“Just keep smiling and don’t answer,” I whisper to Leigh as Dan bullies his way ahead of us into the courthouse through the media and the onlookers. I don’t have to worry. Although she appears almost regal (her hair is swept up and gorgeous), she looks too scared to speak.
If ever I wanted some publicity, I’ve got my wish. All I can do is hope that when this trial is over, the headlines don’t read: “Bracken’s Replacement Blows Big One.” Though it is a beautiful spring day, my T-shirt is already drenched with sweat and my heart is pounding as if I had never tried a case before. I haven’t, not like this one.
Inside, the action is considerably quieter. Jury selection could take quite a while, and with the trial recessing for the funeral this afternoon, Dan and I will have the weekend to work. Judge Grider’s courtroom is relatively small, and I’m a little surprised, publicity hound that he is, that he didn’t ask to switch with Judge Raferty, who would have readily yielded his territory for the asking.
Grider, each white hair perfectly in place, gets started with an announcement that stuns all of us. His docket is crowded, and he wants to work on Saturday. Why didn’t he tell us yesterday, the bastard? I had counted on the weekend to work on the case.
Dan whispers, “I hear the Judicial Department has rapped his knuckles recently for letting his criminal cases stack up. He’s supposed to have an opponent next year.”
Jill, dressed in a funereal black double-breasted suit, rises quickly to address the court.
“Our office has no problems with Saturday, Your Honor, but I am concerned that some otherwise qualified potential members of the jury may have some scheduling difficulties.”
I pop out of my chair, pissed at Grider but more irritated at myself for letting Jill beat me to the jury. One of the first rules a trial attorney is supposed to learn is to show the jury he cares about their problems so they’ll be more sympathetic to his client’s.
“Your Honor, a lot of folks might have been planning to shop for their Easter outfits tomorrow,” I improvise. Good Baptists aren’t supposed to care about their holiday wardrobes.
Actually, the problem is that Easter is still two weeks away.
“Mr. Page,” Grider says snidely, “why don’t we let the panel tell us whether they will be inconvenienced if we work on Saturday instead of you making that judgment?”
He turns to the panel members and quizzes them. Only two people raise their hands.
“Damnation!” Dan says in amazement.
“They want to be around to hear the dirt.” Why the hell not, I think gloomily. Chet’s suicide, Leigh’s beauty, and Christian Life’s prominence have made this trial the hottest ticket in town. Grider excuses them on the spot, and we get down to the business of winnowing the panel down to twelve jurors through the process of voir dire, which permits the lawyers to ask questions of prospective members.
I watch carefully as Jill runs through her questions.
One of the trickiest problems is how to handle the six people on the panel who are members of Christian Life.
If I have to make the argument that their minister killed Art Wallace, I have no doubt how they would choose up sides. I wish I could hear Shane conduct Chet’s service before I had to make any decisions. I lean over to Leigh and say, “Chet’s notes say you know a couple of these people personally.”
“Just slightly,” she says, her warm, minty-flavored breath in my right ear.
I needn’t have worried, because Jill seems more concerned than I am and makes a motion that all six be stricken for “cause,” which would automatically eliminate them if the motion is granted by Grider.
I stand and argue against it, knowing Jill will be forced to use all but four of her peremptory challenges if I am successful. Grider summarily denies her motion, holding that if any of the six contributed to Leigh’s bail or signed an affidavit on her behalf, he will strike that person for cause, but church membership alone is not sufficient.
The two women who know Leigh personally admit to Grider that they gave a few dollars for the bond, and Grider tells them they are excused. They seem disappointed. Jill returns to the prosecution table and flashes a smug smile at Dick Harvey, her main deputy, who is second-chairing the case. Obviously, she has no inkling that I would love to argue to the jury that the wrong family member is on trial.
By eleven-thirty we have seated a jury composed of six Baptists, two African-Americans who belong to an AME church, one Charismatic (according to Chet’s notes) Catholic, and three who attend other so-called Bible churches in Blackwell County. As Grider dismisses the other panel members, I have second thoughts about Chet’s position about who should serve on the jury. It is deeply conservative and will be shocked if Leigh admits to the video. They may forgive her but still send her to jail. Until now, I never questioned Chet’s strategy. Too late, I wish I had chosen the most liberal jury possible. Dan was right. If Chet had told me that he was going to recite the Gettysburg Address as part of his opening statement, I would have told him it sounded like a good idea. In retrospect, Chet wasn’t thinking clearly about this trial, and I should have challenged him. For all I know, it was deliberate.
I ask the court to break for the funeral, which is at three, but Grider instructs us to give our opening statements now, saying he wants to complete the trial by tomorrow afternoon if at all possible. Jill seems about to protest (Grider has us both off balance), but comes forward to the podium and tells the jury that while this case is circumstantial, the lies told by the defendant will convict her of the first-degree murder of her husband.
Standing calmly in front of the jury rail, Jill, without a single note, tells the jury that it won’t be able to understand this case until it understands Leigh’s upbringing, and begins by tracing Leigh’s devotion to her father and to Christian Life.
“The defendant’s parents will tell you what their youngest daughter was like before she met the victim. As a child and as an adult until she married Art Wallace, the defendant was devoted to her father and his church, making numerous trips overseas with him to help those less fortunate….” As Jill catalogs Leigh’s Christian virtues before she met Art, I watch the faces of the jury, who already seem intrigued by the story. Tales about the Devil’s work fascinate all of us, and this is where I assume Jill is going with it.
“However, the defendant began to change,” Jill continues, “after her marriage. Pastor Norman will tell you that her husband turned out to be something other than a devout convert to Christian Life. In fact, only weeks after his marriage to the defendant. Art Wallace began to withdraw from the church, and soon so did his wife.
Christian Life, Pastor Norman will tell you, is a way of life. It’s not just a matter of showing up on Sunday.
Laura Partrain, a member of the defendant’s ‘church family,” as they are called in Christian Life, will tell you also that a few months after the defendant’s marriage, Leigh Wallace not only quit her job in the church office but participated less and less in the activities in the church to the point where she only saw her on Sunday mornings, when before she had seen her four or five times a week. Mrs. Partrain will tell you that more than once she confronted Leigh about her absence but was met with a defensive and guilty attitude. Her father and mother, who, by the way, will tell you they believe their daughter is innocent, will also tell you of many conversations with Leigh on the subject of her husband and their near total withdrawal from church activities. Their daughter’s reaction over several months was one of denial and excuses, which brings us down to the night before Art Wallace was murdered.”
Having effectively set the stage, Jill retreats behind the podium, where she has her notes, and begins to summarize the testimony of the witnesses, beginning with the next-door neighbors, the Wheelers, who “over heard the defendant from a distance of several feet admonish her husband to quit saying ugly things about her father.”
The jury noticeably reacts to this bit of information.
Several shift in their seats and lean forward as if they are about to hear some particularly juicy gossip.
“The afternoon after her husband of less than a year is shot to death in his study with a twenty-two-caliber pistol with out a sign of any forced entry suggesting an intruder, the defendant is questioned by the police. She tells them a series of lies designed to mislead them into believing she had actually been at Christian Life at the time of the murder and only discovered her husband’s body when she brought home an older acquaintance to have lunch.”
Jill stops speaking and walks quickly over to a chalk board and writes in a large clear hand: “Lie #1 what the Defendant told her father the day before the murder.” Walking up to the jury rail, she drops her voice almost to a conversational tone and tells the men and women, who are listening as avidly as children to a ghost story, that Shane will testify that he had encouraged Leigh the day before to come the next morning to a workshop led by a Guatemalan missionary and she had assured him that she would. Returning to the chalk board, Jill writes: “Lie #2 Defendant’s story to the police.” Now, moving slowly from one end of the jury box to the other, Jill recites Leigh’s story to the cops and summarizes the testimony of each witness who will contradict it.
Jill concludes by hitting hard at the absence of signs of forced entry.
“Forensic investigators have been all over the house and study where the victim died. They will testify they found absolutely nothing to suggest that anybody was there that morning except Leigh Wallace and her husband. The only reasonable conclusion you can come to, ladies and gentlemen,” Jill winds up, leaning on the jury rail, moving her head from side to side, “is that Leigh Wallace, perhaps in anger, perhaps for some other undisclosed reason, walked into her husband’s study and shot him through the heart with a twenty-two-caliber pistol. Then, disposing of the pistol who knows where, she drove to her father’s church, where she pretended to have been all morning. To divert suspicion from herself, she invited an unsuspecting friend home to help discover her husband’s body, and thus began the web of lies I’ve just told you….”
As I get to my feet, I fight the usual temptation to begin arguing the case, which, of course, is not permitted in the opening statement. Concentrating primarily on the most sympathetic-looking member (a Mrs. Holland seated in the middle of the second row and the only Catholic), I announce to the jury that Leigh will admit that she lied to the police but that she did not kill her husband.
“Leigh will tell you her reasons for her deception, and you will learn they had nothing to do with the murder of her husband. In some respects, Leigh’s testimony will be similar to what you’ve just heard the prosecutor say her father and other witnesses will tell you.
It is true that Leigh grew less active in the church due to her husband’s influence, and Leigh herself will tell you that she felt guilt over this, but none of that proves she’s a murderer. Unfortunately for Leigh Wallace, her husband was not what he seemed when she met him.
You will learn that Mr. Wallace had recently stolen two hundred thousand dollars from the owner of a video store in San Francisco that specialized in pornography.
You will further hear a taped conversation with an investigator from a fire insurance company in San Francisco that the owner of the same video store in San Francisco hired an individual to burn the store of a competitor. And Leigh Wallace will tell you she was afraid for their lives as a consequence of her husband’s theft.”
I pause to let this sink in and move over to the blackboard and take the eraser and wipe out Jill’s questions.
I have decided not to mention Shane in my opening statement. I want to keep him guessing. When I finish, I write on the board, trying to make the words legible:
“Who wanted Art Wallace dead?”
“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that Art Wallace had enemies who played rough. The medical examiner will put his death no earlier than ten-thirty that morning, and it is undisputed that Leigh wasn’t even at home most of that time.
Leigh will tell you that she was frightened for herself and for her husband, but that she loved him and wanted to please him. She will also tell you that she loved her father and wanted to please him, too. Neither action makes her a murderer.”
I walk to the front of the podium and scan the jury.
Every one of them has secrets, Chet pointed out the night we worked on jury selection. The trick, he said, is to get as many as possible to identify with some part of your client. We’ve all done shameful things, but those acts don’t make us murderers. According to Chet, if a couple of people can imagine themselves in your client’s situation, you’re halfway to an acquittal, no matter how bad the evidence appears. I home in on Mrs. Holland, a solidly built woman in her thirties with large brown eyes that seem to melt a little every time she looks over at Leigh. As a nominal Catholic, I know she is familiar with guilt.
“The evidence will show there is no record that either Leigh or her husband owned a gun.
If she shot Art,” I slip in, though it is argument, “where did she hide it in the few minutes between the time her father talked to Art and her appearance at Christian Life?” I discuss the lack of physical evidence and then sit down, knowing I have done a less than impressive job. Perhaps I should have gone right after Shane in my opening statement. Dan had me convinced about midnight last night that I had no alternative. Yet, once Shane hears, as he surely will, that I have not argued he killed his son-in-law, his guard will be down during cross-examination.
Dan whispers as I sit down, “You blew it.”
I smile as if he is congratulating me on the best opening statement he has ever heard from anyone besides Chet Bracken.
At Chet’s funeral, the huge sanctuary at Christian Life bulges with members, lawyers, the media, and perhaps even a couple of members of the jury. Dan and I squeeze in ten rows from the front on the right side, next to Amy Gilchrist, whom I haven’t seen since my last visit to Christian Life.
“Hi, guys,” she whispers, unable to suppress a grin despite the solemn occasion.
The three of us were pals in night law school, and then, after graduation, we all went to work for the county, Amy on the opposite side. Just the sight of each other stirs a host of memories. I lean across Dan and say, “Remember the day Chet stormed out of Phil’s office when Phil showed him those pictures of his client naked with that woman? He nearly kicked Phil’s desk in.”
Amy wrinkles her slightly pug nose in disgust. Her boss then, the former Prosecuting Attorney of Blackwell County, didn’t have a murder case, and she knew it.
“I tried to crawl into the wall that day,” she says, her hand on Dan’s knee, as she leans over to talk.
Dan wheezes softly.
“Rub it a little, Amy. It’s getting stiff.”
I grin but catch the disapproving eye of a man on the other side of Amy and put my finger to my lips. I wonder what she’s heard in the last twenty-four hours. Now isn’t quite the time to ask. Fortunately, Chet’s casket, squarely in the middle of the sanctuary at the front, is closed. I don’t want to dwell on what his face must look like and turn my head to view the church. Its stained-glass windows seem conventional enough, though I would be hard pressed to name the Biblical characters represented in them. As Dan observed on the way in, “Once you’ve seen one stained-glass window in a church, you’ve seen them all.” At my level of appreciation, this heresy has the ring of truth.
The immense walls are unpainted concrete blocks.
The effect is one of strength, not ugliness, which is perhaps a reflection of my own lack of architectural taste and inherent miserliness. Yet, although I was raised a Catholic, the wealth of the Vatican has always seemed to me a scandal. As a senior at Subiaco in Christian Doctrine, I dared to offer this criticism to one of the monks, who cracked, “Jesus was poor, and look what happened to him.” Money talks in any age. Poor suckers like me keep forgetting that.
At the front of the church above the pulpit and hanging from the ceiling is the largest cross I’ve ever seen.
Were it to fall during a Sunday service, Shane and half the choir would be killed. As these thoughts flit through my overheated brain, Shane, carrying a white Bible, appears from the left, walks to the middle of the sanctuary in front of Chet’s casket, and signals us to stand. Apparently there will be no choir. I cut my eyes to the left and glimpse the pallbearers marching past me. Curiously, my feelings were a little hurt that Wynona did not ask me to be one. I remind myself that I was not a close friend of Chet’s. Still, he chose to end his life in front of me, and somehow I have the feeling that entitles me to some public acknowledgment. I do not know any of these men. Perhaps they were members of his “family.”
Behind them in a solemn procession follow his relatives.
Trey and Wynona, who is biting her lip and visibly trembling, walk hand in hand to the front row.
There must be twenty other members of Chet’s family, presumably from Helena. After they are seated, Shane, today dressed in a gray suit, briskly climbs three carpeted steps and from behind the pulpit opens his Bible and reads, ” “Whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” ” Shane closes the book, and booms, “Chet Bracken, I tell you, brothers and sisters, heard the voice of God and today is alive in heaven.”
Shane takes the microphone from its stand and moves around to the right side of the pulpit. He stands at parade rest except for his right hand, which is grasping the microphone at the bottom as if it were a stick of peppermint candy. Smiling, and his voice as conversational as that of a talk-show host, he says, “Chet, for those of you who didn’t know him, became a Christian less than a year ago. It seems like just yesterday I had the privilege of baptizing him in the name of Jesus Christ in this very church. Right now I ask the members of his ‘church family’ to stand and be acknowledged.” I crane my neck and watch, as in different sections of the congregation about twenty-five people of all ages, including all of the pallbearers, stand. Ten rows in front, Wynona and Trey, their heads bowed, rise as one. Even as enormous as this church is, it is hard to avoid a feeling of intimacy as Shane takes a moment to explain the significance of church families at Christian Life and then says simply, “You were Chet’s real ministers, and I share your grief.
“Let us pray,” he says, and raises his left hand, which had been behind his back, as a signal to the rest of us to rise.
“Dear God, through your Son Jesus, comfort us in our bewilderment and pain. Like Job, we do not understand human suffering. You send the rain upon the just and unjust. Those you raise up to be your servants, you seem to strike down, even at that time when we need them most. Our human hearts futilely cry again and again for a reason as if it were given to us to comprehend Your divinity and majesty….”
As his prayer continues in the same vein, I try to understand what I am hearing. Is he saying that Chet’s suicide was God’s will? I know nothing of the theology here, but I am reminded of my own religious confusion, which was never cleared up by the monks at Subiaco. If Jesus was God, what is this talk about the Son?
“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Who did Jesus think He was? No wonder they didn’t want us reading the Bible by ourselves.
When he finishes, the girl I recognize as a song leader from my earlier visit enters from a side door onto the platform, and Shane says, “Sheila will lead the Christian Life members present in “A Green Hill.” ” Sheila, whose blond hair comes halfway down her back, receives the microphone from Shane and without benefit of musical accompaniment begins on a note impossibly high for any male over the age of thirteen.
Around me, some people raise their arms and close their eyes as they sing. Without a song sheet to follow, the words are lost to me, but the melody soars, and by the third verse I hear Dan, who had been worried the roof of the church might fall in on him, humming along.
After Sheila departs, Shane follows with more Scripture.
“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised….” My mind wanders to Sarah, and I wonder how much she really believes. Is it the absolute certainty of a life after death that attracts her to Christian Life? I don’t think so. Shane reads, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”
Sarah, for sure, would reject the notion that Christians, whatever their beliefs about heaven, are to be pitied Christian Life provides meaning for her in the here and now. Children her age do not think about death, anyway. In my work I can’t seem to avoid it.
Shane follows with a eulogy, and I listen closely to see if he will lay down any clues about Chet’s death or his own possible role in Art’s murder. Once again, I realize Chet’s death can be understood as a conscious decision not to betray Shane. Is that why he killed himself? After recounting an anecdote about Chet’s boyhood in Helena, Shane says, “Almost immediately after becoming licensed, Chet established himself as one of the better defense attorneys in the state, and within a decade my lawyer friends tell me he was with out equal in his chosen field. Now, I’m sure, like a lot of you, I have questioned the value of so many lawyers in our society. The very afternoon after I baptized him we were sitting in my” study and I asked him how he could continue to represent people who are considered the lowest form of life in our society drug dealers, pornographers, murderers, child abusers. And you know what he told me? He said, “Pastor Norman’ I couldn’t get him to call me Shane back then ‘what you can’t really know is that these people are not always guilty, as the public thinks they are. Most of them are poor;
some are addicted to drugs or alcohol; many are without education; but all are at the mercy of the system when it cranks itself up and decides to get rid of them.” He said, “Pastor, you know much better than I do that it was the prostitutes, the thieves, the despised, the sick in mind and body that our Lord and Savior cast his lot with during his ministry. I can’t turn my back on these people, especially now that I have such joy and hope in my own life….” ” Dan nudges me sharply in the ribs and whispers, “I give you two to one, now he’s gonna mention Leigh.”
Shane pauses to take a sip of water from the glass on the lectern.
“And, lo and behold, my own daughter, in the eyes of society, not the members of this church, praise God, became one of the despised Chet talked about that day. As everyone here knows, Leigh, my youngest and gentlest child, has been accused of murder.
Unable to find the killer of her husband, the authorities have pointed their fingers at her. So, finally, brothers and sisters, my own arrogance and assumptions about persons accused of crime have dropped away, because I know my daughter is innocent of murder. And, as many of you already know, Chet volunteered to undertake her defense free, out of gratitude, he told me.
So it was an enormous shock to me personally when yesterday, on the morning Leigh’s trial was to begin, he took his own life. So that we can put the gossip mongers to rest, Wynona Cody, Chet’s widow, has authorized me to state that Chet was suffering from terminal cancer and was in great pain that was no longer being completely controlled by medication.”
The overflowing congregation (folding chairs have been placed in the aisles) sits rapt as Shane stops to swallow more water. I wonder if he is more nervous than I realize. This story can’t be easy, even if he has conducted a thousand funerals.
“Even as my heart aches for Wynona, Trey, Chet’s family and friends, and for my own loss because I considered Chet a personal friend,” Shane says, almost shyly, “I have not been able to avoid worrying how his death will affect my daughter’s defense. Again with Wynona’s permission, I am going to ask Mr. Gideon Page, if he is here, to stand.”
When I hear my name, it almost doesn’t register that he has asked me to get to my feet. How can he do this in a funeral? But it is his church. He can do anything he wants. Will he ask me to speak? Agree to refuse to try the case tomorrow? I try to fight down a rising sense of panic that I will be humiliated if I acknowledge my presence. Dan’s elbow stings my ribs again.
“Get up!” he whispers.
“He obviously knows you’re here.”
I push myself up, sweat pouring down my sides. I feel as though I were in one of those dreams I’ve had where I am naked in front of other people but can’t quite seem to get my clothes on. Shane says, “Mr.
Page’s daughter, Sarah, has begun coming to our services and been assigned a ‘family,” so I feel he is almost a member himself. Please bow your heads.”
What is he doing? I close my eyes, almost expecting to be shot. Instead, Shane offers a simple and eloquent prayer for my efforts on Leigh’s behalf. When he concludes, he nods for me to sit down and when I have done so, his voice slightly apologetic, he says, “I think Chet would have wanted us to pray for Mr. Page.”
While Shane continues in a more traditional manner, mentioning Chet’s family in Helena by name and telling a couple of anecdotes obviously supplied by his family, Dan mutters out the side of his mouth, “Talk about slick! He’s boxed you in tighter than a rubber on a donkey’s dick.”
Hoping no one has overheard this pearl of wisdom, I nod, so he won’t feel compelled to repeat himself. Is this what Shane was after? I concede the possibility.
How could I dare stand up in court tomorrow and accuse him of murder? No wonder Leigh refused to come with me. He would have had her come up and stand beside him. Yet, the sincerity I have heard in Shane’s voice leads me to believe otherwise. When he began to speak, he seemed like a man caught up in events entirely out of his control, admitting he had no more access to the mind of God than his congregation. All he can do is pray. Hardly a diabolical act, since that is what preachers do.
After more prayer and Scripture, the service ends, and I am surrounded by people, wishing me well on Leigh’s behalf. So many people speak (none I know), it takes a full ten minutes to move from the sanctuary to the front steps. I get a glimpse of Jill walking to the parking lot and wonder if it ever crossed her mind to investigate Shane. I tell Dan to wait for me in the car, because I should speak to Wynona and Trey. Chet will be buried in Helena, which is more than two hours to the east, so Dan and I will not be going to the graveside service.
It takes another ten minutes in line to work my way up to the black limousines where mourners are consoling the family. Tongue-tied as usual in these situations, I simply hug Wynona, who squeezes me hard against her. She and I are the last persons who saw Chet alive.
Wynona, surprisingly dressed in gay colors (red and green) rather than the traditional black, whispers, “Call me when the trial is over.” I nod, and she does not say more. I turn to Trey, who is standing beside her. In his little suit with his hair slicked down, he looks like one of those small-town-looking kids Norman Rockwell used to draw for the Saturday Evening Post. If Chet has sinned by taking his life, it is against Trey. By his expression he doesn’t have a clue.
“Hi, Mr. Page,” he says, his face brightening when he sees me, offering his hand to me the way his stepfather would have wanted him to.
“I hope you do good in the trial,” he says.
“I wanted to come, but Mom won’t let me.”
My hand swallows his, but I let him squeeze, remembering the pressure of his previous handshakes. I can’t imagine he even knows what he is saying, but maybe he thinks he would see chet’s ghost instead of a pale substitute.
“Gotta do what your mom says,” I tell him.
“I’ll come out and see you and her next week, okay?”
“Great,” he says.
“Maybe we can play some catch.
It’s almost baseball season.”
“Yeah,” I tell him, amazed at this child’s aplomb.
“That’d be fun. We’ll do that.”
Riding back downtown to the office with Dan, I have the feeling I am fighting to wake up from a dream. I tell Dan about Trey, and his face softens. He would like to have a kid in the worst way.
“What a little trouper,” he says admiringly, as he barrels down the freeway at seventy miles an hour.
“For sure,” I agree, thinking of Rosa. You can do all right for a while, but sooner or later you have to go home and the person you loved is not there.