Evidence of Blood (16 page)

TALBOTT:
So he was in front of the courthouse with the construction crew, that day?

GAINES
: Yes, sir. They was lots of people there that morning, ’cause a lot was being done for the Independence Day thing.

TALBOTT:
The celebration.

GAINES:
Yes, sir.

TALBOTT:
Charlie Overton was working at the courthouse that morning, wasn’t he?

GAINES
: Yes, he was.

TALBOTT:
And Charlie came up to you, didn’t he?

GAINES
: Yes, he did.

TALBOTT:
What did he tell you, Miss Gaines?

GAINES
: He said, “I’m sick, ma’am. I think I got to go home.”

TALBOTT:
Did he look sick?

GAINES
: Yeah, he looked sick.

TALBOTT:
What happened then?

GAINES
: I said “Well, you picked a good day for it, ‘cause Luther says it’s too wet to put the pole up
anyway, so you better go on home and get some rest.”

TALBOTT:
And did he do that?

GAINES
: Do what?

TALBOTT:
Did you see him get in his truck and leave for home?

GAINES:
Yes, sir. And the courthouse clock struck twelve-thirty.

TALBOTT:
And did he look ill at that time?

GAINES:
He looked the same that he looked when he talked to me.

TALBOTT:
Thank you, Miss Gaines. Nothing more, Your Honor.

COURT:
Any cross, Mr. Warfield?

WARFIELD:
No, Your Honor. I have no need for it.

Kinley smiled. It had been a very shrewd move on Warfield’s part. By telling the Court he had “no need” to cross-examine Betty Gaines, he had reduced her already weak testimony to complete insubstantiality in the jury’s mind.

Talbott’s last witness was Overton’s wife, Sarah Ann Overton, and her testimony was brief and to the point. Under Talbott’s questioning, she told the jury that she’d spent all of July 2 at home. She’d been in the last weeks of her pregnancy, and the terrible heat of mid-summer had made things very difficult for her. She’d found it necessary to restrict her movements drastically, and from the middle of June onward, she’d remained virtually a prisoner within her house. “Charlie just brought me what I needed,” she told the court. “Food and things. But me, I just stayed home and sat out on the porch.”

TALBOTT:
And were you doing that on the afternoon of July 2, 1954, at around three in the afternoon?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

TALBOTT:
Did your husband come home at that time?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

TALBOTT:
What was he wearing, Mrs. Overton?

OVERTON
: His work clothes.

TALBOTT:
The same that he’d worn to work that morning?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

TALBOTT:
How did they look when he returned home at three that afternoon?

OVERTON
: They looked a little dirty.

TALBOTT:
Dirty how, Mrs. Overton?

OVERTON
: They had some grease on them.

TALBOTT:
Where was this grease, Mrs. Overton?

OVERTON
: On the front of his shirt.

TALBOTT:
Like he’d been lying under a …

WARFIELD
: Objection, calling for a conclusion.

TALBOTT:
Is that all that was on his shirt?

OVERTON
: Grit, dirt. I noticed that.

TALBOTT:
Where was this?

OVERTON
: On the back of his pants and his shirt.

TALBOTT:
As if he’d been lying on his back?

WARFIELD
: Same objection, Your Honor.

TALBOTT:
Where did your husband say he got this grit and grease?

OVERTON
: From working on the truck. He said the oil pan had started leaking, and that he’d had to crawl under the truck to try to fix it.

TALBOTT:
Had he fixed it?

OVERTON
: No, sir. He left it on the road.

TALBOTT:
When did he go back to fix it?

OVERTON
: Just a little while after he got home.

TALBOTT:
Now, Mrs. Overton. On the day the truck broke down, and your husband walked home, did you see any blood on your husband’s clothes?

OVERTON
: No, sir.

TALBOTT:
Mrs. Overton, are you a Christian?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

TALBOTT:
Mrs. Overton, would you lie to Jesus Christ?

OVERTON
: No, sir, I would not.

TALBOTT:
Now, people, they’ll say, “Well, sure, she’s
lying to save her husband.” But that oath you took before your testimony, that was to God, wasn’t it, and to his son, Jesus. That’s the way you see the oath, isn’t that right, Mrs. Overton?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

TALBOTT:
Now, I ask you again: Would you lie after taking that oath?

OVERTON
: No, sir, I wouldn’t.

TALBOTT:
Mrs. Overton, I want to ask you again, was there any blood on your husband’s clothes when he came home on the afternoon of July 2, 1954?

OVERTON
: No, sir, there was not.

TALBOTT:
No further questions, Your Honor.

This time Warfield had chosen to cross-examine the witness, but it was a decidedly gentle cross-examination, a style Kinley had seen before, and recognized as being affordable only to an attorney who had already won his case and did not want to risk it by alienating the jury with a cruel examination.

WARFIELD
: You were very much in what we call a family way on July 2, weren’t you, Mrs. Overton?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

WARFIELD
: And since that time, you’ve actually had that child, isn’t that true?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir. I had it two days after my husband was arrested.

WARFIELD
: A little girl, I believe?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

WARFIELD
: Named Dora, I understand.

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

WARFIELD:
Of course, in your position, with a newborn baby, I guess you have your hands full, isn’t that right?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir, I do.

WARFIELD:
Is this your first child?

OVERTON
: Yes.

WARFIELD
: And being a good mother, you would want to be able to provide for that, wouldn’t you?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir.

WARFIELD
: That’s something a Christian is supposed to do, isn’t it? Provide for the children. I mean, the Bible teaches that.

OVERTON
: Yes, it does.

WARFIELD
: And that would be very difficult without your husband, wouldn’t it, Mrs. Overton?

OVERTON
: Yes, sir, it would.

WARFIELD
: You would like for Charlie to come home so he can help provide for this new child, wouldn’t you?

(WITNESS DOES NOT RESPOND)

COURT
: Answer the question, please, Mrs. Overton.

OVERTON
: Well, of course, I would.

WARFIELD
: Thank you, ma’am. No further questions.

With that final, understated civility, Warfield had ended the testimonial phase of the trial. The only things that remained were the summations, but as he glanced at the clock, then down at the substantial number of pages in Warfield’s and Talbott’s closing statements, Kinley decided to wait until the next day before beginning.

On the way out, he dropped by William Warfield’s office once again.

“Your father did a very good job,” Kinley said as he peeped briefly through the open door.

Warfield could hardly be seen behind an enormous stack of papers. “That doesn’t surprise me,” he said.

“Did you ever see him work?”

“Lots of times,” Warfield said. “He was the best pure trial lawyer Sequoyah ever produced.” He smiled. “Of course, I’m a little prejudiced, I guess.”

“I don’t suppose you ever discussed the Overton case with him?” Kinley said.

“Not much about it, anyway.”

“He never voiced any doubts?”

“About what?”

“Overton’s guilt.”

Warfield laughed softly. “Are you kidding? You’ve been reading the transcript. Do you have any doubts?”

Kinley shrugged. “In a murder case, I feel better when there’s a body.”

“Well, sure,” Warfield said. “I’m sure my father would have felt better about that, too. But they had that bloody dress, of course, and there was no doubt that it was Ellie Dinker’s.”

“Did your father ever mention what he thought might have been done with the body?”

“You mean what Overton did with it?”

“Yes.”

Warfield thought a moment. “Under water,” he said finally. “My father pretty much felt that that was the only way Overton could have gotten rid of it. He thought he must have thrown it into the river.”

“What river?”

“Rocky River,” Warfield said, “the one that flows through the canyon. You know, out there where Ray Tindall died.”