“My guess is that he was afraid and that’s why he took off,” he says casually, “but that’s not why I don’t consider him a suspect.”
“Well, tell the jury why not,” I say sarcastically, not remembering anything in his notes or files that would make me afraid to ask this question.
“Well, you see, Mr. Page, Jorge Arrazola was left-handed,” Bonner says, “and you heard what Dr. Miller testified about the knife wound.”
What in the hell have I been doing the last three months? I’ve been so busy trying to get Paul I’ve gone brain-dead.
“You’re saying it’s not possible he used his right hand?” I bluster, trying to pretend I’ve known this fact all along.
“That’s a question,” his voice dry, “you might want to ask Dr. Miller.”
I could move to strike his answer as being unresponsive, but I don’t want to hear his new one, nor do I want to recall Dr. Miller. I can feel my cheeks burning.
“Your conclusion,” I ask hurriedly, “that there were no other suspects depends, in part, on the truthfulness or correctness of answers given to you by individuals who claim to vouch for the whereabouts of the other plant workers, isn’t that so?”
Bonner has to answer that it does, and hopefully it appears that I am preparing the jury for some gigantic revelation down the line, but, in fact, I have nothing to present later but a few minor and irrelevant inconsistencies, if I choose.
I get Bonner to admit that he cannot offer any direct evidence of a cash payment or a promise of any kind from Paul Taylor to Class. Given the other evidence in the case, this hardly seems to matter, but it is all I have. Butterfield will argue that Class could have been hired by Paul or someone else.
Before I sit down, I decide to test the waters, and ask about Mrs. Ting.
“Though Doris Ting discovered her husband’s body,” I say, “you quickly eliminated her as a suspect, didn’t you?”
Bonner says that for a number of reasons he doesn’t consider the victim’s wife a possibility and tells the jury that her frail condition, her reaction (she was in shock and had to be sedated), and the lack of any physical evidence tying her to the murder ruled her out.
In a few minutes I sit down by Class and watch Dick get to his feet and walk to the podium. I hope Class doesn’t lean over and ask me if I am getting paid by Butterfield to help him. This is one of the most humiliating moments of my career as a lawyer. Any more of this, and I’ll need to go back to social work.
Dick goes after Bonner hard and gets him to admit how little evidence other than the tape the prosecution has against Paul. Bonner is so candid that I begin to suspect he wants the jury to understand that had he been the prosecutor, he wouldn’t have charged Paul unless he had gotten Class to make a deal first. Doubtless, like anyone else, Bonner resents being hung out to dry, and I wish I had been a fly on the wall in his office once it became apparent to him Class wasn’t going to implicate Paul. I watch Paul’s face as Dick cross-examines Bonner, and wonder again if, despite everything, he is responsible for this murder.
Angela’s comment that first day I stopped by her house that Paul could be “ruthless” has stayed with me. In spite of the fact that he isn’t as bad as I wanted to make him out to be, I don’t trust him and never will.
Though there is no need to put Doris Ting on the stand, Butterfield does it anyway. She looks older than the last time I saw her as she hobbles into the witness chair, and I wonder if Connie even bothered to ask her to try to remember something that would help us. She begins to sob as soon as Butterfield asks her to identify herself for the record, and the
loss that she has suffered, if it hasn’t before, comes home to the jury. Pausing repeatedly during her testimony to wipe her face with a fistful of tissue, she describes how unusual it was for her husband not to call her or not to answer the phone on Darla’s afternoon to volunteer at the school. I look back at Tommy and Connie at the back of the courtroom. Connie has hidden her face in her hands as her mother testifies.
For the first time since I’ve been involved in this case, it seems to be about a man’s death, and not my own ego. I look over my shoulder again and see Tommy put his arm around his sister.
Mercifully, Butterfield lets Mrs. Ting off the stand as soon as he establishes the time when she went into the plant and found her husband’s body.
Both Dick and I decline to cross-examine her, an action I assure Class would hurt more than help.
Butterfield moves through his case smoothly, and by the afternoon he puts on his last witness, Darla Tate, who, in contrast to Class, has beefed up in the last three months. Already a big woman, Darla now looks like she could start as defensive tackle for her sons’ high school team; yet there is still something touching about the way she has tried to get herself dolled up for her testimony. In fact, from the shoulders up, she looks like she has made up for one of those sexy glamour shots that try to make ordinary women into, if not movie stars, at least queens for an afternoon. As my secretary Julia says, Darla has her hair “bouffed up” and is wearing enough makeup to get stuck in if it rains. Gold ball earrings the size of plums hang from her ears, her dress is the color of faded summer grass. Never has a woman tried to look more feminine, I
suppose, and failed. Despite the testimony that Butterfield will elicit from her, she can help Class even as she hurts him, and I hope the women on the jury listen to her even as they mentally pick her apart.
As expected, she talks about the operation of the plant. Had I been Butterfield, I would have called her as one of my first witnesses, but perhaps it makes sense to call her last since she can provide a motive for Class even if the jury chooses to believe that Paul had nothing to do with Willie’s death. She begins to recite her story that she overheard Class talking about “having gotten the money” while she was in the bathroom but readily admits she doesn’t have any idea to whom he was speaking. Butterfield asks if she is sure it was Bledsoe’s voice, and she says emphatically that she is “absolutely certain.”
In the moment that I see her biceps tense, it occurs to me that Darla has spent a considerable amount of energy pointing me in the wrong direction in this case. First Harrison, the meat inspector, then Jorge Arrazola, and finally Muddy Jessup. Yet she told me right off that she didn’t think Class was capable of murdering Willie. Were these supposed to be wild-goose chases? I had rejected the idea of Darla’s being a suspect because she had an alibi and, besides, I couldn’t imagine a woman taking a knife and slitting her employer’s throat. But as I look at her right arm, and see that it may well be as strong as my own, or at least strong enough to slice the carotid artery of an old, unsuspecting man, I have to wonder-why not Darla? She says she was at her sons’ private school between two and four, and I know she signed in at the principal’s office before two and signed out at 4:30, but what was she actually doing all that time? My mind races to remember.
Something about helping to do paperwork in the office. Her story checked out.
About a month ago I talked to the office secretary who said that Darla was there the entire time that afternoon. I remember her because she was a thin, intense, almost hyper woman who insisted that I go outside with her while she smoked.
Darla, she said, answered the phone and did paperwork. Bonner has also talked to her, according to the file, and everything he has done has checked out, including this conversation. And what would have been her motive? She practically claimed to be in love with Willie. But maybe she wasn’t. All I can do now is fish and hope I don’t make her too suspicious. Class nudges me, and I look up at the judge.
“Mr. Page?” Johnson asks, for the second time.
“Do you wish to examine this witness?”
“Yes, your honor.” As I get to my feet, Darla gives me a shy smile as if we are old friends, and I start off by asking her if she remembers telling me that she didn’t think Class was the type to have murdered Willie.