Джонатан Крейг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 12, December, 1953

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and turned on the lamp on the end table. The clock read two-thirty.

“Now, who the hell is that?” I said to Anne.

“Answer it,” she said. “That’s the best way to find out.”

I made some crack about early morning humor and then walked out into the hallway and past my daughter Beth’s room. I went down the steps, and the phone kept clamoring. When I reached it, I snatched the receiver from the cradle.

“Hello,” I said, perhaps a bit too gruffly.

“Dave?” the voice asked. It was hurried and almost frantic.

“Yes,” I said. “Who’s this?”

“Marcia. Dave, Harley’s in trouble.”

I was still half-asleep. “Who?” I asked.

“Harley, my husband,” she said. “The police... our sitter...”

“Pull yourself together, Marcia. What kind of trouble?”

“They... they say he killed our baby sitter. Dave...”

“What?”

“Yes, yes. Dave, they’ve taken him away. He asked me to call you. He...”

“Where’d they take him?”

“To the sheriff’s office, Dave. It’s all so crazy. He... he couldn’t have done a thing like that, Dave. You know that. He...”

“Of course I know.” I was wide awake now. “I’ll get right down there, Marcia. Now don’t you worry. I’ll go right down.”

“Thank you, Dave. Thank you so much.”

“I’ll want to hurry now. I’ll call you later.”

“All right, Dave. Thank you.”

I hung up and went upstairs and started to dress. Anne sat up in bed and said, “Where are you going?”

“Down to the sheriff’s office. They’re holding Harley there. They say he killed his baby sitter.”

“Oh, that’s absurd,” Anne said.

“I know. But they seem to be serious about it.”

“Well, my God,” Anne said.

I finished dressing, and then I dusted a little talc over the two-thirty a.m. shadow on my chin. I went back into the bedroom, kissed Anne, and said, “I won’t be long, honey.”

“All right,” she said. “Be careful.”

I went out into the hallway and opened the door to Beth’s room. She was sixteen, but she still kicked the covers off every night. I tiptoed in, covered her, and then kissed her lightly on the cheek, the way I’d been doing ever since she was born. Then I went down and got the car out of the garage.

When I arrived at the sheriff’s office, the sheriff himself greeted me. He told me Harley wasn’t allowed any visitors, but I told him I was Harley’s lawyer, and he said I could have a few minutes. He led me to the back of the building, unlocked a barred door leading to the cellblock, and brought me to Harley’s cell.

Harley said nothing until the sheriff was gone. Then he came to me and squeezed my hand tightly. “Dave, thank God you’re here,” he said. He was a thin man, with hair greying at the temples. His eyes were grey, and he was thin-lipped and high-cheeked, and I guess I’d known him for more than three years now.

“What’s it all about?” I asked. I offered him a cigarette, which he took gratefully and lighted hurriedly. He let out a great puff of smoke and said, “Dave, they’re trying to play me for a sucker.”

“How so?”

He drew in on the cigarette again. “This kid tonight. The pressure is probably on from upstairs someplace, and they’re trying to hang it on the most convenient sucker. That happens to be me.”

“All right, suppose you tell it from the beginning.”

Harley nodded. “Sure. Sure.” He let out a deep sigh, as if he’d already told the story too many times already. “Marcia and I went out tonight. Nothing special. A movie and a few drinks afterwards. To be exact, we had three martinis each.”

“All right, go on.”

“We got home at about midnight. This kid who was sitting for us — Sheila Kane — a nice kid we always use, she was sleeping on the couch when we came in. Marcia woke her, and I paid her and then took her out to the car. She lives on the other end of town, Dave. I always drive her home.”

“Go on.”

“I took her straight home. I dropped her off at her house, and then took off. I stopped in a bar to buy a package of cigarettes. Then I went home.” He paused and sucked in a deep breath. “An hour later, the cops were pounding on my door. They said the kid had been raped and strangled. Her parents told them she’d been sitting for us.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How do they tie that to you?”

“My cigarette lighter. They found it near her body.”

I looked at Harley steadily. “How come?” I asked.

“The kid smokes,” he said, shrugging wearily. “Hell, Dave, she’s all of eighteen. She lighted up in the car when I was taking her home. I gave her my lighter. I guess she forgot to return it.”

“This bar you went into later, for cigarettes. Did anyone see you?”

“I don’t think so. It was one of these places that have a small floor show. The show was on when I went in, and no one was paying attention to who came and went. I got the cigarettes from a machine just inside the door. Then I left.”

“When you took the girl home, did you wait for her to go inside before you left?” I asked.

Harley puffed on his cigarette, trying to remember. “No,” he said at last.

“Do you usually?”

“Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. I was tired, Dave. I wanted to get home. Hell, who knew anything like this was going to happen?”

“Where’d they find the girl?”

“In a dark street a few blocks from her home. They figure she was thrown out of a car.”

“And your lighter?”

“Alongside her in the road. They say I dropped it when I threw her out. Good God, Dave, can’t you see they’re trying to sucker me?”

“It looks that way,” I said. “I wish someone had seen you in that bar, though.”

“The hell with the bar. I wasn’t gone more than fifteen minutes. It takes about five minutes to get the girl home, and another five coming back. Jesus, Dave, I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to.”

“Does anyone beside Marcia know you were gone only fifteen minutes?”

Harley shook his head. “She doesn’t even know, Dave. She was asleep when I got home. Oh goddamnit, this is a mess.”

“And they’ve booked you on suspicion?”

“Yes,” Harley said miserably. “I’m their big sucker.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Maybe we can work something out.”

It was one of the hardest trials I’ve ever fought. The district attorney swung it so that the jury was almost all women. If there’s anything a woman hates and despises, it’s a rapist — so I had nine strikes against me to begin with. The other three jury members were men.

The trial went for five days, with the DA pulling every trick in the book. He paraded all the circumstantial evidence, and he did it so well that every member of that jury could have sworn they’d all been eye witnesses to the rape and murder.

When he got Harley on the stand, Harley told the same story he’d told me. He told it simply and plainly, and the jury and the assembled spectators listened in silence. Then I began to question him.

“How old are you, Mr. Pearce?” I asked.

“Forty-two,” Harley said.

“Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any children?”

“Yes.”

“How many, Mr. Pearce?”

“Two. A boy and a girl.”

“How old are they?”

“The boy is seven. The girl is five.”

“Did you engage the dead Sheila Kane to stay with these children while you and Mrs. Pearce went out for the evening?”

“Yes.”

“Was this a customary practice of yours?”

“Yes.”

“How many times had you engaged Miss Kane previous to the night of her death?”