The Trial, page 17
part #91 of The Executioner Series
Amy Stone was moving toward him, looking over papers in her hand, and Schofield had a chance to ogle her before she raised her eyes to meet his own. Some kind of woman there, and single, too. He wondered what she looked like underneath the suit she wore, if there was something dark and lacy close against her ivory skin.
Goddamn it, he had missed the question!
"Say again?"
More snickers from the rear, and that old nigger, Price, was reaching for his gavel when they had died away. Clem made a mental note to kick some ass if Herbie Jeffers and the rest of them continued treating him with disrespect that way.
"I asked you if you rented out a room — specifically room six — to the defendant on Sunday afternoon last?"
"I did."
"And did he pay you for a single night?"
"He paid me for a week, an' said he might not have ta stay that long."
"Did you have cause to call the sheriff for assistance on the morning of Tuesday last?"
"Las' Tuesday? Yessum, matter o' fact, I did."
"You were on duty at the Blue Oasis, were you not?"
"Tha's right. I work there, an' I live there, too."
"I see. What was the nature of your problem on that day?"
"My problem?"
"Why did you call the police?"
Clem brightened. "I called 'em up so they could come an' haul him off."
"By 'him,' you mean to indicate..."
"Tha's him, right there."
He jabbed an index finger toward Mack Bolan, wishing instantly that he had taken time to clean his nails. Too late.
"And why, exactly, did you want the officers to 'haul him off?"
"Well, they was makin' ail that noise, ya know? It sounded like some kinda orgy goin' on."
He grinned at Amy Stone, but she ignored him. Snooty bitch.
"Did you hear shouting?"
"Yessum."
"Screams?"
"I did."
"The sounds of furniture or other objects being knocked around?"
"You hit it on the head."
He started to relax. This gig was easier than he had dared to hope.
"And when you called the deputies, did they respond at once?"
Clem glanced at Musgrove, sitting right up front, his Stetson on his knees, and then he let his eyes slide right on by.
"Pd say they made good time."
"We're almost finished, Mr. Schofield. One more thing. When they had taken Mr. Bolan into custody, did you have any occasion to enter his room?"
"Sure did. I own an' operate the place, jus' like I said. I hadda see what kinda mess he lef things in."
"And what, precisely, did you find?"
"A fu..., I mean, it looked jus' like a slaughterhouse or somethin' in that room. All kinda blood and ever'thin' soaked through the sheets, the rug, all splattered on the walls. I didn't get no real close look, o' course, acuz the deputies were sealin' off the place... but you could say I seen enough. Tha's right."
"I see." She smiled at Clem, but it was as phony as the day was long. "No further questions."
Schofield made as if to rise, but the judge leaned down and told him to keep his seat, saying there was still the cross-examination to go. Clem settled back, uneasy as Dan Fleming took the floor, his early confidence beginning to evaporate. This guy had made Doc Ferris look like something from the old folks' home as far as Clem could tell... but he was ready for the smart ass. Let Fleming do his worst. Clem knew his lines as well as any actor on the stage.
"I'd like to double-check a point or two," the lawyer said.
"Go on ahead."
When Fleming smiled, it wasn't like the lady prosecutor's smile at all. The snooty bitch had been pretending that she liked him, working for polite and coming up with civil, but the second lawyer's smile was something else. For just an instant Clem imagined that Dan Fleming planned to eat him up alive.
"You've testified to hearing noises from the room my client occupied."
"Tha's right. Exactly right."
"If I remember, you described the noise as sounding like an orgy."
Schofield grinned and shot another glance at Amy Stone. She was ignoring him, her eyes on Fleming now.
"Tha's what I said, tha's what I meant."
"An orgy meaning what, to you, precisely?"
Schofield couldn't quite believe his ears. "Hell, man... you know."
"I'm interested to hear what you know, Mr. Schofield."
Tricky bastard.
"Well... an orgy is a lotta people doin' things, ya know? Like sexy things."
"I see. So you heard sexy sounds?"
"Well... no, I wouldn't say..."
"We've heard the doctor testify that he could find no evidence of intercourse, no evidence of any sexual activity. And yet you still describe the sounds you heard as *like an orgy.'"
"Look, what I was tryin' to say..."
"Is it your habit to alert police whenever two adults have sex in your motel?"
"Say what?"
But Amy Stone was on her feet now, color flaring in her cheeks.
"Objection, Your Honor. Argumentative. Irrelevant."
"Sustained."
Dan Fleming grinned at Schofield, and the hungry look was back.
"I wonder if you might be able to describe the sounds you heard more clearly."
The witness was confused and growing angry. "Like I said before."
"You heard some shouting?"
"Right."
"Some screaming?"
"Yeah, tha's right."
"Some furniture was being thrown around?"
"It sounded like."
"This shouting, screaming, all the rest of it — did anyone appear to be afraid, in danger at the time?"
"Sure did."
"And that's what made you telephone the police?"
"You got it."
"Was the voice a woman's, or a man's?"
Be careful now. Don't let the bastard trip you up.
"A man was doin' all the yellin', first of all, an' then I heard a woman screamin' later on."
"And you live behind your office. Is that right?"
"Tha's right."
Now what the hell?
"How far away is that from the defendant's room?"
"Five rooms away. He had room six, down at the other end. Tha's one, two, three, four, five between us. Get it?"
"Yes, I get it." Fleming hesitated, eyeing Schofield like a chef might eye a roast. "Did you hear the doctor's testimony earlier this afternoon?"
"I sat right over there."
"You are aware that he described the victim's throat wound as immediately fatal? And he testified that all her other wounds had been inflicted after death?"
"So what?"
"So, Mr. Schofield, maybe you can tell the court how Alma Jennings screamed so loudly you could hear her — what, five rooms away? How could she do that, Mr. Schofield, when her throat was cut from ear to ear? How could she do that when she died immediately?"
Clem Schofield felt like he was drowning. "Mebbee it was... mebbee it was him I heard. Tha's it. It musta been."
"You testified the screams were in a woman's voice."
"I musta got it wrong."
"I see. Is this the first time that you've called the sheriffs office to report disturbances around the Blue Oasis?"
Shifty bastard, changing subjects on him, trying to confuse him like a dirty, no-account — "Naw. I've hadda call 'em up before."
"What kind of troubles have you had?"
"You know, the usual. A fight, some drunks... like that."
"The kind of troubles where you hear some shouting, or some screaming from the rooms?"
"I guess."
"And when the deputies responded were there ten or twenty of them on the scene?"
"Hell, no. It don't take ten or twenty cops to stop no fight."
"How many then?"
"No more'n two, exceptin' for one time I had a buncha kids an' they was fightin' in the parkin' lot."
"But normally no more than two responded to your calls?"
"Tha's right."
"And when you called about the sounds you heard last Tuesday morning, from room six, how many deputies came out?"
Clem knew that he was trapped, and there was nowhere left to go but straight ahead.
"I didn't count'em."
"Let us have an estimate, if you can manage that."
"I'd say a dozen, maybe fifteen men."
"And they were armed?"
"O' course. What good's an unarmed deputy?"
"I mean, they carried weapons other than their usual side arms and batons?"
"I saw some rifles, an' some shotguns," Schofield grudgingly admitted.
"Ah. And in your past experience have deputies responded with that kind of armament to your complaints of noise? Of fights at the hotel?"
"I guess they ain't."
"What made the difference this time, do you think?"
"You'd have to ask them deputies."
"Oh, I intend to, Mr. Schofield. Yes, indeed. And no more questions, thank you."
Clem was shaking, and he tried to hide it, tucking both his hands inside his pockets, feeling like a fool up there in front of everybody on the witness stand. He was relieved when Amy Stone decided to forgo her redirect. The grim expression on her face, on Musgrove's as he passed, informed Clem Schofield clearly that he hadn't saved the day.
If anything, he might have lost it for them.
And suddenly the time seemed right for a vacation from McLary County. Somewhere nice and green and far away would be just right. If he could make it back to the motel and scoop up his paltry savings, if he could get his ancient Dodge across the county line without red lights appearing in the rear-view mirror.
If he couldn't... well, that would be all she wrote.
But Schofield had to try.
The atmosphere was getting thick around McLary and decidedly unhealthy. And it was time to travel.
For his health.
As if his life depended on it.
22
Hank Musgrove was uncomfortable in the witness stand. The trial had not gone well so far, in his opinion, with that asshole Fleming making sport of Clem and old Doc Ferris the way he had.
The Blue Oasis manager was stupid, granted, and they could have picked a better witness out of almost any bar around McLary County — but the coroner was something else again. A lawyer who could make Doc Ferris stutter like a schoolboy would have some other slick surprises up his sleeve. And it was Musgrove's turn to face the music now.
A handful of the other deputies had testified before him, staying only briefly on the stand, corroborating Schofield's shaky evidence as best they could. They didn't know a thing, of course, beyond the fact that they were ordered out, responding to a call about some trouble at the Blue Oasis. Nothing much to that, beyond the fact that Musgrove, with seniority, had been in charge.
Which put him on the spot. Beyond the fact of Schofield's call, recorded — falsely, if it mattered — in the Tuesday morning log, it would be his responsibility to put the picture in perspective for the court.
He would have felt a damn sight better if someone other than the nigger, Price, had been presiding over Bolan's trial. Hank Musgrove had no love for blacks, and least of all the uppity minority who tried to rise above their station, eking out a niche in what had always been a white man's world.
In Musgrove's view they had no place in law enforcement, government — and least of all, presiding over courts where life and liberty were constantly at stake. The vast majority of criminals were black or Hispanic, dammit, and a black man on the bench could only be expected to commiserate, to make excuses with his ghetto brethren.
It would have made no difference to Hank Musgrove, had he taken time to learn, that Price had been accused by radicals and militants on more than one occasion of imposing stiffer sentences on blacks than whites. You could look at Price, observe the man's complexion, and predict where he would stand on any given issue.
Those people stuck together after all.
And word could travel, no matter how much Ethan Peck assured him that the trouble down in Houston had been buried and forgotten. Bad news traveled far and fast, and while he couldn't sweat that Price had any information on his past, there was something in the jurist's eyes whenever Musgrove came before the court.
Like now.
It didn't take a genius to know that Price was sitting up there on the bench and judging him, a honky redneck cop who'd rather bust a nigger's skull than read his rights and hold his hand. No matter that the judge's supposition would have been exactly right. The bastard simply wasn't s'posed to know.
"I do."
The bailiff took his Bible and retreated to the sidelines, leaving Hank alone at center stage. He felt exposed without his pistol belt and the other hardware that he carried as a mark of his authority. He might as well have been a goddamned crossing guard, for pity's sake.
To steel his nerves, he kept his eye on Amy Stone. It wasn't hard — she was a looker, right enough — but that was just another sign of how the country had declined. The day a woman prosecutor stood before a nigger judge to state the people's case, Hank Musgrove figured it was time to fold and find another game.
Except there wasn't any other game in town.
He had to play the cards exactly as they lay, without a chance to draw or to improve his hand. And wasn't that a bitch.
"Your fellow officers have testified that it was you who organized the action at the Blue Oasis, Tuesday last."
"That is correct."
It was the deputy's belief that strict formality in court impressed a judge, and Jesus knew that Hank could use an edge this time around.
"You took the Schofield call yourself?"
"Yes, ma'am, I did."
How else could he explain the false notation in the log when any fool with one good eye could recognize his penmanship? So far, so good.
"And what, precisely, did he say?"
He risked a smile and hoped it made him look relaxed. "I couldn't recollect the words exac'ly, ma'am."
"The general content then."
"Well, Mr. Schofield said he had a problem at the Blue Oasis. Said it sounded like there might be someone gettin' killed in number six."
"He used those words?"
"The best that I can recollect, he did. Yes, ma'am."
"And you anticipated trouble, Deputy?"
"I look for trouble anytime I hear that someone's bein' killed."
There was a little snicker from the back, and Musgrove let himself relax a bit. This might not be so bad at that.
"How many deputies did you select?"
"Considering the nature of the call, I picked out fourteen men, to let me cover every angle of the scene."
"And with yourself that made fifteen?"
"That is correct."
"You issued weapons to these officers?"
"No, ma'am. They took along whatever type equipment might be in their cars, is all."
"Including shotguns?"
"Yes."
"And rifles?"
"Some of those as well. Yes, ma'am."
"And do you normally respond to a disturbance call with so much hardware? "
Musgrove tried another smile and thought he pulled it off with rare aplomb. "No, ma'am, but then again your average disturbance at the Blue Oasis don't include a murder goin' on."
"Of course. I understand. Would you explain what happened when you reached the scene?"
"Yes, ma'am. I stationed deputies aroun' in back in case our suspect tried to rabbit out that way, an' then I led the main force in to make the collar down in number six."
"Did you identify yourselves as officers before you entered?"
Musgrove frowned. What kind of chickenshit was that?
"No, ma'am. I kicked in the door an' found the suspect with a murdered woman in his bed."
"Was it unusual for you to kick in the door without a warning to the occupants?"
"No, ma'am, not in a case like this. An', anyhow, we had permission from the owner, Mr. Schofield there."
"I see. And did you take the suspect, Mr. Bolan, into custody?"
"I did. We drove him straight on back to jail, an' I detailed some deputies to search the scene."
"Aside from the remains of Alma Jennings, did the search recover any other incriminating evidence?"
"Yes, ma'am. We found a stash of automatic weapons and explosives in his rental car outside, an' he was carryin' illegal automatic weapons on his person at the time of the arrest."
She turned away to face the bench, providing Musgrove with a momentary respite.
"At this time, Your Honor, we would like to introduce the confiscated weapons into evidence as People's Exhibits A through H."
Price cleared his throat on high. "If there is no objection..."
Fleming glanced up briefly. "None, Your Honor."
"Very well."
A bailiff crossed in front of Musgrove, wheeling a cartload of weapons in front of him, evidentiary tags already bound in place. The lawman recognized each piece: the black Beretta 93-R with its silencer; the big, silver .44 AutoMag hand cannon; a slim stiletto and garrotes; an M-16 assault rifle and an Uzi submachine gun — both unloaded now, for safety's sake — together with a stack of magazines for each; a shoe box filled to overflowing with grenades; and the ugly blocks of C-4 plastic, wrapped in oilcloth and bound with twine.
The goddamned guy was serious. You had to give him that.
"Are these the weapons that were confiscated from defendant Bolan at the Blue Oasis?"
"Yes, indeed."
"No further questions at this time."
He had survived round one, but Musgrove hadn't been expecting any trouble from the state. It would be Fleming, sure, who tried to shoot his story down.
The counselor approached him warily, as if he thought that Hank might bite. That was encouraging. The lawman liked to think he frightened everybody he met.
"How long have you been with McLary County?" Fleming asked.
"It's goin' on four years."
"You hold a rank of sergeant at the present time?"
"That is correct." A piece of cake.
"And have you any other law-enforcement background, Deputy?"
