourned the court until the next morning, when the Defense would be asked to call its first witness.

The spectators dispersed, tittering and speculating, Branson and Trevor among them. Branson, noticeably disturbed by the short morning’s events, spotted May on the VIP bench and ran to console her. Her patience where he was concerned, however, was inversely proportional to the strength of the Prosecutor’s case, so she snapped at him and sent him away. Trevor, meanwhile, equally disturbed, rushed to consult with Glynray on the dais, as the police took Madison back to jail. Glynray wasn’t worried about the forensics, he said, but he feared that the jury had been irrevocably swayed by the blood-spattered boat, whose picture spoke a thousand words from its position smack-dab in the middle of Monday’s corkboard.

“I’ll do my best tomorrow,” he promised Trevor (as he had promised Madison, too, a moment before), “but I’d be a hell of a lot more convincing without a bloody fishing boat hanging over my head!”

As the organizational head of the Trial, to Raoul fell the handling of the blood that afternoon, and he discovered that Oh simply wasn’t equipped for forensic testing. The blood had to be sent to Killig for analysis there, which posed an additional problem, for it was spattered on a fairly large boat. Raoul couldn’t slip it in a bag marked Exhibit Q and send it out on the earliest flight.

After conferring with his colleagues in Killig, it was determined that Raoul should collect samples of the blood to be analyzed, and merely send
those
off (by air or by sea) to the lab. He was instructed to shave off thin slivers of wood from the bloody spots on the boat. Raoul had no idea how to do such a thing, and by the time he learned that this was the most expeditious of options, it was well past sundown. Since the day’s last flight to Killig was long gone, Raoul decided to get the samples—at all costs—on the five a.m. flight the next day. To do so, he enlisted the help of his friend Fred Nettles, a builder well-versed in wood.