The Case Against Owen Williams (10 page)

Dorkin had expected the hearing to last at least two days. This unexpected brevity could only mean that the prosecution's case was so strong that it had far more evidence than it needed. No doubt, there would also be a concern on Whidden's part to orchestrate his presentation in such a way that his own appearance at the trial itself was not an anticlimax. Dramatic surprises of some kind would have to be held back. It would all be very skilfully structured.

McKiel's first witness was Lavinia Page. Appearing tiny even in her high-heeled shoes, she walked with small, mincing steps to the witness stand. She was wearing a long-sleeved navy blue dress and a little white and navy tam perched jauntily on one side of her head. She sat down and smoothed her dress over her knees.

McKiel suavely put her at her ease. Her name was Lavinia Page, but she was known to her friends as Vinny. She lived on the Bangor Road a quarter of a mile from the Hannigan Road. She had known Sarah Coile for many years, but they had just become close friends over the last three years. Sarah was a nice person. She laughed a lot, and she was liked by everyone who knew her.

McKiel then led her through the events of the evening. Vinny described how Sarah had dropped in on her in the afternoon on her way home from town, how they had arranged to go to the dance along with Vinny's boyfriend, Brick, how Sarah had danced with Owen Williams, how Sarah and Williams had gone out at intermission and not come back. This had happened at ten-thirty, the usual time for the intermission.

“Tell me,” McKiel asked in a gentle, understanding tone of voice, “did you and your friend and Sarah have anything to drink?”

“Yes,” she said after what struck Dorkin as a perhaps carefully calculated hesitation. “We all had a drink of rye.”

“And did Williams have rye with him too?”

“I think so. The soldiers always did.”

“So she may have drunk more while she was with him?”

“Yes.”

“Would you say that Sarah was someone who was accustomed to handling a fairly large amount of alcohol in an evening? Did she generally drink very much?”

“No, she didn't usually. Just a drink or so at a dance. Nothing to get drunk on.”

“But on this particular night, things may have turned out so that she had more than usual and might not have been able to defend herself if anything untoward happened?”

“Yes, I think that could be.”

“Now,” McKiel said, “I'm going to have to turn to a more delicate question. Did Sarah ever confide to you that she was going to have a child?”

“No, never.”

“Were you surprised when you learned about her condition?”

“Yes, I was very surprised. I don't know how it could have happened. She was a good girl. She was a very religious girl.”

“You have no idea who the father of her child might have been?”

“No.”

“Someone she met at one of the dances perhaps.”

“Perhaps.”

“Thank you, Miss Page,” McKiel said. “You have been very helpful.”

Vinny Page was followed by a terrified little lance-corporal who was on the stand to testify to only one thing. He had been in charge of the orderly office when Private Williams returned on the Saturday night of July 1 at 12:33 am.

“We turn now,” McKiel said, glancing at his watch, “to witnesses who will testify to some of Private Williams's movements between the time he left the dance hall with Sarah Coile and his arrival back at the armoury.”

Mrs. Linda Clark was a big-boned, ample woman of forty, with a bold, broad face and flaming red hair. She spoke in a deep voice roughened, Dorkin guessed, by a quarter of a century of Buckingham cigarettes with some help perhaps from Messrs. Seagram & Co. She was the proprietress of The Maple Leaf canteen on the Bangor Road.

“Mrs. Clark,” McKiel said, “we have heard that Private Williams came to your canteen the night of the dance. What time was that?”

“It was about ten to twelve. I remember because I close at midnight, and when he came in, it was getting late, and I looked at the clock.”

“At the time I understand that there was only one other person in the canteen, a Mr. John Maclean. So please tell us what happened.”

“The soldier bought a glass of ginger ale from the fountain and went into one of the booths at the back to drink it. I told him he couldn't stay long because I was going to close in a few minutes.”

“Did he seem to be drinking?”

“I figured he probably was, but he wasn't staggering or nothing like that.”

“How did he behave? Did he seem nervous or upset?”

“Not exactly nervous. But quiet. He seemed to be thinking pretty hard about something. But I didn't pay much attention to him. I was cleaning up so I could go home. Just about the time I was getting ready to tell him and John that I was closing, he left.”

“You are certain that Private Williams arrived just before midnight?”

“He arrived at ten to twelve, just like I said. I looked.”

“And how long do you think it would it take someone to walk from The Silver Dollar to your canteen?”

“Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty minutes.”

“So that if someone set out at ten-thirty to walk from the dance hall to your canteen, you would expect him to arrive about ten to eleven rather than ten to twelve.”

“Yes, unless they walked awful slow.”

She was followed on the stand by John Maclean. He was wearing an old suit that looked like the kind of thing people picked up at the Salvation Army and that left half an inch of sock showing above his boots, making him look even more like a scarecrow than he might have looked anyway. Dorkin guessed that he was somewhere in his fifties, but his face looked as if it had been knocked around a good deal—by cheap booze or rough weather or whatever—so he wasn't easy to place. But when he began his evidence, Dorkin was surprised by how well he spoke, as if the scarecrow image were some kind of joke he had decided to play on the court.

“Mr. Maclean,” McKiel said, taking it slowly as if he were talking to someone who wasn't quite all there, “we understand that just before midnight on Saturday, July 1, you were at The Maple Leaf canteen when a soldier whom we know to have been Private Owen Williams came in. I wonder if you could you tell us everything you can remember about what he looked like, how he acted, what he did while he was there? Can you do that?”

“I'll try to do my best,” Maclean said, in a tone with just the faintest edge of sarcasm.

If there were witnesses who were intimidated by the setting, he didn't seem to be one of them.

“He came in,” Maclean continued, “and I was sitting on one of the stools at the counter talking with Linda. He ordered some pop, and Linda gave it to him in a glass, and he went back into the corner to drink it.”

“Excuse me,” McKiel said. “But did you notice anything particular about his appearance?”

“When he went off to sit down, I turned around to have a look at him, and I noticed that he had dirt on his uniform. Not a lot, not mud or anything like that, but bits of leaf and grass.”

“Did he seem to you to be drunk? Was he staggering?”

“No, he wasn't staggering that I could see, but I think he must have been drinking some because he had a bottle with him. There's a little mirror on the wall behind the counter, and I could see him back there. He drank a little out of the glass, then got a pony of rye out of his pocket and dropped some of it into the pop. Then he sat there and drank it. He wasn't there very long, just five or ten minutes. But all the time he was there, he never looked up at all. He just sat there scowling at the other side of the booth. Then he got up and left.

“After he'd gone, I went back to the booth to get the glass so Linda wouldn't have to do it, and I found that he'd left the empty rye bottle lying there in the corner of the seat. I took the glass and the bottle back to the counter for Linda and left. When I got out, I could see the soldier maybe a furlong down the road walking towards town. And that was the last time I saw him until I saw him here today.”

He glanced at Williams, who looked back at him wide-eyed then turned away.

“The court will note,” McKiel said as Maclean rose, “that Private Williams left The Silver Dollar at approximately ten-thirty. He arrived at The Maple Leaf canteen less than a mile away over an hour and a quarter later at ten to twelve. There is nearly an hour unaccounted for. I wish now to try to shed some light on that missing time.”

The Reverend Zacharias Clemens of The Church of the Witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ sat hunched forward a little in the witness box, heavy and shapeless, his large hands in his lap. His face might have been that of a farmer—plain, rather featureless, with a broad straight mouth and a nose that was a little too large. His hair, greying at the temples, was black and long. His eyes under heavy, black brows were pale blue, and as McKiel established for the court who he was they kept drifting vaguely away over the spectators to far corners of the room. He was dressed in a dreadful brown suit, white shirt, and a broad, funereally black tie.

“I appreciate how painful this must be for you,” McKiel said, “and I shall try to be as expeditious as I can. In your deposition of July 7, two days after the body of Sarah Coile was found, you stated that you had occasion to pass the intersection of Broad Street and the Hannigan Road, sometime around eleven o'clock on the night of July 1, that is to say, not long after Sarah Coile and Private Williams left The Silver Dollar. First of all, I wonder if we could try to pin the time down a little more exactly if that is possible. I am sure you understand the importance of this.”

Clemens considered, then began to speak in a rather nasal baritone with touches of what seemed to Dorkin a southern accent.

“I'm not sure how exact I can be,” he said. “But I'll do my best. It was a Saturday, and on Saturday after supper, it is my practice to go to my church to think about my sermon for the next morning.”