Nothing Lost (22 page)

“Now, Miss Kean, back to your shopping trip.”

Teresa was rustling around inside the bag. She pulled a straw boater from it, and two large white campaign buttons. The Poppy Power boater, the Poppy Power buttons. J.J.'s eyes flickered, and he inhaled and exhaled quickly.

“If it pleases, Your Honor . . .”

“It pleases.”

“Congresswoman McClure, Your Honor, was passing these . . .” Teresa seemed to search for the right word, but I suspect she had it at her fingertips. “. . . artifacts . . .” She let the word hang there. “. . . artifacts out on the steps of the courthouse. When the bus from Capital City with the jury panel arrived, her staff gave these hats and pins to them as they got off the bus. And it appears that a Mr. Erskine, who works for Congresswoman McClure, I think as chief of staff, although I think Mr. McClure here is more able than I to define his proper job designation . . .”

I have to admit that I had doubted Teresa's ability to persevere in the adversary culture of the courts, but she was good, she was very good, she had rocked both J.J. and Judge Tracy back on their heels, and she made it seem as if it was one of the most distasteful things she had ever been forced to do.

“Mr. McClure . . .”

“Mr. Erskine is the congresswoman's chief of staff, Judge.” He made it sound as if Poppy were the congressional representative of his district, a distant figure whose hand he had shaken once or twice at campaign events he had been forced to attend.

“And Mr. Erskine did what?”

“The marshals who escorted my client from the Correction Center this morning told me that Mr. Erskine had tried to give them these artifacts.” Teresa waved her hand vaguely toward the boater and the buttons on Judge Tracy's desk. “But they of course are officers of the court, and they refused.” No one spoke. “I would hate to think that the jury panel has been contaminated,” Teresa said hesitantly after a moment.

Tracy did not hesitate. “I don't need some New York lawyer to tell me how to do my job, counsel.”

“I apologize, Your Honor.”

“You have exhausted your quota of apologies this morning, is that understood?”

“It is, Judge.”

Tracy ran her tongue over the furze of mustache. “All right. I'll have the bailiffs go into the jury room and remove anyone who is wearing either this . . . this hat or one of these pins.” With a ballpoint pen, she moved first the boater and then the pin to the edge of her desk. “I hope we have enough left to sit a jury. In the meantime, I'm imposing a gag order on these proceedings that is absolute and unequivocal. No speeches outside the courtroom. No appearances on television. No interviews or comments. Any objection?”

The four of us shook our heads.

“Any deviation from this gag order is grounds for contempt, and I will remand to custody that person or those persons who violate it. Understood?”

The four of us nodded.

“Now Mr. McClure.”

“Judge.”

“You are in sort of a special category here.”

J.J. tested the ice. “In what way, Your Honor?”

“Your reputation for charm precedes you, Mr. McClure. I hate charm. Do we understand each other?”

The ice was too thin. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“I'm going to bar Congresswoman McClure from the courtroom. Any objection?”

J.J. tapped his thumbs together. “If Your Honor so orders.”

“I do.”

I knew another shoe was going to drop.

“I suppose I can't include Congresswoman McClure in this gag order, but . . .” She had our attention. “. . . if she intrudes on these proceedings by word or deed . . .” She nodded crisply in the direction of the boater. “. . . while in the jurisdiction of this court, I can hold you in contempt, Mr. McClure.”

J.J. shot forward in his chair. “I'm not sure you can do that, Judge.”

“Try me, counsel. You can appeal this decision, of course, but I have a good record with the appellate division in this state. If you so desire, I'll bring the court reporter in and we can put this in the record.”

J.J. pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger and held it for a moment before speaking. “That won't be necessary, Your Honor.”

Tracy looked at each of us in turn. “Okay. Let's go to court.”

We rose and headed for the door.

“Miss Kean.”

Teresa turned. “Your Honor . . .”

“Welcome to South Midland.” Tracy was putting on her robe. Even in high heels she was scarcely five feet tall. “And the court wishes to thank you for bringing this matter to its attention.”

So that was it. I don't know what J.J. said to Poppy, but there was clearly no reason for her to stick around if her presence would compromise the case against Duane Lajoie, not to mention complicating her ambition for higher office, whatever that office might be. She released a pro forma statement about greasing the wheels of justice, a Willie Erskine special, then went back to Cap City and from there to Washington and what the statement called the nation's first order of business, holding the line against the poison of collectivism. Her banishment was a contentious topic on
The Courthouse Square Nightly Wrap-up
(“Viewers are encouraged to e-mail their remarks and comments to [email protected]”), where the response encouraged Alicia Barbara to mention Poppy at the top of the show three nights running. Tracy threw Alice Todt out of the courtroom, and after two days of jury selection, she swore in twelve jurors—five women and seven men; two of the women and one male juror were black—and four alternates, all four women, two of them black. She told them she liked things to move along quickly and that the proceedings should not last longer than two weeks. It was a Thursday morning and unexpectedly she delayed opening statements until the following Monday, giving everyone a free four-day weekend. The jurors returned to their homes with instructions to be back in Regent by Sunday evening, and the press decamped to Chicago, Washington, New York, and points in between. The recess she ordered allowed Judge Tracy to drive halfway across the state to Dead Center so that she could preside over the fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation as a municipality in Central County.

Ellen Tracy never understood how the mundane decisions she made that day affected the way things turned out.

By the time Ellen Tracy filed a formal complaint with the state bar association recommending that disbarment proceedings be initiated against Teresa Kean, LLC, and James Joseph McClure, formerly chief deputy attorney general in the Office of the Attorney General of South Midland, the play was long finished.

CHAPTER THREE

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT PAGES 1–188
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF LOOMIS COUNTY,
SOUTH MIDLAND
THE STATE OF SOUTH MIDLAND
 (CASE NOS. 2391, 2392, 2393, 2685),
PLAINTIFF,
vs.
DUANE LAJOIE, DEFENDANT.

 

Proceedings heard before Hon. ELLEN TRACY, Judge, at
Regent, Loomis County, South Midland on March 14.

 

THE COURT: Mr. McClure, you may begin.

MR. MCCLURE: Thank you, Your Honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is James J. McClure. I am the chief deputy in the homicide division of the Attorney General's office up there in Cap City, which as you know is so ably run by the A.G., that's our shorthand for attorney general, Mr. Jerrold Wormwold. I'm going to be prosecuting this matter, along with my co-prosecutor, Patience Feiffer, you see her over there at the prosecution's table with all those files and law books stacked in front of her. Where to begin? I think the best place to begin is for you to take a good look at the defendant, Mr. Duane Lajoie, whose current address is the Capital City Correction Center. Look at him. Look at him closely. Look at the way he avoids your eyes—

MS. KEAN: Objection.

THE COURT: Sustained. Move on, counsel.

MR. MCCLURE: This story begins not with the defendant, but with the good man he is accused of so wantonly murdering and disfiguring. His name was Edgar Parlance, and he was a man like so many of us, trying to make do. He was a black man, an African American, an American, and to the defendant that was enough to maim and dismember and kill him. You are going to hear things, good people of the jury, that will make you sick to your stomachs, hear those things in the most brutal and specific detail, and you will see photographs of this good man, Edgar Parlance, that will make you turn away in horror. It is no wonder that Duane Lajoie would not look at you earlier, he knows what you are going to see, he was responsible for what you are going to see, and see him now, brazen, looking at you finally with that terrible smile, he seems to think that the crimes with which he is charged are funny, and not, as they are, an affront to man and the God we worship.

It was Thanksgiving season. The season for giving thanks. Edgar Parlance was walking that early morning out near Loomis Falls, as he often did. Edgar Parlance was a walker. There was scarcely a foot of ground in Regent that he had not explored. When the weather was kind, Edgar Parlance liked to sleep out by the falls under the stars. . . .

THE COURT: Miss Kean.

MS. KEAN: Thank you, Your Honor. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Teresa Kean and I am counsel for the defendant in this action, Mr. Duane Lajoie. Appearing with me as co-counsel is Max Cline. Now. You have heard the state, in the person of Mr. McClure, lay out the case it will try, and let me repeat the word “try,” try to convince you it has against my client. You notice I say “the case.” I say “the case” because the state has no idea what the facts are in this matter as they pertain to Duane Lajoie. Facts. Who. What. Where. When. In the absence of facts, the state relies on emotion. The state would like your power to reason, your ability to reason, to give way to emotion. And there is reason for emotion. The victim in this case was a good man. The crime against him was so horrible that it is almost impossible to assimilate. You would like to cast it from your minds and think good thoughts. My concern, ladies and gentlemen, is that the emotional issues, the goodness of Mr. Parlance and the ugliness of the deed done to him, will overshadow the facts as we will come to know them, the facts that do not implicate the defendant, Mr. Lajoie.

I direct your attention, ladies and gentlemen, to the spectator seats. I expect this courtroom has never been so packed. As you look at the spectator seats, you will see many familiar faces. Not people from Regent. Not people from Loomis County. Or Kiowa or Osceola counties. Not even many people from South Midland itself. No. The familiar faces are those who have talked to you, in many instances shouted at you, from your television screen. These familiar faces have told you what happened that awful night in November. The fact that they don't know what happened is irrelevant. They have told you who is responsible. Again, they do not know. They have told you what the verdict will almost certainly be, given the facts of the case, the facts that neither they nor the prosecution know. These familiar faces who have invaded your homes have arrived at conclusions before a word of testimony is heard. Let us not pretend you are not aware of the tumult surrounding these proceedings. Have you jurors and you alternates all been on Mars since the events of last November that snuffed out the life of Edgar Parlance? Have you been on Jupiter? Uranus? I didn't think so. So I daresay you are familiar with the phrase “plea bargain”—

MR. MCCLURE: Objection.

THE COURT: Overruled.

MS. KEAN: —with the phrase “cut a deal”—

MR. MCCLURE: Objection.

THE COURT: Let's see where counsel is going with this, Mr. McClure.

MS. KEAN: The prosecution cut a deal with Bryant Gover because it could not make a case against Duane Lajoie, and Bryant Gover was afraid he would go to the electric chair if he did not cut a deal with—

MR. MCCLURE: I request a sidebar, Your Honor.

THE COURT: I don't like sidebars.

MR. MCCLURE: Then I request a meeting in chambers.

THE COURT: No.

MR. MCCLURE: I would ask that the jury be excused.

THE COURT: No. But Mr. McClure, I'm going to sustain your objection. Miss Kean, you've taken this far enough. You can continue this line when the witness, Mr. Gover, is sworn. Agreed?

MR. MCCLURE: Yes.

MS. KEAN: Agreed.

By that Monday morning of opening statements, Teresa and J.J. had already been together for four days.

CHAPTER FOUR

The dream, she said.

You want to watch the game? my mother said. What game? I say. There's always a game on Sunday, she says, I thought you might want to watch. No, I don't want to watch the game, I think I should be getting back. Well, then, she says, and I look at her and she looks at me, and then I heard the shot. Correction. We heard the shot. You better go down to the barn, she says. Very quiet. Matter-of-fact. No excitement. Your father is so careless sometimes. He's getting old, Jamie. (He's not even sixty, he's fifty-five, fifty-six, and she says he's getting old.) I'll go down and take a look, I say. And I walk out the door and out to the barn, walk, not run, as if I thought a car on the road had backfired, as if I had never heard a gunshot before. When I was a kid, I used to shoot at a fence post with that old Colt, my hands were so small I could hardly reach the trigger, and it had such kick it gave me a bone bruise in my palm. Some days when it rains I can still feel that bruise. I got to the barn and there he was, in the wheelchair, his head leaning over into the tub where he kept the scrub brushes, as if he didn't want to splatter the blood, and here's the thing, before he did it he ran water over the axe he used to kill the chicken we had for lunch, scrubbed it clean with a wire brush, and then hung the axe on the nail over the sink where he kept it. First things first. That was Walter.

Finish the dream.

What dream?

About your brother.

Emmett.

Yes.

His voice was a monotone.

Pushme, Jamie, pushmepushmepushmepushme, the pier jutting into the pond, blocking Walter's view. Pushing him, holding him down, calibrating the seconds, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, all the way to fifteen, maybe twenty, twenty-five, even more, I can't remember, Emmett's capacity for holdinghis breath stretched to the extreme, and beyond. Then he was free, but he wasn't gasping for air, no laughing, no againagainagain, just floating there facedown, and Walter, stretched on the rise, he'd fallen out of the wheelchair, he was grabbing tufts of grass, trying to pull himself down to the dock, it's not your fault, Jamie, it's not your fault, he kept on saying.

“It wasn't. He's right. It wasn't your fault.”

“I held him under, Teresa. I knew what I was doing. I knew his legs had stopped kicking. He was trying to push my hand away. I had his life in my hands. It was mine to save or take away. I was like Caesar at the Colosseum. Thumb up, thumb down, the losing gladiator lives or the losing gladiator dies. Thumb down. Walter knew what I was doing.”

“Jamie, you were seven years old.”

“Almost eight, and I was drowning my brother. No. I drowned my brother. Deliberately. With malice aforethought. I wasn't jealous of him. He wasn't my parents' favorite. There was none of that psychoanalytic crap. The fact is, most of the time Walter and Emily didn't even know we were around, Emmett and me. I don't think they knew the other was around, either. I can't remember their ever having a conversation with each other. ‘You should get the tires rotated on the Plymouth, Emily.' ‘I'll get Fred to do it, Walter.' That was the extent of it. Fred was the handyman. Fred Riggs. He drank. My mother liked him. I don't mean they shared drinks or anything like that. God knows, not the other thing. He'd show up. Then he'd disappear. He didn't have a phone. Fred just seemed to know when my mother needed him for some chores. The tires on the Plymouth needed rotating; there was Fred the next day, knocking on the kitchen door. ‘I think I ought to take a look at the tires on the Plymouth, Mrs. McClure.' That's how he pronounced it, ‘Miz.' He wasn't tugging a forelock. And he was never presumptuous, either. I suppose in a way he was like Edgar Parlance. Except he was white.”

“We said we wouldn't talk about Edgar Parlance.”

“Right.” J.J. seemed lost in thought. “When she died,” he said after a moment, “Fred was the only other person at the grave. Except for the minister. He'd lost a leg, Fred. Diabetes, he said. He was living in a VA hospital someplace in Kansas.” J.J. hesitated, as if trying to decide if he should continue. “You know, Walter's family had been in Parker County for a hundred years or more.”

“And Fred Riggs with one leg was the only person at the funeral.”

“Yes.”

“How did he get up from Kansas.”

“I didn't ask.”

“What did she die of.”

“There was no reason not to.”

He was drifting away.

“Jamie,” Teresa said, “tell me more about Emmett.”

“What's there to tell? He was only three. Emmett and I, we were like extras in the movies, bring on the kids, don't be too cute, don't look at the camera. And it wasn't like I was trying to get Walter's attention. You never knew Walter. He was the biggest pain in the ass in any room he ever wheeled himself into. I was seven, eight years old and I knew it. I think he knew it, too. And that was why he killed himself. Not because I held Emmett under. That was a factor, though. He wanted me there, too.”

Teresa was insistent. “It was an accident.”

J.J. drew the back of his fingers slowly over the her body. “A gun in your mouth is not an accident.”

“You're angry.”

“I've never told anyone about the way Emmett died. I don't share my life. So it must mean something that I told you.” Outside it had begun to rain. After a moment, he said, “Tell me about the man in Washington. The one who died at your house. Poppy says he's the reason you're here.”

“I thought Poppy came under the ground rules.”

It was as if he had not heard her. “Poppy said you'd never met him before. She said if there hadn't been a White House connection nobody would've cared.”

“Poppy's full of information.”

“Now you're angry. That makes us even.”

She heard thunder, then saw a flash of lightning. “This is madness, what we're doing.”

From the darkness, he said, “Yes. It is.”

All this Teresa told me later. Not all at once. Over days, weeks. Here and there. Giving it up reluctantly. In stops and starts. Sometimes with flashes of hostility. The attraction was something they picked up in each other. Immediately. An encoded signal giving the latitude and the longitude where their lives could intersect.

She remembered J.J. staring at her intently. “We can go back to Regent,” he had said. “Nobody the wiser. Just one more folly in two lives pockmarked by folly.”

“It's seventy-five miles.”

“In this state, people drive a hundred miles to buy a pack of cigarettes at two in the morning. In case you ever wonder why traffic accidents are the third leading cause of death here. After cancer and heart disease. Gunshot wounds are right up there, too.”

“No. I don't want to go back to Regent.”

“I didn't think you did.” He touched a finger to her lips. “Do you remember the first time we met? In the lobby of the Rhino Carlton-Plaza? And you told me we'd almost run into each other years ago in the green room at C-Span in Washington.”

She kissed his finger.

“The site of an earlier folly. As I knew you knew. That's why you mentioned it. It was your way of saying don't mess with me. And I knew then we were so much alike. Walking on the edge. No seat belt. No safety helmet.” He hesitated. “I think, Teresa, if we had met that time in Washington, both our lives would be so different.”

Teresa drew the feathery patchwork quilt around her. “I want to tell you something.”

“You don't have to. It's not truth or dare.”

Through the half-open window she could hear the wail of a train whistle. “Poppy is not exactly right about the reason I'm here.” He listened. “I had never met Jack before that evening. Broderick. That was his name. Jack Broderick. He knew my mother.”

“Before she had Alzheimer's?”

“No. My real mother. The one I never knew. The one I never met. That's why he came back to my house that night. One of the reasons.”

J.J. waited.

“He seemed to know he was going to die sometime soon. And he wanted to tell me about my parents. It was as if telling me would allow him to die in peace. This was like his last confession. A perfect act of contrition for an imperfect life.” A cloud slipped in front of the moon, darkening the room. “My father . . .” She faltered and broke off, before beginning again. “My father was a gangster. A murderer, in fact.”

My father never knew he was my father. He was shotgunned to death before he knew my mother was pregnant. He was building a hotel in Las
Vegas called King's Playland (his name was Jacob King), and there were
shortfalls and overruns. . . .

“Stop, Teresa, don't go on.”
“No. I want you to know all of it.”

 

My mother was a movie star. A child movie star who was trying to cross over and become a grown-up movie star. Her name was Blue Tyler, and there was a time during her adolescent years when her name on a marquee was a guaranteeof gold. My father was killed, and my mother's career failed for one reason or another, my father's occupation and his rather dramatic and bloody public demise being two good reasons that fell under the moral-turpitude clause in a motion-picture contract. She worked for a while in Europe, and then she disappeared for nearly forty years until Jack found her quite by accidentin Detroit, an itinerant bag lady, one whose truest love had been a killer unimpressed by her fame and wealth and whose daughter she had borne and given up for adoption after he was murdered.

“Teresa. Teresa. Teresa.”