Decision (36 page)

“But, your honor—!” Debbie cried in what appeared to be genuine dismay.

“Today is Friday. Over the weekend you will appoint one psychiatrist; the state will appoint one; the court will appoint a third. They will have full access to the prisoner between the hours of ten a.m. and five p.m. beginning next Monday and terminating one week from today. They will present their report to the court at ten a.m. on the following Monday.

“Court will now stand in recess until ten a.m. next Monday week.”

And with a last decisive rap of the gavel he stood up, turned his back on them all, and went out.

Again the elder Holgrens slipped away, the audience moved quickly out. This time security was absolute. The crowd had been ordered back fifty feet on either side. The guards virtually ran the prisoner to the van, hurried him inside, scrambled after him and slammed the door. The van roared away in the midst of its motorcycle escort.

More leisurely, Tay and Moss stood up, nodded to Regard and Debbie as they gathered their papers, ignoring each other but taking time to smile good-bye to the Justices, and went out together into the drowsy afternoon.

“What are you going to do for the week?” Tay inquired. Moss sighed.

“I’m going back to D.C. There’s nothing I can do here. Sue-Ann may stay a few days but the Court goes on, you know. The work is piling up. I feel I’ve got to get back, until I’m recalled here to testify, which I suppose I will be. And you?”

“I’d like to,” Tay said, “but I just don’t see how I can leave Janie at the moment.”

“No change?”

“No change. And Mary would never forgive me if there was a change, either good or bad, and I wasn’t here. I’d never forgive myself. I’ll just have to hope the Chief and all of you understand.”

Moss gave him an impatient but affectionate look.

“Oh, of course. I won’t be going up until Monday morning. Why don’t you come out to the house on Sunday for a few hours, just to get away? I don’t suppose Mary would come, but—”

“No,” Tay said with a sigh. “I’m sure she won’t. But I will, if all’s calm.”

“Good. Call me around ten and I’ll come get you.”

Tay nodded. He hesitated for a second and then decided to risk it. “I want to talk to you anyway. About—yesterday.”

“What about yesterday?” Moss demanded, immediately defensive.

“You know what about yesterday,” Tay said, “so don’t play innocent. That’s a no-good organization, Moss, and you know what the media are already doing with your support of it.”

“I didn’t support it!”

“You came damned close. And it just isn’t good—it just isn’t fitting or proper. And what’s more, I’ll bet the Chief tells you so, too.”

“I’m not a child,” Moss snapped, “to be lectured like a child.”

“No, but you are a Justice of the Supreme Court, and that imposes some obligations. Anyway,” he said as Moss’ expression became even more set, “I’m not going to stand here in front of the courthouse and argue with you about it. We’ll talk about it Sunday—if you’ll let me.”

“Oh, I’ll let you,” Moss said as they reached his car, “but it won’t do any good. Get in, I’ll drop you at the hospital. How do you think things are going so far?”

“Skirmishing,” Tay said, obediently abandoning the subject. “No hits, no runs, one or two minor errors on Miss Debbie’s part. Regard remains the hero of the hour so far, I’d say, but even he hasn’t moved things much. Too early. But a lot can happen in a week.”

“And not in Earle Holgren’s favor,” Moss said grimly as he put the car in drive and started off. “I hope to God.”

“You see?” Tay said, trying to make it light. “That’s what I mean.”

“You worry about your own problems,” Moss said shortly. “You’ve got enough.”

And so he had, he thought as they arrived at Richland Memorial without further conversation and Moss dropped him off with a quick handshake and “See you Sunday.” The moment he entered the doors the head nurse hurried toward him. Oh God, no, he prayed. Don’t let it be.
Don’t let it be.

But the nurse, to his dazed relief, was smiling; and her voice when she spoke held a lilt of happy excitement.

“Mr. Justice!” she called out from halfway across the lobby. “Mr. Justice, you’re wanted at once in your daughter’s room. Hurry on up, now!”

“Is it—?” he began, not daring to really ask. “Is it—?”

“It’s good news!” she said, and he became aware that other nurses were looking his way, smiling, beaming. “Good news! But you just hurry on up! Mrs. Barbour will tell you all about it. Hurry on, now!”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, a great happiness beginning to grow in his heart. “Yes,
ma’am!”

And, almost boyishly, he did ‘hurry on’; and outside Janie’s room he saw other nurses smiling, the older doctor from their first interview waiting, an air of excitement and encouragement. With tears in his eyes he opened the door and went in. Instantly a cold hand seized his heart. Janie was still lying apparently comatose, unchanged in any way he could see. But Mary looked up, face alight.

“She spoke to me!” she exclaimed. “She spoke to me! I was going to send for you at the trial but it was just a little while ago and they said you’d be back soon.”

He nodded, his impulse to go to her and put his arms around her. But there was something in the set of her head and body that warned him off, even now. So he simply stepped forward to the other side of the bed and looked down at his daughter’s sleeping face.

“What did she say?” he asked, aware that the doctor had come into the room and was quietly watching them.

“Not much,” Mary said, “and rather slurred and hurried, but clear enough. Her eyes opened, quite wide, and focused on me for a moment as though she were trying”—her voice trembled, then steadied—“trying, very hard. Then she said, ‘Mommy, how are you, Mommy?’ And then, ‘Where’s Daddy?’ And then her eyes closed and she went back—back to sleep. But she recognized me, Tay! She remembered us! She isn’t gone, after all. She’s in there somewhere and the doctor thinks she’ll be waking soon again.” She turned and appealed directly to him. “Don’t you, doctor?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, coming forward to stand at the foot of the bed. “Indeed I do. When Mrs. Barbour cried out the nurse hurried in and also heard Janie speak.
She
feels it was quite distinct.” He smiled. “She’s a little bit more optimistic even than Mrs. Barbour is, I think. I agree with them both. I believe there are grounds for optimism.”

“How much?” he demanded; and ignoring Mary’s upset, impatient movement, repeated sternly: “How much?”

“That,” the doctor said, giving him a candid look, “I could not say with any assurance at this moment. I would say there are more grounds for than against, let’s put it that way. She has roused once and spoken: the history of these cases is that this is usually a good sign. It is usually followed with reasonable rapidity by further arousals, further speech, a gradual restoration of normal responses. She has already recognized her mother and asked for you. That is a long way on the road, Mr. Justice. You mustn’t be too impatient. Her system received a terrible shock, after all. But if things progress on a rising curve, I should think you might be able to take her home in a couple of weeks—certainly not more than a month. Back in Washington, she would have to remain mostly in bed but with increasing activity every day as recommended by your doctor or doctors up there, for perhaps another month or two. But say three months at the most and she should be reasonably recovered. Not racing about, perhaps, for a while, as I’m sure she used to do; but in time—in time … providing, as I say, that everything goes forward as we hope.”

“Will you go back to Washington and leave me all alone here?” Mary inquired.

“I don’t like the way you say that, Mary,” he responded gravely, while the doctor looked uneasy, “but yes, I will have to go back before she can, and presumably you will remain here. I’m sorry if that seems unfair, but I have barely yet put my toe in the water as far as the Court is concerned. The work is piling up and they need me to carry my share of it and that’s where I have to go. Providing, as the doctor says, things are proceeding as we hope and Janie is making comfortable progress.”

“Will you have to testify at the trial, Mr. Justice?” the doctor asked before Mary could make some retort both he and the doctor were afraid would be unpleasant.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I really won’t know until it resumes, I suppose. Since Mary and I were not at Pomeroy Station—”

“Only Janie,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed, again gravely, “only Janie—I don’t know quite what we could testify to, except, perhaps, her condition. If that is improving as we hope, then my testimony and Mary’s might be of some use to the defense, in that Miss Donnelson could elicit testimony that might, she would hope, tend to lessen the defendant’s culpability in the minds of the jury.”

“I would never give testimony that would do that,” Mary said flatly. “You might, but I wouldn’t.”

“If you were under oath on the witness stand you would testify in response to the questions defense counsel asked you,” he said patiently. “You might not want to, but I think you would be required by law. Or be held in contempt. Whichever.”

“I would expect some such wishy-washiness from you, Tay,” she said, while the doctor looked as though he wished he were somewhere else. “But if I were called, I would speak my piece regardless of the consequences. I would say what I thought of that monster and no one would be in any doubt where I stood. I would not crawl to
Miss Donnelson”—
she
spat out the name—“or that two-bit country judge, or anyone else. I would have that monster’s head, if I could.”

“I think most people in America agree with you, Mrs. Barbour,” the doctor said mildly, “although I must say Judge Williams is rather highly thought of in these parts… So, we have to expect you to leave, then, Mr. Justice, sometime in the next few days?”

“In a week or so, probably. I’ll fly down for the weekends, but during the weeks, barring something unforeseen, I’ll be at the Court.”

“And I’ll be here,” Mary said.

“Thank you, Mrs. Barbour,” the doctor said politely. “That will be a real help. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll be on my way. But I’ll be back later this evening, and of course if anything happens in the meantime, they’ll let me know and I’ll return at once.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Tay said, holding out his hand. But before the doctor could take it, Mary cried,
“Look!”
and they all froze, as what Tay would ever after refer to in his own mind—when he could bear to think of it—as “Janie’s brief miracle” took place.

There was a slight moan from the bed. Her eyes opened, quite clear and quite alive. She looked around, saw Mary. Her eyes moved on, saw the doctor, saw him. Her expression, tense for a second, relaxed and a perfectly natural smile, the most beautiful smile he thought he had ever seen, flooded across her face.

“Hello again, Mommy,” she said, and beside him the doctor murmured,
“‘again,’”
with a hushed and thankful intonation. “And hello, Daddy.”

“Hello, my darling!” Mary said, and began to cry.

“Hello, baby,” he said softly, though his eyes were filling with tears and he could barely articulate. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh,” she said, considering. “Pretty good, I guess. Kind of headachy and fuzzy, but—you know. Not too bad.”

“We’re very thankful for that, Janie,” the doctor said, and she smiled again.

“I suppose you’re the doctor,” she said, not moving her head or body, only her eyes. “You look nice.”

“He is nice,” Tay said, managing a little better. “He’s been very good to your mother and me and extra
specially
good to you.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the doctor said. “You
are
welcome, Janie. Is there anything we can get for you?”

“I feel a little hungry.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll go find a nurse and we’ll see what we can whip up for you.”

“Daddy,” she said when the doctor had gone, looking pleased and humming slightly to himself, “when are you going to take me home?”

“In a while, baby,” he said. “It won’t be right away, but as soon as you’re able we’ll get you back.”

“Will you stay with me?” she asked, and Mary shot him a look.

“Yes,” she echoed, “will you, Tay?”

He took a deep breath and met it, as he had to, head-on.

“I have to get back to my work, baby,” he said. “You’ve probably forgotten, but I’ve just been appointed to the Supreme Court—”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I do remember.”

“—and they need me there. But Mommy will be here, and I’ll be here on weekends. At the rate you’re going it will only be a couple of weeks, probably, before we can move you right back up home to your own bed. Then you’ll be all well again in no time.”

“I’d like that,” she said, yawning suddenly and beginning to sound drowsy. “What happened, anyway?”

“We’ll tell you about that when you feel better,” Mary said.

“Was it somebody bad?”

“Very bad,” he said gravely.

“I hope they shoot him dead,” she said, sounding drowsier. “Don’t you, Daddy?”

Again Mary gave him a quick look. He ignored it and spoke very slowly and carefully, for a moment hardly seeing his daughter as he concentrated on how best to answer.

“I hope he will get what he deserves,” he said, “because he is a very,
very
bad man. But I don’t know whether it will be best to shoot him or to put him in jail for the rest of his life so that he can never,
never
do anything to anybody again. Maybe that would be better. We’ll just have to decide that after there’s been a trial and—”

“She’s asleep,” Mary interrupted harshly. “She isn’t even listening anymore. She’s asleep! So you can stop trying to rationalize everything for yourself and wait until another time.”

“So she is,” he said, almost stupidly. “So she is.”

And when the doctor returned immediately after with the nurse carrying a tray with soup and crackers, they decided it would be best to let her sleep for a while. The doctor increased the intravenous feeding slightly and left them with confident assurances that things were now moving very well, and that they could expect her to have increasingly frequent waking periods.