Маргарет Миллар - Spider Webs

“Why? What did he do?

“He went into a bar and ordered a drink. A congenial woman his own age or a little older sat down beside him and started a conversation. She was the instigator right from the beginning.

“Allow me at this point to answer some of the questions and respond to some of the charges against my client, Cully Paul King, by the district attorney. First and foremost, the District Attorney tells us, Cully King is a murderer.

“That he is a thief. Use your common sense to answer this one by yourselves. Why would a man like Cully King, who holds an interesting job with good pay, murder a woman for a pair of diamond earrings, which he pawned for five hundred dollars.

“Another question raised by the prosecution is: How could Cully King hire an expensive attorney like myself? That’s the easiest question of all to answer. He didn’t hire me. I volunteered my services. I don’t like to see people being railroaded into prison because of the color of their skin, country of origin, sexual preference or religion.

“One of the most interesting aspects of this trial has been the way Mr. Owen’s witnesses have qualified their answers with ‘maybe,’ ‘perhaps,’ ‘assume,’ ‘guess.’ Every one of these words has left a dent or a hole in the district attorney’s case until it looks like a tin can that’s been used for target practice. There is no room in a murder trial for assumptions, guesses, conjectures or maybes. When a man’s life is at stake, we must stick to absolutes, whole truths, not half or quarter truths, fact, not fancy.

“When you go into the deliberations room and start looking over your notebooks, I want you to remember one thing in particular: My client and I are not asking you for mercy; we are asking for justice.

“In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I wish to thank you for your attention and to urge you, in reaching a verdict, to put your emotions aside and rely on your good judgment and common sense. Thank you.”

Donnelly returned to his chair. Judge Hazeltine declared a short recess before he began his instructions to the jury. Before leaving the room by his private door, he motioned to Donnelly to meet him in chambers.

“Sit down,” the judge said when Donnelly entered. Donnelly sat down. “Anything wrong?”

“I think you’re going to get that son of a bitch off. That’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s guilty.”

“He’s not guilty until the jury says he is.”

“Don’t give me that legal bull. He choked her. He’s known for having an ugly temper when he’s drunk. This was no murder for profit. She said or did something that enraged him, and he attacked her, grabbed her by the throat—”

“No.”

“No what?”

“He didn’t attack her.”

“I suppose she attacked him .”

“It’s possible.”

“And he killed her in self-defense.”

“Maybe.”

“In a fit of passionate rage.”

“More or less.”

“More more or more less?”

Donnelly’s only response was a shrug.

The judge looked up at the one-eyed owl on the bookshelf. It seemed to be winking at him, an oddly lascivious wink as if it knew all about men and women attacking each other in fits of passion and rage.

Donnelly went immediately back to the courtroom though there were still six minutes left of the recess.

Cully was waiting for him, his face smooth as glass, anxiety showing only in his voice, which rose in pitch and quavered slightly like a nervous old man’s.

“What did he want?”

“To talk.”

“About me?”

“Some.”

“What’d he say?”

“You wouldn’t understand. It was legal talk.”

“I don’t have to understand legal talk to know he doesn’t like me... Does he?”

“I don’t know, I never asked him.”

“Watch the way he looks at me. Hate. I see hate.”

“A verdict is seldom affected by a judge’s personal feelings.”

“Seldom,” Cully repeated. “That means it sometimes is.”

“Sometimes.”

“How about a lot more than sometimes?”

“It happens. I haven’t counted the times.” Donnelly had heard judicial instructions so biased one way or another that they amounted to ordering the jury exactly what to do. “Forget it. This is the judge’s last case. He won’t want to be overturned in appellate court. His instructions will be nice and neutral. And you’ll be a free man.”

“Will I?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“A free man,” Cully repeated. “That means I’ll be able to go anywhere and do anything I want to.”

“Nobody’s that free, Cully.”

“Why not?”

“There are debts to be paid.”

“I can always get money for to pay my debts.”

“Suppose this is a big one, like a hundred thousand dollars for saving your life.”

“I can pay my debts,” Cully said. “One way or another.”

“That sounds vaguely like a threat to me.”

“I didn’t hear any threat.”

“Maybe you weren’t listening. I was. It didn’t surprise me. The word’s been around the courtroom since the preliminary hearing that you have a vicious temper when you’re drunk. So I’m taking certain precautions. There’ll be no booze at the ranch.”

The first half of Judge Hazeltine’s instructions was fairly standard, explanation of the charge against the defendant, that of murder with special circumstances and the circumstantial evidence on which it was based. After this came a review of the jurors’ duties. He admonished them to ignore public opinion, their own emotions and their feelings about capital punishment. He put special emphasis on the phrases “beyond a reasonable doubt” and “to a moral certainty.” If certain evidence seemed unreasonable and was presented by a witness who appeared erratic or confused, that evidence should be ignored if it contradicted reasonable evidence given by a more controlled person with nothing to gain by lying.

A special warning was given against reaching a conclusion too hastily without proper and thorough reexamination of all the evidence.

The second half of the judge’s instructions was more personal both in content and in viewpoint. The evaluation of witnesses was of the utmost importance. More credence must be given to a man of wide experience like Dr. Woodbridge than to the writers of medical reports in various publications who were not present to be cross-questioned.

“I refer specifically to reports of drowning victims whose lives were thought to be extinct but who were later brought back to life, their need for oxygen being greatly reduced by the coldness of the water lowering their metabolism. These instances do occur, but they are rare, and the chances of such a thing happening in the case of Mrs. Pherson are minimal. Still, it’s possible, and that must play a part in your decision. If this possibility is large enough to cast the shadow of a doubt in certain areas, you have to take that into consideration when you’re casting your ballot.

“Other doubts may cast their shadows. The grooves left on Mrs. Pherson’s throat, were they made by a man’s thumbs or were they made by the floats on a piece of giant kelp? Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No. The absence of thumbnail indentations along with these grooves is puzzling, but it must be remembered that not all thumbnails are the same length, and some may be too short to leave marks.

“Two witnesses who might be regarded as controversial are Harry Arnold and his son, Richie. The boy was indecisive, and the father’s claim that he’d seen Cully King throw some clothing overboard must be regarded with some suspicion since Mr. Arnold’s feelings about the defendant are obviously mixed. Also, he could not identify any particular item of clothing with certainty.