“No. Just that one little sin of omission….”
I grinned at him. “That makes you a hell of a lot more reliable than most people I talk to. Thanks for the information. Good luck in Los Angeles.”
That was the upcoming Olympics site.
“Thanks, Nate.” He flashed another embarrassed grin, waved, and was gone.
Darrow was moving up onto the beach. Duke Kahanamoku was heading back out with his pals in the outrigger, probably to duck the reporters. Before, the sound of Darrow’s voice had been muffled in the gentle roar of the waves and the happy chatter of the sunbathers and swimmers, running in and out of the surf, or sprawled on the white sand on towels to broil like lobsters. But now, as C.D. and the reporters moved toward the hotel and the row of tables with beach umbrellas, where we sat, I could pretty well make out what they were saying….
“Worried you’re gonna get a racially mixed jury, Judge?” one reporter asked. The newshounds tended to call Darrow “Judge,” even though he’d never been one; it was a way to kid and compliment him at the same time.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt we’ll have a racially mixed jury, and no misgivings about it, either. I would embrace that as an opportunity in establishing a bridge between white and brown and yellow.”
“I don’t think you can use the same tactics you usually use, Judge,” another reporter chimed in. “If the court tells a Hawaiian jury that shooting a man is against the law, and the jury thinks your clients did the shooting, well that’s all there is to it: they’ll find ’em guilty.”
“That’s the damned trouble with trials,” Darrow growled. “Everybody thinks about the law and nobody thinks about people! Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, that’s all for today….”
Darrow answered a few parting questions as the reporters and their photographers slowly withdrew, and he sent me a tiny glance that said “Stick around” as he went to the table down a ways from me, where Ruby, Mrs. Leisure, and Isabel were sitting. He joined them and began chatting amiably.
No doubt in anticipation of possible press pictures, Mrs. Darrow’s pleasantly stout frame was decked out in a sporty white-trimmed blue dress and hat, Mrs. Leisure attractively casual in belted beach pajamas—beige blouse and blue trousers—and blindingly blond Isabel a knockout in her white skirt with blue polka dots and a matching hat; her blouse was actually the nicely filled upper half of her white swimming suit. Isabel wasn’t speaking to me, but I intended to mend that fence—when I got around to it.
George Leisure wasn’t present—somebody had to prepare for the coming court case.
“Excuse me, suh.”
The voice was mellow, male, not quite a drawl, but nonetheless touched by Southern inflection.
I turned. Straw fedora in hand, his white linen suit immaculate, a pleasant-featured man in his thirties, his brown hair touched lightly with gray at the temples, sharp eyes under lazy lids behind wire-framed glasses, half-bowed to me. His manner was almost courtly.
“You are Nathan Hellah?”
“Yes,” I said, somewhat warily; despite the cordial, civilized bearing, this guy could after all be a reporter.
“Mr. Darrow requested ah speak with you. I’m Lt. Commander John E. Porter. I’ve been assigned by Admiral Stirlin’ to be at Mr. Darrow’s disposal. May ah sit down?”
Half-standing, I gestured to the chair Crabbe had vacated. “Of course, Doctor. C.D.’s mentioned you. You two seem to have hit it off.”
“Clarence is easy to like.” He placed his hat on the little table as he sat. “And it’s an honor bein’ associated with such a great man.”
“I notice you’re out of uniform, Doctor.”
“Since ah’m spendin’ so much time, bein’ Mr. Darrow’s personal physician, Admiral Stirlin’ decided it might not be wise.”
Might not be the best press relations, at that, Mr. Darrow being seen in the ongoing company of a naval officer.
“If we’re going to discuss the case, Doctor,” I said, “do you mind if I take notes?”
“Not at all.”
But before turning to a fresh page in my little notebook, I was first checking to see if a memory the doctor’s name had jogged was correct: yes. Here he was in my notes from the Alton interview with Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie Massie: Porter was the doctor who, before the first trial, had advised Tommie to take Thalia and leave the Island.
“What’s your normal duty, Doctor?”
“I’m a gynecologist, Mr. Hellah, assigned to the care of dependent wives.”
“Gynecologist—isn’t that a doc that gets paid by women to look at what they won’t show just any ol’ man?”
“Quaintly but accurately put, yes.”
“So you were Thalia’s doctor, before the rape? For female problems?”
“Yes, suh, and general health concerns. And after the incident, Admiral Stirlin’ asked to look after Lt. Massie, as well, suh.”
This pleasant-looking professional man had tight, troubled eyes. It was the look of somebody who knew things he’d rather not.
“I attended Mrs. Massie the night of the incident, as well. I can give you the details if you like, suh.”
I noticed he never quite used the word “rape.”
“Please,” I said.
He didn’t have to consult his notes: “I found a double fracture of the lower jaw so severe her jaw had been displaced and her upper and lower jaws could not meet. Three molars on the right side of her jaw were in such proximity to the fracture, extraction was necessary. Both her upper and lower lips were swollen, discolored, and her nose was swollen. I also found small cuts and bruises about her body.”
“All of this supports Thalia’s story that she was beaten and raped, wouldn’t you say, Doctor?”
The raising of one eyebrow was barely perceptible; his gentle Southern-tinged voice was hardly audible above the rolling surf and beach noise.
“Mistah Hellah, that is the fact. However, it is also a fact that her clothes were not torn, nor was there any trace of semen on her dress or undah-garments. And my examination of her pelvic area indicated no abrasions or contusions. She had douched when she arrived home, which could be the reason there was no indication that she had been raped.”
I sat forward. “Is there some doubt that she was raped at all?”
“Let us say that there is no doubt she was beaten. Her jaw will probably never be the same; it will always have a little lump, there. And there is certainly nothin’ to indicate she was not raped. She is a married woman, Mistah Hellah, and her vagina, uh, opens quite a bit.”
“In other words, you could drive a truck in there and not leave any tire tracks.”
His eyes widened behind the wire frames. “I might not have put it quite so…colorfully…but ah believe you have grasped my point.”
“Why did you advise Lt. Massie to take his wife and leave the Island?”
That surprised him. “I wasn’t aware you were aware of that, Mistah Hellah. I did so advise the lieutenant. I even offered to go to Admiral Stirlin’ and advise a transfer on grounds that he and Mrs. Massie’s health was sufferin’. I felt the publicity would be harmful to both the Navy and the Massies, and ah could see no useful purpose bein’ served by that trial.”
“No useful purpose in putting some vicious rapists away? If Mrs. Massie was raped—and your examination neither confirmed nor ruled that out—she and her husband might quite naturally want to see justice done.”
His expression was dismayed, but then as the eyes behind the wire frames studied me, his face blossomed into a knowing smile. “You’re goin’ fishin’, aren’t you, Mistah Hellah?”
I grinned back at him. “They do that around these parts, I understand. Look, Doctor—Darrow asked you to talk to me, and you obviously want to share some things with me. What is it that’s creasing your patrician brow?”