A. Fair: All Grass Isn't Green

“They got me down and they kicked me and really gave me a beating. Then they put me in my car, tied me up with some kind of a thin, strong cord, sort of like a fishing line — that is, a heavy fishing line — and they drove me down the side road, put a gag in my mouth, parked the car and said, ‘Now, stay there, you smart son of a bitch. That’ll teach you to interfere in things that don’t concern you.’ ”

“Go on,” Calhoun said.

“They took the gun. The man called Puggy took the gun.”

“Go on,” Calhoun said.

“Well, that’s all of it,” Hale went on, “except the fact that about — I don’t know — seven o’clock in the morning — eight o’clock, I guess, this very fine Mexican gentleman by the name of José Chapalla came along and saw my car by the side of the road. He stopped to take a look and saw me tied and gagged and he untied the ropes and took the gag out of my mouth. I was about half dead by that time, and José Chapalla took me to his home and they gave me coffee and some eggs and tortillas and then I went to sleep, and then José took me back to my car and after a long while I drove away. I started for Mexicali and got as far as a roadside restaurant where I went in to get some beer, and that’s where Donald Lam and Nanncie Beaver found me.”

“Ask him if he’s sore and stiff,” I said.

“Are you sore and stiff?” Calhoun asked.

“Of course I am! My ribs are just about caved in. I’m more sore now than I was the day of the beating. I not only have this black eye, but I’m afraid my ribs are cracked.”

“Tell him to show us the bruises,” I whispered to Calhoun.

“Can you show us the bruises?” Calhoun asked.

Hale pointed to his eye.

“On his ribs, on his sides, on his torso,” I said.

“The other bruises,” Calhoun said. “Where are they?”

Hale put a hand tenderly to his side. “All over.”

“Show us,” I said.

“Show us,” Calhoun echoed.

“What do you mean, show you?” Hale demanded.

“Pull up your shirt,” I whispered.

“Pull up your shirt,” Calhoun echoed.

Hale looked at us and suddenly there was panic in his eyes. “I am not going to disrobe here in public,” he said.

“Just show us a bruise,” I whispered. “Show us a bruise on your arm. Show us a bruise anywhere on your torso — just one single bruise — one black-and-blue mark.”

Calhoun stammered, “Show us your body, anything that’s black and blue.”

“I don’t have to,” Hale said.

Calhoun seemed to be at an impasse.

“Tell him he’s a liar,” I said. “Tell him he can’t show a single bruise, that he hasn’t got a spot on his body. Ask that the Court appoint a doctor to examine him.”

Calhoun ran his fingers through his hair and said, “How about having a doctor make an examination, Your Honor? This man hasn’t got a bruise on his body.”

“He’d have to have,” Judge Polk said.

“He’s lying,” Calhoun said.

“Wait a minute,” Roberts said. “You can’t impeach your own witness. I don’t like to be technical with a man who is putting on his own defense, but we have to protect the rights of the people. He can’t impeach his own witness.”

I said, “Ask the judge if he wants to get at the truth in the case.”

Calhoun was good that time. He said. “Does Your Honor want to get at the truth of this case or not?”

Judge Polk looked at the uncomfortable Colburn Hale and hesitated.

“Just a minute,” Roberts said. “Who’s trying this case? What does this private detective think he’s trying to do? Donald Lam isn’t an attorney. He doesn’t appear in the case. He has no standing in court.”

It was too much for Hale. He jumped out of the witness chair and scurried like a rabbit for the side door of the courtroom.

“Stop that man!” Judge Polk yelled at the bailiff.

They couldn’t stop him. Hale was long gone.

I looked at the judge and said, “He recovered from all that stiffness and soreness pretty fast, didn’t he, Your Honor?”

Judge Polk looked down at me, started to rebuke me, then suddenly smiled and said, “He did for a fact.

“I would suggest that the Sheriff’s Office put out an all-points bulletin for this man. His black eye should make it very easy to pick him up.”

“But this Donald Lam doesn’t have any right to ask questions in this case,” Roberts objected.

Polk smiled at him and said, “Quite right, Mr. Roberts, but this Court does have the right to ask questions and this Court intends to ask some very searching questions.”

The officers caught Hale at the courthouse door and returned him to court.

Judge Polk said, “Young man, you are on the witness stand. Now, you get right back there in that witness chair and you listen to me.

“It appears that you may have committed a crime. The Court warns you that you don’t have to make any statement whatever. If you feel it may incriminate you, you don’t have to talk. Or, if you just want to keep quiet, you have that privilege. You are entitled to have an attorney represent you at all stages of the proceeding and if you don’t have money enough to get an attorney, the Court will appoint one. But you aren’t going to get up off that witness stand and run out of the courtroom the way you did a moment ago.

“Now then, do you care to answer questions?”

Hale shifted his position and said nothing.

“Do you want an attorney to advise you? The Court is going to call a doctor to examine you.”

Hale said, “I may as well come clean. I haven’t got any way out, and, after all, I acted in self-defense. If I keep on being as foolish as I have been, I’ll wind up facing a murder rap.”

“You can either talk or not talk, just as you want,” Judge Polk said, “but you’re going to be examined.”

Hale started talking, the words just pouring out of his mouth. He said, “I knew that dope shipment was coming across the border. I knew that they intended to make a rendezvous with the driver of a scout car at the Carlo Café at seven o’clock. I told my girl friend that I would meet her there at seven o’clock.

“It started to rain. The shipment was delayed. I followed it across the border. There were two men in a car. One of the men picked up the scout car and went ahead. The pickup with the houseboat trailer parked the side of the road.

“I had the story I wanted. It was one whale of a story, but I didn’t have it all. I wanted to see where they placed this houseboat. I sensed the scout car had found a road block or something that caused a delay.

“I stayed where I could keep the houseboat under surveillance. It was a rainy night. I waited and waited. The driver of the pickup had gone back into the house-boat. I had an idea he’d gone to sleep.

“I was overly confident. I was a plain fool. I couldn’t, resist trying to get one detail I hadn’t been able to get and that was the license number of the pickup. Because of the houseboat that number was hard to see. I felt man who was driving the pickup had gone to sleep in houseboat. I sneaked up, hoping I could get the number I wanted — and I walked right into a trap. This man had spotted me and he suddenly opened the door, held a on me and ordered me to get into the houseboat.

“I knew it was either him or me. He wasn’t sure what I was doing there. I could tell from the way he acted he didn’t think I was an officer. He wanted to know what I wanted and what I was doing snooping around. Well, he got just a little careless. I suddenly jerked out my gun and said, ‘Stick ’em up.’ I was nervous. I waited maybe a tenth of a second to see what he was going do. I waited too long. He fired. If the officers will look in that houseboat, they’ll find a bullet hole somewhere near the front of the boat.