Grif Stockley - Religious Conviction

I lean against the podium.

“You’ve shot a twenty two-caliber pistol before, haven’t you?”

Cornered, Tyndall becomes belligerent.

“Of course!”

he snaps.

“But I don’t own one.”

“No more questions,” I say. I will not even bother to try and introduce the pictures into evidence. I want the jury to remember the look of anger on his face.

Clearly surprised, on redirect Jill covers much of the same ground. Tyndall adds a few details and admits breaking into the house while the Wallaces were on vacation, but essentially repeats his story and looks a decade older as he leaves the witness stand. As he is led out of the courtroom, I ask Leigh, “What did your father say to Art when he called?”

Leigh insists, “What I told you before. He didn’t say a word then about what Hector had done.”

Jill calls the name of Shane Norman, and I, along with everyone else, watch as he is brought into the courtroom by the bailiff. Shane looks like a preacher who is disappointed with his flock and manages only a weak smile for his daughter. He can’t know what is coming. I wonder how Jill will handle him. If he lies, her case, as far as Leigh goes, is dead.

Jill wastes no time in confronting Shane with Tyndall’s testimony, but if he is surprised, I can’t tell it.

With amazing aplomb, he explains what happened.

“I knew I wanted to get Leigh out of that bedroom, but I didn’t want to admit to Art or her right then that their conversations in their bedroom had been taped. Art answered the phone and said Leigh was at the church. Of course, I knew this was a lie, and I lost my temper and called him a son of a bitch. I hung up then and tried to think what to do. I had to get out of my office and so I walked over to the house to try to think everything through. I went back to the office after a while and was there when Leigh called to say she had found Art’s body.”

Stunned by his coolness, I think back to my conversation with him. He had lied to me, but his story today just might hang together. Jill is plainly furious that he has not come forward with this story before and berates him, “Why didn’t you tell the police this story when they interviewed you?”

Shane responds forthrightly, “My daughter is on trial for murder. I didn’t lie to the police, but on the other hand I’m not going to embarrass her or help convict her. She’s my daughter and I love her.”

Abruptly, Jill switches gears and leads Shane down memory lane; and we hear, as she promised in her opening statement, of a father’s boundless love for his daughter. I can hear snuffling behind me from the spectators as Shane talks about Leigh’s accomplishments in the church and his obvious pride in her. While Leigh steadily wipes her eyes, Dan whispers, “Do you believe this horse shit?”

I don’t know what to believe, but I can’t wait to cross-examine Shane. As Jill lets Shane run on with story after story of Leigh’s perfect life before she married Art, I whisper back, “Jill is setting up her argument on closing that it was Leigh’s guilt that led her to kill Art.”

Shane is preaching a sermon to the jury whose subtext is forgiveness.

“Her faith strengthened my own,” he tells the jury.

“There were times on these trips when everything imaginable would go wrong, and I’d look up and see Leigh holding a filthy, love-starved urchin on her lap as if the child were her own. Then I’d be certain that we were right to have come.”

Gently, Jill brings him to the day that Leigh told him that she was going to marry Art, and before our eyes Shane changes into a figure out of the Old Testament.

His whole manner, from his glowering expression to the barely suppressed rage in his voice, tells the jury that Art was the Fallen Angel. The jury, composed of men and women who know a preacher when they see one, sit fascinated. Though Shane has no pulpit to pound, his message is ancient: good corrupted by evil, and now that the evil has been banished, if we can’t very well rejoice, at least let his daughter get on with her life very soon, if not today. He turns his head to Leigh and then back to the jury.

“This was a child who time after time had followed me in faith and love all over the world.

This man was scum, and he had possessed her so completely she was willing to humiliate herself in any way he demanded.”

Dan nudges me so hard he bruises my ribs. Cupping his hands against my ear, he hisses, “He’s begging you to go after him!”

I look over at Leigh, who is hiding her head in her hands as Jill sits down after a few more questions. I half expect her father to confess now, but he doesn’t. If he is directly asked if he murdered his son-in-law, surely he will admit it I begin my questions as I rise from my chair.

“When you went to your home after speaking to Art,” I ask, to make sure Pearl isn’t going to suddenly turn up as an alibi for him, “where was your wife?”

Shane, who is perched on the edge of his chair, says blandly, “She was in Benton visiting her mother that morning.”

I nod.

“So she can’t testify she was home with you?”

Obviously trying to relax, Shane pushes back in his chair.

“Hardly,” he says dryly.

I stand by the side of the podium and ask him why he had taped Art. Each time Wallace’s name is mentioned, anger flows into his voice. It is obvious that he felt personally betrayed by the man. Turning directly to the jury, he talks about how Art deceived him. Art’s acceptance of the Scriptures seemed as genuine as anyone’s he had ever witnessed.

“If he lied about that,” Norman says, “I knew he was a liar about other things, and I wanted to find out what they were.”

I goad him.

“Leigh defended him, didn’t she?”

Norman’s eyes flash.

“That’s why I know she didn’t kill him,” he says firmly.

“He had her fooled completely, too.”

“How did you feel,” I ask, “when Mr. Tyndall called and told you about Art having Leigh dance nude in front of him?”

Shane set his jaw.

“I was absolutely furious. My first thought was that he was going to use the film for some kind of pornographic video. That’s the kind of man he was.”

“Were you mad enough,” I ask quickly, “to kill him?”

Surely expecting this question, Shane gives me a bitter smile.

“An angry Christ drove the money changers from the Temple, but he didn’t kill them.”

I stare at Shane.

“We’re not talking about Jesus, Pastor Norman. Throughout history, angry Christians have killed thousands of their enemies. Were you angry enough to kill Art Wallace?”

Defiantly, Shane says, “Yes, yes, I was angry enough to kill him! But I didn’t! As God is my witness, I didn’t kill him and my daughter didn’t either! Leigh is totally nonviolent. When we were leaving to go to Peru on a mission trip some time back, the Shining Path had just murdered ten people. Leigh wanted us to go to minister to them.”

This is welcome testimony, but what else would a father say? I ask him a few more questions and let him step down.

After a brief lunch recess, Jill calls Pearl Norman to the witness stand. As she comes through the door, it is obvious that she is drunk.

“Hoo boy, she’s looped,” Dan marvels, as she lurches toward the witness stand.

“She must carry a flask in her purse and drink in the bathroom.”

Indeed she must, because anybody over the age of three knows something is seriously wrong. Beside me, Leigh flinches as her mother slurs her own name. For the first time since I’ve known her, she looks sloppy.

Her lipstick has missed the mark, and her hair isn’t quite combed. Jill asks sternly, “Have you been drinking, mrs. Norman?”