A. Fair - All Grass Isn't Green

Roberts hesitated for a moment, then sat down.

“Call your next witness,” Judge Polk said.

Roberts said, “I call Maybelle Dillon to the stand.”

Maybelle Dillon was in her late forties, with a flat chest, sagging shoulders, and a general air of despondency, but her eyes were alert and she spoke with a rapid-fire delivery.

She gave her address as 895 Billinger Street, Los Angeles, and her occupation as a typist.

“For whom do you type?” Roberts asked.

“I am a free-lance typist. I type manuscripts and do minor editing. I advertise in the writer’s magazines and get quite a number of manuscripts in the mail. I give these minor editing, type them in acceptable form, and send them back, together with one copy at so much per page.”

“Are you acquainted with one Nanncie Beaver?”

“Oh, yes, yes indeed!”

“And where does Miss Beaver live?”

“At Eight-thirty Billinger Street, Apartment Sixty-two B.”

“Have you had occasion to see Miss Beaver in the last week?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When?”

“It was — now, let me see, it was the fifteenth of the month.”

“And where were you at that time?”

“I was in Nanncie’s apartment.”

“Do you do work for Nanncie?”

“No, sir, she does her own typing, but we’re very good friends, and Nanncie occasionally comes up with a client for me, some beginning author who either doesn’t have a typewriter or who can’t think on a typewriter or who doesn’t turn out good enough work for submission to the magazines... you see I work with amateurs.”

“Was anybody else present at that time when you saw Miss Beaver?”

“No, sir, there were just the two of us.”

“Now, at that time, did Nanncie show you a gun?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I show you a gun, People’s Exhibit B, and ask you if that looks like the gun that she showed you at that time.”

The witness handled the gun gingerly and said, “Yes, sir, it looks very much like the gun.”

“And what did Nanncie tell you?”

“She told me that she had tipped off one of her writer friends to a dope-smuggling racket and that he was about to write it up; that one of her friends, a Mr. Calhoun—”

“Just a minute, just a minute,” Newberry interrupted on his feet, his voice filling the courtroom. “This is improper and counsel knows it. This is irrelevant, immaterial, and is hearsay. It is completely outside of the issues. Unless it can be shown that the defendant was there or unless the witness heard the words of the defendant anything that this Nanncie Beaver told her about the source of the gun is completely irrelevant.”

“I think that’s right,” Judge Polk said.

“May I be heard?” Roberts asked.

“You may be heard, but this conversation seems to me to be hearsay.”

“Surely, Your Honor,” Roberts said, “we have here murder weapon. We have this weapon in the hands of the very close friend of that defendant. We have—”

“Object to that statement as prejudicial misconduct. I move it be stricken from the record,” Newberry shouted.

“It will go out,” Judge Polk ruled. “Now, try to confine yourself, Mr. Prosecutor, to the facts of this case as they are admissible in court.”

“We expect to prove a friendship, Your Honor. We expect to prove that statements as to this gun are really part of the res gestae .”

Judge Polk shook his head. “You can’t do it by hearsay.”

“Very well,” Roberts said, “we’ll go at it another way. I’ll excuse this witness from the stand and. I’ll call Mrs. George Honcutt to the stand, please.”

Mrs. Honcutt was a matronly woman with square shoulders, big hips and a bulldog jaw. She came swinging up to the witness stand like a full-rigged ship plowing into the harbor.

“What is your name, address and occupation?” the clerk asked.

“Mrs. George Honcutt. I manage the Maple Leaf Motel in Calexico.”

“I ask you if, on the early morning of the twentieth of this month, you had a tenant in your motel by the name of Nanncie Beaver?”

“I did.”

“How was she registered?”

“Under the name of Nanncie Beaver, but she first tried to register under the name of Nanncie Armstrong.”

“And what caused her to change her registration?”

“I said, ‘Look, dearie, when a single woman comes in here I have to know something about her. Now, I want to take a look at your driving license.’ So then she produced her driving license and said she was sort of hiding and didn’t want anyone to know she was registered there, and I told her it was all right by me as long as she behaved herself; that I was running a decent, respectable place and that I’d expect her to behave herself, otherwise out she went.”

“And she stayed on there?”

“Yes.”

“Until what time?”

“I don’t know when she actually left the motel, but the rent was paid up until the twentieth. When I went in to check her room on the morning of the twentieth, there was the key in the door on the outside and she had gone. All of her baggage — everything.”

“Was the rent paid?”

“You bet the rent was paid,” Mrs. Honcutt said. “With a woman like that I collect in advance, day by day.”

“Thank you, that’s all,” Roberts said.

“Any questions?” Judge Polk asked Newberry.

The lawyer seemed puzzled. “No questions.”

“Now then,” Roberts said, “I’m going to call Mr. Herbert C. Newton.”

Herbert Newton was a middle-aged individual with a quick, nervous manner and a wiry frame. He quite evidently enjoyed being a witness.

He gave his name, address and occupation to clerk, then turned expectantly to Roberts.

Roberts said, “Where were you staying on the evening of the nineteenth and the morning of the twentieth?”

“At the Maple Leaf Motel in Calexico.”

“At any time during the night did you have occasion get up and look out of your window?”

“I did.”

“What was your unit?”

“I was in Unit One which is right next to the street right across from Unit Twelve.”

“And what happened, if anything?”

“It was around two or three o’clock in the morning when I heard voices across in Unit Twelve, and the light came on in Unit Twelve which threw a light in my bedroom. The voices and the light wakened me and kept me from sleeping. I became very irritated.”

“And what did you do?”

“After a while I got up.”

“And what did you see or hear?”

“I could hear a man’s voice and a woman’s voice. They seemed to be arguing. After I got up out of bed heard the man say, ‘You’ve got to get out of here. You’re in danger. You come with me and I’ll take you to another place where you won’t get mixed up with this writer friend and be in danger.’ ”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. He said, ‘Get packed and meet me out in the car and I’ll take the gun. You can’t keep it with you in Mexico.’ ”

“What was that last?”

“He said, ‘I’ll take the gun.’ ”

“And then what happened?”

“Then he said, ‘Pack just as fast as you can.’ ”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. He said. ‘You’re foolish to have got mixed in this thing. Now, I’ll take charge of things and get you off the hook, but you’ve got to quit being tied up with that crazy writer.’ ”

“Then what happened?”

“Then the door opened and this man came out.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“I certainly did. The light from inside the apartment was full on his face.”

“And do you see this man in the courtroom?”

“Certainly. He is the defendant.”

“That’s the man you saw emerging from the apartment?”