Time's Witness (56 page)

Throwing his arm out in George's direction, Bazemore said, “Mr. Butler, do you have any direct knowledge as to whether the defendant was
aware
that he was transporting stolen and/or illegal merchandise?”

“Well, sir.” Butler pinched his tiny ear. “George told me one time he's near the Georgia line, and how he met four men come out of the woods behind this old shut-down motel off Ninety-five, ’round midnight, and they climb in the truck and haul away six of those big old cardboard tubs loaded back there. I don’t guess George thought that motel was a regular Fanshaw depot.”

Hilliardson gaveled down the snickering. “Mr. Rosethorn? Mr. Rosethorn, I realize this witness has come upon you unexpectedly. I feel compelled to inquire whether or not the State's line of questioning is acceptable to the defense?” The judge's thin lips twisted like he’d bitten on the bitter part of a pecan shell. The clear implication was that unless Isaac had slipped into a coma and couldn’t hear what was going on, his prolonged passivity was, in Hilliardson's view, inexplicable, if not derelict.

Isaac stood up in slow motion, and spoke at the same pace. “Your Honor, I’m very appreciative of your consideration. Thank you. Yes, the prosecutor did fail to inform me that he’d arranged to ‘borrow’ this convicted felon from the good state of Delaware. But I hope I am correct in assuming that Mr. Butler will not be whisked away from us, and returned to his cell up North, until the defense has an opportunity to cross-examine him. Assuming that is the case,
I think we should hear Mr. Butler's story of his partnership in crime with these three despicable disgraces to the distinguished name of the Hillston police.” Judge Hilliardson looked like he was sorry he’d given Rosethorn a chance to get his mouth working again, as the old man's gorgeous baritone kept languidly wafting across the room. “Your Honor, I have been intrigued by Mr. Butler's story, shared with us vividly in what the counsel for the prosecution keeps on so strangely insisting are the witness's ‘own words’—”

“Yes. Fine, then, Counselor.” The judge used two fingers in a “be seated” gesture, and Isaac very slowly sat. Hilliardson then turned his sneer on Mitch Bazemore. “At this point, the
bench
will ask the State to satisfy this court that Mr. Butler's evidence has some direct bearing on Robert Pym's
death
, as well as his allegedly nefarious life.”

Bazemore swayed in place. “Absolutely, yes, it absolutely does, sir.” And his next questions to Butler were rushed, as if he hoped that would speed up the answers. “Do you know if George Hall was still making these ‘runs’ at the time Pym was shot?”

“No, sir, he quit on them. Had a bad argument right after—”

“When was this argument? What date?”

“I don’t know a date. This was ’bout three, four weeks before the, you know, thing at Smoke's, you know, when George shot him. Could be it was more like six or seven—”

“And after this bad argument, would you say that George Hall felt extremely hostile to Pym?”

To everyone's surprise, Rosethorn suddenly hit the table with his fist. “Objection. Leading the witness! Calls for opinion!”

“Hate’d be a mild—”

“Sustained!” With audible relief, Hilliardson sighed. “Strike the answer. The jury will disregard it.”

Bazemore tried again. “At any time between when George Hall severed his connection with Robert Pym, and Pym's death, did George Hall ever do or say anything to make you think he was hostile to Pym?”

Isaac: “Objection! Calls for a conjecture on the part of the witness.”

Hilliardson. “Sustained.”

Bazemore gave it another shot. “In that time, did George Hall ever have a conversation with you regarding his feelings about Robert Pym?”

Moonfoot looked at his knees. “Yes. Said he wasn’t fit to live.”

George Hall's head jerked up. Leaning over, Isaac wrapped his arm around George's shoulder, and said something to him.

Bazemore walked the length of the jury box. “‘Not fit to live.’ Did he say anything else?”

“Told me if he thought he could get away with it, he’d kill him.”

Bazemore stood quietly, letting the words sink in across the courtroom. Isaac patted the table top in a furious impatience. I moved so I could see George's face. He was just looking at Moonfoot Butler with a puzzled contempt. Then, to everyone's surprise, the D.A. after a glance at the clock, dropped that whole topic, and asked, “Were you
with
George Hall at Smoke's Bar on the night when Robert Pym was shot?”

“Well, sir, him and me had a drink at Smoke's that night, but I didn’t stay for the shooting.”

Mitch pounced. “By that, do you mean you had reason to think there
would
be a shooting there that night?”

Isaac's hand shot up to object, but then he quickly lowered it and shook his head at the judge.

Moonfoot Butler was grinning. “
You
mighta thought there was gonna be a shooting
too
, you saw Bobby Pym near ’bout foaming at the mouth, shove that big old thirty-eight of his right up George's nose. Ever’body in that bar thought there's gonna be a shooting.”

A sharp hoot burst from a section of the courtroom where I spotted Martin Hall with his fist raised. Hilliardson slammed his gavel a half-dozen times, and made some dire threats about further disruptions. Moonfoot kept talking before Mitch Bazemore, beet red, could stop him. “Yes, sir. ’Bout ten minutes after Pym walks in, those two go at it like cats in the air. But that's when I split, so I don’t have no direct knowledge after that.”

I heard the courtroom doors open behind me. Nora Howard hurried back, a manila envelope under her arm.

Squeezing the rail of the witness stand, Mitch made a valiant effort to control his voice as he said, “But
before
this altercation
began, when George Hall saw Robert Pym enter Smoke's Bar, did Hall make any comment to you about Pym?”

Isaac objected here, again on the grounds of leading the witness. Hilliardson overruled him on the grounds that direct remarks made by the defendant at this juncture might well have a vital bearing on our understanding of the subsequent events.

“A comment?” Moonfoot tugged at his little goatee, looked at the ceiling, then twisted sideways in the chair and lowered his head. “Well, yes, he made a comment about him, yes, sir. Pym went over by the jukebox, and folks were arguing with him ’cause he’d punched some tunes, and there was a live entertainment going on, and so George said to me…” Moonfoot looked up at Bazemore and swallowed carefully.

Mitch nodded. “He said to you?”

“Said, ‘If he mess with me, if he say one fuckin’ word to me…I’m gonna kill that motherfucker dead. I don’t get him now, then I get him later, but I get him.’”

Hilliardson spoke into the thick silence that now filled the courtroom. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear your last sentence. Could you repeat it, and if possible speak more loudly?”

Moonfoot kept his eyes on the D.A. “George said, ‘If I don’t get him now, then I get him later, but I get him.’”

“Those were George Hall's exact words, at least fifteen minutes before his shooting Pym?”

“Those were his words.”

“And this was prior to the start of any fight between them? Before it started.”

“Prior to it, that's right.”

“At the time he said this, was Pym's gun in evidence? Was it visible to you?”

“No, it wasn’t visible ‘til they got to shoving each other when Pym goes for it. Then it was visible.”

“When George said, ‘Sooner or later I’m going to shoot Pym,’ did—”

Isaac slapped the table. “Objection.”

Hilliardson sustained it, adding, “There has been no testimony that the defendant spoke the words you just used, Mr. Bazemore.”

Apologizing, Mitch rephrased the question, through tightly locked lips: “When George told you, ‘If he say one fuckin’ word to me…I’m gonna kill that motherfucker dead,’ what was his tone of voice?”

“Beg pardon?”

The judge said, “His tone of voice. Was he laughing, shouting in anger, et cetera?”

Moonfoot squeezed his eyes shut as if to recall. “Well…serious. Quiet. Kind of scary, I guess.”

“And what did you say?”

“I don’t recall my exact words, but something about it didn’t sound like a good idea.”

“What didn’t?”

“Shooting Bobby Pym.”

Mitch walked to the jury box, then faced Isaac Rosethorn. “Mr. Butler, when did you learn that Bobby Pym had been shot to death and that George Hall had been charged with the crime?”

“Early morning, I heard it on the radio.”

“And were you, to borrow a word from the defense counsel,
surprised
to hear that George Hall had killed Robert Pym?”

Butler wiped his hand all the way down the front of his face. “Well, no, I wasn’t surprised.”

The D.A. looked at the clock, said, “Thank you,” and sat down.

The judge looked at the clock, at Mitch, at Isaac, and at Moonfoot Butler. Then he said, “It is nearly four. We could continue. But rather than begin cross-examination at this late hour, I am going to adjourn court until tomorrow at ten.”

Miss Bee Turner hopped up. Behind her, Mitch waved his arm like a first-grader desperate for permission to go to the bathroom. “Your Honor, Your Honor! Delaware police expect to return Mr. Butler to their jurisdiction tonight!”

“Well,” said Hilliardson, as he stood like a tall black heron on a high riverbank. “Then I suggest, Counsel, that you offer them and their prisoner the hospitality for which the state of North Carolina is so justly renowned.”

After court adjourned, I walked over to ask Isaac and Nora what they were going to do about Moonfoot Butler's testimony, and they said they were going to Pogo's, the closest bar. There they were going to study the deposition Moonfoot had given Isaac back in December when he and Billy Gilchrist had driven to Delaware (and which Nora had rushed out of the courtroom today to bring back). They planned to check it for discrepancies with the pretrial statement Mitch had tossed on their table as he finished his examination. But Isaac didn’t want to talk about Butler now; he wanted instead to hear all about Purley Newsome, and told me he’d like a chance to interview Purley as soon as we had him in custody. I said, “You’ll have to wait in a long line.”

After Pogo's, Isaac and Nora were going to dinner at Carippini's; they asked me to drop in there if I was free. I said I had a hundred things to do. Nora said, “Who doesn’t?” Isaac yanked me aside, whispered that it was a surprise party for Nora, and he wanted me to show up—even though I hadn’t been invited—because Nora didn’t actively dislike me as much as it seemed.

I said, “On those grounds, I could drop in for supper parties at half the homes in Hillston: I wasn’t invited, and the guest of honor doesn’t actively dislike me. Good Lord, Isaac.”

“No no, I meant everybody's just been asking everybody and I was going to ask you, but it slipped my mind. So do your hundred
things and come on over.”

One of the things I did was see Moonfoot Butler safely escorted to our holding cell at HPD, where he should have felt quite at home, after thirty-four previous visits over a score of years. Whether Moonfoot's memories of HPD were fond or not, he’d begged his Delaware escorts to let him stay with us for the night, rather than send him across the street to the county jail. Mitch showed up while I was in there and told Butler he’d done very well, adding that tomorrow he should “stick to his story” and not allow Rosethorn to “bamboozle him,” and that, until tomorrow, he should “keep his mouth shut” if anyone came to see him.

Moonfoot yanked on the bars as if to make sure the cell were locked. “I don’t wanna see anybody. Don’t let anybody back here.”

“Frankly, I think Butler's afraid of Hall, that's my theory,” Mitch said as he jog-walked back to his office from the holding cell.

Furious, I walked even faster than he did. “Frankly, Mitch, I think you’ve had a major insight here. Now,
I
also have a theory; it's about
why
Butler's afraid of Hall. If I’d just committed perjury in a capital case, I too would be afraid to be locked up in the same cell with the man I’d committed it against.”

His neck one scarlet bulge, he swung around on me fast, and started jabbing his forefinger into my sternum. “
Are you implying that
I suborned a witness? Is that what you’re implying, Mangum? Are you making that accusation?
”

I slapped his hand away hard. “Don’t do that, okay? You touch me again, and I’m gonna hurt you, Mitch. I said, in my opinion, Butler committed perjury. I didn’t say you told him to, or even that you believe he did it.”

Folding his arms tightly over his chest, Mitch stepped back and locked eyes with me. “Butler is telling the truth. He isn’t lying. He told the court exactly what he told this office when he was subpoenaed. The truth. Is that clear? No one bribed him and no one intimidated him. The truth is, George Hall planned to kill a man, planned to, and did it. He's a violent disruptive factor in our society, and these trials and everything surrounding these trials has been a violent disruptive factor in our society. Hall should have been executed
years
ago. And Isaac Rosethorn's
deigning
to waltz in now
and set up his fancy magic show for the jury can’t make the truth vanish. Hall took a life, and he owes a life. End of discussion, Mangum.”

We were outside his office now, but I straight-armed my hand against the door to stop him from opening it. “I know you believe that. But the real truth is—you want the real truth?—Hall and his brother and their supporters are a big ugly thorn in your side, and you’re
mad.
You’re mad, and you’re scared of Rosethorn because he already beat you on three other cases.”

“Just hold it right—”

“The real truth is, you’ve gotten your name in the papers for winning those big forty-four “Go for It” death penalty convictions of yours, and you can’t stand it that you’ve only managed to get nine of those forty-four people actually gassed. And you’ve gone on record that you’re going to make Hall number ten, and you
want
Hall.”

“
The state of North Carolina wants Hall!
”