“No, though I am a light sleeper.”
“And your hearing, Mr. Lemon?” I asked softly.
Proudly: “I hear very well. Mrs. Lemon says I can hear a pin drop.”
“And your cottage was about how far from the Manion trailer?”
“About thirty feetâjust as the chart there says.”
“And from your cottage down to the main gate?”
“About three hundred feet like it says.”
“And nothing disturbed your slumbersâor at least your rest?”
“No, sir.”
Slowly: “No boys sang?”
“No, sir.”
“No women screamed?”
“The screams were down by the gateâ”
“Objection, objection!” Claude Dancer was fairly breathing on my neck.
There was an edge in the Judge's voice. “Please let the witness complete his answer before you object, Mr. Dancer,” he said sharply. He turned toward the witness. “Proceed,” he said.
“Those were Mrs. Manion's screams that the Ohio tourists heard down by the gate.”
Objection. Hearsay. Tourists best evidenceâthese were some of the objections that Claude Dancer urged in a torrent upon the Court.
“Your Honor,” I said, acting on a sudden hunch. “I withdraw the question. The witness is back to you, Mr. Dancer.”
“No questions,” he snapped.
“Thank you, Mr. Lemon,” I said.
“Call a ten-minute recess, Mr. Sheriff,” the Judge said, frowning thoughtfully up at the skylight.
The compassionate Judge must have divined the shape I was in; he excused us a little early that afternoon. Due to some providential mixup two out-county lawyers had wandered into court during the afternoon with their default divorce clients and witnesses, erroneously thinking their cases were scheduled to be heard that day instead of a week later. When, during recess, the Judge learned of their plight he lacked the heart to send them away with their angry and unfreed clients; after all, the profession had to save face. Old drummer-boy Biegler could have kissed all of them, even to the grim-looking clients. By four o'clock Mitch had taken a couple more routine witnesses over the jumps and at last I was free. With a parched tongue and pounding temples I fairly raced out to my car and fled the courthouse and Iron Bay.
It had begun to rain, gently at first and then with a kind of monotonous autumnal savagery. Wounded defense counsel drove home the back way, splashing through colorful dripping tunnels and rolling hillsides of fading leaves, carefully making a wide arc around the beguiling Halfway House, which, I numbly remembered, refused to sell drinks to people over a hundred and one. The day's courtroom hunting had resulted in a mixed bag, some good and some bad. But mostly it had been bad, I morosely concluded, for not only had the bartender and prosecution teamed up to block the defense, but now even the good Judge himself was contributing to the enterprise. And what assurance had I that the little bartender would ever open up and tell at least part of the truth, if and when the Judge finally let me really have at him? No, all in all it had not been a good day and the prospects were far from pleasing. And where, dear Lord, where was my wandering Parnell?
On the outskirts of Chippewa I stopped at a little store and, scampering through the rain, picked up a copy of the
Mining Gazette,
which I read avidly, sitting in the steamy rain-pelted car, much as a prizefight fan races from ringside to the nearest newsstand after a big bout as though to confirm what really happened and that, indeed, there had been any fight at all. “Manion murder trial marked by bitter clashes between lawyers,” one of the headlines shouted. I read on, unbelieving, held in a fiend's clutch. Was Paul Biegler the quiet trout fisherman really one of the noisy guys mixed up in this unzippered tempest, this snarling courtroom hassle? Were
we two really carrying on like “two scorpions in a bottle,” as the newspaper said? The young reporter, Bob Birkey, was doing a manful job, and a fair one, too; most of it was there, the good and the bad. But most of the nuances were missing; newspapers rarely ever have time for the nuances. Yet nuances were the heart of this case. “See Murder Trial, p. 8” the newspaper said, and I flipped the pages.
Ah, there were the photographs of the Judge and handsome crew cut Mitch and balding fur-haired Claude Dancer leaping out at meâthe Dancer as alert and eager-looking as a well-scrubbed choirboy. Yes, there they all were, bigger than bear-wheat, with row upon gap-toothed row of shelved law books making an impressive backdrop. Little Mr. Dancer was passing a paper to Mitch, the inevitable mysterious document that newspaper photographers somehow feel compelled to trot outâthis one doubtless being, I maliciously thought, Mitch's instructions for the day. There was also a good shot of the Judge sitting imperturbable and alone at his desk, then another of Mitch and his man Friday, this time Mitch doubtlessly passing the instructions back. An apt title occurred to me for the last one: “Lieutenant Manion's Wrecking Crew.”
Back at my musty office I threw open the windows and phoned in a wire to our psychiatrist that he must arrive not later than Saturday (this was Thursday evening), and then I read my mail. There was a letter from my mother Belle, who would be home in two weeks and hoped her Polly wasn't working too hard and was getting plenty of sleep (at the very thought of sleep I yawned until I feared my jaw was stuck) and who hoped I was regularly watering her geraniums (“Good God,” I thought). The rest was bills, bills, bills, tintinnabulations of colorful, autumn-tinted fluttering bills ⦠.
I idly tried the television but it was lousy. We were mercifully too far away for good television. I worked for a while on my jury argument; one had always to be prepared for that; trials had a nasty. habit of ending abruptly; one suddenly found oneself cut adrift before a jury composed of stony-faced native Buddhas, trying in a fleeting hour or so to carve a modicum of sense out of days of chaos.
“Give jury true picture of tense setup in bar that night,” I scribbled away. “Stress Barney knew gate was shut and Laura didn't. Give Dancer hell. Show bartender goddam liar. Take Dancer the prancer apart ⦠.” The city hall clock struck nine; darkness fell; I scribbled on and on; the clock boomed ten; my numbed mind
simply wasn't tracking; I kept giving Dancer hell; verily, I would incant the little man into oblivion. I yawned and yawned; my head nodded down toward my desk ⦠. I must have fallen asleep ⦠.
Â
“Polly,” someone was saying softly. “Polly, Polly. Wake up, boy. It's me ⦠.”
Parnell stood across from me looking like a beardless Father Time; the tired pouches under his fatigue-reddened eyes sagged like those of an old rabbit hound; his new suit was soiled and wrinkled and looked as though it had been rained on. But the old man was smiling and cold sober. He dropped his brief case and sagged into the chair across my desk. “Tire troubled ⦠.” he murmured, wagging his head. “I'm not the driver I used to be, boy. What's more, I never was.”
“He's home,” I thought, “thank God the old man is home.” “Where you been at, Parn?” I said wearily, still only partly awake. I hadn't realized until then how much I loved this old man, loved and depended on him.
Parnell sighed and stretched out in his chair like a basking grampus, his plump hands folded across his belly. “First fetch me one of those habit-forming orange pops, Polly boy,” he said. He sighed: “Where have I been? Ah, lad, sometimes I don't believe it myselfâI feel like I been to the South Pole.”
With his pop at his elbow, and part of it in him, Parnell rallied a little and leaned forward. “It happened this way, boy ⦔ he began, and away he went on his story of his adventures at the South Pole.
Parnell had been quietly working on the Barney Quill will contest. He and Maida had worked on it for days. He had briefed the whole subject, including the question of the Wisconsin divorce, and had become convinced that legally the opposition didn't have a Chinaman's chance to upset either Barney's will or the divorce. Then he had gone to Mary Pilant's lawyer, Martin Melstrand, and put his cards on the table. He and old Martin were contemporaries; they had taken their bar exams together years before; he knew Martin could be trusted ⦠.
“But, Parn,” I interrupted, “whyâwhy didn't you tell me? We were partners in this caseâremember?”
“I didn't want you to worry, boy. You had enough on your mind tryin' your case. If I failed IâI didn't want ⦠.” He paused and
held out his soiled hands pleadingly. “Listen me out,” he said. “The proof of the puddingâ”
“Gathers no moss,” I cut in. “Go on,” I grumbled dubiously.
Parnell had gone over his brief with Martin Melstrand; he had sold him on the proposition that he was right; Martin Melstrand said that furthermore they had receipts and canceled checks showing that Barney's ex-wife had collected alimony for years; that Barney had indeed been sober when he made the will; that he had been in town for a physical checkup by Doctor Broun; that Martin Melstrand had himself drafted the will and handed it to Barney; that both he and his stenographer and the doctor knew he was then sober; that he had signed it immediately upon returning to Thunder Bay that very day; that in addition to the two witnesses to the will the local justice of the peace had also been present.
Parnell had given a copy of his brief to the grateful Martin Melstrand; he had explained to Martin why we had to get at the truth in our murder case; Martin, a shrewd if lazy lawyer, had clearly understood; Parnell had prevailed on Martin to phone Mary Pilant and reassure her on the will contest and divorce, and at the same time try obliquely (keeping us out of it) to soften her up on the criminal case. Martin had done so in Pamell's presence, but the results had been inconclusive; Mary Pilant had said she was reassured on the will, but she seemed oppressed by the notion that Barney's former wife might still upset the divorce and take anything. She was equally stubborn on conceding anything that might blacken Barney's name or tend to show him guilty of the rape. (As Parnell ran on I kept sinking lower in my chair, as though I was listening in on a bizarre Hollywood story-conference.)
Parnell had then concluded that the only way to remove Mary Pilant's fixation on the Wisconsin divorce business was for him to go there. He had borrowed photostat copies of the alimony receipts and checks from Martin Melstrand. Then he had rented the car and taken off on the hundred-odd mile trek to Green Bay. He had had tire trouble practically all the way and it was daylight when he arrived. He'd snatched a few hours sleep in the car. He was clamoring at the door of the county courthouse when it opened and was soon hard at the files and records in the old divorce case.
The original summons was missing from the file, as he'd expected; he'd next prowled in to the Sheriff's officeâ“a fine upstandin' broth of a man called Sullivan,” and after that the Sullivans and McCarthys
had co-operated wonderfully. Parnell had pawed for hours over the sheriff's old records and had finally found an old record showing that a deputy sheriff called Griffin had handled the summons in the old divorce case, the record failing to disclose, however, whether there'd been personal service or not. He'd then learned that old Mike Griffin, the deputy, was retired; yes, he was still living in Green Bay and Sheriff Sullivan would gladly drive Parnell there.
“Wisconsin convention of the Ancient Order of Hibernians,” I murmured. “Up Ireland! Down with the blooming redcoats!”
“Convention it was, boy, that it was,” Parnell said, pausing to sip his pop and then pressing on. Mike Griffin was a towering, alert, red-wristed Irishman of seventy. Did he remember personally serving a divorce summons on a Mrs. Barney Quill? Janice was her first name. Ah, did he
remember
her? You damn right he remembered that dame with the dyed red hair and livid scar on her right cheek who had sworn at him in everything but Arabian when he'd dared serve a divorce summons on her. Who'd ever forget such a noisy, foul-mouthed harridan? Certainly not old Michael Griffin ⦠.
The trio of happy Hibernians had then proceeded back to the sheriff's office, sirens away, and Parnell had dictated a duplicate sheaf of affidavits, to which the affiant Michael Thomas Joseph Griffin had sworn on solemn oath and then laboriously signed his name. Then they had descended in a body upon the Green Bay lawyer of the ex-wife, a large, shrewd, red-headed lawyer.
Parnell paused for breath. “And guess what
his
name was?” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“Grogan,” I replied steadily. “Terence O'Toole Grogan, of course.”
“You're wrong, boyâit was Patrick Finkelstein!”
“Abie's Irish Rose,” I murmured.
Parnell and the lawyer and Mike Griffin had closeted themselves; in due course they had come out and warmly shaken hands all around; the lawyer had thanked Parnell for his information and his brief and had notified him that he was dismissing the Wisconsin proceedings to set aside the divorce and was promptly withdrawing from the Michigan case.
Parnell had then phoned Martin Melstrand the latest developments, and asked him to pass the word on to Mary Pilant, which her grateful lawyer agreed promptly to do. Then he had parted from his Green Bay friends and had started for home in his rented
car.
He had got caught in a series of thunderstorms, there was more tire trouble ⦠.
“I guess, lad, I spent more time
under
that haunted vehicle than in it.” He had tried twice to phone the office but couldn't raise me. His last flat was only twenty miles out of Chippewa and he'd had to buy a new tire. “I guess I'll have to buy me the damned trap to protect me invistmint, that I will,” he concluded, showing dire signs of his recent Hibernian exposure.
I sat staring at the gallant old man. What were you going to do or say to a whale of a man like that? “Thanks, Parn,” I said. “After all the trouble you've gone to, IâI only hope it works.”
Parnell shook his head soberly. “That's just the point, boy. It surely won't work if we leave it rest there,” he said. “That's only the foundation. Only
you
can now really make it work.”
“What do you mean, Parn? Why pick on me? I pay my taxes.”
“You must go see Mary Pilant and personally plead your case âyou've got to, boy. Don't you see? It's your case; it's your man who is in danger; you are the only one who can make her see it.” He held out his pudgy hands. “I've passed you the ammunitionânow you've got to go fight with it.”
“Mary Pilant! Where, when?”
“Now ⦠tonight ⦠. We can't waste another moment ⦠. Time's a fleetin', boy ⦠. The trial will maybe be over and done with in another day or so ⦠Don't set there like a droolin' leprechaunâgrab up the phone, man.”