“Was it during your service as an internist that you decided to specialize in pathology?”
“Yes.”
“How did this come about?”
“There was an opening in the homicide investigation department, and I was given the opportunity to fill it.”
“Have you subsequently had other positions in this line of work?”
“Yes.”
Donnelly said, without rising, “In the interest of saving time and getting on with the evidence, defense stipulates that Dr. Woodbridge is well qualified.”
“The prosecution is entitled to submit a full account of Dr. Woodbridge’s education, experience and expertise,” the judge said. “Opposing counsel will be afforded similar opportunities when the time comes. Please continue, Mr. Owen.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Woodbridge, how long did you remain at Bethesda Naval Hospital?”
“Five years.”
“During these five years did you publish any medico-legal articles?”
“I coauthored one paper and was a contributor on three others.”
“Where were these published and in what year?”
Woodbridge shuffled through his notes. He had used the same ones during a dozen trials, and he should have been able to read them off quickly and easily. But his hands trembled, and everything seemed so long ago and irrelevant. Why was he here in this somber poorly lit room trying to find the names of obscure journals containing outdated information?
After three or four minutes his lower lip began to quiver like that of a child about to cry.
The judge, watching him from the bench, saw the signs of weariness in his old friend and declared a morning recess before the usual time of eleven o’clock. As the courtroom began to clear, he leaned down and asked Woodbridge to come to his chambers.
On his way to the judge’s chambers Woodbridge’s gait was unsteady, and he had a curious sensation of watching himself, an old man shuffling back through the years, trying to find things and people that didn’t matter. Had they ever mattered, these endless rows of dead bodies? Had they ever mattered, these unread reports on unmourned, unremembered people?
In chambers Woodbridge lay down on the leather couch without waiting to be asked.
“You said you felt fine,” the judge said.
“I said fine enough.”
“How much is enough?”
“Enough to get through another day. Look, George, I’m just tired. I’m tired of courtrooms and trials, I’m tired of attorneys. God knows I’m tired of dead bodies.”
“I have to say this, Woody, so listen to me. I think you should stop working.”
“And do what?”
“Do what? You don’t have to do anything.”
“There are sixteen waking hours in a day. How do I spend them?”
“You might try improving your bridge game.”
“My bridge game wouldn’t need improving if my partner would read my signals correctly.”
“I do not consider a kick under the table a legitimate signal.”
“Nor do I. The kick was involuntary.”
“Oh. Sorry.” The judge hesitated. “Do you get spasms like that often?”
“You stick to legal questions, George. Leave the medical stuff to me.”
“It wasn’t intended to be a medical question but a personal one, a friend showing interest in a friend.”
“Nonsense. You were prying.” Woodbridge sat up. “Actually quite a few people have occasional spasms, even dead ones. I knew in advance, of course, that bodies will sometimes move when a muscle contracts. But the first time it happened it damn near scared the pants off me.”
Both men laughed, more as a release from tension than from amusement.
Woodbridge said, “Crazy, isn’t it? A couple of old codgers on their last legs like you and me being asked to decide whether a healthy young man like Cully King will live or die.”
“You’re wrong, friend. We’re not deciding the life or death of Cully King. You’re only a witness; I’m only the judge.”
“Oh, come on, George, everyone knows the judge is the thirteenth juror.”
“Only twelve ballots are cast.”
“Right. But you can slant a case one way or another.”
“Only at the risk of being overturned on appeal. I might take such a risk if I were completely convinced of the guilt or innocence of a defendant. In this case I have no such conviction. I’m staying out of it. I’m an observer.” He rose from his chair, looking down at his legs. They were without doubt his last legs, but they were also his first ones, and he had a certain respect, even affection for them, especially when they were well concealed beneath his trousers and he could imagine the strong muscles and tanned skin of his youth.
“What the hell,” he said. “Let’s lighten up. How about a drink? Are you supposed to drink?”
“No. Are you?”
“No.”
“So let’s have at it. Will scotch do?”
“Scotch,” the doctor said, “will do wonders.”
Oliver Owen called his wife, Virginia, from one of the two telephones in the attorney’s room.
“Is that you, Vee?”
“I don’t see who else it could be, Oliver.”
“A maid, cleaning woman, your sister. One can’t be too careful.”
“I don’t have a maid or cleaning woman, and my sister lives in Stuttgart. So yes, I guess it’s me.”
“I won’t be home for lunch. Judge Portelli has asked me to eat with him. We’ll probably go someplace where they serve wop slop.”
“Don’t talk like that. You love Italian food. By the way, the school just called. They’re having an emergency teachers’ meeting this afternoon — something about vandalism — and they’re sending all the kids home at noon. It’s ruined my schedule. I’m supposed to do my stint as a pink lady at the hospital.”
“The boys are old enough to be left at home by themselves.”
“Not if you want a home to come back to.”
“That’s absurd. They’re the best-behaved boys in town... I have an idea. Why don’t you drop them off here on your way to the hospital? They can spend some time in court watching their old man in action. They might get inspired.”
“Fine,” Vee said, and hung up, somewhat depressed at the thought of the boys spending the afternoon at a murder trial. They might get bored, they might get ideas, but the last thing in the world they’d get was inspired.
Vee replaced the telephone on the small white desk in a corner of the kitchen. This corner was her own personal space. Sitting in the stenographer’s chair in front of the typewriter she’d used in college, she felt that she was a real person, quite apart and distinct from Oliver and the boys. The corner was as private as a voting booth, and she could mark her ballots any way she chose.
She was a small, pretty woman with lively brown eyes and dark hair that was as tightly curled as a poodle’s and could never be beaten into submission with a brush. During her fifteen-year marriage she and Oliver had three sons. In their father’s presence the boys had beautiful manners even at the table and addressed their elders as ma’am and sir. Away from home they were unmitigated hellions, noted for their provocative mischief at school, at camp and on field trips. Vee often felt that they didn’t belong to her at all, that she had merely been used as a vessel and then put in dry dock.
When the boys’ transgressions were reported to her, she kept them to herself, knowing that if she told Oliver, he would either express disbelief or else manage to blame her in some way.
On Sundays Vee went to church with what she called her four boys. They were a handsome, dignified group, looking as if they might be posing for the cover of a church magazine. During hymns they sang lustily, except for Chadwick, whose voice was changing and who’d been instructed by his father to keep quiet and merely open and close his mouth at the proper times. So Chadwick opened and closed his mouth. A careful observer might have noticed that the openings and closings were somewhat exaggerated like those of a patient in a dental chair. But most of the congregation thought Chadwick, with his light brown curls and angelic blue eyes, was the picture of an ideal son. It would have been difficult for any of them to imagine Chadwick putting epoxy glue in the hair of the girl who sat in front of him in social studies class.