Decision (45 page)

“And myself, too,” Earle reminded with a cheerful grin. “Don’t forget that part of his testimony. Pretty racy stuff. No, Mr. Attorney General, I wasn’t doing anything with it. I just found it and examined it, that’s all. And then Mr. Johnson took a leak and things began to get lively down by the plant and he left to go down and check on his friends Willie and Tad Simpson, and there the record stops. Right?”

“There the record stops,” Regard agreed again, “until Mr. Johnson saw you return with the murdered woman and the murdered child.”

“They weren’t murdered then!” Earle shot out and there was sudden tension in the audience. Regard nodded.

“But soon to be, Mr. Holgren,” he said calmly, “soon to be. According to Mr. Johnson’s testimony they disappeared in your company; and when they were found a couple of hours later, they were dead.”

“So. Obviously somebody killed them, I’d say.”

Jury and audience tensed suddenly.

“My point exactly,” Regard said.

Earle frowned thoughtfully.

“I wonder who it could have been? Who would do such a dreadful thing?”

“Whoever used the detonator and blew up Pomeroy Station, killed Sarah Pomeroy and destroyed Jane Barbour’s life,
I’d
say,” Regard replied. “Any guesses, Mr. Holgren?”

“In a court of law?” Earle responded dryly. “Oh, come now, Mr. Stinnet! Incidentally,” he said, smiling at the jury, “before everybody gets all excited thinking I’ve slipped and forgotten something—Mr. Johnson did
not
see me return with, and I quote Mr. Stinnet, ‘the murdered woman and child,’ because I wasn’t
with,
quote, ‘the murdered woman and child.’ Mr. Johnson did not, in fact, see me at all because I wasn’t there, as I have already testified. Mr. Johnson tells a mighty good story, I’d say: some kids
do
have a great imagination. I didn’t see him because I wasn’t there and he didn’t see me because I wasn’t there. I was only there much later when I was trying to find the murderer, or murderers, and got beaten up and had my constitutional rights violated and—”

“All right, Mr. Holgren,” Regard said patiently, his accent becoming broader, drawl accentuated, “I think we’ve all heard that sad tale and we all get the picture. I’m not defendin’ it, we’ll accept it, that’s the way it was. I will say you’re very clever, though, to lead us on about that woman and child. You almost had us believin’ for a minute that you’d slipped up on somethin’ real important. You
are
clever, you know?” he added admiringly. “Real clever.”

“I try,” Earle said with some complacency.

“And very successfully, too,” Regard said in the same admiring tone. “But you’ve always been a brilliant fellow, haven’t you? Very bright in school. I mean, very quick and perceptive, quite superior to most minds you meet. Isn’t that a fair statement?”

“I’m adequate,” Earle admitted, complacency increased. “That’s about as far as I’d go, Mr. Stinnet.” He chuckled suddenly. “I’m modest.”

“That, too,” Regard agreed. “But seriously, now, isn’t it true that you graduated with highest honors from Phillips Exeter, that you graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard—”

“I knew we’d get to Harvard.”

“Nothin’ wrong with graduating from Harvard,” Regard said. He too chuckled, a cozy, companionable sound. “Though I like to think Duke is better. Anyway, it’s quite somethin’ to graduate magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from wherever it is. Not very many do that. And not very many are as shrewd, as quick and sophisticated about things as you are, or I miss my guess.”

“I manage,” Earle agreed, more complacently still.

“I know you do,” Regard said, his voice becoming still more slow and drawly, seeming almost to reach out physically and pat Earle admiringly on the back. “And I suppose that’s why you decided to waive your Fifth Amendment rights and testify here today, because you figure that you can do a better job, probably, than even that smart young lady you have defendin’ you, there. From what I’ve heard so far, I guess maybe you were right.”

“I think so,” Earle agreed. “Nothing personal, you understand,” he added with a comfortable smile at Debbie, who did not return it. “And after all, Mr. Stinnet,” he went on in a patronizing way, “the Fifth, you know, protects a witness against self-incrimination. And how could I be incriminated? I haven’t done anything to be incriminated for. There’s no proof of anything on the record. You haven’t got a case. Why should I be afraid to testify and tell the truth in my own behalf?”

“Not a reason in the world, Mr. Holgren,” Regard said in the same comfortable, just-pals voice, casually taking from his pocket the crumpled sheet of paper he had been hoarding against this moment. “That appears to be a very smart decision by a very smart man. Why is it, then,” he asked in a casual, almost absentminded way, “that a mind like yours could produce such almighty infantile, stupid, idiotic, mindless, worthless blither as this? What do you call it, a man-i-fes-to, is that it? Shucks! It just ’pears to be a big pile o’ childish drivel to me.”

And he made as if to read it to himself, an amused, contemptuous expression on his face, while on the stand the defendant reacted exactly as he had hoped he would.

His face literally turned white with shock and rage for a moment, his whole body swung into action. His arm came off the back of his chair in a flash, he stopped caressing his beard, he crouched forward tensed like a wound-up spring and actually looked as though he were about to leap from his seat and land bodily on his interrogator. His lips drew back in a feral grin that drew a gasp from the audience, his eyes got a strange fanatic light that really scared the perceptive lady on the jury and quite a few others. He uttered an odd hissing sound of indrawn and explosively expelled breath. He was suddenly, and apparently uncontrollably, a fearsome sight.

“Did a man as smart as you actually write this piece of crap?” Regard shouted, stepping close and waving the paper in his face. “This ridiculous—infantile—stupid—baby-shit piece of
crap?
This poor—
pathetic—”

“God damn you,” Earle yelled, lunging at it and almost toppling from his seat as Regard stepped nimbly back, “give it to me! God damn you,
give it to me!”

“No—”
Debbie started to shout, then crushed a hand against her mouth to stifle it as somewhere in some distant dream, through the courtroom uproar and the great excited roar outside, she heard Perlie Williams furiously using his gavel.

Too late, she thought. Too late.

“Oh, it
is
yours, Mr. Holgren!” Regard cried triumphantly. “Then why is it, Mr. Holgren”—and his voice dropped to a low and menacing note, each word coming like a sledgehammer—“why is it that it was found in the well with that murdered woman and child,
Mr.
Holgren? You just tell me about
that,
Mr. Holgren, because
we want to know.
The whole wide world is listening,
Mr.
Holgren, so”—his voice abruptly became very soft and very savage—“you just go right ahead and tell us all about it,
Mr.
Holgren,
if you please.”

There ensued an obvious and mighty struggle in the figure on the stand. Willpower triumphed, slowly at first, then more rapidly, as he sat, still crouched, chest heaving, breath coming in agonizing gasps. Presently, probably not more than a minute, though it seemed much longer to them all, he was in control of himself again. From somewhere, amazingly, he managed to extricate an almost normal expression and the beginnings of a contemptuous, sardonic smile.

“I swear,” the jury lady who had thought him cute whispered excitedly to the lady who had thought him ominous, “it’s just like that werewolf movie I seen last month! I swear it is!” The skeptical lady snorted. “Don’t be so melodramatic,” she advised in a satisfied voice. “We’ve just heard him hang himself. That’s good enough for me. Who needs werewolves?”

But the defendant was not prepared to admit this yet.

“Mr. Stinnet,” he said, voice still shaking with emotion but a controlled and coldly angry emotion now, “you just prove that, please. You just prove that piece of crap belongs to me. You just prove—”

“Mr. Holgren,” Regard interrupted softly, “you just told us that.” And started to add, “Have you forgotten?” and caught himself just in time. There would be the only defense that might hold up—temporary insanity. And he had almost given it away free. He shuddered inside … then his eyes met Debbie’s for the briefest of seconds, and although he glanced immediately away, he knew that she had perceived it too. God
damn,
he told himself. God damn, God damn, God
damn.

But his voice was as calm and matter-of-fact as though he were discussing the time of day when he concluded quietly:

“Your honor, I have no further questions of this witness.”

“Your honor,” Debbie said in a clear and level tone, “I do. First of all, does counsel intend to place this piece of paper in the record as an exhibit, or does he just wish to use it to try to entrap the witness? How do we know there is anything on it? We haven’t seen it.”

“A point well taken,” Perlie said. “Mr. Stinnet?”

“Your honor,” Regard said, “
I
have no intent to conceal anything. Certainly I offer it as an exhibit.” He stepped over and handed it to Debbie. She scanned it without expression and handed it back.

“We have no objection, your honor, although, as your honor can see, it is so stained as to be illegible.”

“The stains are blood, however,” Regard said, and there was a little gasp from the audience. “And it was found in the pocket of the dead woman, who apparently secreted it there in some last, pathetic, futile attempt to implicate the man who was about to murder her.”

“Your
honor,”
Debbie said sharply, while through her client’s mind there shot the thought
The damned bitch tricked me,
followed instantly by
But it’s illegible, so what difference does it make?
His expression, shaken for a split second, instantly recaptured its rigidly controlled impassivity.

“I am quite content to let the record stand,” Regard said. “I will leave it to the jury to decide the import of the witness’ violent reaction to this blood-soaked piece of paper.”

“Your
honor,”
Debbie protested again and Perlie Williams nodded.

“Objection sustained. Question your client, Miss Donnelson.”

She made an instant decision to drop the issue of the paper, which she considered to be damaging enough, in its uncertainties, to Regard.

Her client, now excessively wary, showed no further inclination to flaunt his cleverness. He was, in fact, as Tay murmured to Moss, scared to death. “I hope to hell
to death,”
Moss replied grimly. It was something not everyone perceived. Outwardly, particularly in the eye of the watching television camera, he seemed fully restored and back in complete command of himself and the situation. His counsel knew he was suffering a mortal wound. But she did her best.

“Mr. Holgren,” she said, “have you ever been subject, as a child or later on, to sudden seizures of temper—to what might be called, quite accurately, blind rages?”

“Your honor,” Regard began and she quickly amended, “to bouts of anger when you did not remember afterward what happened?”

Earle gave her a quick look and took the cue.

“How did you know that?” he asked, amazed. “Yes, I have.”

“Times when you had
no recollection whatsoever
of what had occurred?”

He nodded solemnly.

“Right.”

“And so could not be really considered responsible for what occurred during those periods?”

“Your honor—” Regard said, but Perlie Williams gave him a look that said,
Drop it.

“For instance,” she said, “do you remember Mr. Stinnet a few moments ago producing a piece of paper which he displayed to you?”

Her client looked puzzled, thought hard for a moment, finally shook his head.

“No…” he said uncertainly. “I—don’t—think so.”

“Do you have any recollection at all of what counsel for the state, the judge and myself, have just been discussing?”

Earle shook his head, still puzzled.

“No,” he said in a wondering tone. “Not the slightest.”

“God,”
Moss whispered. “Give him enough rope,” Tay replied. “He’s not fooling anybody.”

But it was obvious the jury, even including the skeptical lady, was shaken. Debbie pressed on.

“You have absolutely no recollection of being shown a piece of paper, and of an outburst of apparent temper in which you demanded that it be given to you?”

“Absolutely none whatsoever.”

“Now, Mr. Holgren,” she said, “let me take you back three weeks to the dedication of the atomic energy plant at Pomeroy Station. What is the last thing you remember on that occasion?”

Earle frowned, very thoughtfully.

“I remember,” he said slowly, “that I was absolutely enraged by the dedication itself, by the fact of this extremely dangerous and frightening installation being formally opened and about to be put into operation; that I thought of all the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people, who could be hurt or even killed if something should go wrong; and I was frustrated and even more enraged by the thought that there was absolutely nothing that could be done to save these innocent thousands. Maybe millions.”

“Did you remember thinking of anything you might do?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I do not. I just remember a sudden blinding flash—of rage,” he added quickly, and the audience subsided—“at my own helplessness. And then I don’t remember anything more until I was scrambling up there onto the hill to look for whoever had attacked the plant. I had—come to, I guess you might call it—a couple of minutes before, to hear somebody shouting, ‘They’ve bombed the plant and hurt Sarah Pomeroy!’ and that just got me out of that crowd down there like a shot and up on the hill to do what I could to help. I mean, I’m against atomic power, but Moss Pomeroy’s a great man whom I’ve always admired, and when I heard that”—he shook his head. “Well, that just did it. I just
moved,
that’s all. You couldn’t have stopped me.”