Koobie hitched himself in his chair, pulled his trousers up a little over his chubby knees and said, “No need to make this technical. I was standing out by the hedge between the two houses. I was on Jim Finch’s side of the hedge. There was a big smear of blood around. Some of it was spattered on the hedge. Barberry, I think. On the ground there was some hunks of brain tissue, none of them bigger than a dime. Also a piece of scalp maybe two inches square. Had Jim’s hair on it all right. Proved that in the lab. Also found some pieces of bone. Not many.” He smiled peacefully. “Guess old Jim is dead all right. No question of that. Blood was his and the hair was his.”
Three jurors swallowed visibly and a fourth began to fan himself vigorously.
Koobie answered a few other questions and then Justin Marks took over the cross-examination.
“What would you say kilted Jim Finch?”
Many people gasped at the question, having assumed that the defence would be that, lacking a body, there was no murder.
Koobie put a fat finger in the corner of his mouth, took it out again. “Couldn’t rightly say.”
“Could a blow from a club or similar weapon have done it?”
“Good Lord, no! Man’s head is a pretty durable thing. You’d have to back him up against a solid concrete wall and bust him with a full swing with a baseball bat and you still wouldn’t do that much hurt. Jim was standing right out in the open.”
“Dr. Koobie, imagine a pair of pliers ten feet long and porportionately thick. If a pair of pliers like that were to have grabbed Mr. Finch by the head, smashing it like a nut in a nut-cracker, could it have done that much damage?”
Koobie pulled his nose, tugged on his ear, frowned and said, “Why, if it clamped down real sudden like, I imagine it could. But where’d Jim go?”
“That’s all, thank you,” Justin Marks said.
Amery Heater called other witnesses. One of them was Anita Hempflet.
Amery said, “You live across the road from the defendant?”
Miss Anita Hempflet was fiftyish, big-boned, and of the same general consistency as the dried beef recommended for Canadian canoe trips. Her voice sounded like fingernails on the third grade blackboard.
“Yes I do. I’ve lived there thirty-five years. That Maloney person, him sitting right over there, moved in two years ago, and I must say that I...”
“You are able to see Mr. Maloney’s house from your windows?”
“Certainly!”
“Now tell the court when it was that you first saw the red-headed woman.”
She licked her lips. “I first saw that... that woman in May. A right pleasant morning it was, too. Or it was until I saw her. About ten o’clock, I’d say. She was right there in Maloney’s front yard, as bold as brass. Had on some sort of shiny silver thing. You couldn’t call it a dress. Too short for that. Didn’t half cover her the way a lady ought to be covered. Not by half. She was...”
“What was she doing?”
“Well, she come out of the house and she stopped and looked around as though she was surprised at where she was. My eyes are good. I could see her face. She looked all around. Then she sort of slouched, like she was going to keel over or something. She walked real slow down toward the gate. Mr. Maloney came running out of the house and I heard him yell to her. She stopped. Then he was making signs to her, for her to go back into the house. Just like she was deaf or something. After a while she went back in. I guessed she probably was made deaf by that awful bomb thing the government lost control of near town three days before that.”
“You didn’t see her again?”
“Oh, I saw her plenty of times. But after that she was always dressed more like a girl should be dressed. Far as I could figure out, Mr. Maloney was buying her clothes in town. It wasn’t right that anything like that should be going on in a nice neighborhood. Mr. Finch didn’t think it was right either. Runs down property values, you know.”
“In your knowledge, Miss Hempflet, did Mr. Maloney and the deceased ever quarrel?”
“They started quarreling a few days after that woman showed up. Yelling at each other across the hedge. Mr. Finch was always scared of burglars. He had that house fixed up so nobody could get in if he didn’t want them in. A couple of times I saw Bill Maloney pounding on his door and rapping on the windows. Jim wouldn’t pay any attention.”
Justin cross-examined.
“You say, Miss Hempflet, that the defendant was going down and shopping for this woman, buying her clothes. In your knowledge, did he buy her anything else?”
Anita Hempflet sniggered. “Say so! Guess she must of been feeble minded. I asked around and found out he bought a blackboard and chalk and some kids’ books.”
“Did you make any attempt to find out where this woman came from, this woman who was staying with Mr. Maloney?”
“Should say I did! I know for sure that she didn’t come in on the train or Dave Wattle would’ve seen her. If she’d come by bus, Myrtle Gisco would have known it. Johnny Farness didn’t drive her in from the airport. I figure that any woman who’d live openly with a man like Maloney must have hitchhiked into town. She didn’t come any other way.”
“That’s all, thank you,” Justin Marks said.
Maloney sighed. He couldn’t understand why Justin was looking so worried. Everything was going fine. According to plan. He saw the black looks the jury was giving him, but he wasn’t worried. Why, as soon as they found out what had actually happened, they’d be all for him. Justin Marks seemed to be sweating.
He came back to the table and whispered to Bill, “How about temporary insanity?”
“I guess it’s okay if you like that sort of thing.”
“No. I mean as a plea!”
Maloney stared at him. “Justy, old boy. Are you nuts? All we have to do is tell the truth.”
Justin Marks rubbed his mustache with his knuckle and made a small bleating sound that acquired him a black look from the judge.
Amery Heater built his case up very cleverly and very thoroughly. In fact, the jury had Bill Maloney so definitely electrocuted that they were beginning to give him sad looks — full of pity.
It took Amery Heater two days to complete his case. When it was done, it was a solid and shining structure, every discrepancy explained — everything pinned down. Motive. Opportunity. Everything.
On the morning of the third day, the court was tense with expectancy. The defence was about to present its case. No one know what the case was, except, of course, Bill Maloney, Justin Marks, and the unworldly red-head who called herself Rejapachalandakeena. Bill called her Keena. She hadn’t appeared in court.
Justin Marks stood up and said to the hushed court, “Your Honor. Rather than summarize my defence at this point, I would like to put William Maloney on the stand first and let him tell the story in his own words.”
The court buzzed. Putting Maloney on the stand would give Amery Heater a chance to cross-examine. Heater would rip Maloney to tiny shreds. The audience licked its collective chops.
“Your name?”
“William Maloney, 12 Braydon Road.”
“And your occupation?”
“Tinkering. Research, if you want a fancy name.”
“Where do you get your income?”
“I’ve got a few gimmicks patented. The royalties come in.”
“Please tell the court all you know about this crime of which you are accused. Start at the beginning, please.”
Bill Maloney shoved the blonde hair back off his forehead with a square, mechanic’s hand and smiled cheerfully at the jury. Some of them, before they realized it, had smiled back. They felt the smiles on their lips and sobered instantly. It wasn’t good form to smile at a vicious murderer.