The Just And The Unjust (8 page)

'You don't know, of your own observation,' Bunting said, probably with inward relief. 'Did you hear anything at or near your home in the course of the evening?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer hesitated again. 'Why,' she said, 'do you mean his horn? He blew his horn about twenty minutes after ten.'

Bunting bit his lip. 'If you do not understand any of my questions, Mrs. Zollicoffer, just ask me to repeat them. Who blew what horn?'

'My husband did. He blew it like he did — always when he came in he blew it so I would know who it was.'

'Objected to,' said Harry Wurts.

'Sustained,' Judge Vredenburgh said. He gazed intently at Mrs. Zollicoffer, as though trying to make up his mind about her. 'Just how did he blow this horn?' Bunting asked. George Stacey, half arising beside Basso, said, 'I also object to it, implying this "he" was her husband, and whether he blew his horn or not, unless it is shown he was in his car.' The effort made him turn red, but Harry gave him a cordial nod and George sat down.

Bunting said, 'Mrs. Zollicoffer, you say you heard a horn blown. Is that correct?'

'Yes. My husband's horn.'

'I object to that!' Harry Wurts said. 'That is what we object to!'

'Yes,' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'That part of the answer is stricken.' Bunting said, 'Now, please answer only what I ask. You say you heard a horn that night.'

'Yes.'

'How was that horn blown?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer shook her head distractedly. 'I don't know how you mean did he blow it. Just about twice. Like a little tune on it.'

'Exactly,' said Bunting, 'that is just what I mean —' Everitt Weitzel, the tipstaff who usually acted as doorman, came down the sloping aisle from the main door and limped carefully, as though making himself invisible, across the well of the court. Coming up beside the Commonwealth's table, he bent low past Abner's shoulder and spread out a half sheet of printed stationery. It was headed 'Earl P. Foulke, Justice of the Peace.' In Earl's fancy, but now senile, curlique script was written: 'Mr. Bunting or Coates. Like to have you get touch with me at once. Important. E. P. F.'

'Where did get this?' Abner murmured.

'Kid up there brought it in. One of Mr. Foulke's grandsons, I think.'

'He didn't say what the trouble was?'

'Just said Mr. Foulke said to see you got it right away.'

'Well, tell him we did get it. Tell him to say we'll call him when court adjourns.'

Bunting, his left arm doubled behind his back where he clasped and unclasped his fingers, took a turn past the end of the table. 'After you heard this horn blown,' he said to Mrs. Zollicoffer, 'did you hear anything else?'

George Stacey got to his feet and said, 'I object again to this witness testifying in relation to the blowing of any horn unless she can some way identify it. All cars of the same make have the same horn. This is on a travelled thoroughfare.'

Judge Vredenburgh took off his glasses. 'That objection was sustained as to the identification at this particular time.' George Stacey's father had been a close friend of his, and the glint of his eye was affable, the light of amusement over seeing the children grow up. 'There is no objection, however, to her stating that she heard a horn. That she can testify to. Objection overruled.' He shook his head, smiled faintly, and put his glasses on. Bunting said to Joe Jackman, 'Will you repeat the question?' Jackman drew a breath, stared at his notes, and read it. 'No, I did not,' said Mrs. Zollicoffer. 'Did your husband return to your home that night?'

'I heard him down as far as the garage.'

'That I object to,' Harry Wurts said with an accent of long-suffering. 'Objection sustained,' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'She has not shown how she knew it was her husband.'

Looking at Abner, Bunting rolled his eyes up, though he took care to keep his face turned away from the jury. Pushing out the sheet of paper with Foulke's message on it, Abner tapped it; and Bunting gave it a quick look. 'Old fool!' he said softly. He faced the witness stand and said, 'Madam, you stated that you heard sounds down as far as the garage, after you heard this horn. Did you see anything?'

'No, sir.'

'When was the last time that you saw your husband?'

'In the morning. That morning. The sixth of April.'

'That was the last time you saw him alive.'

Mrs. Zollicoffer brought up a handkerchief from the wadded ball she had made of her gloves and put it to her nose. 'Yes.'

"When did you next see him?'

'When they found him, brought him up to the —' She began to cry.

'You were present when he was brought to the undertaking establishment of Mr. Westbrook in Childerstown?'

She nodded, the handkerchief in the palm of her hand pressed over her mouth. Judge Vredenburgh said to Malcolm Levering, 'Bring her a glass of water.'

'You saw the body and you were able to identify it?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer took the paper cup Malcolm Levering held up to her, swallowed a little water, coughed, and nodded.

'Whose body was it?'

'My husband's.'

'Take a little more water,' Bunting said. 'The jury can't hear you. It was the body of Frederick Zollicoffer?'

'Yes.'

'Mrs. Zollicoffer,' said Judge Vredenburgh,'you must try to control yourself.'

Mrs. Zollicoffer began to sob aloud, catching her breath with wailing gasps, letting it out in lamentable broken groans that carried clearly to the statuelike rows of spectators in the gloom. The shadows of the latening afternoon filled the great wood-panelled vault, but now a little slanting sunlight was reaching the inside edges of the north-western windows. Reflected from black walnut, the radiance was melancholy; less than the light now falling from the thousand-watt bulbs behind the stained glass wheel of the skylight.

Bunting said, 'Do you wish me to stop, sir?'

'Well, does she go on like this? She'll have to be examined. She must know that —' Judge Vredenburgh looked at Harry Wurts, and jerked his chin, beckoning him up. 'What about this, Harry?' he said.

Harry Wurts said, 'We don't like it, naturally, your Honour. I don't think the district attorney ought to provoke such a display —'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'I think it is beyond the district attorney or anyone else's control.'

'Well, sir,' said Harry, 'if Mr. Bunting stops harping on the body, there might be some other line he could take, I suppose. I'm perfectly willing to waive cross-examination to-day, if the Commonwealth will recall her to-morrow morning.'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'We will recess for ten minutes. Mrs. Meade, will you come and take the witness out, please? Very well, Mr. Wurts. Make whatever agreement you like. Perhaps we'can have another witness.'

Bunting turned from the sidebar and, looking at Abner, formed with his lips the word, Foulke.

Nodding, Abner got up and crossed over to the door of the Attorneys' Room. Inside he leaned against the wall by the telephone, waiting while the number was rung. Above the fireplace, empty, unused for forty years, hung a big framed photograph, faded and a little blurred, taken in 1866 of the county bench and bar gathered in the old courthouse. Abner's grandfather, who was then, like George Stacey now, one of the youngest members, peered over a couple of heads at one side. Despite fading, and the handicaps that the photographer, using a wet plate indoors, had to overcome, the faces were mostly clear, and Linus Coates, despite his youth, carried an air that you didn't find in George Stacey.

Linus Coates had, in fact, been to the wars. He served in a nine months' regiment and got a bullet through his hip at Chancellorsville. In those days it was not the fashion to be embittered or disillusioned by such an experience, so what Linus Coates looked was simply grown-up, self-possessed, ready for responsibilities. When, years later, the duty confronted him as a judge, you could understand how he sentenced men to hang, just as he said, without loss of appetite.

As though to emphasize the point, George Stacey came in then, headed for the lavatory. Seeing Abner at the telephone, he said, 'Well, how's the assistant superintendent of the waterworks?'

'You're a hard man, George,' Abner said. 'Shut up, will you? Yes. Mr. Foulke. Mr. Foulke, this is Abner Coates. Mr. Bunting is in court Can I help you?'

Earl Foulke's voice was high and rapid, and hearing it, Abner could see Earl's face, his prominent pale eyes magnified by his silver-rimmed glasses, his lips tucked in over his toothless gums — he put in his teeth only when he held what he took care to call, not a hearing, but Court; or when he performed marriage ceremonies under a portable white-painted wood arbour covered with artificial roses which stood ready in the corner of his parlour. When his teeth were not in, the ends of his scanty, scraggly long moustache hung well below his chin. Earl owned and Wore a black frock coat — one of the only two such garments remaining in the county (the other belonged to a Baptist minister who wore it at rustic funerals). He was a preposterous figure, and even the farmers of Kingstown Township could see that he was; but Earl had been Squire for twenty-five years, and Abner supposed that the voters kept re-electing him because they felt that he now had a vested interest in the office; and, moreover, was too old and incompetent to go back to farming for a livelihood.

As well as preposterous in appearance, Earl was stupid and officious; and Marty, who had been obliged to straighten out several senseless legal snarls in which Earl had involved both himself and the district attorney's office, no longer regarded Earl as merely pathetic or comic. Earl Foulke was a damned old nuisance who ought to be forcibly retired. It was an opinion that Abner was obliged, in common sense, to share.

'Yes, Mr. Foulke,' Abner said when Earl seemed to have finished. 'We know about the Williams case. That was assault and battery. Marty has your transcript, I know. He'll want to see Mrs. Williams —'

'Now, just a minute, just a minute, Ab,' Earl Foulke said. An annoying habit of Earl's was his trick of beginning in the middle. He would describe a situation and ask what he should do; and when he was told, he began at once to scruple or object; and in support of his objections, he trotted out new, not-before-mentioned circumstances leading up to or ensuing from the situation described, which, Earl was quite right in maintaining, certainly did change the picture.

'Oh, Lord!' said Abner to himself. 'Well, Mr. Foulke,' he said, 'I'm afraid you couldn't do that. You accepted bail for Williams' appearance here in court, you know. That exhausts your jurisdiction.'

Earl Foulke's voice went squeak, squeak, squeak; and Abner said, 'No, Mr. Foulke. It's impossible. You wouldn't be competent; a justice of the peace isn't allowed — no, I can't off-hand cite the act, or whatever it is. You must have one of those handbooks. Your powers are defined there. Marty wouldn't have any authority to do it. Even Judge Irwin or Judge Vredenburgh couldn't authorize you to reopen the case, because it is out of your hands. If Williams decides to plead guilty, he'll have to come in and tell Marty. He can't just go to you —' Sudden suspicion seized Abner, and he said, 'You haven't done anything about it, have you?'

'Course I did something about it!' shrilled Earl Foulke. 'Tell you exactly what I did. I want to amend the record, my record —' With each new phrase his voice got higher and higher; a nervous, obviously alarmed, gabbling.

'Mr. Foulke,' Abner said, 'do you mean that what you have done is accept Williams' plea of guilty and fine him ten dollars, and discharge him?'

Earl Foulke said defiantly, 'Certainly did!' But he faltered, his voice quavering. 'Now, Ab,' he said placatingly,'those Williamses, I know about them. He's a drinking man, but he's a good provider. Amy Williams don't want him to go to jail. Be much better this way. You tell Marty I know what I'm doing.' Abner said, 'Mr. Foulke, that isn't the point. You have no authority to do what you've done. When you do it, it's no more valid than if Mrs. Williams herself fined Mr. Williams ten dollars and discharged him. It's not she, it's not you, it's the Commonwealth that's prosecuting Williams. Don't you see that?'

'Prosecuting him for what?' said Earl Foulke.

'For assault and battery, of course. For beating his wife up.'

'What evidence you got?'

'His wife's evidence. What else? What did you swear the warrant out on?'

'That was then,' Earl Foulke said. 'Now, why, she isn't going to give evidence against him. Changed her mind. No case against him. That's why I—'

Such a change of mind was common, even customary, in these cases. In exasperation, Abner said, 'Why should he plead guilty, then?'

'Now, Ab,' Earl Foulke said, 'he beat her up. Blacked her eye; everything. He hadn't any right to do that. I told him he'd have to plead guilty. I wasn't going to let him off, like nothing happened. They stopped in to see me after lunch to-day. Anyone could see she didn't want to go on with it. She'd have to testify in court, a lot of trouble, scandal, all that. See?'

'Well, of course we can't make her testify,' Abner said. 'She can withdraw her complaint —'

'Of course,' Earl Foulke said with alacrity. 'What I told her myself. She just didn't think it out. So what I said, I said, "Look it here, Amy. He beat you up bad and he can't do that. So I'm going to fine him for that. If," I said, "you agree not to testify against him, we'll settle this right now." So I said to Williams, "You got to plead guilty, so I can fine you. That's only fair to Amy, if she says she won't testify. Now, you make up your minds." So I left them in my office awhile; and they said they agreed.'

'You mean,' said Abner, flabbergasted, 'that Mrs. Williams was ready to testify, and you told her that if she wouldn't, you'd fine him ten dollars, discharge the case, and save her a lot of trouble?'

'She was still kind of mad, Ab,' Earl Foulke said defensively. 'You got to look at it from her standpoint. She got a pretty good beating. But if she goes up to court, testifies, and maybe he has a jail term, why, what about her? First she gets beat up; then she has all that embarrassment; then maybe for a couple of months, or however much, she gets no support. Punishes her more than it punishes him.'