The Glass Village (21 page)

Ferriss Adams turned the witness over to Andrew Webster.

“Mr. Berry,” said the old jurist, “you say that between a few minutes past two o'clock Saturday and two-nineteen you and the other people you mentioned were in the store together. Did you happen to notice, or did one of your customers happen to mention noticing, anyone passing on Shinn Road during that period? Going either toward the Adams house, or away from it?”

“No, sir.”

“You didn't see the defendant at all?”

“Nope. Couldn't have, anyways. Can't see the Adams house from my store 'less you stand in the doorway or climb up on the merchandise in my display window on the Shinn Road side.”

“Thank you, that's all.”

Ferriss Adams called a conference with Andy Webster before Judge Shinn's table. They discussed in low tones the advisability of calling Calvin Waters. Finally they decided against it; the time period would be covered by other witnesses, and to try to get anything coherent out of Laughing Waters, as the Judge said, would be just about as feasible as throttling Emily Berry.

“We've got his half-wittedness on the record, anyway,” whispered Judge Webster.

So Adams called as his next witness Prue Plummer.

Prue Plummer was a lawyer's nightmare; or, in Peague's version during the noon recess, a gypsy tartar. She had dressed in her artiest skirt-and-blouse combination. The skirt was felt, with felt abstractions appliquéd on it in screaming oranges, pinks, and greens; the blouse was a handpainted, offshoulder cotton at which the other women had been glancing disapprovingly all morning; and she had put on her dangliest earrings and bound her head in a purple silk scarf to complete the illusion.

She literally ran away with Ferriss Adams's questions. As Adams said later, it would have taken Roy Rogers on a fast horse to catch her.

“
Certainly
I remember Saturday's events, Mr. Adams. Every last, bloodcurdling detail! At one forty-five there was a knock on my back door and I opened it to find a dirty,
filthy
man standing there, with a dark foreign skin and eyes that burned
holes
through me, a murderer if I ever saw one—that monster there!”

“Miss Plummer—” began Ferriss Adams.

“Objection!” howled Andy Webster simultaneously.

“Sustained!” said Judge Shinn. “Miss Plummer, you will please stick to what happened. No opinions, please.” (But he did not order the answer struck.)

“Well, he did!” rasped Prue Plummer. “I don't
care
, a fact's a fact and that's a fact. You can tell a great deal from a human face, at least I can, not that his face is human. …
Yes
, Judge … I mean your honor … Yes, sir … Well, he had the colossal
gall
to beg for something to eat and you can bet I lost no time telling him what I thought of beggars and sending him packing! I'm not feeding any stray off the roads who looks like a killer in
my
house when I'm alone. … But he does, your honor! … Yes, your honor.

“Anyway, I followed him to my gate and watched him walk up Shinn Road and cross the intersection diagonally to the horse trough and go past the church to Aunt Fanny Adams's house. He kind of hesitated at her gate, then he sort of looked around—
furtively—
”

“
Objection!
” roared Judge Webster for the fifth time.

“—as if he wanted to be sure no one was seeing him, and he sneaked around the side of the house toward Aunt Fanny's kitchen door—”

“What time would that have been, Miss Plummer?” asked Adams despairingly.

“Ten minutes of two. Then I went back into my house and began locking doors and windows—”

“Why did you do that?” asked Adams, in spite of himself.

“You don't think I'd leave my house wide open with all my valuable antiques and things in it, while a
murderer
was loose in the village!”

“Please,” said Andrew Webster feebly.

“And anyway I had to go to the store. I needed something for my dinner.”

“You walked over, of course, Miss Plummer.”

“Walked over? Certainly I walked over! Don't be ridiculous, Mr. Adams. I'm no cripple. Though if I'd known it was going to rain, I
would
have driven over, only I couldn't have because my car's at 'Lias Wurley's garage in Cudbury being overhauled, as Peter Berry can tell you himself—he saw Mr. Wurley's mechanic drive it away.” She sniffed at Peter Berry—repayment, no doubt, thought Johnny, for Berry's slur at the unreliability of her timepiece. “I'm supposed to leave next week for a motor trip to Cape Cod. To visit some friends, famous artists—”

“Yes, Miss Plummer. What time was it when you entered the Berry store?”

“Peter Berry told you. It was just one fifty-seven—”

Adams finally caught up with her testimony about the episode of the Berry store, although he was a little out of breath by the time he brought it down. Her story corroborated Berry's in every detail except the time Hubert Hemus had left the store—“It was two-
eighteen
. By
my
watch, anyway!”

The balance of Prue Plummer's testimony concerning her overhearing of Burney Hackett's phone call at three-fifteen to Judge Shinn—“I did
not
eavesdrop, as alleged. It was an innocent mistake, but of course when I heard Aunt Fanny had been murdered and remembered that foul
tramp
over there …”—and her very busy time afterward calling Burney Hackett and broadcasting the news to everyone she could think of. She had yelled out her back door to Orville Pangman, who was out at his barn with his son Eddie and young Joel Hackett; and she had dashed over to the Hacketts' next door to shout into Selina Hackett's ear; but the rest had been phone calls. …

Andy Webster, mercifully, made no attempt to cross-examine.

Hubert Hemus's testimony had to be mined out of him. He answered as if every word were a precious stone to be weighed to the last grain.

It soon became apparent that he was suspicious of the kind of questions Ferriss Adams was asking, and Adams wisely shifted his tactics and left the legal improprieties to Webster's cross-examination.

He and his twin boys, Hemus said, had been plowing and harrowing a field all morning, preparing it for a late corn planting. The harrow had broken down shortly after lunch, and he had driven into the village to see Peter Berry about ordering a new one. On his return, he and the twins worked in the barn, the rain holding up the planting. They were in the barn when Rebecca Hemus came out screaming that Prue Plummer had just called to say Aunt Fanny Adams had been murdered. Hemus had run ahead, jumping into the car and driving back to the village; Tommy, Dave, their mother, their sister had followed in the only other available vehicle, the farm truck. The three Hemus men had then joined the posse. …

Andy Webster said: “About your visit to Peter Berry's store, Mr. Hemus. Who was there when you came in?”

“Peter, Calvin, Hosey Lemmon, Prue Plummer.”

“What time did you leave the store?”

“Peter said. Two-nineteen.”

“Between the time you went in and the time you came out, Mr. Hemus, did anyone in the store leave? Step out for a few minutes, maybe?”

“No.” Hube Hemus shifted squarely in the witness chair, challenging Judge Shinn. “Your honor, I want to ask a question.”

“As a witness, Mr. Hemus—” began the Judge.

“I'm askin' as a juror. Juror's got a right to ask questions, ain't he?”

“All right, Hube,” said the Judge in a friendly way, but fast.

“What I want to know is, why's everybody bein' asked where
they
were round the time of the murder? Who's on trial here, like Em Berry asked—this furrin tramp, or Shinn Corners?”

Talk fast, Mr. Moto, thought Johnny, grinning to himself. It had been too good to last, anyway. He wondered what the Judge was going to say, feeling a hearty gratitude that it was the Judge who had to say it.

Johnny thought the Judge, who had grown the merest bit ruddy about the ears, did a remarkable job of improvisation.

“Hube, how much do you know about trials?”

Hemus kept looking at him. “Not much.”

“Think I know anything about trials?”

“Expect you do, Judge.”

“What's the purpose of a trial, Hube?”

“Prove a man guilty.”

“How is a man proved guilty in a court of law?”

“Through evidence and testimony.”

“Is all evidence the same, Hube?” Hemus frowned; as he frowned, his jaws began to grind. “No,” the Judge answered himself. “There are two kinds of evidence, direct and indirect. What evidence would prove most directly in this case that Josef Kowalczyk did in fact strike Fanny Adams on the head with that poker until she fell dead?”

Hemus thought that over. Finally he said, “Guess if somebody'd seen him do it.”

Judge Shinn beamed. “Exactly. Did you see him do it, Hube?”

“No. I was in Peter's store …”

“How could the attorneys responsible for the proper conduct of this trial know that you were in Peter's store at the time of the murder, Hube, and therefore didn't see the defendant do it … unless they
asked
you?”

Bong! said Johnny to himself.

Hube Hemus's jaws ground away furiously.

“How could they find out who
did
see him do it, if anybody did,” the Judge went on with terrible eloquence, “unless they asked everybody where they were?”

Hemus's back drooped. “Didn't think to see it that way, Judge. But,” he added quickly, “that's not the only way to prove a man guilty—”

“'Course not, Hube,” said Judge Shinn indulgently. “Trial is a complicated business. All sorts of angles to it. This case may very well be decided solely on circumstantial evidence—most murder cases are. But I think you'd be the first to stand up and say, Hube, that everyone in Shinn Corners wants to do this right. So now if Judge Webster is through with his cross-examination, let's get on with the trial, shall we?”

And Judge Webster was through. Judge Webster, in fact, was taken with a coughing fit that doubled his frail old carcass over.

“No more questions,” he spluttered, waving helplessly.

Although it was early, Judge Shinn recessed for lunch.

Court reconvened for the afternoon session with all participants under control, although through varying disciplines. The forces of law and order, who had come into the room in the well-being of danger bypassed and easy going ahead, soon glanced at one another doubtfully. The jury and the bailiff were too quiet, their never-loose mouths jammed shut.

The defendant sat down warily, watching like an animal. He had sensed the hardening at once. There was a smear of egg at one corner of his mouth, a clue to Elizabeth Sheare's complicity.

Rebecca Hemus's great buttocks squeezed between the rungs of the witness chair in long rolls, like sausages. She kept sucking at her teeth and moving her lower jaw from side to side in a bovine continuity. Her stare disconcerted Judge Shinn, and he kept glancing elsewhere.

That's it, thought Johnny. They've talked over the Judge's double talk and they've spotted it for what it was. He felt rather sorry for the Judge.

Rebecca's testimony confirmed her husband's. Hube and the boys had worked in the field all Saturday morning while she and Abbie were in the truck garden weeding and thinning. When the harrow broke down and Hube left for Peter Berry's, the twins came over and cultivated in the rows till the rain began. They all ran back to the house and the boys fixed a separator that needed doing. When Hube got back he and the twins went out to the barn. Then about twenty or twenty-five minutes past three Prue Plummer phoned the terrible news, Hube got into the car, she and Abbie and the boys got into the truck …

“In other words, Mrs. Hemus,” said Adams, “at two-thirteen Saturday afternoon you, your daughter, and Tommy and Dave were in your house within sight of one another?”

“We were,” said Rebecca Hemus accusingly.

Andrew Webster waived cross-examination, and Mrs. Hemus was excused.

“I recall to the stand,” said Adams, “Reverend Samuel Sheare.”

The minister was poorly today. His movements were slow and his bloodshot eyes suggested that there had been little rest for the spirit. He took his seat with the stiffness of a man who has been too long on his knees.

Adams came to the point at once: “Mr. Sheare, where exactly were you at two-thirteen Saturday afternoon?”

“I was in the parsonage.”

“Alone?”

“Mrs. Sheare was with me.”

“In the same room, Mr. Sheare?”

“Yes. I was workin' on my sermon for Sunday. I began directly after lunch, which was at noon, and I was still hard at it when the fire siren went off. Mrs. Sheare and I were never out of sight of each other.”

Adams was embarrassed. “Of course, Mr. Sheare. Er … you didn't happen to see anyone pass the north corner—let's say from a window of the parsonage overlooking Shinn Road—between a quarter to two and a quarter after?”

“We were in my study, Mr. Adams. My study is at the opposite side of the parsonage, facin' the cemetery.”

“Judge Webster?”

“No questions.”

“You may stand down, Mr. Sheare,” said Judge Shinn.

But Mr. Sheare sat there. He was looking at Josef Kowalczyk, and Josef Kowalczyk was looking back at him with the unclouded trust of a mortally injured dog.

“Mr. Sheare?” said the Judge again.

The minister started. “Pa'don. I know this is probably out of order, Judge Shinn, but may I take this opportunity to make a request of the court?”

“Yes?”

“When I took Josef the lunch tray my wife prepared for him today, he asked me to do somethin' for him. I should very much like to do it. But I realize that under the circumstances it's necessary to get permission.”