Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 09 (10 page)

Massie was nodding. Mrs. Fortescue was quietly smiling; she got it—now, she got it.

“Now,” Darrow said, rising, “let’s go meet those sailor boys, shall we? Let’s just get acquainted. I don’t think I’ll want to question them about the incident…not just yet. Then perhaps we can have a bite of late lunch in the mess hall, Mrs. Fortescue, and if you’re up to it, you can relate your adventures with the police.”

Those “adventures,” of course, had to do with the attempt the conspirators had made to dump Kahahawai’s sheet-wrapped naked body; they’d been caught by the cops with the corpse in the backseat of the rental Buick on the way to Hanauma Bay.

It seemed the other native, the “little guy” who’d been walking across the Judiciary Building grounds with Joe Kahahawai when the fake summons was served, was Joe’s cousin Edward Ulii, who had been suspicious about Joe getting shoved into that Buick, and immediately reported it as a possible abduction. When a radio car spotted the Buick speeding toward Koko Head, shades drawn, Mrs. Fortescue’s jig was up.

“I’d be delighted, Mr. Darrow,” Mrs. Fortescue said.

And soon we were walking along the old gun deck of the cruiser, past empty weapon ports; up ahead Darrow was walking along with his arm around Mrs. Fortescue, Massie following like a puppy.

“This may be the most straightforward case of felony murder I ever encountered,” Leisure whispered to me. “Premeditation all the way…”

I let out a short laugh. “Why do you think C.D. pulled that temporary insanity rabbit out of his hat?”

“I have to admit I was shocked,” Leisure said, shaking his head. “He stopped just short of suborning perjury. I’ve never witnessed a more blatant display of questionable ethics in my career.”

“Come to Chicago,” I advised. “We got plenty more where that came from.”

“You’re not offended?”

“Hardly.” I nodded up toward Massie and his mother-in-law as they walked with Darrow. “Do you think those two misguided souls deserve life in prison?”

“They probably deserve a good thrashing, but…no.”

“Neither does C.D. He’s just doing what it takes to give them the best goddamn defense he can muster.”

We followed echoing laughter to where Jones and Lord were playing a spirited round of Ping-Pong in a room that could have handled ten times as many cots as the two unmade ones on its either side. No guard was watching them. Both were short, muscular, good-looking gobs in their early twenties.

Jones was a wiry wiseguy with his brown hair slicked back on a square head, and Lord a curly-headed Dick Powell type with a massive build for a little guy. Seeing us enter, they stopped their game and doffed their seamen’s hats.

Mrs. Fortescue rather grandly said, “Allow me to introduce Mr. Clarence Darrow.”

There were handshakes all around, and Darrow made our introductions as well, and informed the sailors he wasn’t here to talk in depth about the case just yet, merely to say hello.

“Boy, are we glad to see you,” Jones said. “I feel sorry for the other side!”

“It’s an honor meeting you, sir,” Lord said.

“Show them your memory book!” Mrs. Fortescue urged Jones.

“Sure thing, missus!” Jones said, and dragged out a thick scrapbook from under one of the unmade cots. “I just pasted in some more today.”

Lord and Massie were off to one side of the room, lighting up cigarettes, chatting, laughing, kidding each other. I found a chair to sit on while Leisure leaned against a bulkhead, silently shaking his head.

And Clarence Darrow was sitting on the edge of the cot next to the grinning Jones, who turned the pages of the scrapbook, already overflowing with clippings, while Mrs. Fortescue stood with hands fig-leafed before her, watching with delight as her savior and one of her servants conferred.

“I ain’t never got my name in the papers before,” the proud sailor said.

I wondered if sports star Joe Kahahawai had kept a scrapbook, too; he’d made the papers lots of times. Mostly the sports page. He’d make it again, in the coming weeks.

Then it was pretty likely to taper off.

You might have found the Alexander Young Hotel—a massive block-long brownstone with two six-story wings bookending a long, four-story midsection—in downtown Milwaukee or maybe Cleveland. Like so many buildings built around the turn of the century, it straddled eras—stubbornly unembellished, neither modern nor old-fashioned, the Young was a commercial hotel whose only concession to being located in paradise was a few potted palm plants and occasional halfhearted vases of colorful flowers in an otherwise no-nonsense lobby.

The reporters were waiting when we arrived midafternoon, and they swarmed us in a pack as we moved steadily toward the elevators in the company of the hotel manager. The mustached little man had met us at the curb not only to greet us, but to let C.D. and Leisure know the numbers of the suites where they would find their wives.

“I’ve spoken to my clients,” Darrow said to the reporters as we moved along, “and have heard enough to decide upon my line of defense. And that’s all I have to say about the subject at present.”

The overlapping requests for further clarification were pretty much unintelligible, but the words “unwritten law” were in there a good deal.

Darrow stopped suddenly, and the reporters tumbled into each other, like an auto pileup.

“I’m down here to defend four people,” he said, “who have been accused of a crime that I do not think is a crime.”

Then he pressed on, while the reporters—stalled momentarily by that cryptic comment—lagged behind as the old boy deftly stepped onto a waiting elevator. And Leisure and I were right there with him, while the hotel manager stayed out, holding back the press like a traffic cop.

One newshound yelled, “The Hawaiian legislature must agree with you—they’ve just made rape a capital offense.”

“And isn’t that a magnificent piece of lawmaking,” Darrow said bitterly. “Now a man committing a rape knows he’ll receive the same punishment if he goes ahead and kills his victim, too. He might as well go all the way, and get rid of the evidence!”

The elevator operator swung the door shut, and the cage began to rise.

Slumped next to me, Darrow shook his big head, the comma of gray hair flopping on his forehead. “That goddamn Lindbergh case,” he muttered.

“What about the Lindbergh case, C.D.?” I asked. I’d spent enough time on that crime to have a sort of proprietary attitude.

“It got this wave of blood thirst going among the populace. Whoever snatched that poor infant opened the door for capital punishment for kidnappers…and how many kidnap victims are going to die because of that?”

Ruby Darrow met us at the door of the suite; her smile of greeting turned immediately to one of concern.

“Clarence, you look terribly tired…you simply must get some rest.”

But Darrow would hear none of it. He invited us into the outer sitting area of the suite, where again the Hawaiian influence was nil: dark furnishings, oriental rug, pale walls with wooden trim. We might have been in a suite at the Congress on Michigan Avenue, though the seductive breeze drifting in the open windows indicated we weren’t.

“These were waiting at the desk for you,” Ruby said testily, and handed him several envelopes.

He sorted through them, as if this were his morning mail at home, tossed them on a small table by the door. Then he removed his baggy suit coat and flung it over a chair; Leisure and I took his lead and removed our suit coats, but draped them more carefully over a coffee table by a comfortable-looking sofa whose floral pattern was the only vaguely Island touch in the suite.

C.D. settled into an easy chair, put his feet up on a settee, and began making a cigarette. Leisure and I took the couch as a clearly distressed Ruby, shaking her head, disappeared off into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her, not slamming it, exactly.

“Ruby thinks I’m going to die someday,” Darrow said. “I may just fool her. George, you’ve been remarkably silent since Pearl Harbor. Might I assume you’re displeased with me?”

Leisure sat up; it was the kind of sofa you sank down into, so this took effort. “I’m your co-counsel. I’m here to assist, and follow your lead.”

“But…”

“But,” Leisure said, “taking Tommie Massie by the hand like that, and steering him into a temporary insanity plea—”

“George, we have four clients who quite obviously caused the death of Joseph Kahahawai due to their felonious conspiracy. They face a second-degree murder charge, and a reasonable argument could be made that they’re lucky the grand jury didn’t slap them with murder in the first.”

“Agreed.”

“So we have no choice: we have to prove extenuating circumstances. What extenuating circumstances avail themselves to us? Well, there’s no question that Tommie Massie’s stress-ravaged mental condition is our best, perhaps our only, recourse.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to try to prove Mrs. Fortescue insane,” Leisure said with a smirk. “She’s about as deliberate and self-controlled an individual as I’ve ever met.”

“And those two sailors aren’t nuts,” I said. “They’re just idiots.”

Darrow nodded. “And idiocy is no defense…but temporary insanity is. All four were in agreement to commit a felony—kidnapping Kahahawai, the use of firearms to threaten and intimidate their victim…”

“No question about it,” I said, “Tommie’s the best shooter for the jury to pin its sympathy on.”

“I agree,” Leisure said, and he whapped the back of one hand rhythmically into the open palm of the other, as he made his point. “But the felony murder concept still prevails—all four are equally guilty, no matter who fired the shot.”

“No!” Darrow said. “If Tommie Massie, while temporarily insane, fired the shot, he is
not
guilty…and if Tommie is not guilty, then none of them are, because there
is
no crime! The felony evaporates and so does the concept of felony murder right along with it.”

Leisure’s eyes were open wide; then he sighed and began nodding. “Obviously these clumsy fools had no intention of murdering Kahahawai.”

“They’re as much victims in this as Kahahawai,” Darrow said gravely.

“I wouldn’t go quite that far, C.D.,” I said. “Mrs. Fortescue and the boys aren’t in the ground.”

The only sound in the room was the gentle whir of a ceiling fan.

“I have misgivings myself,” Darrow admitted, sighing heavily. “After all, I’ve never employed the insanity defense….”

“Sure you did, C.D.,” I said. Was his memory completely gone? How could he forget his most famous trial?

“Loeb and Leopold, you mean?” He smiled patiently, shook his head, no. “I pleaded those boys guilty, and merely used insanity as a mitigating circumstance, in seeking the judge’s mercy. No, this is a full-blown insanity defense, and we’re going to need experts in the field of psychiatry.”

Leisure nodded. “I agree. Any ideas?”

Darrow gazed at the ceiling fan’s blades. “Did you follow the Winnie Ruth Judd trial?”

“Certainly,” Leisure said. “Who didn’t?”

“Those alienists who testified on behalf of Mrs. Judd made a hell of a good case that she had to be crazy to have dismembered those two gals, and stuffed ’em in that trunk.”

Leisure was nodding. “Williams and Orbison. But Mrs. Judd was convicted…”

“Yes,” Darrow said with a winning smile, “but I wasn’t defending her. I was impressed by their testimony; will you track them down by telephone, George?”

“Certainly, but I doubt they take charity cases….”

“Establish their availability and fee. When I confer privately with Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie, tomorrow, I’ll let them know how important bringing in alienists is to their defense. They’ll find the money, amongst their rich friends. Could you start on that right now?”

Leisure nodded and stood. “I’ll call from my own suite; Anne’s probably wondering what’s become of me.”

“Be back by four-thirty, if you can, George. We’re meeting with those local fellows for further briefing.”

Darrow was referring to Montgomery Winn and Frank Thompson, the Honolulu attorneys who had handled the case before Darrow came aboard. Winn had prepared much of the material we’d looked at on the
Malolo.

With Leisure gone, Darrow said, “I think we may have offended George’s delicate legal sensibilities.”

“Tough finding out your hero has feet of clay,” I said.

“Is that what I have?”

“Up to about the knees.”

He let out a horse laugh. Then he sat forward, putting his cigarette out in an ashtray on the small table by his chair; he rested his hands on his thighs and gazed at me sleepily.

“Let’s get down to it, son,” he said. “I’m going to be making a lot of noise, with the press boys, about how it doesn’t matter whether Joe Kahahawai and his cohorts were
really
guilty of raping Thalia Massie or not. That it doesn’t matter a ding-dong diddly damn whether it was some other carload of Island hoodlums, or Thalia Massie’s overactive imagination, or Admiral Stirling and the entire Pacific fleet. What matters is that Tommie Massie and Mrs. Fortescue and those two sailor boys
believed
Kahahawai to be one of her attackers…the brute who broke that poor girl’s jaw and wouldn’t let her pray. And I will be trumpeting from Honolulu to doomsday that we are not, and
will
not, retry the Ala Moana case in that courtroom.”

“That’s what you’ll be saying to the press.”

“Right. And it’s a boxcar of bullshit. Oh, in a technical legal sense, it’s sound enough, but what we really need to free our clients is proof that they killed the right man. It gives them moral authority for this immoral, senseless act they perpetrated.”

“Which is where I come in.”

He narrowed his eyes, nodded slyly. “Exactly. This rape case, this so-called Ala Moana case, I want you to dig into it. Interview the witnesses, naval personnel, local officials, the goddamn man on the street if you have to.” He thrust out his arm and his finger pointed right at me; it was like having a lightning bolt almost hit you. “If you can find new evidence of the guilt of those rapists—and I
believe
Thalia Massie, I
believe
her, based upon her words and her demeanor and, if nothing else, that goddamned license plate number that she missed by only a single goddamned digit—then we can make a hero out of the sorry human unit that is Thomas Massie. And we can spring ’em all!”

I was sitting forward, loosely clasped hands draped between my open knees. “What do we do with this new evidence, should I find it?”

He winked. “Leave that to me. I’ll make sure the jury hears about it, and the papers. Of course, I
will
in this trial be retrying the Ala Moana case, because it speaks to the motivation and the mental condition of Tommie Massie. No prosecutor can keep that out of the record…. Now—I’m going into court tomorrow morning, and I’m going to ask for a week to prepare my case; the judge’ll give it to me, too.”

“Of course he will. You’re Clarence Darrow.”

“And that’s about all the consideration I expect my fame to get me in this case, but I’ll damn well take it. Then I expect it’ll take a good week to select a jury…I intend to make sure it does.”

“So you’ll buy me two weeks.”

He nodded. “I would expect, during the trial, you’ll be at my side, at my table. That’s where I’ll want you, and need you, not running around chasing girls down some snow white beach.”

“Is that how you figure I’ll spend my time?”

“Some of it. Of course, you’ve already landed this Bell girl. Fine-looking young woman. You bagged that filly the first night aboard ship, didn’t you?”

“Admitting that wouldn’t be gentlemanly.”

He tilted his head; his eyes had a nostalgic cast. “Does she look as good out of a bathing suit as she does in one, son?”

“Better.”

Darrow sighed with pleasure at the thought of that, then hauled his weary body to its feet; quite a process, sort of like reassembling himself. He was fishing for something in his baggy pants pocket as he motioned for me to rise, and I did, and he walked me to the door. He slipped his arm around my shoulder. With his other hand, he pressed some keys in my palm.

“There’s a car waiting for you in the hotel garage. Mrs. Fortescue’s provided it.”

“Any special car, or do I just start trying keys in ignitions?”

“A blue Durant roadster. It’ll get you in the mood of the case: it’s her own car, the one she drove to the courthouse the day they snatched Kahahawai.”

I grunted a laugh. “At least it isn’t the car they hauled that poor bastard’s body in.”

He moved away to pluck one of the envelopes off the table by the door. “This is for you, too, son—it’s your temporary private investigator’s license, and permission to carry a firearm in the Territory of Hawaii.”

“What the hell,” I said, having a look at the document, signed by the chief of police. “I’m legal.”

He patted my shoulder. “I’ll be holed up here, mostly, working with George. Check in with me by phone and we’ll meet every day or so. Now, I want you to stay away from this hotel—I don’t want the reporters getting after you.” He dug in his pocket. “Here’s some expense money….”

I took the five tens he was offering, and said, “Whose idea was it, hiring me? Yours or Evalyn Walsh McLean’s?”

“Does it matter where a great notion first rears its head?”

“Don’t tell me
she’s
paying my expense money….”

He touched his caved-in chest with splayed fingers. “Now that injures me, it really does. You know I dote upon you—as if you were my own son!”

“Is having me around costing you
anything?”

“Certainly, Nate. That was my pocket you saw me reach into, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know whose money you dug out.”

His gray eyes were impish. “Why, your money, Nate. Your money, now.”

I grunted another laugh. “I’d put you under oath, but what difference would it make?”

“What do you mean?”

“What good’s it do, having an agnostic swear on a Bible?”

He was chuckling over that as he closed the door behind me.