A Stranger in the Kingdom (51 page)

“Could you see the man's face?”

“Not all that plain. No, I couldn't see his face plainly. But I knowed who it was, all right.”

“How did you know who it was if you couldn't see his face?”

“I knowed because, as I said, I could see his feet and legs and they was a nig—a colored fella's.”

“You've testified that immediately after you turned on the desk lamp, the man in the room said, ‘Shut off that bloody light.' What did you do then?”

“I decline to answer.”

“Did you go home and get your shotgun and come back and fire at the parsonage and order the LaRiviere girl outside?”

Resolvèd looked at the prosecutor's table. Zack looked at Moulton, who shook his head. Zack, in turn, shook his head at Resolvèd.

“I decline to answer that question, Charlie Kinneson, on grounds that it might in—get me into more hot water!”

“Your honor,” Charlie said, “I don't see how the defense can be expected to present its case if Resolvèd Kinneson refuses to tell us the rest of the story. We have a right to know what happened next.”

“I'm sorry, Charles,” the judge said. “But Mr. Kinneson has a right not to incriminate himself. If he doesn't wish to answer that question, that's his constitutional right.”

“It's his constitutional right not to say yes or no when I ask him if he fired on the parsonage and ordered—”

“Mr. Kinneson, one more word and I will slap you with a cool one-hundred-dollar fine on the spot,” the judge said. “You have my ruling.”

“Resolvèd, did you tell the sheriff these allegations about the minister and the LaRiviere girl early on the morning of August fifth, after the shooting episode at the parsonage that we can't discuss?”

Resolvèd looked at the prosecutor's table. Again, first Moulton, then Zack shook their heads.

“Your honor, I'm going to request that Mr. Resolvèd Kinneson answer or decline to answer these questions himself, without signals and assistance from the prosecutors.”

The judge sighed. “And I'm going to request, Mr. Charles Kinneson, that you rephrase your question without any reference to a shooting. Then I'll consider ruling whether he has to answer it.”

“Resolvèd, on the morning after this alleged incident at the parsonage, did you tell the sheriff what you'd seen?”

“I decline to answer on the grounds that it might 'crim'nate me.”

“Your honor, telling the jury whether or not he informed the sheriff of what he allegedly saw at the parsonage when he looked in the window cannot, by any stretch of my imagination, incriminate this witness. I request that you instruct him to answer the question.”

The judge thought briefly. Then he said, “I'm sorry, Mr. Kinneson. Resolvèd Kinneson does not at this time have to answer that question.”

“Resolvèd, I noticed that the sheriff escorted you down the aisle to the witness stand. Why is that?”

“I decline to answer.”

“Resolvèd, are you currently residing in the Kingdom County Jail?”

“What if I am?”

“One more question, Resolvèd. How many times have you been in this courtroom?”

“I don't know the answer to that, Charlie K. A dozen? Two dozen?”

“Which?” Charlie said. “One dozen? Two dozen? Three dozen times? Fifty times?”

“You ought to have some idea, Cousin,” Resolvèd said. “Over the past few months, you've rupresented me here every time.”

 

“You may call your last witness, Mr. Barrows.”

Zack nodded to Mason White, who disappeared through the double swinging doors at the rear of the room. He was gone for perhaps fifteen seconds.

Accompanied by the sheriff, Zack's final witness entered the courtroom and walked stiffly down the center aisle. He wore green work clothes and work shoes with holes and dull little scallops of printer's lead cooked into them. His cropped gray hair looked like a sprinkling of lead filings. As he passed us I caught a whiff of that sulfurous redolence he carried everywhere, and his great ring of keys clanked sternly at his side.

“Your honor,” Zack said, “as its final witness, the county calls Elijah Kinneson. Once again, because of his expertise in first-degree murder cases, Mr. Moulton will conduct the questioning of Mr. Kinneson.”

After Farlow had sworn Elijah in, Sigurd Moulton said, “Mr. Kinneson, would you please state your full name, your profession, and your place of business.”

“Elijah Kinneson. Printer and linotype operator for the
Kingdom County Monitor.
”

“I believe that printing demands close attention to details, Mr. Kinneson?”

“I don't make many mistakes.”

“So I've been told. Now, Mr. Kinneson, will you please tell the court where you were and what you were doing on the evening of August fifth of this past summer?”

“That was Production Night at the shop. From about eight o'clock on I was putting out my newspaper.”

“Were you alone in the building?”

“Yes and no. The other fella skipped out around midnight. After that I was alone and could get something done.”

“Who is the other fella?”

Elijah thrust out a sallow talon in the direction of my father. “Fella out there in the congregation. My cousin, Charles Kinneson. So-called editor over at the
Monitor
.”

“I see. Editor Kinneson left around midnight and then you were alone. Do you recall what time you finished your work that night?”

“Not to the exact minute I don't. It was in the vicinity of one-thirty
A.M.
I would say that give or take a few minutes either way I put my paper to bed at just about half-past one o'clock in the morning. I locked up, which I might not otherwise have done except that so-called Old Home Day had been held the day before and you can't tell what riffraff such an affair as that might draw. Then I started on home.”

“Did you drive home?”

“Drive home? No, I did not. I don't own a motorcar. Never have, never will. Unlike some I could point out, I'd rather pay my bills than make car payments.”

“Elijah Kinneson,” Judge Allen said sharply, “you will answer the questions put to you and only those questions. You will kindly restrain yourself from favoring the court with your opinions on borrowing and lending, automobiles, and all other topics not directly related to the questions you are asked. Do you understand me, sir?”

Elijah gave the judge the barest curt nod.

“Answer yes or no,” Judge Allen said angrily. “The court stenographer has no way of recording a surly gesture.”

“Yes,” Elijah muttered.

“Where do you live, Mr. Kinneson?” Moulton said.

“On the edge of the churchyard, heading out the county road toward Lord Hollow. Last house on the right going away from town.”

“By the churchyard, do you mean the precincts of the church?”

“I do not. The church would be clear across town at the south end of the common. I mean the graveyard. Cemetery. Final resting place. Call it whatever you want, everybody in town winds up there. Except the papists, that is. They're planted up on Anderson Hill.”

“Do you customarily pass by this cemetery on your way home from work?”

“I customarily pass through a corner of it. It's a shortcut. From the shop I cut cross the common, and down between the courthouse and the Academy, and so on through the edge of the churchyard to my house.”

“On the evening of August fifth—actually it would have been the early morning of August sixth, by then—did you see anything unusual as you approached your house?”

“If I hadn't, I wouldn't be here today, now, would I?”

“What did you see?”

“Well, I didn't actually
see
much of anything. It was black as pitch. But I heard something.”

“Tell the court what you heard, please.”

“Two voices.”

“Could you tell where these voices were coming from?”

“Yes, from the parsonage porch, just across the street.”

“Were you startled?”

“Startled! Startled by what?”

“By the voices. You said it was a dark night. I thought you might have mistaken them for ghosts.”

Elijah snorted. “Ghosts don't jangle,” he said. “At first I thought it was fishermen navigating around on the lawn and picking up nightwalkers, which they frequently do over in the churchyard, and trample all over my plots into the bargain. But this wasn't nightwalker pickers. These voices were coming from the parsonage porch. It was a fella and a woman. Jangling.”

“Jangling?”

“Yes. Back and forth.”

“Could you please explain the term ‘jangling,' Mr. Kinneson?”

“Jangling,” Elijah said impatiently. “Like these.”

He half rose and gave his key ring a great clangorous jerk.

“Arguing,” he said.

“I see. Did you hear any of the words of the argument?”

“Yes. I stepped out toward the street a short ways, so I could hear clearly, just to be sure it wasn't housebreakers, you know, or one of the preacher's enemies, of which he'd made a goodly number. As I say, it was a fella's voice and a girl. Once I got out in the street, I could tell that the girl talked like a Frenchman. Anyway, the fella said, ‘Well, what's done is done. If you are, I shall see to it that it's taken care of straightaway. I have a good friend in Burlington, who runs a home where you'll be taken care of.

“The girl with the Frenchman's voice said, ‘Oh, I know I am, me.' Then the fella said, ‘Have you told anyone else yet?'

“Well, that's all I heard because then they started back into the house, and I wasn't really comfortable standing there eavesdropping, you understand.”

“Did you recognize either voice?”

“I recognized one, all right. The man's.”

“Is the man whose voice you recognized here in the courtroom this afternoon?”

“He be.”

“Will you identify him, please?”

Elijah nodded grimly.

“Andrews,” he said. “So-called preacher, at the table behind you.”

“The prosecution rests, your honor.”

And on that note, Judge Allen ended the proceedings for the day.

 

“It's still sealed, James,” my father said. “I am here to tell you that it is still sealed as tight as a drum.”

“What's sealed?” Charlie said.

“Dad says this case is like a globe,” I explained. “With all the information shut up inside and no way to get at it.”

Charlie was sitting in Elijah's vacant linotype chair, wearing my cousin's green eyeshade and eating a ham sandwich left over from lunch. “Maybe we should get an ax and whale the hell out of this globe,” he said.

“Maybe,” Dad said, accepting a sandwich from Mom.

“On the other hand,” Charlie said, “maybe we wouldn't like what we found when we did.”

“I'll tell you one thing you aren't going to find,” my father said. “You're not going to find that Walter Andrews had the least thing to do with that girl's murder.”

“Are you going to put him on the stand, Charlie?” Athena said, taking a bite of homemade potato salad.

Charlie frowned. “To tell you the truth, I haven't made up my mind yet.”

“Isn't it getting rather late in the game to decide?”

“I know what I'm going to ask him if I do put him on the stand. The trouble is, his testimony may hurt his case more than it helps. Elijah's a splenetic little factotum, as I've said a hundred times before, but there's no doubt in my mind that he heard what he said he heard. Andrews himself has admitted that he and the girl had that conversation.”

“What about Resolvèd's testimony?” my father said. “Do you believe that?”

Under other circumstances, I would have been delighted that Dad and Charlie were actually holding a direct conversation with each other. Now I hardly noticed.

“What Resolvèd claims he saw is hard to swallow. Him, I intend to get back on the stand first thing tomorrow morning. But whether he's telling the truth about what he saw when he looked in the parsonage window is anybody's guess. There's one encouraging thing, which is that Walt Andrews flatly denied to me that he was in the study with that girl on the night before Old Home Day. In fact I think we can place him at the common until about that time, maybe even a tad later. That's one of about a hundred things I've got to look into between now and tomorrow morning at eight o'clock.”

“One thing I'm going to look into,” my father said, “is who is paying Sigurd Moulton's retainer. Private funds indeed! I can't believe that Zack Barrows wants to win this case badly enough to shell out thousands of dollars of his own money to pay somebody else to prosecute it for him.”

“Well, whoever's paying Moulton is getting his money's worth,” Charlie said. “There isn't any more feeling to him than a rattlesnake, but he knows exactly what he's doing, including when to shut up, which Zack has never learned. Also he wants to clip my ears in the worst way after that Gilson trial last winter.”

“He isn't half the lawyer you are,” my mother said. “And what's more, if Reverend Andrews denied he was in the study with Claire, he wasn't there.”

“I agree with you, Ruth,” my father said. “But I'm beginning to suspect that he's holding
something
back, whatever it is.”

“‘The wise old owl sat in an oak, the more he knew, the less he spoke,'” my mother said, and laughed ruefully. “Remember that one? I used to say it over and over for you boys when you were tiny.”

Charlie looked affectionately at Mom out from under Elijah's green visor. “I hadn't thought about those nursery rhymes for years and years. How about the Grimm stories you used to read me at bedtime? I thought that was great stuff, hot off the press.

“You know,” my brother continued, “growing up around a newspaper office, I somehow got the idea when I was a little shaver that a lot of the stories you and Dad read to us and told to us were printed right over here.”