Happy Policeman (19 page)

Anger pulled DeWitt the rest of the way from his seat. When he realized he was standing, he quickly sat down, avoiding Curtis’s questioning look. “That’s correct.”

Bo nodded. “And could you tell the court what you found?”

DeWitt cautiously relaxed. “Pornographic magazines. Women’s underclothes.”

The whispers in the courtroom became a babble. Curtis hammered the table so hard, he chipped it. He looked down at what he had done, as if he were a child whose careless play had broken something of his mother’s.

“From the evidence,” Bo said slowly, darting a meaningful glance at Hattie as though to forestall an objection, “could you tell if the underclothes had been used for cross-dressing or something else?”

“From the evidence, I’d say he was a fetishist.”

“In your professional opinion.”

“In my professional opinion, yes.”

“And in the house did you find a red bra with white hearts?”

DeWitt slowly opened his mouth. His lips felt gummy.

“Please answer the question.” Bo tapped the point of his pencil against the defense table, the measured beat of a dirge.

“Yes.”

“Whose bra was it? I remind you that you’re under oath.” DeWitt saw Bo turn to Janet.

“My wife’s,” DeWitt muttered into the dead silence of the courtroom.

“No more questions,” Bo said so abruptly that he caught Hattie on her feet, ready to object.

“Your witness.”

“No questions.”

Bo said, “I recall William James Harper.”

DeWitt’s legs were shaking. As he walked past Bo, he tried to catch his eye, but Bo was concentrating on the paper he held. The paper was blank.

“When did you come into the possession of the red-and-white bra, Mr. Harper?” Bo asked.

Billy was slumped in the witness chair. ““Bout six years ago, near as I can recall.”

“And how did you come into possession of it?”

Billy looked startled.

A bang, sudden as a gunshot. Foster had risen, his metal chair fallen behind him. “Stop it!”

Bo turned fearfully toward the jury box, as though he had heard footsteps in a nighttime alley.

“Bo! Don’t do this!” Foster’s hands were in fists. Tyler was trying to right the chair and pull him down into it at the same time.

“Bailiff, sit that jury member down!” Curtis commanded. “Order, goddamn it! Come to order!”

To DeWitt’s left was the sound of hurried movement. Janet was gathering coats. Head lowered, silken hair curtaining her face, she herded the kids from the room. It would happen. It would happen now. DeWitt had sent Bo into that basement, and he had come back with a knife.

A moan from Foster, “Oh, God, don’t do this.” Tyler and Granger wrestled him down, and Curtis graveled for quiet.

Bo watched Janet leave, his mouth in a razor line. He turned to Billy. “How’d you get the bra?”

“Found it.”

“Where?”

The courtroom was catacomb-silent.

“In the woods near the lake.”

DeWitt knew he should scream for Bo to stop, but it was too late. Arbitrary time was running too fast for him to catch it. Running as Janet had run from the hall.

“What was it doing there?”

“You sure you want me to tell this?” Billy searched Bo’s face for clues.

“Just answer the question.”

“Was with some other clothes.”

“Whose clothes?”

Billy motioned with his shoulder at the door through which Janet had just disappeared. “Miz Dawson’s clothes. She was naked.”

A curious frost started in DeWitt’s feet and spread through his body. There were rules he must follow: he would look straight ahead. Not at Foster. Not let his feelings show.

“Was she with anyone?”

Billy looked into Bo’s eyes. A pause, and he said, “She was with you.”

Odd how still and quiet it was, and how distant the witness stand suddenly seemed. Yet, miles away, Bo was pacing, Billy speaking. “You and her was down by the water. She was on top, as I recall. And—”

DeWitt’s world lurched. Assumptions toppled. He lunged to his feet. Bo turned, his face bathed in sunlight.

DeWitt hit him, drove him into the bench. The table upended, and Curtis fell with it. Blood sprayed from Bo’s mouth.

As Granger pulled him away, DeWitt heard the screams of spectators, his own inarticulate roar. Bo’s hands were cupped to his face, and blood streamed between his long fingers.

Granger lifted DeWitt under the arms and carried him from the ruins.

Chapter Forty-Two

DeWitt put his hand on the squad car’s door, leaned his head back, and looked at the sky until its cloudless depths made him dizzy, If he could reach high enough, his hand would plunge into that wet, cold blue. If he could fall upward, he would fall forever.

He opened the door, sat in the front seat, and put his hands on the wheel. In front of him was Bo’s motorcycle, a pale pebble caught in the tire’s treads. Bo’s driveway was white rock gravel. Why hadn’t he remembered that? Had the clues been there all the time?

A while later Hattie came around the stucco corner of the center and stood, watching. At last she approached and got in the squad car with him.

“We had the summation. Jury’s out,” she said.

If he could go high enough, he could swim out of Coomey. And on the other side of the Line, where the air was sweet, there would be a happy policeman.

“You okay?”

He clenched his hands on the wheel so hard that his knuckles stung.

“Bo used you in the summation. He said you proved what a good man, a law-abiding man, was capable of. What we’re all capable of. He was still bleeding pretty bad, and had to stop every once in a while, but I guess he made his point.”

Bo had used him the whole time, through the investigation. And before.
You have control, Wittie,
he had said, his blue eyes wide. But underneath the water’s surface tension, the deep swift current was Bo.

“After the jury went out, we talked, Bo and me,” Hattie said. “He told me he hadn’t wanted to make you testify, to bring up Janet, but the trial started to get away from him. Temporary insanity was the only defense he had. He said it was important that Billy got justice, that he had to get as good a defense as possible. He didn’t want to have Billy’s execution on his conscience.”

There must have been a lot on Bo’s conscience. Enough to make him realize that he had taken his night stick to DeWitt not in defense of the past but in a desperate struggle for the future. Enough jealousy—yes, enough of that—to make him plant the evidence in the squad car’s trunk.

“He’s going to lose,” Hattie said. “And nobody will ever forgive him. But he did a fine job. A damned fine job. You can move in with me until you decide what you want to do.” She put a hand on his arm.

He leaned against her, closed his eyes, and breathed her scent: a blend of perfume and horses. For an instant he felt the pull of the sky, and it seemed, to his delight, that he was floating.

Chapter Forty-Three

“Let’ s poll again.” Tyler rubbed his eyelids as if the stalemate had given him a headache. “An oral poll.”

Foster didn’t hesitate: “Guilty.”

“Guilty,” Irma Roberts whispered as she stared at her hands.

Gene Arbuster nodded, a hangman’s glower on his beefy face. “Guilty.”

Next in line, Jimmy Schoen shook his head. “We are all of us guilty of sin. The prosecution is an adulteress; the defense counsel an adulterer. The man who sits as judge grows illegal drugs behind his privacy fence.” He looked up into eleven pairs of angry eyes. “I have seen what each of you do in your solitude. God hears your clandestine thoughts. You are, each of you, guilty.”

Foster had been subdued since the end of the trial. Now, his voice had an uncharacteristic edge. “Get real, you fundamentalist prick.”

Irma Roberts, one of Pastor Jimmy’s own sheep, lifted a private hand to her mouth and tittered.

“Guilty or not guilty?” Tyler insisted.

“Guilty!” Arbuster shouted. “For Christ’s sake, admit that he’s guilty! I’m tired of sitting here on my ass with you as the single holdout!”

“God will damn you all,” Schoen said.

Foster laughed. And Jimmy Schoen, God’s prophet, last defender of the faith, pointed a finger at him. “You, Hubert Foster. Fornicator. Anarchist, and blasphemer. Admit to your sins.

Foster said, “Bo was my friend. And nobody but me understands what he did in there. What it cost.”

“It will cost him his soul. That’s what it will—”

“You know when Bo and I became friends? Do you, preacher?” There was something in Foster’s gaze: a sad victory. “It was two years ago. Your wife and I were in my Corvette when Bo found us. It’s no place for what we were doing. I thought he’d arrest us or something. He asked me to get out of the car. We talked. When I told him how things stood between me and Dee Dee, he said he understood. He offered us the use of his house.”

Schoen sat dumbstruck. Comprehension should have come easy. The words were simple, they were words he had used all his life. But somehow, spoken together, they made no sense.

“Dee Dee?” Gene Arbuster asked. “For Christ’s sake, Hubert. You’re screwing
Dee Dee Schoen?”

Foster ignored him. “Hey, preacher? You realize where Bo’s house is located? Surrounded by cedar trees. In a little dip in the hills. Just out of range of your damned telescope. You listening to me, Schoen? Don’t you get it yet? Bo offered me his house so you couldn’t spy on us like you did everybody else. I’m in love with Dee Dee. Have been for three years. From the first time I slept with her, I’ve been begging her to marry me. And after the revolt she says she’s had enough. She doesn’t feel sorry for you anymore. She’s at your house today, packing. She and the kids are moving in.”

Irma Roberts cooed, “That’s so sweet.” Then she caught Tyler’s shocked look. “Well, of course it’s
wrong.
But still . . .”

Schoen knew he should speak, or reach out and smite Foster the way DeWitt had smitten Bo. But he sat, frozen by surprise.

“Well.” Tyler recovered quickly. “Judy? Guilty or not guilty?” He skipped Schoen as though the preacher were a bit of shame hidden behind a fence.

“Dee Dee
Schoen?”
she said.

Chapter Forty-Four

Hattie said, “Jury must be back.”

DeWitt lifted his head. Hattie’s son Marvin was staring at them from the corner.

“I can’t go in there,” he said.

Hattie climbed out of the car, pulled DeWitt from his seat. “You have to.”

They walked in together. People looked at him, then quickly looked away. When DeWitt sat, Bo turned around once, but went back to his papers. His cheek was purple, his eye nearly swollen shut.

Curtis walked in and asked Tyler, “Have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

Granger took the piece of paper Tyler offered and walked it to Curtis. Curtis read for what seemed a long time, his thumb and finger worrying the page.

“Will the defendant please rise?”

Bo got to his feet, and Billy stood with him.

“William James Harper,” Curtis said with extraordinary gravity, “the court finds you, in the murder of Loretta Jean Harper, guilty in the second degree.” He looked down at the sheet again. “In the matter of William James Harper, Junior, the court finds you guilty of murder in the first degree. In the matter of Jason Eddings Harper, the court finds you guilty of murder in the first degree.”

Curtis set the paper on the desk and put his hands over it, as though to prevent its escape. He turned to the jury. “And the sentence?”

Tyler shook his head.
“You’re
supposed to give the sentence.”

“No, goddamn it, that’s your job.”

“Nobody told us—”

Curtis’s voice shrilled. “You get back in that jury room and don’t come out until you have a sentence for me to read. Shit!” he shouted into the quiet. “Do I have to do everything for you people?”

When Tyler hesitated, Curtis snapped, “Bailiff, take the jury into the other room and don’t let them out until they’ve come up with a sentence.” With a clang of his folding chair, he got to his feet and hurried into a doorway to the left. Granger led the jury away.

Granger came over, asked Billy to rise, and handcuffed his hands behind him. Bo and Billy sat.

Granger disappeared into the jury room. Soon he emerged and walked across to the makeshift judge’s chambers. Then Curtis came out, his eyes heavy-lidded from marijuana.

The jury filed in. Tyler handed a folded slip of paper to Granger. Granger accepted it like a thing stamped FRAGILE, and delivered it to Curtis.

“Will the defendant please rise?”

Bo and Billy rose together, as though both had been found guilty of murder.

“Do you have anything to say before sentence is passed?”

“I do,” Bo said. “May I?”

Curtis nodded.

“What we’re doing here is wrong.” Through his split lip, Bo’s voice was muddy. “We should have had a competency hearing. I should have asked for a change of venue before jury selection, but I didn’t get the chance. You didn’t ask if there were any pretrial motions.”

A stony calm settled on Curtis. He sat back in his chair.

“Billy should have been tried for one murder at a time, but everybody wanted it over with quick. Now that the verdict’s in and the sentence is about to be read, there’s no higher court to appeal to, and for justice to be served, we need that option. Just because people call you Your Honor doesn’t mean you have any. Damn it, Curtis, you’re no criminal court judge.”

Curtis brought his eyes down to the folded bit of paper. He sucked in his bottom lip.

“And God help us,” Bo said, “I’m no defense counsel.”

At the back of the courtroom a child started crying, “Ma-ma-ma.” A crooning
sh-h-h-h
from the mother.

Bo waited until mother and child were quiet, then said, “When the sentence is carried out, we’ll all be guilty of murder.” He sat down.

Curtis asked, “Is that it?”

“Read the goddamned sentence.”

“Death,” Curtis said without consulting the paper.

Chapter Forty-Five

Following Granger’s order to leave, most of the spectators went home—reluctantly, looking over their shoulders. Seresen stayed with the small group of principals, and Curtis tried to get him to take Billy. “You keep the man,” Seresen said and walked away.

Curtis followed on the Kol’s heels, a large dog after a small child. “We’ll have to kill him, and we don’t really want to do that.”

At the defense table Billy sat handcuffed, watching the scene so calmly that DeWitt wondered if Bo had slipped his client a joint. A few feet away, Bo sat in a bubble of solitude, staring into space.

“Acts are unimportant,” Seresen said.

“Well, okay,” Curtis said. “Forget what the sentence was. Just take him, hide him someplace and tell us you done killed him. Fly him into space or something.’

“The policeman will explain.” Seresen gestured at DeWitt. DeWitt shook his head.

Curtis’s voice broke. “Then at least give us the guns back. We’ll shoot him.”

Seresen sat next to Bo. “Guns make you think of violence. I don’t like guns.”

“Okay, all right, if that’s the way you want it. Doc, get the injection ready.”

Doc’s arms unhinged and fell to his sides. “No.”

“Death by injection. That’s state law.”

“I don’t give a shit about state law. I never killed nothing in my life, Curtis. Don’t even go hunting. I ain’t going to be no executioner for you.”

“It’s for him!” Curtis pointed at the expressionless, motionless Billy. “Don’t you understand? I want somebody who knows what they’re doing, so it don’t get all fucked up! It’d be horrible if it was fucked up!”

Doc stalked angrily out of the room.

They waited. Bo cradled his bruised cheek. Seresen, hands in his lap, swung his short legs back and forth like a kid in church. Billy looked at the wall.

A few minutes later Doc was back, carrying his bag. Bo saw and slowly got to his feet.

“Let’s take him to the judge’s chambers,” Doc said.

Granger pulled Billy upright. The condemned man’s face, under the fluorescent lights, was a ghastly gray. “Come on, son,” Granger said.

Billy put his foot out as though he wanted to comply, but the knees seemed to go soft on him.

A low voice from the doorway: “I have come to pray with the prisoner.” Pastor Jimmy was standing among the rows of folding chairs, a Bible in his hands. “He needs to make his peace.”

“Get out! You don’t have any right to be here! You don’t have any goddamned right!” Doc grabbed the condemned man’s other arm and, expression furious, pivoted, forcing Billy and Granger with him into the chambers. After a hesitation, the others followed. As DeWitt left the courtroom, he saw in Pastor Jimmy’s eyes such a pathetic confusion that it made his throat constrict.

In the small chambers it was standing room only. Doc looked around distractedly. “Need a glass of water or a Coke or something.”

Seresen left. He came back with a can of Diet 7-Up. Doc pulled a bottle of pills from his bag and shook some out into his palm. The pills were tiny and white, like saccharin tablets.

“Atropine. Take them all at once. It’ll be quick, understand, son? There won’t be much time to think about it.”

Doc upended his palm and spilled the tablets with a dull rattle onto the polished wood. Granger unlocked the cuffs, and everyone but Billy quit the room.

The courtroom was empty, Pastor Jimmy gone. Bo took a seat on a folding chair and looked at his hands.

“Clouding up out there,” Doc said.

Granger regarded the doctor with amazement, as though he had just heard a potted plant speak. Doc checked his watch, took a quick, shallow breath, and looked out the window.

“Another norther. One right after the other.” Doc almost turned to look at the closed door but caught himself in time.

Granger said in a hollow voice, “Lot of snow this year. Strange weather.”

Doc looked at his watch again, ran unsteady fingers through his beard, and went and opened the door.

DeWitt pushed through the small crowd frozen at the jamb. Under the glare of the lights Billy sat, the can of 7-Up and the pile of tablets untouched.

Curtis squeezed his eyes closed, as if struck by a toothache. “Get a rope,” he said.