Defense for the Devil (22 page)

“Yes, your honor.”

Judge Waldman took off her glasses and laid them down. “I have been informed that Mr. Stover was admitted to Sacred Heart Hospital late Saturday with chest pains,” she said. “That is what I shall tell the jury. I don’t want to sequester them at this season; they have shopping to do, other things to attend to. For that reason I am imposing a no-comment order from now until the case goes to the jury. I don’t want stories in the newspapers, or television news concerning this trial. No press conferences, no news releases. The court will contact these four witnesses and recall them all for Monday, the sixteenth. I trust you will finish with them all on that day. And I trust you will finish the defense case by the end of next week.”

The discussion continued until nine-thirty, when Barbara finally left the judge’s chambers and walked across the street to the Federal Building, where Maggie met her at the entrance. Maggie was very nervous.

“Relax,” Barbara said. “Now, as soon as I know beyond any doubt that there’s no last-minute snag, you’re no longer my client. You understand? I’ll turn you over to Sunderman, who will handle the paperwork and arrange for a transfer of the money to your account.”

She spotted Trassi standing at a table covered with handouts, facing away. “Excuse me a minute,” she said, and walked to the table by Trassi. “They won’t want you in there today, will they?” she asked him, picking up a pamphlet.

“No, of course not. Where are the printouts?”

She patted her briefcase. “I’ll go in with Sunderman, but I won’t have to stay long, I’m sure. The minute I’m done, I’ll leave and hand them over.”

“This is a farce. I have a plane to catch. Do you think I’ll burst in there and cry foul? Give me the printouts.”

“As soon as the signatures are on paper,” she said. “There’s Mr. Sunderman now.”

At that moment a woman came to tell them that Mr. Chenowith was waiting for the group.

They were taken to the same room they had occupied before, under the same harsh white light. Both men began to pull papers from briefcases.

“Mr. Chenowith,” Barbara said as he shuffled his stack of papers, “I have to be in court by eleven. I don’t believe my presence is required here. Mr. Sunderman is representing Ms. Folsum in the matter.”

He looked pained, but she had to assume that was his normal expression, unless he was conducting an audit with an unfortunate tax dodger caught red-handed.

“There is the matter of the amount of the arrears,” Chenowith said. “Your original claim was for two hundred ten thousand dollars, and the money has since accrued interest; and there is the additional sum of thirty thousand dollars, which will be returned to Mr. Arno’s estate. I have drawn up papers to the effect that Ms. Folsum will receive the original sum, plus the interest on that part of the money only. Is that satisfactory?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Mr. Sunderman, I no longer am Ms. Folsum’s attorney of record. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me….”

Trassi was in the lobby near the entrance door. He walked outside and she followed. “It’s done,” she said. “Here’s your package.”

She took a manila envelope from her briefcase and handed it to him; he opened it and examined the contents as well as he could without removing anything. She waited until he closed it again. “Now, we’re all finished,” she said. “Good day, Mr. Trassi.” She turned away at the same moment a young man in a windbreaker approached from behind him.

“Mr. Trassi?” he asked. The lawyer jerked around, startled, and the young man handed him a paper.

Trassi looked as if he had received a snake. He stared at the paper, then finally looked up at Barbara. “What is this? What are you trying to pull?”

“It’s a subpoena,” she said. “See you in court, Mr. Trassi.”

She met Shelley in the courthouse at fifteen minutes before eleven. All the Arnos were milling about—James and his wife, David and his, Lorinne Arno, several of their various children, Mama and Papa; Maggie’s daughters were with them, and it appeared that everyone in that cluster was talking at once. Gwen and Karen Folsum hurried to Barbara. They were both very handsome, tall like the Arnos, and with Maggie’s lovely eyes and hair.

“Is Mother going to be here?” Karen asked.

“She may be delayed a few minutes, not for long, I’m sure,” Barbara said. Mama Arno was approaching her. “Excuse me, I have to speak with Shelley a moment before we begin,” Barbara said hurriedly. Talking with the Arnos was hard, she had learned on Saturday, when in desperation she had separated them and had talked to them one by one.

All the Arno sons were tall with dark hair and dark eyes, athletic, all like their father, who at seventy was still upright, strong, and vigorous. His face was deeply lined, weathered by salt spray, sun, wind; he had been a fisherman off the coast all his adult life until recently. His hands were very large and heavily veined. Mama Arno was five feet two and stout, not fat, but husky-looking; her hair was a soft golden blond with white roots. And her skin was unlined and as pink and creamy-white as a baby’s. She liked to touch the people she was talking to, and since she seemed to talk to everyone within earshot at the same time, she was busy touching someone here, patting there, caressing another, smoothing down the hair, or straightening a collar…. Barbara had found it so disconcerting, she had kept her desk between them Saturday when they talked. The Arno clan all had the ability to listen to multiple conversations simultaneously, without any sign of confusion. And the wives had been trained over the years to participate in exactly the same way. Barbara could imagine what bedlam a big holiday must be in their households; sitting day after day silenced in court must have been a strain nearly beyond endurance for them.

Now, escaping Mama Arno, she drew Shelley aside and said in a low voice, “Trassi was served with the subpoena, and he’s hopping mad. You might get in touch with Dad and let him know.”

“Right. Roxbury handed over the two reports and snarled at me.” She grinned. “He acted as if I had been Delilah to his Samson.”

They talked a few more minutes, then people started to file into Courtroom B. Barbara entered and took her place at the defense table. Shelley left to call Frank.

Judge Waldman very politely introduced Barbara to the jury, and then she introduced the jurors to Barbara. Shelley entered and was introduced, and they started.

“Mr. Roxbury, your next witness, if you will.”

He called Cory Sussman, a stooped man with a weathered face and thick gray hair, clearly nervous and unhappy about testifying. He kept glancing at Ray Arno, then at the rest of the family, as if apologizing.

After establishing that Sussman lived in Folsum, where he managed the Exxon service station and a small store, Roxbury steered him to the day of the fight between Mitch and Ray Arno.

“Just tell us in your own words about what you saw that day.”

“Well, Papa Arno, he come into—”

“You mean Mr. Anthony Arno? Mitchell’s father?”

“Yeah, Papa Arno. He come in to the store and bought a one-way ticket to Portland….” It was the same story Barbara had heard many times, one the jury had heard twice already. He didn’t add anything new to it.

“Mr. Sussman,” Barbara said kindly when Roxbury was done, “you’ve known the Arno family a long time?”

“All my life,” he said.

“Were the Arno boys fighting, brawling kids?”

He looked shocked. “Never were. Quietest bunch of kids on the coast.”

“That day you’ve described, was Papa Arno bloody or dirty?”

He shook his head hard. “No way. Not at all.”

“Was Ray Arno messed up, bloody and dirty?”

“Yeah, just like Mitch. Looked like they was both rolling in the mud and hitting each other hard.”

“You said that Papa Arno got the bus ticket, and he was the one who put Mitch on the bus. Did you see Ray walking around that day.”

“He got out of the car and watched, maybe took a step or two toward the bus with them, but Papa didn’t need no help.”

“Was Ray wobbly and unsteady on his feet?”

“Yeah, maybe not as bad as Mitch, but he’d took a beating, too.”

“Was Ray much bigger than Mitch in those days?”

He looked surprised. “Not bigger at all. They was all big boys, six feet or over, and strong. Fishermen, you see, strong.”

“So you think they were pretty evenly matched if they had a fight?”

“Yeah, real even.”

“And you think they looked about the same afterward?”

Now he shook his head. “No, ma’am. Not the same. Mitch looked whupped, and Ray looked like the whupper.”

The next witness was Eric Rubens, a neighbor of Ray’s. He had known Ray Arno for fourteen years, ever since Ray moved across River Loop One from him.

“Last summer, did Ray Arno ask you to keep an eye on his property while he was away for a few days?” Roxbury asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you see him leave his house on the evening of Friday, August second?”

“Yes.”

“At what time was that?”

“A few minutes after seven.”

Barbara suppressed a smile. This witness was going to stick to the questions with the shortest possible answers. Let Roxbury pull teeth for a while.

Slowly, painfully, Roxbury dragged it out that Rubens had seen Papa Arno drive past at about seven and leave again almost immediately, and a few minutes later Ray drove out past him. In the same slow way he testified that he had been in his yard all day Sunday and had not seen any strangers around, had not seen any strange cars drive into Ray’s driveway, had not seen anything out of the ordinary.

“Did you see lights come on in the Arno house each night of that weekend?” He said yes. “Friday night?” Yes. “Saturday night?” Yes. “Sunday night?” Yes. “Did you hear any sounds of distress, calls for help, yelling?”

“No.”

“In other words, all weekend it was quiet over there, and you saw no one strange and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And on Monday, did you see Ray Arno return home and enter his driveway?”

“Yes.”

Pulling teeth, Roxbury got him to say that Ray had returned home around one in the afternoon and had left again about an hour later, then returned at about seven or seven-thirty. He had not seen him again that day or evening. When Roxbury nodded to Barbara, he was clearly glad to be rid of Eric Rubens.

“Mr. Rubens,” she started, “your house is across the road from the Arno house, is that right?”

He said yes, then added, “Not straight across, down a piece.”

“I have a map here of that area. Would you please show us where your house is, and where the Arno house is located?” Shelley was setting up a large map on an easel as Barbara spoke, and she turned toward it. “Maybe you could step down and point out the two properties.” She looked at Judge Waldman, who nodded.

“You may step down, Mr. Rubens,” the judge said.

He stood up and moved very deliberately to the map, studied it a moment, then pointed. “That’s my place, twelve acres, and that’s Ray’s, six acres, down the road a piece.”

“Before you take your seat again, could you explain how it happened that you were outside during those few days in early August?”

“I was selling apples,” he said. “Gravensteins were in.”

“And where was your stand?”

He pointed. “Had a stand right there, by the driveway.”

“There are two more properties on River Loop One, before the name changes to Stratton Lane. Is that right?”

He said yes, and she asked him to take his seat again. Then, tracing the route on the map, she said, “So River Loop One turns off River Road, curves around past orchards, and finally ends here at the intersection with Stratton Lane and Knowles Road. Are those the routes most residents use to get to their places on River Loop One?”

“Mostly Stratton,” he said.

“Is there anything on River Road to indicate that either Stratton Lane or Knowles Road joins River Loop One?”

He said no. “Stratton goes through the development, and Knowles goes past the school and has sharp turns. Not too many folks know about them, unless they live along there.”

“Did you advertise apples in the newspaper when the crop came in?” Barbara asked.

“Yes.”

“Were you at the stand most of the time when you had them for sale?”

He said yes.

“Did most of the customers come in by way of Stratton or by way of River Loop One?”

“River Loop One,” he said.

“How far was your stand from the Arno driveway?”

“Four, five hundred feet.”

“So, if a car came by way of River Loop One and turned in there, you wouldn’t have seen it, would you?”

“Not likely.”

“All right. You said lights came on every night that weekend.

Did they come on Monday night, as well?” He said yes. “And Tuesday, Wednesday, all that week?”

He said yes. Every night.

“Can you explain that, Mr. Rubens? Do you know why they come on every night?”

He said yes, and she thought for a moment she would have to ask him to explain, but he continued. “There aren’t any streetlights out there until you get in the subdivision. Most of us have lights on timers, or else on automatic, so they come on at dusk and go off in the morning. Every night.”

“On Monday, did you talk to Ray Arno?”

“Yes. I picked up his mail on Saturday and took it over to him on Monday. We talked a little.”

“How did he appear?”

“Same as always.”

“Was he bruised, or cut? Did you notice any swelling on his hands? Anything of that sort?”

He said no.

“What time did you talk to him on Monday?”

“Seven-thirty, a little after. When he came home the second time and was putting his car in the garage.”

“What kind of car was he driving?”

“Honda. Hatchback. Lorinne had the van.”

“He was putting the car in the garage then? Did you see inside the car?”

He said yes. “He was taking stuff out to put it away—an overnight bag, cooler chest, things like that. We stood at the garage door and talked a minute or two.”

She thanked him and listened to Roxbury make his same few points: Rubens had not seen any strangers, no strange cars, had heard nothing out of the ordinary.