Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

The deputy coroner said, “And the dead man was later identified as Joseph Garcia?”

Patrolman Lutz nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And the man Garcia was struggling with. Will you identify him, please?”

The policeman pointed his finger at a short, plump man of about fifty seated in a chair apart from the audience and within a few feet of where the jury was lined up along the left wall. He was a quietly dressed man with a bland, faintly vacuous smile and an appearance of softness about him until you examined him closely. Then you suspected that a good deal of his plumpness was muscle rather than fat, and you noticed his shoulders were unnaturally wide.

“That’s him there,” the young patrolman said. “Robert Hummel.”

Just in front of the platform containing the deputy coroner’s bench was a long table, one end pointing toward the platform and the other end toward the audience. On the right side of this table, seated side-wise to it with his back to the audience, sat the assistant circuit attorney in charge of the case. On its left side sat Marcus Prout, one of St. Louis’s most prominent criminal lawyers.

Now the assistant C.A. said, “Patrolman Lutz, I understand Robert Hummel had in his possession a .38 caliber pistol at the time of the incident you just described. Is that right?”

“Well, not exactly in his possession, sir. It was lying in the alley nearby, where he’d dropped it. It turned out he had a permit to carry it.”

Marcus Prout put in, “Officer, was there any other weapon in sight?”

“Yes, sir. An open clasp knife lay in the alley. This was later established as belonging to the deceased. Robert Hummel claimed Garcia drew it on him, he in turn drew his gun to defend himself, and ordered the deceased to drop the knife. However, the deceased continued to come at him. Hummel said he didn’t want to shoot the man, so he used the gun to knock the knife from Garcia’s hand, then dropped the gun and grappled with him.”

The lawyer asked, “Was there any mark on the deceased’s wrist to support that statement?”

“The post mortem report notes a bruise,” the deputy coroner interrupted, and glanced over at the jury.

Marcus Prout rose from his chair and strolled toward the patrolman. “Officer, did the deceased… this Joseph Garcia… have a police record?”

“Yes, sir. One arrest and a suspended sentence for mugging.”

“Mugging is a slang term for robbery with force, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. Generally without a weapon. You get a guy around the neck from behind and go through his pockets with your free hand. There’s other methods classified as mugging, but that’s the way Garcia did it the time he was convicted.”

The lawyer said, “Did you draw any inference from the fact that Robert Hummel, with a gun against a knife, used the gun merely to disarm his opponent and then grappled with him with his bare hands?”

The policeman said, “I don’t exactly know what you mean.”

“I mean, did it not occur to you as obvious Robert Hummel’s statement that he did not wish to shoot his opponent was true, and that he went out of his way to avoid seriously injuring Garcia, when under the circumstances he would have been fully justified in shooting the man through the heart? And that Garcia’s subsequent death in spite of Mr. Hummel’s precaution must have been an accident resulting from Robert Hummel exerting more strength than he intended in the excitement of the moment?”

This leading question would have been stricken from the record in a regular court, of course, for not only was it deliberately slanted at the jury rather than to the witness, it asked for an opinion on a matter of which the witness could not possibly have had actual knowledge. But in Coroner’s Court the legal formalities of a court of law are almost entirely lacking inasmuch as no one is on trial for anything, the jury’s sole duty being to determine how the deceased met death. I was therefore not surprised when neither the assistant circuit attorney nor the deputy coroner made any objection to the question.

Patrolman Lutz said he had not thought about the matter, which seemed to satisfy Marcus Prout, as he had asked the question only to implant it in the jury’s mind anyway. The lawyer went back to his seat.

When the deputy coroner asked if there were any more questions, both Prout and the assistant C.A. shook their heads. The patrolman was dismissed and Norman Paisley was called as a witness.

Norman Paisley was a thin, dried up man of middle age who looked like a school janitor. To the deputy coroner’s first question he gave his address as a rooming house on South Broadway two blocks south of Market.

“Were you a customer at Stoyle’s Tavern on Sixth near Olive this past Wednesday night?” the deputy coroner asked.

“Yes, sir. All evening from seven till they closed at one thirty.”

“Did you know the deceased Joseph Garcia?”

“To talk to, yes, sir. I used to run into him at Stoyle’s Tavern off and on. I didn’t know where he lived or what he did, or nothing like that, though.”

“I see. Was the deceased a customer at Stoyle’s that night?”

“Yes, sir. He come in several times during the evening. I guess he was bar cruising all up and down Sixth Street.”

“Was he alone?”

“Yes, sir.”

The deputy coroner said, “Do you recognize any other person now present as a customer at Stoyle’s the night before last?”

Norman Paisley pointed at Robert Hummel. “Him. He come in about a quarter of eleven and left at eleven fifteen. I noticed him particular because he bought the house a couple of drinks.”

The assistant C.A. cut in. “Was Joseph Garcia present during this period?”

“Yes, sir. He even remarked about it. When Mr. Hummel bought a drink, Joe said to me, ‘That damn fool must be made of money. He just bought the house a drink at a place I was in up the street.’”

Marcus Prout asked, “Did you get the impression Garcia was following Hummel?”

“No, sir. Joe come in first, as a matter of fact, and Mr. Hummel come in right after him.”

The lawyer looked surprised. He started to ask another question, changed his mind and waved his hand dismissingly. The assistant C.A. stepped into the breach.

“Mr. Paisley, did you get the impression the deceased was particularly interested in Robert Hummel?”

“Not right at first. But when Hummel bought the second drink, he happened to be standing close to Joe at the bar, and when he opened his wallet to pay, Joe looked kind of startled. I was standing the other side of Joe, but even from there I could see there was a lot of bills in it. After that Joe couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Hummel.”

Marcus Prout spoke again. “When Hummel finally left the bar, did Garcia follow him?”

“Yes, sir. He went right out after him.”

The assistant C.A. said, “Did you get the impression Garcia left because Hummel did? That is, that the deceased was actually following Mr. Hummel? Or that he just happened to leave about the same time?”

“Why, I don’t know,” Paisley said. “I never thought about it at the time. I guess Joe must of followed him out figuring to roll him.”

Marcus Prout smiled at this answer and the assistant C.A. grunted. When both indicated they had no further questions, the witness was dismissed.

Shuffling the papers in front of him, the deputy coroner located the post mortem report, cleared his throat and said, “The autopsy shows death by suffocation due to a crushed larynx.”

Following this announcement, he rose from his bench, advanced to the edge of the platform and asked in a loud voice, “Are any relatives of the deceased present?”

When there was no reply to this routine question, he turned to the jury and signified they were to go out.