Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller (21 page)

“Prior to the modern mixture, dentists couldn’t do that. Before 1910 the amalgam had completely different proportions of silver and mercury. It had a lot more tin to reduce shrinkage. And it had cadmium. Well, the point is, two of the amalgams from Mr. Doe’s mouth, and one from Mrs. Doe, were of that old kind. Cadmium and a lot of tin. It’s amazing that they’ve lasted. Both the Does had very good teeth. So we have to conclude that the amalgams were probably made before 1910. Without doubt, before 1920.”

Dennis turned to Josh Gamble and Ray Bond. “What do you think is the significance of all this?”

“I thought maybe
you
would know,” the sheriff said. “Or have a vision that you’d share with us hillbillies.”

Dennis said, “If the victims had the fillings put in prior to 1920, it would mean they were born no later than 1910. Or probably before then, as Dr. Keating says. That would make them each a minimum of eighty-five years old …”

“That is not possible,” Dr. Beckmann said stonily.

Dennis spread his hands. “Well, Doctor, how do you explain the amalgam? Older heads sewn onto younger bodies?”

“I do not know,” Dr. Beckmann said. “Howard and I do not agree on this matter.”

Dennis turned toward Keating. “Could you be wrong on the dates?”

“I looked it up. Got the books from the dental library at the university in Boulder.”

“Historians make mistakes,” Dennis said. “Writers are fallible. There are misprints.”

Keating sighed.

Dennis looked back at the sheriff. “Dr. Beckmann puts these victims in their late sixties. Back in November Dr. Keating examined the peridontal bone loss, and he agreed. But now he says the fillings show that the people had to be at least eighty-five years old. Probably older—maybe even ninety or ninety-five. What does all that mean? Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that the fillings tell the truth. The victims were in their late eighties or early nineties. First question: how the hell could they hike up to 12,500 feet at Pearl Pass?”

“Slowly,” Ray Bond said.

The sheriff ignored him. “That’s one of the points we’re considering,” he replied to Dennis. “It might mean the lethal injections were administered somewhere else. Then the corpses were carried up there to the burial site.”

“Carried,” Dennis repeated. “In summer. How wide was the track that led up there to the grave?”

“Narrow up to about 11,000 feet. After that, nonexistent.”

“Could a Sno-Cat or four-wheel-drive vehicle do it?”

“No way. A motorbike, part way. The rest is forest.”

“Could a motorbike haul two bodies?”

“Shit, I don’t know. You could rig something, I suppose. A sled, or a travois, like the Pawnee did. Wouldn’t be easy.”

“And it would certainly be noticeable if you met someone else on the trail.”

“Hey, I agree. I can chew on it, but I can’t swallow it.”

“And why bother to haul bodies all the way up to Pearl Pass? Where does all this dental stuff lead? Is it good for the prosecution, or is it good for the good guys? What’s it prove?” He turned to Ray Bond, who had been uncharacteristically quiet and thoughtful. “Which of us makes a horse’s ass of himself and puts Dr. Keating on the stand to testify? And why?”

Josh Gamble put a paw on Dennis Conway’s shoulder. “Let’s you and me go stagger through the storm and have a drink at the Little Nell. Several drinks. You couldn’t drive home in this storm anyway. Maybe something will occur to us. And maybe not. In that more likely case, we can talk about important things, like where are you going to spend the night, and where we can get a Cat to haul us up the back of Ajax later this week so that we can do some good powder skiing. Ray, you can come too. I’d like you two to get friendly, if that’s possible. You game?”

“I’m game,” Dennis said.

“Queenie,” the sheriff said, straight-faced, “you escort Dr. Keating into your office, just the two of you, and rip—I mean, take down his—-take down his statement.”

Chapter 18
A Russian Novel

THE ROARING FORK Valley was on its way toward one of the record winter snowfalls of the century It had snowed every day for two weeks, and more was on the way from California. On the flats the snow would melt quickly, but in the cold mountain air it piled higher and higher. Avalanche warnings were posted. Cornices above crosscountry trails were blasted by explosives three times a week. The entire Elk Range was designated as dangerous, off-limits to recreational skiers. The slopes of Aspen were meant to close for the season on the day after Easter Sunday, but SkiCo was already talking of weekend skiing through Memorial Day.

Sophie had fed the children; now they were upstairs watching television. Once again she was curled on the window seat.

“Henry and Susan Lovell were friends of your parents,” Dennis said. “You knew them pretty well, didn’t you?”

Sophie stared at the ceaseless, silent snow. Even if you stood outside it made no sound as it bonded to the earth.

“How old were they?”

Startled, Sophie swung up smoothly to a sitting position and looked him in the eye.

“Why?”

“Because there’s a mystery about it. And it may have bearing on the case.”

He told her Howard Keating’s story, and the theories based on the gold foil and the dental amalgam. Sophie’s eyes moved away once again, toward the drifting whiteness.

“It may not have been the Lovells’ bodies that were found up there,” she said.

“Come on, Sophie, we know it was them. I’ll ask you again. Do you know how old they were?”

“A few years older than my parents.”

“How many is a few?”

“Four or five. Six at the most.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes.”

He remembered his father’s questioning how Sophie could have studied under the English professor who had later gone off to Cambridge. He remembered how she had lied to him about the ages of her grandfather and the woman named Ellen Hapgood. They had seemed innocent lies or even mistakes. Now, in the light of what Keating had told them, he wondered if that were so. And what did it mean? How old were the two dead people in the communal grave at Pearl Pass? Did it matter at all whether they were in their nineties, eighties, or sixties?

Yes, Dennis thought, it matters, and it matters a lot. But I can’t figure out why.

In the Pitkin County Courthouse, at 9:30 A.M. on April 10, Judge Florian struck his gavel and said, “This court will be in order.”

Spectators shuffled their feet and adjusted their buttocks on the wooden benches to find a position of the least discomfort. Veteran trial watchers, sitting on cushions they had brought from home, placed their water bottles on the floor.

Judge Florian intoned: “The People versus Scott Henderson and Beatrice Henderson. Mr. Raymond Bond for the People, Mr. Dennis Conway and Mr. Scott Henderson for the defense. Are the People ready?”

“We are, Your Honor.” Ray Bond’s nostrils quivered like a racehorse being led into the starting gate.

The defense was ready too, affirmed Dennis and Scott, in that order. To the world they both projected confidence. But so did Ray Bond.

Dennis wore his best navy blue pinstripe suit. He was superstitious; he had never lost a case when he wore it on opening day of trial. He had never told this to anyone, not even Sophie. There were some things you had to keep to yourself.

“Any witnesses in the courtroom?” the judge asked. “If so, please rise and leave.”

No one did.

“We’ll begin the voir dire.”

Half of the wooden spectators’ pews of Judge Florian’s courtroom had been cleared for a panel of forty prospective jurors—they were called veniremen, after the Latin
venire facias,
or “make come.” One of the judge’s bailiffs, costumed in a skintight taupe uniform, .357 Magnum stuffed in a shiny brown cowhide holster at his hip, shepherded the panel into the courtroom. For a trial of this magnitude the resources of Pitkin County were not sufficient—additional staff had been brought in from Glenwood Springs. Network media had driven up from Denver. If anything developed, coverage would blast off and go national. Euthanasia was hot. The
National Enquirer
had already bannered a headline across its front page: CHIC SKI RESORT CENTER OF ASSISTED SUICIDE CULT. The
New York Times Magazine
had approached Dennis about a less lurid article, should euthanasia become the trial’s major issue. Dennis had no intention of letting that happen. “Talk to me after trial,” he said.

Trial by jury. The results sometimes defied logic and could make lawyers weep. On the other hand, in civilized Europe five hundred years ago, charges were often resolved by making a man walk barefoot and blindfolded over nine redhot plowshares laid lengthwise at unequal distances. If the accused were burned, he was declared guilty. It could almost make you believe in progress, Dennis decided.

The veniremen were led by the squeaky voice of the deputy district clerk in the taking of the oath of voir dire: to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth. As if any one of us is really capable of that, Dennis thought, under oath or not.

Judge Curtis Florian introduced the court reporter, the clerk, and the bailiffs. Each stood and made a little bow in the direction of the jury, and then to the spectators. The judge said, “Folks, this case is based upon what we call an information, and it reads as follows: ‘Mr. Raymond Bond, deputy district attorney in the Ninth Judicial District, informs the court that against the peace and dignity of the people of the state of Colorado, in or about August 1994, in the county of Pitkin, Beatrice Henderson and Scott Henderson Jr. did unlawfully, feloniously, and deliberately cause the death of two persons known to us at present only as Jane Doe and John Doe …’”

When the judge had finished, the court clerk picked thirteen names at random from a bowl of number plaques. Thirteen live bodies soon filed into the jury box and sat in the old wooden chairs that looked as if they had been there since the days of silver mining. The rest of the veniremen were ushered out.

The judge asked each of the chosen thirteen to recite a brief autobiography.

The first thirteen candidates were a woman accountant, an out-of work advertising man with a master’s degree, a real estate broker, an airline pilot, a woman who did Bible education for the Latino community downvalley, a young hotel desk clerk, two ski instructors, a cowboy from Redstone, a retired dermatologist who Dennis knew was a leader of the Jewish community in Snowmass Village, a masseuse, a baker with a B.A. in philosophy from Princeton, and a taxi driver who informed the court that she had published two romance novels and that you could buy them on the rack at Carl’s Pharmacy. None had been born in Pitkin County. Most were single or divorced. None were black. Not your average down-home Western jury, Dennis realized.

The clerk read the list of possible witnesses. “Do you know any of these people?’’ Judge Florian asked the jurors.

Aspen was a community of only 8,000 people year-round. One of the ski instructors explained that a few years ago she’d given Ray Bond a group lesson in a weekend locals’ clinic. The real estate broker said he was the father-in-law of the court reporter. Everyone knew one or two of the potential witnesses.

Ray Bond had two assistants for the trial: Don Stone, a clean-cut deputy district attorney from Glenwood Springs, and his counterpart from Aspen, a blonde woman named Sarah Westervelt, who wore horn-rimmed glasses and seemed to have red Delicious apples stuffed in her cheeks. Ray Bond led the attack. He told the jury, “You’re going to hear a lot of what we call circumstantial evidence. So let’s talk about what that is. I was sitting in my living room down in Glenwood, and I heard a crash outside in the street. .

Once more Dennis sat through the tale of the green Ford Explorer and the red Chevy pickup.

Bond finished, then said, “You’ve heard the charge. That contains what we call the elements of the crime. I have to prove all that to you, and I will. But bear in mind—I don’t have to prove anything beyond the elements.”

Dennis saw the cowboy nod. Ray Bond and the cowboy had already established a rapport; the cowboy was nodding at the DA’s every word. Each side was allowed six peremptory dismissals of jurors—six strikes, so-called—and Dennis, although he was as fond of cowboys as anyone who had been brought up in New York could be, decided that this particular cowboy had to be sent home on the range for the course of the trial.

When Dennis’s turn came, he tried to look every juror in the eye at least once. He had talked to many a past juror who had admitted leaning toward one side or the other because of his like or dislike of the attorneys in the case. “We’re not going to contest the elements of the crime,” Dennis said, “only Mr. and Mrs. Henderson’s involvement in it. The prosecution is going to show you gruesome photographs of the victims in this case. They might fill you with such disgust that you’ll have prejudicial reactions against the defendants, even though it hasn’t been proved they had anything to do with these deaths. Are there any of you who can’t deal with photographs of this nature?”

No one raised a hand. These were Americans, the spiritual descendants of Billy the Kid or Gary Cooper in
High Noon.
Violence filled the pages of their newspapers and their TV screens. Most of them who had watched parts of the O. J. Simpson trial were annoyed that the grisly portraits of the victims had been barred from view. If trial testimony was public, wasn’t the evidence public too? Bring on the photographs.

“Mrs. Henderson may not testify,” Dennis said. “But I’d like to remind you that Pilate said to Jesus, ‘You’re not responding to my accusations—you must be guilty.’ In our system of law there’s no obligation for the defendant to respond to any accusation, however farfetched. Does anyone here have a problem with that?”

The frizzy-haired masseuse in the first row of the jury box raised her hand. “I always think that if a person’s innocent, he or she would want to testify.”

For the benefit of the other jurors—he already knew he would use one of his peremptory strikes for the masseuse—Dennis parried: “An innocent person can still be nervous. This courtroom is a pretty somber-looking place. I’d hate to stand here and be accused of something, especially if I hadn’t done it.”