Anatomy of a Murder (31 page)

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Authors: Robert Traver

BOOK: Anatomy of a Murder
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“And these pictures of Mrs. Laura Manion—they turned out well?”
“Excellent.”
“When did you take them?”
“That very night.”
“Then they would show just how Mrs. Manion looked right after the shooting?”
Grimly: “They certainly would.”
“How many did you take?”
“Three.”
Again I heard the short restless padding footsteps behind me; Mr. Dancer was again stalking my rear.
“Would you mind showing them to me?”
“I don't have them—they're back at my studio.”
“What a pity … . And I believe you didn't answer me when I asked if you forgot them. How come you didn't bring them along?”
“I was requested not to.”
“Hm … . Certainly not by anyone connected with this case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come, Mr. Burke, tell us by whom?”
“Objection!”
thundered in my ears.
“Overruled,” said the Judge, as I ostentatiously ducked and drilled my ear with my little finger—the ear on the jury side. “The witness may answer.”
“Mr. Burke,” I said softly, “could you have been told not to bring them by anybody presently standing, say, within three city blocks of me?”
“He's standing right behind you. It was Mr. Dunstan there. He merely said it would not be necessary to bring the pictures of Mrs. Manion to court.”
“
Dancer
!” Claude Dancer's voice grated in my ear. “The name is Mr. Dancer, not Dunstan.”
“See, the man's name is
Mister
Dancer,” I reproved the witness. “And the Dunstans might not like any confusion either, you know—they might possibly know Mr. Dancer.” (I had to take my fun where I found it; Dancer's turn would inevitably come.)
“I'm sorry,” the witness said. “Mr.
Dancer
told me not to.”
“Well, if you don't have the pictures you can't very well show them,” I said. “But perhaps you can describe for us the picture you saw of Mrs. Manion that night with your own eyes? That might even be better.”
“Objection,” Mr. Dancer said, less thunderously this time. “Clearly irrelevant and matter of defense, if admissible then, which I doubt.”
“I withdraw the question,” I said quickly, before the Judge could make his ruling. If little Mr. Dancer thought he was helping his case by keeping this testimony from the jury, which I guessed must be fairly consumed with curiosity about now, he could block away. Most of the disappointment and frustration would be laid at his door. “The witness is back to you,” I said, bowing and returning to my table.
“No further questions,” Mr. Dancer said, glaring stonily at me. My time will come, I thought. Courage, Camille … .
I looked around for Parnell, to bask in his approval, but I could not locate him. “Hell,” I thought, “just when I have a fairly good round the old boy would be out puttering around in the locker room.” Anyway I hoped he wasn't out there swigging the rubbing alcohol.
“I was having a quiet beer up at the bar,” Carl Yates, the game warden, was testifying, the first of a long procession of eyewitnesses. “I had been out earlier patrolling for headlighters. I suspected some of those young soldiers stationed near Thunder Bay were roaring around at night shining deer with their jeeps. In fact I'd already caught several … . Well, I'm standing there having my beer, like I said, and suddenly I hear a series of shots, and I turn toward the sound—and there's a man standing up on the rail, leaning far over the bar, clicking an empty gun at something down there below on the other side.”
“What did you do?” Mitch asked.
“I got to hell-” the witness glanced quickly up at Judge Weaver. “I'm sorry—I got out of there fast. No place for a game warden.”
“Did you know the man who was doing the shooting?”
“Not by name—but I would recognize him.”
“Do you see him in the courtroom now?” Mitch asked, and I quickly prodded the Lieutenant to his feet.
“Yes, he's sitting—no, standing—next to Lawyer Biegler there at that other long table—the man with the lieutenant's uniform, with the mustache.”
“You are referring and pointing to the defendant in this case, Frederic Manion?”
“I am.”
“Your witness,” Mitch said.
In my cross-examination I made no attempt to inquire into what movements, if any, Barney may or may not have made just prior to the shooting. I felt that the chances were good to excellent that most of the eyewitnesses, including this one, had not seen any movements simply because just previous to the shooting they were not paying attention, there was no reason to, and that for me to have each witness deny seeing any movements from Barney would be to gratuitously build up the jury's belief that none had occurred. I likewise made no attempt to cast any doubt on the fact that the Lieutenant had fired the fatal shots, in fact my questions assumed quite the contrary. Only Parnell's favorite lawyer, old Amos Crocker, the one and only Willie the Weeper, possessed the bland hardihood to stand before a jury and deny a shooting in one breath and in the next insist that his client was crazy when he did it.
“Mr. Yates,” I said, conjuring up a pretty picture, “when Lieutenant
Manion shot Barney Quill and the latter slumped and fell and the Lieutenant then stood up on the bar rail and leaned down over the bar and emptied his gun into the fallen man”—I paused—“did the Lieutenant say”Take that, you s.o.b.' or words to that effect?”
“Not that I heard. My recollection is that at no time did the Lieutenant utter a sound. He came in like a mailman delivering the mail; he delivered his mail and turned around and calmly walked out.”
One of the endless fascinations of trying cases, I thought, was the unexpectedly sharp word pictures lay witnesses sometimes painted without even half trying. In fact it was only when they tried that they failed. “Were there any signs of anger on his part?” I pressed on.
“None that I saw. Of course I did not get a good look or stop long after the shooting. I wheeled it for home.”
“What time was it? The shooting, I mean?”
“About twelve-forty or twelve-forty-five, as I recall. It was one-one A.M. when I got home, I noted that.”
“Now Mr. Yates, this well-earned nightcap of beer you were having—had the deceased treated you to that?”
“Yes. I had put my money on the bar but Barney waved it away. ‘On the house, Carl,' he said.”
“I see. And was the bar crowded?”
“Yes, practically the whole length. It seemed to me the Lieutenant had got himself in the only place that was left. There's some rails there.”
“You are referring to the waitresses' service station?”
“I think so. Anyway, that place where Barney never wanted us to stand.”
“And had Barney bought the whole bar a round of drinks?”
“Yes, all of us. I heard tell later it wasn't the first round he bought.”
“And was he drinking?”
“Well, he was on the round he bought me.”
“Was buying house drinks his usual practice?—if you know?”
“Hm … . Let me think.” The witness paused. “It was the first time I'd seen him treat the bar since I was stationed at Thunder Bay. That'll be three years come May month.”
“And you were a fairly regular customer at Barney's—for your occasional nightly pint of beer, I mean?” I did not want to put this candid hard-working game warden on the spot or appear to make
him out a bar fly; for my part any man that protected our U.P. deer and fish—especially the trout for Biegler—was entitled to swill all the beer he could hold, free or not.
He smiled appreciatively. “Yes, a fairly regular customer,” he said.
“I see. And where at the bar were you standing and by whom?”
“At the far end, nearest the street, talking to the Mongoose twins.” (The Mongoose brothers were two young Indians, both ex-service men, and Parnell's and my pre-trial investigation indicated that any game warden could well afford to relax a bit provided only he could keep the brothers Mongoose forever under his watchful eye.)
I purposely did not get into the anticipated controversial subject of Barney's prowess with firearms and pistols, though this witness undoubtedly would have known. I wanted to get the stage clearly set for the jury in other directions, and not have the picture distorted or forgotten in a flurry of confusing objections from the pouncing Mr. Dancer. The pistols could come later.
“Where was the bartender during all the shooting?” I asked.
“Standing over near the door, I believe. At least I spoke to him there when I came in.”
“Was it the usual practice, if you know, for Barney to work alone behind the bar?”
“No, it wasn't. In fact I remarked about it to the Mongoose twins. He often stood at the end or behind the bar, but rarely waited on the trade. His bartender or the barmaids usually attended to that.”
“And was it equally unusual for the bartender to be out on the floor—standing by the door?”
The witness looked up thoughtfully at the courtroom skylight. “Well, now that you speak of it, it was. 'Phonse usually stayed behind the bar.”
A few more pieces were slipping quietly into the growing mosaic of proof. I glanced around and sure enough Mr. Dancer was again stalking me; the little man seemed to have sensed it too. Well, he'd taken all that trouble to stalk me, and wouldn't it be a shame to keep him standing there so eager and mute? I'd quick have to ask something that would exercise that lovely voice.
“Now, Mr. Yates,” I went on, “just before the shooting how did the deceased appear?”
“How do you mean?”
“Did he seem like a man who was nervous or fidgety and expecting something bad to happen”—I paused—“or instead cheerful and calm and at ease?” The question was objectionable on several counts, as
I well knew, but I gambled that my Mr. Dancer was in turn gambler enough and curious enough to want to learn the answer. It looked like I'd won; all was golden silence behind me.
“He appeared perfectly calm and at ease,” Carl Yates answered. I could almost hear Claude Dancer purring with contentment behind me, doubtless thinking of what a massive blow our rape story had just taken. How could a man who had just perpetrated such a brutal assault and rape at the same time appear so calm and at ease? I paused to let this impression sink in, and then thought it was time to shatter Claude Dancer's little dream.
I spoke swiftly. “So that if you were not here today testifying in the
murder
case of People versus Frederic Manion, Mr. Yates, you could nevertheless still honestly say the same thing—that Barney Quill was calm and at ease—even if the case being tried here now were instead the trial of People versus Barney Quill for
rape?”
The witness' unmistakable “yes” and Claude Dancer's booming objection exploded in my ears at the same time. The little man was beside himself, and I wondered how the poor racing reporter could possibly take down the excited flood of words.
“The question is clearly objectionable,” the Judge ruled sternly when Claude Dancer finally sputtered into silence, “and both it and the answer will be stricken and the jury asked to totally disregard them.” He frowned down at me. “Surely, Mr. Biegler, you must have known how highly improper your question was. In any case I must warn you against a repetition.”
“I'm sorry, Your Honor,” I apologized contritely. “Please put it down to the excessive zeal of battle,” I murmured. “I'll try to mend my ways.” I turned to Claude Dancer and the little bristling military brushes of hair on either side of his head seemed to be standing straight out. “The People's witness is back to your assistant, Chief Prosecutor Dancer,” I said.
“No questions,” Mr. Dancer snapped, and at last any question or pretense of who was assisting whom had flown to the four winds.
As I sat down I saw that Parnell was back in his place, mercifully sober and grinning from ear to ear. We had argued for weeks over the strategy of that last objectionable question, Parnell being for it. His point was that we had to bring out early and dramatically in the trial that if Barney had actually raped Laura he was doing the only thing he could have done, short of running away or surrendering, namely, calmly brazening it out and at the same time building up his defenses to the inevitable charge of rape. Barney
had
to appear
calm. I glanced at my favorite juror and found him looking at me. His eyes lit up and I glanced quickly away; it looked like old Parnell had maybe won again. In any case the rape now clearly had its foot in the door. And equally clear to the jury, I hoped, was the People's settled determination to dislodge it and keep it out.
The next eight or ten witnesses, all men, had been standing at the bar and, aside from the minor discrepancies which appear inevitable when different people try to describe the same event, all pretty much agreed that the Lieutenant had walked up to the bar and wordlessly emptied his gun into Barney, that he had stood up on the bar rail after Barney had fallen, and then had as silently turned and left the place. All agreed that the shooting occurred around 12:45. From various of these witnesses, including the inscrutable Mongoose twins, I developed on cross-examination that Barney had bought as high as five rounds of drinks that night; that he himself had apparently taken whisky each time; that all this sudden barroom philanthropy was a noteworthy departure from his previous austerity (the husband of one of the waitresses disagreed with this and, noting the lushness of his large red nose, I did not have the heart to dispute him); that the bartender was standing out on the floor, also a fairly unusual procedure; that Barney seemed to be in good spirits and calm and at ease. From two of the witnesses, I brought out that they had spoken to the Lieutenant as he had approached the bar, just before the shooting, but that the defendant had not returned their greeting or looked at them. These same two witnesses also thought they heard Barney Quill say “Good evening, Lieutenant” or words to that effect as the defendant approached the bar.
Mitch conducted the examination of all of these witnesses, as he did the two waitresses who followed, and I concluded that the Dancer was either trying to recreate the somewhat tarnished impression that Mitch was still running the prosecution or else was saving himself for the more important witnesses ahead, probably both. Neither waitress added much to the story of the shooting, except that one of them also told me on cross-examination that the Lieutenant had failed to return her greeting as he had entered. The other waitress, an amiable plump girl, drew a rumble of laughter when she told Mitch that after the first shot she had “galloped for the ladies' rest room,” which in turn drew an admonitory bang from the Judge's gavel and a scowl at the crowd from the Judge.
By then it was going on for five o'clock, and in answer to Mitch's query whether to call any new witnesses, the Judge nodded for him to
go ahead, and Mitch had looked at me and shrugged in mute resignation and called Ditlef Pedersen. We not only had a judge who ran his court with an iron hand but one who firmly believed in the full working day for jurors, lawyers, and witnesses alike. My heart was beginning to go out to Max Battisfore for being so long away from his beloved patrol. Law enforcement out in the brambles was clearly going to pot.
Ditlef Pedersen (I loved the name; it rolled on one's tongue like a lozenge) was the man who had sat at the table near the outside door with his wife and sister-in-law. It was near this table that the bartender, Alphonse Paquette, had stood “resting” after Barney had taken over the bar. Under Mitch's questioning, Mr. Pedersen, a tall blond plasterer from Iron Bay, told how he and his party had stopped off at the bar to have a drink and to pick up some beer to take to their lake-shore cottage for the weekend; how they had chatted for some time with the bartender, who stood by their table; and of how they had suddenly heard a series of shots—“they sounded like giant firecrackers”—and had then seen Lieutenant Manion leaving the place, followed quickly by the bartender.

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