Counselor Davic did not defer his cross-examination of Slocum. His impatient manner — more than impatience, it was closer to a caged ferocity — made it clear he could hardly wait to get at this smoothly plausible detective. But he was careful to begin in a disarmingly courteous manner.
“You’ve been a police officer how long, Captain?”
“Twenty-three years and nine months, sir.”
“And your associate, Lieutenant Gus Eberle, has an almost equal amount of experience, I understand?”
“Yes, sir, the lieutenant’s been with my division for fourteen or fifteen years at least, came right up through the ranks.”
“Then in the course of a routine investigation involving a stolen car, it could be assumed that you and the lieutenant, would know what you’re doing. Is that a fair assumption, Captain?”
Davic’s tone had abruptly turned caustic. Slocum seemed puzzled by it.
“When you put it that way, sir, it sounds like you’re damning us with pretty faint praise. Yes, we know what we’re doing, sir.”
“Good, excellent. Now we’re going to replay the section of the tapes that were introduced in evidence by the prosecution. After that, I’ll have more questions about you and your lieutenant.”
The bailiff turned on the machine and Earl Thomson’s recorded and metallic voice sounded in the courtroom.
“... no, Captain, I’m sure I’ve never been there. I’m positive. Vinegar Hill, you say?”
“That’s right, Earl” The voice was Slocum’s. “It’s a farm, a small one, a dozen acres maybe. It’s on Dade Road, near Brandywine Lakes.”
“I’ve never heard of it, Captain.”
“How about the Rakestraw Bridge?” This was Lieutenant Eberle’s voice, low and rasping. “You know that bridge, Earl? It’s covered, got one of them old-style wooden roofs over it.”
“Maybe, I don’t know—”
“So your statement,” Captain Slocum interrupted, “is that you don’t know anything about Vinegar Hill, and that you’ve never been there. Is that it, Earl?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Captain. I don’t know the place, I was never there and I don’t know how my car got there. Whoever stole it probably—”
“Hold it.” Eberle’s growling voice broke in. “We’ll get to that later. You know some people who live near Fairlee Road named Selby?”
“Selby? No, Lieutenant, I don’t.”
“You know where Fairlee Road is?”
“I have an idea. Near Muhlenburg, isn’t it?”
“You ever drive over Fairlee Road, Earl, around Little Tenn or Mill Lane?”
“I don’t believe so. My car was stolen in Muhlenburg, though, if that means anything, but—”
The captain interrupted him again. “Earl, do you know a young lady named Shana Selby?”
“Shana Selby? No, should I?”
“No reason you should, Earl, but on the other hand, there’s no reason you shouldn’t. We have good cause to believe that girl was taken to Vinegar Hill in your car and very seriously assaulted.”
“Hell, Captain, my car was reported stolen. I was having a beer in a bar called The Green Lantern when it happened. It was late in the afternoon. But I was home a half hour later having dinner right here with my mother. Look, late as it is, you can wake her up and talk to her if you want. But when you find out who ripped off the Porsche, maybe they can tell you about that girl — what’d you say her name was?”
Davic snapped off the tape machine. He clenched his hands and stared at Slocum. “Tell me this, Captain. Why did you and Lieutenant Eberle go to Earl Thomson’s home in the middle of the night and attempt to intimidate him with those irrelevant and slanderous insinuations—?”
Brett instantly objected and Judge Flood sustained her.
Listening to the subsequent charges, countercharges and legal rulings, Selby couldn’t help believing that he was witnessing the trappings of a charade... He hoped not, but the judge and Davic did seem somehow mannered, rehearsed... He wanted not to believe that. But...
“You gave Earl Thomson no advance warning, Captain?” Davic was now pressing. “Not even the courtesy of a phone call before getting him out of bed — when was it, one-thirty in the morning?”
“No, sir, we decided that—”
“I know what you decided, Captain. You just decided to scrap any paragraph of the Constitution that didn’t meet with your—”
“Objection!”
“Sustained.”
Davic drew a deep breath. “Captain, Earl Thomson’s car was stolen several months ago, correct?”
“Yes.”
“The theft was duly reported at that time. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“Then why... why, Captain Slocum, did you and your lieutenant seize on the pretext of a stolen car investigation to interrogate my client about a rape case and an alleged victim named Shana Selby?”
“We were exercising” — Slocum paused and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief — “what I’d term a discretionary caution—”
“In regard to what, Captain? A car had been stolen. You had news of that fact. You then interrogated Earl Thomson about the details and the locale of a rape case, did you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was he a suspect in that case?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why, Captain, did you ask him about Vinegar Hill? Or about Shana Selby?”
“We were looking for... links.”
“Captain, will you agree you have violated my client’s civil rights?”
“No, because—”
“Will you admit” — Davic was raising his voice — “that you have abused your authority?”
“Your Honor!” Brett raised her voice too. “It isn’t my place to remind Mr. Davic that this isn’t a playpen for his tantrums. This is a court of law and—”
“Sustained. Mr. Davic, you will observe the proprieties and... and not badger the witness.”
“I apologize, Your Honor, I apologize to the court and to the jury. It is my sincere intention to conduct myself with decorum. But at the risk of your displeasure, I must state that I am here in your courtroom for one purpose, and that is to fight for justice for my client...” Davic turned from the witness stand and dismissed Slocum with a gesture, saying, “I have no further questions, Your Honor.”
The jury, it seemed to Selby, was favorably impressed by Davic’s defiant and emotional attitude. Glancing at Brett, he saw a tension in her face as she spoke quietly to Shana, touching her arm, a quick gesture to reassure her.
Selby now decided what he’d suspected all along — the scales of justice in this old courtroom, with its solid pine floor smelling so cleanly of good, rubbed-in linseed oil, had been carefully tipped from the start against his daughter.
He decided to do something about it.
The insurance agent, Jay Mooney, lived on a residential street near East Chester’s slums, the stretch of ancient row houses and tar-paper shacks that bordered the Brandywine.
“They’re not bad neighbors,” Mooney said, leading Selby into his overheated living room. A twenty-four-inch color TV glowed from a corner, coughing out bursts of canned laughter and applause. An upright typewriter rested on a card table surrounded by a clutter of dusty business stationery and insurance forms. What was left of Mooney’s dinner, crusts of pizza and several empty beer cans, were on a coffee table. A single fly walked around on the flakes of tomato-flecked dough.
“We do just fine here with our dusky friends along the river.” Mooney snapped off the TV set. “Sit down, Harry. Failure creates sympathy, and we’re all failures at this end of town. Can I get you a drink?”