A. Fair: All Grass Isn't Green

“But you were in Calexico on the morning of the twentieth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At what time in the morning?”

“I arrived by plane about five-thirty in morning.”

“And what did you do?”

“I reported to the police.”

“And then what?”

“Then later on I went to the De Anza Hotel for breakfast.”

“And what happened when you arrived in the De Anza Hotel?”

“I found a private detective, one Donald Lam, whom I had known and with whom I had had dealings on several occasions, and he was then and there accompanied by one Milton Carling Calhoun, then defendant in this case.”

“Did you have any conversation with them?”

“Oh, yes. I asked Lam what he was doing there and was given to understand that he was working on a case and that the defendant in this case was his client.”

“Then what?”

“Then a Calexico police officer came and asked me to join him for a few minutes and told me that a murder just been discovered on the outskirts of town.”

“I accompanied this officer to the scene of the crime, a houseboat mounted on pontoons and being in turn mounted on a trailer behind a Ford pickup.”

“Did you search the premises for a possible murder weapon?” Roberts asked.

“We did,” Sergeant Sellers said.

“Was any weapon found?”

“Not at that time.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that the murder weapon was found at a later time.”

“By whom?”

“I believe,” Sellers said, “the murder weapon was discovered by Donald Lam.”

“Is Donald Lam in court?”

“Yes, he is. He’s seated there in the front row.”

“I ask permission to withdraw this witness temporarily and to call Donald Lam to the stand.”

“For what purpose?” Newberry asked.

“For the purpose of showing the finding of the murder weapon.”

“I don’t think that is proper procedure,” Newberry said.

Judge Polk shook his head impatiently. “We aren’t going to try this case on technicalities, not at this time and in this court. The witness will stand down Donald Lam is sworn. Stand up, Mr. Lam.”

I stood up.

“Hold up your right hand.”

I held up my right hand.

The clerk said, “You solemnly swear that all of evidence you will give in this case now pending before this court will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do,” I said.

They asked me for my name, address and occupation and I gave that information for the court records and seated myself in the witness chair.

Roberts, who had evidently carefully rehearsed questions and was following a well-thought-out camp said, “You went out to the scene of the murder?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“There was no corpse there when I got there.”

“But you went to the place where the pickup trailer had been located?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you went to what you thought was place?”

“Objected to,” Newberry said. “What the witness thought doesn’t make any difference.”

“All right,” Roberts snapped, “I’ll withdraw the question. I call your attention to this map or diagram of northern portion of the city of Calexico, Mr. Lam. that mean anything to you? Can you orient yourself that map?”

“Generally.”

“I call your attention to certain marks here which represent the place where the witnesses have said the pickup and trailer with the houseboat were parked. Did you go to that locality?”

“I did.”

“When?”

“I don’t know the exact time. It was during the morning of the twentieth.”

“Did you look for a murder weapon?” Roberts asked;

“I looked around. I wanted to see what evidence had been overlooked,” I said.

Sergeant Sellers had the grace to wince. The deputy sheriff, who was sitting in court, frowned.

“And what did you do?”

“I looked around a place where quite a few people were present and then I walked over to the extreme edge of a wide place by the side of the road.”

“Can you show us on the diagram, People’s Exhibit A, where you walked?”

I went over to the diagram and indicated the place marked “Drainage Ditch.”

“I walked along the edge of this drainage ditch,” I said.

“What were you looking for?”

“Any evidence that had been overlooked.”

“You said that before.”

“You asked me; I tried to tell you.”

“And what evidence did you think might have been overlooked?”

“I wanted to see if anyone had taken the trouble to cross that muddy ditch and look in the alfalfa field on the other side.”

“Did you find any footprints indicating anyone had crossed the ditch?”

“I did not.”

“Therefore, you felt that no one had crossed that drainage ditch since the water had left a deposit of in the bottom?”

“That’s right.”

“And what caused you to cross that ditch?”

“The fact that nobody else had.”

“If the murderer had not crossed the ditch, what you to believe that there was evidence which might have been found on the other side?”

“A man who throws a baseball doesn’t necessarily walk to home plate,” I said.

Someone in the audience snickered.

Roberts cleared his throat, authoritatively. “You’d need to be facetious, Mr. Lam.”

“I wasn’t being facetious. I was pointing out a physical fact.”

“In any event, you decided to cross that ditch?”

“I not only decided to, I did.”

“And what did you do when you crossed the ditch? By the way, how did you cross that ditch?”

“I walked.”

“No, no. I mean, what did you do about your shoes and socks?”

“I took them off and carried them.”

“And you crossed the ditch and climbed barefoot the bank on the other side?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I walked up and down the bank.”

“And what did you find, if anything?”

“When I had arrived at a certain place which I will to indicate on the map, I saw something metallic gleaming in the field. I moved over far enough to find that was a revolver.”

“And what did you do?”

“I told a young boy, who had followed me across, call the police.”

“Was that the first time you had seen this gun?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, let’s not have any misunderstanding about this” Roberts said. “I am showing you a thirty-eight-caliber revolver with a one-and-seven-eights-inch barrel being numbered one-thirty-three-three-four-seven, and having five shots, or the places for five cartridges in the cylinder. Will you look at this gun, please, referring, if the Court please for the sake of the record, to People’s Exhibit B?”

I looked at the gun and said, “This looks very much like the gun. I never did pick it up. I simply asked the young man to notify the police and to ask them to come at once. That is, I actually asked him to go to his parents and ask his parents to notify the police.”

“Now, this young man, would you know him if you saw him again?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stand up, please, Lorenzo.”

The ten-year-old kid, looking very bug-eyed, stood up in court.

“Is that the person?” Roberts asked.

“That’s the person.”

“You may sit down,” Roberts said to Lorenzo.

Roberts looked at me long and hard, “Mr. Lam,” he said, “I suggest that you had that murder weapon in your possession when you went out to the place which has been indicated on the map.”

“I did not!”

“I further suggest that you looked around to find where would be a good place to conceal the weapon. That when you saw no one had crossed the muddy bottom of that ditch, you decided that it would be a good plan to drop that weapon in the alfalfa field.”