Authors: Michael Malone
The judge had the question removed from the record, and suggested that if Isaac were simply attempting to establish this witness's character, perhaps we’d heard enough by now to catch the general drift. Isaac said that Moonfoot's character, his integrity, and his honesty were vitally at issue, but agreed that “we have heard more than enough to draw our own conclusions about all of them.” I’d already drawn my own conclusions about Arthur Butler, so I left Superior Court then for a conference upstairs with the new city comptroller about my budget, where I knew he would say my budget was too large, and he knew I would say it was too small. At the desk, Zeke was brooding over houses for rent ads in the paper; he said there was still no word from Justin about Purley.
When I looked back in on the trial, Isaac (taking forever to blow on his glasses, then wipe them with a blue handkerchief) was saying, “Mr. Butler, it's now clear that you remember
nothing
from that night at Smoke's, do you? Not what you drank, or George drank, not what you wore, or he wore, not what else you talked about, not who else was there, not the time, not the weather, not the location of your table, and all the rest that you can’t ‘recall,’ isn’t
that so? Yet, you are asking us to believe you
can
recall, as you claim,
word for word
, a few sentences George Hall said to you that night
seven long years ago?
”
Mr. Butler said that was a different situation, because if a man says he's going to kill another man then “something important like that stands out in your mind.”
Isaac turned his back on the witness stand as he said, “Would you say your testifying in this murder trial was ‘important’?” When Butler told him he certainly did think so, yes, Isaac (still with his back to him) said, “You and I have been talking very earnestly now for two hours on this important subject, and I have been standing very close to you, Mr. Butler. What color is my tie?” Moonfoot said he thought it was blue. Isaac turned and showed him that it was red with yellow dots. Moonfoot said that seeing wasn’t the same as hearing. Asked then to repeat the last question he’d heard the district attorney ask him yesterday afternoon, Moonfoot said he thought Bazemore had asked him if George had been laughing when he’d said he was going to kill Pym.
“No, sir, it was His Honor who inquired about Mr. Hall's tone of voice.” And Isaac had the stenographer read out the D.A.'s last question: “And were you, to borrow a word from the defense counsel,
surprised
to hear that George Hall had killed Robert Pym?”
Folding his handkerchief, Isaac sighed sadly. “I think we’re all ‘surprised’ at your peculiar style of memory, Mr. Butler. It seems to work a whole lot better on things that happened seven years ago, than seven hours ago, or seven
minutes
ago!” Next the old lawyer brought Moonfoot to admit that he hadn’t actually gone to Smoke's that night with George, but had simply run into him there, and sat down for a drink. Actually, he hadn’t ever “gone” to Smoke's at any time
with
George.
Isaac (his arms crossed over his tweed vest): “Mr. Butler, you said yesterday, ‘George and I were real close, we hung out together from childhood.’ Is that right? Good friends?”
“That's right.” Moonfoot was looking tired, but game.
Isaac smiled at him. “What's George's sister's name?”
Butler couldn’t “call it to mind. Was it Dot?”
“No, sir, it's Natalie.” Isaac spun around to spot Mitch
Bazemore, who was pacing the length not only of his own table, but the defense table as well. Through this whole cross-examination, the D.A. had been on his feet—and when not striding around the room, was rocking back and forth on the heels of his shiny wing tips. With a prayerful gesture, Isaac thundered, “Mr. Bazemore, would you
please
sit down?
And stop prowling!
”
The D.A. quivered. “If you’d stop trying to block my view of the witness, I wouldn’t need to keep moving!”
Isaac: “Is it that you need to see the witness? Or that he needs to
see you?
Are you perhaps worried about signals not being caught?”
Mitch's fist hit his palm. “Your Honor! These innuendos are outrageous! I move that remark be taken out of the record.
Out of
the record!
”
The side of Judge Hilliardson's face twitched, and I thought both counselors were headed back to chambers—like to the wood-shed for a switching—but all he did was rub his cheek, and say with no expression that the remark would be removed from the record, that the defense would stand away from the witness, and stop making promiscuous accusations, and that the State would confine any further compulsory peregrinations to his own territorial domain. Bubba Percy laughed, and was told by the same frozen face that if the press wish to remain in court, the press would instantly stop these inappropriate noises. “If you want comedy, young man, go to a movie, not a trial.” Bubba, Mitch, and Isaac all apologized.
Finally, Isaac got back to questioning Moonfoot's familiarity with his “close friend” George Hall by asking, “What's George's mother's name?”
Butler couldn’t “recollect” Nomi Hall's first name. Nor could he recall George's father's name, or George's highschool girlfriend's name, or the name of the dog the Halls had owned for thirteen years, or the month of George's birthday, or the make and color of the automobile George had driven for six years, or the location of his room in the Hall home, or the exact location of the house itself. He didn’t know that George had had two toes blown off by a Claymore mine in combat, that he’d had since childhood a burn scar down the back of his right thigh, or that his father was dead.
Slumped in the chair, Moonfoot tugged fretfully at his goatee.
“We hung out, is what I said; we was thick that way, but that's no reason he’d need to get into all this personal stuff.”
Isaac shook his head with a tragic slowness. “Too personal to tell you his father had died, but not too personal to confide in you that he planned to kill a man?”
“Well, I happened to be the one there at the time.”
“Ahhh. And if any other passing stranger had happened to sit himself down at George's table that night, George would have ‘bummed a cigarette’ from
him
, and said to
him
, ‘Oh, by the way, see that drunk over there at the jukebox? I intend to kill him. If not tonight, then some other night.’ Is that it?” Turning to the jury, Isaac raised his arms in baffled sorrow. Then he pointed at Hall, who sat motionlessly straight, hands folded on the table top; his glasses had black plastic rims that he pushed at when Isaac said to Butler, “That night in Smoke's, was George wearing his glasses?”
Bazemore was back on his feet, now jiggling coins in his pants’ pockets. “Your Honor, please ask Mr. Rosethorn to stop interfering with my view of the witness!”
Isaac: “Your Honor, let Mr. Butler answer! It's a
simple
question.”
Mr. Butler's simple answer was that he didn’t remember whether George was wearing glasses or not. Asked if he remembered at what point in the argument between Pym and Hall he had decided to “flee” rather than stay to “protect, calm, or assist” his “close friend” in the midst of an altercation with a white policeman whom he, Butler, knew to be a “racist thug”—objection from Bazemore, sustained—Moonfoot said, “toward the end.” Asked if he could pinpoint more specifically the moment when he had “deserted” his “childhood pal,” he said he thought it had probably been when Pym had pulled the gun, and shoved the muzzle in George's nostril.
Isaac's face sagged with contempt. “Discretion was the better part of valor, that was your attitude, wasn’t it, sir? Desertion, that was your style, wasn’t it? A friend's life is in deadly danger, and what do you do? Try to disarm his assailant, try to telephone the police, try anything at all, besides slither away as fast as you could?” Without waiting for an answer, which, not surprisingly didn’t appear to be forthcoming anyhow, Isaac asked, “You’ve told us your-self that you were ‘working’ with Pym and his associates, as their
‘supplies man.’ Perhaps Pym had come to Smoke's to see
you?
Had you arranged to meet Pym there that night?”
Moonfoot emphatically denied it.
“What about Winston Russell? Maybe you were meeting him there?”
“I wasn’t meeting anybody.”
Isaac looked dubious. “Perhaps
you’re
the one Pym had had this argument with? Is that possible?” Moonfoot said he’d never had any argument with Pym, or “any of them.” “Then why run off?” wondered Isaac, his hands opened out. “In fact, if you were on such good terms with Robert Pym, and on such good terms with George, why didn’t you interfere in their quarrel?” Moonfoot said it wasn’t any of his business. “Ah yes, your business of supplying merchandise and
names
, isn’t it?” Isaac next wanted to know if during the course of their “business dealings” Butler had ever seen Winston Russell in a blue Ford. Yes, he had; he’d ridden in it. Had he seen it outside Smoke's that night? Objection, as irrelevant, from Bazemore, over-ruled by Hilliardson. Butler didn’t remember whether he’d seen it or not. The old lawyer's questions now lashed out quickly one after another. “Did you ever actually accompany George Hall on one of these alleged ‘smuggling’ trips?”
“No sir, I never—”
“No, you did not. Did you ever actually
see
George Hall loading, or watching others load, illegal merchandise into a Fanshaw truck? See it go into the truck now?”
“Well, I wasn’t there at the warehouse—”
“No, you did not. Did you ever actually
see
any money given to George Hall by Pym or Russell or anyone else, as payment for these so-called smuggling trips?”
“No, I never was—”
“No, you did not!” And Isaac, without pause, shifted to a whole different line of questioning, and abruptly asked, “Mr. Butler! Before you appeared in court yesterday, did you have occasion to speak with Mr. Bazemore? That's the district attorney pacing up and down there? Have you ever at any time discussed your testimony in this trial with him?”
By the time Moonfoot revealed that over the past forty-eight
hours he’d had “two or three talks” with the D.A. regarding his testimony, and “three or four talks” with our yuppie assistant D.A., Neil Sadler (including the statement Sadler had taken from him up in Delaware), Mitch Bazemore's coins were jingling like a runaway herd of belled sheep. Wheeling sharply, he bellowed, “Your Honor! For heaven's sake! Mr. Rosethorn knows it is perfectly ordinary and perfectly legal for the State to interview a prospective witness prior to testimony. He is trying to sneak around and imply that the State has behaved improperly!”
Isaac lashed back: “I intended no such implication! But, of course, if that's the way you choose to take it—”
Hilliardson sent the jury (who were getting more exercise than they’d anticipated) back out; they went with the look of children sure all the exciting stuff was going to happen as soon as they left the room. Then the judge called both counsels to the bench, lectured at them awhile, and told them loud enough for everybody else to hear, if not follow, his remarks, “Patience may be sitting on a monument, smiling at grief. But, gentlemen, Patience has advised me she will not be sitting on this bench with me much longer!” Mitch appeared to be upset about some papers which Isaac was showing both him and the judge, and which I gathered the judge was going to allow into evidence, as he had Miss Bee mark the packet for identification.
After the jury hurried back in, Isaac shambled over to the defense table, where Nora Howard handed him another sheaf of typed pages. Flipping this set to its last page, he brought it to the witness stand, where Moonfoot still sat sadly staring at his shoes. “Mr. Butler, this is a copy of the statement that you gave to the assistant D.A., Mr. Sadler, two weeks ago, is that right? Here's your signature, is that correct?”
After a thoughtful perusal, Moonfoot agreed that it was his signature, but added that he couldn’t be sure about whether he’d signed it two weeks ago or not; if that's what the notarized date said, he guessed he’d go along with it. With a smile, Isaac stepped back. “Unreliable as your memory is, sir, I hesitate to ask, but have you ever met
me?
Before this trial, that is?”
Happy to be of help after all this criticism, Moonfoot grinned.
“Um hum, met you up in Delaware Prison.”
A rustle through the courtroom, into which Isaac purred, “It was in the visitors’ room that we met, rather than in an adjoining cell, wasn’t it?” Laughter from some spectators.
“That's right. Y’all brought me a carton of Kools.”
“It was on last December twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve, and I was in the company of a friend of yours named Billy Gilchrist, wasn’t I?”
“That's right. Y’all brought a big bag of Milk Duds too.” Butler appeared proud of this recollection. He looked around the room which was now audibly stirring with interest at the news that he and Rosethorn had met months ago. Isaac handed him the second set of typed pages and asked if that too was his notarized signature. It was. Was this the statement that he’d given to Rosethorn on December 24? It was.
Isaac held a set of pages in each hand, sighed, then suddenly turned around as Mitch Bazemore (with a puffing noise) stomped past him in his fast circuit of the tables. “Counsel, would you kindly return to your corner of the ring, as His Honor asked you to do?”
With a last loud steamy puff, Mitch snarled, “All right, all right,” about-faced and sat down.
“I have a problem, Mr. Butler,” smiled Isaac. “Yesterday, you came in here and told us that George's exact words to you before the fight with Pym were—and Mr. Walkington will please correct me if I misquote—‘If he mess with me, if he say one fuckin’ word to me…I’m gonna kill that motherfucker dead. I don’t get him now, then I get him later, but I get him.’ Is that accurate?” (It was uncannily accurate, even to inflections, as everyone in the court seemed by their nods and murmurs to be acknowledging.) Butler agreed that it was. Now Isaac pushed his glasses slowly up on his nose, leafed through the State's pretrial statement awhile, pursing his lips thoughtfully. “All right. Now, let me read what you told Mr. Neil Sadler two weeks ago. ‘Question: “So George was already gunning for Pym, isn’t that right? He hated him and was looking for his chance. What did he say to you about Pym before the fight?” Answer: “Well, something about he was an asshole.” Question: “Didn’t he say he was going to get him good?” Answer: “Yeah,
something like that. Said, ‘If he hassles me, I’m gonna lay him out.’” Question: “You had the impression George was mad enough to kill Pym, didn’t you?” Answer: “Something like that.” “Now,” Isaac peered at Butler over his glasses, “is
that
correct? Is that what you told the assistant D.A. two weeks ago?”