The Sign of the Book Page 3

We sized each other up again. I said, “Look, I really didn’t come down here to cause trouble. All I want to do is to see Mrs. Marshall and her lawyer for a few minutes.”

  “Well, you can’t,” he said smugly. “They’re meeting upstairs now, so I guess you’ll have to wait till after her hearing.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Walsh, sir,” I said, and I got back in my car.

  I drove out of the lot and two minutes later Walsh eased in behind me and turned on his flashing red lights. I pulled over and again he came to my window. I cracked the window and he leaned over and looked at me.

  “May I see your driver’s license, sir?”

  This was said deadpan, as if we had never seen each other before that moment. I fished out my wallet and took the license out of its plastic sleeve. Walsh walked away and got in his car. In my mirror I could see him talking on his radio. This went on for some time, longer than it had to: then he broke out his clipboard and began writing. A ticket… the son of a bitch was giving me a ticket for something, I couldn’t imagine what. I simmered while he wrote out the equivalent of the Magna Carta on his clipboard. I may have fallen asleep waiting, but eventually he got out and ambled back to me.

  “Sir, the reason I stopped you was your failure to observe the four-way stop sign at the intersection you just went through.”

  “I did stop, Officer.”

  “Well, sir, that may have seemed like a stop to you, but out here the word stop means you come to a complete stop and look both ways before proceeding across the intersection. This is a family community and schoolchildren use that crossing all the time. I don’t want to see stops like that in my town.”

  He tore off the ticket and passed it through the window. “Have a nice day, sir.”

  I knew better than to argue with a cop like that. I had done my arguing in the parking lot and this was what it got me. I was on his turf—argue now and failure to stop could easily become careless or even reckless driving, with no witnesses to take my side of it. I had two choices, neither of them happy: shut up and pay my fine, take my three-point violation and lump it, or protest the tactics of Deputy Walsh in some local kangaroo court where the judge might be no better than the law enforcement. A bigger question had suddenly become Walsh’s connection to Laura Marshall. That’s when he’d first gotten his back up, when I had mentioned her name. He pulled around me and drove off and I sat there for another long moment, thinking about it.

  4

  At one-fifteen sharp I arrived at the county courtroom. I knew, because of the remoteness of the county, that District Judge Harold Adamson probably didn’t live here, and in fact his judicial district might sprawl across half a dozen counties. In some of the smallest counties, the county court judge might not even be a lawyer: he could be an ex-cop, a highway patrolman, a businessman, or any respected member of the community. Not surprisingly, the DA had filed this case directly in the district court and Adamson had had jurisdiction from the start. The sheriff would be a county officer based in Paradise. Lennie Walsh, the deputy, might live here or in one of the smaller towns and would be a roving badge, patrolling wherever he was needed or saw fit. These were the characters as the hearing began.

  The room was crowded for a workday: lots of interest was being shown in the plight of a good-looking young woman charged with killing her husband. They probably got just one murder case each century down here, and a sexy one like this had filled the seats early. I sat near the door, best seat I could get, surrounded by gawkers and the endlessly curious. At one-thirty a door opened to the far right of the bench and Deputy Walsh escorted Laura Marshall into the courtroom. She wore the plain orange jailhouse garb and kept her eyes straight ahead as she came in. Her hands were uncuffed, as if at some point someone had decided that she was not a high risk to grab the deputy’s gun and start blazing away. I thought she looked good under the circumstances. Walsh looked like Walsh—see Janeway’s Prick by Any Other Name rule. They were met at the defendant’s table by an old man with white hair who was well decked-out in a three-piece suit, and Walsh turned Mrs. Marshall over to him. At the opposite table two attorneypeople were locked in earnest conversation. One was a young woman whose looks rivaled the accused’s—a surprise to find someone such as she in a small county like this—and the other was a man in his midforties. A shark, I guessed from the look of him.

  Almost before I had registered these impressions, the door behind the bench opened and the judge came in. He was on the upper end of the age scale, a stern-looking geezer with a beak like a hawk. His bailiff did the Hear ye honors, announcing that District Judge Harold Adamson was presiding, and we all sat down.

  “The People versus Laura Marshall,” the judge announced. “The parties will enter their appearances for the record. Mr. McNamara?”

  The old man rose at the defense table. “Parley S. McNamara for the defendant, Laura Marshall, who is also present. I would also state for the record that my client has contacted another attorney, and—”

  “What are you talking about? Are you the lawyer for the defendant or not?”

  “I am her attorney, sir, but—”

  “But nothing. If you want to bring in someone else at a later time, file a motion and I’ll consider it. But as of now, you are her lawyer. Is that clear?”

  “As the court knows, criminal law is not my specialty.”

  “Then why did the defendant engage you? We do have one or two attorneys in this district who have some experience in criminal law.”

  “Mrs. Marshall wanted someone she knows—”

  “Never mind that, you still haven’t answered my first question. Do you understand that as of this moment, and until you are relieved by me, you are the attorney of record for Mrs. Marshall?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Mrs. Marshall, under the circumstances I must ask you the same question. Do you understand what we just said?”

  She looked up at the judge and nodded.

  “Speak up for the record, Mrs. Marshall. That man over there is a court reporter: he can’t record gestures or nods of the head. You have to answer so he can hear you. Now, do you understand that Mr. McNamara is your attorney until he’s relieved, and I don’t care whether criminal law is his specialty. He has been a lawyer in this county for many years and I know him to be highly competent. I will not tolerate unnecessary delays in the speedy dispatch of this case. Have I made myself clear?”

  The sound of her name had brought the defendant’s head up, and she said something so softly the reporter had to ask her to repeat it.

  “Mrs. Marshall,” the judge said with exaggerated patience, “do you understand what we’ve just said here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Mr. McNamara, your appearance is noted. For the people?”

  The two lawyers stood at the other table.

  “Leonard Gill, district attorney, Your Honor.”

  “Ann Bailey, assistant district attorney, if it please the court.”

  “Then let’s get started.”

  The judge read the information, and said that the defendant had been advised of her rights and had requested a preliminary hearing. He said the people had the burden of proving that the crime of first-degree murder had been committed and there was probable cause to believe that the defendant had committed it. Gill took his seat and the judge said, “Are you ready to proceed, Miss Bailey?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Then call your first witness.”

  She moved out to the lectern. “Deputy Lennie Walsh.”

  Walsh testified that on Monday at 3:09 P.M. he had been dispatched to the Marshall home on a code red, a reported shooting.

  “When you arrived at the house, what did you find?”

  “The front door was open.”

  “You mean wide open?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And it was raining, which made it—”

  “Just tell us what you saw, please.”

  “I went to the door and banged on it.”
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br />   “You didn’t cross the threshold?”

  “No, not then. I knocked loudly and called inside.”

  “Did you identify yourself at that time?”

  “Oh, yes. I yelled my name and said I was from the sheriff’s office.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing for a minute. I yelled again and rapped on the door with the butt of my gun—”

  “You had your gun out?”

  “Well, yeah. I didn’t know what was in there.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing. I had a real bad feeling about it, so I went into the hall. In the front room I could see somebody slumped over the table. I came closer and I saw that it was Mrs. Marshall.”

  “The defendant.”

  “Yes.”

  “What was her appearance then?”

  “She was dazed, like she didn’t—”

  “How did she look, Deputy?”

  “She was all bloody. I mean, she had blood everywhere. Her dress was torn, just drenched in blood.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “Yes, ma’am. She said, ‘I shot Bobby.’”

  “Just like that.”

  “Yes, ma’am, just like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “I came on into the room and saw the victim on the floor.”

  “Did you then advise the defendant?”

  “I didn’t have time. All this happened in, like, twenty seconds. What she said she just looked up and said.”

  McNamara stirred in his chair. “Your Honor…”

  The judge furrowed his brow and said, “All right, this isn’t the trial, let’s hear it.”

  “She said, ‘Bobby’s dead, I shot Bobby.’ Then she leaned over and fainted.”

  A look of skepticism spread over Miss Bailey’s face. “I see. She fainted. And what did you do?”

  “Went over and examined the victim.”

  “Describe his condition, please.”

  “He didn’t have any condition. Had his face blown half away and another one in the area of the heart. I checked his pulse, and found none.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I found the weapon and bagged it.”

  McNamara rose from his chair. “We don’t know what weapon he found.”

  “He found a weapon, then,” Miss Bailey said.

  “Now the prosecutor is giving testimony,” McNamara said.

  “What kind of weapon was it and where did you find it?” Miss Bailey said.

  “A .38 revolver, on the floor by the table.”

  “Your Honor,” McNamara said. “May I please get a word in edgewise?”

  “Slow down, Miss Bailey,” the judge said.

  “Sorry, Your Honor.” She looked at McNamara. “You have an objection, Counselor?”

  “I could give you a whole laundry list of objections. You assume facts not in evidence, his answer is vague and unclear, we don’t know what gun he found, whose it might have been or how it got there—”

  “Sustained, sustained,” the judge said impatiently. “Let’s try to get things in their proper sequence.”

  Miss Bailey nodded crisply. “So you found a gun on the floor, correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s when I tried to advise Mrs. Marshall of her rights but she was still pretty much out of it. I tried several times. Then I went outside and called the coroner. I secured the scene as best I could, got Mrs. Marshall up, and put her under arrest.”

  For a moment it seemed there might be more. The two prosecutors looked at each other and Gill shook his head. “Your witness,” Miss Bailey said.

  McNamara rose slowly and came across the room.

  “Deputy Walsh. When you went into the house, did you take any photographs?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Isn’t that standard procedure? Don’t you have a camera in your car?”

  “Sure, most of the time. It got broke last month.”

  “Well, is that the only camera in the entire Sheriff’s Department?”

  “There’s one in the sheriff’s car.”

  “So you’ve been without a camera now for a whole month.”

  “Three weeks is closer to it. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed, or put in for a new one.”

  “Do you still have that camera, Deputy Walsh?”

  “It’s at home.”

  “How’d it get broken?”

  “I knocked it out of the car one night. It fell on the pavement and got smashed.”

  Miss Bailey rose from her chair. “What difference does that make now?”

  “If he’d had it, we’d have more than his word about the scene.”

  “But he didn’t have it. We do, however, have some excellent pictures, which you can see when we call the coroner.”

  “Not exactly the same, though, is it?” McNamara said. He turned again to the witness. “Did you conduct any gunshot-residue tests on Mrs. Marshall’s hands?”

  Walsh looked away for just an instant. Then he looked back at McNamara and said, “Sure I did.”

  “Where were these tests conducted?”

  “Down at the jail.”

  “And what did you do with them?”

  “Sent ’em over to Montrose, along with her dress and the gun.”

  “Montrose meaning the CBI lab in that town, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that’s where they conducted the gunshot-residue tests. Were you told the results of those tests?”

  Walsh looked at Miss Bailey, who said nothing.

  “Deputy?”

  “I was told they were inconclusive.”

  “Inconclusive. Meaning it couldn’t be shown that Mrs. Marshall had fired a gun.”

  “She had washed her hands. She had blood all over them and she scrubbed ’em almost red at the kitchen sink.”

  “Were you there when she did this? You seem to know a lot about what she did.”

  “I asked her. You know, how her hands—”

  “When did you ask her that?”

  “This was after. After I read her her rights.”

  “So she had been almost incoherent, and then suddenly she upped and described in detail how she had scrubbed the blood off her hands. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I didn’t say in detail. She told me she’d washed her hands. I could see from the condition of ’em—”

  “That’s fine, Deputy.” McNamara came around the table and leaned over it, spreading his hands on the edge. “What was Mrs. Marshall’s condition when you first saw her?”

  “Well, like I said, she was almost incoherent, in shock…”

  “Which would be understandable, wouldn’t it, under the circumstances? How about her clothes? Was she wet? Dry?”

  “Her dress was damp, as if—”

  “Don’t guess what she was doing, please, just tell what you saw.”

  “I’d say damp.”

  “But you don’t know for sure.”

  “Well, if you’d let me finish my answer… I didn’t exactly take her temperature, I had a dead man on the floor, but she looked to be in some kind of deep sweat.”

  “Or had been outside. You’ve already testified about the weather, that it was raining, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where were Mrs. Marshall’s children when all this happened?”

  “When I got there they were asleep in one of the bedrooms.”

  “They had slept right on through this, is that what you’re saying?”

  “They were taking a nap when I arrived, that’s all I know.”

  “Did you question them at all about what had happened?”

  “No, sir. The oldest one, you know, he can’t talk. And the other two… I didn’t want to disturb them, they’re so young. At that point I had Mrs. Marshall’s statement that she had shot her husband, so why upset the kids?”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “Got ’em back to town and called S
ocial Services. Standard procedure. They have a family in Paradise who took ’em in till they made other arrangements.”

  “Which were what?”

  “My understanding is that the grandparents came out a few days later to take care of them.”

  “The deceased’s parents.”

  “Yes. They’ve rented a place out on Waters Road.”

  McNamara cleared his throat and asked his next question almost reluctantly, I thought. “When did you call the coroner, Deputy?”

  “As soon as I had secured the scene and made sure there was no further danger.”

  “Which was approximately how long after you got to the house?”

  “No more than a few minutes. Ten minutes at the outside.”

  “Where’d you make this call?”

  “On my car radio.”

  “You didn’t use the phone in the house?”

  “No way. I didn’t want to touch things in there.”

  “And the coroner’s office has a radio that’s monitored constantly, is that right?”

  “I can’t say about that.”

  “Did you ever get through to him?”

  “No, sir.”

  It turned out that the county had never had a full-time coroner—a local undertaker named Lew Tatters had served in that capacity for forty years—and aside from the occasional auto accident and a few deaths by natural causes, he had had little to do. He had arrived about three hours later, Walsh said, had taken photographs and examined the body. McNamara looked over at an old man sitting behind the prosecution table and I thought I saw a look of regret pass between them. They knew each other well, that’s how I read it; they might even be old fishing buddies, and now McNamara had to put his friend in a hot seat.

  “Isn’t the coroner supposed to be on call around the clock?”

  “Yes, sir. Somebody’s supposed to know where he is.”

  “But nobody did.”

  “His wife said she could find him.”

  “But that took a while.”

  “About three hours, like I said.”

  “You don’t know exactly?”

  “Not exactly, no. I didn’t make a note of when he came.”

  “And what did you do with the defendant all that time?”

  “Took her down to the jail.”

  “You left the scene unattended and took her down to the jail.”