Bryan Gruley: The Skeleton Box

“Pine County.” It was Catledge.

“Deputy Esper, please?”

“Sorry, Gus. She’s gone.”

“Don’t bust my balls, Skip.”

“Not busting your balls. She hightailed it out of here forty-five minutes ago. Said she was going to make last call at Dingman’s.”

“She doesn’t drink at Dingman’s.”

“Good night, Gus.”

I stood listening to the wind hum through Starvation Lake, wondering where Darlene was and whether I’d see her again.

Half the town came to watch the arraignment of Wayland Ezra Breck. By the time Mom and I squeezed between Millie and Elvis Bontrager in the third row of the gallery, every fold-down wooden seat in the courtroom was taken. Reporters jammed the jury box. Dingus and county coroner Joe Schriver sat behind the prosecution table to the judge’s left. There was no sign of Frank D’Alessio, whose campaign for sheriff appeared to be over.

Breck stood at the table opposite the prosecutor, alone. An orange jumpsuit bagged on his frame. Shackles bound his feet and hands.

I scanned the courtroom for Darlene. She was not there.

The night before, I’d gone home and moved an unpacked box from Mom off of the sofa and lay there with my cell phone within reach, waiting for Darlene’s call. I dozed for snatches of ten or fifteen minutes, waking amid dreams of my cell phone ringing, only to see it resting silently on the end table. At six-thirty, I started calling her. Each time, her phone went to voice mail. Either she was choosing not to answer or she couldn’t.

I considered calling Dingus, then recalled what Skip Catledge had said about Darlene-“One hell of a police officer, if you ask me”-and called him instead. I swore him to secrecy and told him Darlene had gone after Whistler.

Now I left Mom in her seat and walked up to where Dingus was whispering with Prosecutor Eileen Martin. When he saw me mouth the words “Where’s Darlene?” he turned away in what looked to me like disgust. “What happened?” I said, too loud, and the prosecutor gave me a dirty look and pointed me back to my seat.

I sat again, patting my coat pocket for the tissues I’d brought in case Mom needed one. She and Millie were holding hands. I hadn’t told her about Darlene.

From atop his bench, Judge Gallagher peered down through his horn-rim spectacles. He rapped his gavel once.

“We have before the court today a single arraignment,” he said. “Counsel?”

Eileen Martin stood, wobbly as ever on her high heels. “Yes, Your Honor,” she said.

“Thank you, Ms. Martin,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Breck, am I correctly informed that you have declined counsel?”

“I will take my own counsel, sir.”

“Sir?” Gallagher said. The judge smiled as he shuffled papers around. The residue of Brylcreem that usually made a circular shadow on his leather chair was gone. The judge had lost most of his silver hair while undergoing chemotherapy for an unspecified cancer. “I suppose ‘sir’ will do. But please tell me, Mr. Breck, that you are trained, at the very least, as an attorney.”

“I am, sir.”

“I assume you’re familiar with the old joke about the lawyer who represents himself?”

“If you’re saying I am a fool, so be it. I come to represent more than myself.”

“Well, I’m interested solely in you. What do you plead, sir?”

“Excuse me, Your Honor?” Eileen Martin said.

Gallagher’s head swiveled like a turtle’s. “Ms. Martin?”

“Your Honor, we’ve just learned of new information that could-”

“Ms. Prosecutor, this is an arraignment. The purpose of an arraignment is to extract a plea from the defendant for the record of this court. Would it inconvenience you to let me accomplish that before you tell me whatever it is you wish to tell me?”

“Your Honor-”

“Or are you saying the prosecution wishes to withdraw felony charges of illegal entry, breaking and entering, conspiracy, and second-degree murder against the defendant?”

“Not at this moment, Your Honor,” she said.

“That is a relief. Thank you.”

Eileen sat, brushing a hair from her reddening forehead. She couldn’t have been surprised. As a judge, Horace Gallagher was as unpredictable as cell phone service north of Gaylord. He ran his courtroom the way he saw fit, standard legal procedure and state judicial commission be damned. Lawyers whispered that he was unstable, but time and again, appellate courts agreed that Pine County’s circuit judge, pushing seventy, had charted an improbable map to the correct destination. The judicial commission nannied him on occasion, most notably when he ordered a philandering husband in a divorce case to kneel before his soon-to-be-ex-wife and apologize. But the gripes from officialdom seemed only to encourage Gallagher’s unique ways of pursuing justice.

He sat back in his chair, knitting his hands behind his head. “Your plea, sir?”

“Not guilty,” he said. “But I would plead so first on behalf of my grandfather, Joseph Wayland.”

A murmur coursed through the gallery. “Order,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Breck, I will ask again, what-”

“For me, sir? Also not guilty. I’ve never been near the house that was broken into, and I dare the prosecution to produce a single piece of evidence that I have. But I will be heard by a community that has steadfastly refused, for five decades, to acknowledge the injustice it delivered upon my family.”

The din rose again and the judge slapped his gavel twice. “Your plea is noted,” he said. “As for your grandfather, no plea is possible, although I’m familiar with his case, being a bit of a history buff as well as a lifelong parishioner of St. Val’s.”

I recalled the photo of Mom and the other spelling-bee girls with the nerdy boy named Horace.

“May I speak, sir?”

“Proceed.”

Breck cleared his throat. The sound echoed up past the seven oil paintings of dead judges on the walls to the pressed tin ceiling.

I glanced around again for Darlene, didn’t find her.

“In 1950,” Breck said, “the Archdiocese of Detroit endeavored to build a new church at St. Valentine’s in Starvation Lake. The community was growing and the archdiocese desired a bigger building that would bring in more people and more money, most of which, incidentally, would wind up in Detroit.”

“Your Honor, forgive me, but now I must object.”

Every head turned to the man standing in the back of the gallery. I hadn’t noticed him before. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered.

“Who is that?” Mom said.

“Listen.”

“Sir,” Judge Gallagher said. “Have you properly noticed the court?”

“Your Honor, my apologies, I am Regis Repelmaus, representing the law firm of Eagan, MacDonald and Browne, counsel for the Archdiocese of Detroit. We cannot allow-”

Gallagher smacked his gavel down. “Sit now, sir, or you will be representing the archdiocese in the Pine County Jail.”

Repelmaus frowned and sat.

“Mr. Breck.”

Breck continued with the tale he had told me at the jail. He’d begun to describe his furtive research on sexual abuse victims for Eagan, MacDonald amp; Browne when Repelmaus again stood.

“Your Honor, I must insist,” he said. “This is a slander against one of the most respected law firms in the state, against the Archdiocese of Detroit, against-”

“Are you deaf, sir?” Gallagher said.

The double doors at the back of the courtroom opened. Skip Catledge strode in and up the center aisle. He removed his earflap cap and stopped in front of the railing between the gallery and the bench. Dingus leaned over and whispered. Catledge nodded yes. Dingus’s eyebrows went up. He said something else, but Catledge moved to the railing while Dingus watched, incredulous.