Defense for the Devil (38 page)

Quickly Barbara led him to the first week of August. “Please tell the court what was different about that week,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. We were putting in new machines and we had to be on hand earlier than usual, by six in the morning, every day from the fifth of August until the middle of the month. It was hard because I had to get up at four-thirty and leave the house at a quarter after five. I was late the first two days,” he said, then grinned sheepishly.

“What time did you leave the house on those two days?”

“Five-thirty.”

“On the morning of Tuesday, August sixth, you left your house at five-thirty in the morning, knowing you were going to be late for work. Did you speed a little?”

“Probably did,” he admitted.

“What kind of car were you driving, Mr. Herschell?”

“An eighty-nine Toyota Tercel,” he said promptly.

“And what color was that car?”

“Gray.”

She showed him the picture of fifteen gray hatchback cars, and he pointed to his. She had him initial it, had it passed on to the jury, then said no more questions.

Roxbury picked at him, but he didn’t change a word.

Moving right along, Barbara thought, and called her next witness, Sally Arno. Sally was thirty-nine and married to James Arno, Ray’s brother. Blond and dimply, a touch overweight, she had the contented expression of someone not obsessed with appearance. Her hair was showing touches of gray, and she was leaving that alone, obviously not concerned.

“When you and Lorinne Arno prepared a lot of food to take out to the family reunion at Folsum, why did you do the cooking at your house instead of hers?”

“Well, she had been painting and cleaning most of July, she does that in the summer when school’s out—she’s a teacher, you know—paints her cabinets, waxes the floors, cleans everything when school’s out, and I said it would be a shame to leave a mess for Ray to deal with.” She smiled at Ray, then at Lorinne, sitting among the spectators. “And we knew we’d leave a mess. Someone would have to clean it all up, and I was going to be home, but she was taking her kids down to Gold Beach to visit her folks right after Maggie’s party. So I said let’s get together at my place and cook, and I’d have all the next week to straighten up again and she wouldn’t have a mess to face when she got home again.”

Two of the women on the jury were looking at Sally with understanding; they knew what it meant to leave a mess for a man to clean up.

“Did Ray Arno pick up your husband, James, and the two of them drive to the coast together that weekend?” She said yes, and that they had arrived before nine-thirty.

“Do you recall the spring of 1978?”

“Yes, very well.”

“Will you please tell the court what was going on with the Arno family in April that year?”

“James and I were engaged, and Ray and Lorinne were, too, and none of us had any money. David and Donna were married by then, and they were really broke. And Mitch never had a cent in those days, and Maggie was pregnant. I mean, things were tough. Then Papa Arno said he knew about a fishing boat that was good and sound, and he could buy it at a really good price, but it needed a lot of work; it had been let go a long time, I guess, and it needed varnish, parts replaced, woodwork redone—just a lot of work. He said if the boys wanted to do the work, he’d buy the boat and they could fix it up and he’d sell it, and they could keep all the profit. We were all trying to save up a little, and the boys jumped at the chance. So starting on the last weekend in March and every weekend in April, we all headed out to the coast and worked on the boat.”

Barbara let her ramble on and tell it her way without interruption. One weekend, she said, Lorinne had called to say her car was having a problem with the brakes and she wouldn’t be able to drive over. Everyone else was there already, and Mama Arno said that since Mitch wasn’t doing a lick of work on the boat, he could drive to Corvallis and pick up Lorinne and bring her over; then Ray would drive her home again on Sunday night. Mitch drove Ray’s car and got her.

“Do you know when they arrived, what time it was?”

“Yes, before dinner, and we ate at six.”

“What happened the last weekend of April, or the first weekend of May? Do you recall that time?”

“Yes. We were done with the boat, it was the first weekend in May that we didn’t have that on our minds anymore, and we were all going camping, David, James, Ray, Lorinne, another couple of friends, and me. Lorinne had to work late, until nine, but she said for us to go on and get the camp set up and she’d drive over as soon as she got off work. That same day, Mitch called me and asked if I’d lend him some money. He said he was in trouble, he’d borrowed money from a girl, and her father threatened to throw him in jail if he didn’t pay her back right away, but I didn’t have any money to lend him and I said so. Anyway, Lorinne showed up at the campsite and she told me that Mitch had asked her for a loan, and said the same thing, he was in trouble, and he said he’d go to Ray for it if she couldn’t help out. She said she worried what it would do to Mama Arno if he got in more trouble, and of course, Ray would have told her, so she gave Mitch fifty dollars.”

“Did Mitch pay back the money, to your knowledge?” Barbara asked.

“No. In fact, that was the weekend he took off altogether.”

“Do you recall what time Lorinne arrived at the campsite that night?”

“Yes. It was about an hour’s drive, and it was pretty dark, so we were watching for her, and she showed up by ten. Then we ate and played cards and like that.”

When Roxbury did his cross-examination, he tried to back her down about dates and times, but she simply wanted to explain things more fully.

Two down, Barbara thought when she did her redirect, and then thanked Sally and excused her.

After a brief recess, she called Walter Hoven. He had not wanted to testify and resented being called, and had been furious about being served with a subpoena. He was sick, he had said angrily, and he
had nothing to tell the jury anyway, and it was a fucking waste of his time.

He was sixty-one, heavyset, with a permanent frown that had been fixed so long, his face had become rearranged with deep scowl lines.

“Mr. Hoven, where were you employed in the fall of 1978?” she asked politely.

“Valley Warehouse,” he snapped.

“What was your position there?”

“Manager.”

“Where was the warehouse?”

“West Seventh Place.”

Bit by bit she drew out of him a description of the area at that time, a warehouse district across the road from fields, with the train tracks not far away, railway sidings crisscrossing the roads and fields, no sidewalks, nothing for consumers, just warehouses.

“Did you have occasion to meet Ray Arno in the fall of that year?”

“Yes.”

“Will you please tell the court how that came about, what your association with Mr. Arno was at that time.”

“He wanted to rent space. I rented it to him.”

She had known he would be difficult, but gradually she became aware of a growing sympathy toward her from the jury. A mean witness could do that, she thought, and asked her questions patiently, and he answered, begrudging every word.

Ray Arno had looked for space to rent because the shop he had counted on having was not yet available, and he had goods due to arrive through the fall. He had rented the corner of the warehouse from September tenth until December first. Barbara showed him the pictures Lorinne had provided, and he admitted that that was the warehouse, that was the space Ray had rented. It was a dim corner with a fold-away table, and rough board planks on concrete blocks stacked with boxes. Fishing gear was spread out on the table.

“Did he show you his business license?” she asked.

“Yes. Wouldn’t have rented the space to him otherwise,” he said.

“Did he have customers come to the warehouse?”

“No. Not allowed.”

“Did he have a sign in his window?”

“There wasn’t no window for a sign, and it wasn’t allowed anyway.”

“When did he actually move out of the warehouse?”

“Last day of November. Didn’t get through until the next day, and he paid for an extra day.”

There were a few more details, but she had what she had wanted from him and turned him over to Roxbury soon after that.

Roxbury asked coldly, “Do you know where his shop was at the time?”

“No.”

“Do you know that he didn’t open his shop that fall?”

“No.”

“Isn’t it possible that he had his shop, and used the warehouse to store excess merchandise at the same time?”

Barbara objected, speculation. It was sustained.

“Do you know where he was when he wasn’t in your warehouse?” Roxbury asked.

Hoven’s face was a dull red; he looked ready to erupt in anger, but he simply snapped, “No.”

“Was he there all day every day?”

“No.”

“So he could have been in a retail shop, selling his wares,” Roxbury said sharply.

Barbara objected; it was sustained. Roxbury was dogged, though; he knew as well as Barbara that this witness was devastating to his case.

When Roxbury finally finished, Barbara said, “Mr. Hoven, you stated that Mr. Arno was not in the warehouse all day every day, but isn’t it true that your agreement with him was that he was to be there to receive his shipments in person?”

“Yes. I told him I wouldn’t do no unpacking or checking orders, wouldn’t be responsible for signing for it, none of that. He had to do it.”

“And isn’t it true that his shipments were arriving through the month of September and into October?”

“I don’t know when they came,” he said sullenly.

“But the agreement was that he would receive his own shipments in person. What did he use the table for?”

“He opened stuff and counted it, spread it out to check things. Then he put everything back in boxes. Not allowed to leave things out on the table.”

She let it go at that. It was time for lunch.

It pleased her when they left the courthouse to see Hoven struggling furiously in the midst of several reporters and photographers. He was not restraining his language any longer; obscenities were loud and coarse. Camcorders were getting every second of it, and that night on the news, there he would be for the world to see. Word had gone out that he had contradicted Marta Delancey’s testimony, impeached her.

Norman Donovan was Barbara’s first witness that afternoon. He was a bespectacled man in his fifties, now in management at the big mall across the river. In 1978, he testified, he had been manager of a strip mall in south Eugene. His testimony was precise and to the point.

Ray Arno had rented a store in the mall, but the then-current tenant had not been able to vacate as planned during the first week of September. Ray had been upset; he had his business license, and he had taken a Yellow Pages ad and had cards and invoices printed already, all with that address, so it was out of the question for him to look for a different location. The tenant had not moved out until the middle of November; management had redecorated, the sign painter had done the windows, and the last day of November and the first of December Ray had moved his goods in and taken possession.

“Was there anyone particular cause for worry for Mr. Arno?” Barbara asked.

“Yes, there was. He had planned to be in the shop early in September and he had a lot of stock due to arrive starting at that time and for the following few weeks, on into October. He didn’t know where to store it, until he located a warehouse that would rent him a small space temporarily.”

When Roxbury did his cross-examination, he pressed the same points he had with Hoven: Donovan didn’t know where Ray was all that time, he didn’t know if he was selling his merchandise out of a different shop, did he?

When Shelley stood up and called on Maggie, there was a ripple of interest in the court. They looked like Girl Scouts, Barbara thought, watching. Shelley had tamed her gorgeous abundant hair into a chignon and had dressed in a very simple dark blue suit, with a dark red blouse, and she wore simple gold hoop earrings. Maggie’s hair was drawn back and held at the nape of her neck with a bone clasp, and she was dressed in an equally simple suit, gray, with a gray blouse. Neither of them looked at all nervous.

Shelley took her through her history with Mitch and the Arno family quickly and briefly, then focused on the events following the Monday after the party.

“Do you know what time Ray Arno called you that night?”

“Yes. The call was recorded at eight-thirty.”

“At what time did you return his call?”

“A few minutes after twelve, from the hotel in Folsum.”

Shelley produced both records of the phone calls and had them admitted. “When Mr. Trassi approached you in the hotel on Tuesday morning, why didn’t you talk with him?”

“I was too upset. I believed that Mitch had done that to my inn. I didn’t think I could discuss him with anyone at that time.”

“Why did you stop believing that?”

“The deputy sheriffs said it was the work of at least two people, and the detective I hired confirmed that. He said two people had done it, and one of them was left-handed.”

Point by point Shelley took her over the events concerning the money, hiring Bailey to fingerprint the house, the meetings with Sunderman, and then with the Internal Revenue representative. Maggie was a good witness. At no time did anyone mention how much money was involved, and Roxbury’s objections were few and of little consequence.

“Following the initial meeting with the Internal Revenue Service, what did you do?”

“The next working day Ms. Holloway and I had a meeting with the district attorney and told him about it. That was August twenty-sixth.”

“When you received the report about the fingerprints found in Mr. Arno’s house, what did you do with it?”

“I gave a copy to the district attorney, and one to Mr. Arno’s former attorney.”

Shelley turned to Roxbury then and said, “Your witness.”

“Ms. Folsum, when the defendant told you Mitchell Arno was at his house, did you express fear? Beg him to keep Mitchell Arno away from you?”