Orrie's Story (27 page)

Having returned to school and indicated that his attitude towards his studies had been remarkably transformed, and as yet concealing the attachment to Ellie, Paul was in more fragrant odor with his father than he had been for years and therefore had enough money to have bought an engagement ring, but Ellie was not ready to accept such.

“Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate the offer, but I'm just too young right now to talk about that subject.”

Paul said, “I haven't known anyone more mature, whatever the age.”

“My mother got married when she was sixteen and look what happened to her.”

“But was that the reason?” Paul asked. “Anyhow, we don't have to get married for years, if you don't want. I'd just like to make some sort of connection between us, if it's only for you and me to know about.”

“Well, if that's all, then I guess I could agree.” She shook hands with him on it, but still declined the ring. “It would just be something to worry about. And I hope you're serious about the ‘for years,' because I've pretty much decided on a profession. I want to be a lawyer. Mr. Pollo said he'd help me get into law school when the time comes.”

Paul scowled. But from the expression on her face he saw she would not take kindly to opposition, and he could not let Pollo, on whom she had a crush, get the advantage. “Yeah, okay, if that's what you really want.”

Ellie looked smug. “We have a lady judge, after all.”

Nor did that fact thrill Paul, who doubted that the Honorable Thea Palliser, a middle-aged woman with iron-gray hair in a bun, could be fair to a defendant who had killed his mother, whether or not she had offspring of her own.

Of the Idle Hour gang, only Joe Becker, who was his own boss, and Molly McShane were able to attend the trial. The other men all had to work, and Gladys was laid up with a badly sprained ankle and was just lucky not to have broken anything. Molly would have spent the time with her and not in court, but in fact Gladys wanted to keep up with the news of the trial, so most days the former rode the bus to and from the county seat. Molly managed to live in her modest way on her late mother's insurance. She would not ask Becker for a ride, and for his part he would not offer her one unless she asked. In the courtroom they avoided each other. Becker sat with Ellie, Mrs. Terwillen, and Orrie's friend from college, Paul Leeds.

At the bar, the evening of the day the case went to the jury, Molly was exasperated by what Becker was saying.

“I don't know where you get that,” she protested. “Bernard J. Furie's just doing his job.”

“He's a bum,” Becker said. “He didn't have any evidence except that so-called confession, given when the poor kid was all confused and horrified by what happened.”

“You're wrong there!” Molly crowed. “Orrie didn't confess till noon two days later. He ran away the night of the killings and left his little sister to take the rap.”

Becker's lip curled. “You're going to sit there and say he should go to prison?”

Under the disapproving stare of the men (except Herm, who was busy rinsing glasses), Molly changed direction but was scarcely more amiable. “You always twist everything to fit your own warped mind. I got a lot more real sympathy for that poor kid than you have, any old day. What I'm doing, as any fool can plainly see, is saying how it
could
look to an innocent bystander. Bernard J. Furie was only doing his job. For heaven sake, the boy gave an official confession, signed it, and used the word ‘murder.' It's not up to the prosecuting attorney to prove he didn't mean it.”

Becker seemed to speak to his glass. “Orrie shouldn't ever have been brought to trial, and you know it. Nobody can say what went on up there that night, except him, and he's not going to tell, but not because it would reflect badly on himself: that's one thing I'm sure of. He'd rather go to prison to protect his mother's reputation. He's got the same kind of character as Augie: stand on your principles, regardless of the consequences. You don't see much of that any more.” He was a little drunk.

From the last stool on the left, Al Hagman asked, “What's he say was Orrie's reason for using the shotgun?”

Molly corrected him. “You mean ‘motive.'”

Becker snorted. “I'm no lawyer, God knows, but that's where Furie's case was weakest. According to him, Orrie got in a big fight with Erie and Esther and lost his temper.”

“Got mad enough to shoot them down?”

“The pity is, Orrie said all kinds of things in that so-called confession that can be interpreted in different ways. He said he didn't like Erie, though Erie had been good to the family. He said he had more or less decided to drop out of college, but his mother argued with him about that. He said Erie had taken his room. Most damaging of all, he kept using the word ‘murder' for what he did. And Furie got some witnesses from school, a couple of kids who Orrie had fought, and some old-maid teacher and that principal, uh, Maxwell. They testified he lost his temper sometimes, for no good reason according to them, and got into fights. So what? Is that abnormal for a kid? Especially with little guys like that, you know they're sometimes quicker to put up their dukes than certain big fellows. My dad used to call the type ‘little banty roosters.' Got something to prove, I guess. But the boy was an honor student all the same. He's no hoodlum. Furie was just trying to influence the jury.”

“Old Maxwell?” Rickie Wicks asked derisively. “He still around? That old stuffed shirt? I got hauled down his office once for fighting and he had me shake hands with the other kid and promise to be friends.” He grunted. “So we did it—the other kid was Cliff Moran—and then went out and took right up where we left off, only off school property. We used to fight all the time, hated each other's guts. Nowadays I like Cliff well enough when I see him, which ain't all that often though. Funny about kids.”

Becker went on impatiently. “But this Pollo is really something. You can see where he gets his reputation. When he'd get hold of the witnesses he'd be real nice to them—he was only sarcastic when it came to Furie—but he'd always make them sound sort of weakminded. But he was best with Orrie. ‘Did you love your mother with all your heart?' ‘Yes.'' Would you ever have done anything knowingly to hurt her?' ‘No.' ‘If you had a choice between saving her life or your own, what would you have done?' Orrie was crying by then, and you could hardly hear his answer, so Pollo asked him again. ‘I would do anything,' Orrie said. ‘I don't care about my own life.' And Pollo said, ‘That's why you called it murder, wasn't it? You blamed yourself for this terrible, terrible accident. You blamed yourself so much you wanted to be punished, you wished you were dead. So you said the worst thing about yourself you could think of, that you had murdered your beloved mother—isn't that why you used that word?'” Becker lifted his glass. “I don't think there was a dry eye in that courtroom, including mine—including the judge's, I'll bet.”

Herm renewed Wicks's beer, being careful to put almost no head on it. “You think the boy's going to make it?”

“Dammit, I did when the jury retired this morning.” Becker still held the glass without drinking from it. “But when they didn't reach a verdict by lunchtime, and then not all afternoon…Now nothing can happen till tomorrow morning: they've been put up in that little hotel over there. I don't mind admitting I'm worried. I don't know what's the trouble.”

“If you'd think about it, it might just occur to you,” said Molly. “Esther wasn't the only one who was killed. And Orrie's version of how he came to shoot Erie is really hard to swallow even if you're on the boy's side as I am and didn't think Erie was worth anything as a person, as I do, having known him just as well as you since we all were kids.”

Al Hagman nodded to Herm, who had pantomimed asking whether he wanted a refill, and said to Becker, “Orrie stuck to that business about just not recognizing him? I'd think Pollo could get him to improve on that story.”

Molly nibbled at the rim of her wineglass. “You and me both, brother.”

Becker blinked rapidly. “Not if it was the truth. You know, I sat with little Ellie in the courtroom—by the way, I actually think that made Paul, Orrie's college friend, jealous. If you ask me, he's sweet on her —”

“He better watch himself,” Molly said sourly. “She's jailbait. He's this big grownup college man.”

“You got a dirty mind! He comes from a good family, in case you don't know. His dad is a real important man in the business world. This boy doesn't have to come up here in the sticks to find some little girl to take advantage of, for God's sake.”

As always Herm was the pacifier, coming up quickly with, “What were you saying about Ellie?”

“Just that she swears it was true Orrie didn't know it was Erie until after he shot him.”

“You mean she swore to you,” Molly said. “She didn't get anywhere near the stand.”

Suspecting that the statement would touch Becker off again, Herm asked, “Why would that be, Joe? Why wouldn't she be a witness for Orrie? She was the only living person other than Orrie who was at the scene of the crime, and she sure would be on his side. I mean, you can see why Furie wouldn't call a sweet little sister to testify against her brother, but what about Pollo?”

Becker had at last tasted his highball. He lowered the glass now. “My own theory—and it's not the kind of thing I would mention to anybody involved—my own theory is that Pollo didn't have her testify because Furie could have cross-examined her, and Pollo was afraid of what that might lead to. She might claim her mother and Erie murdered Augie. Underneath all that sweetness she's a tough little character. I doubt Pollo could shut her up.”

“Would that be bad?” Herm dried his hands on a towel and immediately wet them again in replenishing the ice in Becker's drink. He would add whiskey when asked but meanwhile provided dilution. He was concerned about Becker's temper.

“Be playing with fire, to do that in court. The law doesn't allow you to take revenge as a private person,” Becker said. “Much as I for my part might think it would be okay in certain cases.”

Molly made an ugly smirk. “Killing a mother for killing the father would be okay with you?”

Amazing everybody present, Becker did not take visible offense at the question. “What I think doesn't matter in this instance. Nor your opinion, or anybody else's except the jury's.”

“And then the judge's,” Herm said, again wiping his hands. “If they find Orrie guilty, he'll be the one to impose sentence, right? What's the term for manslaughter?”

“She,” Molly said. “The judge is a woman.”

Herm snapped his fingers. “Sure, she is. I keep forgetting.”

“Well, you shouldn't.” Molly assumed an even more self-righteous expression than she usually wore when addressing her male bar-mates. “She's done a great job, and don't let Joe Becker tell you different.”

Becker laughed off this crack, saying, “The lady has done all right. This might sound funny to say when you're as prejudiced as I admit I am, but if anything the judge has been easier about objections on Pollo than on Furie. And in her instructions to the jury she kept harping on how legal guilt must be without a shadow of a doubt, that it wasn't their job to say anything about
innocence
so-called: trials don't determine if the accused is
innocent
. That's up to the Almighty. What a jury does is find whether the prosecution has proved its case for the defendant's
guilt
. If it has not, beyond every reasonable doubt, then the verdict
must
be not guilty: there's no choice.”

Hagman spoke up. “Maybe being a woman, she's taking pity on a young boy like that, and also thinking of the little girl: Ellie's brother's all she's got left of a family.”

Becker raised his eyebrows. “I'd sure like to think so.”

And Herm chimed in. “That's the way it ought to be.”

Molly was sneering. “You fellas just can't admit that maybe a woman could make a better judge because she's
fairer.”‘

“That's a new one on me,” Hagman cried, but in good humor.

Bob Terwillen came in the door. “Had a bad one tonight, down in Rivertown. Kid overcome by gas fumes from a heater that got blown out. Little three-year-old boy might not make it. We took him to Good Samaritan.” He stuffed his knitted cap into a pocket of the plaid mackinaw and found a place for the coat on the one free hook on the wall rack beyond Molly. He took a stool between Hagman and Becker and asked Herm for rye. He said, “These are the ones you hate.” He gave more details.

“You've been overworked lately, you guys,” Herm said, delivering the whiskey in a shot glass. “I never have known a time when there were so many bad accidents around here all at once.”

Joe Becker put a hand on Terwillen's sweatered forearm. “Maybe this isn't the time to ask, but it's been bothering me, and Herm talking about accidents and all. Ellie lives there with you—does she still say anything about Augie's death not being accidental?”

Terwillen gulped the rye in one fluid movement. He shook his head. “She didn't mention it to me again after her mother and Erie died.” He held the shot glass to Herm for refilling. “And I'm sure glad she didn't, because it's not right to talk that way.” Before swallowing the next, he asked Molly about Gladys and then said to Herm, “I haven't seen Phil in ages. He all right, you think?”

“On the late shift,” said Herm. “I think by now he's about given up on them locating his brother.”

Terwillen drank half the ice-water chaser and stood up. “Got to get home before bedtime. Tomorrow's the verdict, and I want to do what I can for Orrie. Having this happen, and him without a dad!”