Double Jeopardy (12 page)

The jury went out on September the second. They remained locked up for five and a half hours. During this time, I was taken back to my cell where my lawyer, Mr. Bristol, gave me a good talking to.

“You see,” he ranted. “What did I tell you? When the District Attorney asked you if you killed her, you should have denied it!”

“But how do I know I didn't?” I asked him.

“How do you know you did?” he countered sourly. “It's a good thing that they're not entitled to convict without establishing the body... or you'd be sunk!”

I looked up into Bristol's face anxiously. “Can't they do anything to me?”

The lawyer pulled at the roots of his hair and rolled his eyes upward in despair. “Don't be an ass, Thatcher! Anything can happen if the jury wants it to. If they take a fancy to you or believe that you're innocent; the State can produce a hundred bodies, your signed and notarized confession, even a picture of you committing the crime! You'd still be acquitted!” He began to pace the floor distractedly. I really believe that he was more nervous about the verdict than I was.

This might be a good time to mention how I happened to engage Mr. Bristol to handle my defense. He came to me, highly recommended by my old friend Mrs. Michaelson, who was taking a great interest in the case. Knowing very well that I had never had any large amount of ready cash, she informed me that Bristol would be willing to represent me without a retainer. I gratefully clutched at this opportunity, you may be sure; and I at once engaged him. However, Mrs. Michaelson's information proved quite inaccurate. Before the trial came up on the calendar of Judge Foley, Counsellor Bristol was in possession not only of four hundred dollars of my money, but of the deed to my home as well.

I did not begrudge him this. First of all, I knew that with Anita gone, I could never bring myself to enter that house again. Under its roof brooded a secret which I might never be able to uncover. Every nook and cranny of the place would taunt me. If I tried to live there in the future, I would most certainly go mad. In the event that I was exonerated of the charges against me, I was only too keenly aware that my life could not continue without some radical change of course. Ithaca would never accept me again; there were bound to be people who would think me guilty; and my business was sure to suffer commensurate losses. Then, too, I would be faced with memories there: persons who had known her, walls which had once enclosed her, shops she had been accustomed to patronize.

It was of no use, you see. Anita's passing carried me along as though in an unbreakable death hold; and so bewildered was I, that I was almost wishing that I would not be acquitted. I would be at a loss what to do.

Of course the people from my home town were all very nice to me. Mrs. Michaelson and Doctor Turnbull and several others came down to see me, bringing little gifts of candy and cigarettes, and trying their utmost to cheer me up. But these few were really the only friends I had. To most of Ithaca's inhabitants, I was merely a familiar face, an inanimate object that fetched what they demanded, like a retriever.

The newspapers did not make much of the case. On the evening of August 21st, the day of my arrest, a short column was all that appeared in the New York City sheets. The local paper, of course, came out with banner headlines which read: DRUGGIST HELD FOR HOMICIDE. In the sub-headings, and there were fully four of them, came the usual journalistic hyperboles, and reading about myself and my affairs was quite puzzling. Yes, indeed. To my amazement, I was described as prosperous, handsome and popular! My little house and unpretentious grounds were declared an estate! In fact, the only thing that the papers did not grossly exaggerate and distort out of all proportion was Anita's loveliness. “The body of beautiful Anita Thatcher has not as yet been recovered,” the
Journal-News
announced, “but the police are confident that within twenty-four hours... etc., etc....”

While my mind wandered back over the events that had transpired since my sudden arrest, my lawyer continued to pace up and down, striking his hands together frequently and muttering under his breath. “Yes,” he would reiterate, as though to convince himself, “they're not entitled to convict you without a
corpus delicti.
How can there possibly be a conviction for murder without proof that someone died?” He came to a halt in front of me and looked down at me as I lay full-length upon the cot. I could see that his eyes were troubled. “The worst they could do would be to find you guilty of manslaughter. They haven't established the weapon; neither have they proved premeditation. But juries are funny,” he went on, shaking his head dubiously from side to side. “They do what they want.”

“Oh,” I murmured, although I could not understand why that should be permitted. It did not seem quite right that humans should judge humans and wield the power of life and death which, according to the theologians, should be vested solely in Divinity.

“Blackman scored a good point,” glumly admitted my attorney, “when he demanded to know the whereabouts of your wife. I'd give a thousand dollars to know that! Look, Thatcher, can't you try and think....”

I sighed wearily. He had asked me the same thing at least ten times before. “It's no use. I've tried, Mr. Bristol. There was absolutely no reason for her to disappear. Besides... how about that blood?”

Bristol grunted his disappointment. “Yes, that's right. I keep forgetting. Oh, no doubt she's dead all right. But who killed her? You didn't.”

“No?” I asked earnestly.

“I give up! You're impossible, man! How in hell can I defend you if you talk like that?” The lawyer strode angrily to the cell door and shouted for the turnkey to let him out.

“Are you going up?” I asked disinterestedly. The way I was feeling then, I didn't care what he did.

“I suppose so,” was the vexed reply. “The jury can't stay out much longer. There's a rumor circulating in the court that they stand eight to four for acquittal. But you know how those things are. Only God and the jury can verify it.”

When the cell door had clanged shut behind him and his footsteps had died away in the distance, I got up from the cot and began to pace a bit myself. I felt utterly miserable. Anita's face kept coming back to haunt me. Although I could not be certain that I was guilty, I felt like a murderer. I felt like one of those ugly newspaper portraits plastered under, above and between the lurid headlines I had so often read during the quiet evenings in my garden. I began to think that I
must
have killed her. For I had taken a life once before, if you remember. Was it not logical to suppose that I had plunged the carving-knife into Anita just as I had done to the German boy a year before?

But why?

Why indeed! Must there be a reason for everything, I asked myself. If I had worn my uniform would I have been legally entitled to kill Anita? If the knife had not been a carving-knife, but a trench-knife or a bayonet stamped: PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, would I now be freed? Would Carter have nodded his head and the Sarge patted me on the back?

These hysterical thoughts, these unanswerable questions, these incoherent emanations of a tortured brain kept me occupied while I waited for twelve strange men to decide my fate.

But, unbelievable as it sounds, I was not so much interested in the verdict—;which might even mean my execution—;as I was in finding out whether or not I had been instrumental in bringing about my beloved wife's end. That she was dead, I had no doubt. But was I her murderer?

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. They approached and stopped before my cell. “Come on, Thatcher,” I heard the turnkey say. “The jury's come in.” When, at last, he had delivered me into the custody of two tall deputies, he added: “Good luck, buddy. And whatever it is, take it standing up.”

“Gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

“Please read it.”

The sound of a throat being cleared reached my ears through a peculiar ringing noise I was unable to catalogue. The courtroom began to spin before me and only a vague impression of strange faces and dark wooden benches remains even now.

“We the jury, find the Defendant, Peter Thatcher...”

I took it standing up.

PRISON! I spent eighteen years of my life there. Only it wasn't life, nor even an existence. Without exaggeration, I think that I can justly call it hell. For while my physical body was hammering away at unyielding bars and at the bare walls which held me captive, my mind bruised as it battered itself upon its own uncertainty. By this, I do not mean to corroborate the press statements which suggest that I possess “the warped mind of a killer.” I know that I am not insane; but the mark of those years can never be erased.

Unfortunately, there is no way I can find to adequately describe my suffering. But then I am reasonably certain that even the great Russian masters of tragedy—;Tolstoi, Maxim Gorki, Dostoievski—;would be quick to perceive the emptiness of their words in the telling of my story and would probably throw down their pens in despair. So I will say again that it was simply hell... the hell of living with my own self and hating it; and tormenting myself with hopelessly unsolvable problems. Even the war that I had managed to survive, with its ever-present threat of pain or death, cannot be compared to the eighteen years I was imprisoned. And that, you will admit, coming from me, is saying something!

By far my favorite book since I first stumbled upon it at the age of twelve or thirteen in my father's library, is Dumas' masterpiece,
The Count of Monte Cristo.
I have read it through many, many times and have never grown tired of it. Even during my term at Sing Sing, I took it out of the prison library at least four or five different times. My cellmates, Bernie Dunbar and “Cupid” Moran, commented upon this. “Say, Pete, ain't that the one you had out last year?” I admitted that it was and persuaded Bernie to read it. “Cupid,” after I had given him a brief synopsis of the plot, disgustedly refused to “waste his time with such crap.” This rather surprised me. I remembered that “Cupid” was in for life. However, he assured me in no uncertain terms that the Chateau d'lf was no worse than some of the “cans” he had been in; that Dantes was a fool for not having hired a smart “mouthpiece" who might have been able to “spring him on a writ”; and that he had never heard of anyone getting by with “a gag like playing dead.” But Bernie liked the book very much.

And while my hair did not turn gray and I grew no long beard and I did not spend all of my leisure hours plotting an escape, I feel that I had very much in common with Edmond Dantes. Both of us had left a woman on the outside; both of us had been in love. I think, though —;and in all fairness to Dumas' hero—;that I suffered the more; for his girl still lived while mine was dead. Moreover, Dantes was not an alleged slayer.

How often did I thump my forehead and try to jar from it some seemingly unimportant fact which might establish either my innocence or my guilt! It would not have made much difference if a jury believed... just as long as I did.

I had better explain why, since my sentence only called for a maximum of fifteen years, I served three in addition. These were imposed upon me for my part in a scheme to break out. Although I feverishly desired freedom—;if for no other reason but to find out whether or not I had really killed Anita—;I had no desire to brave the inevitable peril of getting shot. Besides, the plan as it was explained to me by Paul Comstock and “Cupid,” seemed utterly foolhardy and impossible. But “Cupid” threatened to “push my face in” if I refused to do what he asked and, remembering that this cellmate of mine had been a prominent gunman in underworld circles, I reluctantly agreed to help out.

It happened that Bernie Dunbar was nearing the end of his stretch. On December 18th—;I think it was in the year 1926—;he was scheduled to be released. The plan was that he should purchase a speedboat, with funds “Cupid's” mother would provide, and station himself as close to the prison as possible during the week immediately following Christmas. The theory that the guards were paying little attention to the river during the cold weather seemed to assure them of an easy escape. It would prove a cold swim, but the two were determined to take a chance.

I never found out just how they planned to get out of the prison and down to the river. It seemed unfeasible, what with all the high walls, the flood-lights and the guard-towers; and I guess they didn't trust me enough to tell. When I asked “Cupid,” he merely winked significantly and announced that “five hundred berries goes a long way.” Hence, long having been a bookworm, I imagined stealthy slinking in the shadows of the walls, wholesale slaughter of guards with smuggled pistols equipped with silencers, and lightning, one-minute changes into prison official's uniforms.

I was not to take part in the actual escape—; for which I was inwardly thankful. My reward was to be a crafty underworld lawyer who would appeal my case gratis or pull some mysterious political strings with the Parole Board. In either case, they told me, I could not fail “to be out in no time.” It occurred to me that if this was so, it was curious that Bernie, “Cupid” and Paul were in prison at all. But I was shrewd enough to keep my mouth shut. Except for Bernie—; who, by the way, never purchased the boat—; they are in prison yet.

However, since I was needed in the scheme, I had no choice in the matter. At a given hour, I was to faint or otherwise act very ill. If necessary, I was to thrust a finger down my throat so that I would vomit. When the guards came to remove me to the infirmary, the machine of escape was to be put into action.

“You don't need to worry none,” “Cupid” laughed when I expressed the fear that there would be shooting in the cell. “Them guards what are coming are O.K. They're wise and they'll take the count like a gymnasium cowboy with a ten-spot in his glove. Just do like we told you and it'll be as smooth as silk. Yeah. Smooth as silk.”

Well, it went smooth as silk. The night arrived and I played sick and the guards came and “Cupid” tried to slug them. Two minutes later “Cupid” was removed to the prison infirmary instead of me. I was placed in solitary confinement and, since the one guard “Cupid” had managed to hit suffered a slight concussion, I was made to serve three additional years. Paul Comstock, whom “Cupid” was to have released after dispensing with the guards, was never discovered to be a part of the plot. This seemed to me to be rather unfair. I drew the conclusion that Justice was not alone blind, but stupid as well.